Facino Cane, Count of Biandrate, Lord of Novara, Dertona, Varese, Rosate, Valsassina, and of all the lands on Lake Maggiore as far as Vogogna, was buried with great pomp in the Church of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro.
His chief mourners were his captains summoned from Bergamo to do that last honour to their departed leader. At their head, as mourner in chief, walked Facino's adoptive son Bellarion Cane, Count of Gavi. The others included Francesco Busone of Carmagnola, Giorgio Valperga, Nicolino Marsalia, Werner von Stoffel, and Vaugeois the Burgundian.
Koenigshofen and the Piedmontese Giasone Trotta were absent, having remained at Bergamo with the army.
Thereafter the captains assembled in the Hall of Mirrors to hear the will and last instructions of Facino. To read them came Facino's secretary, accompanied by the Pavese notary who had drawn up the testament three days ago. Thither also came the Countess robed entirely in black and heavily veiled.
The rich and important fief of Valsassina was now disclosed to have been left by Facino to his adoptive son Bellarion, 'in earnest of my love and to recompense his loyalty and worth.' Apart from that and a legacy in money for Carmagnola, the whole of his vast territorial possessions of cities, lands, and fortresses—mostly acquired since he had been deposed in favour of Malatesta—besides the enormous sum of four hundred thousand ducats, were all bequeathed to his widow. He expressed the wish that Bellarion should succeed him in the command of his condotta, and reminding his other captains that strength lies in unity he recommended them to remain united under Bellarion's leadership, at least until the task of restoring order to the duchy should be fulfilled. To his captains also he recommended his widow, putting it upon them to see her firmly established in the dominions he bequeathed to her.
When the reading was done, the captains rose in their places and turned to Madonna Beatrice where she sat like an ebony statue at the table's head. Carmagnola, ever theatrical, ever a man of attitudes, drew his sword with a flourish and laid it on the board.
'Madonna, to you I surrender the authority I held under my Lord Facino, and I leave it in your hands until such time as it shall please you to reinvest me in it.'
The ceremonious gesture caught the fancy of the others. Valperga followed the example instantly, and presently five swords lay naked on the oak. To these, Bellarion, after a moment, a little scornful of this ritual, as he was of all unnecessary displays, added his own.
The Countess rose. She thanked them in a voice that shook with emotion, and one by one restored their weapons to them, naming each as she did so. Bellarion's, however, she left upon the board, wherefore Bellarion, wondering a little, remained when she dismissed the others.
Slowly then she resumed her seat. Slowly she raised and threw back her veil, disclosing a face, which beyond a deeper pallor resulting, perhaps, from contrast with her sable raiment, showed little trace of grief. Her feline eyes considered him, a little frown between their fine black brows.
'You were the last to offer me that homage, Bellarion.' Her voice was slow and softly attuned. 'Why did you hesitate? Are you reluctant?'
'It was a gesture, madonna, that becomes the Carmagnolas of this world. Sincerity requires no symbols, and it was only at the symbol that I boggled. My service and my life are unreservedly at your command.'
There was a pause. Her eyes continued to ponder him. 'Take up your sword,' she said at last.
He moved to do so, and then checked. 'Yourself you restored theirs to the others.'
'The others are not as you. Upon you has fallen the mantle of Facino. How much of that mantle will you wear, Bellarion?'
'As much of it as my lord intended. You have heard his testament, madonna.'
'But not your own interpretation of it.'
'Have I not said that my life and services are at your command, as my lord, to whom I owe everything, enjoined upon me?'
'Your life and services,' she said slowly. Her breast heaved as if in repressed agitation. 'That is much to offer, Bellarion. Do you ask nothing in return?'
'I offer these in return for all that I have received already. It is I who make payment, madonna.'
Again there was a baffled pause. She sighed heavily. 'You make it hard for me, Bellarion.' There was a pathetic break in her voice.
'What do I make hard?'
She rose, and in evident timidity came to stand before him. She set a white hand on the black velvet sleeve of his tunic. Her lovely face, with which time had dealt so mercifully, was upturned to his, and there was now no arrogance in its lines or in her glance. She spoke quietly, wistfully.
'You may think, Bellarion, that with my lord scarce buried this is not the hour for ... what I have to say. And yet, by the very fact of my lord's death and by the very terms of his testament, this is the hour, because it must be the hour of decision. Here and now we must determine what is to follow.'
Tall and coldly stern he stood, looking down upon her who swayed a little there, so close to him that his nostrils were invaded by the subtle essences she used.
'I await your commands, madonna.'
'My commands? My commands? Dear God! What commands have I for you?' She looked away for an instant, then brought her eyes back to his face and her other hand to his other sleeve, so that she held him completely captive now. A faint colour stirred in the pale cheeks. 'My lord has left me great possessions. They might serve as a footstool to help you mount to a great destiny.'
A little smile hovered about his lips as he looked down upon her who waited so breathlessly, her breast now touching his own.
'You are offering me ...' he said, and stopped.
'Can you be in doubt of what I am offering? It is the hour of great decisions, Bellarion, for me and for you.' Closer she pressed, so that her weight was against him. She was deathly pale again, her eyes were veiled. 'In unity is strength. That was Facino's last reminder to us. And in what unity could there be greater strength than in ours? Facino's army, the strongest that ever followed him, is solidly behind us so that we stand together. With that and my resources you need set no bounds to your ambition. You may be Duke of Milan if you will. You may even realise Galeazzo's dream and make yourself King of Italy.'
His hovering smile settled and deepened. But the dark eyes grew sad.
'The world and you have never suspected,' he said gently, 'that I am not really ambitious. You have witnessed my rise in four short years from a poor nameless, starveling scholar to knighthood, lordships, wealth, and fame; and, therefore, you imagine that I am one who has striven for the bounties of Fortune. It is not so, madonna. I have laboured for ends that are nowise bound up with the hope of any of these rewards, which I hold cheap. They are hollow vanities, empty bubbles, gewgaws to delight the children of the world. Possessions come to me, titles, honours, which deceive me no more than I desired them.'
She drew away from him a little, and looked at him almost in awe. 'God! You talk like a monk!'
'It is possible that I think like one, and very natural remembering how I was nurtured. There is one task, one purpose which has detained me in this world of men. When that is accomplished, I think I shall go back to the cell where there is peace.'
'You!' Her hands had fallen from his arms. She gasped now in her amazement. 'With the world at your feet if you choose! To renounce all? To go back to the chill loneliness and joylessness of monkhood? Bellarion, you are mad.'
'Or else sane, madonna. Who shall judge?'
'And love, Bellarion? Is there no love in the world? Does that not lend reality to all these things that you deem shams?'
'Does it heal the vanity of the world?' he cried. 'It is a great power, as I perceive. For love men will go mad, they will become beasts: they will murder and betray.'
'Heretic!'
That startled him a little. Once before he had been dubbed heretic for beliefs to which he clung with assurance; and experience had come to lay bare his heresy to his own eyes.
'Upon occasion, madonna, we have talked of love, you and I. Had I given heed, had your beauty beglamoured me, what a treacherous thing should I not have been in Facino's eyes! Do you wonder that I mistrust love as I mistrust all else the world can offer me?'
'While Facino lived, that ...' She broke off. Her eyes were on the ground, her hands now folded in her lap. She had drawn away from him a little and leaned against the table's edge. 'Now ...' She parted her hands and held them out, leaving him to guess her mind.
'Now his behests are upon me, and they shall be obeyed as if he still lived.'
'What is there in his behests against ... against what I was offering? Am I not commended to you by his testament? Am I not a part of his legacy to you?'
'The service of you is; and your loyal servant, madonna, you shall ever find me.' She turned aside with a little gesture of irritation, and remained silent, thoughtful.
A sleek secretary broke in upon them. The Count of Pavia commanded the Lord Bellarion's presence in the library. A courier had just arrived from Milan with grave news.
'Say to his highness that I come.'
The secretary withdrew.
'You give me leave, madonna?'
She stood leaning sideways against the heavy table, her face averted. 'Aye, you may go.' Her voice rasped.
But he waited yet a moment. 'The sword, madonna? Will you not arm me with your own hands for your service?'
She turned her head to look at him again, and there was now a curl of disdain on her pale lips.
'I thought you looked askance on symbols. Was not that your profession?' She paused, but, without waiting for his answer, added: 'Take up your sword, yourself, you that are so fully master of your own destinies.'
And on that she turned and went, trailing her funereal draperies over the gay mosaics of that patterned floor.
He remained where she left him until she had passed out of that great hall and the door had closed. Then, at last, he fetched a sigh and went to restore his blade to its scabbard.
His thoughts were on Facino hardly cold in the grave, on this widow who had so shamelessly wooed him, yet in terms which demanded as a condition the satisfaction of her inordinate ambition; and lastly on that obese young Prince who waited for him. And in the mirror of his mind he saw a reflection of a scene now some months old. He saw again the glance of those beady, lecherous eyes lambent about Facino's Countess.
Inspiration came to him of how best he might gratify her vast ambition, her greed of greatness. Her suggestion to him had been that he should make her Duchess of Milan, and Duchess of Milan he would make her yet.
On that half-ironic thought he came to the library where the Prince waited. Filippo Maria was seated at a table near one of the windows. Spread before him were some parchments, writing-materials, and a horn of unicorn that was almost a yard long, of solid ivory, one of the library's most treasured possessions.
The Prince was more than usually pallid, his glance unsteady, his manner nervous and agitated. Perfunctorily he made the inquiries concerning the obsequies of Facino which courtesy demanded. He reiterated excuses already made for his own absence from the ceremony, an absence really based on resentment of the yoke which Facino had imposed upon him. That done, he picked up a parchment from the table.
'Here's news,' he said, and his voice trembled. 'Estorre Visconti has been created Duke of Milan.' He paused, and the little dark eyes blinked up at the tall Bellarion standing composed at his side. 'You knew already?'
'Not so, highness.'
'And you show no surprise?'
'It is a bold step, and it may cost Messer Estorre his head. But it was to be expected from what had gone before.'
The beady eyes returned to the parchment, which shook in the podgy fingers.
'Fra Berto Caccia, the Bishop of Piacenza, preached a sermon to the people lauding the murder of my brother, and promising in Estorre's name a Golden Age for Milan, with immunity from taxation. Thereupon they laid at his bastard feet the keys of the city, the standard of the republic, and the ducal sceptre.' He dropped the parchment, and sat back folding plump, white hands across his paunch. 'This calls for action, speedily.'
'We can provide action enough to surfeit Messer Estorre.'
'Ha!' The great flabby face grew almost kindly, the little eyes beamed upon the condottiero. 'Serve me well in this, Bellarion, and you shall know gratitude.'
Bellarion's gesture seemed to wave the notion of reward aside. He came straight to facts. 'We can withdraw eight thousand men from Bergamo. The place is at the point of surrender, and four thousand will well suffice to tighten the last grip upon the Malatesta vitals. Perhaps the Lord Estorre has not included that in his calculations. With eight thousand men we can sweep him out of Milan at our pleasure.'
'And you'll give orders? You'll give orders at once? The army, they tell me, is now in your control. Facino's authority has descended to you, and has been accepted by your brother captains.'
And now this arch-dissembler went to work.
'Hardly so much, highness. Facino's captains have sworn fealty, not to me, but to the Lady Beatrice.'
'But ... But you, then?' The news dismayed him a little. 'What place is yours?'
'At your highness's side, if your highness commands me.'
'Yes, yes. But whom do you command? Where, exactly, do you stand now?'
'At the head of the army in any enterprise into which the Countess sends her captains.'
'The Countess?' The Prince shifted his bulk uneasily in his chair, slewing round so as to face the soldier more fully. 'What then if ... What if the Countess should not ...' He waved his fat hands helplessly.
'It is not likely that the Countess should oppose your own wishes, highness.'
'Not likely? But—Lord of Heaven!—it's possible.' He heaved himself up, nervous, agitated. 'I must know. I must ... I'll send for her.' He reached for a hand-bell on the table.
But Bellarion's hand closed over his own before he could ring.
'A moment, Lord Prince. Before you send for the Lady Beatrice, had you not best consider precisely what you will say to her?'
'What is to say beyond discovering her disposition towards me.'
'Can you entertain a doubt upon that, Lord Prince?' Bellarion was smiling. Their hands came away together from the bell, and fell apart. 'Her disposition towards your potency is, to my knowledge, of the very kindliest. Such, indeed, that—I'll be frank with you—I found it necessary once to remind her of her duty to her lord.'
'Ah!' The fat pale face quivered into something akin to malevolence. The Prince remembered a sudden coolness in the Countess and her removal to Melegnano, and perceived in this meddler's confession the explanation of it. 'By Saint Ambrose, that was bold of you!'
'I am accounted bold,' Bellarion reminded him, deeming it necessary.
'Aye, aye!' The shifty eyes fell away uncomfortably under his glance. 'But if she is kindly disposed, then ...'
'I know that she was, highness, and may be rendered so again. Though perhaps less easily now than heretofore.'
'Less easily? Why so?'
'As Facino's widow, she is in wealth and power the equal of many a prince in Italy. She has considerable dominions ...'
'Torn by Facino from the great heritage left by the Duke my father.' In that rare burst of indignation his whole bulk quivered like a great jelly.
'They might be restored to the ducal crown by peaceful arts.'
'Peaceful arts? What arts? Will you be plain?'
But the time for direct answers was not yet. 'And not only has the Countess lands, but the control of a vast fortune. Some four hundred thousand ducats. You will need money, highness, for the pay of this great army now under Bergamo, and your own treasury will hardly supply it. There is taxation. But your highness knows the ills that wait on that for a prince newly come into his own. And not only the lands and money of which your highness stands in need, but the men also does the Countess bring.'
'You but repeat yourself.'
Bellarion looked at him, and smiled. Never, do I believe, did a Prince find a bride more richly dowered.'
'A bride?' The youth was startled, terrified almost. 'A bride?'
'Would less content your highness? Would you be satisfied to receive the assistance of the Countess's possessions, when you may make them your own and wield them at your pleasure?'
He stared, his jaw fallen. Then slowly he brought his lips together again, and licked them thoughtfully, screwing up his mean eyes.
'You are proposing that I should take to wife Facino's widow, who is twice my age?' He asked the question very slowly, as if pondering each word of it.
Bellarion laughed. 'Not proposing it, highness. It is not for me to make such proposals. I do not even know what the lady will say. But if she is willing to become Duchess of Milan, she can provide the means to make you Duke.'
Filippo Maria sat down suddenly. The sweat broke from his pale brow. He mopped it with his hand, disturbing the black fringe that disfigured it. Then, lost in thought, he stroked the loose folds of his enormous chin, and gradually his eyes kindled.
At long length he put forth his hand again to the bell. This time Bellarion did not interfere. He perceived in the act the young Prince's surrender to the forces of greed and lust which Bellarion himself had loosed against him.
He took his leave, and went out with the sad knowledge that greed and wantonness would make of the woman, too, a ready prey.
His work was done. She should have the thing she coveted, and find in it her punishment ...