Theodore's sally from Vercelli had been made at daybreak on that Friday morning. It had been shrewdly planned, for Theodore was no bungler, and, before he had brought more than half his men into action, Carmagnola, startled by the suddenness of the blow that fell upon him, was routed and in flight.
After that, this being no more than the preliminary of the task before him, Theodore marched out every man of his following to go against Bellarion at Casale. Thus, by that ancient plan of attacking a vital point that had been left undefended, had Bellarion succeeded in drawing his enemy from a point of less importance in which he was almost impregnably entrenched. Theodore had perceived, as Bellarion had calculated that he would, that it could serve little purpose for him to hold an outpost like Vercelli if in the meantime the whole of his dominions were to be wrenched from his grasp.
No sooner was he gone, however, than Carmagnola, informed of his departure, rallied his broken troops, and with drums beating, trumpets blaring, and flags flying, marched like a conqueror into the now undefended city of Vercelli. For the resistance it had made, he subjected it to a cruel sack, giving his men unbounded licence, and that same evening he wrote to Duke Filippo Maria in the following terms:
MOST POTENT DUKE AND MY GOOD LORD,—It is my joyous task to give your highness tidings that, informed of the reduction in our numbers resulting from the defection of the Prince of Valsassina and several other captains acting in concert with him, the Lord Theodore of Montferrat, greatly presumptuous, did to-day issue from Vercelli for wager of battle against us. A vigorous action was fought in the neighbourhood of Quinto, in which despite our inferior numbers we put the Marquis to flight. Lacking numbers sufficient to engage in pursuit, particularly as this would have led us into Montferrine territory, and since the reoccupation of Vercelli and its restoration to your duchy was the task with which your highness entrusted us, I marched into the city at once, and I now hold it in the name of your exalted potency. By this complete and speedy victory I hope to merit the approbation of your highness.
Meanwhile Theodore's march on Casale had anything but the aspect of a flight. The great siege train he dragged along with him over the sodden and too-yielding ground of that moist plain delayed his progress to such an extent that it was not until late on that November afternoon when he reached Villanova, here to receive news from his scouts that a considerable army, said to be commanded by the Prince of Valsassina, was circling northward from Terranova.
The news was unexpected and brought with it some alarm. He had gone confidently and rather carelessly forward fully expecting to find the enemy shut up in Casale. Hence all the ponderous siege train which had so hampered his progress. That Bellarion, forsaking the advantage of Casale's stout walls, should come out to meet him and engage him in the open was something beyond his dreams, and but for the unexpectedness of it, he would have rejoiced in such a decision on the part of his redoubtable opponent.
It was in that unexpectedness, as usual, that lay Bellarion's advantage. Theodore, compelled now to act in haste, not knowing at what moment the enemy might be upon him, made dispositions to which it was impossible to give that thought which the importance of the issues demanded. The first of these was to order the men, who were preparing to encamp for the night, to be up again and to push on and out of this village before they found themselves hemmed into it. That circling movement reported suggested this danger to Theodore.
They came out in rather straggling order to be marshalled even as they marched. Theodore's aim, and it was shrewd enough, was to reach the broad causeway of solid land between Corno and Popolo, where marshlands on either side would secure his flanks and compel the enemy to engage him on a narrow front. What was to follow he had not yet had time to consider. But if he could reach that objective, he would be secure for the present, and he could rest his men in the two hamlets on the marshes.
But a mile beyond Villanova, Bellarion was upon his left flank and rear. He had little warning of it before the enemy was charging him. But it was warning enough. He threw out his line in a crescent formation, using his infantry in a manner which merited Bellarion's entire approval, and obviously intent upon fighting a rearguard battle whilst bringing his army to the coveted position.
But the infantry were not equal to their commander, and they were insufficiently trained in these tactics. Some horses were piked, but almost every horse piked meant an opening in the human wall that opposed the charge, and through these openings Giasone Trotta's heavy riders broke in, swinging their ponderous maces. From a rearguard action on Theodore's part, the thing grew rapidly to the proportions of a general engagement, and for this Theodore could not have been placed worse than he was with his left, now that he had swung about, upon the quaking boglands of Dalmazzo and his back to the broad waters of the Po. He swung his troops farther round, so as to bring his rear upon the only possible line of retreat, which was that broad firm land between Corno and Populo. At last his skilful manœuvres achieved the desired result, and then, very gradually, fighting every inch of the ground, he began to fall back. At every yard now the front must grow narrower, and unless Bellarion's captains were very sure of their ground, some of them would presently be in trouble in the bogs on either side. If this did not happen, they would soon find it impossible, save at great cost and without perceptible progress, to continue the engagement, and with night approaching they would be constrained to draw off. Theodore smiled darkly to himself in satisfaction, and took heart, well pleased with his clever tactics by which he had extricated himself from a dangerous situation. He had won a breathing-space that should enable him to marshal his men so as to deal with this rash enemy who came to seek him in the open.
And then suddenly, a quarter-mile away, from the direction of Corno, towards which they were so steadily falling back, came a pounding of hooves that swelled swiftly into a noise of thunder, and, before any measures could be taken to meet this new menace, Ugolino da Tenda's horse was upon Theodore's rear.
Ugolino had handled his condotta well, and strictly in accordance with his orders from Bellarion. From Balzola, whither he had been moved at noon so as to be in readiness, he had made a leisurely and cautious advance, filing his horse along the very edge of the bogland so that their hooves should give no warning of their approach. Thus until he had won within striking distance. And the blow he now struck, heavy and unexpected, crumpled up Theodore's rear, clove through, driving his men right and left to sink to their waists in the marshes, and scattered such fear and confusion in those ahead that their formation went to pieces, and gaped to Bellarion's renewed frontal attacks.
Less than three hours that engagement lasted, and of all those who had taken the field with Theodore, saving perhaps a thousand who fled helter-skelter towards Trino after Ugolmo's passage, there was not a survivor who had not yielded. Stripped of their arms and deprived of their horses, they were turned adrift, to go whithersoever they listed so long as it was outside of Montferrat territory. The maimed and wounded of Theodore's army were conveyed by their fellows into the villages of Villanova, Terranova, and Grassi.
It was towards the third hour of that November night when the triumphant army, returning from that stricken field, reëntered Casale, lighted by the bonfires that blazed in the streets, whilst the bells of Liutprand's Cathedral crashed out their peals of victory. Deliriously did the populace acclaim Bellarion, Prince of Valsassina, in its enormous relief at being saved the hardships of a siege and delivered from the possible vengeance of Theodore for having opened its gates to Theodore's enemies.
Theodore, on foot, marched proudly at the head of a little band of captives of rank, who had been retained by their captors for the sake of the ransoms they could pay. The jostling, pushing crowd hooted and execrated and mocked him in his hour of humiliation. White-faced, his head held high, he passed on apparently unmoved by that expression of human baseness, knowing in his heart that, if he had proved master, the acclamations now raised for his conqueror would have been raised for him by the very lips that now execrated him.
He was conducted to the palace, to the very room whence for so many years he had ruled the State of Montferrat, and there he found his nephew and niece awaiting him when he was brought in between Ugolino da Tenda and Giasone Trotta.
Bareheaded, stripped of his armour, his tall figure bowed, he stood like a criminal before them whilst they remained seated on either side of the writing-table that once had been his own. From the seat whence he had dispensed justice was justice now to be dispensed to him by his nephew.
'You know your offence, my lord,' Gian Giacomo greeted him, a cold, dignified, and virile Gian Giacomo, in whom it was hardly possible to recognise the boy whom he had sought to ruin in body and in soul. 'You know how you have been false to the trust reposed in you by my father, to whom God give peace. Have you anything to say in extenuation?'
He parted his lips, then stood there opening and closing his hands before he could sufficiently control himself to answer.
'In the hour of defeat, what can I do but cast myself upon your mercy?'
'Are we to pity you in defeat? Are we to forget in what you have been defeated?'
'I ask not that. I am in your hands, a captive, helpless. I do not claim mercy. I may not deserve it. I hope for it. That is all.'
They considered him, and found him a broken man, indeed.
'It is not for me to judge you,' said Gian Giacomo, 'and I am glad to be relieved of that responsibility. For though you may have forgotten that I am of your blood, I cannot forget that you are of mine. Where is his highness of Valsassina?'
Theodore fell back a pace. 'Will you set me at the mercy of that dastard?'
The Princess Valeria looked at him coldly. 'He has won many titles since the day when to fight a villainy he pretended to become your spy. But the title you have just conferred upon him, coming from your lips, is the highest he has yet received. To be a dastard in the sight of a dastard is to be honourable in the sight of all upright men.'
Theodore's white face writhed into a smile of malice. But he answered nothing in the little pause that followed before the door opened upon Bellarion.
He came in supported by two of his Swiss, and closely followed by Stoffel. His armour had been removed, and the right sleeve of his leather haqueton, as of the silken tunic and shirt beneath, had been ripped up, and now hung empty at his side, whilst his breast bulged where his arm was strapped to his body. He was very pale and obviously weak and in pain.
Valeria came to her feet at sight of him thus, and her face was whiter than his own.
'You are wounded, my lord!'
He smiled, rather whimsically. 'It sometimes happens when men go to battle. But I think my Lord Theodore here has taken the deeper hurt.'
Stoffel pushed forward a chair, and the Swiss carefully lowered Bellarion to it. He sighed in relief, and leaned forward so as to avoid contact with the back.
'One of your knights, my lord, broke my shoulder in the last charge.'
'I would he had broken your neck.'
'That was the intention.' Bellarion's pale lips smiled. 'But I am known as Bellarion the Fortunate.'
'Just now my lord had another name for you,' said Valeria, and Bellarion, observing the set of her lips and the scorn in her glance as it flickered over Theodore, marvelled at the power of hate in one naturally so gracious. He had had a taste of it, himself, he remembered, and perhaps she was but passing on to Theodore what rightly had belonged to him throughout. 'He is a rash man,' she continued, 'who will not trouble to conciliate the arbiter of his fate. My Lord Theodore has lost his guile, I think, together with the rest.'
'Aye,' said Bellarion, 'we have stripped him of all save his life. Even his mask of benignity is gone.'
'You are noble!' said Theodore. 'You gird at a captive! Am I to remain here to be mocked?'
'Not for me, faith,' Bellarion answered him. 'I have never contemplated you with any pleasure. Take him away, Ugolino. Place him securely under guard. He shall have judgment to-morrow.’
'Dog!' said Theodore with venom, as he drew himself up to depart.
'That's my device, as yours is the stag. Appropriate, all things considered. I had you in my mind when I adopted it.'
'I am punished for my weakness,' said Theodore. 'I should have left Justice to wring your neck when you were its prisoner here in Casale.'
'I'll repay the debt,' Bellarion answered him. 'Your own neck shall remain unwrung so that you withdraw to your principality of Genoa and abide there. More of that to-morrow.'
Peremptorily he waved him away and Ugolino hustled him out. As the door closed again, Bellarion, relaxing the reins of his will, sank forward in a swoon.