“It was expected that the soldiers who caught the clown would bear him straight to you,” Carmagnola countered.
“Was it? Is there no oddness in the fact that the clown should walk straight into your own men, Carmagnola, on a section of the line that does not lie directly between Vercelli and Quinto? But why waste time even on such trifles of evidence. Read the letter itself. Is there a single word in that which it was important to convey to me, or which would not have been conveyed otherwise if it had been intended for any purpose other than to bring me under this suspicion? Almost has Theodore overreached himself in his guile. Out of his intentness to destroy me, he has revealed his true aims.”
“The very arguments I used with them,” said Stoffel.
Bellarion looked in amazement at his lieutenant. “And they failed?” he cried, incredulous.
“Of course they failed, you foul traitor!” Carmagnola bawled at him. “They are ingenious, but they are obvious to a man caught as you are.”
“It is not I that am caught; but you that are in danger of it, Carmagnola, in danger of being caught in the web that Theodore has spun.”
“To what end? To what end should he spin it? Answer that.”
“Perhaps to set up dissensions amongst us, perhaps to remove the only one of the captains opposed to him whom he respects.”
“You’re modest, by God!” sneered Carmagnola.
“And you’re a purblind fool, Carmagnola,” cried Stoffel in heat.
“Then are we all fools,” said Belluno. “For we are all of the same mind on this.”
“Aye,” said Bellarion sadly. “You’re all of the same emptiness. That’s clear. Well, let us have in this clown and question him.”
“To what purpose?”
“That we may wring from him his precise instructions, since the letter does not suffice.”
“You take too much for granted. The letter suffices fully. You forget that it is not all the evidence against you.”
“What? Is there more?”
“There is your failure last night to make the false attack you undertook to make, and there is the intention you so rashly proclaimed here afterwards that you would raise the siege of Vercelli today. Why should you wish to do that if you are not Theodore’s friend, if you are not the canker-hearted traitor we now know you to be?”
“If I were to tell you, you would not understand. I should merely give you another proof that I am Theodore’s ally.”
“That is very probable,” said Carmagnola with a heavy sneer. “Fetch the guard, Ercole.”
“What’s this!” Bellarion was on his feet even as Belluno rose, and Stoffel came up with him, laying hands on his weapons. But Ugolino da Tenda and another captain between them overpowered him, whilst the other two ranged themselves swiftly on Bellarion’s either hand. Bellarion looked at them, and from them again to Carmagnola. He was lost in amazement.
“Are you daring to place me under arrest?”
“Until we deliberate what shall be done with you. We shall not keep you waiting long.”
“My God!” His wits worked swiftly, and he saw clearly that they might easily work their will with him. Of the four thousand men out there, only Stoffel’s eight hundred Switzers would be on his side. The others would follow the lead of their respective captains. The leaders upon whom he could have depended in this pass—Koenigshofen and Giasone Trotta—were away at Mortara. Perceiving at last this danger, hitherto entirely unsuspected, he turned now to the Princess.
“Madonna,” he said, “it is you whom I serve. Once before you suspected me, in the matter of Carmagnola’s bridges, and the sequel proved you wrong.”
Slowly she raised her eyes to look at him fully for the first time since he had joined that board. They were very sorrowful and her pallor was deathly.
“There are other matters, sir, besides that, which I remember. There is the death of Enzo Spigno, for one.”
He recoiled as if she had struck him. “Spigno!” he echoed, and uttered a queer little laugh. “So it is Spigno who rises from his grave for vengeance?”
“Not for vengeance, sir. For justice. There would be that if there were not the matter that Messer Carmagnola has urged to convict you.”
“To convict me! Am I then convicted without trial?”
None answered him, and in the pause that followed the men-at-arms summoned by Belluno clanked in, and at a sign from Carmagnola closed about Bellarion. There were four of them. One of the captains deprived him of his dagger, the only weapon upon him, and flung it on the table. At last Bellarion roused himself to some show of real heat.
“Oh, but this is madness! What do you intend by me?”
“That is to be deliberated. But be under no delusive hope, Bellarion.”
“You are to decide my fate? You?” From Carmagnola, he looked at the others. He had paled a little; but amazement still rode above fear.
Stoffel, unable longer to contain himself, turned furiously upon Carmagnola. “You rash, vainglorious fool. If Bellarion is to be tried there is none under the Duke’s magnificence before whom he may be arraigned.”
“He has been arraigned already before us here. His guilt is clear, and he has said nothing to dispel a single hair of it. There remains only to decide his sentence.”
“This is no proper arraignment. There has been no trial, nor
