And then suddenly, a quarter-mile away, from the direction of Corno, towards which they were so steadily falling back, came a pounding of hooves that swelled swiftly into a noise of thunder, and, before any measures could be taken to meet this new menace, Ugolino da Tenda’s horse was upon Theodore’s rear.
Ugolino had handled his condotta well, and strictly in accordance with his orders from Bellarion. From Balzola, whither he had been moved at noon so as to be in readiness, he had made a leisurely and cautious advance, filing his horse along the very edge of the bogland so that their hooves should give no warning of their approach. Thus until he had won within striking distance. And the blow he now struck, heavy and unexpected, crumpled up Theodore’s rear, clove through, driving his men right and left to sink to their waists in the marshes, and scattered such fear and confusion in those ahead that their formation went to pieces, and gaped to Bellarion’s renewed frontal attacks.
Less than three hours that engagement lasted, and of all those who had taken the field with Theodore, saving perhaps a thousand who fled helter-skelter towards Trino after Ugolmo’s passage, there was not a survivor who had not yielded. Stripped of their arms and deprived of their horses, they were turned adrift, to go whithersoever they listed so long as it was outside of Montferrat territory. The maimed and wounded of Theodore’s army were conveyed by their fellows into the villages of Villanova, Terranova, and Grassi.
It was towards the third hour of that November night when the triumphant army, returning from that stricken field, reentered Casale, lighted by the bonfires that blazed in the streets, whilst the bells of Liutprand’s Cathedral crashed out their peals of victory. Deliriously did the populace acclaim Bellarion, Prince of Valsassina, in its enormous relief at being saved the hardships of a siege and delivered from the possible vengeance of Theodore for having opened its gates to Theodore’s enemies.
Theodore, on foot, marched proudly at the head of a little band of captives of rank, who had been retained by their captors for the sake of the ransoms they could pay. The jostling, pushing crowd hooted and execrated and mocked him in his hour of humiliation. White-faced, his head held high, he passed on apparently unmoved by that expression of human baseness, knowing in his heart that, if he had proved master, the acclamations now raised for his conqueror would have been raised for him by the very lips that now execrated him.
He was conducted to the palace, to the very room whence for so many years he had ruled the State of Montferrat, and there he found his nephew and niece awaiting him when he was brought in between Ugolino da Tenda and Giasone Trotta.
Bareheaded, stripped of his armour, his tall figure bowed, he stood like a criminal before them whilst they remained seated on either side of the writing-table that once had been his own. From the seat whence he had dispensed justice was justice now to be dispensed to him by his nephew.
“You know your offence, my lord,” Gian Giacomo greeted him, a cold, dignified, and virile Gian Giacomo, in whom it was hardly possible to recognise the boy whom he had sought to ruin in body and in soul. “You know how you have been false to the trust reposed in you by my father, to whom God give peace. Have you anything to say in extenuation?”
He parted his lips, then stood there opening and closing his hands before he could sufficiently control himself to answer.
“In the hour of defeat, what can I do but cast myself upon your mercy?”
“Are we to pity you in defeat? Are we to forget in what you have been defeated?”
“I ask not that. I am in your hands, a captive, helpless. I do not claim mercy. I may not deserve it. I hope for it. That is all.”
They considered him, and found him a broken man, indeed.
“It is not for me to judge you,” said Gian Giacomo, “and I am glad to be relieved of that responsibility. For though you may have forgotten that I am of your blood, I cannot forget that you are of mine. Where is his highness of Valsassina?”
Theodore fell back a pace. “Will you set me at the mercy of that dastard?”
The Princess Valeria looked at him coldly. “He has won many titles since the day when to fight a villainy he pretended to become your spy. But the title you have just conferred upon him, coming from your lips, is the highest he has yet received. To be a dastard in the sight of a dastard is to be honourable in the sight of all upright men.”
Theodore’s white face writhed into a smile of malice. But he answered nothing in the little pause that followed before the door opened upon Bellarion.
He came in supported by two of his Swiss, and closely followed by Stoffel. His armour had been removed, and the right sleeve of his leather haqueton, as of the silken tunic and shirt beneath, had been ripped up, and now hung empty at his side, whilst his breast bulged where his arm was strapped to his body. He was very pale and obviously weak and in pain.
Valeria came to her feet at sight of him thus, and her face was whiter than his own.
“You are wounded, my lord!”
He smiled, rather whimsically. “It sometimes happens when men go to battle. But I think my Lord Theodore here has taken the deeper hurt.”
Stoffel pushed forward a chair, and the Swiss carefully lowered Bellarion to it. He
