Love-at-arms being a narrative excerpted from the chronicles of Urbino, during the dominion of the high and mighty Messer Guidobaldo da Montefeltro
and contemptuous for the vigilance of those that should have observed
him.
Softly he closed the wicket, locked it and shot home the bolts at top
and base, and went to replace the key on its nail in the guard-room,
which he found untenanted. Next, with that mysterious letter in his
hand, he scampered off across the courtyard and through the porch
leading to the domestic quarters, nor paused until he had gained the
kitchen, where Fra Domenico was roasting the quarter of a lamb that
he had that morning butchered. For now that the siege was established,
there was no more fish from the brook, nor hares and ortolans from the
country-side.
The friar cursed the fool roundly, as was his wont upon every
occasion, for he was none so holy that he disdained the milder forms
of objurgatory oaths. But Peppe for once had no vicious answer ready, a
matter that led the Dominican to ask him was he ill.
Never heeding him, the fool unfolded and smoothed the crumpled paper in
a corner by the fire. He read it and whistled, then stuffed it into the
bosom of his absurd tunic.
“What ails you?” quoth the friar. “What have you there?”
“A recipe for a dish of friar's brains. A most rare delicacy, and
rendered costly by virtue of the scarcity of the ingredients.” And with
that answer Peppe was gone, leaving the monk with an ugly look in his
eyes, and an unuttered imprecation on his tongue.
Straight to the Count of Aquila went the fool with his letter. Francesco
read it, and questioned him closely as to what he knew of the manner in
which it had come into Gonzaga's possession. For the rest, those lines,
far from causing him the uneasiness Peppe expected, seemed a source of
satisfaction and assurance to him.
“He offers a thousand gold florins,” he muttered, “in addition to
Gonzaga's liberty and advancement. Why, then, I have said no more than
was true when I assured the men that Gian Maria was but idly threatening
us with bombardment. Keep this matter secret, Peppe.”
“But you will watch Messer Gonzaga?” quoth the fool.
“Watch him? Why, where is the need? You do not imagine him so vile that
this offer could tempt him?”
Peppe looked up, his great, whimsical face screwed into an expression of
cunning doubt.
“You do not think, lord, that he invited it?”
“Now, shame on you for that thought. Messer Gonzaga may be an idle
lute-thrummer, a poor-spirited coward; but a traitor----! And to betray
Monna Valentina! No, no.”
But the fool was far from reassured. He had had the longer acquaintance
of Messer Gonzaga, and his shrewd eyes had long since taken the man's
exact measure. Let Francesco scorn the notion of betrayal at Romeo's
hands; Peppe would dog him like a shadow. This he did for the remainder
of that day, clinging to Gonzaga as if he loved him dearly, and
furtively observing the man's demeanour. Yet he saw nothing to confirm
his suspicions beyond a certain preoccupied moodiness on the courtier's
part.
That night, as they supped, Gonzaga pleaded toothache, and with
Valentina's leave he quitted the table at the very outset of the meal.
Peppe rose to follow him, but as he reached the door, his natural enemy,
the friar--ever anxious to thwart him where he could--caught him by the
nape of the neck, and flung him unceremoniously back into the room.
“Have you a toothache too, good-for-naught?” quoth the frate. “Stay you
here and help me to wait upon the company.”
“Let me go, good Fra Domenico,” the fool whispered, in a voice so
earnest that the monk left his way clear. But Valentina's voice now bade
him stay with them, and so his opportunity was lost.
He moved about the room a very dispirited, moody fool with no quip for
anyone, for his thoughts were all on Gonzaga and the treason that he
was sure he was hatching. Yet faithful to Francesco, who sat all
unconcerned, and not wishing to alarm Valentina, he choked back the
warning that rose to his lips, seeking to convince himself that his
fears sprang perhaps from an excess of suspicion. Had he known
how well-founded indeed they were he might have practised less
self-restraint.
For whilst he moved sullenly about the room, assisting Fra Domenico with
the dishes and platters, Gonzaga paced the ramparts beside Cappoccio,
who was on sentry duty on the north wall.
His business called for no great diplomacy, nor did Gonzaga employ much.
He bluntly told Cappoccio that he and his comrades had allowed Messer
Francesco's glib tongue to befool them that morning, and that the
assurances Francesco had given them were not worthy of an intelligent
man's consideration.
“I tell you, Cappoccio,” he ended, “that to remain here and protract
this hopeless resistance will cost you your life at the unsavoury hands
of the hangman. You see I am frank with you.”
Now for all that what Gonzaga told him might sort excellently well with
the ideas he had himself entertained, Cappoccio was of a suspicious
nature, and his suspicions whispered to him now that Gonzaga was
actuated by some purpose he could not gauge.
He stood still, and leaning with both hands upon his partisan, he sought
to make out the courtier's features in the dim light of the rising moon.
“Do you mean,” he asked, and in his voice sounded the surprise with
which Gonzaga's odd speech had filled him, “that we are foolish to have
listened to Messer Francesco, and that we should be better advised to
march out of Roccaleone?”
“Yes; that is what I mean.”
“But why,” he insisted, his surprise increasing, “do you urge such a
course upon us?”
“Because, Cappoccio,” was the plausible reply, “like yourselves, I was
lured into this business by insidious misrepresentations. The assurances
that I gave Fortemani, and with which he enrolled you into his service,
were those that had been given to me. I did not bargain with such a
death as awaits us here, and I frankly tell you that I have no stomach
for it.”
“I begin to understand,” murmured Cappoccio, sagely wagging his head,
and there was a shrewd insolence in his tone and manner. “When we leave
Roccaleone you come with us?”
Gonzaga nodded.
“But why do you not say these things to Fortemani?” questioned
Cappoccio, still doubting.
“Fortemani!” echoed Gonzaga. “By the Host, no! The man is bewitched
by that plausible rogue, Francesco. Far from resenting the fellow's
treatment of him, he follows and obeys his every word, like the
mean-spirited dog that he is.”
Again Cappoccio sought to scrutinise Gonzaga's face. But the light was
indifferent.
“Are you dealing with me fairly?” he asked. “Or does some deeper purpose
lie under your wish that we should rebel against the lady?”
“My friend,” answered Gonzaga, “do you but wait until Gian Maria's
herald comes for his answer in the morning. Then you will learn again
the terms on which your lives are offered you. Do nothing until then.
But when you hear yourselves threatened with the rope and the wheel,
bethink you of what course you will be best advised in pursuing. You ask
me what purpose inspires me. I have already told you--for I am as open
as the daylight with you--that I am inspired by the purpose of saving my
own neck. Is not that purpose enough?”
A laugh of such understanding as would have set a better man on fire
with indignation was the answer he received.
“Why, yes, it is more than enough. To-morrow, then, my comrades and I
march out of Roccaleone. Count upon that.”
“But do not accept my word. Wait until the herald comes again. Do
nothing until you have heard the terms he brings.”
“Why, no, assuredly not.”
“And do not let it transpire among your fellows that it is I who have
suggested this.”
“Why no. I'll keep your secret,” laughed the bravo offensively,
shouldering his partisan and resuming his sentinel's pacing.
Gonzaga sought his bed. A fierce joy consumed him at having so
consummately planned Valentina's ruin, yet he did not wish to face her
again that night.
But when on the morrow the herald wound his horn again beneath the
castle walls, Gonzaga was prominent in the little group that attended
Monna Valentina. The Count of Aquila was superintending the work to
which he had set a half-score of men. With a great show, and as much
noise as possible--by which Francesco intended that the herald should be
impressed--they were rolling forward four small culverins and some
three cannons of larger calibre, and planting them so that they made a
menacing show in the crenels of the parapet.
Whilst watching and directing the men, he kept his ears open for the
message, and he heard the herald again recite the terms on which the
garrison might surrender, and again the threat to hang every man from
the castle-walls if they compelled him to reduce them by force of arms.
He brought his message to an end by announcing that in his extreme
clemency Gian Maria accorded them another half-hour's grace in which to
resolve themselves upon their course. Should the end of that time
still find them obstinate, the bombardment would commence. Such was the
message that in another of his arrow-borne letters Gonzaga had suggested
Gian Maria should send.
It was Francesco who stepped forward to reply. He had been stooping over
one of the guns, as if to assure himself of the accuracy of its aim, and
as he rose he pronounced himself satisfied in a voice loud enough for
the herald's hearing. Then he advanced to Valentina's side, and whilst
he stood there delivering his answer he never noticed the silent
departure of the men from the wall.
“You will tell his Highness of Babbiano,” he replied, “that he reminds
us of the boy in the fable who cried 'Wolf!' too often. Tell him, sir,
that his threats leave this garrison as unmoved as do his promises. If
so be that he intends in truth to bombard us, let him begin forthwith.
We are ready for him, as you perceive. Maybe he did not suppose us
equipped with cannon; but there they stand. Those guns are trained upon
his camp, and the first shot he fires upon us shall be a signal for
such a reply as he little dreams of. Tell him, too, that we expect no
quarter, and will yield none. We are unwilling for bloodshed, but if he
drives us to it and executes his purpose of employing cannon, then the
consequences be upon his own head. Bear him that answer, and tell him to
send you no more with empty threats.”
The herald bowed upon the withers of his horse. The arrogance, the cold
imperiousness of the message struck him dumb with amazement. Amazement
was his, too, that Roccaleone should be armed with cannon, as with his
own eyes he saw. That those guns were empty he could not guess, nor
could Gian Maria when he heard a message that filled him with rage, and
would have filled him with dismay, but that he counted upon the mutiny
which Gonzaga had pledged himself to stir up.
As the herald was riding away a gruff laugh broke from Fortemani, who
stood behind the Count.
Valentina turned to Francesco with eyes that beamed admiration and a
singular tenderness.
“Oh, what had I done without you, Messer Francesco?” she cried, for
surely the twentieth time since his coming. “I tremble to think how
things had gone without your wit and valour to assist me.” She never
noticed the malicious smile that trembled on Gonzaga's pretty face.
“Where did you find the powder?” she asked innocently, for her mind had
not yet caught that humour of the situation that had drawn a laugh from
Fortemani.
“I found none,” answered Francesco, smiling from the shadow of his helm.
“My threats”--and he waved his hand in the direction of that formidable
array of guns--“are as empty as Gian Maria's. Yet I think they will
impress him more than his do us. I will answer for it, Madonna, that
they deter him from bombarding us--if so be that he ever intended to. So
let us go and break our fast with a glad courage.”