Love-at-arms being a narrative excerpted from the chronicles of Urbino, during the dominion of the high and mighty Messer Guidobaldo da Montefeltro
doubt was quickly dispelled by the lady's own words:
“You will make him prisoner, and conduct him to the guardroom, or I
will have you and him swept out of my castle,” she informed them, as
confidently as though she had a hundred men-at-arms to do her bidding on
them.
A pace or so behind her stood the lily-cheeked Gonzaga, gnawing his lip,
timid and conjecturing. Behind him again loomed the stalwart height
of Francesco del Falco with, at his side, Lanciotto, of mien almost as
resolute as his own.
That was the full force with which the lady spoke of sweeping them--as
if they had been so much foulness--from Roccaleone, unless they did
her bidding. They were still hesitating, when the Count advanced to
Valentina's side.
“You have heard the choice our lady gives you,” he said sternly. “Let
us know whether you will obey or disobey. This choice that is yours now,
may not be yours again. But if you elect to disobey Madonna, the gate is
behind you, the bridge still down. Get you gone!”
Furtively, from under lowering brows, Gonzaga darted a look of impotent
malice at the Count. Whatever issue had the affair, this man must not
remain in Roccaleone. He was too strong, too dominant, and he would
render himself master of the place by no other title than that strength
of his and that manner of command which Gonzaga accounted a coarse,
swashbuckling bully's gift, but would have given much to be possessed
of. Of how strong and dominant indeed he was never had Francesco offered
a more signal proof. Those men, bruised and maltreated by him, would
beyond doubt have massed together and made short work of one less
dauntless but when a mighty courage such as his goes hand-in-hand with
the habit of command, such hinds as they can never long withstand it.
They grumbled something among themselves, and one of them at last made
answer:
“Noble sir, it is our captain that we are bidden to arrest.”
“True; but your captain, like yourselves, is in this lady's pay; and
she, your true, your paramount commander, bids you arrest him.” And now,
whilst yet they hesitated, his quick wits flung them the bait that must
prove most attractive. “He has shown himself to-day unfitted for the
command entrusted him and it may become a question, when he has been
judged, of choosing one of you to fill the place he may leave empty.”
Hinds were they in very truth; the scum of the bravi that haunted the
meanest borgo of Urbino. Their hesitation vanished, and such slight
loyalty as they felt towards Ercole was overruled by the prospect of his
position and his pay, should his disgrace become accomplished.
They called upon him to come forth from his refuge, where he still
stood, dumb and stricken at this sudden turn events had taken. He
sullenly refused to obey the call to yield, until Francesco--who now
assumed command with a readiness that galled Gonzaga more and more--bade
one of them go fetch an arquebuse and shoot the dog. At that he cried
out for mercy, and came wading to the edge of the tank swearing that
if the immersion had not drowned him, it were a miracle but he was
poisoned.
Thus closed an incident that had worn a mighty ugly look, and it served
to open Valentina's eyes to the true quality of the men Gonzaga had
hired her. Maybe that it opened his own for that amiable lute-thrummer
was green of experience in these matters. She bade Gonzaga care for
Francesco, and called one of the grinning pages from the gallery to be
his esquire. A room was placed at his disposal for the little time that
he might spend at Roccaleone, whilst she debated what her course should
be.
A bell tolled in the far southern wing of the castle, beyond the second
courtyard, and summoned her to chapel, for there Fra Domenico said Mass
each morning. And so she took her leave of Francesco, saying she
would pray Heaven to direct her to a wise choice, whether to fly from
Roccaleone, or whether to remain and ward off the onslaught of Gian
Maria.
Francesco, attended by Gonzaga and the page, repaired to a handsome room
under the Lion's Tower, which rose upon the south-eastern angle of the
fortress. His windows overlooked the second, or inner, courtyard, across
which Valentina and her ladies were now speeding on their way to Mass.
Gonzaga made shift to stifle the resentment that he felt against this
man, in whom he saw an interloper, and strove to treat him with the
courtesy that was his due. He would even have gone the length of
discussing with him the situation--prompted by a certain mistrust, and
cunningly eager to probe the real motive that had brought this stranger
to interest himself in the affairs of Valentina. But Francesco, wearily,
yet with an unimpeachable politeness, staved him off, and requested
that Lanciotto might be sent to attend him. Seeing the futility of
his endeavours, Gonzaga withdrew in increased resentment, but with a
heightened sweetness of smile and profoundness of courtesies.
He went below to issue orders for the raising of the bridge, and finding
the men singularly meek and tractable after the sharp lesson Francesco
had read them, he vented upon them some of the vast ill-humour that
possessed him. Next he passed on to his own apartments, and there he sat
himself by a window overlooking the castle gardens, with his unpleasant
thoughts for only company.
But presently his mood lightened and he took courage, for he could
be very brave when peril was remote. It was best, he reflected, that
Valentina should leave Roccaleone. Such was the course he would advise
and urge. Naturally, he would go with her, and so he might advance his
suit as well elsewhere as in that castle. On the other hand, if she
remained, why, so would he, and, after all, what if Gian Maria came?
As Francesco had said, the siege could not be protracted, thanks to the
tangled affairs of Babbiano. Soon Gian Maria would be forced to turn him
homeward, to defend his Duchy. If, then, for a little while they could
hold him in check, all would yet be well. Surely he had been over-quick
to despond.
He rose and stretched himself with indolent relish, then pushing wide
his casement, he leaned out to breathe the morning air. A soft laugh
escaped him. He had been a fool indeed to plague himself with fears when
he had first heard of Gian Maria's coming. Properly viewed, it became a
service Gian Maria did him--whether they remained, or whether they went.
Love has no stronger promoter than a danger shared, and a week of such
disturbances as Gian Maria was likely to occasion them should do more
to advance his suit than he might hope to achieve in a whole month of
peaceful wooing. Then the memory of Francesco set a wrinkle 'twixt his
brows, and he bethought him how taken Valentina had been with the fellow
when first she had beheld him at Acquasparta, and of how, as she
rode that day, she had seen naught but the dark eyes of this Knight
Francesco.
“Knight Francesco of what or where?” he muttered to himself. “Bah! A
nameless, homeless adventurer; a swashbuckling bully, reeking of blood
and leather, and fit to drive such a pack as Fortemani's. But with a
lady--what shalt such an oaf attain, how shall he prevail?” He laughed
the incipient jealousy to scorn, and his brow grew clear, for now he was
in an optimistic mood--perhaps a reaction from his recent tremors.
“Yet, by the Host!” he pursued, bethinking him of the amazing boldness
Francesco had shown in the courtyard, “he has the strength of Hercules,
and a way with him that makes him feared and obeyed. Pish!” he laughed
again, as, turning, he unhooked his lute from where it hung upon the
wall. “The by-blow of some condottiero, who blends with his father's
bullying arrogance the peasant soul of his careless mother. And I fear
that such a one as that shall touch the heart of my peerless Valentina?
Why, it is a thought that does her but poor honour.”
And dismissing Francesco from his mind, he sought the strings with his
fingers, and thrummed an accompaniment as he returned to the window, his
voice, wondrous sweet and tender, breaking into a gentle love-song.
CHAPTER XV. THE MERCY OF FRANCESCO
Monna Valentina and her ladies dined at noon in a small chamber opening
from the great hall, and thither were bidden Francesco and Gonzaga. The
company was waited upon by the two pages, whilst Fra Domenico, with
a snow-white apron girt about his portentous waist, brought up the
steaming viands from the kitchen where he had prepared them; for, like
a true conventual, he was something of a master in the confection--and a
very glutton in the consumption--of delectable comestibles. The kitchen
was to him as the shrine of some minor cult, and if his breviary
and beads commanded from him the half of the ecstatic fervour of his
devotions to pot and pan, to cauldron and to spit, then was canonisation
indeed assured him.
He set before them that day a dinner than which a better no prince
commanded, unless it were the Pope. There were ortolans, shot in the
valley, done with truffles, that made the epicurean Gonzaga roll his
eyes, translated through the medium of his palate into a very paradise
of sensual delight. There was a hare, trapped on the hillside, and
stewed in Malmsey, of a flavour so delicate that Gonzaga was regretting
him his heavy indulgence in the ortolans; there was trout, fresh caught
in the stream below, and a wondrous pasty that turned liquid in the
mouth. To wash down these good things there was stout red wine of Puglia
and more delicate Malvasia, for in his provisioning of the fortress
Gonzaga had contrived that, at least, they should not go thirsty.
“For a garrison awaiting siege you fare mighty well at Roccaleone,” was
Francesco's comment on that excellent repast.
It was the fool who answered him. He sat out of sight upon the floor,
hunched against the chair of one of Valentina's ladies, who now and
again would toss him down a morsel from her plate, much as she might
have treated a favourite hound.
“You have the friar to thank for it,” said he, in a muffled voice, for
his mouth was crammed with pasty. “Let me be damned when I die, if I
make him not my confessor. The man who can so minister to bodies should
deal amazingly well with souls. Fra Domenico, you shall confess me after
sunset.”
“You need me not,” answered the monk, in disdainful wrath. “There is a
beatitude for such as you--'Blessed are the poor in spirit.'”
“And is there no curse for such as you?” flashed back the fool. “Does it
say nowhere--'Damned are the gross of flesh, the fat and rotund gluttons
who fashion themselves a god of their own bellies'?”
With his sandalled foot the friar caught the fool a surreptitious kick.
“Be still, you adder, you bag of venom.”
Fearing worse, the fool gathered himself up.
“Beware!” he cried shrilly. “Bethink you, friar, that anger is a
cardinal sin. Beware, I say!”
Fra Domenico checked his upraised hand, and fell to muttering scraps of
Latin, his lids veiling his suddenly downcast eyes. Thus Peppe gained
the door.
“Say, friar; in my ear, now--Was that a hare you stewed, or an outworn
sandal?”
“Now, God forgive me,” roared the monk, springing towards him.
“For your cooking? Aye, pray--on your knees.” He dodged a blow, ducked,
and doubled back into the room. “A cook, you? Pish! you tun of convent
lard! Your ortolans were burnt, your trout swam in grease, your
pasty----”
What the pasty may have been the company was not to learn, for Fra
Domenico, crimson of face, had swooped down upon the fool, and would
have caught him but that he dived under the table by Valentina's skirts,
and craved her protection from this gross maniac that held himself a
cook.
“Now, hold your wrath, father,” she said, laughing with the rest. “He