“Why, what are you assuming?” There was now no music in her voice. It was harshly metallic. “Has soldiering made you fatuous by chance?” She laughed unpleasantly, as upon a sudden scorn-provoking revelation. “I see! I see! You thought that I … ! You thought … ! Why, you fool! You poor, vain fool! Shall I tell Facino what you thought, and how you have dared to insult me with it?”
He stood bewildered, aghast, and indignant. He sought to recall her exact expressions. “You used words, madonna …” he was beginning hotly when suddenly he checked, and when he resumed the indignation had all gone out of him. “What you have said is very just. I am a fool, of course. You will give me leave?”
He made to go, but she had not yet done with him.
“I used words, you say. What words? What words that could warrant your assumptions? I said that I had mourned you. It is true. As a mother might have mourned you. But you … You could think …” She swung past him, towards the open loggia. “Go, sir. Go wait elsewhere for my lord.”
He departed without another word, not indeed to await Facino, whom he did not see again until the morrow, a day which for him was very full.
Betimes he was sought by the Lord Gabriello Maria, who came at the request of the Commune of Milan to conduct him to the Ragione Palace, there to receive the thanks of the representatives of the people.
“I desire no thanks, and I deserve none.” His manner was almost sullen.
“You’ll receive them none the less. To disregard the invitation were ungracious.”
And so the Lord Gabriello carried off Bellarion, the son of nobody, to the homage of the city. In the Communal Palace he listened to a recital by the President of his shining virtues and still more shining services, in token of their appreciation of which the fathers of the Ambrosian city announced that they had voted him the handsome sum of ten thousand gold florins. In other words, they had divided between himself and Facino the sum they had been intending to award the latter for delivering the city from the menace of Buonterzo.
After that, and in compliance with the request of the Council, the rather bewildered Bellarion was conducted by his noble escort to receive the accolade of knighthood. Empanoplied for the ceremony in the suit of black armour which had been Boucicault’s gift to him, he was conducted into the court of the Arrengo, where Gian Maria in red and white attended by the nobility of Milan awaited him. But it was Facino, very grave and solemn, who claimed the right to bestow the accolade upon one who had so signally and loyally served him as an esquire. And when Bellarion rose from his knees, it was the Countess of Biandrate, at her husband’s bidding, who came to buckle the gold spurs to the heels of the new knight.
For arms, when invited to choose a device, he announced that he would adopt a variant of Facino’s own: a dog’s head argent on a field azure.
At the conclusion a herald proclaimed a joust to be held in the Castle of Porta Giovia on the morrow when the knight Bellarion would be given opportunity of proving publicly how well he deserved the honour to which he had acceded.
It was a prospect which he did not relish. He knew himself without skill at arms, in which he had served only an elementary apprenticeship during those days at Abbiategrasso.
Nor did it increase his courage that Carmagnola should come swaggering towards him, his florid countenance wreathed in smiles of simulated friendliness, to claim for the morrow the honour of running a course and breaking a lance with his new brother-knight.
He smiled, nevertheless, as falsely as Carmagnola himself.
“You honour me, Ser Francesco. I will do my endeavour.”
He noted the gleam in Carmagnola’s eyes, and went, so soon as he was free, in quest of Stoffel, with whom his friendship had ripened during their journey from Travo.
“Tell me, Werner, have you ever seen Carmagnola in the tiltyard?”
“Once, a year ago, in the Castle of Porta Giovia.”
“Ha! A great hulking bull of a man.”
“You describe him. He charges like a bull. He bore off the prize that day against all comers. The Lord of Genestra had his thigh broken by him.”
“So, so!” said Bellarion, very thoughtful. “It’s my neck he means to break tomorrow. I read it in his smile.”
“A swaggerer,” said Stoffel. “He’ll take a heavy fall one day.”
“Unfortunately that day is not tomorrow.”
“Are you to ride against him, then?” There was concern in Stoffel’s voice.
“So he believes. But I don’t. I have a feeling that tomorrow I shall not be in case to ride against anyone. I have a fever coming on: the result of hardships suffered on the way from Travo. Nature will compel me, I suspect, to keep my bed tomorrow.”
Stoffel considered him with grave eyes. “Are you afraid?”
“What else?”
“And you confess it?”
“It asks courage. Which shows that whilst afraid I am not a coward. Life is full of paradox, I find.”
Stoffel laughed. “No need to protest your courage to me. I remember Travo.”
“There I had a chance to succeed. Here I have none. And who accepts such odds is not a brave man, but a fool. I don’t like broken bones; and still less a broken reputation. I mean to keep what I’ve won against the day when I may need it. Reputation, Stoffel, is a delicate bubble, easily pricked. To be unhorsed in the lists is no proper fate for a hero.”
“You’re a calculating rogue!”
“That is the difference between me and Carmagnola, who is just a superior man-at-arms. Each to his trade, Werner, and mine isn’t of the tiltyard, however many knighthoods they bestow on me. Which is why tomorrow I shall have the fever.”
This resolve, however, went near to shipwreck that same evening.
In the Hall of Galeazzo the Duke gave
