“You may think, Bellarion, that with my lord scarce buried this is not the hour for … what I have to say. And yet, by the very fact of my lord’s death and by the very terms of his testament, this is the hour, because it must be the hour of decision. Here and now we must determine what is to follow.”
Tall and coldly stern he stood, looking down upon her who swayed a little there, so close to him that his nostrils were invaded by the subtle essences she used.
“I await your commands, madonna.”
“My commands? My commands? Dear God! What commands have I for you?” She looked away for an instant, then brought her eyes back to his face and her other hand to his other sleeve, so that she held him completely captive now. A faint colour stirred in the pale cheeks. “My lord has left me great possessions. They might serve as a footstool to help you mount to a great destiny.”
A little smile hovered about his lips as he looked down upon her who waited so breathlessly, her breast now touching his own.
“You are offering me …” he said, and stopped.
“Can you be in doubt of what I am offering? It is the hour of great decisions, Bellarion, for me and for you.” Closer she pressed, so that her weight was against him. She was deathly pale again, her eyes were veiled. “In unity is strength. That was Facino’s last reminder to us. And in what unity could there be greater strength than in ours? Facino’s army, the strongest that ever followed him, is solidly behind us so that we stand together. With that and my resources you need set no bounds to your ambition. You may be Duke of Milan if you will. You may even realise Galeazzo’s dream and make yourself King of Italy.”
His hovering smile settled and deepened. But the dark eyes grew sad.
“The world and you have never suspected,” he said gently, “that I am not really ambitious. You have witnessed my rise in four short years from a poor nameless, starveling scholar to knighthood, lordships, wealth, and fame; and, therefore, you imagine that I am one who has striven for the bounties of Fortune. It is not so, madonna. I have laboured for ends that are nowise bound up with the hope of any of these rewards, which I hold cheap. They are hollow vanities, empty bubbles, gewgaws to delight the children of the world. Possessions come to me, titles, honours, which deceive me no more than I desired them.”
She drew away from him a little, and looked at him almost in awe. “God! You talk like a monk!”
“It is possible that I think like one, and very natural remembering how I was nurtured. There is one task, one purpose which has detained me in this world of men. When that is accomplished, I think I shall go back to the cell where there is peace.”
“You!” Her hands had fallen from his arms. She gasped now in her amazement. “With the world at your feet if you choose! To renounce all? To go back to the chill loneliness and joylessness of monkhood? Bellarion, you are mad.”
“Or else sane, madonna. Who shall judge?”
“And love, Bellarion? Is there no love in the world? Does that not lend reality to all these things that you deem shams?”
“Does it heal the vanity of the world?” he cried. “It is a great power, as I perceive. For love men will go mad, they will become beasts: they will murder and betray.”
“Heretic!”
That startled him a little. Once before he had been dubbed heretic for beliefs to which he clung with assurance; and experience had come to lay bare his heresy to his own eyes.
“Upon occasion, madonna, we have talked of love, you and I. Had I given heed, had your beauty beglamoured me, what a treacherous thing should I not have been in Facino’s eyes! Do you wonder that I mistrust love as I mistrust all else the world can offer me?”
“While Facino lived, that …” She broke off. Her eyes were on the ground, her hands now folded in her lap. She had drawn away from him a little and leaned against the table’s edge. “Now …” She parted her hands and held them out, leaving him to guess her mind.
“Now his behests are upon me, and they shall be obeyed as if he still lived.”
“What is there in his behests against … against what I was offering? Am I not commended to you by his testament? Am I not a part of his legacy to you?”
“The service of you is; and your loyal servant, madonna, you shall ever find me.” She turned aside with a little gesture of irritation, and remained silent, thoughtful.
A sleek secretary broke in upon them. The Count of Pavia commanded the Lord Bellarion’s presence in the library. A courier had just arrived from Milan with grave news.
“Say to his highness that I come.”
The secretary withdrew.
“You give me leave, madonna?”
She stood leaning sideways against the heavy table, her face averted. “Aye, you may go.” Her voice rasped.
But he waited yet a moment. “The sword, madonna? Will you not arm me with your own hands for your service?”
She turned her head to look at him again, and there was now a curl of disdain on her pale lips.
“I thought you looked askance on symbols. Was not that your profession?” She paused, but, without waiting for his answer, added: “Take up your sword, yourself, you that are so fully master of your own destinies.”
And on that she turned and went, trailing her funereal draperies over the gay mosaics of that patterned floor.
He remained where she left
