They were very gay that night at the hospitable court of the Marquis Theodore. A comedy was performed early in the evening, a comedy which Fra Serafino in his chronicle describes as lascivious, by which he may mean no more than playful. Thereafter there was some dancing in the long hall, of which the Regent himself set the example, leading forth the ugly but graceful young Princess of Morea.
His nephew, the Marquis Gian Giacomo, followed with the Countess of Ronsecco, who would have declined the honour if she had dared, for the boy's cheeks were flushed, his eyes glazed, his step uncertain, and his speech noisy and incoherent. And there were few who smiled as they observed the drunken antics of their future prince. Once, indeed, the Regent paused, grave and concerned of countenance, to whisper an admonition. The boy answered him with a bray of insolent laughter, and flung away, dragging the pretty countess with him. It was plain to all that the gentle, knightly Regent found it beyond his power to control his unruly, degenerate nephew.
Amongst the few who dared to smile was Messer Castruccio da Fenestrella, radiant in a suit of cloth of gold, who stood watching the mischief he had made. For it was he who had first secretly challenged Gian Giacomo to a drinking-bout during supper, and afterwards urged him to dance with the pretty wife of stiff-necked Ronsecco.
Awhile he stood looking on. Then, wearying of the entertainment, he sauntered off to join a group apart of which the Lady Valeria was the centre. Her ladies, Dionara and Isotta, were with her, the pedant Corsario, looking even less pedantic than his habit, and a half-dozen gallants who among them made all the chatter. Her highness was pale, and there was a frown between her eyes that so wistfully followed her unseemly brother, inattentive of those about her, some of whom from the kindliest motives sought to distract her attention. Her cheeks warmed a little at the approach of Castruccio, who moved into the group with easy, insolent grace.
'My lord is gay to-night,' he informed them lightly. None answered him. He looked at them with his flickering, shifty eyes, a sneering smile on his lips. 'So are not you,' he informed them. 'You need enlivening.' He thrust forward to the Princess, and bowed. 'Will your highness dance?'
She did not look at him. Her eyes were fixed, and their glance went beyond him and was of such intensity that Messer Castruccio turned to seek the object of that curious contemplation.
Down the hall came striding Messer Aliprandi, the Orator of Milan, and with him a tall, black-haired young man, in a suit of red that was more conspicuous than suitable of fashion to the place or the occasion. Into the group about the Princess they came, whilst the exquisite Castruccio eyed this unfashionable young man with frank contempt, bearing his pomander-ball to his nostrils, as if to protect his olfactory organs from possible offence.
Messer Aliprandi, trimly bearded, elegant in his furred gown, and suavely mannered, bowed low before the Lady Valeria.
'Permit me, highness, to present Messer Bellarion Cane, the son of my good friend Facino Cane of Biandrate.'
It was the Marquis Theodore, who had requested the Orator of Milan—as was proper, seeing that by reason of his paternity Bellarion was to be regarded as Milanese—to present his assumed compatriot to her highness.
Bellarion, modelling himself upon Aliprandi, executed his bow with grace.
As Fra Serafino truthfully says of him: 'He learnt manners and customs and all things so quickly that he might aptly be termed a fluid in the jug of any circumstance.'
The Lady Valeria inclined her head with no more trace of recognition in her face than there was in Bellarion's own.
'You are welcome, sir,' she said with formal graciousness, and then turned to Aliprandi. 'I did not know that the Count of Biandrate had a son.'
'Nor did I, madonna, until this moment. It was the Marquis Theodore who made him known to me.' She fancied in Aliprandi's tone something that seemed to disclaim responsibility. But she turned affably to the newcomer, and Bellarion marvelled at the ease with which she dissembled.
'I knew the Count of Biandrate well when I was a child, and I hold his memory very dear. He was in my father's service once, as you will know. I rejoice in the greatness he has since achieved. It should make a brave tale.'
'Per aspera ad astra is ever a brave tale,' Bellarion answered soberly. 'Too often it is per astra ad aspera, if I may judge by what I have read.'
'You shall tell me of your father, sir. I have often wished to hear the story of his advancement.'
'To command, highness.' He bowed again.
The others drew closer, expecting entertainment. But Bellarion, who had no such entertainment to bestow, nor knew of Facino's life more than a fragment of what was known to all the world, extricated himself as adroitly as he could.
'I am no practised troubadour or story-singer. And this tale of a journey to the stars should be told under the stars.'
'Why, so it shall, then. They shine brightly enough. You shall show me Facino's and perhaps your own.' She rose and commanded her ladies to attend her.
Castruccio fetched a sigh of relief.
'Give thanks,' he said audibly to those about him, 'for Heaven's mercy which has spared you this weariness.'
The door at the end of the hall stood open to the terrace and the moonlight. Thither the Princess conducted Bellarion, her ladies in close attendance.
Approaching the threshold they came upon the Marquis Gian Giacomo, reeling clumsily beside the Countess of Ronsecco, who was almost on the point of tears. He paused in his caperings that he might ogle his sister.
'Where do you go, Valeria? And who's this long-shanks?'
She approached him. 'You are tired, Giannino, and the Countess, too, is tired. You would be better resting awhile.'
'Indeed, highness!' cried the young Countess, eagerly thankful.
But the Marquis was not at all of his sister's wise opinion.
'Tired? Resting! You're childish, Valeria. Always childish. Childish and meddlesome. Poking your long nose into everything. Some day you'll poke it into something that'll sting it. And what will it look like when it's stung? Have you thought of that?' He laughed derisively, and caught the Countess by the arm. 'Let's leave long-nose and long-shanks. Ha! Ha!' His idiotic laughter shrilled up. He was ravished by his own humour. He let his voice ring out that all might hear and share the enjoyment of his comical conceit. 'Long-nose and long-shanks! Long-nose and long-shanks!
'Said she to him, your long-shanks I adore.
Said he to her, your long-nose I deplore.'
Screaming with laughter he plunged forward to resume the dance, trod upon one of his trailing, exaggerated sleeves, tripped himself, and went sprawling on the tessellated floor, his laughter louder and more idiotic than ever. A dozen ran to lift him.
The Princess tapped Bellarion sharply on the arm with her fan of ostrich-plumes. Her face was like graven stone.
'Come,' she commanded, and passed out ahead of him.
On the terrace she signed to her ladies to fall behind whilst with her companion she moved beyond earshot along the marble balustrade, whose moonlit pallor was here and there splashed by the black tide of trailing plants.
'Now, sir,' she invited in a voice of ice, 'will you explain this new identity and your presence here?'
He answered in calm, level tones: 'My presence explains itself when I tell you that my identity is accepted by his highness the Regent. The son of Facino Cane is not to be denied the hospitality of the Court of Montferrat.'
'Then why did you lie to me when ...'
'No, no. This is the lie. This false identity was as necessary to gain admission here as was the painter's smock I wore yesterday: another lie.'
'You ask me to believe that you ...' Indignation choked her. 'My senses tell me what you are; an agent sent to work my ruin.'
'Your senses tell you either more or less, or else you would not now be here.'
And then it was as if the bonds of her self-control were suddenly snapped by the strain they sought to bear. 'Oh, God!' she cried out. 'I am near distraction. My brother ...' She broke off on something akin to a sob.
Outwardly Bellarion remained calm. 'Shall we take one thing at a time? Else we shall never be done. And I should not remain here too long with you.'
'Why not? You have the sanction of my dear uncle, who sends you.'
'Even so.' He lowered his voice to a whisper. 'It is your uncle is my dupe, not you.'
'That is what I expected you to say.'
'You had best leave inference until you have heard me out. Inference, highness, as I have shown you once already, is not your strength.'
If she resented his words and the tone he took, she gave no expression to it. Standing rigidly against the marble balustrade, she looked away from him and down that moonlit garden with its inky shadows and tall yew hedges that were sharp black silhouettes against the faintly irradiated sky.
Briefly, swiftly, lucidly, Bellarion told her how her message had been received by the conspirators.
'You thought to checkmate them. But they perceived the move you have overlooked, whereby they checkmate you. This proves what already I have told you: that they serve none but themselves. You and your brother are but the instruments with which they go to work. There was only one way to frustrate them; one only way to serve and save you. That way I sought.'
She interrupted him there. 'You sought? You sought?' Her voice held bewilderment, unbelief, and even some anger. 'Why should you desire to save or serve me? If I could believe you, I must account you impertinent. You were a messenger, no more.'
'Was I no more when I disclosed to you the true aims of these men and the perils of your association with them?'
'Aye, you were more,' she said bitterly. 'But what were you?'
'Your servant, madonna,' he answered simply.
'Ah, yes. I had forgotten. My servant. Sent by Providence, was it not?'
'You are bitter, lady,' said Bellarion.
'Am I?' She turned at last to look at him. But his face was no more than a faint white blur. 'Perhaps I find you too sweet to be real.'
He sighed. 'The rest of my tale will hardly change that opinion. Is it worth while continuing?' He spoke without any heat, a little wistfully.
'It should be entertaining if not convincing.'
'For your entertainment, then: what you could not do without destroying yourself was easily possible to me.' And he told her of his pretended petition, giving the Regent the names of those who plotted against his life.
He saw her clutch her breast, caught the gasp of dread and dismay that broke from her lips.
'You betrayed them!'
'Was it not what you announced that you would do if they did not abandon their plan of murder? I was your deputy, no more. When I presented myself as Facino Cane's adopted son I was readily believed—because the Regent cared little whether it were true or not, since in me he perceived the very agent that he needed.'
'Ah, now at last we have something that does not strain belief.'
'Will it strain belief that the Regent was already fully informed of this conspiracy?'
'What!'
'Why else should he have trusted or believed me? Of his own knowledge he knew that what I told him was true.'
'He knew and he held his hand?' Again the question was made scornful by unbelief.
'Because he lacked evidence that you, and, through you, your brother, were parties to the plot. What to him are Barbaresco's shabby crew? It is the Marquis Gian Giacomo who must be removed in such a manner as not to impair the Lord Regent's credit. To gather evidence am I now sent.'
She tore an ostrich-plume from her fan in her momentary passion.
'You do not hesitate to confess how you betray each in turn; Barbaresco to the Regent; the Regent to me; and now, no doubt, me to the Regent.'
'As for the last, madonna, to betray you I need not now be here. I could have supplied the Regent with all the evidence he needs against you at the same time that I supplied the evidence against the others.'
She was silent, turning it over in her mind. And because her mind was acute, she saw the proof his words afforded. But because afraid, she mistrusted proof.
'It may be part of the trap,' she complained. 'If it were not, why should you remain after denouncing my friends? The aims you pretend would have been fully served by that.'
His answer was prompt and complete.
'If I had departed, you would never have known the answer of those men whom you trust, nor would you have known that there is a Judas amongst them already. It was necessary to warn you.'
'Yes,' she said slowly. 'I see, I think.' And then in sudden revolt against the conviction he was forcing upon her, and in tones which if low were vehement to the point of fierceness: 'Necessary!' she cried, echoing the word he had used. 'Necessary! How was it necessary? Whence this necessity of yours? A week ago you did not know me. Yet for me, who am nothing to you, whose service carries no reward, you pretend yourself prepared to labour and to take risks involving even your very life. That is what you ask me to believe. You suppose me mad, I think.'
As she faced him now, she fancied that a smile broke upon that face so indistinctly seen. His voice, as he answered her, was very soft.
'It is not mad to believe in madness. Madness exists, madonna. Set me down as suffering from it. The air of the world is proving too strong and heady, perhaps, for one bred in cloisters. It has intoxicated me, I think.'
She laughed chillingly. 'For once you offer an explanation that goes a little lame. Your invention is failing, sir.'
'Nay, lady; my understanding,' he answered sadly.
She set a hand upon his arm. He felt it quivering there, which surprised him almost as much as the change in her voice, now suddenly halting and unsteady.
'Messer Bellarion, if my suspicions wound you, set them down to my distraction. It is so easy, so dangerously easy, to believe what we desire to believe.'
'I know,' he said gently. 'Yet when you've slept on what I've said, you'll find that your safety lies in trusting me.'
'Safety! Am I concerned with safety only? To-night you saw my brother...'
'I saw. If that is Messer Castruccio's work ...'
'Castruccio is but a tool. Come, sir. We talk in vain.' She began to move along the terrace towards her waiting ladies. Suddenly she paused. 'I must trust you, Ser Bellarion. I must or I shall go mad in this ugly tangle. I'll take the risk. If you are not true, if you win my trust only to abuse it and work the evil will of the Regent, then God will surely punish you.'
'I think so, too,' he breathed.
'Tell me now,' she questioned, 'what shall you say to my uncle?'
'Why, that I have talked with you fruitlessly; that either you have no knowledge of Barbaresco or else you withheld it from me.'
'Shall you come again?'
'If you desire it. The way is open now. But what remains to do?'
'You may discover that.' Thus she conveyed that, having resolved to give him her trust, she gave it without stint.
They came back into the hall, where stiff and formally Bellarion made his valedictory bow, then went to take his leave of the Regent.
The Regent disengaged himself from the group of which he was the centre, and, taking Bellarion by the arm, drew him apart a little.
'I have made a sounding,' Bellarion informed him. 'Either she mistrusts me, or else she knows nothing of Barbaresco.'
'Be sure of the former, sir,' said the Regent softly. 'Procure credentials from Barbaresco, and try again. It should be easy, so.'