Emphatically the captains confirmed him in the assertion, as emphatically Gian Giacomo repeated that he would be no party to it.
“You are not required to be,” Carmagnola assured him. “You may stand aside, my lord, and allow justice to take its course.”
“Sirs,” the Princess appealed to them, “let me implore you again, at least to send him to the Duke. Let the responsibility of his death lie with his master.”
Carmagnola rose. “Madonna, what you ask would lead to a mutiny. Tomorrow either I send Bellarion’s head to his ally in Vercelli, or the men will be out of hand and there will be an end to this campaign. Dismiss your doubts and your fears. His guilt is crystal clear. You need but remember his avowed intention of raising the siege, to see in whose interest he works.”
Heavy-eyed and heavyhearted she sat, tormented by doubt now that she was face to face with decision where hitherto no single doubt had been.
“You never asked him what alternative he proposed,” she reminded him.
“To what end? That glib dissembler would have fooled us with fresh falsehoods.”
Belluno got to his feet. He had been manifesting impatience for some moments. “Have we leave to go, my lord? This matter is at an end.”
Ugolino da Tenda followed his example. “The men below are growing noisier. It is time we pacified them with our decision.”
“Aye, in God’s name.” Carmagnola waved them away, and himself strode off from the table towards the hearth. He stirred the logs with his boot and sent an explosion of sparks flying up the chimney. “Bear him word of our decision, Belluno. Bid him prepare for death. He shall have until daybreak tomorrow to make his soul.”
“O God! If we should be wrong!” groaned the Princess.
The captains clanked out, and the door closed. Slowly Carmagnola turned; reproachfully he regarded her.
“Have you no faith in me, Valeria? Should I do this thing if there were any room for doubt?”
“You may be mistaken. You have been mistaken before, remember.”
He did not like to remember it. “And you? Have you been mistaken all these years? Are you mistaken on the death of your friend Count Spigno and what followed?”
“Ah! I was forgetting that,” she confessed.
“Remember it. And remember what he said at that table, which may, after all, be the truth. That Count Spigno has risen from the grave at last for vengeance.”
“Will you not send for this clown, at least?” cried Gian Giacomo.
“To what purpose now? What can he add to what we know? The matter, Lord Marquis, is finished.”
And meanwhile Belluno was seeking Bellarion in the small chamber in which they had confined him on the ground floor of the castle.
With perfect composure Bellarion heard the words of doom. He did not believe them. This sudden thing was too monstrously impossible. It was incredible the gods should have raised him so swiftly to his pinnacle of fame, merely to cast him down again for their amusement. They might make sport with him, but they would hardly carry it to the lengths of quenching his life.
His only answer now was to proffer his pinioned wrists, and beg that the cord might be cut. Belluno shook his head to that in silence. Bellarion grew indignant.
“What purpose does it serve beyond a cruelty? The window is barred; the door is strong, and there is probably a guard beyond it. I could not escape if I would.”
“You’ll be less likely to attempt it with bound wrists.”
“I’ll pass you my parole of honour to remain a prisoner.”
“You are convicted of treachery, and you know as well as I do that the parole of a convicted traitor is never taken.”
“Go to the devil, then,” said Bellarion, which so angered Belluno that he called in the guard, and ordered them to bind Bellarion’s ankles as well.
So trussed that he could move only by hops, and then at the risk of falling, they left him. He sat down on one of the two stools which with a table made up all the furniture of that bare chill place. He wagged his head and even smiled over the thought of Belluno’s refusal to accept his parole, or rather over the thought that in offering it he had no notion of keeping it.
“I’d break more than my pledged word to get out of this,” said he to himself. “And only an idiot would blame me.”
He looked round the bare stone walls, and lastly at the window. He rose, and hopped over to it. Leaning on the sill, which was at the height of his breast, he looked out. It opened upon the inner court, he found, so that wherever escape might lie, it lay not that way. The sill upon the rough edge of which he leaned was of granite. He studied it awhile attentively.
“The fools!” he said, and hopped back to his stool, where he gave himself up to quiet meditation until they brought him a hunch of bread and a jug of wine.
To the man-at-arms who acted as gaoler, he held out his pinioned wrists. “How am I to eat and drink?” he asked.
“You’ll make shift as best you can.”
He made shift, and by using his two hands as one contrived to eat and to drink. After that he spent some time at the sill, patiently drawing his wrists backwards and forwards along the edge of it, with long rests between whiles to restore the blood which had flowed out of upheld arms. It was wearying toil, and kept him fully engaged for some hours.
Towards dusk he set up a shouting which at last brought the guard into his prison.
“You’re in
