Part 9

Giannotto, entering softly, noticed in his hand a bracelet, fashioned as a snake, emerald green, of striking workmanship.

"A messenger from the Bologna embassy, my lord," he said, closing the door behind him, "has entreated me to ask thy attention to them."

Visconti looked up quickly, and put out of sight the bracelet with a snap of anger.

"What, do the Bolognese trouble me?" he said fiercely.

"They only follow the example of the Pavians, my lord," returned the secretary smoothly. "They would have thy mediation between the rival factions in their state."

"My mediation! Pavia asked it, as thou say'st, and so did Bergamo; yet do the twain who then appealed to me reign in either city now? The Bolognese are foolish," said Visconti.

Giannotto shrugged his shoulders. "That need not trouble thee, my lord. Bologna is a wealthy town. Thy lordship will think of it?"

The secretary's eyes were on the ground. Gian Galeazzo slipped his bracelet into his doublet and rose.

"Aye, I will think of it," he said, "but for the moment there are more precious things to do even than using the Bolognese against themselves."

Giannotto waited. The Duke paced to and fro a moment, then broke into the subject next his heart.

"Thinkest thou Della Scala will outwit me?" he said eagerly. "Thinkest thou that if he do reach Ferrara he will rouse the Estes to action?"

"He had two good hours' start," returned Giannotto, "and the road to Ferrara offers many chances."

"And those men—who let them escape them? Do they still live?"

"Aye, my lord. They are valuable. It is enough that Alberic da Salluzzo has been lost to us—"

"They shall yet hang for it," said Visconti.

With rapid steps he returned to his seat, flung himself into it, clutching the arms with vice-like grip.

"He cannot do anything, Giannotto," he said. "He cannot rouse the Estes—against me! No; when Della Scala ruled nine cities, and his revenue was equaled only by the kings of France—I stripped him, I routed him. And now!" he smiled and his eyes widened, "he is a beggar. Perhaps it is not so ill that he lives to know it. It is a better revenge than any I could have devised, Delia Scala a beggar, a hanger-on at his kinsman's court, deafening his ears with unwelcome prayers, sinking into contempt before the people who once owned him lord!"

Giannotto was silent. He could not imagine Mastino della Scala a beggar at any prince's court.

But Visconti, blinded and absorbed by hatred, continued unheedingly:

"Carrara also, the Duke of Padua, is too necessary to the Estes. They cannot stand without him. Will he, thinkest thou, ever be won over to side with Mastino? No, Giannotto, I do not fear him. Let Della Scala live robbed of all,—and with Count Conrad as an ally!"

"Shall we then dismiss him, my lord?" ventured Giannotto smoothly; "he who is not worth fearing is not worth considering."

He seated himself at the low table as he spoke, his watchful eyes on Visconti, and drew some papers from the flat bag at his side.

The Duke returned no answer. In truth he heard not what was said, but leaned back in his chair and fell to thinking. The secretary, looking at his brooding face, shuddered a little at what his master's thoughts might be. He wondered also as to that green bracelet that Visconti had concealed.

The silence grew oppressive, and Giannotto moved uneasily. He loved not to sit alone with Visconti when he fell into these musings.

The Duke roused himself.

"Ah," he said, breaking suddenly into a passion of declaim. "A God can do no more than say, 'I have succeeded—in all I have undertaken, I have succeeded!' And I can say as much. I have succeeded. I looked on life and took from it what I wanted, the fairest and the finest things that offered; and the price—others paid it. Truly, I have succeeded!"

Giannotto shrank back at Visconti's outburst, and made no answer.

But the Duke had forgotten him. He was but uttering his thoughts aloud.

"Five years ago," he said exultingly, "I rode outside the gates of Verona and challenged Della Scala to single combat. He sent his lackey out with a refusal, and in my heart I said: 'I will bring that man so low that life shall hold nothing so sweet to him as the thought of meeting me in single fight!' I have succeeded! Isotta d'Este looked past me and laughed, and I said, 'She shall live to feel her life within my hand.' In that also I have succeeded!

"And three years ago, only three years ago, I stood within this very room, four lives between me and the throne of Milan—four lives, all crafty—and two young. But I—I the youngest, took my fate and theirs into my hand. I said: 'It is for me to reign in Milan—I am the Duke.' In that I have succeeded!"

He paused, with dilating eyes and parted lips, intoxicated with pride.

"This ambition is his madness," thought Giannotto; but he still was silent.

"In another thing," continued Visconti, and his voice was changed: he breathed softly, and his eyes sparkled pleasantly. "Last May-day I saw the people in the fields, pulling flowers; I knew they were what poets call happy. Among them were two girls, one dark, one fair, and she with the dark hair had her betrothed beside her. They were happy among the happy, they loved each other—and I rode unseen. The may was thick and white, I watched them through the flowers and vowed: I too will be happy, even as they are happy, though I am Visconti; I will be loved for myself alone; that fair-haired girl shall care for me as her companion for her lover,—life shall give me that as well!"

And he rose, triumphant, smiling, resting his hand on the arras that hid the door behind him.

The secretary gazed upon him fascinated.

Lifting the arras, he paused again, and looked back with a smile that transformed his face.

"In that too have I succeeded!" he said melodiously; and, opening the narrow door, he was gone, as always, noiselessly.

The secretary shook himself.

"Why does he unburden his soul to me?" he murmured. "Does he think, because I sit silent, I have no ears, no memory—that I shall forget? 'In that too have I succeeded!' Aye, thou hast it all thine own way, Visconti, so far."

With a slight shrug of the shoulders Giannotto fell to writing.

When his pages were finished, he put them into his bag for the Duke to sign, and grumbled at his absence, stayed, but dared not follow. Presently he decided to take his own dismissal.

As he rose to go he remembered Valentine Visconti, flying through the garden after her secret visit, and he considered, if she could bribe him to silence heavily enough to make it worth his while to venture an encounter with her.

Visconti did not stint his sister for money, and she might pay well. Still, dare he let her know he spied?

Then his thoughts went to Isotta d'Este, and he wondered, with some interest, what her fate would be.

In open day Isotta d'Este had been captured; all Europe knew she was his prisoner; Tuscany and the Empire already looked with interest on the Duke of Milan's growing power, and that Duke a usurper. Visconti had to step warily.

Still busy with his thoughts, the secretary had reached the door, when it opened and the ancient Luisa, Isotta's prison attendant and spy, entered, glancing expectantly around.

Giannotto looked at her slowly; he hated her—indeed, he hated most people, but she in particular, for she equaled him in servile cunning and surpassed him in greed.

"I would see the Duke," she said, looking at him mistrustfully.

"Thou canst not see him," returned the secretary, "for he is not here."

But old Luisa seated herself calmly on one of the black-backed chairs. "I will not take thy word for what I can or cannot do," she said. "I have important tidings for his ear alone."

Giannotto longingly wondered if it were possible to win her news from her and share in the reward.

"I will get thy news in to the Duke," he said. "Trust it to me, and I will see he does not forget who brought them, but 'tis impossible to see him now."

Luisa smiled.

"I would be my own news-bearer," she said, and made no movement to go.

"Visconti is in his laboratory," said Giannotto angrily. "Whatever thy news, art thou so mad as to think of following him there? Wilt thou not trust it to me?" he added more gently.

She shook her head placidly.

"Have thy way," sneered Giannotto. "Stay and see the Duke, and be dismissed for having left thy post, and remember there are more eyes on the western tower than thou knowest."

The old woman looked uneasy, but stubbornly kept her place. And seizing his bag and papers, Giannotto was gone, and the heavy door closed behind him before she could know what was going to happen.

"Giannotto!" she cried in alarm. "Listen a moment—" And she ran and pushed at the door.

Giannotto opened it a little and showed his smiling, crafty face.

"Wilt thou give me the news or wait till the Duke leaves his laboratory and finds thou hast been absent from thy post an hour, perchance more?"

"Take it then," said Luisa with a cry of vexation. "But I will repay thee, Giannotto."

She thrust into his hands a piece of parchment.

"It was left with me by the Lady Valentine to give Isotta d'Este. Now, make what else of it thou canst," and Luisa shuffled past him, terror overmastering greed. To be locked within that chamber to wait the Visconti was what she had not heart for. Moreover, she could tell the Duke another time—and he would listen—how Giannotto had forestalled her.

She shuffled off, and Giannotto in triumph re-entered the chamber. He read the parchment, one of many: "Della Scala lives."

"And the Lady Valentine conveys it to Isotta d'Este's prison," mused Giannotto. "Now, shall I tell my lord that piece of news or no?"

He regarded the two doors, between which Visconti's chair was set, and gently tried them: one was locked, the other opened to the touch. He dared investigate no further, and returning to his chair, sat down to wait. The minutes dragged on, and he fumed with impatience.

Visconti's laboratory was not altogether a secret place. Giannotto had helped him in his experiments; there was an assistant who tended the fires. But no one followed the Duke into it unbidden.

But, as time went on, Giannotto debated with himself that he would venture. Visconti was long. What was he doing? It was an opportunity to spy. If caught, the secretary could plead anxiety as to his master's safety. Summoning his courage, Giannotto rose and crept to the unlocked door and softly pushed it back.

It opened on a flight of stairs, black marble, carpeted in gold, the high walls hung with tapestry in red.

The steps were few in number, before they twisted abruptly out of sight. Round the bend floated a thin wisp of gray smoke.

Giannotto slowly and cautiously mounted. At the bend the steps still continued, twisting again.

It was very silent, very still, only the lazy floating wreath of smoke moving. Giannotto came within sight of a door, ajar. He marveled at it. It was thus Conrad von Schulembourg had escaped—through an unlocked door. Visconti trusted overmuch to the terror of his name.

Giannotto slowly and cautiously pushed it a little further open. It showed him the outer laboratory, a long low room of gray stone, and lit by a large window set back a man's height in the wall.

Hanging over a clear charcoal fire, burning in a pan, was an elaborate silver pot, seeming to quiver in the vapor that shimmered off the fire underneath.

Around it on the floor stood glasses, vases, jars and goblets, glass, china and gold.

Save this, the vault-like chamber was void of furniture; only on the stove near the window lay a pile of things, curiously mixed. They held Giannotto's eyes. They were not in the laboratory when he worked there.

A man's doublet of white satin, a scent bottle, a spray of roses, a mask, a poniard, two scarfs intertwisted, and, sparkling on an inlaid tray, a massive ring—he knew it, he had seen it on Isotta's hand—her wedding ring; all this thrown among two birds and a hound, stiff and dead.

Giannotto started a step back. Then his eyes fell on the window-seat, and even he could scarce suppress a cry.

For Visconti stood there, erect and motionless, so motionless and so one with the stone beside him, Giannotto had not known him there. From head to foot he was clad in gray. In his right hand he held a pair of gloves, turquoise blue, magnificently worked in pearls, and in the other a small phial filled with a yellow, slow-moving liquid. This he held high against the light, which fell strong and cold upon his upturned face and thick, curling red hair, and as Giannotto gazed, fascinated, on the gleam of his teeth as he smiled with a slow satisfaction. Giannotto had seen enough. His heart beat quickly. He drew the door to again, and crept back down the steps unobserved, gaining the outer chamber, trembling: and there for a moment fell upon his knees, as if in thanks for a most merciful escape. His thanks were not without their reason. Hardly was the secretary in his chair again, before a light foot-fall sounded and Visconti entered.

For one moment Giannotto thrilled with terror, but a covert glance at the Duke's face reassured him.

"I have this to give you, my lord," he began at once. "It was left in the Lady Isotta's prison."

Visconti took the parchment.

"By whom left there?" he asked.

"I know not, my lord," said Giannotto. "Luisa brought it, but dared not leave her post."

His own narrow escape of a moment since had tied up Giannotto's tongue.

"It will not be hard to discover," said Visconti. "Some one who did not bribe Luisa high enough."

"Mastino della Scala lives," he read again. He handed the parchment back to the secretary.

"Let the Lady Isotta have it," he said. "It may keep her alive. It looks to me that she may die, Giannotto, of the bad air and the confinement," and he smiled. "I would certainly not have her death. Give her the parchment." And he handed the parchment back, dismissing Giannotto with the gesture.

Clearly Visconti was in a mood that held neither comment nor reward, but one the secretary was glad to escape from so easily. With a deep obeisance he departed.

"Who bribes the woman to comfort Isotta d'Este? The soldiers are to be trusted," mused Visconti. "Once I know I will remember it."

He drew from his doublet the velvet gloves of turquoise hue and laid them on the table.

They were beautiful in their perfect workmanship, huge gauntlets fringed with pearl and gold, and tasseled at the points with rubies. On the back was a rich design also in pearl and gold, and they were lined with white satin, covered in fine silk lace.

Truly they were a work of art. Visconti raised them delicately by the tassels and looked long at their rich blue, admiringly, and with a curious expression.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MASTINO DELLA SCALA

In the council chamber of the Estes' summer palace at Ferrara were gathered the heads of the reigning families of Lombardy.

At a long table, set across one end of the apartment, two men were seated talking to one another in low voices. They were Ippolito d'Este and Giacomo Carrara, Duke of Padua. D'Este, a stern, gray-haired man of fifty or so, with keen eyes and a hard mouth, was talking rapidly, tapping the while his fingers nervously upon the table.

Carrara, florid, pleasant-mannered, with brilliant black eyes, black hair, and a ready smile, leaned forward and listened, observing him keenly. Opposite them, but the length of the table away, a lady with tired eyes and a patient mouth leaned back in her chair, motionless, watching the trees seen through the window.

She was Julia Gonzaga, the representative in this gathering in the name of her infant nephew, of the city of Mantua and its domains, the head of the fourth and last great family of Lombardy who dared to raise a hand against the encroachments and the power of Visconti.

But if at this end of the chamber the only sound was low converse, all subdued and quiet, at the farther end gay voices and bursts of laughter broke the stillness.

For seated in the broad window-seat, toying with a sprig of myrtle, was Count Conrad, brilliant and light-hearted, clad in the last extreme of fashion, resplendent in primrose velvet and mauve silk, with long scalloped sleeves that swept the ground.

Around his waist was a gold belt suspending, by a jeweled chain, an orange stuck with cloves and enclosed in a case of silver filigree.

Count Conrad also wore ear-rings, pearl drops that shimmered through his blond curls, and on each wrist a bracelet; yet even this effeminacy could not altogether destroy a certain manliness that was the Count's, spite of an almost seeming wish to disallow it.

Beside him, half-leaning through the window, was a youth of twenty, of that brilliant beauty too bright to last.

He too was dressed more like an idle courtier of the Valois court than a fighting noble of the free cities, and the rare charm of his face was marred by the spoiled affectation of his manner.

"Another war!" laughed Conrad. "I have done naught but fight since I left Germany. I am on the sick list."

"Not when the war is of thine own seeking," said Vincenzo. "Because thou needs must fall in love with the Visconti's sister—as if there were not others as fair and far safer to woo!"

Conrad crossed his legs and glanced critically at the taper points of his gold shoes.

"'Tis not my wooing of Visconti's sister has caused war," he replied. "Thy brother-in-law—"

"I beseech thee," cried Vincenzo petulantly, "leave me some little rest from mention of his name and wrongs! Ever since you rode into Ferrara some six days ago, there has been naught else talked of but Mastino, Mastino's wrongs, what we must do for Mastino—till I fair weary at the name!"

"You would not risk your all to glut his vengeance?" remarked the Count. "None the less his wife is your sister, and a d'Este."

"No need for the heroics he makes over her, even so. Visconti will not hurt her, yet we must be hurried into war for it, forsooth!"

"I owe Della Scala my life," returned Conrad airily. "I should be the last to speak; still, my wrongs are as many and as deep. I love the Lady Valentine. I have lost my land and my jewels, my house and servants, yet I am quite ready to settle in some other part of Italy—and forget Visconti. I do not go about trying to entice other people into my quarrels."

He sniffed at his orange as he spoke, and breaking off the end of the myrtle, stuck it in his belt.

Vincenzo's beautiful eyes flashed. "Art thou a poltroon then?" he cried scornfully. "Loved I a lady and she were kept from me, I would not rest while a stone of the palace that held her remained one on the other."

Conrad raised his eyebrows, startled at the sudden change of front.

"Then you should understand Mastino," he said.

"I hate Mastino. He is wearisome," cried Vincenzo, pettishly. "Still, I do not love a laggard."

Conrad's reply was checked. Ippolito d'Este had arisen and was calling them to join him. Reluctantly they rose, Vincenzo with a yawn of distaste, and approached the table.

Ippolito frowned at Vincenzo's face.

"You would spend all your time in idleness, it seems," he said. "Have you no interest then in our decision as to the aid Della Scala asks?"

Vincenzo dropped into his seat, seemingly rebuked. "Aid, my father?" he said. "I knew not it was aid Della Scala asked, methought 'twas all!"

"My proposal is an army," said Giacomo smoothly. "A small army. Let us see what success Della Scala has with a small army. Our all is much to ask."

"What say you to that?" asked Ippolito of his son.

"With all my heart," returned Vincenzo. "An army small or large, so long as it rids us of his gloomy face about court."

"Thou art an insolent boy," interrupted his father sternly. "At thy sister's wedding thou wert proud that Mastino della Scala stooped to pat thee on the head. The Duke of Verona was once as much greater than are we, Vincenzo, than we are higher than a footman. It goes not with nobility nor with honor to slight the fallen."