The Viper of Milan: A Romance of Lombardy
pleased him, and he smiled like a contented child. But suddenly all the
light was struck out of his face.
"Gian," he said dully.
"The Duke!" the courtiers behind him took up the word, and the tattle of
voices ceased.
Gian Visconti was approaching down the gallery, followed by several
pages in the Viper's silver and green livery.
He passed between the rows of bowing courtiers carelessly; there were
many there of the proud nobility of France who found it hard to stand
silent and respectful before this man, whose crimes alone were his
passport to sovereignty.
To them this marriage was a humiliation, a disgrace to the French crown,
but to Visconti it was a triumph, the successful crowning of ambition.
He was in a genial mood, and as he passed Tisio stopped and smiled,
telling him for to-night he might go where he pleased.
It was not too much to spare to the brother whose possessions he
enjoyed.
And as Visconti passed on, more than one Frenchman raised his eyebrows
and shrugged his shoulders expressively as the sweep of his scarlet
train disappeared.
Among the throng the ever-ready secretary waited for Visconti's eye to
fall on him, and the Duke, dismissing the pages, beckoned him forward.
"No news from Verona, or Mantua?" he asked.
"None, my lord."
"None? The messengers are late. But after all why should they haste?"
said Visconti. "Della Scala will hardly be in the field yet," he added
with a smile.
"If ever, my lord," replied the secretary smoothly.
The two had withdrawn into the embrasure of one of the great open
windows, and Visconti, glancing through it, turned his gaze there where,
clear in the blue summer night, rose the outline of an abutting
building, grim and dark and silent: Isotta's prison.
"See the guards be doubled there," he said. The secretary bowed.
"As to the Lady Valentine, my lord," he said insinuatingly, "she is safe
and well, and at her prayers with her women. I have kept guard upon her
slightest motion."
Visconti drew a ring from his finger. He was in a generous mood
to-night, a rare one enough, as Giannotto thought with bitterness.
"Take this for thy pains," he said. "And now I will relieve thee of thy
watch; she can hardly escape under my very eyes and with her bridegroom
waiting. Let the guests know I bring the bride, Giannotto."
Visconti withdrew the length of one of the corridors, and paused there
at a door before which stood two soldiers, the guard of his sister's
apartments. At his soft approach they stood back, and, opening the
folding doors, Visconti passed through, and quickly threaded the
deserted ante-rooms until he reached the chapel that the lady used.
The place was dim, lit by red lamps that cast more shadow than gave
light, and with high, stained windows, now scarcely showing color, and
seated on the floor under one of them, her head against a carved wall,
her hands listless in her lap, was Valentine.
She wore a dress of flame-colored satin, and her hair was elaborately
dressed with rubies and pearls. She made no movement at her brother's
entrance.
The air was heavy with incense and the perfume of some white roses that
faded across the altar steps.
"We wait for thee, Valentine," said Visconti.
A couple of her women moved forward from the shadows, and whispered to
the Duke they could do nothing with her. He motioned to them to
withdraw.
"Valentine, come! Think of the splendid life that opens before thee from
to-day." Visconti's tone had the gentleness of one who has gained his
point. "Thou may'st be Queen of France." But Valentine Visconti had too
much of her brother's spirit, too much of the ungovernable pride of
will, not to hate this yielding to the force of power. She hated her
brother's tyranny. She hated this marriage. What would life be for her,
with an indifferent husband, in an idle, impoverished court, among
foreigners, strangers, far from her own land? She would not be forced to
it. She rose to her feet, desperate.
Visconti watched her keenly, standing waiting.
"Come," he repeated, "the Duke of Orleans waits. The feast is ready."
For one moment a mad hate of him overmastered her, a wild desire to
refuse to stir, to cling to the altar, dash herself against the floor,
anything rather than obey. She knew his parricide; he was not the elder.
She would not obey.
Words of defiance were on her lips, but glancing at his face, the words
died away, and a sense of the useless folly of resistance, the useless
humiliation of refusal, surged over her. She was in his power. When she
spoke, it was humbly, in a faltering voice, with tears.
"Gian," she whispered. "Gian--I have never asked anything of thee
before. Gian--this marriage is hateful to me--" she paused, then stepped
forward with appealing eyes. "Gian--have consideration--have mercy!"
"The Duke of Orleans waits," smiled Visconti. "Will you not let me lead
you to him?"
Valentine drew back and steadied herself against the wall.
She thought of Conrad with bitterness and shame, of his vows of
devotion, how he had sworn she should never wed the French
Prince--and--he was free--had been so for many days, and never a word or
a sign.
Visconti flung wide the chapel door, and in the adjoining room he
summoned to her side his sister's page. Valentine's eyes fell on him,
and she noted how the blood rushed to his face as he sprang to obey. He
was a fair-haired boy with eager eyes, who worshiped her with a romantic
devotion at which she had often smiled; but now----
He lifted her train, and Visconti held out his hand. Outside her door
soldiers kept their motionless guard, and beyond the gay crowd swept to
and fro. Silently Valentine moved forward, but her heart was burning
with rebellious hate.
"I will still try once more for freedom," was the thought she held to;
and as they traversed the great corridor and her eyes fell, as had her
brother's, on the grim outline of Isotta's prison, "I will free her
too," she added, with a swelling heart.
And Visconti thought her conquered, cowed into complete submission, and
watched her pass ahead of him down the banqueting chamber with a
satisfied smile to see her the fairest and the proudest there.
The brilliant courtiers streamed in, a mass of color and jewels, and
Visconti, seated at the head of the table, glanced at the effeminate
faces and frivolous bearing of the guests with some contempt.
"No news?" he whispered to Giannotto behind his chair. "No news from
Ferrara yet?"
"None as yet, my lord. The messengers are expected at any moment."
The apartment was a blaze of wax candles that threw a thousand dancing
reflections on the elaborate silver and glass that covered the table.
The bright light fell too on the rubies on Valentine Visconti's throat.
She sat at her brother's side, with a pale face and sparkling eyes. On
Visconti's right was her bridegroom, the Duke of Orleans, an elegant
young man with weak eyes and a receding chin. His scanty, fair locks
were carefully arranged with grease and curling irons into stiff curls,
the ends of his mustache were elaborately twisted, and his face was
rouged plentifully on the cheeks.
Valentine looked at him once, then ignoring him utterly, she looked down
the long, glittering table to the great entrance facing her, with a
crowd and press of liveries and hurrying attendants, waiting pages. As
for the French Duke, he conversed with Visconti, ignoring the hardly
hidden contempt that he was either too dull to see or too politic to
resent.
The banqueting hall filled: and the guests in their seats, the
secretary, standing back among the servitors, crept out into the
antechamber. After the glare and splendor of the banquet, the room
seemed dull and somber, and Giannotto stumbled over a crouching figure.
It was Valentine's page, weeping bitterly.
"Poor fool!" muttered the secretary. "Wouldst thou lose thy place as
well as thy heart?" And he passed on with a laugh. But after a pace or
two he paused. Through the palace windows floated a sound as of distant
murmuring and commotion, yet so faint he could scarce be sure of it.
The page had risen, shamefaced at having been discovered. He was very
young, and his grief very real to him. He choked a little, stifling his
sobs.
"Silence!" said Giannotto angrily. "Listen!" The sound grew nearer and
more distinct, and the secretary went to the window nearest and leaned
forward eagerly.
Several horsemen and soldiers came riding swiftly, holding flaming
torches; windows were flung open, people hurried to and fro.
"Some evil news has got abroad," said Giannotto, straining eyes and
ears.
And now the noise of angry shouts and frightened cries became too plain,
and the secretary could see by the flare of some horsemen's torches a
throng of country folk, laden with their possessions, and some men
driving herds of cattle, and soldiers torn and dusty.
"Evil news, indeed, I fear," he muttered, and waited anxiously.
A ray of brilliant light from the banquet hall beyond fell between the
curtains and streamed across the room, there was laughter and clink of
glasses, and a voice singing in French to a lute. The page clenched his
fists and turned to go.
"Stay," said Giannotto, "stay. If thou wouldst end thy days, here comes
a chance, methinks, for some one will have to carry ill news to
Visconti." And even as he spoke a white-faced servant entered.
"My lord," he cried, as Giannotto stepped before him, "there has been
some sore disaster--the country folk are trooping through the
gates--there is a panic in the city."
"The messengers!" cried Giannotto, "the messengers!"
"The messengers have not returned--but there are plenty bringing news
who were not sent for them, my lord." And as the man spoke, a disordered
group, soldiers and servants, pressed into the room behind him.
"Gently, my friends," said Giannotto, checking their agitated outcry and
pointing to the curtains that hid the banqueting hall. "The Duke!"
A man, dusty and white-faced, forced himself out of the crowd, small,
but swelling every moment.
"I bear news the Duke must hear," he said, "and quickly."
"Where hast thou come from?" asked the secretary. "What is thy news?"
"Since daybreak I have been flying for my life--I am a servant in the
garrison at Brescia--it is destroyed," gasped the man.
"Brescia!" The echo of horror. "Has Brescia _fallen_?"
"Aye, fallen--into Della Scala's hands."
Giannotto looked around bewildered, incredulous.
"Della Scala at Brescia?" he said. "You dream!"
But the room was filled now with a wild-faced crowd that would not be
kept back, and from every side echoed the evil tidings.
"Brescia--at dawn to-day Della Scala whirled down on us, flushed with
victory--and in two hours the town fell."
"And Visconti thinks him idle at the d'Este's court!" broke from
Giannotto.
And the crowd filled the chamber with the whisper of dismay and horror,
but from the banqueting room still came the song and the
laughter--Visconti was in blissful ignorance of evil. Who could tell
him? Who would dare?
Well Giannotto knew the fall of Brescia could be only the last of a
series of incredible disasters; so swift as to seem miraculous. Victory
after victory must have fallen to Della Scala before he could have
marched on and taken a place so near Milan; victories following too fast
on one another to have reached Visconti before their culmination. The
news indeed was terrible!
Who would enter the banqueting hall?
All shrank.
"Tis almost certain death," they muttered, and Giannotto smiled.
"The Duke carries deadly weapons."
As he spoke the curtains were pulled aside for a moment as one of the
serving men stepped out, and Giannotto, bending eagerly forward, caught