“Oh, shameful!” he cried out, stirred to anger by a suspicion so ignoble.
“Are you not rewarded and knighted for the stir that was made by the rumour of your death? You are to give proof of your knightly worth in the lists tomorrow. It will be interesting.”
On that she left him standing there with wounds in his soul that would take long to heal. When at last he swung away, a keen eye observed the pallor of his face and the loss of assurance from his carriage; the eye of Facino’s lady who approached him on her lord’s arm.
“You are pale, Bellarion,” she commented in pure malice, having watched his long entertainment with the Princess of Montferrat.
“Indeed, madonna, I am none so well.”
“Not ailing, Bellarion?” There was some concern in Facino’s tone and glance.
And there and then the rogue saw his opportunity and took it.
“It will be nothing.” He passed a hand across his brow.
“The excitement following upon the strain of these last days.”
“You should be abed, boy.”
“It is what I tell myself.”
He allowed Facino to persuade him, and quietly departed. His sudden illness was rumoured later at the banquet when his place remained vacant, and consequently there was little surprise when it was known on the morrow that a fever prevented him from bearing his part in the jousts at Porta Giovia.
By the doctor who ministered to him, he sent a message to Carmagnola of deepest and courtliest regret that he was not permitted to rise and break a lance with him.
XI
The Siege of Alessandria
Gabriello Maria Visconti’s plans for the restoration of Ghibelline authority suffered shipwreck, as was to be expected in a council mainly composed of Guelphs.
The weapon placed in their hands by Gabriello Maria for his own defeat was the Marquis Theodore’s demand, as the price of his alliance, that he should be supported in the attempt to recover Genoa to Montferrat.
Della Torre laughed the proposal to scorn. “And thereby incur the resentment of the King of France!” He developed that argument so speciously that not even Facino, who was present, suspected that it did not contain the true reason of della Torre’s opposition.
In hiring a French contingent to strengthen the army which he had led against Buonterzo, Facino had shown the uses that could be made of Boucicault. What Facino had done della Torre could do, nominally on the Duke’s behalf. He could hire lances from Boucicault to set against Facino himself when the need for this arose.
“Possibly,” ventured Gabriello, “the surrender of Vercelli and certain other guarantees would suffice to bring Montferrat into alliance.”
But della Torre desired no such alliance. “Surrender Vercelli! We have surrendered too much already. It is time we sought alliances that will restore to Milan some of the fiefs of which she has been robbed.”
“And where,” Facino quietly asked him, “will you find such allies?”
Della Torre hesitated. He knew as well as any man that policies may be wrecked by premature disclosure. If his cherished scheme of alliance with Malatesta of Rimini were suspected, Facino, forewarned, would arm himself to frustrate it. He lowered his glance.
“I am not prepared to say where they may be found. But I am prepared to say that they are not to be found in Theodore of Montferrat at the price demanded by that Prince.”
Gabriello Maria was left to make what excuses he could to the Marquis Theodore; and the Marquis Theodore received them in no pleasant manner. He deemed himself slighted, and said so; hinting darkly that Milan counted enemies enough already without wantonly seeking to add to them. Thus in dudgeon he returned to Montferrat.
Della Torre’s patient reticence was very shortly justified.
In the early days of June came an urgent and pitiful appeal from the Duke’s brother, Filippo Maria, Count of Pavia, for assistance against the Vignati of Lodi, who were ravaging his territories and had seized the city of Alessandria.
The Duke was in his closet with della Torre and Lonate when that letter reached him. He scowled and frowned and grunted over the parchment awhile, then tossed it to della Torre.
“A plague on him that wrote it! Can you read the scrawl, Antonio?”
Della Torre took it up. “It is from your brother, highness; the Lord Filippo Maria.”
“That skin of lard!” Gian Maria was contemptuous. “If he remembers my existence, he must be in need of something.”
Della Torre gravely read the letter aloud. The Prince guffawed once or twice over a piteous phrase, meanwhile toying with the head of a great mastiff that lay stretched at his feet.
He guffawed more heartily than ever at the end, the malice of his nature finding amusement in the calamities of his brother. “His Obesity of Pavia is disturbed at last! Let the slothful hog exert himself, and sweat away some of his monstrous bulk.”
“Do not laugh yet, my lord.” Della Torre’s lean, crafty, swarthy face was grave. “I have ever warned you against the ambition of Vignate, and that it would not be satisfied with the reconquest of Lodi. He is in arms, not so much against your brother as against the house of Visconti.”
“God’s bones!” Goggle-eyed, the Duke stared at his adviser. Then to vent unreasoning fury he rose and caught the dog a vicious kick which drove it yelping from him. “By Hell, am I to go in arms against Vignate? Is that your counsel?”
“No less.”
“And this campaign against Buonterzo scarcely ended! Am I to have nothing but wars and feuds and strife to distract my days? Am I to spend all in quelling brigandage? By the Passion! I’d as soon be Duke of Hell as reign in Milan.”
“In that case,” said della Torre,
