Facino nodded, smiling through his gloom. “Does anyone suggest a better way?”
After a pause it was Carmagnola who spoke. “That plan should answer as well as any other.” Though he yielded, vanity would not permit him to do so graciously. “If you approve it, my lord, I will see the necessary measures taken.”
But Facino pursed his lips in doubt. “I think,” he said after a moment’s pause, “that Bellarion might be given charge of the affair. He has it all so clear.”
Thus it fell out that before evening Bellarion was back again in Stoffel’s quarters. To Casalbagliano also were moved after night had fallen two hundred Germans from Koenigshofen’s command at Aulara. Not until then did Bellarion cast that wide human arc of his athwart the track exactly midway between Casalbagliano and Alessandria, from the Tanaro on the one side to the lesser watercourse on the other. Himself he took up his station in the arc’s middle, on the track itself. Stoffel was given charge of the right wing, and another Swiss named Wenzel placed in command of the left.
The darkness deepened as the night advanced. Again a thunderstorm was descending from the hills of Montferrat, and the clouds blotted out the stars until the hot gloom wrapped them about like black velvet. Even so, however, Bellarion’s order was that the men should lie prone, lest their silhouettes should be seen against the sky.
Thus in utter silence they waited through the breathless hours that were laden by a storm which would not break. Midnight came and went and Bellarion’s hopes were beginning to sink, when at last a rhythmical sound grew faintly audible; the soft beat of padded hooves upon the yielding turf. Scarcely had they made out the sound than the mule train, advancing in almost ghostly fashion, was upon them.
The leader of the victualling party, who knowing himself well within the ordinary lines had for some time now been accounting himself secure, was startled to find his way suddenly barred by a human wall which appeared to rise out of the ground. He seized the bridle of his mule in a firmer grip and swung the beast about even as he yelled an order. There was a sudden stampede, cries and imprecations in the dark, and the train was racing back through the night, presently to find its progress barred by a line of pikes. This way and that the victuallers flung in their desperate endeavours to escape. But relentlessly and in utter silence the net closed about them. Narrower and narrower and ever denser grew the circle that enclosed them, until they were hemmed about in no more space than would comfortably contain them.
Then at last lights gleamed. A dozen lanterns were uncovered that Bellarion might take stock of his capture. The train consisted of a score of mules with bulging panniers, and half a dozen men captained by a tall, loose-limbed fellow with a bearded, pockmarked face. Sullenly they stood in the lantern-light, realising the futility of struggling and already in fancy feeling the rope about their gullets.
Bellarion asked no questions. To Stoffel, who had approached him as the ring closed, he issued his orders briefly. They were surprising, but Stoffel never placed obedience in doubt. A hundred men under Wenzel to remain in charge of the mules at the spot where they had been captured until Bellarion should make known his further wishes; twenty men to escort the muleteers, disarmed and pinioned, back to Casalbagliano; the others to be dismissed to their usual quarters.
A half-hour later in the kitchen of the peasant’s house on the outskirts of Casalbagliano, where Stoffel had taken up his temporary residence, Bellarion and the captured leader faced each other.
The prisoner, his wrists pinioned behind him, stood between two Swiss pikemen, whilst Bellarion holding a candle level with his face scanned those pallid, pockmarked features which seemed vaguely familiar.
“We’ve met before, I think …” Bellarion broke off. It was the beard that had made an obstacle for his memory. “You are that false friar who journeyed with me to Casale, that brigand named … Lorenzaccio. Lorenzaccio da Trino.”
The beady eyes blinked in terror. “I don’t deny it. But I was your friend then, and but for that blundering peasant …”
“Quiet!” he was curtly bidden. Bellarion set down the candle on the table, which was of oak, rough-hewn and ponderous as a refectory board, and himself sat down in the armchair that stood by its head. Fearfully Lorenzaccio considered him, taking stock of the richness of his apparel and the air of authority by which the timid convent nursling of a year ago was now invested. His fears withheld him from any philosophical reflections upon the mutability of human life.
Suddenly Bellarion’s bold dark eyes were upon him, and the brigand shuddered despite the stifling heat of the night.
“You know what awaits you?”
“I know the risks I ran. But …”
“A rope, my friend. I tell you so as to dispel any fond doubt.”
The man reeled a little, his knees sagging under him. The guards steadied him. Watching him, Bellarion seemed almost to smile. Then he took his chin in his hand, and for a long moment there was silence save for the prisoner’s raucous, agitated breathing. At last Bellarion spoke again, very slowly, painfully slowly to the listening man, since he discerned his fate to be wrapped up in Bellarion’s words.
“You claim that once you stood my friend. Whether you would, indeed, have stood my friend to the end I do not know. Circumstances parted us prematurely. But before that happened you had stolen all that I had. Still, it is possible you would have repaid me had the chance been yours.”
“I would! I would!” the wretched man protested. “By the Mother of God, I would!”
“I am so foolish as to permit myself to believe you. And you’ll remember that your life hangs upon my belief. You were the instrument chosen by Fate to shape my course for me, and there is on my part a
