The Viper of Milan: A Romance of Lombardy

The wayfarers gazed about them wonderingly. It was a place of charm. The fast-grown grass was thick with flowers; and a wooden bucket hung idly from its chain above the wooden runnel. Supporting Tomaso, Francisco turned into the nearest hut, and noted it was better fashioned and better fitted than many of the like. A low doorway admitted into the long divisions of the space, each lit by small square openings in the walls. The light by now had faded, and save that it was empty of life, little else would have been discernible, but a portion of the roof had been broken away, as if by some pikeman's reckless thrust, and through the gap some of the sweet spring dusk showed them faintly their surroundings. A few stools, a wooden table, roughly hewn, a broken earthenware bowl, and a rudely painted crucifix, half-torn from the wall, completed the furniture. "They fled in haste," said Francisco grimly. "Has Visconti been here too?" "See," cried Vittore, and he picked up from his feet a silver goblet. The other turned from where he had laid Tomaso down and took it from him eagerly. The piece was heavily chased, bearing a raised shield wrought with the German eagle and lettering "C.S." "German," he said. "Plunder. Possibly from the villa. This may account for its desertion. Yes--no doubt: the owner of the villa has crossed Visconti's path." And his teeth ground over the name as he set the goblet on the table, where it gleamed with a faint ghostly light. "Sleep," he said presently to Vittore. "Eat this and then sleep. Thou canst do so with safety." The boy, glancing up into his face, believed him, and was soon lost to everything in the deep sleep of utter weariness of mind and body. Francisco bent above Tomaso and gave him wine to swallow, and set water by his side. The youth caught the hand that tended him and kissed it. "I am grateful," he murmured. "To-morrow I shall be well." "Aye, get better," said Francisco. "Thou mayst be of some service if thou wilt. Nay," he added, checking Tomaso's feeble but eager impulse, "I know not yet what I can do myself. But we have a cause in common," and he smiled faintly. "And now sleep. You sought Della Scala's court. I will not desert thee." Taking his tattered cloak from his shoulders, he laid it over him, and Tomaso lay back on the ready spread couch of heather, and watched peacefully. There was no light in the hut, but the moonshine began to show across the open doorway. Francisco pulled a stool to the table, and sitting, drew out his dagger and carefully examined it; laid it ready. Then he felt in his wallet as if to reassure himself of something, and then Tomaso saw him slip something on his hand--it gleamed: a ring! "Who is he?" thought the youth, not sure he gazed upon reality. "Who is he?" Then he dozed unwittingly, and, waking with a start, saw the moonlight streaming through the broken roof, the faint stars, and near him Vittore sleeping. The goblet still shone upon the crazy table, but the hut door had been closed and, save for themselves, the place was empty. Francisco stepped out into the spring night, fire beating at his temples: _Visconti was abroad!_ The moon, half-shrouded in a misty vapor, was rising above the fragrant chestnuts, and brilliant in the semi-dark, like flame behind a veil, the clumps of wallflowers gave out intoxicating scent. Francisco noticed them, and thought grimly they were the color of blood just dry. The spell of the moon and of the hour lay on everything; a weird ghostliness seemed to step among the trees; a sighing came from the great bushes in the garden of the villa: "Visconti is abroad!" Francisco touched his dagger and went forward. Across his path two white moths fluttered, white by day, now silver purple, illusive and mysterious. To the man's fevered mood they seemed an omen; souls of the dead allowed to take farewell of earth; and with straining eyes he watched them float away and up, and out of sight. "Who had perchance just died?" Francisco's giant sinews tightened. He went forward swiftly to the road, and strained his eyes and ears along its silver length. Nothing to be heard! nothing to be seen! Had he lost his chance, had the Duke re-entered Milan? Or had he gone too far to return that night? He sat upon the boulders where he had rested previously, his face turned toward Brescia, his hand upon his dagger. The soft air was strengthening into a gentle wind; the poplar leaves were dancing, and darkening clouds began to drive across the moon. But the man heeded nothing the changing; light or dark, what matter once Visconti had crossed his path? Long he waited. Not a sound save the dancing of the leaves, the rising wind, the soft noises of the night. At length Francisco leaped to his feet, and his breath came short and fast. He could hear something. The wind was against him. He lay down; he put his ear to the ground; then he leaped to his feet again, transformed. It was unmistakable, though still far off; the thud of horses' flying feet. Francisco waited. With each second the wind rose; the clouds raced and gathered, and darkened half the sky, and the man, straining every nerve, thought at first it was the wind he heard mingling with the trample of the oncoming hoofs. Then he knew it for screams of fury and wild shouting. "It is the Visconti," he said, and involuntarily his tense arm sank and his muscles loosened; those mad shrieks could freeze the marrow. Nearer came the onset, trampling horse and yelling rider; and Francisco set himself anew. "He rides with his own soul for company," he muttered grimly. Now the furious cries came clearly, terrible, inhuman; and in another moment, horse and rider were in view. "Yes. Visconti." Standing in the stirrups, he lashed at the foaming horse in a blind rage and horror. His cap was gone, and hair and cloak were blown about him. He shouted wildly, cursed and shrieked. For a breath Francisco paused. This could be no human rider; well was it known in Lombardy that the Visconti trafficked with the fiend, and this must be he; and the man shrank and turned his eyes, lest he should see his damning face. But the next instant his courage and his purpose had returned. The horse was upon him. Swift as thought, Francisco leaped and clutched the bridle in a hand of steel. But the mad impetus defeated him. He was dragged forward like a reed; only his own great strength for the moment saved him. And now his wild shouts were added to the rider's. He struck upward with his dagger; he tore blindly. "Do you not know me, Visconti?" he called. "Do you not know me?" But his dagger was dashed from him. The horse's foam blinded him as it sprang desperately on. He heard Visconti's demon scream, and as the earth whirled round with him, caught one fleeting glimpse of the white, distorted, hated face--then, he was prone upon the ground, and Visconti, spurring on his way, looked back upon him with triumphant yells. "Fly, fly!" he screamed, "they are after us, but we escape them. Fly!" The dawn was showing when Francisco, spent with the passion of failure rather than from any hurt, came slowly back and picked his dagger from the road. Not far from it he saw a parchment roll tossed from Visconti's doublet in that frantic forward lunge--Visconti who had safely disappeared within the walls of Milan! Francisco picked up the roll. It was inscribed with poetry and patched with blood. CHAPTER THREE THE HOSTAGE OF THE ESTES "A hundred thousand florins--and no more, even if they refuse the bargain." It was the Visconti who spoke. In a small dark room in the Visconti palace, he and the pale-faced, red-haired man, who had held the bridle of his horse two days before in the procession that had wended toward Brescia, were seated opposite to one another at the table; between them a pile of papers over which the secretary bowed his shoulders. "The demand is a hundred and fifty, my lord," he said, his voice meek, his eyes furtive. "They said two hundred to begin with," was the curt answer. "A hundred thousand florins, or I go elsewhere." The secretary's pen flew nervously across the parchment, filling it with a cramped, mean writing that trailed unevenly along the page. Visconti's secretary wrote a characteristic hand. Visconti leaned back in his chair, watching him in silence. The room was small and circular, hung with leather stamped in gold, and furnished plainly even to bareness. A narrow lancet window, placed low in the wall, admitted a subdued light, which fell upon the only spot of color in the room, the suit of turquoise blue the secretary wore. "A hundred thousand florins, to be paid in gold," repeated Visconti; "and no more, Giannotto." He rose and began to pace the room. Long habit and constant contact had not lessened the secretary's fear of Visconti, nor mitigated the hate, none the less intensified for being forever concealed under the mask of cringing servility. But in Giannotto's dislike there was nothing noble; it was merely mean hate of a sordid soul that grudged the success of the bold crimes itself could never dare to undertake. Had the secretary been in Visconti's place, there would have been as vile a tyrant, of equal cruelty and far less courage. The Duke moved to the window and stood there in observation awhile, then turning, spoke to Giannotto with a smile. His eyes were a beautiful gray, open wide, and just now lighting up a pensive, pleasant face. But the secretary knew it too under a different guise. "My sister's alliance with the Duke of Orleans gratifies my ambition, Giannotto," he said, "and is well worth a hundred thousand florins. So far the Valois have never married out of Royal Houses." "Yet they consider themselves honored by this match, my lord," said the secretary. "They consider themselves well paid," returned Visconti. "Now, if I can find a daughter of the Plantagenets for brother Tisio, behold us firmly placed among the dynasties of Europe!" Early in the fourteenth century, but no more than a meager fifty years ago, before the last Visconti culminated the evil of his race, Matteo Visconti, Gian Galeazzo's grandfather, had first firmly established his family as lords of Milan, supplanting their rival the Toriani, who had long reigned as magistrates-in-chief, and under Martin della Torre risen to some eminence. Every year of the fifty since then had seen some increase of territory, some fresh acquisition of power, till with his last overthrow of Della Scala, the seizure of Verona, and the murder of his father, already miserably deposed, Gian Galeazzo had planted himself upon a level with kings. Almost the whole of Lombardy was under his sway, and that sway extended from Verceli in Piedmont to Feltre and Bellvino. Florence, lately leagued against him in support of his deposed father, had been beaten in battle after battle and was glad to escape, shorn of her fairest possessions, and cherishing only her liberty. All this Giannotto knew. Della Scala, Duke of Verona, had owned fair lands and wide, Verona, Brescia, all now in Visconti's hands. The secretary wondered, as he thought, how long it would be before the triumphant Gian threw away the mere rag of respect, the mere mockery of a title which bound him to the Empire, and became King of Lombardy in name as well as power. "And thou thyself, my lord," he said. "Thou wilt marry a Valois to thy sister! Who will be thy bride?" Visconti smiled. "These marriages are for ambition. Dost thou think I shall marry for ambition? No, Giannotto, I have placed myself above need of that. The alliances that make the Visconti one with the kings of Europe are for Valentine and Tisio; I shall marry----"