The Viper of Milan: A Romance of Lombardy
riding full tilt toward Mastino in a silence that was more deadly than
shouts of hate; and Mastino turned at last and faced them with wild
eyes.
The foremost man was swiftly on them, his furious face brought close to
theirs. As he swept up he drew the dagger at his waist and hurled it
full on Mastino's shield.
"That from me!" he cried, and rose in his stirrups with a shout. "That
and my scorn, Della Scala!"
But Mastino was prepared; he stood erect and did not flinch.
Another rode by; bending his face close to him, he spat at him; both
shattered their daggers on to his shield, those daggers mounted with his
arms that they carried as his soldiers. One tore from his neck the
collar Mastino had hung there, and flung it at his feet with curses.
"Traitor, where is Ligozzi?" cried one, hurling an imprecation, and
Della Scala took a step back with a cry wrung from him; but the man was
gone, and the face of another Veronese was looking into his with utter
loathing. Without a pause they dashed by, each hurling his dagger, and
many some order or sign of Mastino's friendship, full upon that shield
that hung on Della Scala's arm.
"That to cheer thee in thy shame!"
"That to make a necklet for Isotta d'Este!"
"This from me, who would have died for thee!"
The taunts were bitter and savage, and hurled in a fury of scorn and
hate; but Mastino della Scala, save for that one movement, neither
flinched nor stepped out the way of the onward rush, but bore for a
long hour of that summer day that wild ride past of the Veronese and the
batter on his shield of the daggers that disdained to slay him.
"Stop! in the name of heaven, stop!" shrieked Tomaso, and held his hands
against his ears.
They took no heed of him, in their mad fury did not even see the boy.
But to Tomaso it was most terrible that Della Scala made no movement to
defend himself; his calm face was awful. "Stop!" Tomaso shrieked again.
"Stop!"
How many more, how many more! How many times more that rattle as the
daggers struck the shield and then fell to lie bright in the sun? How
many more furious faces, how many more bitter curses? How long would
Della Scala stand there turned to stone? Tomaso crouched and hid his
eyes. At last they came to an end! The last rode by, the
standard-bearer, tearing the standard to rags with furious hands.
"Verona is no more!" he yelled. "The Scaligeri are no more, the standard
is no more, the standard of Verona!"
He threw the twist of red and gold at Mastino's feet with a sudden wail
in his voice. He was an old man, one who had served Mastino and
Mastino's father well. He stopped his horse; the first who had done so.
"Mastino della Scala! oh, why didst thou do this thing? Tell me thou
repentest!" he cried.
Mastino looked into the old man's wistful face.
"Verona is no more, the Scaligeri are no more. Ride thee to the others,
old man," he said.
The standard-bearer wrung his hands.
"I loved thee!" he pleaded. "Save thy soul and say thou dost repent!"
Mastino's proud head was erect.
"And do I live to save my soul? Get thee to the others, I do not
repent."
The old man rode away sorrowfully. Della Scala watched him disappear
behind the rocks and trees.
He was the last, and silence fell.
"They are gone!" breathed Mastino. "They are gone!"
His eyes fell to his shield; from rim to rim it was defaced and dented,
and the ladder of the Scaligeri was beaten from its boss. The ground
around was piled with arms, and Mastino put his hand up to his eyes,
staggering. The ladder of the Scaligeri was beaten from his shield!
"Some men remain, my lord," said Tomaso timidly, at last, with a boyish
effort at some consolation.
But Mastino winced; that they remained was a sorer shame even than the
desertion of the others: for they were men, scum of camps, who fought
solely for pay and plunder, and laughed at dishonor and admired
treachery--they were the men who had stayed.
"Isotta!" cried Mastino, with a sudden wild movement. "Why does she not
come?--have I not waited long--have I not paid enough?"
"I think I see her escort coming across the fields," said Tomaso
timorously.
Mastino turned and grasped his arm with a sudden change of manner.
"Tomaso," he faltered, "methinks I am changed since last I saw her;
perhaps she will--not know me--or will startle at me if she does.
Tomaso, she is very fair and I have nothing to offer now--Tomaso, am I
very changed?"
He was changed, so changed the boy would scarce have known him; his soft
brown hair was streaked with gray, his fine face drawn and white, his
eyes, once soft and kind, unnaturally bright, and, like his mouth,
strained and hard.
Mastino laughed pitifully as he read the answer in Tomaso's frightened
eyes.
"She will not care--she will not care," he said. But his voice was
unsteady, and he supported himself against the saddle of his horse.
"The Duchess comes!" said Tomaso, and clutched Mastino's hand.
Out of a little wood of delicate trees, in front of them, the cavalcade
was winding: Visconti's soldiers, Veronese soldiers, and a white,
curtained litter in the midst.
Mastino's gaze flew to that, and to that only.
"Oh, my heart's desire!" he murmured. "I do not repent!" And he forgot
the ladder of the Scaligeri battered from his shield.
The soldiers cantered up and lowered their halberds in a salute to the
magnificent figure standing there alone, while the officer read in a
high voice from the parchment, that stated that Isotta d'Este, Duchess
of Verona, prisoner of war of Gian Galeazzo Maria Visconti, Duke of
Milan, was returned to her husband in fulfillment of the league and
treaty between them.
"Into your hands we deliver her in safety, my lord, and my lord of Milan
offers three months in which to either quit Lombardy or choose some post
in his service in Verona."
"My choice is made: I quit Lombardy," said Mastino. "Leave me."
The soldier lightly shrugged his shoulders and gave the word, and,
cantering off, Visconti's guards wheeled and followed swift behind him.
They had fulfilled their duty: Isotta d'Este's safety was no affair of
theirs now.
The Veronese footmen bearing the litter had set their burden down; the
white curtains fluttered--was it the breeze, or Isotta's hand, that
stirred them so?
"Tomaso, Tomaso, I have borne much; can I bear this?"
His eyes were sparkling, his tone joyful; he had thrown all his shame
from his heart; the miserable past, the miserable future, were alike
forgotten; the world had narrowed to this--her welcoming face.
He laid his shield on the ground gently, and walked across the grass
softly. The curtains, white in the still blazing sun, dazzled him; his
heart was beating so, he thought it must choke him.
"Isotta!"
He called her name so low she could not hear.
"Isotta!"
Still she made no answer.
"Perchance she is very weary," said Mastino to himself, tenderly, and
drew the white curtains back. She lay back among silk cushions.
"Isotta, my dear!"
There was a tremor in his voice. Had she fainted?
She lay back, her head away from him, and, bending over her, he saw
through her long curls that her eyes were closed, her lips parted, and
one hand at her throat--the hand that bore his wedding ring. Oh,
heaven!----
He caught her head in his hands and looked at her. She was dead, quite
dead. The silk curtains fell-to again, and at Mastino's cry the bearers
shrank, appalled. Isotta d'Este was dead.
And Mastino lay along the ground, senseless, his defaced shield near
him, bare to the bright glare of the sinking sun.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE STORM
The storm had gathered and burst; rain fell in great drops that did not
allay the heat; the sky was covered with clouds that dragged across the
moon in a slow procession, dark and mysterious.
In one or two tents, thrown open to catch the breeze that stirred the
chestnuts, sat the little handful of soldiers left to Mastino. Rude and
coarse, still were they awed, by the horror that had befallen, to a
whispering quiet.
Like a patch of white showing dimly through the gloom, the curtains of a
litter were to be seen. At thought of who sat within alone there in the
rain and dark, the men shuddered and drew nearer together.
"The Prince?" one whispered.
"I have been to the tent, but further than the door I dare not."
"What was there to see?"
"The boy--alone, weeping like a woman. Santa Maria! I should not like
the watch he keeps!"
"The Prince is mad, think you?"
"The Prince is mad, or--hush!--possessed."
The men fell again to a silence, broken only by the patter of the rain.
At last another spoke, one drawn further back into the tent.
"How came it about, think you?"
"Visconti----"
"Ah, yes, Visconti, of a surety; but how?"
"The wedding ring, Petio--it was handed to her as she entered the
litter--it was poisoned! She put it on, poor soul--kissed it, no
doubt:--well, it was poisoned, Petio!"
"And so she started alive, and now lies there dead--poor soul!"
The men muttered and crossed themselves; a few sat in moody thought.
"The sun--we need the sun," said one at last.
"And a little wind, not these stifling puffs--a little wind from heaven.
'Tis hot as hell!"
"Hush!"
How it rained! And a wind rose, but it scarcely seemed from heaven. The
chestnuts moaned, tossing their branches.
"Hush!" said some one suddenly. "The dear Lord forgive my sins!--who
comes?"
They heard a footstep; a hand was fumbling at the entrance of their
tent.
"The Prince!"
And the next instant the men sprang to their feet in affright at what
was before them, at the livid face looking at them--Mastino della Scala.
"My wife!" he cried hoarsely. "Give me my wife!"
They looked on one another, helpless, and made no answer. But Mastino,
striding forward, seized the foremost by the throat and shook him like a
rag.
"Where is she? What have you done with her? Is she not bought and paid
for? Where is she?"
Tomaso sprang into the tent, a piteous young figure, wet to the skin.
"Oh, my lord!--I will take thee to her. Come away! Come with me!"
His voice broke into a passion of sobs, and Mastino dropped his hands
and paused.
"Your lady lies still in her litter," said a soldier.
"Out yonder in the rain, you rascal!" cried Della Scala. "What is she
doing there?"
He flung from the tent, and Tomaso after him, the bitter sobs catching
at his throat.
"I cannot bear it," he cried. "It is doom itself. Oh, my master! my dear
master!"
The soldiers crowded together and watched.
"Look!" gasped one, pointing through the dark. "He hath got her--he hath
got her!"
And they huddled back, half falling over one another, as Mastino came
into view--a slender thing in white and purple in his arms. Close by, he
paused, and laid it tenderly across the saddle of his white horse,
whinnying low and waiting.
"Jesu, protect us!" cried the men. "Where is he going?"
"Stop him! stop him!" shrieked Tomaso, running to them. "He goes to
find--Visconti!"
"Then no one of us had best dare meddle," was the answer. "Keep away
from him, boy; he is mad, possessed--maybe by the devil!"
"I care not!" cried Tomaso in an agony of sorrow. "He shall not ride so;
he has no armor on--it will be to his death. He shall not go--my lord!
my dear lord!"
He sprang forward to the white horse, which Mastino had mounted, and
clung to the stirrup.
"Not to-night, my lord; wait till the morn--till the storm is over; thou
art unarmed!"
Mastino drew Isotta close to him, till her head rested on his shoulder,
and looked down wildly at Tomaso.
"Visconti lies outside Novara--I know the way!" he said.
"Take some of us with thee!" implored Tomaso. "Oh, my lord----"