Love-at-arms being a narrative excerpted from the chronicles of Urbino, during the dominion of the high and mighty Messer Guidobaldo da Montefeltro
“What shall that signify?” demanded he. “Is it proof of his honesty of
purpose or loyalty to you? Be advised, Madonna, and let him deliver his
message from where he is. He is safer there.”
She measured him with a determined eye.
“Messer Gonzaga, order them to lower the bridge,” she bade him.
“But, lady, bethink you of your peril.”
“Peril?” she echoed. “Peril from two men, and we a garrison of over
twenty? Surely the man is a coward who talks so readily of perils. Have
the drawbridge lowered.”
“But if----” he began, with a desperate vehemence, when again she cut
him short.
“Am I to be obeyed? Am I mistress, and will you bid them lower the
bridge, or must I, myself, go see to it?”
With a look of despairing anger and a shrug of the shoulders he turned
from her, and despatched one of his men with an order. A few moments
later, with a creaking of hinges and a clanking of chains, the great
bridge swung down and dropped with a thud to span the gulf. Instantly
the Count spurred his horse forward, and followed by Lanciotto rode
across the plank and under the archway of the entrance tower into the
first courtyard.
Now, scarcely had he drawn rein there when through a door at the far end
appeared the gigantic figure of Fortemani, half-clad and sword in hand.
At sight of Francesco the fellow leaped down a half-dozen steps, and
advanced towards him with a burst of oaths.
“To me!” he shouted, in a voice that might have waked the dead. “Olá!
Olá! What devil's work is this? How come you here? By whose orders was
the bridge let down?”
“By the orders of Monna Valentina's captain,” answered Francesco,
wondering what madman might be this.
“Captain?” cried the other, coming to a standstill and his face turning
purple. “Body of Satan! What captain? I am captain here.”
The Count looked him over in surprise.
“Why, then,” said he, “you are the very man I seek. I congratulate you
on the watch you keep, Messer Capitano. Your castle is so excellently
patrolled that had I been minded for a climb I had scaled your walls and
got within your gates without arousing any of your slumbering sentries.”
Fortemani eyed him with a lowering glance. The prosperity of the past
four days had increased the insolence inherent in the man.
“Is that your affair?” he growled menacingly. “You are over-bold, sir
stranger, to seek a quarrel with me, and over-pert to tell me how I
shall discharge my captaincy. By the Passion! You shall be punished.”
“Punished--I?” echoed Francesco, on whose brow there now descended a
scowl as black as Ercole's own.
“Aye, punished, young sir. Ercole Fortemani is my name.”
“I have heard of you,” answered the Count contemptuously, “and of how
you belie that name of yours, for they tell me that a more drunken,
cowardly, good-for-nothing rogue is not to be found in Italy--no, not
even in the Pope's dominions. And have a care how you cast the word
'punishment' at your betters, animal. The moat is none so distant, and
the immersion may profit you. For I'll swear you've not been washed
since they baptized you--if, indeed, you be a son of Mother Church at
all.”
“Sangue di Cristo!” spluttered the enraged bully, his face mottled.
“This to me? Come down from that horse.”
He laid hold of Francesco's leg to drag him to the ground, but the Count
wrenched it free by a quick motion that left a gash from his spur upon
the captain's hands. Simultaneously he raised his whip, and would have
laid the lash of it across the broad of Fortemani's back--for it had
angered him beyond words to have a ruffian of this fellow's quality
seeking to ruffle it with him--but at that moment a female voice, stern
and imperative, bade them hold in their quarrel.
Fortemani fell back nursing his lacerated hand and muttering curses,
whilst Francesco turned in the direction whence that voice had come.
Midway on the flight of stone steps he beheld Valentina, followed
by Gonzaga, Peppe, and a couple of men-at-arms, descending from the
battlements.
Calm and queenly she stood, dressed in a camorra of grey velvet with
black sleeves, which excellently set off her handsome height. Gonzaga
was leaning forward, speaking into her ear, and for all that his voice
was subdued, some of his words travelled down to Francesco on the still,
morning air.
“Was I not wise, Madonna, in that I hesitated to admit him? You see what
manner of man he is.”
The blood flamed in Francesco's cheeks, nor did it soften his chagrin to
note the look which Valentina flashed down at him.
Instantly he leapt to the ground, and flinging his reins to Lanciotto
he went forward to the foot of that stone staircase, his broad hat slung
back upon his shoulders, to meet that descending company.
“Is this seemly, sir?” she questioned angrily. “Does it become you to
brawl with my garrison the moment you are admitted?”
The blood rose higher in Francesco's face, and now suffused his temples
and reached his hair. Yet his voice was well restrained as he made
answer:
“Madonna, this knave was insolent.”
“An insolence that you no doubt provoked,” put in Gonzaga, a dimple
showing on his woman's cheek. But the sterner rebuke fell from the lips
of Valentina.
“Knave?” she questioned, with flushed countenance. “If you would not
have me regret your admittance, Messer Francesco, I pray you curb your
words. Here are no knaves. That, sir, is the captain of my soldiers.”
Francesco bowed submissively, as patient under her reproof as he had
been hasty under Fortemani's.
“It was on the matter of this captaincy that we fell to words,” he
answered, with more humility. “By his own announcement I understood this
nobleman”--and his eyes turned to Gonzaga--“to be your captain.”
“He is the captain of my castle,” she informed him.
“As you see, Ser Francesco,” put in Peppe, who had perched himself upon
the balustrade, “we suffer from no lack of captains here. We have also
Fra Domenico, who is captain of our souls and of the kitchen; myself am
captain of----”
“Devil take you, fool,” snapped Gonzaga, thrusting him roughly from his
perch. Then turning abruptly to the Count: “You bear a message for us,
sir?” he questioned loftily.
Swallowing the cavalier tone, and overlooking the pronoun Gonzaga
employed, Francesco inclined his head again to the lady.
“I should prefer to deliver it in more privacy than this.” And his
eye travelled round the court and up the steps behind, where was now
collected the entire company of Fortemani. Gonzaga sneered and tossed
his golden curls, but Valentina saw naught unreasonable in the request,
and bidding Romeo attend her and Francesco follow, she led the way.
They crossed the quadrangle, and, mounting the steps down which
Fortemani had dashed to meet the Count, they passed into the
banqueting-hall, which opened directly upon the south side of the
courtyard. The Count, following in her wake, ran the gauntlet of scowls
of the assembled mercenaries. He stalked past them unmoved, taking their
measure as he went, and estimating their true value with the unerring
eye of the practised condottiero who has had to do with the enrolling of
men and the handling of them. So little did he like their looks that on
the threshold of the hall he paused and stayed Gonzaga.
“I am loath to leave my servant at the mercy of those ruffians, sir. May
I beg that you will warn them against offering him violence?”
“Ruffians?” cried the lady angrily, before Gonzaga could offer a reply.
“They are my soldiers.”
Again he bowed, and there was a cold politeness in the tones in which he
answered her:
“I crave your pardon, and I will say no more--unless it be to deplore
that I may not felicitate you on your choice.”
It was Gonzaga's turn to wax angry, for the choice had been his.
“Your message will have need to be a weighty one, sir, to earn our
patience for your impertinence.”
Francesco returned the look of those blue eyes which vainly sought to
flash ferociously, and he made little attempt to keep his scorn from
showing in his glance. He permitted himself even to shrug his shoulders
a trifle impatiently.
“Indeed, indeed, I think that I had best begone,” he answered
regretfully, “for it is a place whose inmates seem all bent on
quarrelling with me. First your captain Fortemani greets me with an
insolence hard to leave unpunished. You, yourself, Madonna, resent that
I should crave protection for my man against those fellows whose looks
give rise for my solicitation. You are angry that I should dub them
ruffians, as if I had followed the calling of arms these ten years
without acquiring knowledge of the quality of a man however much you may
disguise him. And lastly, to crown all, this cicisbeo”--and he spread a
hand contemptuously towards Gonzaga--“speaks of my impertinences.”
“Madonna,” cried Gonzaga, “I beg that you will let me deal with him.”
Unwittingly, unwillingly, Gonzaga saved the situation by that prayer.
The anger that was fast rising in Madonna's heart, stirred by the proud
bearing of the Count, was scattered before the unconscious humour of her
captain's appeal, in such ludicrous contrast was his mincing speech and
slender figure with Francesco's firm tones and lean, active height.
She did not laugh, for that would have been to have spoilt all, but she
looked from one to the other with quiet relish, noting the glance
of surprise and raised eyebrows with which the Count received the
courtier's request to be let deal with him. And thus, being turned
from anger, the balance of her mind was quick to adjust itself, and
she bethought her that perhaps there was reason in what this knight
advanced, and that his reception had lacked the courtesy that was his
due. In a moment, with incomparable grace and skill, she had soothed
Gonzaga's ruffled vanity, and appeased the Count's more sturdy
resentment.
“And now, Messer Francesco,” she concluded, “let us be friends, and let
me hear your business. I beg that you will sit.”
They had passed into the banqueting-hall--a noble apartment, whose walls
were frescoed with hunting and pastoral scenes, one or two of which
were the work of Pisaniello. There were, too, some stray trophies of
the chase, and, here and there, a suit of costly armour that caught the
sunlight pouring through the tall, mullioned windows. At the far end
stood a richly carved screen of cedar, and above this appeared the
twisted railing of the minstrels' gallery. In a tall armchair of
untanned leather, at the head of the capacious board, Monna Valentina
sat herself, Gonzaga taking his stand at her elbow, and Francesco
fronting her, leaning lightly against the table.
“The news I bear you, lady, is soon told,” said the Count. “I would its
quality were better. Your suitor Gian Maria returning to Guidobaldo's
court, eager for the nuptials that were promised him, has learnt of your
flight to Roccaleone and is raising--indeed will have raised by now--an
army to invest and reduce your fortress.”
Gonzaga turned as pale as the vest of white silk that gleamed beneath
his doublet of pearl-coloured velvet at this realisation of the
prophecies he had uttered without believing. A sickly fear possessed
his soul. What fate would they mete out to him who had been the leading
spirit in Valentina's rebellion? He could have groaned aloud at this
miscarriage of all his fine plans. Where now would be the time to talk
of love, to press and carry his suit with Valentina and render himself
her husband? There would be war in the air, and bloody work that made
his skin creep and turn cold to ponder on. And the irony of it all
was keenly cruel. It was the very contingency that he had prophesied,
assured that neither Guidobaldo nor Gian Maria would be so mad as to
court ridicule by engaging upon it.