“What ails you?” quoth the friar. “What have you there?”
“A recipe for a dish of friar's brains. A most rare delicacy, and rendered costly by virtue of the scarcity of the ingredients.” And with that answer Peppe was gone, leaving the monk with an ugly look in his eyes, and an unuttered imprecation on his tongue.
Straight to the Count of Aquila went the fool with his letter. Francesco read it, and questioned him closely as to what he knew of the manner in which it had come into Gonzaga's possession. For the rest, those lines, far from causing him the uneasiness Peppe expected, seemed a source of satisfaction and assurance to him.
“He offers a thousand gold florins,” he muttered, “in addition to Gonzaga's liberty and advancement. Why, then, I have said no more than was true when I assured the men that Gian Maria was but idly threatening us with bombardment. Keep this matter secret, Peppe.”
“But you will watch Messer Gonzaga?” quoth the fool.
“Watch him? Why, where is the need? You do not imagine him so vile that this offer could tempt him?”
Peppe looked up, his great, whimsical face screwed into an expression of cunning doubt.
“You do not think, lord, that he invited it?”
“Now, shame on you for that thought. Messer Gonzaga may be an idle lute-thrummer, a poor-spirited coward; but a traitor----! And to betray Monna Valentina! No, no.”
But the fool was far from reassured. He had had the longer acquaintance of Messer Gonzaga, and his shrewd eyes had long since taken the man's exact measure. Let Francesco scorn the notion of betrayal at Romeo's hands; Peppe would dog him like a shadow. This he did for the remainder of that day, clinging to Gonzaga as if he loved him dearly, and furtively observing the man's demeanour. Yet he saw nothing to confirm his suspicions beyond a certain preoccupied moodiness on the courtier's part.
That night, as they supped, Gonzaga pleaded toothache, and with Valentina's leave he quitted the table at the very outset of the meal. Peppe rose to follow him, but as he reached the door, his natural enemy, the friar--ever anxious to thwart him where he could--caught him by the nape of the neck, and flung him unceremoniously back into the room.
“Have you a toothache too, good-for-naught?” quoth the frate. “Stay you here and help me to wait upon the company.”
“Let me go, good Fra Domenico,” the fool whispered, in a voice so earnest that the monk left his way clear. But Valentina's voice now bade him stay with them, and so his opportunity was lost.
He moved about the room a very dispirited, moody fool with no quip for anyone, for his thoughts were all on Gonzaga and the treason that he was sure he was hatching. Yet faithful to Francesco, who sat all unconcerned, and not wishing to alarm Valentina, he choked back the warning that rose to his lips, seeking to convince himself that his fears sprang perhaps from an excess of suspicion. Had he known how well-founded indeed they were he might have practised less self-restraint.
For whilst he moved sullenly about the room, assisting Fra Domenico with the dishes and platters, Gonzaga paced the ramparts beside Cappoccio, who was on sentry duty on the north wall.
His business called for no great diplomacy, nor did Gonzaga employ much. He bluntly told Cappoccio that he and his comrades had allowed Messer Francesco's glib tongue to befool them that morning, and that the assurances Francesco had given them were not worthy of an intelligent man's consideration.
“I tell you, Cappoccio,” he ended, “that to remain here and protract this hopeless resistance will cost you your life at the unsavoury hands of the hangman. You see I am frank with you.”
Now for all that what Gonzaga told him might sort excellently well with the ideas he had himself entertained, Cappoccio was of a suspicious nature, and his suspicions whispered to him now that Gonzaga was actuated by some purpose he could not gauge.
He stood still, and leaning with both hands upon his partisan, he sought to make out the courtier's features in the dim light of the rising moon.
“Do you mean,” he asked, and in his voice sounded the surprise with which Gonzaga's odd speech had filled him, “that we are foolish to have listened to Messer Francesco, and that we should be better advised to march out of Roccaleone?”
“Yes; that is what I mean.”
“But why,” he insisted, his surprise increasing, “do you urge such a course upon us?”
“Because, Cappoccio,” was the plausible reply, “like yourselves, I was lured into this business by insidious misrepresentations. The assurances that I gave Fortemani, and with which he enrolled you into his service, were those that had been given to me. I did not bargain with such a death as awaits us here, and I frankly tell you that I have no stomach for it.”
“I begin to understand,” murmured Cappoccio, sagely wagging his head, and there was a shrewd insolence in his tone and manner. “When we leave Roccaleone you come with us?”
Gonzaga nodded.
“But why do you not say these things to Fortemani?” questioned Cappoccio, still doubting.
“Fortemani!” echoed Gonzaga. “By the Host, no! The man is bewitched by that plausible rogue, Francesco. Far from resenting the fellow's treatment of him, he follows and obeys his every word, like the mean-spirited dog that he is.”
Again Cappoccio sought to scrutinise Gonzaga's face. But the light was indifferent.
“Are you dealing with me fairly?” he asked. “Or does some deeper purpose lie under your wish that we should rebel against the lady?”
“My friend,” answered Gonzaga, “do you but wait until Gian Maria's herald comes for his answer in the morning. Then you will learn again the terms on which your lives are offered you. Do nothing until then. But when you hear yourselves threatened with the rope and the wheel, bethink you of what course you will be best advised in pursuing. You ask me what purpose inspires me. I have already told you--for I am as open as the daylight with you--that I am inspired by the purpose of saving my own neck. Is not that purpose enough?”
A laugh of such understanding as would have set a better man on fire with indignation was the answer he received.
“Why, yes, it is more than enough. To-morrow, then, my comrades and I march out of Roccaleone. Count upon that.”
“But do not accept my word. Wait until the herald comes again. Do nothing until you have heard the terms he brings.”
“Why, no, assuredly not.”
“And do not let it transpire among your fellows that it is I who have suggested this.”
“Why no. I'll keep your secret,” laughed the bravo offensively, shouldering his partisan and resuming his sentinel's pacing.
Gonzaga sought his bed. A fierce joy consumed him at having so consummately planned Valentina's ruin, yet he did not wish to face her again that night.
But when on the morrow the herald wound his horn again beneath the castle walls, Gonzaga was prominent in the little group that attended Monna Valentina. The Count of Aquila was superintending the work to which he had set a half-score of men. With a great show, and as much noise as possible--by which Francesco intended that the herald should be impressed--they were rolling forward four small culverins and some three cannons of larger calibre, and planting them so that they made a menacing show in the crenels of the parapet.
Whilst watching and directing the men, he kept his ears open for the message, and he heard the herald again recite the terms on which the garrison might surrender, and again the threat to hang every man from the castle-walls if they compelled him to reduce them by force of arms. He brought his message to an end by announcing that in his extreme clemency Gian Maria accorded them another half-hour's grace in which to resolve themselves upon their course. Should the end of that time still find them obstinate, the bombardment would commence. Such was the message that in another of his arrow-borne letters Gonzaga had suggested Gian Maria should send.
It was Francesco who stepped forward to reply. He had been stooping over one of the guns, as if to assure himself of the accuracy of its aim, and as he rose he pronounced himself satisfied in a voice loud enough for the herald's hearing. Then he advanced to Valentina's side, and whilst he stood there delivering his answer he never noticed the silent departure of the men from the wall.
“You will tell his Highness of Babbiano,” he replied, “that he reminds us of the boy in the fable who cried 'Wolf!' too often. Tell him, sir, that his threats leave this garrison as unmoved as do his promises. If so be that he intends in truth to bombard us, let him begin forthwith. We are ready for him, as you perceive. Maybe he did not suppose us equipped with cannon; but there they stand. Those guns are trained upon his camp, and the first shot he fires upon us shall be a signal for such a reply as he little dreams of. Tell him, too, that we expect no quarter, and will yield none. We are unwilling for bloodshed, but if he drives us to it and executes his purpose of employing cannon, then the consequences be upon his own head. Bear him that answer, and tell him to send you no more with empty threats.”