“Where the issues are so grave, my Lord Facino will require to be sure that all the terms of the treaty are approved by your Council, so that there may be no going back.”
“In that case, sir,” he was answered a little frostily, “you had better attend in person before the Council tomorrow, and satisfy yourself.”
That was precisely what Bellarion desired, and having won the point, whose importance the shrewd Theodore was far from suspecting, Bellarion had no more to say on the subject that evening.
In the morning he attended before the Council of Five, the Reggimento, as it was called, of Montferrat. At the head of the council-table the Marquis Theodore was enthroned in a chair of State flanked by a secretary on either hand. Below these sat the councillors, three on one side and two on the other, all of them important nobles of Montferrat, and one of them, a white-bearded man of venerable aspect, the head of that great house of Carreto, which once had disputed with the Paleologi the sovereignty of the State.
When the purpose for which Bellarion came had been formally restated, there was a brief announcement of the resources at Montferrat’s disposal and a demand that the occupation of Vercelli should be the first step of the alliance.
When at last Bellarion was categorically informed that Montferrat was prepared to throw her resources into an alliance which they thanked the Count of Biandrate for proposing, Bellarion rose to felicitate the members of the Council upon their decision in terms calculated to fan their smouldering ardour into a roaring blaze. The restoration to Montferrat of Vercelli, the subsequent conquest of Genoa were not, indeed, to be the end in view, but merely a beginning. The two provinces of High and Low Montferrat into which the State at present was divided should be united by the conquest of the territory now lying between. Thus fortified, there would be nothing to prevent Montferrat from pushing her frontiers northward to the Alps and southward to the sea. Then, indeed, might she at last resuscitate and realise her old ambitions. Established not merely as the equal but as the superior of neighbouring Savoy, with Milan crumbling into ruins on her eastward frontiers, it was for Montferrat to assume the lordship of Northern Italy.
It went to their heads, and when Bellarion resumed his seat it was they who now pressed the alliance. No longer asking him what means Facino brought to it, they boasted and exaggerated the importance of those which they could offer.
Thus the treaty came there and then to be drawn up, article by article. The secretaries’ pens spluttered and scratched over their parchments, and throughout it seemed to the Regent and his gleeful councillors that they were getting the better of the bargain.
But at the end, when all was done, and the documents complete, Messer Bellarion had a word to say which was as cold water on the white heat to which he had wrought their enthusiasm.
“There remains only the question of a guarantee from you to my Lord Facino.”
“Guarantee!” They echoed the word in a tone which clearly said they did not relish it. The Regent went further.
“Guarantee of what, sir?”
“That Montferrat will fulfil her part of the undertaking.”
“My God, sir! Do you imply a doubt of our honour?”
“It is no question of honour, highness; but of a bargain whose terms are clearly to be set forth to avoid subsequent disputes on either side. Does the word ‘guarantee’ offend your highness? Surely not. For it was your highness who first used that word between us.”
The councillors looked at the Regent. The Regent remembered, and was uncomfortable.
“Yesterday your highness asked me what guarantees my Lord Facino would give that he would fulfil his part. I did not cry out in wounded honour, but at once conceded that the immediate occupation of Vercelli should be your guarantee. Why, then, sirs, should it give rise to heat in you if on my lord’s behalf I ask a return in kind, something tangible to back the assurance that when Vercelli is occupied you will march with my Lord Facino against Milan as he may deem best?”
“But unless we do that,” said the Regent impatiently, “there can follow no conquest of Genoa for us.”
“If there did not, you would still be in possession of Vercelli and that is a great deal. Counsels of supineness might desire you to rest content with that.”
“Should we heed them, do you suppose?” said the Marquis of Carreto.
“I do not. Nor will my lord. But suppositions cannot be enough for him.”
This interruption where all had flowed so smoothly was clearly fretting them. Another interposed: “Would it not be well, highness, to hear what guarantees my Lord of Biandrate will require?”
And Theodore assenting, Bellarion spoke to anxious ears.
“It is in the nature of a hostage, and one that will cover various eventualities. If, for instance, the Marquis Gian Giacomo should come to the throne before these enterprises are concluded, it is conceivable that he might decline to be bound by your undertakings. If there were no other reasons—and they will be plain enough to your excellencies—that one alone would justify my lord in asking, as he does, that the person of the Marquis of Montferrat be delivered into his care as a hostage for the fulfilment of this treaty.”
Theodore, betrayed into a violent start, sat now pale and thoughtful, commanding his countenance by an effort. Another in his place would have raged and stormed and said upon impulse things from which he might not afterwards retreat. But Theodore Paleologo was no creature of impulse. He weighed and weighed again this thing, and allowed his councillors to babble, listening the while.
They were hostile, of course, to the proposal. It had no precedent, they said. Whereupon Bellarion smothered them in precedents culled from the history of the last thousand years. Retreating from that assertion, then, they became defiant, and assured him that precedent or
