The Viper of Milan: A Romance of Lombardy
"Shall we then dismiss him, my lord?" ventured Giannotto smoothly; "he
who is not worth fearing is not worth considering."
He seated himself at the low table as he spoke, his watchful eyes on
Visconti, and drew some papers from the flat bag at his side.
The Duke returned no answer. In truth he heard not what was said, but
leaned back in his chair and fell to thinking. The secretary, looking at
his brooding face, shuddered a little at what his master's thoughts
might be. He wondered also as to that green bracelet that Visconti had
concealed.
The silence grew oppressive, and Giannotto moved uneasily. He loved not
to sit alone with Visconti when he fell into these musings.
The Duke roused himself.
"Ah," he said, breaking suddenly into a passion of declaim. "A God can
do no more than say, 'I have succeeded--in all I have undertaken, I have
succeeded!' And I can say as much. I have succeeded. I looked on life
and took from it what I wanted, the fairest and the finest things that
offered; and the price--others paid it. Truly, I have succeeded!"
Giannotto shrank back at Visconti's outburst, and made no answer.
But the Duke had forgotten him. He was but uttering his thoughts aloud.
"Five years ago," he said exultingly, "I rode outside the gates of
Verona and challenged Della Scala to single combat. He sent his lackey
out with a refusal, and in my heart I said: 'I will bring that man so
low that life shall hold nothing so sweet to him as the thought of
meeting me in single fight!' I have succeeded! Isotta d'Este looked
past me and laughed, and I said, 'She shall live to feel her life within
my hand.' In that also I have succeeded!
"And three years ago, only three years ago, I stood within this very
room, four lives between me and the throne of Milan--four lives, all
crafty--and two young. But I--I the youngest, took my fate and theirs
into my hand. I said: 'It is for me to reign in Milan--I am the Duke.'
In that I have succeeded!"
He paused, with dilating eyes and parted lips, intoxicated with pride.
"This ambition is his madness," thought Giannotto; but he still was
silent.
"In another thing," continued Visconti, and his voice was changed: he
breathed softly, and his eyes sparkled pleasantly. "Last May-day I saw
the people in the fields, pulling flowers; I knew they were what poets
call happy. Among them were two girls, one dark, one fair, and she with
the dark hair had her betrothed beside her. They were happy among the
happy, they loved each other--and I rode unseen. The may was thick and
white, I watched them through the flowers and vowed: I too will be
happy, even as they are happy, though I am Visconti; I will be loved for
myself alone; that fair-haired girl shall care for me as her companion
for her lover,--life shall give me that as well!"
And he rose, triumphant, smiling, resting his hand on the arras that hid
the door behind him.
The secretary gazed upon him fascinated.
Lifting the arras, he paused again, and looked back with a smile that
transformed his face.
"In that too have I succeeded!" he said melodiously; and, opening the
narrow door, he was gone, as always, noiselessly.
The secretary shook himself.
"Why does he unburden his soul to me?" he murmured. "Does he think,
because I sit silent, I have no ears, no memory--that I shall forget?
'In that too have I succeeded!' Aye, thou hast it all thine own way,
Visconti, so far."
With a slight shrug of the shoulders Giannotto fell to writing.
When his pages were finished, he put them into his bag for the Duke to
sign, and grumbled at his absence, stayed, but dared not follow.
Presently he decided to take his own dismissal.
As he rose to go he remembered Valentine Visconti, flying through the
garden after her secret visit, and he considered, if she could bribe him
to silence heavily enough to make it worth his while to venture an
encounter with her.
Visconti did not stint his sister for money, and she might pay well.
Still, dare he let her know he spied?
Then his thoughts went to Isotta d'Este, and he wondered, with some
interest, what her fate would be.
In open day Isotta d'Este had been captured; all Europe knew she was his
prisoner; Tuscany and the Empire already looked with interest on the
Duke of Milan's growing power, and that Duke a usurper. Visconti had to
step warily.
Still busy with his thoughts, the secretary had reached the door, when
it opened and the ancient Luisa, Isotta's prison attendant and spy,
entered, glancing expectantly around.
Giannotto looked at her slowly; he hated her--indeed, he hated most
people, but she in particular, for she equaled him in servile cunning
and surpassed him in greed.
"I would see the Duke," she said, looking at him mistrustfully.
"Thou canst not see him," returned the secretary, "for he is not here."
But old Luisa seated herself calmly on one of the black-backed chairs.
"I will not take thy word for what I can or cannot do," she said. "I
have important tidings for his ear alone."
Giannotto longingly wondered if it were possible to win her news from
her and share in the reward.
"I will get thy news in to the Duke," he said. "Trust it to me, and I
will see he does not forget who brought them, but 'tis impossible to see
him now."
Luisa smiled.
"I would be my own news-bearer," she said, and made no movement to go.
"Visconti is in his laboratory," said Giannotto angrily. "Whatever thy
news, art thou so mad as to think of following him there? Wilt thou not
trust it to me?" he added more gently.
She shook her head placidly.
"Have thy way," sneered Giannotto. "Stay and see the Duke, and be
dismissed for having left thy post, and remember there are more eyes on
the western tower than thou knowest."
The old woman looked uneasy, but stubbornly kept her place. And seizing
his bag and papers, Giannotto was gone, and the heavy door closed behind
him before she could know what was going to happen.
"Giannotto!" she cried in alarm. "Listen a moment--" And she ran and
pushed at the door.
Giannotto opened it a little and showed his smiling, crafty face.
"Wilt thou give me the news or wait till the Duke leaves his laboratory
and finds thou hast been absent from thy post an hour, perchance more?"
"Take it then," said Luisa with a cry of vexation. "But I will repay
thee, Giannotto."
She thrust into his hands a piece of parchment.
"It was left with me by the Lady Valentine to give Isotta d'Este. Now,
make what else of it thou canst," and Luisa shuffled past him, terror
overmastering greed. To be locked within that chamber to wait the
Visconti was what she had not heart for. Moreover, she could tell the
Duke another time--and he would listen--how Giannotto had forestalled
her.
She shuffled off, and Giannotto in triumph re-entered the chamber. He
read the parchment, one of many: "Della Scala lives."
"And the Lady Valentine conveys it to Isotta d'Este's prison," mused
Giannotto. "Now, shall I tell my lord that piece of news or no?"
He regarded the two doors, between which Visconti's chair was set, and
gently tried them: one was locked, the other opened to the touch. He
dared investigate no further, and returning to his chair, sat down to
wait. The minutes dragged on, and he fumed with impatience.
Visconti's laboratory was not altogether a secret place. Giannotto had
helped him in his experiments; there was an assistant who tended the
fires. But no one followed the Duke into it unbidden.
But, as time went on, Giannotto debated with himself that he would
venture. Visconti was long. What was he doing? It was an opportunity to
spy. If caught, the secretary could plead anxiety as to his master's
safety. Summoning his courage, Giannotto rose and crept to the unlocked
door and softly pushed it back.
It opened on a flight of stairs, black marble, carpeted in gold, the
high walls hung with tapestry in red.
The steps were few in number, before they twisted abruptly out of
sight. Round the bend floated a thin wisp of gray smoke.
Giannotto slowly and cautiously mounted. At the bend the steps still
continued, twisting again.
It was very silent, very still, only the lazy floating wreath of smoke
moving. Giannotto came within sight of a door, ajar. He marveled at it.
It was thus Conrad von Schulembourg had escaped--through an unlocked
door. Visconti trusted overmuch to the terror of his name.
Giannotto slowly and cautiously pushed it a little further open. It
showed him the outer laboratory, a long low room of gray stone, and lit
by a large window set back a man's height in the wall.
Hanging over a clear charcoal fire, burning in a pan, was an elaborate
silver pot, seeming to quiver in the vapor that shimmered off the fire
underneath.
Around it on the floor stood glasses, vases, jars and goblets, glass,
china and gold.
Save this, the vault-like chamber was void of furniture; only on the
stove near the window lay a pile of things, curiously mixed. They held
Giannotto's eyes. They were not in the laboratory when he worked there.
A man's doublet of white satin, a scent bottle, a spray of roses, a
mask, a poniard, two scarfs intertwisted, and, sparkling on an inlaid
tray, a massive ring--he knew it, he had seen it on Isotta's hand--her
wedding ring; all this thrown among two birds and a hound, stiff and
dead.
Giannotto started a step back. Then his eyes fell on the window-seat,
and even he could scarce suppress a cry.
For Visconti stood there, erect and motionless, so motionless and so one
with the stone beside him, Giannotto had not known him there. From head
to foot he was clad in gray. In his right hand he held a pair of
gloves, turquoise blue, magnificently worked in pearls, and in the other
a small phial filled with a yellow, slow-moving liquid. This he held
high against the light, which fell strong and cold upon his upturned
face and thick, curling red hair, and as Giannotto gazed, fascinated, on
the gleam of his teeth as he smiled with a slow satisfaction. Giannotto
had seen enough. His heart beat quickly. He drew the door to again, and
crept back down the steps unobserved, gaining the outer chamber,
trembling: and there for a moment fell upon his knees, as if in thanks
for a most merciful escape. His thanks were not without their reason.
Hardly was the secretary in his chair again, before a light foot-fall
sounded and Visconti entered.
For one moment Giannotto thrilled with terror, but a covert glance at
the Duke's face reassured him.
"I have this to give you, my lord," he began at once. "It was left in
the Lady Isotta's prison."
Visconti took the parchment.
"By whom left there?" he asked.
"I know not, my lord," said Giannotto. "Luisa brought it, but dared not
leave her post."
His own narrow escape of a moment since had tied up Giannotto's tongue.
"It will not be hard to discover," said Visconti. "Some one who did not
bribe Luisa high enough."
"Mastino della Scala lives," he read again. He handed the parchment back
to the secretary.
"Let the Lady Isotta have it," he said. "It may keep her alive. It looks
to me that she may die, Giannotto, of the bad air and the confinement,"
and he smiled. "I would certainly not have her death. Give her the
parchment." And he handed the parchment back, dismissing Giannotto with
the gesture.
Clearly Visconti was in a mood that held neither comment nor reward,
but one the secretary was glad to escape from so easily. With a deep
obeisance he departed.
"Who bribes the woman to comfort Isotta d'Este? The soldiers are to be
trusted," mused Visconti. "Once I know I will remember it."
He drew from his doublet the velvet gloves of turquoise hue and laid
them on the table.
They were beautiful in their perfect workmanship, huge gauntlets fringed