“If you had studied his methods, Giannino, you would not say that. See how he has wrought his own advancement. In four short years this son of nobody, without so much as a name of his own has become the Knight Bellarion, the Lord Bellarion of the Company of the White Dog, and now the Lord Count of Gavi holding the rich lands of Gavi in feud.”
One there was who might have told her things which would have corrected her judgment, and that was Facino’s Countess. For the Lady Beatrice knew the truth of those events in Montferrat which were at the root of the Princess Valeria’s bitter prejudice, of which also she was aware.
“You hate him very bitterly,” the Countess told her once when Bellarion had been the subject of their talk.
“Would not you, if you were in my place?”
And the Countess, looking at her with those long indolent eyes of hers, an inscrutable smile on her red lips, had answered with languorous slowness: “In your place it is possible that I should.”
The tone and the smile had intrigued the Princess for many a day thereafter. But either she was too proud to ask what the Countess had meant, or else afraid.
When after some eight weeks abed, Bellarion had begun to hobble about the castle, and it was impossible for the Princess entirely to avoid him, she was careful never to be alone where he might so surprise her, using him when they met in the company of others with a distant, frigid courtesy, which is perhaps the most piercing of all hostility.
If it wounded Bellarion, he gave no sign. He was—and therein lay half the secret of his strength—a very patient man. He was content to wait for the day when by his contriving the reckoning should be presented to the Marquis Theodore, and she should know at last whose servant he really was. Meanwhile, he modelled his demeanour upon her own. He did not seek her company, nor indeed that of any in the castle save Filippo Maria, with whom he would spend long hours at chess or instructing him out of his own deep learning supported by one or another of the treatises in that fine library.
Until the coming of Bellarion, the Count of Pavia had believed himself a strong chess-player. Bellarion had made him realise that his knowledge of the game was elementary. Where against former opponents he had swept to easy triumphs, he now groaned and puffed and sweated over the board to lessen the ignominy of his inevitable defeats.
Today, however, he was groaning less than usual. He had piled up a well-supported attack on Bellarion’s flank, and for the first time in weeks—for these games had begun whilst Bellarion was still abed—he saw victory ahead. With a broad smile he brought up a bishop further to strengthen the mass of his attack. He saw his way to give check in three and checkmate in four moves.
Although only in his twentieth year, he was of a hog-like bulk. Of no more than middle height, he looked tall when seated, for all the length of him was in his flabby, paunchy body. His limbs were short and shapeless. His face was as round as the full moon and as pale. A great dewlap spread beneath his chin, and his neck behind hung in loose fat folds upon his collar, so that the back of his head, which was flat, seemed to slope inwards towards the crown. His short black hair was smooth and sleek as a velvet cap, and a fringe of it across his forehead descended almost to the heavy black eyebrows, thus masking the intellectual depth of the only noble feature of that ignoble countenance. Of his father all that he had inherited physically was the hooked, predatory nose. His mouth was coarsely shaped and its lines confirmed the impression of cruelty you gathered from the dark eyes which were small and lacklustre as a snake’s. And the impression was a true one, for the soul of this shy, morose young Prince was not without its share of that sadic cruelty which marked all the men of his race.
To meet the bishop’s move, Bellarion advanced a knight. The Prince’s laugh rang through the silent room. It was a shrill almost womanish laugh, and it was seldom heard. High-pitched, too, was the voice that followed.
“You but delay the inevitable, Bellarion,” he said, and took the knight.
But the move of the knight, which had appeared purely defensive to the Prince in his intentness upon his own attack, had served to uncover the file of Bellarion’s queen. Supports had been previously and just as cunningly provided. Bellarion advanced his hand, a long beautiful hand upon which glowed a great carved sapphire set in brilliants—the blue and white that were his colours. Forth flashed his queen across the board.
“Checkmate, Lord Prince,” said Bellarion quietly, and sank back smiling into the brocaded chair.
Filippo Maria stared unbelieving at the board. The lines of his mouth drooped, and his great pendulous cheeks trembled. Almost he seemed on the point of tears.
“God rot you, Bellarion! Always, always is it the same! I plan and build and whilst you seem to do no more than defend, you are preparing a death-stroke in an unexpected quarter.” Between jest and earnest he added: “You slippery rogue! Always you defeat me by a trick.”
The Princess Valeria looked up from her embroidery on the word. Bellarion caught the movement and the glance in his direction. He knew the thought behind, and it was that thought he answered.
“In the field, my opponents use the same word to decry me. But those who are with me applaud my skill.” He laughed. “Truth is an elusive thing, highness, as Pontius Pilate knew. The aspect of a fact depends upon the angle from which you view it.”
Filippo Maria sat back, his great chin sunk to his breast, his podgy white hands gripping
