Books: Love at Arms

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The roar from the man's companions told Lanciotto what to expect. In an
instant they were upon him, clamouring for his blood. He sought to draw
his master's sword, which together with the Count's other armour was
slung across his saddle-bow; but before he could extricate it, he was
seized by a dozen hands, and cropped, fighting, from the saddle. On the
ground they overpowered him, and a mailed hand was set upon his mouth,
crushing back into his throat the cry for help he would have raised.

On the west side of the courtyard a fountain issuing from the wall had
once poured its water through a lion's head into a vast tank of moss-
grown granite. But it had been disused for some time, and the pipe in
the lion's mouth was dry. The tank, however, was more than half full of
water, which, during the late untenanting of the castle, had turned foul
and stagnant. To drown Lanciotto in this was the amiable suggestion that
emanated from Fortemani himself--a suggestion uproariously received by
his knaves, who set themselves to act upon it. They roughly dragged the
bleeding and frantically struggling Lanciotto across the yard and gained
the border of the tank, intending fully to sink him into it and hold him
under, to drown there like a rat.

But in that instant a something burst upon him like a bolt from out of
Heaven. In one or two, and presently in more, the cruel laughter turned
to sudden howls of pain as a lash of bullock-hide caught them about head
and face and shoulders.

"Back there, you beasts, you animals, back!" roared a voice of thunder,
and back they went unquestioning before that pitiless lash, like the pack
of craven hounds they were.

It was Francesco, who, single-handed, and armed with no more than a whip,
was scattering them from about his maltreated servant, as the hawk
scatters a flight of noisy sparrows. And now between him and Lanciotto
there stood no more than the broad bulk of Ercole Fortemani, his back to
the Count; for, as yet, he had not realised the interruption.

Francesco dropped his whip, and setting one hand at the captain's girdle,
and the other at his dirty neck, he hoisted him up with a strength
incredible, and hurled him from his path and into the slimy water of the
tank.

There was a mighty roar drowned in a mightier splash as Fortemani,
spread-eagle, struck the surface and sank from sight, whilst with the
flying spray there came a fetid odour to tell of the unsavouriness of
that unexpected bath.

Without pausing to see the completion of his work, Francesco stooped over
his prostrate servant.

"Have the beasts hurt you, Lanciotto?" he questioned. But before the
fellow could reply, one of those hinds had sprung upon the stooping
Count, and struck him with a dagger between the shoulder-blades.

A woman's alarmed cry rang out, for Valentina was watching the affray
from the steps of the hall, with Gonzaga at her elbow.

But Francesco's quilted brigandine had stood the test of steel, and the
point of that assassin's dagger glanced harmlessly aside, doing no worse
hurt than a rent in the silk surface of the garment. A second later the
fellow found himself caught as in a bond of steel. The dagger was
wrenched from his grasp, and the point of it laid against his breast even
as the Count forced him down upon his knees.

In a flash was the thing done, yet to the wretched man who saw himself
upon the threshold of Eternity, and who--like a true son of the Church--
had a wholesome fear of hell, it seemed an hour whilst, with livid cheeks
and eyes starting from his head, he waited for that poniard to sink into
his heart, as it was aimed. But not in his heart did the blow fall.
With a sudden snort of angry amusement, the Count pitched the dagger from
him and brought down his clenched fist with a crushing force into the
ruffian's face. The fellow sank unconscious beneath that mighty blow,
and Francesco, regaining the whip that lay almost at his feet, rose up to
confront what others there might be.

From the tank, standing breast-deep in that stinking water, his head and
face grotesquely masked in a vile green slime of putrid vegetation,
Ercole Fortemani bellowed with horrid blasphemy that he would have his
aggressor's blood, but stirred never a foot to take it. Not that he was
by nature wholly a coward; but inspired by a wholesome fear of the man
who could perform such a miracle of strength, he remained out of
Francesco's reach, well in the middle of that square basin, and lustily
roared orders to his men to tear the fellow to pieces. But his men had
seen enough of the Count's methods, and made no advance upon that
stalwart, dauntless figure that stood waiting for them with a whip which
several had already tasted. Huddled together, more like a flock of
frightened sheep than a body of men of war, they stood near the entrance
tower, the mock of Peppe, who from the stone-gallery above--much to the
amusement of Valentina's ladies and two pert pages that were with him--
applauded in high-flown terms their wondrous valour.

They stirred at last, but it was at Valentina's bidding. She had been
conferring with Gonzaga, who--giving it for his reason that she, herself,
might need protection--had remained beside her, well out of the fray.
She had been urging him to do something, and at last he had obeyed her,
and moved down the short flight of steps into the court; but so
reluctantly and slowly, that with an exclamation of impatience, she
suddenly brushed past him, herself to do the task she had begged of him.
Past Francesco she went, with a word of such commendation of his valour
and a look of such deep admiration, that the blood sprang, responsive, to
his cheek. She paused with a solicitous inquiry for the now risen but
sorely bruised Lanciotto. She flashed an angry look and an angry command
of silence at the great Ercole, still bellowing from his tank, and then,
within ten paces of his followers, she halted, and with wrathful mien,
and hand outstretched towards their captain, she bade them arrest him.

That sudden, unexpected order struck dumb the vociferous Fortemani. He
ceased, and gaped at his men, who eyed one another now in doubt; but the
doubt was quickly dispelled by the lady's own words:

"You will make him prisoner, and conduct him to the guardroom, or I will
have you and him swept out of my castle," she informed them, as
confidently as though she had a hundred men-at-arms to do her bidding on
them.

A pace or so behind her stood the lily-cheeked Gonzaga, gnawing his lip,
timid and conjecturing. Behind him again loomed the stalwart height of
Francesco del Falco with, at his side, Lanciotto, of mien almost as
resolute as his own.

That was the full force with which the lady spoke of sweeping them--as if
they had been so much foulness--from Roccaleone, unless they did her
bidding. They were still hesitating, when the Count advanced to
Valentina's side.

"You have heard the choice our lady gives you," he said sternly. "Let us
know whether you will obey or disobey. This choice that is yours now,
may not be yours again. But if you elect to disobey Madonna, the gate is
behind you, the bridge still down. Get you gone!"

Furtively, from under lowering brows, Gonzaga darted a look of impotent
malice at the Count. Whatever issue had the affair, this man must not
remain in Roccaleone. He was too strong, too dominant, and he would
render himself master of the place by no other title than that strength
of his and that manner of command which Gonzaga accounted a coarse,
swashbuckling bully's gift, but would have given much to be possessed of.
Of how strong and dominant indeed he was never had Francesco offered a
more signal proof. Those men, bruised and maltreated by him, would
beyond doubt have massed together and made short work of one less
dauntless but when a mighty courage such as his goes hand-in-hand with
the habit of command, such hinds as they can never long withstand it.
They grumbled something among themselves, and one of them at last made
answer:

"Noble sir, it is our captain that we are bidden to arrest."

"True; but your captain, like yourselves, is in this lady's pay; and she,
your true, your paramount commander, bids you arrest him." And now,
whilst yet they hesitated, his quick wits flung them the bait that must
prove most attractive. "He has shown himself to-day unfitted for the
command entrusted him and it may become a question, when he has been
judged, of choosing one of you to fill the place he may leave empty."

Hinds were they in very truth; the scum of the bravi that haunted the
meanest borgo of Urbino. Their hesitation vanished, and such slight
loyalty as they felt towards Ercole was overruled by the prospect of his
position and his pay, should his disgrace become accomplished.

They called upon him to come forth from his refuge, where he still stood,
dumb and stricken at this sudden turn events had taken. He sullenly
refused to obey the call to yield, until Francesco--who now assumed
command with a readiness that galled Gonzaga more and more--bade one of
them go fetch an arquebuse and shoot the dog. At that he cried out for
mercy, and came wading to the edge of the tank swearing that if the
immersion had not drowned him, it were a miracle but he was poisoned.

Thus closed an incident that had worn a mighty ugly look, and it served
to open Valentina's eyes to the true quality of the men Gonzaga had hired
her. Maybe that it opened his own for that amiable lute-thrummer was
green of experience in these matters. She bade Gonzaga care for
Francesco, and called one of the grinning pages from the gallery to be
his esquire. A room was placed at his disposal for the little time that
he might spend at Roccaleone, whilst she debated what her course should
be.

A bell tolled in the far southern wing of the castle, beyond the second
courtyard, and summoned her to chapel, for there Fra Domenico said Mass
each morning. And so she took her leave of Francesco, saying she would
pray Heaven to direct her to a wise choice, whether to fly from
Roccaleone, or whether to remain and ward off the onslaught of Gian
Maria.

Francesco, attended by Gonzaga and the page, repaired to a handsome room
under the Lion's Tower, which rose upon the south-eastern angle of the
fortress. His windows overlooked the second, or inner, courtyard, across
which Valentina and her ladies were now speeding on their way to Mass.

Gonzaga made shift to stifle the resentment that he felt against this
man, in whom he saw an interloper, and strove to treat him with the
courtesy that was his due. He would even have gone the length of
discussing with him the situation--prompted by a certain mistrust, and
cunningly eager to probe the real motive that had brought this stranger
to interest himself in the affairs of Valentina. But Francesco, wearily,
yet with an unimpeachable politeness, staved him off, and requested that
Lanciotto might be sent to attend him. Seeing the futility of his
endeavours, Gonzaga withdrew in increased resentment, but with a
heightened sweetness of smile and profoundness of courtesies.

He went below to issue orders for the raising of the bridge, and finding
the men singularly meek and tractable after the sharp lesson Francesco
had read them, he vented upon them some of the vast ill-humour that
possessed him. Next he passed on to his own apartments, and there he sat
himself by a window overlooking the castle gardens, with his unpleasant
thoughts for only company.

But presently his mood lightened and he took courage, for he could be
very brave when peril was remote. It was best, he reflected, that
Valentina should leave Roccaleone. Such was the course he would advise
and urge. Naturally, he would go with her, and so he might advance his
suit as well elsewhere as in that castle. On the other hand, if she
remained, why, so would he, and, after all, what if Gian Maria came? As
Francesco had said, the siege could not be protracted, thanks to the
tangled affairs of Babbiano. Soon Gian Maria would be forced to turn him
homeward, to defend his Duchy. If, then, for a little while they could
hold him in check, all would yet be well. Surely he had been over-quick
to despond.

He rose and stretched himself with indolent relish, then pushing wide his
casement, he leaned out to breathe the morning air. A soft laugh escaped
him. He had been a fool indeed to plague himself with fears when he had
first heard of Gian Maria's coming. Properly viewed, it became a service
Gian Maria did him--whether they remained, or whether they went. Love
has no stronger promoter than a danger shared, and a week of such
disturbances as Gian Maria was likely to occasion them should do more to
advance his suit than he might hope to achieve in a whole month of
peaceful wooing. Then the memory of Francesco set a wrinkle 'twixt his
brows, and he bethought him how taken Valentina had been with the fellow
when first she had beheld him at Acquasparta, and of how, as she rode
that day, she had seen naught but the dark eyes of this Knight Francesco.

"Knight Francesco of what or where?" he muttered to himself. "Bah! A
nameless, homeless adventurer; a swashbuckling bully, reeking of blood
and leather, and fit to drive such a pack as Fortemani's. But with a
lady--what shalt such an oaf attain, how shall he prevail?" He laughed
the incipient jealousy to scorn, and his brow grew clear, for now he was
in an optimistic mood--perhaps a reaction from his recent tremors. "Yet,
by the Host!" he pursued, bethinking him of the amazing boldness
Francesco had shown in the courtyard, "he has the strength of Hercules,
and a way with him that makes him feared and obeyed. Pish!" he laughed
again, as, turning, he unhooked his lute from where it hung upon the
wall. "The by-blow of some condottiero, who blends with his father's
bullying arrogance the peasant soul of his careless mother. And I fear
that such a one as that shall touch the heart of my peerless Valentina?
Why, it is a thought that does her but poor honour."

And dismissing Francesco from his mind, he sought the strings with his
fingers, and thrummed an accompaniment as he returned to the window, his
voice, wondrous sweet and tender, breaking into a gentle love-song.

CHAPTER XV

THE MERCY OF FRANCESCO

Monna Valentina and her ladies dined at noon in a small chamber opening
from the great hall, and thither were bidden Francesco and Gonzaga. The
company was waited upon by the two pages, whilst Fra Domenico, with a
snow-white apron girt about his portentous waist, brought up the steaming
viands from the kitchen where he had prepared them; for, like a true
conventual, he was something of a master in the confection--and a very
glutton in the consumption--of delectable comestibles. The kitchen was
to him as the shrine of some minor cult, and if his breviary and beads
commanded from him the half of the ecstatic fervour of his devotions to
pot and pan, to cauldron and to spit, then was canonisation indeed
assured him.

He set before them that day a dinner than which a better no prince
commanded, unless it were the Pope. There were ortolans, shot in the
valley, done with truffles, that made the epicurean Gonzaga roll his
eyes, translated through the medium of his palate into a very paradise of
sensual delight. There was a hare, trapped on the hillside, and stewed
in Malmsey, of a flavour so delicate that Gonzaga was regretting him his
heavy indulgence in the ortolans; there was trout, fresh caught in the
stream below, and a wondrous pasty that turned liquid in the mouth. To
wash down these good things there was stout red wine of Puglia and more
delicate Malvasia, for in his provisioning of the fortress Gonzaga had
contrived that, at least, they should not go thirsty.

"For a garrison awaiting siege you fare mighty well at Roccaleone," was
Francesco's comment on that excellent repast.

It was the fool who answered him. He sat out of sight upon the floor,
hunched against the chair of one of Valentina's ladies, who now and again
would toss him down a morsel from her plate, much as she might have
treated a favourite hound.

"You have the friar to thank for it," said he, in a muffled voice, for
his mouth was crammed with pasty. "Let me be damned when I die, if I
make him not my confessor. The man who can so minister to bodies should
deal amazingly well with souls. Fra Domenico, you shall confess me after
sunset."

"You need me not," answered the monk, in disdainful wrath. "There is a
beatitude for such as you--'Blessed are the poor in spirit.'"

"And is there no curse for such as you?" flashed back the fool. "Does it
say nowhere--'Damned are the gross of flesh, the fat and rotund gluttons
who fashion themselves a god of their own bellies'?"

With his sandalled foot the friar caught the fool a surreptitious kick.

"Be still, you adder, you bag of venom."

Fearing worse, the fool gathered himself up.

"Beware!" he cried shrilly. "Bethink you, friar, that anger is a
cardinal sin. Beware, I say!"

Fra Domenico checked his upraised hand, and fell to muttering scraps of
Latin, his lids veiling his suddenly downcast eyes. Thus Peppe gained
the door.

"Say, friar; in my ear, now--Was that a hare you stewed, or an outworn
sandal?"

"Now, God forgive me," roared the monk, springing towards him.

"For your cooking? Aye, pray--on your knees." He dodged a blow, ducked,
and doubled back into the room. "A cook, you? Pish! you tun of convent
lard! Your ortolans were burnt, your trout swam in grease, your
pasty----"

What the pasty may have been the company was not to learn, for Fra
Domenico, crimson of face, had swooped down upon the fool, and would have
caught him but that he dived under the table by Valentina's skirts, and
craved her protection from this gross maniac that held himself a cook.

"Now, hold your wrath, father," she said, laughing with the rest. "He
does but plague you. Bear with him for the sake of that beautitude you
cited, which has fired him to reprisals."

Mollified, but still grumbling threats of a beating to be bestowed on
Peppe when the opportunity should better serve him, the friar turned to
his domestic duties. They rose soon after, and at Gonzaga's suggestion
Valentina paused in the great hall to issue orders that Fortemani be
brought before her for judgment. In a score of ways, since their coming
to Roccaleone, had Ercole been wanting in that respect to which Gonzaga
held himself entitled, and this opportunity he seized with eagerness to
vent his vindictive rancour.

Valentina begged of Francesco that he, too, would stay, and help them
with his wide experience, a phrase that sent an unpleasant pang through
the heart of Romeo Gonzaga. It was perhaps as much to assert himself as
to gratify his rancour against Fortemani, that, having despatched a
soldier to fetch the prisoner, he turned to suggest curtly that Ercole
should be hanged at once.

"What boots a trial?" he demanded. "We were all witnesses of his
insubordination, and for that there can be but one punishment. Let the
animal hang!"

"But the trial is of your own suggestion," she protested.

"Nay, Madonna. I but suggested judgment. It is since you have begged
Messer Francesco, here, to assist us that I opine you mean to give the
knave a trial."

"Would you credit this dear Gonzaga with so much bloodthirstiness?" she
asked Francesco. "Do you, sir, share his opinion that the captain should
hang unheard? I fear me you do, for, from what I have seen of them, your
ways do not incline to gentleness."

Gonzaga smiled, gathering from that sentence how truly she apprised the
coarse nature of this stranger. Francesco's answer surprised them.

"Nay, I hold Messer Gonzaga's an ill counsel. Show mercy to Fortemani
now, where he expects none, and you will have made a faithful servant of
him. I know his kind."

"Ser Francesco speaks without the knowledge that we have, Madonna," was
Gonzaga's rude comment. "An example must be made if we would have
respect and orderliness from these men."

"Then make it an example of mercy," suggested Francesco sweetly.

"Well, we shall see," was Valentina's answer. "I like your counsel,
Messer Francesco, and yet I see a certain wisdom in Gonzaga's words.
Though in such a case as this I would sooner consort with folly than have
a man's death upon my conscience. But here he comes, and, at least,
we'll give him trial. Maybe he is penitent by now."

Gonzaga sneered, and took his place on the right of Valentina's chair,
Francesco standing on her left; and in this fashion they disposed
themselves to hold judgment upon the captain of her forces.

He was brought in between two mailed men-at-arms, his hands pinioned
behind him, his tread heavy as that of a man in fear, his eyes directed
sullenly upon the waiting trio, but sullenest of all upon Francesco, who
had so signally encompassed his discomfiture. Valentina spread a hand to
Gonzaga, and from Gonzaga waved it slightly in the direction of the
Bully. Responsive to that gesture, Gonzaga faced the pinioned captain
truculently.

"You know your offence, knave," he bawled at him. "Have you aught to
urge that may deter us from hanging you?"

Fortemani raised his brows a moment in surprise at this ferocity from one
whom he had always deemed a very woman. Then he uttered a laugh of such
contempt that the colour sprang to Gonzaga's cheek.

"Take him out----" he began furiously, when Valentina interposed, setting
a hand upon his arm.

"Nay, nay, Gonzaga, your methods are all wrong. Tell him---- Nay, I
will question him myself. Messer Fortemani, you have been guilty of an
act of gross abuse. You and your men were hired for me by Messer
Gonzaga, and to you was given the honourable office of captain over them,
that you might lead them in this service of mine in the ways of duty,
submission, and loyalty. Instead of that, you were the instigator of
that outrage this morning, when murder was almost done upon an
inoffensive man who was my guest. What have you to say?"

"That I was not the instigator," he answered sullenly.

"It is all one," she returned, "for at least it was done with your
sanction, and you took a share in that cruel sport, instead of
restraining it, as was clearly your duty. It is upon you, the captain,
that the responsibility rests."

"Lady," he explained, "they are wild souls, but very true."

"True to their wildness, maybe," she answered him disdainfully. Then she
proceeded: "You will remember that twice before has Messer Gonzaga had
occasion to admonish you. These last two nights your men have behaved
riotously within my walls. There has been hard drinking, there has been
dicing, and such brawling once or twice as led me to think there would be
throats cut among your ranks. You were warned by Messer Gonzaga to hold
your followers in better leash, and yet to-day, without so much as
drunkenness to excuse them, we have this vile affair, with yourself for a
ringleader in it."

There followed a pause, during which Ercole stood with bent head like one
who thinks, and Francesco turned his wonder-laden glance upon this slight
girl with the gentle brown eyes which had been so tender and pitiful.
Marvelling at the greatness of her spirit, he grew--all unconsciously--
the more enslaved.

Gonzaga, all unconcerned in this, eyed Fortemani in expectation of his
answer.

"Madonna," said the bully at last, "what can you look for from such a
troop as this? Messer Gonzaga cannot have expected me to enlist acolytes
for a business that he told me bordered upon outlawry. Touching their
drunkenness and the trifle of rioting, what soldiers have not these
faults? When they have them not, neither have they merit. The man that
is tame in times of peace is a skulking woman in times of war. For the
rest, whence came the wine they drank? It was of Messer Gonzaga's
providing."

"You lie, hound!" blazed Gonzaga. "I provided wine for Madonna's table,
not for the men."

"Yet some found its way to them; which is well. For water on the stomach
makes a man poor-spirited. Where is the sin of a little indulgence,
Madonna?" he went on, turning again to Valentina. "These men of mine
will prove their mettle when it comes to blows. They are dogs perhaps--
but mastiffs every one of them, and would lose a hundred lives in your
service if they had them."

"Aye, if they had them," put in Gonzaga sourly; "but having no more than
one apiece, they'll not care to spare it."

"Nay, there you wrong them," cried Fortemani, with heat. "Give them a
leader strong enough to hold them, to encourage and subject them, and
they will go anywhere at his bidding."

"And there," put in Gonzaga quickly, "you bring us back to the main
issue. Such a leader you have shown us that you are not. You have done
worse. You have been insubordinate when you should not only have been
orderly, but have enforced orderliness in others. And for that, by my
lights, you should be hanged. Waste no more time on him, Madonna," he
concluded, turning to Valentina. "Let the example be made."

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