Part 1

"Lovely in the midst of crime, And yet unlovely through excess of guilt, He dazzled through that dim-lit time, And noble blood for a vain shadow spilt."

The Viper of Milan

A ROMANCE OF LOMBARDY

BY MARJORIE BOWEN

NEW YORK McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. MCMVI

Copyright, 1906, by McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.

To My Mother

PUBLISHERS' PREFACE

So long as man retains his reminiscent interest in the past of which he is the product, so long will he continue to take possession of that past for the purposes of imaginative expression. And so long shall we have the historical as that form of fiction which of all is perhaps the most potent and the most perennial in its fascination.

It is significant that at this precise moment when the historical novel shows so much apparent exhaustion, that there should appear such an example as The Viper of Milan, which, while actually the latest of its class, might almost be the first, so free is it from any trace of fatigue or affectation. Here is a novel in which the author writes of the past with as much sans-gêne as though she were writing of the present. She moves there so perfectly at home in the mind of her period that she does not need to note all those minor details which are its outer manifestation. She makes no attempt at an elaborate reconstruction of an epoch, but surrenders herself rather to that plastic spirit of an age which molds the souls of its men and women and makes them the channel of characteristic expression in thought, feeling and action. Actually, we know of no novel that gives a more concrete, vivid and brilliant impression of the Italy of the early Renaissance; but as a matter of fact there is a total absence of that set description which forms the staple of the ordinary historical novel. The method of the author is strictly dramatic and narrative, her story is given as exclusively as possible through dialogue and action. What description there is is wholly incidental, and there is never any slacking of the emotional tension, any interruption of the swift course of events for the sake of mere word-painting which, however gorgeous, is bound to be obtrusive.

In all this, of course, Miss Bowen receives some assistance, some inspiration, as it were, from that particular phase of the past with which she deals. It would be difficult for anyone to write of Italy as it emerges from the Middle Ages without catching something in the narrative itself of that swift play of passion and impulse, of that tense, highly-wrought tendency to dramatic climax, which starts into life from the pages of the barest records of the period. And what a period it was! At the moment which Miss Bowen has chosen, Visconti, that sinister embodiment of the Lombard blend of Gothic vigor and Latin cruelty, holds the stage in Northern Italy. He has just vanquished Verona, seized Isotta d'Este and driven her husband, Della Scala, into exile. From that point we are shown in a series of swift scenes the coalition of the d'Estes under Della Scala against Visconti, the rapid triumph of this reaction up to a certain point, and then its equally rapid wasting under the assaults less of Milanese prowess than of Milanese treachery. The final isolation of Della Scala from his allies, and the supreme test to which his fidelity is subjected by the almost diabolic genius of Visconti, make one of the most superb climaxes with which we are familiar in romantic drama or in historical fiction.

Nor does the author seem to fall short of the opportunity offered her for the vivid and moving portrayal of the great passions involved in so high an action. For many it will constitute the prime marvel of an extraordinary book that its author, a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, who knew nothing of Italy, or of the Italian character, save, through books, could have conceived and written it. But if we grant the extraordinary precocity of talent implied in the mere writing of such a book as The Viper of Milan, it is, perhaps, less remarkable than it at first appears that Miss Bowen should have been so successful in grasping the purely Italian side of her subject, in rendering the Italian psychology. For is not youth the Italian age of life? Is there not something in the ardent dreams and in the swift, uncontrollable impulses of young natures, that finds itself in the spirit of that race which though the eldest is still the youngest race of Europe? The Italian soul, complex as it may appear upon the surface, is in essence simple. It is the soul of desire, of desire for the dream realized. Such is the desire even of a Visconti, and the soul of such a man makes him as simple to seize upon as the ogre of a fairy tale.

A fairy tale!—historical novels are all fairy tales, or approximate to fairy tales, for the same reason, perhaps, that all the fairies, Puck, Oberon and the rest of them, were once people in history. Under all the complexity and confusion of man's mental life there lies the invincible demand for the simple and the absolute in his view of the past as of the universe. The scholar and the scientific historian seek to build up stone by stone, from the dust-heap of the ages, the intricate web of the past; but the historical novelist, closer to the imagination of the race, seeks rather to reproduce the past in its broad outlines, in its ideal aspects of sharply defined and sharply opposing forces.

We hear much to-day of the death of the historical novel as a form of art. And this is because at its best to-day it has seemed a clever reconstruction of the past, a pastiche, as the French call it, a work of erudition, rather than an appropriation of the past for the purpose of effecting a romantic release from the uncompromising and prosaic conditions of the present. It is no wonder that the old romantic form of Scott and Dumas, being reduced to so lifeless a formula, should occasionally appear moribund. But it should be remembered that what proceeds from the mind, and is part of it, can always be renewed from the mind, and that forms in art are constantly being revitalized by some fresh creative impulse. And so often as there shall appear a writer like Miss Bowen capable of properly appraising the past, not as a shop stuffed with strange articles of attire and antiquities, but as a splendid stage set for the performance of a moving human drama, just so often will the historical novel renew its attraction over the minds of all men in new creations.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I. GIAN GALEAZZO MARIA VISCONTI 3

II. "FRANCISCO" 15

III. THE HOSTAGE OF THE ESTES 25

IV. VALENTINE 35

V. THE PAINTER'S DAUGHTER 39

VI. THE RESCUE OF COUNT VON SCHULEMBOURG 51

VII. "GRAZIOSA'S BRACELET" 58

VIII. FOR A LADY'S GIFT 75

IX. THE RETURN OF THE DEAD 88

X. THE TURQUOISE GLOVES 99

XI. MASTINO DELLA SCALA 111

XII. GRAZIOSA'S LOVER 120

XIII. VALENTINE VISCONTI'S TOAST 133

XIV. THE TUMULT AT THE WESTERN GATE 144

XV. A PRISONER FROM MILAN 157

XVI. FOR A GAME OF CHESS 165

XVII. THE TERRORS OF THE NIGHT 172

XVIII. GIACOMO CARRARA'S REWARD 184

XIX. A SIGN FROM HEAVEN 190

XX. IN THE DUKE'S ABSENCE 199

XXI. THE DUKE'S RETURN 214

XXII. THE SECRET PASSAGE 226

XXIII. FOR LOVE OF AMBROGIO 231

XXIV. TREACHERY 238

XXV. IN CLOTH OF GOLD 243

XXVI. IN VISCONTI'S HANDS 255

XXVII. UNEQUAL ODDS 267

XXVIII. THE VIPER 272

XXIX. THE ORDEAL OF MASTINO DELLA SCALA 287

XXX. THE WEDDING 303

XXXI. THE PRIDE OF THE D'ESTES 314

XXXII. THE PRICE OF DISHONOR 327

XXXIII. THE STORM 334

XXXIV. AN INSTRUMENT OF GOD 344

The Viper of Milan

CHAPTER ONE

GIAN GALEAZZO MARIA VISCONTI

It is a day in early summer, as beautiful as such days were in the Southern lands of 500 years ago. It is Italy steeped in golden sunlight which lies like a haze over the spreading view; the year 1360, when cities were beautiful and nature all-pervading. Here is Lombardy, spread like a garden in the hollow of the hills, ringed about with the purple Apennines, covered with flowers, white, yellow, purple, and pink. This wide road, one of the finest in Italy, winds from Milan to Brescia, its whole length through chestnut woods and plains covered with flowering myrtle. Primroses in great clusters border its sides, and from the midst of their delicate blooms spring the slender stems of poplar trees; these are red-gold, bursting into bloom against a tender sky; tufts of young green; clumps of wild violets.

But for all its unspoiled beauty, the road was one of common use, for Milan was within hail. Villas, the summer dwellings of its wealthy peers, stood back among the trees, surrounded by magnificent grounds. Behind them beautiful open country spread into the blue distance, fragrant and glorious with budding trees. And cold and magnificent the great city itself, with its huge walls and gates, crowned and emphasized the landscape's beauty. The lines of hundreds of turrets and spires, bold and delicate, leaped up against the sky. And paramount, catching the eye with color, weighing on the mind with meaning, were the city's banners. They floated from the gates and the highest buildings, half a score of them, all with the same device. Far off could that device be read: a green Viper on a silver ground: the emblazonment of the Visconti.

From afar the city was a vision of stately splendor, and the low dwellings clustered round about her walls, in the shadow of the palaces, appeared to the nearing traveler but a touch added of the picturesque. A close survey, however, revealed semi-ruined huts; in their foul neglect and unsightliness, a blot upon the scene. They were homes of peasants, who, tattered and miserable, starved and unwashed, seemed their fitting occupants. Here comes a band of them slowly dragging along the road toward Milan, men, women, and children, leading a few rough-haired mules, laden with scanty country produce. It was poor stuff, and a poor living they made at it. The wealthy grew their own fruit and vegetables, the poorer could not afford to buy. Crushed by hopeless oppression into a perpetual dull acceptance, the crowd trudged along, with shuffling feet and bent heads, unheeding the beauty and the sunshine, unnoticing the glory of the spring, with dull faces from which all the soul had been stamped out, and "fear" writ large across the blank. Every movement showed them slaves, every line in their bent figures told they lived under a rule of terror, too potent for them to dare even to raise their eyes to question. A stream of gray and brown monotony along the glorious road, decked with the fairest beauty of fair Italy, these miserable peasants were strangely out of keeping, both with the radiant blossoming country and the magnificent city they drew near.

Keeping close behind them walked a young man and a boy, better attired than the others, yet travel-worn and weary-looking. The delicate cast of their features bespoke them of another part of Italy, as did the soft Latin tongue in which they held their whispering, excited conversation. The elder, whom his companion called Tomaso, was a fair-haired youth of about nineteen; the other, like enough to be a relative, a mere child of ten or twelve. The sun was growing hot, and their stout cloaks of dull red serge were flung back, showing their leathern doublets, to which the elder boy wore attached a great pouch of undressed skin, which evidently bore their day's provisions.

Suddenly, when Milan, clear and gray, was distant barely half a mile, the group of wretched figures was roused from its shuffling apathy: and the terror latent in their aspect leaped into life and motion.

Swept back by the others, the two Florentines gazed in amazement to learn the cause of this panic. In the distance, brilliant between the dark stone of the gateway of the city, fluttered a banner, blazoned with the same device as those that blew above the walls. The peasants' eyes, sharpened by fear, were quicker than Tomaso's: it was some seconds before he could discern that the banner fluttered from the canopy of a splendid coach, magnificent in gold and scarlet, issuing from the somber shadow into the sunshine of the road; and as it drew nearer, he looked with pleasure not unmixed with wonder at the rich gildings, fine silk, the beauty of the four black horses, the size and magnificent liveries of the huge negroes who walked at their heads. To him it was an interesting sight, an incident of his travels. But to the Milanese peasants it was the symbol of the dread power that ruled Lombardy with a grip of blood, the device that kept Milan, the wealthiest, proudest city in the north, cringing in silent slavery; the banner that had waved from city after city, added by force or treachery to the dominions of Milan; the banner of Gian Galeazzo Maria Visconti, Duke.

With trembling hands and muttered threats to their slow beasts, the hinds dragged their burdens to the roadside, forcing the children back into the hedges; leaving clear the ways. Cowering and awestruck, in fascinated expectation, they stared, toward that oncoming banner, and at the horseman who rode behind.

Still at the same measured pace the coach advanced; a cumbrous structure, swung high on massive gilded wheels, and open under an embroidered canopy of scarlet silk. At the head of each black horse walked a negro, richly dressed in scarlet and gold. The trappings of the steeds were dazzling, in stamped leather and metal.

But this splendor of array the peasant folk of Lombardy were used to; it was not that that made them crouch as if they would ask the earth to hide them, shiver and shudder yet farther back as if the soft green bank could save them.

In the coach sat two, a man and a woman, but both so old and shrivelled that the distinguishing characteristics of their sex were well-nigh lost. Both were richly clad in furs, and half-hidden in satin cushions, nothing of the old man visible but his wrinkled face, gray beard, and, loaded with rings, thin yellow hands, the fingers of which were clutching nervously at his heavy silken robe. The woman, painted and bedizened under a large red wig, weighed down by a gown of cloth of gold, and with pearls around her neck, wrung her hands together, and whispered incoherently below her breath. Both had sunk together among the cushions in an attitude of despair, the man looking steadily in front of him with white face, the woman casting terror-stricken eyes over the wretched spectators in a mute appeal for help, if even from them.

Behind them rode the single horseman who had struck the terror. His pace was leisurely, his horse's bridle held by a pale-faced man with long red hair, of a stealthy bearing, crushed and mean-looking, but resplendent in a jeweled dress. The rider himself, slight and handsome, about thirty, plainly attired in green, gave, at a first glance, small token of the spell he exercised. He rode with ease and surety: in one hand a half-rolled parchment from which he read aloud in a soft voice, in the other a long whip with which he flicked and teased the occupants of the carriage.

The coach and its occupants, the solitary rider, and the red-haired man, were the whole of the procession.

At the rider's side hung a single dagger, the others were unarmed, yet the crowd trembled under a spell of fear as if half Italy had backed that man. No one gave sign of feeling, no one moved, though the wretched couple looked around keenly and eagerly, with the helpless misery of those who have fallen below everything save fear, and will stoop to ask help of the lowest. And the Visconti banner floated out dreamily upon the light spring breeze, and the rider rode at ease and read from the parchment with a smiling face.

Suddenly the old man rose, and threw out his hands with a wild gesture toward the crouching peasants. His frantic cry was stifled on his lips, and a cut from the whip sent him back to his seat with a snarl of impotent fury. The woman sobbed aloud, but sat still, for the tease of the whip followed their slightest movements, though the horseman seemed to heed nothing but the parchment from which he read.

"Beautiful the Tuscan flowers grew Around the Florentine—"

The soft lines died away on his smiling lips: he raised his eyes and looked straight at the old man, who, at the words, had turned in his seat and was gazing over his shoulder with an intensity of hate.

But on the pause there followed a cold laugh as the old man winced, faltered, and dropped his eyes from that charmed and steady gaze. Again the whip circled round them, and the calm voice continued:

"But straight and firm the poplars grew The Lombard ranks between."

The woman gazed around the crowd, desperate in hopeless misery. Hopeless indeed. Not a finger was raised, not a word uttered, though, men alone, they numbered more than fifty.

"Perchance thou wouldst not dare to turn And draw the veil from off that face, Fearing what secrets thou might'st learn Both for thine own and her disgrace,"

read the horseman, and the cavalcade passed on its heavy way, and the faint hope that had leaped to life within the wretched victims, at sight of human eyes upon them, died within them.

But on the outside of the crowd, Tomaso and Vittore, kneeling with the rest, as that banner drew near, now stirred uneasily, and, as the coach came abreast, the woman made a convulsive movement with her hands. The elder sprang to his feet and stepped forward impulsively. At sight of him in the roadway the horseman drew rein, and the terror-stricken crowd watched breathless, while the youth advanced boldly to his stirrup, hot words upon his lips, defiance in his eyes. The red-haired man at the bridle crouched, but before the lad could speak, the rider, leaning forward, struck him a blow full across the face.

There was no need for a second. With a scream of pain, Tomaso fell back, and then, as if noticing them for the first time, the horseman sent his glance on the crowd. No sound or movement: they cowered beneath his eyes in deprecating silence.

"Drive on," he said, and the dreary procession started again, winding through the sun and shadow toward Brescia.

So great was the spell upon the peasants, that though the wounded boy lay moaning in the road, not a man, scarce a child among them stirred from his place till the banner of the Viper was a silver speck in the distance.

Then with shaking hands the youth was dragged into the ditch amid a babble of blame and fear. Vittore, rising from his stricken comrade, gazed into the distance with horror-stricken eyes.

"Who was it?" he whispered at last to the woman near him. "Who was it?"

She turned a dull face up from the scattered vegetables she was gathering together.

"Who art thou that thou knowest not?" she asked.

"I come from Florence," said the lad quickly, "traveling to Verona."

"To Verona! Thou art not on thy way to Verona here."

"I know it, but the company we traveled with was bound for Milan. Three days ago we missed them, and thought to find them in the city where we looked to spend the night, but now—"

He glanced at his companion and could scarce refrain from weeping.

"To Verona!" said an old peasant, turning sharply at the name. "To Verona!"

The child dropped again to his knees beside Tomaso.

"Yes," he said, over his shoulder. "My cousin—he is done to death, I fear me—and I were traveling by way of Milan to Della Scala's court—"

He broke off, and wrung his hands. "Oh, help me, some one; Tomaso is dying!"

With a certain dull humanity, kindness it could scarcely be called that was so inert and full of apathy, one or two of them gave what help they could.

"Thou art from Florence!" said the old man again. "Aye, indeed, I know thou art from Florence, for thy mate here to have had such daring. Why camest thou from Florence to anywhere by way of Milan?"

For even to the dull mind of the peasantry, Florence, who alone of the cities of Italy had preserved her liberty, seemed a country of the free, a republic of equality.