CHAPTER XIV. FORTEMANI DRINKS WATER
The thing had begun with the lowering glances that Francesco hadobserved, and had grown to gibes and insults after he had disappeared.But Lanciotto had preserved an unruffled front, being a man schooled inthe Count of Aquila's service to silence and a wondrous patience. Thisinsensibility those hinds translated into cowardice, and emboldenedby it--like the mongrels that they were--their offensiveness grew moredirect and gradually more threatening. Lanciotto's patience was slowlyoozing away, and indeed, it was no longer anything but the fear ofprovoking his master's anger that restrained him. At length one burlyruffian, who had bidden him remove his head-piece in the company ofgentlemen, and whose request had been by Lanciotto as disregarded asthe rest, advanced menacingly towards him and caught him by the leg, asErcole had caught his master. Exasperated at that, Lanciotto had swunghis leg free, and caught the rash fellow a vicious kick in the face thathad felled him, stunned and bleeding.
The roar from the man's companions told Lanciotto what to expect. In aninstant they were upon him, clamouring for his blood. He sought to drawhis master's sword, which together with the Count's other armour wasslung across his saddle-bow; but before he could extricate it, he wasseized by a dozen hands, and cropped, fighting, from the saddle. On theground 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 wallhad once poured its water through a lion's head into a vast tank ofmoss-grown granite. But it had been disused for some time, and the pipein the lion's mouth was dry. The tank, however, was more than half fullof water, which, during the late untenanting of the castle, had turnedfoul and stagnant. To drown Lanciotto in this was the amiable suggestionthat emanated from Fortemani himself--a suggestion uproariously receivedby his knaves, who set themselves to act upon it. They roughly draggedthe bleeding and frantically struggling Lanciotto across the yard andgained the border of the tank, intending fully to sink him into it andhold him under, to drown there like a rat.
But in that instant a something burst upon him like a bolt from out ofHeaven. In one or two, and presently in more, the cruel laughter turnedto sudden howls of pain as a lash of bullock-hide caught them about headand 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 thepack of craven hounds they were.
It was Francesco, who, single-handed, and armed with no more than awhip, was scattering them from about his maltreated servant, as the hawkscatters a flight of noisy sparrows. And now between him and Lanciottothere stood no more than the broad bulk of Ercole Fortemani, his back tothe Count; for, as yet, he had not realised the interruption.
Francesco dropped his whip, and setting one hand at the captain'sgirdle, and the other at his dirty neck, he hoisted him up with astrength incredible, and hurled him from his path and into the slimywater 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 theflying spray there came a fetid odour to tell of the unsavouriness ofthat unexpected bath.
Without pausing to see the completion of his work, Francesco stoopedover his prostrate servant.
"Have the beasts hurt you, Lanciotto?" he questioned. But before thefellow could reply, one of those hinds had sprung upon the stoopingCount, and struck him with a dagger between the shoulder-blades.
A woman's alarmed cry rang out, for Valentina was watching the affrayfrom the steps of the hall, with Gonzaga at her elbow.
But Francesco's quilted brigandine had stood the test of steel, and thepoint of that assassin's dagger glanced harmlessly aside, doing no worsehurt than a rent in the silk surface of the garment. A second laterthe fellow found himself caught as in a bond of steel. The dagger waswrenched from his grasp, and the point of it laid against his breasteven as the Count forced him down upon his knees.
In a flash was the thing done, yet to the wretched man who saw himselfupon the threshold of Eternity, and who--like a true son of theChurch--had a wholesome fear of hell, it seemed an hour whilst, withlivid cheeks and eyes starting from his head, he waited for that poniardto sink into his heart, as it was aimed. But not in his heart did theblow fall. With a sudden snort of angry amusement, the Count pitched thedagger from him and brought down his clenched fist with a crushing forceinto the ruffian's face. The fellow sank unconscious beneath that mightyblow, 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 headand face grotesquely masked in a vile green slime of putrid vegetation,Ercole Fortemani bellowed with horrid blasphemy that he would have hisaggressor's blood, but stirred never a foot to take it. Not that he wasby nature wholly a coward; but inspired by a wholesome fear of theman who could perform such a miracle of strength, he remained out ofFrancesco's reach, well in the middle of that square basin, and lustilyroared orders to his men to tear the fellow to pieces. But his menhad seen enough of the Count's methods, and made no advance upon thatstalwart, dauntless figure that stood waiting for them with a whipwhich several had already tasted. Huddled together, more like a flock offrightened sheep than a body of men of war, they stood near the entrancetower, the mock of Peppe, who from the stone-gallery above--much tothe amusement of Valentina's ladies and two pert pages that were withhim--applauded in high-flown terms their wondrous valour.
They stirred at last, but it was at Valentina's bidding. She hadbeen conferring with Gonzaga, who--giving it for his reason that she,herself, might need protection--had remained beside her, well out of thefray. She had been urging him to do something, and at last he had obeyedher, and moved down the short flight of steps into the court; but soreluctantly and slowly, that with an exclamation of impatience, shesuddenly 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 valourand a look of such deep admiration, that the blood sprang, responsive,to his cheek. She paused with a solicitous inquiry for the now risen butsorely bruised Lanciotto. She flashed an angry look and an angry commandof 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. Heceased, and gaped at his men, who eyed one another now in doubt; but thedoubt was quickly dispelled by the lady's own words:
"You will make him prisoner, and conduct him to the guardroom, or Iwill have you and him swept out of my castle," she informed them, asconfidently as though she had a hundred men-at-arms to do her bidding onthem.
A pace or so behind her stood the lily-cheeked Gonzaga, gnawing his lip,timid and conjecturing. Behind him again loomed the stalwart heightof Francesco del Falco with, at his side, Lanciotto, of mien almost asresolute as his own.
That was the full force with which the lady spoke of sweeping them--asif they had been so much foulness--from Roccaleone, unless they didher bidding. They were still hesitating, when the Count advanced toValentina's side.
"You have heard the choice our lady gives you," he said sternly. "Letus 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 isbehind you, the bridge still down. Get you gone!"
Furtively, from under lowering brows, Gonzaga darted a look of impotentmalice at the Count. Whatever issue had the affair, this man must notremain in Roccaleone. He was too strong, too dominant, and he wouldrender himself master of the place by no other title than that strengthof his and that manner of command which Gonzaga accounted a coarse,swashbuckling bully's gift, but would have given much to be possessedof. Of how strong and dominant indeed he was never had Francesco offereda more sign
al proof. Those men, bruised and maltreated by him, wouldbeyond doubt have massed together and made short work of one lessdauntless but when a mighty courage such as his goes hand-in-hand withthe habit of command, such hinds as they can never long withstand it.They grumbled something among themselves, and one of them at last madeanswer:
"Noble sir, it is our captain that we are bidden to arrest."
"True; but your captain, like yourselves, is in this lady's pay; andshe, your true, your paramount commander, bids you arrest him." And now,whilst yet they hesitated, his quick wits flung them the bait that mustprove most attractive. "He has shown himself to-day unfitted for thecommand entrusted him and it may become a question, when he has beenjudged, 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 themeanest borgo of Urbino. Their hesitation vanished, and such slightloyalty as they felt towards Ercole was overruled by the prospect of hisposition and his pay, should his disgrace become accomplished.
They called upon him to come forth from his refuge, where he stillstood, dumb and stricken at this sudden turn events had taken. Hesullenly refused to obey the call to yield, until Francesco--who nowassumed command with a readiness that galled Gonzaga more and more--badeone of them go fetch an arquebuse and shoot the dog. At that he criedout for mercy, and came wading to the edge of the tank swearing thatif the immersion had not drowned him, it were a miracle but he waspoisoned.
Thus closed an incident that had worn a mighty ugly look, and it servedto open Valentina's eyes to the true quality of the men Gonzaga hadhired her. Maybe that it opened his own for that amiable lute-thrummerwas green of experience in these matters. She bade Gonzaga care forFrancesco, and called one of the grinning pages from the gallery to behis esquire. A room was placed at his disposal for the little time thathe might spend at Roccaleone, whilst she debated what her course shouldbe.
A bell tolled in the far southern wing of the castle, beyond the secondcourtyard, and summoned her to chapel, for there Fra Domenico said Masseach morning. And so she took her leave of Francesco, saying shewould pray Heaven to direct her to a wise choice, whether to fly fromRoccaleone, or whether to remain and ward off the onslaught of GianMaria.
Francesco, attended by Gonzaga and the page, repaired to a handsome roomunder the Lion's Tower, which rose upon the south-eastern angle of thefortress. His windows overlooked the second, or inner, courtyard, acrosswhich Valentina and her ladies were now speeding on their way to Mass.
Gonzaga made shift to stifle the resentment that he felt against thisman, in whom he saw an interloper, and strove to treat him with thecourtesy that was his due. He would even have gone the length ofdiscussing with him the situation--prompted by a certain mistrust, andcunningly eager to probe the real motive that had brought this strangerto interest himself in the affairs of Valentina. But Francesco, wearily,yet with an unimpeachable politeness, staved him off, and requestedthat Lanciotto might be sent to attend him. Seeing the futility ofhis endeavours, Gonzaga withdrew in increased resentment, but with aheightened sweetness of smile and profoundness of courtesies.
He went below to issue orders for the raising of the bridge, and findingthe men singularly meek and tractable after the sharp lesson Francescohad read them, he vented upon them some of the vast ill-humour thatpossessed him. Next he passed on to his own apartments, and there he sathimself by a window overlooking the castle gardens, with his unpleasantthoughts for only company.
But presently his mood lightened and he took courage, for he couldbe very brave when peril was remote. It was best, he reflected, thatValentina should leave Roccaleone. Such was the course he would adviseand urge. Naturally, he would go with her, and so he might advance hissuit as well elsewhere as in that castle. On the other hand, if sheremained, why, so would he, and, after all, what if Gian Maria came?As Francesco had said, the siege could not be protracted, thanks to thetangled affairs of Babbiano. Soon Gian Maria would be forced to turn himhomeward, to defend his Duchy. If, then, for a little while they couldhold him in check, all would yet be well. Surely he had been over-quickto despond.
He rose and stretched himself with indolent relish, then pushing widehis casement, he leaned out to breathe the morning air. A soft laughescaped him. He had been a fool indeed to plague himself with fears whenhe had first heard of Gian Maria's coming. Properly viewed, it became aservice Gian Maria did him--whether they remained, or whether they went.Love has no stronger promoter than a danger shared, and a week of suchdisturbances as Gian Maria was likely to occasion them should do moreto advance his suit than he might hope to achieve in a whole month ofpeaceful wooing. Then the memory of Francesco set a wrinkle 'twixt hisbrows, and he bethought him how taken Valentina had been with the fellowwhen first she had beheld him at Acquasparta, and of how, as sherode that day, she had seen naught but the dark eyes of this KnightFrancesco.
"Knight Francesco of what or where?" he muttered to himself. "Bah! Anameless, homeless adventurer; a swashbuckling bully, reeking of bloodand leather, and fit to drive such a pack as Fortemani's. But with alady--what shalt such an oaf attain, how shall he prevail?" He laughedthe incipient jealousy to scorn, and his brow grew clear, for now he wasin an optimistic mood--perhaps a reaction from his recent tremors."Yet, by the Host!" he pursued, bethinking him of the amazing boldnessFrancesco had shown in the courtyard, "he has the strength of Hercules,and a way with him that makes him feared and obeyed. Pish!" he laughedagain, as, turning, he unhooked his lute from where it hung upon thewall. "The by-blow of some condottiero, who blends with his father'sbullying arrogance the peasant soul of his careless mother. And I fearthat 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 hisfingers, and thrummed an accompaniment as he returned to the window, hisvoice, wondrous sweet and tender, breaking into a gentle love-song.