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 he 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.