She stared at him round-eyed, afraid. “Murder?” she said in a voice of horror.
He smiled darkly. “They had not told you, eh? I knew they dared not. Yet so indiscreet and rash are they that they betrayed it to me—to me of whom they know nothing save that I carried as an earnest of my good faith your broken half-ducat. What if I were just a scoundrel who would sell to the Marquis Theodore a piece of information for which he would no doubt pay handsomely? Do you still think that it was accident brought me to interfere in your concerns?”
“I can’t believe you! I can’t!” and again she breathed, aghast, that horrid word: “Murder!”
“If they succeeded,” said Bellarion coldly, “all would be well. Your uncle would have no more than his deserts, and you and your brother would be rid of an evil incubus. The notion does not shock me at all. What shocks me is that I see no chance of success for a plot conducted by such men with such inadequate resources. By joining them you can but advance the Regent’s aims, which you believe to be the destruction of your brother. Let the attempt be made, and fail, or even let evidence be forthcoming of the conspiracy’s existence and true purpose, and your brother is at the Regent’s mercy. The people themselves might demand his outlawry or even his death for an attempt upon the life of a prince who has known how to make himself beloved.”
“But my brother is not in this,” she protested. “He knows nothing of it.”
Bellarion smiled compassionately. “Cui bono fuerit? That is the first question which the law will ask. Be warned, madonna! Dissociate yourself from these men while it is time or you may enable the Regent at a single stride to reach his ultimate ambition.”
The pallor of her face, the heave of her breast, were witnesses to her agitation. “You would frighten me if I did not know how false is your main assumption: that they plot murder. They would never dare to do this thing without my sanction, and this they have never sought.”
“Because they intend to confront you with an accomplished fact. Oh, you may believe me, madonna. In the last twenty-four hours and chiefly from these men I have learnt much of the history of Montferrat. And I have learnt a deal of their own histories too. There is not one amongst them who is not reduced in circumstances, whose state has not been diminished by lack of fortune or lack of worth.”
But for this she had an answer, and she delivered it with a slow, wistful smile.
“You talk, sir, as if you contained all knowledge, and yet you have not learnt that the fortunate desire no change, but labour to uphold the state whence their prosperity is derived. Is it surprising, then, that I depend upon the unfortunate?”
“Say also the venal, those greedy of power and of possessions, whose only spur is interest; desperate gamblers who set their heads upon the board and your own and your brother’s head with theirs. Almost they divided among themselves in their talk the offices of State. Barbaresco promised me that the ambition he perceived in me should be fully gratified. He assumed that I, too, had no aim but self-aggrandisement, simply because he could assume no other reason why a man should expose himself to risks. That told me all of him that I required to know.”
“Barbaresco is poor,” she answered. “He has suffered wrongs. Once, in my father’s time he was almost the greatest man in the State. My uncle has stripped him of his honours and almost of his possessions.”
“That is the best thing I have heard of the Marquis Theodore yet.”
She did not heed him, but went on: “Can I desert him now? Can I …” She checked and stiffened, seeming to grow taller. “What am I saying? What am I thinking?” She laughed, and there was scorn of self in her laugh. “What arts do you employ, you, an unknown man, a self-confessed starveling student, base and nameless, that upon no better warrant than your word I should even ask such a question?”
“What arts?” said he, and smiled in his turn, though without scorn. “The art of pure reason based on truth. It is not to be resisted.”
“Not if based on truth. But yours is based on prejudice.”
“Is it prejudice that they are plotting murder?”
“They have been misled by their devotion …”
“By their cupidity, madonna.”
“I will not suffer you to say that.” Anger flared up again in her, loyal anger on behalf of those she deemed her only friends in her great need. She checked it instantly, “Sir, I perceive your interest, and I am grateful. If you would still do me a service, go, tell Messer Barbaresco from me that this plot of assassination must go no further. Impose it upon him as my absolute command. Tell him that I must be obeyed and that, rather than be a party to such an act, I would disclose the intention to the Marquis Theodore.”
“That is something, madonna. But if when you have slept upon it …”
She interrupted him. “Upon whatever course I may determine I shall find means to convey the same to my Lord Barbaresco. There will not be the need to trouble you again. For what you have done, sir, I shall remain grateful. So, go with God, Messer Bellarion.”
She was turning away when he arrested her.
“It is a little personal matter this. I am in need of five ducats.”
He saw the momentary frown, chased away by the beginnings of a smile.
“You are consistent in that you misunderstand me, though I have once reminded you that if I needed money for myself I could sell my information to the Regent. The five ducats are for Gobbo who lent me this smock and these tools of my pretended trade.” And he told her the exact circumstances.
She considered him more gently. “You do not
