Love-at-arms being a narrative excerpted from the chronicles of Urbino, during the dominion of the high and mighty Messer Guidobaldo da Montefeltro
“Were you not ever kind to me?” he demanded. “Did you not ever manifest
a liking for my company? Were you not ever pleased that I should sing
to you the songs that in your honour I had made? Was it not to me you
turned in the hour of your need?”
“See now how poor a thing you are, Gonzaga?” she answered witheringly.
“A woman may not smile on you, may not give you a kind word, may not
suffer you to sing to her, but you must conclude she is enamoured of
you. And if I turned to you in my hour of need, as you remind me, needs
that be a sign of my infatuation? Does every cavalier so think when
a helpless woman turns to him in her distress? But even so,” she
continued, “how should all that diminish the peril you now talk of?
Even were your suit with me to prosper, would that make you any the less
Romeo Gonzaga, the butt of the anger of my uncle and Gian Maria? Rather
do I think that it should make you more.”
But he disillusioned her. He did not scruple, in his angry mood, to lay
before her his reasonings that as her husband he would be screened.
She laughed aloud at that.
“And so it is by such sophistries as these that your presumption came to
life?”
That stung him. Quivering with the passion that obsessed him, he stepped
close up to her.
“Tell me, Madonna--why shall we account presumption in Romeo Gonzaga a
suit that in a nameless adventurer we encourage?” he asked, his voice
thick and tremulous.
“Have a care,” she bade him.
“A care of what?” he flashed back. “Answer me, Monna Valentina. Am I
so base a man that by the very thought of love for you I must presume,
whilst you can give yourself into the arms of this swashbuckling bravo,
and take his kisses? Your reasoning sorts ill with your deeds.”
“Craven!” she answered him. “Dog that you are!” And before the blaze of
passion in her eyes he recoiled, his courage faltering. She cropped her
anger in mid-career, and in a dangerously calm voice she bade him see
to it that by morning he was no longer in Roccaleone. “Profit by the
night,” she counselled him, “and escape the vigilance of Gian Maria as
best you can. Here you shall not stay.”
At that a great fear took possession of him, putting to flight the last
remnant of his anger. Nor fear alone was it, to do him full justice. It
was also the realisation that if he would take payment from her for this
treatment of him, if he would slake his vengeance, he must stay. One
plan had failed him. But his mind was fertile, and he might devise
another that might succeed and place Gian Maria in Roccaleone. Thus
should he be amply venged. She was turning away, having pronounced his
banishment, but he sprang after her, and upon his knees he now besought
her piteously to hear him yet awhile.
And she, regretting her already of her harshness, and thinking that
perhaps in his jealousy he had been scarce responsible for what he had
said, stood still to hear him.
“Not that, not that, Madonna,” he wailed, his tone suggesting the
imminence of tears. “Do not send me away. If die I must, let me die here
at Roccaleone, helping the defence to my last breath. But do not cast me
out to fall into the hands of Gian Maria. He will hang me for my share
in this business. Do not requite me thus, Madonna. You owe me a little,
surely, and if I was mad when I talked to you just now, it was love of
you that drove me--love of you and suspicion of that man of whom none of
us know anything. Madonna, be pitiful a little. Suffer me to remain.”
She looked down at him, her mind swayed between pity and contempt. Then
pity won the day in the wayward but ever gentle heart of Valentina. She
bade him rise.
“And go, Gonzaga. Get you to bed, and sleep you into a saner frame of
mind. We will forget all this that you have said, so that you never
speak of it again--nor of this love you say you bear me.”
The hypocrite caught the hem of her cloak, and bore it to his lips.
“May God keep your heart ever as pure and noble and forgiving,” he
murmured brokenly. “I know how little I am deserving of your clemency.
But I shall repay you, Madonna,” he protested--and truly meant it,
though not in the sense it seemed.
CHAPTER XXI. THE PENITENT
A week passed peacefully at Roccaleone; so peacefully that it was
difficult to conceive that out there in the plain sat Gian Maria with
his five-score men besieging them.
This inaction fretted the Count of Aquila, as did the lack of news from
Fanfulla; and he wondered vaguely what might be taking place at Babbiano
that Gian Maria should be content to sit idly before them, as though he
had months at his disposal in which to starve them into yielding. The
mystery would have been dispelled had he known that he had Gonzaga to
thank for this singular patience of Gian Maria's. For the courtier had
found occasion to send another letter-carrying shaft into the Duke's
camp, informing him of how and why the last plot had failed, and urging
Gian Maria to wait and trust in him to devise a better scheme for
delivering the castle into his power. He had promised boldly and
confidently enough, and Gian Maria--facts showed--had trusted to that
promise of his, and awaited its fulfilment. But tax his mind though he
did incessantly, no inspiration came to him, no scheme suggested itself
by which he might accomplish his treacherous purpose.
He employed the time cunningly to win back Valentina's favour and
confidence. On the morning after his stormy interview with Guidobaldo's
niece, he had confessed himself to Fra Domenico, and approached the
Sacrament. Every morning thereafter he appeared at Mass, and by the
piety and fervour of his devotions became an example to all the others.
Now this was not lost on Valentina, who was convent-bred, and in a
measure devout. She read in this singular alteration of his ways the
undoubtable indication of an altered character. That he had approached
the Sacrament on the morning after his wild words to her, she took
to mean that he repented him the viciousness of the animosity he
had entertained that he continued so extremely devout thereafter she
construed into meaning that his repentance was sincere and persistent.
And so she came to ask herself whether, indeed, he had not been as much
sinned against as sinning, and she ended by assuring herself that in a
measure the fault was hers. Seeing him so penitent, and concluding from
it that he was not likely to transgress again, she readmitted him to her
favour, and, little by little, the old friendly state was re-established
and was the sounder, perhaps, by virtue of her confidence that after
what had passed he would not again misunderstand her.
He did not, nor did he again allow his optimism and ever-ready vanity to
cozen him with false hopes. He read her with exact precision, and whilst
the reading but served to embitter him the more and render him more
steadfast in his vengeful purpose, it, nevertheless, made him smile the
more sweetly and fawn the more obsequiously.
And not content with this, he did not limit his sycophancy to Valentina,
but sought also by a smiling persistence to ingratiate himself
with Francesco. No voice in Roccaleone--not even that of the bully
Ercole--was raised more often or more enthusiastically to praise and
glorify their Provost. Valentina, observing this, and accepting it as
another sign of his contrition for the past and purpose of amendment
for the future, grew yet more cordial towards him. He was not lacking in
astuteness, this pretty Ser Romeo, nor in knowledge of a woman's heart,
and the apprehension of the fact that there is no flattery she prefers
to that which has for object the man she loves.
Thus did Gonzaga conquer the confidence and esteem of all during that
peaceful week. He seemed a changed man, and all save Peppe saw in this
change a matter for increased trust and friendship towards him. But the
astute fool looked on and pondered. Such transformations as these were
not effected in a night. He was no believer in any human chrysalis that
shall make of the grub of yesterday the butterfly of to-day. And so, in
this fawning, smiling, subservient Gonzaga, he saw nothing but an object
of mistrust, a fellow to be watched with the utmost vigilance. To this
vigilance the hunchback applied himself with a zeal born of his cordial
detestation of the courtier. But Gonzaga, aware of the fool's mistrust
and watchfulness, contrived for once to elude him, and to get a letter
to Gian Maria setting forth the ingenious plan he had hatched.
The notion had come to him that Sunday at Mass. On all sanctified days
it was Monna Valentina's way to insist that the entire garrison, with
the exception of one single sentinel--and this only at Francesco's very
earnest urging--should attend the morning service. Like an inspiration
it came to him that such a half-hour as that would be a most opportune
season in which to throw open the gates of Roccaleone to the besiegers.
The following Wednesday was the feast of Corpus Christi. Then would be
his opportunity.
Kneeling there, with head bent in ecstatic devotion, he matured his
treacherous plan. The single sentry he could suborn, or else--if bribery
failed--poniard. He realised that single-handed he might not lower the
cumbrous drawbridge, nor would it be wise, even if possible, for the
noise of it might give the alarm. But there was the postern. Gian Maria
must construct him a light, portable bridge, and have it in readiness
to span the moat and silently pour his soldiers into the castle through
that little gate.
And so, the plot matured and every detail clear, he got him to his
chamber and penned the letter that was to rejoice the heart of Gian
Maria. He chose a favourable moment to despatch it, as he had despatched
the former ones, tied about the quarrel of an arbalest, and he saw Gian
Maria's signal--for which the letter had provided--that the plan would
be adopted. Humming a gay measure, jubilant at the prospect of seeing
himself so amply avenged, Gonzaga passed down and out into the castle
gardens to join the ladies in their merry-making over a game of hoodman
blind.
Now, however much the Duke of Babbiano may have congratulated himself
upon the ally he possessed in Gonzaga, and the cunning scheme the latter
had devised for placing him in possession of Roccaleone, there came
news to him on the morrow that caused him to rejoice a hundredfold more
fervently. His subjects of Babbiano were in a condition approaching open
rebellion, resulting from the disquieting rumours that Caesar Borgia was
arming at Rome for a decent upon the Duchy, and the continued absence of
Gian Maria in such a season, upon a wooing that they deemed ill-timed. A
strong party had been formed, and the leaders had nailed upon the Palace
gates a proclamation that, unless Gian Maria returned within three days
to organise the defence of Babbiano, they would depose him and repair to
Aquila to invite his cousin, Francesco del Falco--whose patriotism and
military skill were known to all--to assume the crown of Babbiano and
protect them.
At the news, and upon reading the proclamation, which Alvari had brought
with him, Gian Maria flew into one of those fits of rage that made his
name a byword in Babbiano. Presently, however, he cooled. There
was Gonzaga yonder, who had promised to admit him to Roccaleone on
Wednesday. That left him time to first possess himself of his reluctant
bride, and then ride hard to Babbiano, to arrive there before the expiry
of the three days' grace his subjects gave him.
He conferred with Guidobaldo, and urged that a priest should be in
waiting to wed them so soon as he should have brought her out of the
fortress. Upon that detail they were within an ace of quarrelling.
Guidobaldo would not at first agree to such hasty nuptials; they were