Love-at-arms being a narrative excerpted from the chronicles of Urbino, during the dominion of the high and mighty Messer Guidobaldo da Montefeltro
“Would you prefer, Madonna, that his Highness should come himself to
speak with you?”
“There is nothing I should prefer less. Already has necessity compelled
me to have more to say to Gian Maria than I could have wished.” And
with a proud gesture she signified that the audience was at an end, and
turned to quit the wall.
She had a brief conference with Francesco, during which he consulted her
as to certain measures of defence to be taken, and made suggestions,
to all of which she agreed, her hopes rising fast to see that here, at
least, she had a man with knowledge of the work to which he had set his
hand. It lightened her heart and gave her a glad confidence to look on
that straight, martial figure, the hand so familiarly resting on the
hilt of the sword that seemed a part of him, and the eyes so calm;
whilst when he spoke of perils, they seemed to dwindle 'neath the
disdain of them so manifest in his tone.
With Fortemani at his heels he went about the execution of the measures
he had suggested, the bully following him now with the faithful wonder
of a dog for its master, realising that here, indeed, was a soldier of
fortune by comparison with whom the likes of himself were no better than
camp-followers. Confidence, too, did Ercole gather from that magnetism
of Francesco's unfaltering confidence; for he seemed to treat the matter
as a great jest, a comedy played for the Duke of Babbiano and at
that same Duke's expense. And just as Francesco's brisk tone breathed
confidence into Fortemani and Valentina, so, too, did it breathe it into
Fortemani's wretched followers. They grew zestful in the reflection of
his zest, and out of admiration for him they came to admire the business
on which they were engaged, and, finally, to take a pride in the part he
assigned to each of them. Within an hour there was such diligent
bustle in Roccaleone, such an air of grim gaiety and high spirits, that
Valentina, observing it, wondered what manner of magician was this she
had raised to the command of her fortress, who in so little time could
work so marvellous a change in the demeanour of her garrison.
Once only did Francesco's light-heartedness fail him, and this was when,
upon visiting the armoury, he found but one single cask of gunpowder
stored there. He turned to Fortemani to inquire where Gonzaga had
bestowed it, and Fortemani being as ignorant as himself upon the subject
he went forthwith in quest of Gonzaga. After ransacking the castle
for him, he found him pacing the vine-alley in the garden in animated
conversation with Valentina. At his approach the courtier's manner grew
more subdued, and his brows sullen.
“Messer Gonzaga,” Francesco hailed him. The courtier, surprised, looked
up. “Where have you hidden your store of powder?”
“Powder?” faltered Gonzaga, chilled by a sudden apprehension. “Is there
none in the armoury?”
“Yes--one small cask, enough to load a cannon once or twice, leaving us
nothing for our hand-guns. Is that your store?”
“If that is all there is in the armoury, that is all we have.”
Franceseo stood speechless, staring at him, a dull flush creeping into
his cheeks. In that moment of wrath he forgot their positions, and gave
never a thought to the smarting that must be with Gonzaga at the loss of
rank he had suffered since Valentina had appointed a provost.
“And are these your methods of fortifying Roccaleone?” he asked, in a
voice that cut like a knife. “You have laid in good store of wine, a
flock of sheep, and endless delicacies, sir,” he jeered. “Did you expect
to pelt the enemy with these, or did you reckon upon no enemy at all?”
Now this question touched so closely upon the truth, that it fired in
Gonzaga's bosom an anger that for the moment made a man of him. It was
the last breath that blew into a blaze the smouldering wrath he carried
in his soul.
His retort came fierce and hot. It was as unmeasured and contemptuous as
Francesco's erst recriminations, and it terminated in a challenge to
the Count to meet him on horse or foot, with sword or lance, and that as
soon as might be.
But Valentina intervened, and rebuked them both. Yet to Francesco her
rebuke was courteous, and ended in a prayer that he should do the
best with such resources as Roccaleone offered; to Gonzaga it was
contemptuous in the last degree, for Francesco's question--which Gonzaga
had left unanswered--coming at a moment when she was full of suspicions
of Gonzaga, and the ends he had sought to serve in advising her upon a
course which he had since shown himself so utterly unfitted to guide,
had opened wide her eyes. She remembered how strangely moved he had been
upon learning yesterday that Gian Maria was marching upon Roccaleone,
and how ardently he had advised flight from the fortress--he that had so
bravely talked of holding it against the Duke.
They were still wrangling there in a most unseemly fashion when a
trumpet-blast reached them from beyond the walls.
“The herald again,” she cried. “Come, Messer Francesco, let us hear what
fresh message he brings.”
She led Francesco away, leaving Gonzaga in the shadow of the vines,
reduced well-nigh to tears in the extremity of his mortification.
The herald was returned with the announcement that Valentina's answer
left Gian Maria no alternative but to await the arrival of Duke
Guidobaldo, who was then marching to join him. The Duke of Urbino's
presence would be, he thought, ample justification in her eyes for the
challenge Gian Maria had sent, and which he would send again when her
uncle arrived to confirm it.
Thereafter, the remainder of the day was passed in peace at Roccaleone,
if we except the very hell of unrest that surged in the heart of Romeo
Gonzaga. He sat disregarded at supper that evening, save by Valentina's
ladies and the fool, who occasionally rallied him upon his glumness.
Valentina herself turned her whole attention to the Count, and whilst
Gonzaga--Gonzaga, the poet of burning fancy, the gay songster, the
acknowledged wit, the mirror of courtliness--was silent and
tongue-tied, this ruffling, upstart swashbuckler entertained them with
a sprightliness that won him every heart--always excepting that of Romeo
Gonzaga.
Francesco made light of the siege in a manner that enlivened every soul
present with relief. He grew merry at the expense of Gian Maria, and
made it very plain that he could have found naught more captivating to
his warlike fancy than this business upon which an accident had embarked
him. He was as full of confidence for the issue as he was full of eager
anticipation of the fray itself.
Is it wonderful that--never having known any but artificial men; men of
court and ante-chamber; men of dainty ways and mincing, affected tricks
of speech; in short, such men as circumstance ordains shall surround
the great--Monna Valentina's eyes should open very wide, the better to
behold this new pattern of a man, who, whilst clearly a gentleman
of high degree, carried with him an air of the camp rather than the
camerion, was imbued by a spirit of chivalry and adventure, and ignored
with a certain lofty dignity, as if beneath his observance, the poses
that she was wont to see characterising the demeanour of the gentlemen
of his Highness, her uncle.
He was young, moreover, yet no longer callow; comely, yet with a strong
male comeliness; he had a pleasantly modulated voice, yet one that
they had heard swell into a compelling note of command; he had the most
joyous, careless laugh in all the world--such a laugh as endears a man
to all that hear it--and he indulged it without stint.
Gonzaga sat glum and moody, his heart bursting with the resentment of
the mean and the incompetent for the man of brilliant parts. But the
morrow was to bring him worse.
The Duke of Urbino arrived next morning, and rode up to the moat in
person, attended only by a trumpeter, who, for the third time, wound a
note of challenge to the fortress.
As on the previous day, Valentina answered the summons, attended by
Francesco, Fortemani and Gonzaga--the latter uninvited yet not denied,
and following sullenly in her train, in a last, despairing attempt to
assert himself one of her captains.
Francesco had put on his harness, and came arrayed from head to foot
in resplendent steel, to do worthy honour to the occasion. A bunch of
plumes nodded in his helm, and for all that his beaver was open, yet
the shadows of the head-piece afforded at the distance sufficient
concealment to his features.
The sight of her uncle left Valentina unmoved. Well-beloved though he
was of his people, between himself and his niece he had made no effort
ever to establish relations of affection. Less than ever did he now seek
to prevail by the voice of kinship. He came in the panoply of war, as
a prince to a rebel subject, and in precisely such a tone did he greet
her.
“Monna Valentina,” he said--seeming entirely to overlook the
circumstance that she was his kinswoman--“deeply though this rebellion
grieves me, you are not to think that your sex shall gain you any
privileges or any clemency. We will treat you precisely as we would any
other rebel subject who acted as you have done.”
“Highness,” she replied, “I solicit no privilege beyond that to which my
sex gives me the absolute right, and which has no concern with war and
arms. I allude to the privilege of disposing of myself, my hand and
heart, as it shall please me. Until you come to recognise that I am a
woman endowed with a woman's nature, and until, having realised it, you
are prepared to submit to it, and pass me your princely word to urge the
Duke of Babbiano's suit no further with me, here will I stay in spite
of you, your men-at-arms, and your paltry ally, Gian Maria, who imagines
that love may be made successfully in armour, and that a way to a
woman's heart is to be opened with cannon-shot.”
“I think we shall bring you to a more subjective and dutiful frame of
mind, Madonna,” was the grim answer.
“Dutiful to whom?”
“To the State, a princess of which you have had the honour to be born.”
“And what of my duty to myself, to my heart, and to my womanhood? Is no
account to be taken of that?”
“These are matters, Madonna, that are not to be discussed in shouts from
the walls of a castle--nor, indeed, do I wish to discuss them anywhere.
I am here to summon you to surrender. If you resist us, you do so at
your peril.”
“Then at my peril I will resist you--gladly. I defy you. Do your worst
against me, disgrace your manhood and the very name of chivalry by
whatsoever violence may occur to you, yet I promise you that Valentina
della Rovere never shall become the wife of his Highness of Babbiano.”
“You refuse to open your gates?” he returned, in a voice that shook with
anger.
“Utterly and finally.”
“And you think to persist in this?”
“As long as I have life.”
The Prince laughed sardonically.
“I wash my hands of the affair and of its consequences,” he answered
grimly. “I leave it in the care of your future husband, Gian Maria
Sforza, and if, in his very natural eagerness for the nuptials, he uses
your castle roughly, the blame of it must rest with you. But what he
does, he does with my full sanction, and I have come hither to advise
you of it since you appeared in doubt. I beg that you will remain there
for a few moments, to hear what his Highness himself may have to say. I
trust his eloquence may prove more persuasive.”
He saluted ceremoniously, and, wheeling his horse about, he rode away.
Valentina would have withdrawn, but Francesco urged her to remain, and
await the Duke of Babbiano's coming. And so they paced the battlements,
Valentina in earnest talk with Francesco, Gonzaga following in moody
silence with Fortemani, and devouring them with his eyes.