Books: Love at Arms

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"I can bethink me of little else that signifies. I met a lady there with
whom I had some talk, a friar, a fool, a popinjay, and some soldiers.
But,"--he shifted abruptly, his tone growing haughty--"whatever I did, I
did as best seemed to me, and I have yet to learn that the Count of
Aquila must give account of what he does and where he does it. You have
not told me yet, sir, by what right, or fancied right, you hold me
prisoner."

"Have I not, indeed? See you no link between your offence and your
presence near Sant' Angelo on that day?"

"If I am to apprehend that you have had me brought here with this
indignity to set me riddles for your amusement, I am enlightened and yet
amazed. I am no court buffoon."

"Words, words," snapped the Duke. "Do not think to beguile me with
them." With a short laugh he turned from Francesco to those upon the
dais. "You will be marvelling, sirs, and you, my lady mother, upon what
grounds I have had this traitor seized. You shall learn. On the night
of the Tuesday before Easter seven traitors met at Sant' Angelo to plot
my overthrow. Of those, the heads of four may be seen on the walls of
Babbiano now; the other three made off, but there stands one of them--the
one that was to have occupied this throne after they had unseated me."

The eyes of all were now upon the young Count, whilst his own glance
strayed to the face of Lodi, on which there was written a consternation
so great that it must have betrayed him had the Duke but chanced to look
his way. A pause ensued which none present dared to break. Gian Maria
seemed to await an answer from Francesco; but Francesco stood impassively
regarding him, and made no sign that he would speak. At length, unable
longer to endure the silence:

"E dunque?" cried the Duke. "Have you no answer?"

"I would submit," returned Francesco, "that I have heard no question. I
heard a wild statement, extravagant and mad, the accusation of one
demented, a charge of which no proofs can be forthcoming, else I take it
you had not withheld them. I ask you, sirs, and you, Madonna," he
continued, turning to the others, "has his Highness said anything to
which an answer can by any means be necessary?"

"Is it proofs you lack?" cried Gian Maria, but less confidently than
hitherto, and, so, less fiercely. A doubt had arisen in his mind born of
this strange calm on the part of Francesco--a calm that to Gian Maria's
perceptions seemed hardly the garb of guilt, but belonged rather to one
who is assured that no peril threatens him. "Is it proofs you lack?"
quoth the Duke again, and then with the air of a man launching an
unanswerable question: "How came you by the wound you had that day in the
woods?"

A smile quivered on Francesco's face, and was gone.

"I asked for proofs, not questions," he protested wearily. "What shall
it prove if I had a hundred wounds?"

"Prove?" echoed the Duke, less and less confident of his ground, fearing
already that he had perhaps gone too fast and too far upon the road of
his suspicions. "It proves to me, when coupled with your presence there,
that you were in the fight the night before."

Francesco stirred at that. He sighed and smiled at once. Then assuming
a tone of brisk command:

"Bid these men begone," he said, pointing to his guards. "Then hear me
scatter your foul suspicions as the hurricane scatters the leaves in
autumn."

Gian Maria stared at him in stupefaction. That overwhelming assurance,
that lofty, dignified bearing which made such a noble contrast with his
own coarse hectoring, were gradually undermining more and more his
confidence. With a wave of his hand he motioned the soldiers to
withdraw, obeying almost unconsciously the master-mind of his cousin by
which he was as unconsciously being swayed.

"Now, Highness," said Francesco, as soon as the men were gone, "before I
refute the charge you make, let me clearly understand it. From the
expressions you have used I gather it to be this: A conspiracy was laid a
little time ago at Sant' Angelo which had for object to supplant you on
the throne of Babbiano and set me in your place. You charge me with
having had in that conspiracy a part--the part assigned to me. It is so,
is it not?"

Gian Maria nodded.

"You have put it very clearly," he sneered. "If you can make out your
innocence as clearly, I shall be satisfied that I have wronged you."

"That this conspiracy took place we will accept as proven, although to
the people of Babbiano the proof may have seemed scant. A man, since
dead, had told your Highness that such a plot was being hatched. Hardly,
perhaps, in itself, evidence enough to warrant setting the heads of four
very valiant gentlemen on spears, but no doubt your Highness had other
proofs to which the rest of us had no access."

Gian Maria shivered at the words. He recalled what Francesco had said on
the occasion of their last talk upon this very subject; he remembered the
manner of his own reception that day in Babbiano.

"We must be content that it is so," calmly pursued Francesco. "Indeed,
your Highness's action in the matter leaves no doubt. We will accept,
then, that such a plot was laid, but that I had a part in it, that I was
the man chosen to take your place--need I prove the idleness of such a
charge?"

"You need, in truth. By God! you need, if you would save your head."

The Count stood in an easy posture, his hands clasped behind his back,
and smiled up at his cousin's pale face and scowling brow.

"How mysterious are the ways of your justice, Cousin," he murmured, with
infinite relish; "what a wondrous equity invests your methods! You have
me dragged here by force, and sitting there, you say to me: 'Prove that
you have not conspired against me, or the headsman shall have you!' By
my faith! Soloman was a foolish prattler when compared with you."

Gian Maria smote the gilded arm of his chair a blow for which he was to
find his hand blackened on the morrow.

"Prove it!" he screamed, like a child in a pet. "Prove it, prove it,
prove it!"

"And have my words not already proven it?" quoth the Count, in a voice of
such mild wonder and gentle protest that it left Gian Maria gasping.

Then the Duke made a hasty gesture of impatience.

"Messer Alvari," he said, in a voice of concentrated rage, "I think you
had best recall the guard."

"Wait!" the Count compelled him, raising his hand. And now it was seen
that the easy insouciance was gone from his face: the smile had vanished,
and in its place there was a look of lofty and contemptuous wrath. "I
will repeat my words. You have dragged me here before you by force, and,
sitting there on the throne of Babbiano, you say: 'Prove that you have
not conspired against me if you would save your head.'" A second he
paused, and noted the puzzled look with which all regarded him.

"Is this a parable?" sneered the uncomprehending Duke.

"You have said it," flashed back Francesco. "A parable it is. And if
you consider it, does it not afford you proof enough?" he asked, a note
of triumph in his voice. "Do not our relative positions irrefutably show
the baselessness of this your charge? Should I stand here and you sit
there if what you allege against me were true?" He laughed almost
savagely, and his eyes flashed scornfully upon the Duke. "If more
plainly still you need it, Gian Maria, I tell you that had I plotted to
occupy your tottering throne, I should be on it now, not standing here
defending myself against a foolish charge. But can you doubt it? Did
you learn no lesson as you rode into Babbiano to-day? Did you not hear
them acclaim me and groan at you. And yet," he ended, with a lofty pity,
"you tell me that I plotted. Why, if I desired your throne, my only need
would be to unfurl my banner in the streets of your capital, and within
the hour Gian Maria would be Duke no more. Have I proved my innocence,
Highness?" he ended quietly, sadly almost. "Are you convinced how little
is my need for plots?"

But the Duke had no answer for him. Speechless, and in a sort of dazed
horror, he sat and scowled before him at his cousin's handsome face, what
time the others watched him furtively, in silence, trembling for the
young man who, here, in his grasp, had dared say such things to him.
Presently he covered his face with his hands, and sat so, as one deeply
in thought, a little while. At last he withdrew them slowly and
presented a countenance that passion and chagrin had strangely ravaged in
so little time. He turned to Santi, who stood nearest.

"The guard," he said hoarsely, with a wave of the hand, and Santi went,
none daring to utter a word. They waited thus an odd group, all very
grave save one, and he the one that had most cause for gravity. Then the
captain re-entered, followed by his two men, and Gian Maria waved a hand
towards the prisoner.

"Take him away," he muttered harshly, his face ghastly, and passion
shaking him like an aspen. "Take him away, and await my orders in the
ante-chamber."

"If it is farewell, Cousin," said Francesco, "may I hope that you will
send a priest to me? I have lived a faithful Christian."

Gian Maria returned him no answer, but his baleful eye was upon Martino.
Reading the significance of that glance, the captain touched Francesco
lightly on the arm. A moment the Count stood, looking from the Duke to
the soldiers; a second his glance rested on those assembled there; then,
with a light raising of his shoulders, he turned on his heel, and with
his head high passed out of the ducal chamber.

And silence continued after he was gone until Caterina Colonna broke it
with a laugh that grated on Gian Maria's now very tender nerves.

"You promised bravely," she mocked him, "to play the lion. But so far,
we have only heard the braying of an ass."

CHAPTER XI

WANDERING KNIGHTS

That taunt of his mother's stirred Gian Maria. He rose from his ducal
chair and descended from the dais on which it stood, possessed by a
tempestuous mood that would not brook him to sit still.

"The braying of an ass?" he muttered, facing Caterina. Then he laughed
unpleasantly. "The jaw-bone of an ass did sore execution on one
occasion, Madonna, and it may again. A little patience, and you shall
see." Next, and with a brisker air, he addressed the four silent
courtiers, "You heard him, sirs," he exclaimed, "How do you say that I
shall deal with such a traitor?" He waited some seconds for an answer,
and it seemed to anger him that none came. "Have you, then, no counsel
for me?" he demanded harshly.

"I had not thought," said Lodi hardily, "that this was a case in which
your Highness needed counsel. You were drawn to conclude that the Lord
of Aquila was a traitor, but from what we have all heard, your Highness
should now see that he is not."

"Should I so?" the Duke returned, standing still and fixing upon Fabrizio
an eye that was dull as a snake's. "Messer da Lodi, your loyalty is a
thing that has given signs of wavering of late. Now, if by the grace of
God and His blessed saints I have ruled as a merciful prince who errs too
much upon the side of clemency, I would enjoin you not to try that
clemency too far. I am but a man, after all."

He turned from the fearless front presented by the old statesman, to face
the troubled glances of the others.

"Your silence, sirs, tells me that in this matter your judgement runs
parallel with mine. And you are wise, for in such a case there can be
but one course. My cousin has uttered words to-day which no man has ever
said to a prince and lived. Nor shall we make exception to that rule.
My Lord of Aquila's head must pay the price of his temerity."

"My son," cried Caterina, in a voice of horror. Gian Maria faced her in
a passion, his countenance grown mottled.

"I have said it," he growled. "I will not sleep until he dies."

"Yet never may you wake again," she answered. And with that preamble she
launched upon his head the bitterest criticism he had ever heard. By
stinging epithets and contemptuous words, she sought to make him see the
folly of what he meditated. Was he indeed tired of ruling Babbiano? If
that were so, she told him, he had but to wait for Caesar Borgia's
coming. He need not precipitate matters by a deed that must lead to a
revolt, a rising of the people to avenge their idol.

"You have given me but added reasons," he answered her stoutly. "There
is no room in my Duchy for a man whose death, if it pleased me to
encompass it, would be avenged upon me by my own people."

"Then send him from your dominions," she urged. "Banish him, and all may
be well. But if you slay him, I should not count your life worth a day's
purchase."

This advice was sound, and in the end they prevailed upon him to adopt
it. But it was not done save at the cost of endless prayers on the part
of those courtiers, and the persuasions of Caterina's biting scorn and
prophecies of the fate that surely awaited him did he touch the life of
one so wellbeloved. At last, against his will, he sullenly consented
that the banishment of his cousin should content him. But it was with
infinite bitterness and regret that he passed his word, for his jealousy
was of a quality that nothing short of Francesco's death could have
appeased. Certain it is that nothing but the fear of the consequences,
which his mother had instilled into his heart, could have swayed him to
be satisfied that the Count of Aquila should be banished.

He sent for Martino and bade him return the Count his sword, and he
entrusted the message of exile to Fabrizio da Lodi, charging him to
apprise Francesco that he was allowed twenty-four hours' grace in which
to take himself beyond the dominions of Gian Maria Sforza.

That done--and with an exceedingly ill grace--the Duke turned on his
heel, and with a sullen brow he left the ducal chamber, and passed,
unattended, to his own apartments.

Rejoicing, Fabrizio da Lodi went his errand, which he discharged with
certain additions that might have cost him his head had knowledge of them
come to Gian Maria. In fact, he seized the opportunity to again press
upon Francesco the throne of Babbiano.

"The hour is very ripe," he urged the Count, "and the people love you as
surely prince was never loved. It is in their interests that I plead.
You are their only hope. Will you not come to them?"

If for a moment Francesco hesitated, it was rather in consideration of
the manner in which the crown was offered than in consequence of any
allurement that the offer may have had for him. Once--that night at
Sant' Angelo--he had known temptation, and for a moment had listened to
the seductions in the voice that invited him to power. But not so now.
A thought he gave to the people who had such faith in him, and showered
upon him such admiring love, and whom, as a matter of reciprocity, he
wished well, and would have served in any capacity but this. He shook
his head, and with a smile of regret declined the offer.

"Have patience, old friend," he added. "I am not of the stuff that goes
to make good princes, although you think it. It is a bondage into which
I would not sell myself. A man's life for me, Fabrizio--a free life that
is not directed by councillors and at the mercy of the rabble."

Fabrizio's face grew sad. He sighed profoundly, yet since it might not
be well for him that he should remain over-long in talk with one who, in
the Duke's eyes, was attainted with treason, he had not leisure to insist
with persuasions, which, after all, he clearly saw must in the end prove
barren.

"What was the salvation of the people of Babbiano," he murmured, "was
also your Excellency's, since did you adopt the course I urge there would
be no need to go in banishment."

"Why, this exile suits me excellently well," returned Francesco. "Idle
have I been over-long, and the wish to roam is in my veins again. I'll
see the world once more, and when I weary of my vagrancy I can withdraw
to my lands of Aquila, and in that corner of Tuscany, too mean to draw a
conqueror's eye, none will molest me, and I shall rest. Babbiano, my
friend, shall know me no more after to-night. When I am gone, and the
people realise that they may not have what they would, they may rest
content perhaps with what they may." And he waved a hand in the
direction of the doors leading to the ducal chamber. With that he took
his leave of his old friend, and, carrying in his hand the sword and
dagger which Captain Armstadt had returned to him, he repaired briskly to
the northern wing of the Palace, in which he had his lodging.

In the ante-room he dismissed those of his servants who had been taken
from the ranks of the Duke's people, and bade his own Tuscan followers,
Zaccaria and Lanciotto, see to the packing of his effects, and make all
ready to set out within the hour.

He was no coward, but he had no wish to die just yet if it might be
honourably avoided. Life had some sweets to offer Francesco del Falco,
and this spurred him to hasten, for he well knew his cousin's
unscrupulous ways. He was aware that Gian Maria had been forced by
weight of argument to let him go, and he shrewdly feared that did he
linger, his cousin might veer round again, and without pausing to seek
advice a second time, have him disposed of out of hand and reckless of
consequences.

Whilst Lanciotto was left busy in the ante-room the Count passed into his
bedchamber attended by Zaccaria, to make in his raiment such changes as
were expedient. But scarce had he begun when he was interrupted by the
arrival of Fanfulla degli Arcipreti, whom Lanciotto ushered in.
Francesco's face lighted at sight of his friend, and he held out his
hand.

"What is it that has happened?" cried the young gallant, adding that
which showed his question to be unnecessary, for from Fabrizio da Lodi he
had had the whole story of what was befallen. He sat himself upon the
bed, and utterly disregarding the presence of Zaccaria--whom he knew to
be faithful--he attempted to persuade the Count where Fabrizio had
failed. But Paolo cut him short ere he had gone very far.

"Have done with that," he said, and for all that he said it with a laugh,
determination sounded sturdy in his accents. "I am a knight-errant, not
a prince, and I'll not be converted from one to the other. It were
making a helot of a free man, and you do not love me, Fanfulla, if you
drive this argument further. Do you think me sad, cast down, at the
prospect of this banishment? Why, boy, the blood runs swifter through my
veins since I heard the sentence. It frees me from Babbiano in an hour
when perhaps my duty--the reciprocation of the people's love--might
otherwise have held me here, and it gives me liberty to go forth, my good
Fanfulla, in quest of such adventure as I chose to follow." He threw out
his arms, and displayed his splendid teeth in a hearty laugh.

Fanfulla eyed him, infected by the boisterous gladness of his mood.

"Why, true indeed, my lord," he acknowledged, "you are too fine a bird to
sing in a cage. But to go knight-erranting----" He paused, and spread
his hands in protest. "There are no longer dragons holding princesses
captive."

"Alas no. But the Venetians are on the eve of war, and they will find
work for these hands of mine. I want not for friends among them."

Fanfulla sighed.

"And so we lose you. The stoutest arm in Babbiano leaves us in the hour
of need, driven out by that loutish Duke. By my soul, Ser Francesco, I
would I might go with you. Here is nothing to be done."

Francesco paused in the act of drawing on a boot, and raised his eyes to
stare a moment at his friend.

"But if you wish it, Fanfulla, I shall rejoice to have your company."

And now the idea of it entered Fanfulla's mind in earnest, for his
expression had been more or less an idle one. But since Francesco
invited him, why not indeed?

And thus it came to pass that at the third hour of that warm May night a
party of four men on horseback and two sumpter mules passed out of
Babbiano and took the road that leads to Vinamare, and thence into the
territory of Urbino. These riders were the Count of Aquila and Fanfulla
degli Arcipreti, followed by Lanciotto leading a mule that bore the arms
of those knights-errant, and Zaccaria leading another with their general
baggage.

All night they rode beneath the stars, and on until some three hours
after sunrise, when they made halt in a hollow of the hills not far from
Fabriano. They tethered their horses in a grove of peaceful laurel and
sheltering mulberry, at the foot of a slope that was set with olive
trees, grey, gnarled and bent as aged cripples, and beside the river
Esino at a spot where it was so narrow that an agile man might leap its
width. Here, then, they spread their cloaks, and Zaccaria unpacked his
victuals, and set before them a simple meal of bread and wine and roasted
fowl, which to their hunger made more appeal than a banquet at another
season. And when they had eaten they laid them down beside the stream,
and there beguiled in pleasant talk the time until they fell asleep.
They rested them through the heat of the day, and waking some three hours
after noon, the Count rose up and went some dozen paces down the stream
to a spot where it fell into a tiny lake--a pool deep and blue as the
cloudless heavens which it mirrored. Here he stripped off his garments
and plunged headlong in, to emerge again, some moments later, refreshed
and reinvigorated in body and in soul.

As Fanfulla awoke he beheld an apparition coming towards him, a figure
lithe and stalwart as a sylvian god, the water shining on the ivory
whiteness of his skin and glistening in his sable hair as the sunlight
caught it.

"Tell me now, Fanfulla, lives there a man of so depraved a mind that he
would prefer a ducal crown to this?"

And the courtier, seeing Francesco's radiant mien, understood perhaps, at
last, how sordid was the ambition that could lure a man from such a god-
like freedom, and from the holy all-consuming joys it brought him. His
thoughts being started upon that course, it was of this they talked what
time the Count resumed his garments--his hose of red, his knee-high boots
of untanned leather, and his quilted brigandine of plain brown cloth,
reputed dagger-proof. He rose at last to buckle on his belt of hammered
steel, from which there hung, behind his loins, a stout, lengthy dagger,
the only weapon that he carried.

At his command the horses were saddled and the sumpters laden once more.
Lanciotto held his stirrup, and Zaccaria did like service for Fanfulla,
and presently they were cantering out of that fragrant grove on to the
elastic sward of broad, green pasture-lands. They crossed the stream at
a spot where the widened sheet of water scarce went higher than their
horses' hocks; then veering to the east they rode away from the hills for
a half-league or so until they gained a road. Here they turned northward
again, and pushed on towards Cagli.

As the bells were ringing the Ave Maria the cavalcade drew up before the
Palazzo Valdicampo, where two nights ago Gian Maria had been entertained.
Its gates were now as readily thrown wide to welcome the illustrious and
glorious Count of Aquila, who was esteemed by Messer Valdicampo no less
than his more puissant cousin. Chambers were set at his disposal, and at
Fanfulla's; servants were bidden to wait upon them; fresh raiment was
laid out for them, and a noble supper was prepared to do honour to
Francesco. Nor did the generous Valdicampo's manner cool when he learned
that Francesco was in disgrace at the Court of Babbiano and banished from
the dominions of Duke Gian Maria. He expressed sympathetic regret at so
untoward a circumstance and discreetly refrained from passing any opinion
thereupon.

Yet later, as they supped, and when perhaps the choice wines had somewhat
relaxed his discretion, he permitted himself to speak of Gian Maria's
ways in terms that were very far from laudatory.

"Here, in my house," he informed them, "he committed an outrage upon a
poor unfortunate, for which an account may yet be asked of me--since it
was under my roof that the thing befell, for all that I knew nothing of
it."

Upon being pressed by Paolo to tell them more, he parted with the
information that the unfortunate in question was Urbino's jester Peppe.
At that, Paolo's glance became more intent. The memory of his meeting
with the fool and his mistress in the woods, a month ago, flashed now
across his mind, and it came to him that he could rightly guess the
source whence his cousin had drawn the information that had led to his
own arrest and banishment.

"Of what nature was the outrage?" he inquired.

"From what Peppe himself has told me it would seem that the fool was
possessed of some knowledge which Gian Maria sought, but on which Peppe
was bound by oath to silence. Gian Maria caused him to be secretly taken
and carried off from Urbino. His sbirri brought the fellow here, and to
make him speak the Duke improvised in his bedchamber a tratta di corde,
which had the desired result."

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