Stimulated by the insistence of this apparently accredited and energetic representative of the Princess, Messer Barbaresco assembled in his house in the forenoon of the following day a half-dozen gentlemen who were engaged with him upon that crack-brained conspiracy against the Regent of Montferrat. Four of these, including Count Enzo Spigno, were men who had been exiled because of Guelphic profession, and who had returned by stealth at Barbaresco's summons.
They talked a deal, as such folk will; but on the subject of real means by which they hoped to prevail they were so vague that Bellarion, boldly asserting himself, set about provoking revelation.
'Sirs, all this leads us nowhere. What, indeed, am I to convey to her highness? Just that here in Casale at my Lord Barbaresco's house some gentlemen of Montferrat hold assemblies to discuss her brother's wrongs? Is that all?'
They gaped and frowned at him, and they exchanged dark glances among themselves, as if each interrogated his neighbour. It was Barbaresco at last who answered, and with some heat.
'You try my patience, sir. Did I not know you accredited by her highness I would not brook these hectoring airs ...'
'If I were not so accredited, there would be no airs to brook.' Thus he confirmed the impression of one deeper than they in the confidence of the Lady Valeria.
'But this is a sudden impatience on the Lady Valeria's part!' said one.
'It is not the impatience that is sudden. But the expression of it. I am telling you things that may not be written. Your last messenger, Giuffredo, was not sufficiently in her confidence. How should she have opened her mind to him? Whilst you, sirs, are all too cautious to approach her yourselves, lest in a subsequent miscarriage of your aims there should be evidence to make you suffer with her.'
The first part of that assertion he had from themselves; the second was an inference, boldly expressed to search their intentions. And because not one of them denied it, he knew what to think—knew that their aims amounted to more, indeed, than they were pretending.
In silence they looked at him as he stood there in a shaft of morning sunlight that had struggled through the curtain of dust and grime on the blurred glass of the mullioned window. And then at last, Count Spigno, a lean, tough, swarthy gentleman, whose expressions had already revealed him the bitterest enemy there of the Marquis Theodore, loosed a short laugh.
'By the Host! He's in the right.' He swung to Bellarion. 'Sir, we should deserve the scorn you do not attempt to dissemble if our plans went no farther than ...'
The voices of his fellow conspirators were raised in warning. But he brushed them contemptuously aside, a bold rash man.
'A choicely posted arbalester will ...'
He got no further. This time his utterance was smothered by their anger and alarm. Barbaresco and another laid rough hands upon him, and through the general din rang the opprobrious epithets they bestowed upon him, of which 'fool' and 'madman' were the least. Amongst them they cowed him, and when it was done they turned again to Bellarion who had not stirred from where he stood, maintaining a frown of pretended perplexity between his level black brows.
It was Barbaresco, oily and crafty, who sought to dispel, to deviate any assumption Bellarion might have formed.
'Do not heed his words, sir. He is forever urging rash courses. He, too, is impatient. And impatience is a dangerous mood to bring to such matters as these.'
Bellarion was not deceived. They would have him believe that Count Spigno had intended no more than to urge a course, whereas what he perceived was that the Count had been about to disclose the course already determined, and had disclosed enough to make a guess of the remainder easy. No less did he perceive that to betray his apprehension of this fact might be never to leave that house alive. He could read it in their glances, as they waited to learn from his answer how much he took for granted.
Therefore he used a deep dissimulation. He shrugged ill-humouredly.
'Yet patience, sirs, can be exceeded until from a virtue it becomes a vice. I have more respect for an advocate of rash courses'—and he inclined his head slightly to Count Spigno—'than for those who practise an excessive caution whilst time is slipping by.'
'That, sir,' Barbaresco rebuked him, 'is because you are young. With age, if you are spared, you will come to know better.'
'Meanwhile,' said Bellarion, completely to reassure them, 'I see plainly enough that your message to her highness is scarce worth carrying.' And he flung himself down into his chair with simulated petulance.
The conference came to an end soon afterwards, and the conspirators went their ways again singly. Shortly after the departure of the last of them, Bellarion took his own, promising that he would return that night to Messer Barbaresco's house to inform him of anything her highness might desire him to convey. One last question he asked his host at parting.
'The pavilion in the palace gardens is being painted. Can you say by whom?'
Barbaresco's eyes showed that he found the question odd. But he answered that most probably one Gobbo, whose shop was in the Via del Cane, would be entrusted with the work.
Into that shop of Gobbo's, found by inquiry, Bellarion penetrated an hour later. Old Gobbo himself, amid the untidy litter of the place, was engaged in painting an outrageous scarlet angel against a star-flecked background of cobalt blue. Bellarion's first question ascertained that the painting of the pavilion was indeed in Gobbo's hands.
'My two lads are engaged upon it now, my lord.'
Bellarion winced at the distinguished form of address, which took him by surprise until he remembered his scarlet suit with its imposing girdle and gold-hilted dagger.
'The work progresses all too slowly,' said he sharply.
'My lord! My lord!' The old man was flung into agitation. 'It is a beautiful fresco, and ...'
'They require assistance, those lads of yours.'
'Assistance!' The old man flung his arms to heaven. 'Where shall I find assistants with the skill?'
'Here,' said Bellarion, and tapped his breast with his forefinger.
Amazed, Gobbo considered his visitor more searchingly. Bellarion leaned nearer, and lowered his voice to a tone of confidence.
'I'll be frank with you, Ser Gobbo. There is a lady of the palace, a lady of her highness ...' He completed his sentence, by roguishly closing an eye.
Gobbo's lean brown old face cracked across in a smile, as becomes an old artist who finds himself face to face with romance.
'You understand, I see,' said Bellarion, smiling in his turn. 'It is important that I should have a word with this lady. There are grave matters ... I'll not weary you with these and my own sad story. Perform a charitable act to your own profit.'
But Gobbo's face had grown serious. 'If it were discovered ...' he was beginning.
'It shall not be. That I promise you full confidently. And to compensate you ... five ducats.'
'Five ducats!' It was a great sum, and confirmed Master Gobbo in the impression made by Bellarion's appearance, dress, and manner, that here he dealt with a great lord. 'For five ducats ...' He broke off, and scratched his head.
Bellarion perceived that he must not be given time for thought.
'Come, my friend, lend me the clothes for the part and a smock such as is proper, and do you keep these garments of mine in pledge for my safe return and for the five ducats that shall then be yours.'
He knew how to be irresistible, and he was fortunate in his present victim. He went off a half-hour or so later in the garb of his suddenly assumed profession and bearing a note from Gobbo to his sons.
Late in the afternoon Bellarion lounged in the pavilion in the palace garden to which his pretence had gained him easy admission. He mixed some colours for the two young artists under their direction. But beyond that he did nothing save wait for sunset when the light would fail and the two depart. Himself, though not without the exertion of considerable persuasions based upon a display of his amorous intentions, he remained behind to clear things up.
Thus it happened that, as the Lady Dionara was walking by the lake, she heard herself addressed from the bridge that led to the pavilion.
'Madonna! Gracious madonna!'
She turned to behold a tall young man with tumbled black hair and a smear of paint across his face in a smock that was daubed with every colour of the rainbow, waving a long-handled brush in a gesture towards the temple.
'Would not her highness,' he was asking, 'graciously condescend to view the progress of the frescoes.'
The Lady Dionara looked down her nose at this greatly presumptuous fellow until he added softly: 'And receive news at the same time of the young man she befriended yesterday?' That changed her expression, so swift and ludicrously that Bellarion was moved to silent laughter.
To view those frescoes came the Lady Valeria alone, leaving Monna Dionara to loiter on the bridge. Within the temple her highness found the bedaubed young painter dangling his legs from a scaffold and flourishing a brush in one hand, a mahlstick in the other. She looked at him in waiting silence. He did not try her patience.
'Madonna, you do not recognise me.' With the sleeve of his smock he wiped the daub of paint from across his features. But already his voice had made him known.
'Messer Bellarion! Is it yourself?'
'Myself.' He came to the ground. 'To command.'
'But ... why this? Why thus?' Her eyes were wide, she was a little breathless.
'I have had a busy day, madonna, and a busy night, and I have more to report than may hurriedly be muttered behind a hedge.'
'You bring messages?'
'The message amounts to nothing. It is only to say that Messer Giuffredo, fancying himself followed and watched on the last occasion, is not to be induced to come again. And in the meanwhile nothing has happened of which it was worth while to inform you. Messer Barbaresco desires me further to say that everything progresses satisfactorily, which I interpret to mean that no progress whatever is being made.’
'And I venture to add, having been entertained at length, not only by Messer Barbaresco, but also by the other out-at-elbow nobles in this foolish venture, that it never will progress in the sense you wish, nor to any end but disaster.'
He saw the scarlet flame of indignation overspread her face, he saw the anger kindle in her great dark eyes, and he waited calmly for the explosion. But the Lady Valeria was not explosive. Her rebuke was cold.
'Sir, you presume upon a messenger's office. You meddle in affairs that are not your concern.'
'Do you thank God for it,' said Bellarion, unabashed. 'It is time some one gave these things their proper names so as to remove all misconception. Do you know whither Barbaresco and these other fools are thrusting you, madonna? Straight into the hands of the strangler.'
Having conquered her anger once, she was not easily to be betrayed into it again.
'If that is all you have to tell me, sir, I will leave you. I'll not remain to hear my friends and peers maligned by a base knave to whom I speak by merest accident.'
'Not accident, madonna.' His tone was impressive. 'A base knave I may be. But base by birth alone. These others whom you trust and call your peers are base by nature. Ah, wait! It was no accident that brought me!' he cried, and this with a sincerity from which none could have suspected the violence he did to his beliefs. 'Ask yourself why I should come again to do more than is required of me, at some risk to myself? What are your affairs, or the affairs of the State of Montferrat, to me? You know what I am and what my aims. Why, then, should I tarry here? Because I cannot help myself. Because the will of Heaven has imposed itself upon me.'
His great earnestness, his very vehemence, which seemed to invest his simple utterances with a tone of inspiration, impressed her despite herself, as he intended that they should. Nor did she deceive him when she dissembled this in light derision.
'An archangel in a painter's smock!'
'By Saint Hilary, that is nearer the truth than you suppose it.'
She smiled, yet not entirely without sourness. 'You do not lack a good opinion of yourself.'
'You may come to share it when I've said all that's in my mind. I have told you, madonna, whither these crack-brained adventurers are thrusting you, so that they may advance themselves. Do you know the true import of the conspiracy? Do you know what they plan, these fools? The murder of the Marquis Theodore.'
She stared at him round-eyed, afraid. 'Murder?' she said in a voice of horror.
He smiled darkly. 'They had not told you, eh? I knew they dared not. Yet so indiscreet and rash are they that they betrayed it to me—to me of whom they know nothing save that I carried as an earnest of my good faith your broken half-ducat. What if I were just a scoundrel who would sell to the Marquis Theodore a piece of information for which he would no doubt pay handsomely? Do you still think that it was accident brought me to interfere in your concerns?'
'I can't believe you! I can't!' and again she breathed, aghast, that horrid word: 'Murder!'
'If they succeeded,' said Bellarion coldly, 'all would be well. Your uncle would have no more than his deserts, and you and your brother would be rid of an evil incubus. The notion does not shock me at all. What shocks me is that I see no chance of success for a plot conducted by such men with such inadequate resources. By joining them you can but advance the Regent's aims, which you believe to be the destruction of your brother. Let the attempt be made, and fail, or even let evidence be forthcoming of the conspiracy's existence and true purpose, and your brother is at the Regent's mercy. The people themselves might demand his outlawry or even his death for an attempt upon the life of a prince who has known how to make himself beloved.'
'But my brother is not in this,' she protested. 'He knows nothing of it.'
Bellarion smiled compassionately. 'Cui bono fuerit? That is the first question which the law will ask. Be warned, madonna! Dissociate yourself from these men while it is time or you may enable the Regent at a single stride to reach his ultimate ambition.'
The pallor of her face, the heave of her breast, were witnesses to her agitation. 'You would frighten me if I did not know how false is your main assumption: that they plot murder. They would never dare to do this thing without my sanction, and this they have never sought.'
'Because they intend to confront you with an accomplished fact. Oh, you may believe me, madonna. In the last twenty-four hours and chiefly from these men I have learnt much of the history of Montferrat. And I have learnt a deal of their own histories too. There is not one amongst them who is not reduced in circumstances, whose state has not been diminished by lack of fortune or lack of worth.'
But for this she had an answer, and she delivered it with a slow, wistful smile.
'You talk, sir, as if you contained all knowledge, and yet you have not learnt that the fortunate desire no change, but labour to uphold the state whence their prosperity is derived. Is it surprising, then, that I depend upon the unfortunate?'
'Say also the venal, those greedy of power and of possessions, whose only spur is interest; desperate gamblers who set their heads upon the board and your own and your brother's head with theirs. Almost they divided among themselves in their talk the offices of State. Barbaresco promised me that the ambition he perceived in me should be fully gratified. He assumed that I, too, had no aim but self-aggrandisement, simply because he could assume no other reason why a man should expose himself to risks. That told me all of him that I required to know.'
'Barbaresco is poor,' she answered. 'He has suffered wrongs. Once, in my father's time he was almost the greatest man in the State. My uncle has stripped him of his honours and almost of his possessions.'
'That is the best thing I have heard of the Marquis Theodore yet.'
She did not heed him, but went on: 'Can I desert him now? Can I ...' She checked and stiffened, seeming to grow taller. 'What am I saying? What am I thinking?' She laughed, and there was scorn of self in her laugh. 'What arts do you employ, you, an unknown man, a self-confessed starveling student, base and nameless, that upon no better warrant than your word I should even ask such a question?'
'What arts?' said he, and smiled in his turn, though without scorn. 'The art of pure reason based on truth. It is not to be resisted.'
'Not if based on truth. But yours is based on prejudice.'
'Is it prejudice that they are plotting murder?'
'They have been misled by their devotion ...'
'By their cupidity, madonna.'
'I will not suffer you to say that.' Anger flared up again in her, loyal anger on behalf of those she deemed her only friends in her great need. She checked it instantly, 'Sir, I perceive your interest, and I am grateful. If you would still do me a service, go, tell Messer Barbaresco from me that this plot of assassination must go no further. Impose it upon him as my absolute command. Tell him that I must be obeyed and that, rather than be a party to such an act, I would disclose the intention to the Marquis Theodore.'
'That is something, madonna. But if when you have slept upon it ...'
She interrupted him. 'Upon whatever course I may determine I shall find means to convey the same to my Lord Barbaresco. There will not be the need to trouble you again. For what you have done, sir, I shall remain grateful. So, go with God, Messer Bellarion.'
She was turning away when he arrested her.
'It is a little personal matter this. I am in need of five ducats.'
He saw the momentary frown, chased away by the beginnings of a smile.
'You are consistent in that you misunderstand me, though I have once reminded you that if I needed money for myself I could sell my information to the Regent. The five ducats are for Gobbo who lent me this smock and these tools of my pretended trade.' And he told her the exact circumstances.
She considered him more gently. 'You do not lack resource, sir?'
'It goes with intelligence, madonna,' he reminded her as an argument in favour of what he said. But she ignored it.
'And I am sorry that I ... You shall have ten ducats, unless your pride is above ...'
'Do you see pride in me?'
She looked him over with a certain haughty amusement. 'A monstrous pride, an overweening vanity in your acuteness.'
'I'll take ten ducats to convince you of my humility. I may yet need the other five in the service of your highness.'
'That service, sir, is at an end, or will be when you have conveyed my message to the Lord Barbaresco.'
Bellarion accepted his dismissal in the settled conviction that her highness was mistaken and would presently be glad to admit it.
She was right, you see, touching that vanity of his.