Emerging from the screen of poplars, he emerged also from his gloomy reflections, dragged thence by the sight of a lady on a white horse that was gaily caparisoned in blue and silver. She was accompanied by a falconer and attended by two grooms whose liveries in the same colours announced them of the household of Messer Facino Cane, Count of Biandrate, and now by right of conquest and self-election Tyrant of Alessandria. For in accepting his tacit dismissal from the Duke of Milan, Facino had thrown off his allegiance to all Visconti and played now, at last, for his own strong hand.
Bellarion would have turned another way. It had become a habit with him whenever he espied the Countess. But the lady hailed him, consigning the hooded falcon on her wrist into the keeping of her falconer, who with the grooms fell back to a respectful distance as Bellarion, reluctantly obedient, approached.
“If you’re for home, Bellarion, we’ll ride together.”
Uncomfortable, he murmured a gratified assent that sounded as false as he intended that it should.
She looked at him sideways as they moved on together. She spoke of hawking. Here was fine open country for the sport. A flight could be followed for miles in any direction, moving almost as directly along the ground as the birds moved in the air above. Yet sport that day had been provokingly sluggish, and quarries had been sought in vain. It would be the heat, she opined, which kept the birds under cover.
In silence he jogged beside her, letting her prate, until at last she too fell silent. Then, after a spell, with a furtive sidelong glance from under her long lashes, she asked him a question in a small voice.
“You are angry with me, Bellarion?”
He was startled, but recovered instantly. “That were a presumption, madonna.”
“In you it might be a condescension. You are so aloof these days. You have avoided me as persistently as I have sought you.”
“Could I suppose you sought me?”
“You might have seen.”
“If I had not deemed it wiser not to look.”
She sighed a little. “You make it plain that it is not in you to forgive.”
“That does not describe me. I bear no malice to any living man or woman.”
“But what perfection! I wonder you could bear to stray from Heaven!” It was no more than an impulsive display of her claws. Instantly she withdrew them. “No, no. Dear God, I do not mean to mock at you. But you’re so cold, so placid! That is how you come to be the great soldier men are calling you. But it will not make men love you, Bellarion.”
Bellarion smiled. “I don’t remember to have sought men’s love.”
“Nor women’s, eh?”
“The fathers taught me to avoid it.”
“The fathers! The fathers!” Her mockery was afoot again. “In God’s name, why ever did you leave the fathers?”
“It was what I was asking myself when I came upon you.”
“And you found no answer when you saw me?”
“None, madonna.”
Her face whitened a little, and her breath came shorter.
“You’re blunt!” she said, and uttered a little laugh that was hard and unpleasant.
He explained himself. “You are my Lord Facino’s wife.”
“Ah!” Her expression changed again. “I knew we should have that. But if I were not? If I were not?” She faced him boldly, in a sudden eagerness that he deemed piteous.
The solemnity of his countenance increased. He looked straight before him. “In all this idle world there is naught so idle as to consider what we might be if it were different.”
She had no answer for a while, and they rode a little way side by side in silence, her attendants following out of earshot.
“You’ll forgive, I think, when I explain,” said she at last.
“Explain?” he asked her, mystified.
“That night in Milan … the last time we spoke together. You thought I used you cruelly.”
“No more cruelly than I deserve to be used in a world where it is expected of a man that he shall be more sensible to beauty than to honour.”
“I knew it was honour made you harsh,” she said, and reached forth a hand to touch his own where it lay upon the pommel. “I understood. I understand you better than you think, Bellarion. Could I have been angry with you then?”
“You seemed angry.”
“Seemed. That is the word. It was necessary to seem. You did not know that Facino was behind the arras that masked the little door.”
“I hoped that you did not.”
It was like a blow between the eyes. She snatched away her hand. Brows met over staring, glaring eyes and her nether lip was caught in sharp white teeth.
“You knew!” she gasped at last, and her voice held all the emotions.
“The arras quivered, and there was no air. That drew my eyes, and I saw the point of my lord’s shoe protruding from the curtain’s hem.”
Her face held more wickedness in that moment than he would have thought possible to find wed with so much perfection.
“When … When did you see? Was it before you spoke to me as you did?”
“Your thoughts do me poor credit. If I had seen in time should I have been quite so plain and uncompromising in my words? I did not see until after I had spoken.”
The explanation nothing mollified her. “Almost I hoped you’d say that the words you used, you used because you know of Facino’s presence.”
After that, he thought, no tortuous vagaries of the human mind should ever again astonish him.
“You hoped I would confess myself a bloodless coward who uses a woman as a buckler against a husband’s righteous wrath!”
As she made no answer, he continued: “Each of us has been defrauded in his hopes. Mine were that you did not suspect Facino’s presence, and that you spoke from a heart at last aroused to loyalty.”
It took her a moment fully to understand him. Then her
