“But the letter, then?” Carmagnola was showing signs of exasperation.
“In God’s name, where is this letter?” growled the deep voice of Barbaresco.
“Who are you to question me now? I do not know your right, sir, or even your name.”
The Princess presented him and at the same time Casella.
“They are old and esteemed friends, my lord, and they are here to serve me with all the men that they can muster. Let Messer Barbaresco see this letter.”
Impatiently Carmagnola produced it from the scrip that hung beside his dagger from a gold-embossed girdle of crimson leather.
Slowly Barbaresco spelled it out, Casella reading over his shoulder. When he had done, he looked at Carmagnola, and from Carmagnola to the others, first in sheer amazement, then in scornful mirth.
“Lord of Heaven, Messer Carmagnola! You’ve the repute of a great fighter, and, to be sure, you’re a fine figure of a man; also I must assume you honest. But I would sooner put my trust in your animal strength than in your wits.”
“Sir!”
“Oh, aye, to be sure, you can throw out your chest and roar and strut. But use your brains for once, man.” The boldly humorous red face was overspread by a sardonic grin. “Master Theodore took your measure shrewdly when he thought to impose upon you with this foxy piece of buffoonery, and, my faith, if Bellarion had been less nimble, this trick would have served its purpose. Nay, now don’t puff and blow and swell! Read the letter again. Ask yourself if it would have borne that full signature and that superscription if it had been sincere, and considering that it imparts no useful information save that Bellarion was betraying you, ask yourself if it would have been written at all had anything it says been true.”
“The very arguments that Bellarion used,” cried the Marquis.
“To which we would not listen,” said the Princess bitterly.
Carmagnola sniffed. “They are the arguments any man in his case would use. You overlook that the letter is an incentive, an undertaking to reward him suitably if he …”
Barbaresco broke in, exasperated by the man’s grandiose stupidity.
“To the devil with that, numskull!”
“Numskull, sir? To me? By Heaven …”
“Sirs, sirs!” The Princess laid her hand on Barbaresco’s great arm. “This is not seemly to my Lord Carmagnola …”
“I know it. I know it. I crave his pardon. But I was never taught to suffer fools gladly. I …”
“Sir, your every word is an offence. You …”
Valeria calmed them. “Don’t you see, Messer Carmagnola, that he but uses you as a whipping-boy instead of me. It is I who am the fool, the numskull in his eyes; for these deeds are more mine than any other’s. But my old friend Barbaresco is too courteous to say so.”
“Courteous?” snorted Carmagnola. “That is the last term I should apply to his boorishness. By what right does he come hectoring here?”
“By the right of his old affection for me and my brother. That is what makes him hot. For my sake, then, bear with him, sir.”
The great man bowed, his hand upon his heart, signifying that for her sake there was no indignity he would not suffer.
Thereafter he defended himself with great dignity. If the letter had been all, he might have taken Barbaresco’s views. But it was, he repeated, the traitor Bellarion’s avowed intention to raise the siege. That, in itself, was a proof of his double-dealing.
“How did this letter come to you?” Barbaresco asked.
Gian Giacomo answered whilst Valeria added in bitter self-reproach, “And this messenger was never examined, although Bellarion demanded that he should be brought before us.”
“Do you upbraid me with that, madonna?” Carmagnola cried. “He was a poor clown, who could have told us nothing. He was not examined because it would have been waste of time.”
“Let us waste it now,” said Barbaresco.
“To what purpose, sir?”
“Why, to beguile our leisure. No other entertainment offers.”
Carmagnola contained himself under that sardonic leer.
“Sir, you are resolved, it seems, to try my patience. It requires all my regard and devotion for her highness to teach me to endure it. The messenger shall be brought.”
At Valeria’s request not only the messenger, but the captains who had voted Bellarion’s death were also summoned. Carmagnola demurred at first, but bowed in the end to her stern insistence.
They came, and when they were all assembled, they were told by the Princess why they had been summoned as well as what she had that morning learnt from Barbaresco. Then the messenger was brought in between the guards, and it was the Princess herself who questioned him.
“You have nothing to fear, boy,” she assured him gently, as he cowered in terror before her. “You are required to answer truthfully. When you have done so, and unless I discover that you are lying, you shall be restored to liberty.”
Carmagnola, who had come to take his stand at her side, bent over her.
“Is that prudent, madonna?”
“Prudent or not, it is promised.” There was in her tone an asperity that dismayed him. She addressed herself to the clown.
“When you were given this letter you would be given precise instructions for its delivery, were you not?”
“Yes, magnificent madonna.”
“What were those instructions?”
“I was taken to the ramparts by a knight, to join some other knights and soldiers. They pointed to the lines straight ahead. I was to go in that direction with the letter. If taken I was to ask for the Lord Bellarion.”
“Were you bidden to go cautiously? To conceal yourself?”
“No, madonna. On the contrary. My orders were to let myself be seen. I am answering truthfully, madonna.”
“When you were told to go straight ahead into the lines that were pointed out to you, on which side of the ramparts were you standing?”
“On the south side, madonna. By the southern gate. That is truth, as God hears me.”
The Princess leaned forward, and she was not the only one to move.
“Were you told or did you know what soldiers occupied the section of the lines to which you were bidden?”
“I just knew that they were soldiers of the besieging
