“I found him anything but easy, and we spent the best part of two days haggling. He began by laughing at your offer; described it as impudent; wondered if you took him for a fool. Thereupon I made shift to take my leave of him. That sobered him. He begged me not to be hasty; confessed that he could well spare the men; but that I must know the price was not more than half the worth of his soldiers. At thirty florins a month for each man he would appoint a leader for them at his own charges. I said little beyond asserting that no such price was possible; that it was beyond the means of the Commune of Milan. He then proposed twenty-five florins, and finally twenty, below which he swore by all the saints of France that he would not go. I begged him to take time for thought, and as the hour was late to let me know his decision in the morning. But in the morning I sent him a note of leave-taking, informing him that, as his terms were beyond our means and as our need was none so pressing, I was setting out for the Cantons to raise the men there.”
Facino’s mouth fell open. “Body of God! That was a risk!”
“No risk at all. I had the measure of the man. He was so covetous, so eager to drive the bargain, that I almost believe I could have got the men for less than your price if you had not stated it in writing. I was not suffered to depart. He sent a messenger to beg me wait upon him before leaving Genoa, and the matter was concluded on your terms. I signed the articles in your name, and parted such good friends with the French Vicar that he presented me with a magnificent suit of armour, as an earnest of his esteem of Facino Cane and Facino Cane’s son.”
Facino loosed his great full-throated laugh over the discomfiture of the crafty Boucicault, slapped Bellarion’s shoulder, commended his guile, and carried him off at once to the Palace of the Ragione in the New Broletto where the Council awaited him.
By one of six gates that pierced this vast walled enclosure, which was the seat of Milan’s civic authority, they came upon the multitude assembled there and to the Palace of the Ragione in its middle. This was little more than a great hall carried upon an open portico, to which access was gained by an exterior stone staircase. As they went up, Bellarion, to whom the place was new, looked over the heads of the clamorous multitude in admiring wonder at the beautiful loggia of the Osii with its delicately pointed arcade in black and white marble and its parapet hung with the shields of the several quarters of the city.
Before the assembled Council, with the handsome Gabriello Maria richly robed beside the President, Facino came straight to the matter nearest his heart at the moment.
“Sirs,” he said, “you will rejoice to see the increase of our strength by a thousand lances hired from the King of France in an assurance of Milan’s safety. For with a force now of some three thousand men with which to take the field against Buonterzo, you may tell the people from me that they may sleep tranquil o’ nights. But that is not the end of my good tidings.” He took Bellarion by the shoulder, and thrust him forward upon the notice of those gentlemen. “In the terms made with Monsieur Boucicault, my adoptive son here has saved the Commune of Milan the sum of fifteen thousand florins a month, which is to say a sum of between thirty and fifty thousand florins, according to the length of this campaign.” And he placed the signed and sealed parchment which bore the articles on the council table for their inspection.
This was good news, indeed; almost as good, considering their depleted treasury, as would have been the news of a victory. They did not dissemble their satisfaction. It grew as they considered it. Facino dilated upon Messer Bellarion’s intelligent care of their interests. Such foresight and solicitude were unusual in a soldier, and were usually left by soldiers contemptuously to statesmen. This the President of the Council frankly confessed in the little speech in which he voiced the Commune’s thanks to Messer Bellarion, showing that he took it for granted that a son of Facino’s, by adoption or nature, must of necessity be a soldier.
Nor was the expression of that gratitude confined to words. In the glow of their enthusiasm, the Communal Council ended by voting Messer Bellarion a sum of five thousand florins as an earnest of appreciation of his care of their interests.
Thus, suddenly and without warning Bellarion found not merely fame but—as it seemed to his modest notions—riches thrust upon him. The President came to shake him by the hand, and after the President there was the Ducal Governor, the Lord Gabriello Maria Visconti, sometime Prince of Pisa.
For once he was almost disconcerted.
VI
The Fruitless Wooing
To have done what Bellarion had done was after all no great matter to the world of the court and would have attracted no attention there. But to have received the public thanks of Milan’s civic head and a gift of five thousand florins in recognition of his services was instantly to become noteworthy. Then there was the circumstance that he was the son of the famous Facino—for “adoptive” was universally accepted as the euphemism for “natural,” and this despite the Countess Beatrice’s vehement assertions of the contrary; and lastly, there was the fact that he was so endowed by nature as to commend himself to his fellow-men and no less to his fellow-women. He moved about the court of Milan during those three or four weeks of preparation for the campaign against Buonterzo with the ease of one who had been bred in courts.
