On a day of September of the year of Our Lord 1409, a dust-laden horseman clattered into the courtyard of a palace near the Bridge of the Trinity in Florence, and announced himself a courier with letters for the noble Lord Bellarion.
He was consigned by a man-at-arms to an usher, by the usher to a chamberlain, and by the chamberlain to a slim young secretary. From this you will gather that access to the Lord Bellarion was no longer a rough-and-ready business; and, from this again, that he had travelled far since detaching himself from the Lord Facino Cane a year ago.
At the head of the condotta which he had raised, he had fought in the course of that year a half-score of engagements, now in this service, now in that, and in all but one he had won easy triumphs. Even his single failure—which was at Verruno in the pay of the Estes of Ferrara—was such as to enhance his reputation. Forced by overwhelming numbers to admit defeat, yet by sheer skill he had baffled the great Pandolfo's attempt to surround him, and had brought off his condotta with such little loss that Pandolfo's victory was a barren one.
His condotta, now known as the 'Company of the White Dog,' from the device he had adopted, had grown to the number of twelve hundred men, with a heavy preponderance of infantry, his handling of which was giving the other great captains of Italy food for thought. In fame he was the rival of Piccinino, almost the rival of Sforza himself, under whose banner he had served in the war against his old opponent Buonterzo. And Fra Serafino da Imola tells us unequivocally in his chronicle that the ambush in which Buonterzo ended his turbulent life in March of that year was of Bellarion's planning. Since then he had continued in the service of the Florentine Republic at a monthly stipend which had gradually been raised with the growth of his condotta to twenty thousand gold florins.
Like all famous men, he was not without detractors. He was charged with a cold ruthlessness, which brought, it was claimed, an added horror into warfare, shocking adversaries, as it had shocked Buonterzo on the Trebbia, into ordering that no quarter should be given. So opposed, indeed, was this ruthlessness to the accepted canons of Italian warfare, that it was said Bellarion could enlist only Swiss mercenaries who notoriously were not queasy in these matters. The probable truth, however, is that he employed only Swiss because they were the best infantry in the world, and further so as to achieve in his following a solidarity and cohesion not to be found in other companies, made up of a medley of nationalities.
Lastly he was found lacking in those spectacular qualities of leadership, in that personal knightly prowess by which such men as Carmagnola took the eye. Never once had he led a charge, stimulating his followers by his own heroical example; never had he taken part in an escalade, or even been seen at work in a mêlée. At Subriso, where he had routed the revolted Pisans, it was said that he had never left the neighbourhood of his tent and never mounted his horse until the engagement was all but over.
Hence, whilst his extraordinary strategic talents were duly respected, it began to be put about that he was lacking in personal courage.
Careless of criticism, he had pursued the course he prescribed himself, gathering laurels as he went. On those laurels he was momentarily resting in the City of the Lilies when that courier rode into the courtyard of his palace with letters from the Count of Biandrate.
The Lord Bellarion, as men now called this leader grown out of the erstwhile nameless waif, in a pleated full-sleeved tunic of purple satin gripped about his loins by a golden girdle and with a massive chain of gold about his neck, stood in a window embrasure to decipher the crabbed untidy characters, indited from Alessandria on the feast of Saint Anthony.
'My dear son,' Facino wrote, 'I need you. So come to me at once with every man that you can bring. The Duke has called in the French. Boucicault is in Milan with six thousand men, and has been appointed ducal governor. Unless I strike quickly before I am myself stricken, Milan will be made a fief of France and the purblind Duke a vassal of the French king. It is the Duke's subjects themselves who summon me. The gout, from which I have been free for months, is troubling me again infernally. It always seizes me just when I most need my strength. Send me word by the bearer of these that you follow at speed.'
Bellarion lowered the letter and gazed out across the spacious sunlit courtyard. There was a ghost of a smile on his bronzed face, which had gained in strength and virility during the year that was sped. He was faintly, disdainfully amused at the plight into which Gian Maria's evil blundering must have placed him before he could take the desperate step of calling in the French.
The Malatesta domination had not been long-lived. Their Guelphic grip had been ruthlessly crushing the city, where every office, even that of Podestà, was given into the hands of Guelphs. And that same grip had been crushing the Duke himself, who discovered belatedly that, in throwing off the yoke of Facino for that of the Malatesta, he had exchanged King Log for King Stork. Then, in his shifty, vacillating way, he sent ambassadors to beg Facino to return. But the ambassadors fell into the hands of the Malatesta spies, and the Duke was constrained to shut himself up in the fortress of Porta Giovia to evade their fury. Whereupon the Malatesta had drawn off to Brescia, which they seized, Pandolfo loudly boasting that he would not rest until he was Duke of Milan, so that Gian Maria Visconti should pay the price of breaking faith with him.
Terror now drove the Duke to lengths of viciousness and inhumanity unprecedented even in his own vile career.
Issuing from the Castle of Porta Giovia to return to his palace so soon as the immediate menace was removed, he found himself beset by crowds of his unfortunate people, distracted by the general paralysis of industry and menaced by famine. Piteously they clamoured about him.
'Peace, Lord Duke! Peace! Give us Facino for our governor, and give us peace! Peace, Lord Duke! Peace!'
His fair face grimly set, his bulging eyes glaring venomously, he had ridden ahead with his escort, closing his ears to their cries, and more than one unfortunate was trampled under the horses' hooves as they passed on. But the cries continuing, that evil boy suddenly reined in his bravely caparisoned charger.
'You want peace, you dogs? You'll deafen me with hellcat cries of peace! What peace do you give me, you filthy rabble? But you shall have peace! Oho! You shall have it.' He stood in his stirrups, and swung round to his captain. 'Ho, there, you!' His face was inflamed with fury, a wicked mockery, and evil mirth hung about his swollen purple lips. So terrible, indeed, was his aspect that della Torre, who rode beside him, ventured to set upon his arm a restraining hand. But the Duke flung the hand off, snarling like a dog at his elderly mentor. He backed his horse until he was thigh to thigh with his captain.
'Give them what they ask for,' he commanded. 'Clear me a way through this dungheap! Use your lances. Give them the peace they want.'
A great cry arose from those who stood nearest, held there by the press behind.
'Lord Duke! Lord Duke!' they wailed.
And he laughed at them, laughed aloud in maniacal mockery, in maniacal anticipation of the gratification of his unutterable blood-lust.
'On! On!' he commanded. 'They are impatient for peace!'
But the captain of his guard, a gentleman of family, Bertino Mantegazza, sat his horse appalled, and issued no such order as he was bidden.
'Lord Duke ...' he began, but got no further, for the Duke, catching the appealing note in his voice, seeing the horror in his eyes, suddenly crashed his iron glove into the young man's face. 'God's blood! Will you stay to argue when I command?'
Mantegazza reeled under that cruel blow, and with blood suffusing his broken face would have fallen but that one of his men caught and supported him in the saddle.
The Duke laughed to see what he had done, and took command himself. 'Into them! Charge!' he commanded in a shout on which his voice shrilled up and cracked. And the Bavarian mercenaries who composed the guard, to whom the Milanese were of no account and all civilians contemptible, lowered their lances and charged as they were bidden.
Two hundred of those poor wretches found in death the peace for which they clamoured. The others fled in panic, and the Duke rode on to the Broletto through streets which terror had emptied.
That night he issued an edict forbidding under pain of death the utterance of the word 'Peace' in his City of Milan. Even from the Mass must that accursed word be expunged.
If they had not also clamoured for Facino, it is probable that to Facino fresh ambassadors would have been sent to invite him to return. But the Duke would have men know that he was Duke, that he was not to be coerced by the wishes of his subjects, and so, out of perversity so blind that it took no account of the pit he might be digging for himself, the Duke invited Boucicault to Milan.
When Boucicault made haste to answer, then the appeal to Facino which should have gone from the Duke went, instead, from the Duke's despairing subjects. Hence Facino's present summons to Bellarion.
There was no hesitation in Bellarion's mind and fortunately no obstacle in his present employment. His agreement with the Florentine Republic had been determined in the last few days. Its renewal was at present under consideration.
He went at once to take his leave of the Signory, and, four days ahead of his army, he was in Alessandria being affectionately embraced by Facino.
He arrived at the very moment at which, in council with his captains and his ally the Marquis Theodore, who had come over from Vercelli, Facino was finally determining the course of action.
'I planned in the sure belief that you would come, bringing at least a thousand men.'
'I bring twelve hundred, all of them well seasoned.'
'Good lad, good lad!' Facino patted his shoulder. 'Come you in and let them hear it from you.'
Leaning heavily upon Bellarion's arm, for the gout was troubling him, he led his adoptive son up that winding stone staircase which Bellarion so well remembered ascending on that morning when, as a muleteer, he went to fool Vignate.
'So Master Theodore is here?' said Bellarion.
'And glad to come. He's been restive in Vercelli, constantly plaguing me to place him in possession of Genoa. But I've held him off. I do not trust Master Theodore sufficiently to do all my part before he has done any of his. A sly fox that and an unscrupulous!'
'And the young Marquis?' Bellarion enquired.
Facino laughed. 'You will not recognise him, he has grown so demure and staid. He thinks of entering holy orders. He'll yet come to be a man.'
Bellarion stared. 'That he was well your letters told me. But this ... How did you accomplish it?'
'By driving out his tutor and the others who came with him. A foul crew!' He paused on the stairs. 'I took their measure at a glance, and I had your hint. When one night Fenestrella and the tutor made the boy drunk and themselves drunk with him, I sent them back to Theodore with a letter in which I invited him to deal with them as their abuse of trust deserved. I dismissed at the same time the physician and the body-servants, and I informed Theodore that I would place about the Marquis in future none but persons whom I could trust. Perforce he must write to thank me. What else could he do? You laugh! Faith, it's laughable enough! I laughed, too, which didn't prevent me from being watchful.'
They resumed the ascent, and Bellarion expressed the hope that the Lady Beatrice was well. Common courtesy demanded that he should conquer his reluctance to name her to Facino. He was answered that she was at Casale, Facino having removed her thither lest Alessandria should come to be besieged.
Thus they came to the chamber where the council sat.
It was the same stone chamber with its vaulted ceiling and Gothic windows open to the sky in which Vignate had given audience to Bellarion. But it was no longer as bare as when the austere Tyrant of Lodi had inhabited it. The walls were hung with arras, and rich furnishings had been introduced by the more sybaritic Facino.
About the long oaken table sat five men, four of whom now rose. The one who remained seated, as if in assertion of his rank, was the Regent of Montferrat. To the newcomer's bow he returned a short nod.
'Ah! The Lord Bellarion!' His tone was languid, and Facino fancied that he sneered. Wherefore he made haste to snap: 'And he brings twelve hundred men to the enterprise, my lord.'
'That should ensure him a welcome,' the Regent admitted, but without cordiality. He seemed, Bellarion observed, out of humour and disgruntled, shorn of his habitual suavity.
The others came forward to greet Bellarion. First the magnificent Carmagnola, taking the eye as ever by the splendour of his raiment, the dignity of his carriage, and the poise of his handsome fair head. He was more cordial than Bellarion had yet known him. But there was something of patronage, of tutorial commendation in his congratulatory allusions to Bellarion's achievements in the field.
'He may yet be as great a soldier as yourself, Francesco,' Facino growled, as he sagged into the chair at the table's head to ease his leg.
Missing the irony, Carmagnola bowed. 'You'll make me vain, my lord.'
'My God!' said Facino.
Came the brawny, bearded, red-faced Koenigshofen, grinning honest welcome and taking Bellarion's hand in a grip that almost hurt. Then followed the swarthy, mercurial little Piedmontese captain, Giasone Trotta, and lastly there was a slight, graceful, sober, self-contained boy in whom Bellarion might have failed to recognise the Gian Giacomo Paleologo of a year ago but for the increased likeness he bore to the Princess Valeria. So strong was that likeness grown that Bellarion was conscious of a thrill as he met the solemn, searching gaze of those dark and rather wistful eyes.
Place at the table was found for Bellarion, and he was informed of the situation and of the resolve which had been all but reached. With his own twelve hundred, and with three thousand men that Montferrat would send after leaving a sufficient force to garrison Vercelli, Facino could put eight thousand men into the field, which should be ample for the undertaking. They were well mounted and well equipped, the equipment including a dozen cannon of three hundred pounds apiece and ten bombards throwing balls of two hundred pounds.
'And the plan of campaign?' Bellarion asked.
It was expounded to him. It was extremely simple. They were to march on Milan and reduce it. All was in readiness, as he would have seen for himself; for as he rode into Alessandria he had come through the great encampment under the walls, where the army awaited the order to march.
When Facino had done, Bellarion considered a moment before speaking.
'There is an alternative,' he said, at last, 'which you may not have considered. Boucicault is grasping more than he can hold. To occupy Milan, whose people are hostile to a French domination, he has drawn all his troops from Genoa, where he has made himself detested by his excessive rigours. You are confusing the issues here. You plan under the persuasion that Milan is the enemy, whereas the only real adversary is Boucicault. To cover himself at one point, he has uncovered at another. Why aim your blow at his heart which is protected by his shield, when you may aim it at his head which is unguarded by so much as a helmet?'
They made him no answer save with their eyes which urged that he, himself, should answer the question he propounded.
'March, then, not on Milan, but on Genoa, which he has so foolishly left open to attack—a folly for which he may have to answer to his master, the King of France. The Genoese themselves will offer no resistance, and you may take possession of the city almost without a blow.'
Approval came warm and eagerly from the Marquis Theodore, to be cut short by Facino.
'Wait! Wait!' he rasped. The notion of Theodore's ambitions being entirely gratified before Theodore should have carried out any of his own part of the bargain was not at all in accordance with Facino's views. 'How shall the possession of Genoa bring us to Milan?'
'It will bring Boucicault to Genoa,' Bellarion answered.
'It will draw him from his stronghold into the open, and his strength will be reduced by the fact that he must leave some force behind to keep the Milanese in subjection during his absence.'
So strategically sound did the plan appear to Facino upon consideration that it overcame his reluctance to place the Regent of Montferrat at this stage in possession of Genoa.
That reluctance he afterwards expressed to Bellarion, when they were alone.
'You do it, not for Theodore, but for yourself,' he was answered. 'As for Theodore ...' Bellarion smiled quietly.
'You need not grudge him any advantages. They will prove very transient. Pay-day will come for him.'
Facino looked sharply at his adoptive son. 'Why, boy,' said he, at last, in a voice of wonder. 'What is there between you and Theodore of Montferrat?'
'Only my knowledge that he's a scoundrel.'
'If you mean to make yourself the scourge of scoundrels you'll be busy in Italy. Why, it's sheer knight-errantry!'
'You may call it that,' said Bellarion, and became thoughtful.