The Viper of Milan: A Romance of Lombardy
the Count is right; he is more than he appears. Now we will leave the
horses here behind these chestnuts, and step toward the road and
reconnoiter."
CHAPTER NINE
THE RETURN OF THE DEAD
Gripping Vittore's hand, Tomaso looked cautiously up and down the road.
Crouching back in among the wayside trees, they commanded unseen a view
of any who might come or go; and though the days faded fast, it was
still light enough to see many paces off.
"No soldiery about to-night," whispered Tomaso; "they have ridden
farther afield. We will go back, Vittore."
They had turned to retrace their steps when Vittore clutched his
cousin's hand yet tighter, and suppressed an exclamation.
"Look!" he whispered, "a horseman coming toward Milan."
Tomaso looked round nervously, and saw a single rider approaching
swiftly, but casting searching glances around.
As the boys watched, mistrustfully waiting, still in hiding, to see him
safely pass, to their dismay he slackened pace, and finally drew rein
altogether and looked eagerly in their direction.
"Not a movement," breathed Tomaso, and Vittore crouched in silent
fright.
None the less, motionless as they thought themselves, some slight
movement betrayed them, for the rider dismounted, advanced toward their
hiding-place, and softly spoke.
"Who is there? I am a friend," he said.
"He is a Florentine," whispered Vittore joyfully; but Tomaso leaned
against the tree in silence, and even through the gathering dusk, as the
younger boy looked up, he saw that he was pale and trembling.
"Canst thou direct me?" said the stranger. "I can pay thee for thy
services."
"Answer him, Tomaso," Vittore whispered eagerly; "he is a Florentine, he
will not hurt us."
Tomaso made a step forward. "It is some one we know," he said chokingly,
"or my brain is playing me strange tricks."
As he spoke, he put aside the branches that hid them, and stepped
forward. The stranger had guessed their hiding-place unerringly; he
stood close by, his horse's bridle across his arm. He was a slight,
roughly-dressed, but well-formed man of middle age, light in color and
of strong yet delicate features.
"Thou needst not fear me," he began with a smile; then, as the two
figures drew nearer, he paused, and in his turn grew pale and trembled.
Tomaso, tossing his hair back from his face, with parted lips, stepped
close, followed by Vittore.
"Father! Thou dost not know me!"
"Son! Tomaso!" cried the traveler. He seized him by the shoulders with
trembling hands, and scanned eagerly his face.
"Tomaso!" and his voice was shrill with feeling, "Tomaso at last!"
They had not met for many months and years--two at least; the father,
absent at a distant court, serving where chance had led him, for fame
and fortune; the son, growing from boyhood into man in distant Florence.
Since Verona fell, Tomaso had mourned his father as dead, and he, in his
turn, had wandered far, searching for the pair who had started out to
find him.
With stifled sobs of joy, Tomaso clung about his father's neck, and was
clasped to him in frenzied pleasure.
"They said thou wert dead, father!" broke out the youth at last. "I
never thought to see thy face again."
"I thought the same of thee, my son," returned Ligozzi tenderly. "I have
been searching for traces of thee long and wearily. I thought thou must
have perished on thy long journey, having found out Verona had fallen.
But is this Vittore?" He drew to him paternally the boy who, so far, had
watched the scene with wide-eyed curiosity.
"And now, what art thou doing--and where staying?"
As if he feared to lose him, Tomaso held his father tightly by the
sleeve, over which the bridle had been slipped, and Vittore clinging to
the other hand, they drew him forward between them to the place from
which they had come.
"I am glad thou art not dead," said Vittore; "Tomaso grieved for thee
sorely, and so did I."
Tomaso laughed happily. "Grieve! Aye, did we! But now we can rejoice."
"But why this haste?" Ligozzi asked, "where dost thou hurry me?"
"Back, father, whence we came, for I was left in trust. It is a path thy
horse can follow, and I will tell thee what has happened as we go."
Ligozzi followed without further question, too full of joy for speech,
and taking so much pleasure in that it was his son who spoke as for the
moment not to heed too keenly what he said.
But when Tomaso, beginning, boy-fashion, with the last, and not the
first, came to mention of the Visconti's blow, Ligozzi roused to fury.
"Methought I saw a scar across thy face," he said, "yet in this light I
could not see too well. It is only one more wrong to set against the
Visconti's name, one deed the more to be avenged."
Tomaso took the clenched hand and covered it with kisses.
"I can forgive him now," he said, "since thou were not slain when Verona
fell."
"'Twas no fault of the Visconti's that any living soul escaped,"
returned his father. "Still, go on with thy tale, Tomaso; who is this
Francisco, that thou nam'st so oft?"
Tomaso, eager and suddenly light of heart, told all he knew, and ere his
recital ended they had reached the open, and found everything as they
had left it. The horses safe, nothing seemingly disturbed.
"Francisco will be pleased at a helper such as thou, father," said
Tomaso proudly; "thou wilt be of more service in his venture than the
German Count."
"And when this Francisco returns presently, the plan is that we set
forth at once for Ferrara?" asked Ligozzi.
"And meanwhile rest, father, and I will bring thee food. We have already
eaten."
"I, too, my son," answered Ligozzi; but he seated himself on one of the
rough wooden stools and watched Tomaso affectionately, as he brought the
poor horn lantern from the wall. He lit and set it on the table, where
it cast a straggling and wretched light.
"Francisco is surely overlong," he said; "suppose the soldiers think to
search again on their way home from some outlying district?"
"Then there will be another fight," said Vittore, "but Francisco will
get the best of it."
Ligozzi laughed.
"I owe this Francisco much," he said; "he must be a brave man, an his
care saved you both. From Verona, didst thou say?"
"From Verona, father. He said he knew thee, thy name; he is di Coldra;
he knew thee, he has said, and the Della Scala also!"
At Della Scala's name Ligozzi's eyes filled with tears, and his voice
trembled when he spoke.
"_I_ at least knew Della Scala well," he said, "and loved him too." He
paused. "Next to thee, Tomaso," he continued sadly, "his memory has
filled my heart during these weary weeks. I hoped, hope against hope, he
might have escaped even as I did, but there comes no sign he lives."
"Then thou didst not see him perish?" asked Tomaso softly.
"On that fearful night on which Verona fell," answered Ligozzi, "Della
Scala himself defended the gates, fighting like a lion. But he was
betrayed, Tomaso, by a dastard in his pay, and the Visconti's soldiers
poured in through the breach, secretly, and seized the palace, the Duke
unwitting till it was too late and the palace flaming. I had to carry
him the news; may I never have to do the like again. The palace was a
sheet of fire, the Duchess was within, and the Visconti's soldiers
swarming. The Prince rushed like a madman through the streets, a little
group of us behind him. Too late! The Duchess was too great a prize, the
miscreants had lost no time, and she was gone. A tale had reached the
Duke while he still struck about him frantically that Gian Visconti
himself had led the onset, and was still within the precincts with his
prisoner. But it was a trap, Tomaso, set by a traitor. Della Scala,
rushing where the pikeman pointed, was led beneath a burning stairway.
It crashed in. I was behind the Duke; a beam struck me down, I thought
among the dead, but some friars found me and brought me back to life; of
Della Scala they knew nothing." He paused, and hid his eyes a moment in
his hands.
"Thou didst care greatly?" said Tomaso, after a painful silence.
"He was a noble prince," replied his father. "I owe him everything; he
made a friend of me, and I ever found him brave and generous, as strong
as gentle, and most honorable--and he loved the Duchess, aye, he loved
her. The Duchess still lives, a prisoner in Milan, but Della Scala----"
He sighed deeply, and rose as if to put from him the memory of the
tragedy.
"But to return to thy deliverer," he said, "one Francisco di Coldra,
thou say'st; he claims I know him. What manner of a man is he?"
As he spoke he moved with Tomaso to the door, and looked out into the
dark. What kept Francisco and the Count?
"He is tall and strong," replied Tomaso, "with thick brown hair and
heavy eyes; a handsome face, I think it, father, stern and sad. He is
worn--as if from sickness. The Count thinks him better than he gives
out; I know not."
Ligozzi was silent; his figure alone was visible.
"Seeing the case is as thou say'st, Tomaso," he remarked at last, "every
moment of delay is dangerous, and thy friend is long."
Tomaso stepped into the open, and, to ease his impatience, brought
forward the horses.
"I think they come," he cried joyfully in another moment. "It seems a
dream, father, that thou shouldst be here to meet Francisco."
Ligozzi was still strangely silent. He drew back within the doorway.
Hurried footsteps were heard, the crackling of fallen boughs, the swish
of the flowering grass. Ligozzi saw a tall figure looming toward them
through the dusk, a slighter one beside him.
Tomaso, from where he stood, eager and excited by the horses, cried out
to them. Ligozzi, still farther back, bent down to Vittore, who stood
beside him; seen by the dim light of the horn lantern, his face was
strangely agitated.
"Has this Francisco half-closed eyes, and a ready, pleasant smile?" he
asked.
Vittore looked up in surprise.
"He has such eyes," he answered. "I have not ever seen him smile like
that. Thou didst know him then, my uncle?"
"Yes," Ligozzi answered brokenly. "I think--I remember him--at Della
Scala's court."
But here Tomaso, calling on him, re-entered the hut, followed by
Francisco, whose stately presence seemed to make the mean place smaller
still.
"My father," said the boy joyfully; "my father, saved from the taking of
Verona, and come a long way in search of us!"
Francisco fell back, uttering a stifled exclamation; the anger cleared
from his brow. He looked keenly at the figure in the shadow.
"Ligozzi!" he exclaimed, with shining eyes. "Ligozzi lives!"
"It was a miracle, was it not?" said Tomaso eagerly. "He has come to
join us. He owes thee thanks, Messer Francisco, as do we."
And all this time his father had not spoken. Tomaso wondered at it, and
now, when Ligozzi came forward shrinkingly, Francisco raised his hand as
if to keep him back, or warn him, or restrain.
"No thanks are needed," he said quickly. "I am Francisco di Coldra, from
Verona, and ever ready to serve those whom Visconti hates!"
Ligozzi stood bare-headed, as if dazed.
Francisco spoke again, with meaning. "Thy travel hath confused thee,
sir," he said; "thou thinkest thou art still at the Duke of Verona's
court, that thou standest thus humble?"
At this, Ligozzi roused himself. "Tomaso has told me--" he began. But
again Francisco stopped him.
"We must to horse!" he cried. "To horse! Too much time has already been
shamelessly wasted," and he strode out, motioning to them to follow.
By the horses stood Conrad Sigismund, bringing them one by one under
review, in the scanty gleam of light afforded by the lantern, and that
flickered upon them through the space that answered for a window.
"A roan!" he cried gaily, "I ever loved a roan charger. I will have this