He has insisted, however, that the boy be accompanied by his tutor Corsario, a scoundrel who has schooled him in naught but lewdness, and his gentleman Fenestrella, who, though young, is an even greater preceptor in those same Stygian arts. Since it is proper that a prince on his travels should be attended by tutor and companion, there was no good objection that I could make to this. But I beg you, my dear lord, to regard these two as the agents of the Marquis Theodore, to watch them closely, and to deal with them drastically should you discover or suspect even that they practise anything against the young Marquis. It would be a good service to the boy, and acceptable, no doubt, in the sight of God, if you were to wring the necks of these two scoundrels out of hand. But difficulties with the Regent of Montferrat would follow.
As for the Prince himself, your lordship will find him soft in body, and empty in mind, or at least empty of all but viciousness. If despite your many occupations and preoccupations your lordship could trouble yourself to mend the lad’s ways, or to entrust him to those who will undertake the mending of them and at the same time watch over him vigilantly, you would perform a deed for which God could not fail to reward your lordship.
I need not remind you, my dear lord, that the safety of a hostage is a very sacred matter, nor should I presume so to remind you but for my reasons for believing, as your lordship already knows, that this young Prince may be beset by perils from the very quarters which ordinarily should be farthest from suspicion. In addition to these twain, the Marquis is attended by a physician and two body-servants. Of these I know nothing, wherefore they should be observed as closely as the others.
The responsibility under which you lie towards the State of Montferrat will be your justification for placing attendants of your own choosing to act jointly with these. The physician should be permitted to give the boy no physic of which he does not previously partake. In this way, and if you do not warn him of it beforehand, you may speedily and effectively be rid of him.
I am grieved that you should be plagued with this matter at such a season. But I hope that you will not count the price too dear for the alliance of Montferrat, which puts into the field at once close upon six thousand well-equipped men, between horse and foot. You will now be in sufficient strength to deal at your pleasure with that base Duke and his Guelphic Riminese brigands.
Send me your commands by Wenzel, who is to rejoin me at Lucerne. I shall set out in the morning as soon as the Marquis Gian Giacomo has left Casale for Alessandria. Your lordship shall have news of me soon again.
Humbly I kiss the hands of my lady your Countess, and for you, my dear lord, that God may bless and prosper you is the fervent prayer of this your son and servant
Book III
I
The Lord Bellarion
On a day of September of the year of Our Lord 1409, a dust-laden horseman clattered into the courtyard of a palace near the Bridge of the Trinity in Florence, and announced himself a courier with letters for the noble Lord Bellarion.
He was consigned by a man-at-arms to an usher, by the usher to a chamberlain, and by the chamberlain to a slim young secretary. From this you will gather that access to the Lord Bellarion was no longer a rough-and-ready business; and, from this again, that he had travelled far since detaching himself from the Lord Facino Cane a year ago.
At the head of the condotta which he had raised, he had fought in the course of that year a half-score of engagements, now in this service, now in that, and in all but one he had won easy triumphs. Even his single failure—which was at Verruno in the pay of the Estes of Ferrara—was such as to enhance his reputation. Forced by overwhelming numbers to admit defeat, yet by sheer skill he had baffled the great Pandolfo’s attempt to surround him, and had brought off his condotta with such little loss that Pandolfo’s victory was a barren one.
His condotta, now known as the “Company of the White Dog,” from the device he had adopted, had grown to the number of twelve hundred men, with a heavy preponderance of infantry, his handling of which was giving the other great captains of Italy food for thought. In fame he was the rival of Piccinino, almost the rival of Sforza himself, under whose banner he had served in the war against his old opponent Buonterzo. And Fra Serafino da Imola tells us unequivocally in his chronicle that the ambush in which Buonterzo ended his turbulent life in March of that year was of Bellarion’s planning. Since then he had continued in the service of the Florentine Republic at a monthly stipend which had gradually been raised with the growth of his condotta to twenty thousand gold florins.
Like all famous men, he was not without detractors. He was charged with a cold ruthlessness, which brought, it was claimed, an added horror into warfare, shocking adversaries, as it had shocked Buonterzo on the Trebbia, into ordering that no quarter should be given. So opposed, indeed, was this ruthlessness to the accepted canons of Italian warfare, that it was said Bellarion could enlist only Swiss mercenaries who notoriously were not queasy in these matters. The probable truth, however, is that he employed only Swiss because they were the best
