Love-at-arms being a narrative excerpted from the chronicles of Urbino, during the dominion of the high and mighty Messer Guidobaldo da Montefeltro
touch you? There, Cappoccio! A less merciful provost would have hanged
you for your words--for they reek of sedition. Yet I have stood and
argued with you, because I cannot spare a brave man such as you
will prove yourself. Let us hear no more of your doubtings. They are
unworthy. Be brave and resolute, and you shall find yourself well
rewarded when the baffled Duke shall be forced to raise this siege.”
He turned without waiting for the reply of Cappoccio--who stood
crestfallen, his cheeks reddened by shame of his threat to get him
hence--and conducted Valentina calmly across the yard and up the steps
of the hall.
It was his way never to show a doubt that his orders would be obeyed,
yet on this occasion scarce had the door of the hall closed after them
when he turned sharply to the following Ercole.
“Get you an arquebuse,” he said quickly, “and take my man Lanciotto,
with you. Should those dogs still prove mutinous, fire into any that
attempt the gates--fire to kill--and send me word. But above all,
Ercole, do not let them see you or suspect your presence; that were to
undermine such effect as my words may have produced.”
From out of a woefully pale face Valentina raised her brown eyes to his,
in a look that was as a stab to the observing Gonzaga.
“I needed a man here,” she said, “and I think that Heaven it must have
been that sent you to my aid. But do you think,” she asked, and with her
eyes she closely scanned his face for any sign of doubt, “that they are
pacified?”
“I am assured of it, Madonna. Come, there are signs of tears in your
eyes, and--by my soul!--there is naught to weep at.”
“I am but a woman, after all,” she smiled up at him, “and so, subject to
a woman's weakness. It seemed as if the end were indeed come just now.
It had come, but for you. If they should mutiny----”
“They shall not, while I am here,” he answered, with a cheering
confidence. And she, full of faith in this true knight of hers, went to
seek her ladies, and to soothe in her turn any alarm to which they might
have fallen a prey.
Francesco went to disarm, and Gonzaga to take the air upon the ramparts,
his heart a very bag of gall. His hatred for the interloper was as
nothing now to his rage against Valentina, a rage that had its birth
in a wondering uncomprehension of how she should prefer that coarse,
swashbuckling bully to himself, the peerless Gonzaga. And as he walked
there, under the noontide sky, the memory of Francesco's assurance that
the men would not mutiny returned to him, and he caught himself most
ardently desiring that they might, if only to bear it home to Valentina
how misplaced was her trust, how foolish her belief in that loud
boaster. He thought next--and with increasing bitterness--of his own
brave schemes, of his love for Valentina, and of how assured he had
been that his affections were returned, before this ruffler came
amongst them. He laughed in bitter scorn as the thought returned to her
preferring Francesco to himself. Well, it might be so now--now that the
times were warlike, and this Francesco was such a man as shone at his
best in them. But what manner of companion would this sbirro make in
times of peace? Had he the wit, the grace, the beauty even that was
Gonzaga's? Circumstance, it seemed to him, was here to blame, and he
roundly cursed that same Circumstance. In other surroundings, he was
assured that she would not have cast an eye upon Francesco whilst he,
himself, was by; and if he recalled their first meeting at Acquasparta,
it was again to curse Circumstance for having placed the knight in such
case as to appeal to the tenderness that is a part of woman's nature.
He reflected--assured that he was right--that if Francesco had not come
to Roccaleone, he might by now have been wed to Valentina; and once wed,
he could throw down the bridge and march out of Roccaleone, assured that
Gian Maria would not care to espouse his widow, and no less assured that
Guidobaldo--who was at heart a kind and clement prince--would be content
to let be what was accomplished, since there would be naught gained
beyond his niece's widowhood in hanging Gonzaga. It was the specious
argument that had lured him upon this rash enterprise, the hopes that
he was confident would have fructified but for the interloping of
Francesco.
He stood looking down at the tented plain, with black rage and black
despair blotting the beauty from the sunlight of that May morning, and
then it came to him that since there was naught to be hoped from his
old plans, might it not be wise to turn his attention to new ones that
would, at least, save him from hanging? For he was assured that whatever
might betide the others, his own fate was sealed, whether Roccaleone
fell or not. It would be remembered against him that the affair was of
his instigating, and from neither Gian Maria nor Guidobaldo might he
look for mercy.
And now the thought of extricating himself from his desperate peril
turned him cold by its suddenness. He stood very still a moment; then
looked about him as though he feared that some watching spy might read
on him the ugly intention that of a sudden had leapt to life in his
heart. Swiftly it spread, and took more definite shape, the reflection
of it showing now upon his smooth, handsome face, and disfiguring it
beyond belief. He drew away from the wall, and took a turn or two upon
the ramparts, one hand behind him, the other raised to support his
drooping chin. Thus he brooded for a little while. Then, with another of
his furtive glances, he turned to the north-western tower, and entered
the armoury. There he rummaged until he had found the pen, ink and paper
that he sought, and with the door wide open--the better that he might
hear the sound of approaching steps--he set himself feverishly to write.
It was soon done, and he stood up, waving the sheet to dry the ink. Then
he looked it over again, and this is what he had written:
“I have it in my power to stir the garrison to mutiny and to throw open
the gates of Roccaleone. Thus shall the castle fall immediately into
your hands, and you shall have a proof of how little I am in sympathy
with this rebellion of Monna Valentina's. What terms do you offer me
if I accomplish this? Answer me now, and by the same means as I am
employing, but dispatch not your answer if I show myself upon the
ramparts.
“ROMEO GONZAGA.”
He folded the paper, and on the back he wrote the superscription--“To
the High and Mighty Duke of Babbiano.” Then opening a large chest that
stood against the wall, he rummaged a moment, and at last withdrew an
arbalest quarrel. About the body of this he tied his note. Next, from
the wall he took down a cross-bow, and from a corner a moulinet for
winding it. With his foot in the stirrup he made the cord taut and set
the shaft in position.
And now he closed the door, and, going to the window, which was little
more than an arrow-slit, he shouldered his arbalest. He took careful aim
in the direction of the ducal tent, and loosed the quarrel. He watched
its light, and it almost thrilled him with pride in his archery to see
it strike the tent at which he had aimed, and set the canvas shuddering.
In a moment there was a commotion. Men ran to the spot, others emerged
from the tent, and amongst the latter Gonzaga recognised the figures of
Gian Maria and Guidobaldo.
The bolt was delivered to the Duke of Babbiano, who, with an upward
glance at the ramparts, vanished into the tent once more.
Gonzaga moved from his eerie, and set wide the door of the tower,
so that his eyes could range the whole of the sun-bathed ramparts.
Returning to his window, he waited impatiently for the answer. Nor was
his impatience to endure long. At the end of some ten minutes Gian
Maria reappeared, and, summoning an archer to his side, he delivered
him something and made a motion of his hand towards Roccaleone. Gonzaga
moved to the door, and stood listening breathlessly. At the least sign
of an approach, he would have shown himself, and thus, by the provision
made in his letter have cautioned the archer against shooting his bolt.
But all was quiet, and so Gonzaga remained where he was until something
flashed like a bird across his vision, struck sharply against the
posterior wall, and fell with a tinkle on the broad stones of the
rampart. A moment later the answer from Gian Maria was in his hands.
He swiftly unwound it from the shaft that had brought it, and dropped
the bolt into a corner. Then unfolding the letter, he read it, leaning
against one of the merlons of the wall.
“If you can devise a means to deliver Roccaleone at once into my
hands you shall earn my gratitude, full pardon for your share in Monna
Valentina's rebellion, and the sum of a thousand gold florins.
“GIAN MARIA.”
As he read, a light of joy leapt to his eyes. Gian Maria's terms were
very generous. He would accept them, and Valentina should realise when
too late upon what manner of broken reed she leaned in relying upon
Messer Francesco. Would he save her now, as he so loudly boasted? Would
there indeed be no mutiny, as he so confidently prophesied? Gonzaga
chuckled evilly to himself. She should learn her lesson, and when she
was Gian Maria's wife, she might perhaps repent her of her treatment of
Romeo Gonzaga.
He laughed softly to himself. Then suddenly he turned cold, and he felt
his skin roughening. A stealthy step sounded behind him.
He crumpled the Duke's letter in his hand, and in the alarm of the
moment, he dropped it over the wall. Seeking vainly to compose the
features that a chilling fear had now disturbed, he turned to see who
came.
Behind him stood Peppe, his solemn eyes bent with uncanny intentness
upon Gonzaga's face.
“You were seeking me?” quoth Romeo, and the quaver in his voice sorted
ill with his arrogance.
The fool made him a grotesque bow.
“Monna Valentina desires that you attend her in the garden,
Illustrious.”
CHAPTER XIX. PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT
Peppe's quick eyes had seen Gonzaga crumple and drop the paper, no less
than he had observed the courtier's startled face, and his suspicions
had been aroused. He was by nature prying, and experience had taught
him that the things men seek to conceal are usually the very things
it imports most to have knowledge of. So when Gonzaga had gone, in
obedience to Valentina's summons, the jester peered carefully over the
battlements.
At first he saw nothing, and he was concluding with disappointment that
the thing Gonzaga had cast from him was lost in the torrential waters
of the moat. But presently, lodged on a jutting stone, above the foaming
stream into which it would seem that a miracle had prevented it
from falling, he espied a ball of crumpled paper. He observed
with satisfaction that it lay some ten feet immediately below the
postern-gate by the drawbridge.
Secretly, for it was not Peppy's way to take men into his confidence
where it might be avoided, he got himself a coil of rope. Having
descended and quietly opened the postern, he made one end fast and
lowered the other to the water with extreme care, lest he should
dislodge, and so lose, that paper.
Assuring himself again that he was unobserved, he went down, hand over
hand, like a monkey, his feet against the rough-hewn granite of the
wall. Then, with a little swinging of the rope, he brought himself
nearer that crumpled ball, his legs now dangling in the angry water, and
by a mighty stretch that all but precipitated him into the torrent, he
seized the paper and transferred it to his teeth. Then hand over hand
again, and with a frantic haste, for he feared observation not only from
the castle sentries but also from the watchers in the besieger's camp,
he climbed back to the postern, exulting in that he had gone unobserved,