Ugolino da Tenda made a sharp forward movement. “What are you saying?”
“The truth! The truth!” cried the lad in terror. “May God strike me dumb forever if I have uttered a lie.”
“Quiet! Quiet!” the Princess admonished him. “Be sure we know when you speak the truth. Keep to it and fear nothing. Did you hear mention of any name in connection with that section of the line?”
“Did I?” He searched his mind, and his eyes brightened. “Aye, aye, I did. They spoke amongst them. They named one Calmaldola, or … Carmandola …”
“Or Carmagnola,” da Tenda cut in, and laughed splutteringly in sheer contempt. “It’s clear, I think, that Theodore’s letter was intended for just the purpose that it’s served.”
“Clear? How is it clear?” Carmagnola’s contempt was in the question.
“In everything, now that we have heard this clown. Why was he sent to the southern section? Do you suppose Theodore did not know that Valsassina himself and those directly under him, of whom I was one, were quartered in Quinto, on the western side?” Then his voice swelled up in anger. “Why was this messenger not examined sooner, or …” he checked and his eyes narrowed as they fixed themselves on Carmagnola’s flushed and angry face “… or, was he?”
“Was he?” roared Carmagnola. “Now what the devil do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, Carmagnola. You led us all within an ace of doing murder. Did you lead us so because you’re a fool, or a villain? Which?”
Carmagnola sprang for him, roaring like a bull. The other captains got between, and the Princess on her feet, commanding, imperious, added her voice sharply to theirs to restore order. They obeyed that slim, frail woman, scarcely more than a girl, as she stood there straight and tense in her wine-coloured mantle, her red-gold head so proudly held, her dark eyes burning in her white face.
“Captain Ugolino, that was ill said of you,” she reproved him. “You forget that if this messenger was not examined before, the blame for that is upon all of us. We took too much for granted and too readily against the Prince of Valsassina.”
“It is now that you take too much for granted,” answered Carmagnola. “Why did Valsassina intend to raise this siege if he is honest? Answer me that!”
His challenge was to all. Ugolino da Tenda answered it.
“For some such reason as he had when he sent his men to hold the bridge at Carpignano while you were building bridges here. Bellarion’s intentions are not clear to dull eyes like yours and mine, Carmagnola.”
Carmagnola considered him malevolently. “You and I will discuss this matter further elsewhere,” he promised him. “You have used expressions I am not the man to forget.”
“It may be good for you to remember them,” said the young captain, no whit intimidated. “Meanwhile, madonna, I take my leave. I march my condotta out of this camp within an hour.”
She looked at him in sudden distress. He answered the look.
“I am grieved, madonna. But my duty is to the Prince of Valsassina. I was seduced from it by too hasty judgment. I return to it at once.” He bowed low, gathered up his cloak, and went clanking out.
“Hold there!” Carmagnola thundered after him. “Before you go I’ve an account to settle with you.”
Ugolino turned on the threshold, drawn up to his full height.
“I’ll afford you the opportunity,” said he, “but only after I have the answer to my question, whether you are a villain or a fool, and only if I find that you’re a fool.”
The captains made a barrier which Carmagnola could not pass. Livid with anger and humiliation, his grand manner dissipated, he turned to the Princess.
“Will your highness suffer me to go after him? He must not be permitted to depart.”
But she shook her red-gold head. “Nay, sir. I detain no man here against his inclinations. And Captain Ugolino seems justified of his.”
“Justified! Dear God! Justified!” He apostrophised the groined ceiling, then swung to the other four captains standing there. “And you?” he demanded. “Do you also deem yourselves justified to mutiny?”
Belluno was prompt to answer. But then Belluno was his own lieutenant. “My lord, if there has been an error we are all in it, and have the honesty to admit it.”
“I am glad there is still some honesty among you. And you?” His angry eyes swept over the others. One by one they answered as Belluno had done. But they were men of little account, and the defection of the four of them would not have reduced the army as did Ugolino’s, whose condotta amounted to close upon a thousand men.
“We are forgetting this poor clown,” said the Princess.
Carmagnola looked at him as if he would with joy have wrung his neck.
“You may go, boy,” she told him. “You are free. See that he leaves unhindered.”
He went with his guards. The captains, dismissed, went out next.
Carmagnola, his spirit badly bruised and battered, looked at the Princess, who had sunk back into her chair.
“However it has been achieved,” she said, “Theodore’s ends could not better have been served. What is left us now?”
“If I might venture to advise …” quoth Barbaresco, smooth as oil, “I should say that you could not do better than follow Ugolino da Tenda’s example.”
“What?”
“Return to your fealty to Bellarion.”
“Return?” Carmagnola leaned towards him from his fine height, and his mouth gaped. “Return?” he repeated. “And leave Vercelli?”
“Why not? That would no more than fulfil Bellarion’s intention to raise the siege. He will have an alternative.”
“I care nothing for his alternatives, and let us be clear upon this: I owe him no fealty. My fealty was sworn not to him, but to the Duchess Beatrice. And my orders from Duke Filippo Maria are to assist in the reduction of Vercelli. I know where my duly lies.”
“It is possible,” said
