CHAPTER XX. THE LOVERS
"How came that letter to your hands?" Valentina asked Gonzaga, whenpresently they stood together in the courtyard, whither the courtier hadfollowed her when she descended.
"Wrapped round an arbalest-bolt that fell on the ramparts yesterdaywhilst I was walking there alone," returned Gonzaga coolly.
He had by now regained his composure. He saw that he stood in deadlyperil, 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 onFrancesco's clear countenance no shadow of suspicion showed. His eyesalmost smiled as he asked Gonzaga:
"Why did you not bear it to Monna Valentina?"
A flush reddened the courtier's cheeks. He shrugged his shouldersimpatiently, and in a voice that choked with anger he delivered hisreply.
"To you, sir, who seem bred in camps and reared in guard-rooms, thefulness of this insult offered me by Gian Maria may not be apparent. Itmay not be yours to perceive that the very contact of that letter soiledmy hands, that it shamed me unutterably to think that that loutishDuke 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 tosubmit to the further shame of allowing another to see the affront thatI was powerless to avenge. I did, sir, with that letter the only thingconceivable. I crumpled it in my hand and cast it from me, just as Isought to cast its contents from my mind. But your watchful spies, SerFrancesco, bore it to you, and if my shame has been paraded before theeyes of that rabble soldiery, at least it has served the purpose ofsaving Monna Valentina. To do that, I would, if the need arose, immolatemore than the pride that caused me to be silent on the matter of thiscommunication."
He spoke with such heat of sincerity that he convinced both Francescoand Valentina, and the lady's eyes took on a softer expression as shesurveyed Gonzaga--this poor Gonzaga whom, her heart told her, she hadsorely wronged in thought. Francesco, ever generous, took his passionateutterances in excellent part.
"Messer Gonzaga, I understand your scruples. You do me wrong to thinkthat 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 thatletter at once before Monna Valentina. Instead, he dismissed the subjectwith a laugh, and proposed that they should break their fast so soon ashe had put off his harness.
He went to do so, whilst Valentina bent her steps towards thedining-room, attended by Gonzaga, to whom she now sought to make amendsfor her suspicions by an almost excessive friendliness of bearing.
But there was one whom Gonzaga's high-sounding words in connection withthat letter had left cold. This was Peppe, that most wise of fools. Hehastened after Francesco, and while the knight was disarming he came tovoice his suspicions. But Francesco drove him out with impatience, andPeppe went sorrowing and swearing that the wisdom of the fool was trulybetter 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 subjectspoetical or erudite, by which he meant to display his vast mentalsuperiority over the swashbuckling Francesco. In the evening, when theheat of the day was spent, and whilst that same Messer Francesco wasat some defensive measures on the walls, Gonzaga played at bowls withValentina and her ladies--the latter having now recovered from the panicto which earlier they had been a prey.
That morning Gonzaga had stood at bay, seeing his plans crumble. Thatevening, after the day spent in Valentina's company--and she so sweetand kind to him--he began to take heart of grace once more, and hisvolatile mind whispered to his soul the hope that, after all, thingsmight well be as he had first intended, if he but played his cardsadroitly, and did not mar his chances by the precipitancy that had oncegone near to losing him. His purpose gathered strength from a messagethat came that evening from Gian Maria, who was by then assured thatGonzaga's plan had failed. He sent word that, being unwilling to provokethe bloodshed threatened by the reckless madman who called himself MonnaValentina's Provost, he would delay the bombardment, hoping that inthe meantime hunger would beget in that rebellious garrison a moresubmissive mood.
Francesco read the message to Madonna's soldiers, and they received itjoyously. Their confidence in him increased a hundredfold by this proofof the accuracy of his foresight. They were a gay company at supper inconsequence, and gayest of all was Messer Gonzaga, most bravely dressedin a purple suit of taby silk to honour so portentous an occasion.
Francesco was the first to quit the table, craving Monna Valentina'sleave 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, noryet the sonnet of Petrarca that presently he sang the company. Herthoughts were all with him that had left the board. Scarcely a word hadshe exchanged with Francesco since that delirious moment when they hadlooked into each other's eyes upon the ramparts, and seen the secretthat each was keeping from the other. Why had he not come to her? sheasked herself. And then she bethought her of how Gonzaga had all daylong been glued to her side, and she realised, too, that it was she hadshunned Francesco's company, grown of a sudden strangely shy.
But greater than her shyness was now her desire to be near him, and tohear his voice; to have him look again upon her as he had looked thatmorning, when in terror for him she had sought to dissuade him fromopposing 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 orof dalliant wiles. She rose quietly from the table ere Gonzaga's songwas done, and as quietly she slipped from the room.
It was a fine night, the air heavy with the vernal scent of fertilelands, and the deep cobalt of the heavens a glittering, star-fleckeddome in a lighter space of which floated the half-disk of the growingmoon. Such a moon, she bethought her, as she had looked at with thoughtsof him, the night after their brief meeting at Acquasparta. She hadgained 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 theembattled parapet, looking down at the lights of Gian Maria's camp. Hewas bareheaded, and by the gold coif that gleamed in his hair she knewhim. Softly she stole up behind him.
"Do we dream here, Messer Francesco?" she asked him, as she reached hisside, and there was laughter running through her words.
He started round at the sound of her voice, then he laughed too, softlyand gladly.
"It is a night for dreams, and I was dreaming indeed. But you havescattered 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 witha certain sadness, but idle as is the stuff of dreams. They were yoursto dispel, for they were of you."
"Of me?" she questioned, her heart-beats quickening and bringing to hercheeks 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 yourchampion? Little did we dream how the honour that I sighed for was to bemine."
She made him no answer, her mind harking back to that first meeting onwhich so often and so fondly she had pondered.
"I was thinking, too," he said presently, "of that man Gian Maria in theplain yonder, and of this shameful siege."
"You--you have no misgivings?" she faltered, for his words haddisappointed her a little.
"Misgivings?"
"For being here with me. For being implicated in what they call myrebellion?"
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; whenyou 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 forbeing here to guide this fine resistance and lend you the little aid Ican---- No, no, I have no misgiving for that. It is the dearest frolicever my soldiering led me into. I came to Roccaleone with a message ofwarning; but underneath, deep down in my heart, I bore the hope thatmine should be more than a messenger's part; that mine it might be toremain 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. Iburn for news of Babbiano. If I could but tell what is happening thereI might cheer you with the assurance that this siege can last but a fewdays longer. Gian Maria must get him home or submit to the loss ofhis throne. And if he loses that your uncle would no longer support sostrenuously his suit with you. To you, Madonna, this must be a cheeringthought. To me--alas! Why should I hope for it?"
He was looking away now into the night, but his voice quivered with theemotion that was in him. She was silent, and emboldened perhaps bythat silence of hers, encouraged by the memory of what he had seen thatmorning reflected in her eyes:
"Madonna," he cried, "I would it might be mine to cut a road for youthrough that besieging camp, and bear you away to some blessed placewhere 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 thatmocked him with the whisper, "So indeed would I?" He turned to her, hishand, brown and nervous, fell upon hers, ivory-white, where it rested onthe stone.
"Valentina!" he cried, his voice no louder than a whisper, his eyesardently seeking her averted ones. And then, as suddenly as it had leaptup, was the fire in his glance extinguished. He withdrew his hand fromhers, he sighed, and shifted his gaze to the camp once more. "Forgive,forget, Madonna," he murmured bitterly, "that which in my madness I havepresumed."
Silent she stood for a long moment; then she edged nearer to him, andher 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 thusremained for a little space. Then shaking his head and speaking with aninfinite 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 aduke. Oh, sir, how shall I account presumptuous in you the very wordsthat I would hear? What does your rank signify to me? I know you for thetruest knight, the noblest gentleman, and the most valiant friendthat ever came to the aid of distressed maiden. Do you forget the veryprinciples 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."
There she stopped; again the blood suffused her cheeks as she bethoughther of how fast she talked, and of how bold her words might sound. Sheturned slightly from him, and leant now upon the parapet, gazing outinto the night. And as she stood thus, a very ardent voice it was thatwhispered in her ear:
"Valentina, by my soul, I love you!" And there that whisper, whichfilled her with an ecstasy that was almost painful in its poignancy,ended sharply as if throttled. Again his hand sought hers, which wasyielded to him as she would have yielded her whole life at his sweetbidding, and now his voice came less passionately.
"Why delude ourselves with cruel hopes, my Valentina?" he was saying."There is the future. There is the time when this siege shall be donewith, and when, Gian Maria having got him home, you will be free todepart. Whither will you go?"
She looked at him as if she did not understand the question, and hereyes were troubled, although in such light as there was he could scarcesee this.
"I will go whither you bid me. Where else have I to go?" she added, witha note of bitterness.
He started. Her answer was so far from what he had expected.
"But your uncle----?"
"What duty do I owe to him? Oh, I have thought of it, and until--untilthis morning, it seemed that a convent must be my ultimate refuge. Ihave spent most of my young life at Santa Sofia, and the little that Ihave seen of the world at my uncle's court scarce invites me to seemore of it. The Mother Abbess loved me a little. She would take me back,unless----"
She broke off and looked at him, and before that look of absolute andsweet surrender his senses swam. That she was niece to the Dukeof Urbino he remembered no more than that he was Count of Aquila,well-born, but of none too rich estate, and certainly no more amatch for her in Guidobaldo's eyes than if he had been the simpleknight-errant that he seemed.
He moved closer to her, his hands--as if obeying a bidding greater thanhis will, the bidding of that glance of hers, perhaps--took her by theshoulders, whilst his whole soul looked at her from his eyes. Then, witha stifled cry, he caught her to him. For a moment she lay, palpitant,within his arms, her tall, bronze head on a level with his chin, herheart beating against his heart. Stooping suddenly, he kissed her on thelips. She suffered it with an unresistance that invited. But when itwas done, she gently put him from her; and he, obedient to her slightestwish, curbed the wild ardour of his mood, and set her free.
"Anima mia!" he cried rapturously. "You are mine now, betide what may.Not Gian Maria nor all the dukes in Christendom shall take you from me."
She set her hand upon his lips to silence him, and he kissed the palm,so that laughing she drew back again. And now from laughter she passedto a great solemnity, and with arm outstretched towards the ducal camp:"Win me a way through those lines," said she, "and bear me away fromUrbino--far away where Guidobaldo's power and the vengeance of GianMaria may not follow us--and you shall have won me for your own. Butuntil then, let there be a truce to--to this, between us. Here is aman's work to be done, and if I am weak as to-night, I may weaken you,and then we should both be undone. It is upon your strength I count,Franceschino mio, my true knight."
He would have answered her. He had much to tell her--who and what hewas. But she pointed to the head of the steps, where a man's figureloomed.
"Yonder comes the sentinel," she said. "Leave me now, dear Francesco.Go. It is growing late."
He bowed low before her, obedient ever, like the true knight he was, andtook his leave of her, his soul on fire.
Valentina watched his retreating figure until it had vanished round theangle of the wall. Then with a profound sigh, that was as a prayer ofthanksgiving for this great good that had come into her life, she leanedupon the parapet and looked out into the darkness, her cheeks flushed,her heart still beating high. She laughed softly to herself out of thepure happiness of her mood. The camp of Gian Maria became a subject forher scorn. What should his might avail whilst she had such a champion todefend her now and hereafter?
There was an irony in that siege on which her fancy fastened. By comingthus in arms against her Gian Maria sought to win her for his wife; yetall that he had accomplished was to place her in the arms of the oneman whom she had learnt to love by virtue of this very siege. The mellowwarmth of the night, the ambient perfume of the fields were well-sortedto her mood, and the faint breeze that breathed caressingly upon hercheek seemed to re-echo the melodies her heart was giving forth. In thathour those old grey walls of Roccaleone seemed to enclose for her avery paradise, and the snatch of an old love song stole softly from herparted lips. But like a paradise--alas!--it had its snake that crept upunheard behind her, and was presently hissing in her ear. And its voicewas the voice of Romeo Gonzaga.
"It comforts me, Madonna, that there is one, at least, in Roccaleone hasthe heart to sing."
Startled out of her happy pensiveness by that smooth and now unutterablysinister voice, she turned to face its owner.
She saw the white gleam of his face and something of the anger thatsmouldered in hi
s eye, and despite herself a thrill of alarm ran throughher like a shudder. She looked beyond him to a spot where lately shehad seen the sentry. There was no one there nor anywhere upon that wall.They were alone, and Messer Gonzaga looked singularly evil.
For a moment there was a tense silence, broken only by the tumblingwaters of the torrent-moat and the hoarse challenge of a sentry's "Chiva la?" in Gian Maria's camp. Then she turned nervously, wonderinghow much he might have heard of what had passed between herself andFrancesco, how much have seen.
"And yet, Gonzaga," she answered him, "I left you singing below when Icame away."
"--To wanton it here in the moonlight with that damned swashbuckler,that brigand, that kennel-bred beast of a sbirro!"
"Gonzaga! You would dare!"
"Dare?" he mocked her, beside himself with passion. "Is it you who speakof daring--you, the niece of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, a lady of thenoble and illustrious house of Rovere, who cast yourself into the armsof a low-born vassal such as that, a masnadiero, a bandit, a bravo?And can you yet speak of daring, and take that tone with me, when shameshould strike you either dead or dumb?"
"Gonzaga," she answered him, her face as white as his own, but her voicesteady and hard with anger, "leave me now--upon the instant, or I willhave you flogged--flogged to the bone."
A moment he stared at her like a man dazed. Then he tossed his armsto Heaven, and letting them fall heavily to his sides, he shrugged hisshoulders and laughed evilly. But of going he made no shift.
"Call your men," he answered her, in a choking voice. "Do your will onme. Flog me to the bone or to the death--let that be the reward of allthat I have done, all that I have risked, all that I have sacrificed toserve you. It were of a piece with your other actions."
Her eyes sought his in the gloom, her bosom heaving wildly in herendeavours to master herself before she spoke.
"Messer Gonzaga," said she at last, "I'll not deny that you served mefaithfully in the matter of my escape from Urbino----"
"Why speak of it?" he sneered. "It was a service of which you but availyourself until another offered on whom you might bestow your favour andthe supreme command of your fortress. Why speak of it?"
"To show you that the service you allude to is now paid," she ripostedsternly. "By reproaching me you have taken payment, and by insulting meyou have stamped out my gratitude."
"A most convenient logic yours," he mocked. "I am cast aside like anoutworn garment, and the garment is accounted paid for because throughmuch hard usage it has come to look a little threadbare."
And now it entered her mind that perhaps there was some justice in whathe said. Perhaps she had used him a little hardly.
"Do you think, Gonzaga," she said, and her tone was now a shade moregentle, "that because you have served me you may affront me, and thatknight who has served me, also, and----"
"In what can such service as his compare with mine? What has he donethat I have not done more?"
"Why, when the men rebelled here----"
"Bah! Cite me not that. Body of God! it is his trade to lead such swine.He is one of themselves. But for the rest, what has such a man as thisto lose by his share in your rebellion, compared with such a loss asmine must be?"
"Why, if things go ill, I take it he may lose his life," she answered,in a low voice. "Can you lose more?"
He made a gesture of impatience.
"If things go ill--yes. It may cost him dearly. But if they go well,and this siege is raised, he has nothing more to fear. Mine is a parlouscase. However ends this siege, for me there will be no escape from thevengeance of Gian Maria and Guidobaldo. They know my share in it. Theyknow that your action was helped by me, and that without me you couldnever have equipped yourself for such resistance. Whatever may betideyou and this Ser Franceseo, for me there will be no escape."
She drew a deep breath, then set him the obvious question:
"Did you not consider it--did you not weigh these chances--before youembarked upon this business, before you, yourself, urged me to thisstep?"
"Aye, did I," he answered sullenly.
"Then, why these complaints now?"
He was singularly, madly frank with her in his reply. He told her thathe had done it because he loved her, because she had given him signsthat his love was not in vain.
"I gave you signs?" she interrupted him. "Mother in Heaven! Recite thesesigns that I may know them."
"Were you not ever kind to me?" he demanded. "Did you not ever manifesta liking for my company? Were you not ever pleased that I should singto you the songs that in your honour I had made? Was it not to me youturned in the hour of your need?"
"See now how poor a thing you are, Gonzaga?" she answered witheringly."A woman may not smile on you, may not give you a kind word, may notsuffer you to sing to her, but you must conclude she is enamoured ofyou. And if I turned to you in my hour of need, as you remind me, needsthat be a sign of my infatuation? Does every cavalier so think whena helpless woman turns to him in her distress? But even so," shecontinued, "how should all that diminish the peril you now talk of?Even were your suit with me to prosper, would that make you any the lessRomeo Gonzaga, the butt of the anger of my uncle and Gian Maria? Ratherdo I think that it should make you more."
But he disillusioned her. He did not scruple, in his angry mood, to laybefore her his reasonings that as her husband he would be screened.
She laughed aloud at that.
"And so it is by such sophistries as these that your presumption came tolife?"
That stung him. Quivering with the passion that obsessed him, he steppedclose up to her.
"Tell me, Madonna--why shall we account presumption in Romeo Gonzaga asuit that in a nameless adventurer we encourage?" he asked, his voicethick and tremulous.
"Have a care," she bade him.
"A care of what?" he flashed back. "Answer me, Monna Valentina. Am Iso base a man that by the very thought of love for you I must presume,whilst you can give yourself into the arms of this swashbuckling bravo,and take his kisses? Your reasoning sorts ill with your deeds."
"Craven!" she answered him. "Dog that you are!" And before the blaze ofpassion in her eyes he recoiled, his courage faltering. She cropped heranger in mid-career, and in a dangerously calm voice she bade him seeto it that by morning he was no longer in Roccaleone. "Profit by thenight," she counselled him, "and escape the vigilance of Gian Maria asbest you can. Here you shall not stay."
At that a great fear took possession of him, putting to flight the lastremnant of his anger. Nor fear alone was it, to do him full justice. Itwas also the realisation that if he would take payment from her for thistreatment of him, if he would slake his vengeance, he must stay. Oneplan had failed him. But his mind was fertile, and he might deviseanother that might succeed and place Gian Maria in Roccaleone. Thusshould he be amply venged. She was turning away, having pronounced hisbanishment, but he sprang after her, and upon his knees he now besoughther piteously to hear him yet awhile.
And she, regretting her already of her harshness, and thinking thatperhaps in his jealousy he had been scarce responsible for what he hadsaid, stood still to hear him.
"Not that, not that, Madonna," he wailed, his tone suggesting theimminence of tears. "Do not send me away. If die I must, let me die hereat Roccaleone, helping the defence to my last breath. But do not cast meout to fall into the hands of Gian Maria. He will hang me for my sharein this business. Do not requite me thus, Madonna. You owe me a little,surely, and if I was mad when I talked to you just now, it was love ofyou that drove me--love of you and suspicion of that man of whom none ofus know anything. Madonna, be pitiful a little. Suffer me to remain."
She looked down at him, her mind swayed between pity and contempt. Thenpity won the day in the wayward but ever gentle heart of Valentina. Shebade him rise.
"And go, Gonzaga. Get you to bed, and sleep you into a saner frame ofmind. We will forget all this that you have said, so that you neverspeak of it again--nor of this love you say you b
ear me."
The hypocrite caught the hem of her cloak, and bore it to his lips.
"May God keep your heart ever as pure and noble and forgiving," hemurmured brokenly. "I know how little I am deserving of your clemency.But I shall repay you, Madonna," he protested--and truly meant it,though not in the sense it seemed.