It moved him not at all. The plea was too inconsequent and illogical, and the display of a lack of reason repelled him like a physical defect.
“Your plaint, madonna, is that Facino will not make you a duchess. He may do so yet if you are patient.”
Her tears had suddenly ceased.
“You know something!” she exclaimed in a hushed voice.
The rogue fooled her with that illusion, whilst refraining from using words which might afterwards be turned against him.
“I know that you will lose the chance if meanwhile you should cease to be Facino’s wife. If you were so mad as to become the leman of another, you know as well as I do that the Lord Facino would put you from him. What should you be then? That is why I am your friend when I think of the camp at Bergamo for you.”
Slowly she dried her eyes. Carefully she removed all stains of tears. It consumed a little time. Then she rose and went to him, and took his hand.
“Thank you, Bellarion, my friend.” Her voice was hushed and tender. “You need have no fear for me.” She paused a moment. “What … what has my lord said to you of his intent?”
“Nay, nay,” he laughed, “I betray no confidences.” The trickster’s tone was a confidence in itself. He swept on. “You bid me have no fear for you. But that is not enough. Princes are reckless folk. I’d not have you remain in jeopardy.”
“Oh! But Bergamo!” she cried out. “To be encamped in winter!”
“You need not go so far, nor under canvas. In your place, madonna, I should retire to Melegnano. The castle is at your disposal. It is pleasanter than Pavia.”
“Pleasanter! In that loneliness?”
“It is the company here that makes it prudent. And you may take the Princess Valeria and her brother with you. Come, come, madonna. Will you trifle with fate at such a time? Will you jeopardise a glorious destiny for the sake of an obese young lordling?”
She considered, her face fretful. “Tell me,” she begged again, “what my lord has divulged to you of his intentions?”
“Have I not said enough already?”
The entrance of Filippo Maria at that moment saved him the need of further invention. It perturbed him not at all that the Prince’s round white face should darken at the sight of them so close and fond. She was warned. Her greed of power and honour would curb her wantonness and ensure her withdrawal to Melegnano as he urged. Bellarion glowed with the satisfaction of a battle won, nor troubled about the deceit he had practised.
V
Justice
The Epiphany mummeries were long overpast, the iron hand of winter was withdrawn from the land, and in the great forest of Pavia, where Gian Galeazzo had loved to hunt, the trees were breaking into bud before Bellarion’s condition permitted him to think of quitting the ease of Filippo Maria’s castle. His leg had mended well, the knee-joint had recovered its suppleness, and only a slight limp remained.
He spoke of returning to Bergamo. “This lotus-eating has endured too long already,” he told the Prince in answer to the latter’s remonstrances; for Filippo Maria was reluctant to part with one who in many ways had beguiled for him the tedium of his lonely life, rendered lonelier than ever before by the withdrawal of the Countess of Biandrate, who had gone with the Montferrine Princess to Melegnano.
But it was not written that Filippo Maria should be left alone; for on the very eve of Bellarion’s intended departure, Facino himself was borne into the Castle of Pavia, crippled by an attack of gout of a severity which had compelled him to leave his camp just as he was preparing to reap the fruits of his long and patient siege.
He had lost weight, and his face out of which the healthy tan had departed was grey and drawn. His hair from fulvid that it had been was almost white. But the spirit within remained unchanged, indomitable, and intolerant of this enforced inertia of the flesh.
He was put to bed immediately on his arrival, for he was in great pain and swore that the gout, which he called by all manner of evil names, had got into his stomach.
“Mombelli warned me there was danger of it.”
“Where is Mombelli?” Bellarion asked. He stood with Filippo Maria by the canopied bed in a spacious chamber in the northern tower, adjacent to the Hall of Mirrors.
“Mombelli, devil take his soul, left me a month ago, when I seemed well, to go to Duke Gian Maria who desired to appoint him his physician. I’ve sent for him again to the Duke. Meanwhile some Pavese doctor will be required to give me ease.” He groaned with pain. Then, recovering, rapped out his orders to Bellarion. “It’s a mercy you are recovered, for you are needed at Bergamo. Meanwhile Carmagnola commands there, but he has my orders to surrender his authority to you on your arrival.”
It was an order which Carmagnola did not relish, as he plainly showed when Bellarion reached the camp two days later. But he dared not disobey it.
Bellarion examined the dispositions, but changed nothing. He carried forward the plans already made by Facino. The siege could be tightened no further, and, considering the straits to which Malatesta must be reduced, there could be little point in wasting lives on an assault.
A week after Bellarion’s coming there rode into the great camp of green tents under the walls of Bergamo, a weary, excited fellow all splashed with mud from the fury of his riding.
Brought, by the guards who had checked his progress, to Facino’s large and handsomely equipped pavilion, pitched beside the racing waters of the Serio, this slight, swarthy, fierce-eyed man proved to be that stormy
