“No, by God! I am glad you perceive that.”
“Should I have explained myself if I did not?” said Bellarion to assure him of a fact of which clearly he was far from sure.
“Tell me why you so schemed and plotted?”
Bellarion sighed. “To amuse myself, perhaps. It interests me. Facino said of me that I was a natural strategist. This broader strategy upon the great field of life gives scope to my inclinations.” He was thoughtful, chin in hand. “I do not think there is more in it than that.” And abruptly he asked: “You’ll send that message?”
Carmagnola too considered. There was a dream that he had dreamed, a game that he could play, making in his turn a pawn of this crafty brother captain who sought to make a pawn of him.
“I’ll go to Melegnano in person,” he announced.
He went, and there dispelled the fretful suspense in which the Princess Valeria waited for a justice of which she almost despaired.
He dealt in that directness which was the only thing Bellarion found to honour in him. But the directness now was in his manner only.
“Lady, I come to bid you take a hand in your own and your brother’s reinstatement. Your petition to the Duke is all that is needed now to persuade him to the step which I have urged; to march against the usurper Theodore and cast him out.”
It took her breath away. “You have urged this! You, my lord? Let me send for my brother that he may thank you, that he may know that he has at least one stout brave friend in the world.”
“His friend and your servant, madonna.” He bore her white hand to his lips, and there were tears in her eyes as she looked upon his bowed handsome head. “My hopes, my plans, my schemes for you are to bear fruit at last.”
“Your schemes for me?”
Her brows were knit over her moist dark eyes. He laughed. A jovial, debonair, and laughter-loving gentleman, this Francesco Busone of Carmagnola.
“So as to provide a cause disposing the Duke of Milan to proceed against the Regent Theodore. The hour has come, madonna. It needs but your petition to Filippo Maria, and the army marches. So that I command it, I will see justice done to your brother.”
“So that you command it? Who else should?” Carmagnola’s bright face was overcast. “There is Bellarion Cane.”
“That knave!” She recoiled, her countenance troubled. “He is the Regent’s man. It was he who helped the Regent to Vercelli and to the lordship of Genoa.”
“Which he never could have done,” Carmagnola assured her, “but that I abetted him. I saw that thus I should provide a reason for action against the Regent when later I should come to be on the Duke’s side.”
“Ah! That was shrewd! To feed his ambition until he overreached himself.”
Carmagnola strutted a little. “It was a deep game. But we are at the last move in it. If you mistrust this Bellarion …”
“Mistrust him!” She laughed a bitter little laugh, and she poured forth the tale of how once he had been a spy sent by Theodore to embroil her, and how thereafter he had murdered her one true and devoted friend Count Spigno.
Feeding her mistrust and bringing Gian Giacomo fully to share it, Carmagnola conducted them to Milan and procured audience for them with the Duke.
Filippo Maria received her in a small room in the very heart of the fortress, a room to which he had brought something of the atmosphere of his library at Pavia. Here were the choicely bound manuscripts, and the writing-table with its sheaves of parchment, and its horn of unicorn, which as all the world knows is a prophylactic against all manner of ills of the flesh and the spirit. Its double window looked out upon the court of San Donato where the October sunshine warmed the red brick to the colour of the rose.
He gave her a kindly welcome, then settled into the inscrutable inertia of an obese Eastern idol whilst she made her prayer to him.
When it was done he nodded slowly, and despatched his secretary in quest of the Prince of Valsassina. The name conveyed nothing to her, for she had not heard of Bellarion’s latest dignity.
“You shall have my decision later, madonna. It is almost made already, and in the direction you desire. When I have conferred with the Prince of Valsassina upon the means at our command, I will send for you again. Meanwhile the Lord of Carmagnola will conduct you and your brother to my Duchess, whom it will delight to care for you.” He cleared his throat. “You have leave to go,” he added in his shrill voice.
They bowed, and were departing, when the returning secretary, opening the door, and holding up the arras that masked it, announced: “The Prince of Valsassina.”
He came in erect and proud of bearing, for all that he still limped a little. His tunic was of black velvet edged with dark brown fur, a heavy gold chain hung upon his breast, a girdle of beaten gold gripped his loins and carried his stout dagger. His hose were in white and blue stripes.
From the threshold he bowed low to the Prince and then to Madonna Valeria, who was staring at him in sudden panic.
She curtsied to him almost despite herself, and then made haste to depart with Carmagnola and her brother. But there was a weight of lead in her breast. If action against Theodore depended upon this man’s counsel, what hope remained? She put that question to Carmagnola. He quieted her fears.
“After all, he is not omnipotent. Our fealty is not to him, but to the Duchess Beatrice. Win her to your side, and things will shape the course you desire, especially if I command the enterprise.”
And meanwhile this man whom she mistrusted was closeted with the Duke, and the Duke was informing him of this new factor in their plans against Montferrat.
“She desires us to break a lance in
