It could not be expected that a great leader like Facino, who had depended all his life upon the use of cavalry, should agree with such views as these. But the knowledge displayed by this convent-reared youngster, and the shrewd force and lucidity with which Bellarion, who had never seen a pitched battle, argued upon matters that were regarded as mysteries hidden from all but the initiates in the difficult science of arms, amazed him so profoundly that he forgot to argue at all.
Facino had learnt the trade of war by actual practice in a long and hard apprenticeship. It had never even occurred to him that there was a theory to be learnt in the quiet of the study, to be culled from the records of past failure and achievement in the field. Nor now that this was revealed to him was he disposed to attach to it any considerable importance. He regarded the young man’s disquisitions merely in the light of interesting mental exercises. But at the same time he concluded that one who showed such understanding and critical appreciation of strategy and tactics should, given the other qualities by Facino considered necessary, be quick to gather experience and learn the complex military art. Now every man who truly loves the trade by which he lives is eager to welcome a neophyte of real aptitude. And thus between Facino and Bellarion another link was forged.
Deep down in Bellarion’s soul there was that vague desire, amounting as yet to little more than a fantastic hope, to consummate his service to that brave Princess of Montferrat. It was a dream, shadowy, indefinite, almost elusive to his own consciousness. But the door Facino now held so invitingly open might certainly lead to its ultimately becoming a reality.
They were occupying at the time the loggia of Facino’s apartments above the court of Saint Gotthard. Facino and his lady were seated, one at each end of that open space. Bellarion stood equidistant from either, leaning against one of the loggia’s slender pillars that were painted red and white, his back to the courtyard, which lay peaceful now in the bright sunlight and almost forsaken, for it was the rest hour of early afternoon. He was dressed in very courtly fashion in a suit of purple which Facino’s wardrobe had supplied. The kilted tunic was caught about his waist by a belt of violet leather with gold trimmings, and his long black hair had been carefully combed and perfumed by one of Facino’s servants. He made a brave figure, and the languid sapphire eyes of the Countess as they surveyed him confirmed for her the conviction already gathered from his frank and smoothly told tale that between himself and her husband there existed no relationship such as she had at first suspected, and such as the world in general would presently presume.
“My Lord Count advises you shrewdly, Ser Bellarion,” she ventured, seeing him thoughtful and wavering. “You make it very plain that you are not meant for cloisters.”
She was a handsome woman of not more than thirty, of middle height with something feline in her beautifully proportioned litheness, and something feline too in the blue-green eyes that looked with sleepy arrogance from out of her smoothly pallid face set within a straight frame of ebony black hair.
Bellarion considered her, and the bold, direct, appraising glance of his hazel eyes, which seemed oddly golden in that light, stirred an unaccountable uneasiness in this proud daughter of the Count of Tenda who had married out of ambition a man so much older than herself. Languidly she moved her fan of peacock feathers, languidly surveyed herself in the mirror set in the heart of it.
“If I were to await further persuasions I must become ridiculous,” said Bellarion.
“A courtly speech, sir,” she replied with her slow smile. Slowly she rose. “You should make something of him, Facino.”
Facino set about it without delay. He was never dilatory when once he had taken a resolve. They removed themselves next day—Facino, his lady, his household, and Bellarion—to the ducal hunting-palace at Abbiategrasso, and there the secular education of Bellarion was at once begun, and continued until close upon Christmastide, by when some of the sense of unreality, of dream experiences, began at last to fade from Bellarion’s mind.
He was taught horsemanship, and all that concerns the management of horses. Followed a training in the use of arms, arduous daily exercises in the tiltyard supervised by Facino himself, superficially boisterous, impatient, at times even irascible in his zeal, but fundamentally of an infinite patience. He was taught such crude swordsmanship as then obtained, an art which was three parts brute force and one part trickery; he was instructed in ballistics, trained in marksmanship with the crossbow, informed in the technicalities of the mangonel, and even initiated into the mysteries of that still novel weapon the cannon, an instrument whose effects were moral rather than physical, serving to terrify by its noise and stench rather than actually to maim. A Swiss captain in Facino’s service named Stoffel taught him the uses of the short but formidable Swiss halberd, and from a Spaniard named de Soto he learnt some tricks with a dagger.
At the same time he was taken in hand by the Countess for instruction in more peaceful arts. An hour each evening was devoted to the dance, and there were days when she would ride forth with him in the open meadows about the Ticino to give him lessons in falconry, a pursuit in which she was greatly skilled; too skilled and too cruelly eager, he thought, for womanhood, which should be compassionate.
One autumn day when a northerly wind from the distant snows
