Books: Love at Arms

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"Those guns are empty?" she gasped. "And you could talk so boldly and
threaten so defiantly!"

Mirth crept now into her face, and thrust back the alarm, a little of
which had peeped from her eyes even as she was extolling Francesco.

"There!" he cried joyously. "You are smiling now, Madonna. Nor have you
cause for aught else. Shall we descend? This early morning work has
given me the hunger of a wolf."

She turned to go with him, and in that moment, Peppe, his owlish face
spread over with alarm, dashed up the steps from the courtyard.

"Madonna!" he gasped, breathless. "Messer Francesco! The men--
Cappoccio---- He is haranguing them. He--is inciting them to
treachery."

So, in gasps, he got out his tale, which swept the mirth again from
Valentina's eyes, and painted very white her cheek. Strong and brave
though she was, she felt her senses swimming at that sudden revulsion
from confidence to fear. Was all indeed ended at the very moment when
hope had reached its high meridian?

"You are faint, Madonna; lean on me."

It was Gonzaga who spoke. But beyond the fact that the words had been
uttered, she realised nothing. She saw an arm advanced, and she took it.
Then she dragged Gonzaga with her to the side overlooking the courtyard,
that with her own eyes she might have evidence of what was toward.

She heard an oath--a vigorous, wicked oath--from Francesco, followed by a
command, sharp and rasping.

"To the armoury yonder, Peppe! Fetch me a two-handed sword--the stoutest
you can find. Ercole, come with me. Gonzaga---- Nay, you had best stay
here. See to Monna Valentina."

He stepped to her side now, and rapidly surveyed the surging scene below,
where Cappoccio was still addressing the men. At sight of Francesco,
they raised a fierce yell, as might a pack of dogs that have sighted
their quarry.

"To the gates!" was the shout. "Down the drawbridge! We accept the
terms of Gian Maria. We will not die like rats."

"By God, but you shall, if I so will it!" snarled Francesco through his
set teeth. Then turning his head in a fever of impatience "Peppe," he
shouted, "will you never bring that sword?"

The fool came up at that moment, staggering under the weight of a great,
double-edged two-hander, equipped with lugs, and measuring a good six
feet from point to pummel. Francesco caught it from him, and bending, he
muttered a swift order in Peppino's ear.

"...In the box that stands upon the table in my chamber," Gonzaga
overheard him say. "Now go, and bring it to me in the yard. Speed you,
Peppino!"

A look of understanding flashed up from the hunchback's eyes, and as he
departed at a run Francesco hoisted the mighty sword to his shoulder as
though its weight were that of a feather. In that instant Valentina's
white hand was laid upon the brassart that steeled his fore-arm.

"What will you do?" she questioned, in a whisper, her eyes dilating with
alarm.

"Stem the treachery of that rabble," he answered shortly. "Stay you
here, Madonna. Fortemani and I will pacify them--or make an end of
them." And so grimly did he say it that Gonzaga believed it to lie
within his power.

"But you are mad!" she cried, and the fear in her eyes increased. "What
can you do against twenty?"

"What God pleases," he answered, and for a second put the ferocity from
his heart that he might smile reassurance.

"But you will be killed," she cried. "Oh! don't go, don't go! Let them
have their way, Messer Francesco. Let Gian Maria invest the castle. I
care not, so that you do not go."

Her voice, and the tale it told of sweet anxiety for his fate overruling
everything else in that moment--even her horror of Gian Maria--quickened
his blood to the pace of ecstasy. He was taken by a wild longing to
catch her in his arms--this lady hitherto so brave and daunted now by the
fear of his peril only. Every fibre of his being urged him to gather her
to his breast, whilst he poured courage and comfort into her ear. He
fainted almost with desire to kiss those tender eyes, upturned to his in
her piteous pleading that he should not endanger his own life. But
suppressing all, he only smiled, though very tenderly.

"Be brave, Madonna, and trust in me a little. Have I failed you yet?
Need you then fear that I shall fail you now?"

At that she seemed to gather courage. The words reawakened her
confidence in his splendid strength.

"We shall laugh over this when we break our fast," he cried. "Come,
Ercole!" And without waiting for more, he leapt down the steps with an
agility surprising in one so heavily armed as he.

They were no more than in time. As they gained the courtyard the men
came sweeping along towards the gates, their voices raucous and
threatening. They were full of assurance. All hell they thought could
not have hindered them, and yet at sight of that tall figure, bright as
an angel, in his panoply of glittering steel, with that great sword
poised on his left shoulder, some of the impetuousness seemed to fall
from them.

Still they advanced, Cappoccio's voice shouting encouragement. Almost
were they within range of that lengthy sword, when of a sudden it flashed
from his shoulder, and swept a half-circle of dazzling light before their
eyes. Round his head it went, and back again before them, handled as
though it had been a whip, and bringing them, silent, to a standstill.
He bore it back to his shoulder, and alert for the first movement, his
blood on fire, and ready to slay a man or two should the example become
necessary, he addressed them.

"You see what awaits you if you persist in this," he said, in a
dangerously quiet voice. "Have you no shame, you herd of cowardly
animals! You are loud-voiced enough where treason to the hand that pays
you is in question; but there, it seems, your valour ends."

He spoke to them now in burning words. He recapitulated the arguments
which yesterday he had made use of to quell the mutinous spirit of
Cappoccio. He assured them that Gian Maria threatened more than he could
accomplish; and so, perhaps, more than he would fulfil if they were so
foolish as to place themselves in his power. Their safety, he pointed
out to them, lay here, behind these walls. The siege could not long
endure. They had a stout ally in Caesar Borgia, and he was marching upon
Babbiano by then, so that Gian Maria must get him home perforce ere long.
Their pay was good, he reminded them, and if the siege were soon raised
they should be well rewarded.

"Gian Maria threatens to hang you when he captures Roccaleone. But even
should he capture it, do you think he would be allowed to carry out so
inhuman a threat? You are mercenaries, after all, in the pay of Monna
Valentina, on whom and her captains the blame must fall. This is Urbino,
not Babbiano, and Gian Maria is not master here. Do you think the noble
and magnanimous Guidobaldo would let you hang? Have you so poor an
opinion of your Duke? Fools! You are as safe from violence as are those
ladies in the gallery up there. For Guidobaldo would no more think of
harming you than of permitting harm to come to them. If any hanging
there is it will be for me, and perhaps for Messer Gonzaga who hired you.
Yet, do I talk of throwing down my arms? What think you holds me here?
Interest--just as interest holds you--and if I think the risk worth
taking, why should not you? Are you so tame and so poor-spirited that a
threat is to vanquish you? Will you become a byword in Italy, and when
men speak of cowardice, will you have them say: 'Craven as Monna
Valentina's garrison'?"

In this strain he talked to them, now smiting hard with his scorn, now
cajoling them with his assurances, and breeding confidence anew in their
shaken spirits. It was a thing that went afterwards to the making of an
epic that was sung from Calabria to Piedmont, how this brave knight, by
his words, by the power of his will and the might of his presence, curbed
and subdued that turbulent score of rebellious hinds.

And from the wall above Valentina watched him, her eyes sparkling with
tears that had not their source in sorrow nor yet in fear, for she knew
that he must prevail. How could it be else with one so dauntless?

Thus thought she now. But in the moment of his going, fear had chilled
her to the heart, and when she first saw him take his stand before them,
she had turned half-distraught, and begged Gonzaga not to linger at her
side, but to go lend what aid he could to that brave knight who stood so
sorely in need of it. And Gonzaga had smiled a smile as pale as January
sunshine, and his soft blue eyes had hardened in their glance. Not
weakness now was it that held him there, well out of the dangerous
turmoil. For he felt that had he possessed the strength of Hercules, and
the courage of Achilles, he would not in that instant have moved a step
to Francesco's aid. And as much he told her.

"Why should I, Madonna?" he had returned coldly. "Why should I raise a
hand to help the man whom you prefer to me? Why should I draw sword in
the cause of this fortress?"

She looked at him with troubled eyes. "What are you saying, my good
Gonzaga?"

"Aye--your good Gonzaga!" he mocked her bitterly. "Your lap-dog, your
lute-thrummer; but not man enough to be your captain; not man enough to
earn a thought that is kinder than any earned by Peppe or your hounds. I
may endanger my neck to serve you, to bring you hither to a place of
safety from Gian Maria's persecution, and be cast aside for one who, it
happens, has a little more knowledge of this coarse trade of arms. Cast
me aside if you will," he pursued, with increasing bitterness, "but
having done so, do not ask me to serve you again. Let Messer Francesco
fight it out----"

"Hush, Gonzaga!" she interrupted. "Let me hear what he is saying."

And her tone told the courtier that his words had been lost upon the
morning air. Engrossed in the scene below she had not so much as
listened to his bitter tirade. For now Francesco was behaving oddly.
The fool was returned from the errand on which he had been despatched,
and Francesco called him to his side. Lowering his sword he received a
paper from Peppe's hand.

Burning with indignation at having gone unheeded, Gonzaga stood gnawing
his lip, whilst Valentina craned forward to catch Francesco's words.

"I have here a proof," he cried, "of what I tell you; proof of how little
Gian Maria is prepared to carry out his threats of cannon. It is that
fellow Cappoccio has seduced you with his talk. And you, like the sheep
you are, let yourselves be driven by his foul tongue. Now listen to the
bribe that Gian Maria offers to one within these walls if he can contrive
a means to deliver Roccaleone into his hands." And to Gonzaga's
paralysing consternation, he heard Francesco read the letter with which
Gian Maria had answered his proposed betrayal of the fortress. He went
white with fear and he leant against the low wall to steady the tell-tale
trembling that had seized him. Then Francesco's voice, scornful and
confident, floated up to his ears. "I ask you, my friends, would his
Highness of Babbiano be disposed to the payment of a thousand gold
florins if by bombardment he thought to break a way into Roccaleone?
This letter was written yesterday. Since then we have made a brave
display of cannon ourselves; and if yesterday he dared not fire, think
you he will to-day? But here, assure yourselves, if there is one amongst
you that can read."

He held out the letter to them. Cappoccio took it, and calling one
Aventano, he held it out in his turn. This Aventano, a youth who had
been partly educated for the Church, but had fallen from that lofty
purpose, now stood forward and took the letter. He scrutinised it, read
it aloud, and pronounced it genuine.

"Whom is it addressed to?" demanded Cappoccio.

"Nay, nay!" cried Francesco. "What need for that?"

"Let be," Cappoccio answered, almost fiercely. "If you would have us
remain in Roccaleone, let be. Aventano, tell me."

"To Messer Romeo Gonzaga," answered the youth, in a voice of wonder.

So evil a light leapt to Cappoccio's eye that Francesco carried his free
hand to the sword which he had lowered. But Cappoccio only looked up at
Gonzaga, and grinned malevolently. It had penetrated his dull wits that
he had been the tool of a judas, who sought to sell the castle for a
thousand florins. Further than that Cappoccio did not see; nor was he
very resentful, and his grin was rather of mockery than of anger. He was
troubled by no lofty notions of honour that should cause him to see in
this deed of Gonzaga's anything more than such a trickster's act as it is
always agreeable to foil. And then, to the others, who knew naught of
what was passing in Cappoccio's mind, he did a mighty strange thing.
From being the one to instigate them to treachery and mutiny, he was the
one now to raise his voice in a stout argument of loyalty. He agreed
with all that Messer Francesco had said, and he, for one, ranged himself
on Messer Francesco's side to defend the gates from any traitors who
sought to open them to Gian Maria Sforza.

His defection from the cause of mutiny was the signal for the utter
abandoning of that cause itself, and another stout ally came opportunely
to weigh in Francesco's favour was the fact that the half-hour of grace
was now elapsed, and Gian Maria's guns continued silent. He drew their
attention to the fact with a laugh, and bade them go in peace, adding the
fresh assurance that those guns would not speak that day, nor the next,
nor indeed ever.

Utterly conquered by Francesco and--perhaps even more--by his unexpected
ally, Cappoccio, they slunk shamefacedly away to the food and drink that
he bade them seek at Fra Domenico's hands.

CHAPTER XX

THE LOVERS

"How came that letter to your hands?" Valentina asked Gonzaga, when
presently they stood together in the courtyard, whither the courtier had
followed her when she descended.

"Wrapped round an arbalest-bolt that fell on the ramparts yesterday
whilst I was walking there alone," returned Gonzaga coolly.

He had by now regained his composure. He saw that stood in deadly peril,
and the very fear that possessed him seemed, by an odd paradox, to lend
him the strength to play his part.

Valentina eyed him with a something of mistrust in her glance. But on
Francesco's clear countenance no shadow of suspicion showed. His eyes
almost smiled as he asked Gonzaga:

"Why did you not bear it to Monna Valentina?"

A flush reddened the courtier's cheeks. He shrugged his shoulders
impatiently, and in a voice that choked with anger he delivered his
reply.

"To you, sir, who seem bred in camps and reared in guard-rooms, the
fulness of this insult offered me by Gian Maria may not be apparent. It
may not be yours to perceive that the very contact of that letter soiled
my hands, that it shamed me unutterably to think that that loutish Duke
should have deemed me a target for such a shaft. It were idle,
therefore, to seek to make you understand how little I could bear to
submit to the further shame of allowing another to see the affront that I
was powerless to avenge. I did, sir, with that letter the only thing
conceivable. I crumpled it in my hand and cast it from me, just as I
sought to cast its contents from my mind. But your watchful spies, Ser
Francesco, bore it to you, and if my shame has been paraded before the
eyes of that rabble soldiery, at least it has served the purpose of
saving Monna Valentina. To do that, I would, if the need arose, immolate
more than the pride that caused me to be silent on the matter of this
communication."

He spoke with such heat of sincerity that he convinced both Francesco and
Valentina, and the lady's eyes took on a softer expression as she
surveyed Gonzaga--this poor Gonzaga whom, her heart told her, she had
sorely wronged in thought. Francesco, ever generous, took his passionate
utterances in excellent part.

"Messer Gonzaga, I understand your scruples. You do me wrong to think
that I should fail in that."

He checked the suggestion he was on the point of renewing that,
nevertheless, Gonzaga would have been better advised to have laid that
letter at once before Monna Valentina. Instead, he dismissed the subject
with a laugh, and proposed that they should break their fast so soon as
he had put off his harness.

He went to do so, whilst Valentina bent her steps towards the dining-
room, attended by Gonzaga, to whom she now sought to make amends for her
suspicions by an almost excessive friendliness of bearing.

But there was one whom Gonzaga's high-sounding words in connection with
that letter had left cold. This was Peppe, that most wise of fools. He
hastened after Francesco, and while the knight was disarming he came to
voice his suspicions. But Francesco drove him out with impatience, and
Peppe went sorrowing and swearing that the wisdom of the fool was truly
better than the folly of the wise.

Throughout that day Gonzaga hardly stirred from Valentina's side. He
talked with her in the morning at great length and upon subjects poetical
or erudite, by which he meant to display his vast mental superiority over
the swashbuckling Francesco. In the evening, when the heat of the day
was spent, and whilst that same Messer Francesco was at some defensive
measures on the walls, Gonzaga played at bowls with Valentina and her
ladies--the latter having now recovered from the panic to which earlier
they had been a prey.

That morning Gonzaga had stood at bay, seeing his plans crumble. That
evening, after the day spent in Valentina's company--and she so sweet and
kind to him--he began to take heart of grace once more, and his volatile
mind whispered to his soul the hope that, after all, things might well be
as he had first intended, if he but played his cards adroitly, and did
not mar his chances by the precipitancy that had once gone near to losing
him. His purpose gathered strength from a message that came that evening
from Gian Maria, who was by then assured that Gonzaga's plan had failed.
He sent word that, being unwilling to provoke the bloodshed threatened by
the reckless madman who called himself Monna Valentina's Provost, he
would delay the bombardment, hoping that in the meantime hunger would
beget in that rebellious garrison a more submissive mood.

Francesco read the message to Madonna's soldiers, and they received it
joyously. Their confidence in him increased a hundredfold by this proof
of the accuracy of his foresight. They were a gay company at supper in
consequence, and gayest of all was Messer Gonzaga, most bravely dressed
in a purple suit of taby silk to honour so portentous an occasion.

Francesco was the first to quit the table, craving Monna Valentina's
leave to be about some duty that took him to the walls. She let him go,
and afterwards sat pensive, nor heeded now Romeo's light chatter, nor yet
the sonnet of Petrarca that presently he sang the company. Her thoughts
were all with him that had left the board. Scarcely a word had she
exchanged with Francesco since that delirious moment when they had looked
into each other's eyes upon the ramparts, and seen the secret that each
was keeping from the other. Why had he not come to her? she asked
herself. And then she bethought her of how Gonzaga had all day long been
glued to her side, and she realised, too, that it was she had shunned
Francesco's company, grown of a sudden strangely shy.

But greater than her shyness was now her desire to be near him, and to
hear his voice; to have him look again upon her as he had looked that
morning, when in terror for him she had sought to dissuade him from
opposing the craven impulse of her men-at-arms. A woman of mature age,
or one riper in experience, would have waited for him to seek her out.
But Valentina, in her sweet naturalness, thought never of subterfuge or
of dalliant wiles. She rose quietly from the table ere Gonzaga's song
was done, and as quietly she slipped from the room.

It was a fine night, the air heavy with the vernal scent of fertile
lands, and the deep cobalt of the heavens a glittering, star-flecked dome
in a lighter space of which floated the half-disk of the growing moon.
Such a moon, she bethought her, as she had looked at with thoughts of
him, the night after their brief meeting at Acquasparta. She had gained
that north rampart on which he had announced that duty took him, and
yonder she saw a man---the only tenant of the wall--leaning upon the
embattled parapet, looking down at the lights of Gian Maria's camp. He
was bareheaded, and by the gold coif that gleamed in his hair she knew
him. Softly she stole up behind him.

"Do we dream here, Messer Francesco?" she asked him, as she reached his
side, and there was laughter running through her words.

He started round at the sound of her voice, then he laughed too, softly
and gladly.

"It is a night for dreams, and I was dreaming indeed. But you have
scattered them."

"You grieve me," she rallied him. "For assuredly they were pleasant,
since, to come here and indulge them, you left--us."

"Aye--they were pleasant," he answered. "And yet, they were fraught with
a certain sadness, but idle as is the stuff of dreams. They were yours
to dispel, for they were of you."

"Of me?" she questioned, her heart-beats quickening and bringing to her
cheeks a flush that she thanked the night for concealing.

"Yes, Madonna--of you and our first meeting in the woods at Acquasparta.
Do you recall it?"

"I do, I do," she murmured fondly.

"And do you recall how I then swore myself your knight and ever your
champion? Little did we dream how the honour that I sighed for was to be
mine."

She made him no answer, her mind harking back to that first meeting on
which so often and so fondly she had pondered.

"I was thinking, too," he said presently, "of that man Gian Maria in the
plain yonder, and of this shameful siege."

"You--you have no misgivings?" she faltered, for his words had
disappointed her a little.

"Misgivings?"

"For being here with me. For being implicated in what they call my
rebellion?"

He laughed softly, his eyes upon the silver gleam of waters below.

"My misgivings are all for the time when this siege shall be ended; when
you and I shall have gone each our separate way," he answered boldly. He
turned to face her now, and his voice rang a little tense. "But for
being here to guide this fine resistance and lend you the little aid I
can---- No, no, I have no misgiving for that. It is the dearest frolic
ever my soldiering led me into. I came to Roccaleone with a message of
warning; but underneath, deep down in my heart, I bore the hope that mine
should be more than a messenger's part; that mine it might be to remain
by you and do such work as I am doing."

"Without you they would have forced me by now to surrender."

"Perhaps they would. But while I am here I do not think they will. I
burn for news of Babbiano. If I could but tell what is happening there I
might cheer you with the assurance that this siege can last but a few
days longer. Gian Maria must get him home or submit to the loss of his
throne. And if he loses that your uncle would no longer support so
strenuously his suit with you. To you, Madonna, this must be a cheering
thought. To me--alas! Why should I hope for it?"

He was looking away now into the night, but his voice quivered with the
emotion that was in him. She was silent, and emboldened perhaps by that
silence of hers, encouraged by the memory of what he had seen that
morning reflected in her eyes:

"Madonna," he cried, "I would it might be mine to cut a road for you
through that besieging camp, and bear you away to some blessed place
where there are neither courts nor princes. But since this may not be,
Madonna mia, I would that this siege might last for ever."

And then--was it the night breeze faintly stirring through his hair that
mocked him with the whisper, "So indeed would I?" He turned to her, his
hand, brown and nervous, fell upon hers, ivory-white, where it rested on
the stone.

"Valentina!" he cried, his voice no louder than a whisper, his eyes
ardently seeking her averted ones. And then, as suddenly as it had leapt
up, was the fire in his glance extinguished. He withdrew his hand from
hers, he sighed, and shifted his gaze to the camp once more. "Forgive,
forget, Madonna," he murmured bitterly, "that which in my madness I have
presumed."

Silent she stood for a long moment; then she edged nearer to him, and her
voice murmured back: "What if I account it no presumption?"

With a gasp he swung round to face her, and they stood very close, glance
holding glance, and hers the less timid of the two. They thus remained
for a little space. Then shaking his head and speaking with an infinite
sadness:

"It were better that you did, Madonna," he made answer.

"Better? But why?"

"Because I am no duke, Madonna."

"And what of that?" she cried, to add with scorn: "Out yonder sits a
duke. Oh, sir, how shall I account presumptuous in you the very words
that I would hear? What does your rank signify to me? I know you for
the truest knight, the noblest gentleman, and the most valiant friend
that ever came to the aid of distressed maiden. Do you forget the very
principles that have led me to make this resistance? That I am a woman,
and ask of life no more than is a woman's due--and no less."

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