The Viper of Milan: A Romance of Lombardy
morning!
"Graziosa died after the sun had set," said Visconti. "Drink the wine,
nor keep me here so long. Thou hast often wished to escape--where is thy
courage gone, not to take this chance?"
"But not to die like this--not like this--give me a priest!"
"Had Graziosa one?"
She cowered down on the floor, her beautiful hair falling over her
shoulders, her face hidden; then suddenly uplifted it again to Visconti,
who sat looking at her, motionless.
"Gian, I loved thee once, when we were little children."
"I have forgotten it, and so hadst thou until this moment--drink!"
Valentine sprang up in a paroxysm of uncontrollable terror.
"I cannot! I cannot! Kill me thyself!"
"With this?" and Visconti touched his dagger. "No; a smoother death for
one so fair."
Valentine flew to the door and clung to it.
"Philippe! Philippe!" she shrieked. "Conrad! Costanza!"
Visconti rose suddenly, with such force as to fling over the chair.
"Cease!" he cried. "Wilt thou drink this? or who dost thou think will
dare to interrupt me now?"
Valentine's wild eyes looked at him in silence a moment, then her glance
dropped.
"Give it me," she whispered.
Visconti did not move.
"Come and take it," he said.
She came slowly, one hand against the wall, her long shadow flickering
before her.
Visconti watched her, motionless. "Make haste," he said. "Make haste."
She came to the table, her eyes down, her breast heaving, past tears or
entreaties.
"Drink!" said Visconti, leaning with narrowing eyes across the space
between them. "Drink in it Della Scala's health, as thou didst once
before."
Valentine raised her head and looked at him, and grew fascinated with
terror. She crouched away from him, and lifted the glass to her lips.
Visconti bent nearer and she drank, putting it down half empty with a
shudder and staring eyes.
Visconti smiled, and brought the evil of his face still nearer.
"Drink the rest," he said. "Drink it, Valentine."
Still in silence she obeyed him.
When the empty glass stood before him, Visconti turned away, taking his
eyes from her with a laugh, and walked toward the door.
Valentine's gaze followed him with a look of utter woe; still she said
nothing, from her parted lips there came no sound.
He looked back over his shoulder at her, standing there with her face
toward him, with all expression gone, with unseeing eyes.
"I will leave thee," he said savagely, "to await--the morning."
She seemed roused by the sound of his voice, and stepped forward with a
cry on her white lips.
But the door closed heavily--the room was in darkness, or was it her
sight failed her? Everything swam before her in a blackening mist; she
grasped at the table and fell across it, senseless.
The dawn was breaking, filling the room with a gray and ghostly light;
the great curtains looked black and gloomy, and the corners of the room
were filled with strange and moving shadows. Through an open window a
cool breeze blew across Valentine's sick forehead: she opened her eyes.
The empty glass met her gaze, the fallen chair was beside her: she
looked at them strangely. She was still alive.
"Gian's poison is slow," she said, and smiled to herself.
After a time she rose and stumbled to the window.
"When the sun rises I shall be dead, or perhaps I shall live till noon,"
she said to herself.
She mounted the estrade and sat beside the open window, resting her head
against the woodwork, singing to herself.
Suddenly the whole gray sky flushed purple: the sun rose above the
horizon.
Valentine looked down into the garden, the sight seemed to awaken
memories.
"Hush!" She laid her finger on her mouth. "Hush, Conrad--if Gian hears
us--hast thou velvet shoes on--hush! He treads warily--ah, but it is no
use--he poisoned me! he poisoned me!"
She rocked herself to and fro.
"In a tall glass with white lines--it was not Gian--it was the Viper
from the Standard--all green and silver--all green and silver--a coiling
viper."
She dropped her head forward, then raised it with trembling lips.
"Conrad! come and save me!" Then she fell to laughing, whispering under
her breath, counting on her fingers the hours she might have to live.
"If to noon--how many?"
The door opened, and she stopped her muttering, turning lackluster eyes
toward it.
"Good-morrow," said Visconti, standing with his back against it and
looking at her keenly. "Good-morrow, Valentine."
She looked at him and put the hair back from her face.
"I thought I saw Count Conrad walking in the garden: I would have called
him up to see me die--how long will it be?"
Visconti advanced with a bitter smile. "Has the lesson tamed thee? It
would have been reality, but ye are pledged to France. I would that I
dare poison thee, thou tiger-cat, but thou art tamed!"
Valentine face did not change. "Hush!" she said, leaning from the
window. "He is back on the tower now--" she pointed to where the silver
banner hung idle against the brightening sky. "What dost thou think?
shall I sit and watch, lest he spy on us, Conrad?"
Visconti looked at her.
"Thou art tamed indeed," he said. "I am not ill-avenged."
Valentine stepped down into the room, her tangled hair hanging about
her, and grasped him by the arm. "I was waiting--" she whispered. "I
feared he would come back before I was dead. Ah! and he did! Count
Conrad could not keep him off; the Viper, green and silver; the Viper,
he has poisoned me." And she sank onto the floor with a sudden scream,
her hands before her eyes.
"Thou art neither poisoned nor dying," said Visconti, roughly. "Call thy
women, and--remember."
She looked at him with vacant eyes.
Visconti turned away. "She is not likely to forget, it seems," he
thought. "Her spirit will not trouble my path more."
Neither his nor anyone's. The brilliant, witty, and daring Valentine
Visconti was to dare, to mock, to laugh no more; her high spirit was
broken, her proud courage gone. From that fearful night she was
timorous, shrinking, like a child, wandering and vacant--like Tisio,
half-crazed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE ORDEAL OF MASTINO DELLA SCALA
"A secret embassy from Milan!"
Mastino repeated the words slowly, and looked at Ligozzi who had brought
them. "And to see me alone?"
"With terms from Visconti--so they said," answered Ligozzi. "Terms of
peace."
"From Visconti!"
Mastino looked out through the open entrance into the blinding summer
day, and then back at Ligozzi. "I fear they come with no honorable
terms--from Visconti victorious."
"They would never dare come with dishonorable ones--to thee, my lord,"
returned Ligozzi.
Mastino laughed bitterly.
"Dare! He is Visconti--with near all Italy at his back--he knows no such
words as shame or honor. And I must see his messengers," he added, after
a pause. "I know no such words now as pride or refusal."
Ligozzi turned, but hesitated at the entrance.
"And--alone?" he asked. "They are from Visconti."
"And may be skilful in dagger thrusts and poison," said Mastino. "Nay,
that is not what I fear, Ligozzi." But he unstrapped his sword and laid
it on the table in front of him. "All the same, I will have thee with
me, Ligozzi. I see not why I should humor them too far--I shall have
naught to say thou mayst not hear."
Ligozzi left, and Mastino sat alone, his head in his hands, his elbows
resting on the table.
It was blazing hot, the very crown of summer, languid and golden, with
a haze of purple sky beating down on the swooning trees; noon, the sun
at its height, the stillness of great heat in the air.
Mastino raised his head and looked out on it. What was Gian Visconti
planning now?
He had some faint foreboding--a secret embassy from Milan--and following
so swiftly on that last crushing blow; following so swiftly as to come
upon him still helpless from it--what had it to say, and to his ears
alone? He had some faint foreboding as he sat there. But it was not
long. Ligozzi, exercising due precaution, returned with the two
Milanese.
Giannotto stepped forward with a smooth obeisance, but stopped, a little
surprised at the one occupant of the tent--the tall man with the proud
dark face.
"My lord--the Prince?" he asked.
"I am Della Scala," said Mastino, and he turned to de Lana who looked an
obvious soldier, and the worthier of the two. "Your errand, sir? I would
hear you quickly."
"We have greetings from our lord, the Duke of Milan," replied de Lana,
his speech and bearing uneasy, like one trying to gain time. He had
always disliked his mission, and never more so than now, standing face
to face with Della Scala.
Here was some one very different from the man he had expected, and it
tended to confuse him.
Della Scala's dignity was his own, not that of pomp and splendor, the
terror of crime, or the dazzle of power, that made Visconti feared and
obeyed. As plainly attired as any of his soldiers, Mastino overawed the
Milanese with something new to them--the sense of worth.
They were not trained to dealings with it.
"Greetings from Gian Visconti, Duke of Milan," took up the secretary.
"Moreover, we bring terms of peace for your acceptance, my lord."
Mastino was silent a space, and Ligozzi, standing behind his chair,
looked at them with an ill-concealed abomination that Giannotto's quick
eyes noticed keenly.
"My lord, is the one with you to be trusted even as yourself?" he asked,
submissively. "For our mission, Prince, is secret."
"He is my friend," said Mastino, shortly. "And now these terms of
peace?"
"The Duke is weary of the war," said de Lana. "He hath powerful allies,
my lord."
"And the choice of means to crush me," interposed Mastino, his bright
eyes fell on the speaker, "are in his hands, you would say? Perhaps; and
yet, messer, I ask for no quarter from Gian Visconti." De Lana bowed.
"Nor could he offer it, my noble lord; only terms as between equals."
Mastino smiled bitterly.
"That is generous in Gian Visconti, seeing we are not--equals."
Giannotto wished the Duke could have heard both words and tone.
Visconti's birth was a sore point with him. The secretary wondered if
there might be found a safe way of repeating them. De Lana flushed a
little under Mastino's steady gaze and quiet scorn of the master who had
sent him.
"The Duke of Milan sends by us this," he said, and laid the parchment
before Mastino. "These are his terms, my lord."
But Della Scala did not drop his eyes to it.
"What are these terms?" he said.
"They are set forth there, my lord," began Giannotto.
"So you have forgotten what they are, or did Visconti not tell you?" and
Della Scala handed the roll to the secretary. "When you have read it,
tell me what Gian Visconti says."
He leaned back, his eyes still on them.
Giannotto bit his lips in vexation.
"Spare Visconti's loving greetings. To the point, in a few words,"
continued Della Scala, as the secretary still hesitated.
"Then, my lord, this: the Duke of Milan will leave you Verona, where you
may rule under his protection, provided you now put into his hands every
other town you or your allies now, singly or together, hold."
Mastino flushed and half rose.
"Gian Visconti might have spared these insults," he said sternly, "and
you yourself the relating of them. When have I so shown myself such that
your master should think I could betray Lombardy to keep one town? Get
back, I have no answer save I have left you your lives."
De Lana fingered the parchment nervously.
"That is not all, my lord," he began, and stopped suddenly. "I cannot
say it," he murmured to Giannotto.
Della Scala beat his feet upon the floor impatiently.
"Do you think I am afraid to hear?" he said. "Still, it may be spared. I