'I will come back,' he murmured, kissing her. Then he turned to the steps with his naked dagger in his hand. He wore no armour; he was bare-headed—he gave it no thought. He was here to slay Visconti. That was God's fact.
Along the steps a soldier came lazily, and Mastino sprang on him and strangled him before he could cry out, bearing the body noiselessly to the ground. Then, listening, he heard from within the palace a laugh and a voice—Visconti's. Della Scala looked round. How was he to get him? He must feel Visconti's blood run warm over his hands, and quickly.
'How it blazes! The soldiers will have poor spoil,' said Visconti. 'But we will build another town, de Lana: we are rich enough.'
'Outside the walls just now we found a ghastly thing,' said a second voice: 'a human hand grasping tight a knot of scarlet ribbons—just the hand, a beautiful hand.'
'Your tales sicken me—I have always hated horrors,' said Visconti.
Mastino crept along and found a door.
'I will get in there,' he said within himself; and then within himself he laughed, for it was opened.
The tapestry within was moved aside, and there was a glimpse of a white sleeve and a delicate ringed hand. The next moment the curtain was torn, in a giant's grip, from its fastening, and Mastino, trampling it under him, was upon them—in his madness staying to reckon on no odds.
Where was Visconti? Not far, for he himself; with his own hand, had opened the door.
But from the red glare outside, the blaze within blinded della Scala. He looked round him for Visconti. Then a voice screamed: 'Keep him off!' and suddenly his eyes met the Duke's and he strode forward. It seemed almost done. Visconti, in wild fear, fell back before that terrible face, staggering against the wall, his hand fumbling for his dagger, and the men in the room scattered to right and left, as before an apparition.
'Gentlemen!' shieked Visconti, 'you are ten to one: stop him! A fortune for the one who slays him!'
But Mastino had him in his grip—almost: another moment
But Visconti fell, and crouched along the wall, those reaching hands above him; and a dozen swords leaped out: the soldiers flocked in from the anteroom; there was a wild confusion.
'Slay him!' shrieked Visconti. But from della Scala, as they closed on him, came a yell that froze the marrow.
Ten to one! They needed to be. The place began to run with blood.
'Gian Visconti! Gian Visconti!'
Visconti rose by the wall again. 'Kill him!' he gasped. 'Kill him!' and cowered away. He was not sure if that face or that figure, struggling ever toward him, could be killed; that they were earthly, or that that was the voice of a man which, with no sound of the human left in it, called his name.
'Let them kill him!' screamed Visconti.
But de Lana did not move, he did not look round; neither did Visconti.
'Visconti! Visconti!' gasped the voice...Ah!...There was a great scuffling of feet, the dragging of a heavy body, and Mastino, an inert mass upon the soldiers' arms, was forced back upon the balcony.
They let him fall there, and one heard him moan; but he was bleeding from twenty wounds. They left him and closed the door.
Visconti looked round fearfully.
'Is he gone?' he asked.
The great candelabra had been overturned and the room was in a semi-gloom, broken only by the dim candles in their sconces and the fitful flare from the city.
No one answered Visconti. The men drew breath in silence and looked at their wounds. How he had fought! A horror fell upon them.
'Is he dead?' asked Visconti, shaking like a leaf.
'There were fifteen men to kill him,' said de Lana, and he wiped some blood from his hand with a shiver.
No one else broke the silence, all stood still as if spell-bound; it was a horrible, horrible thing, and they drew back from the door—afraid.
'Hush! What was that?'
Visconti leaned forward fearfully.
What was it?'
The sound of someone on the balcony. Visconti's face went livid.
'He is alive—'
A horrid shudder ran through them all. De Lana strove to speak and could not.
'The door is not fastened,' whispered Visconti, hoarsely. 'Fasten the door—someone!'
But no one moved, no one dared, for superstitious horror.
Something fell back from the door, then the sound of something that dragged itself against it painfully, then a rattle at the unbolted door.
'He is not dead!' half screamed Visconti. 'A town to the man who will go out and slay him!'
No one moved.
'A half-dead man!' cried the Duke, 'and no one will end his misery?'
They dared not.
'Hark! He will have the door open. De Lana, I command you—' He pointed with a shaking hand, but de Lana only shook his head.
'There has too much been done already,' he said, shudderingly.
The Duke looked round wildly.
'A town, a fortune to the one who will have compassion'; and with a shrug and a grimace, a rough soldier stepped forward, his drawn ord in his hand, and opening the door, pushed something back before him and went out.
Gian breathed heavily, listening, but the next second the soldier was in the room again, with altered face, and the door ajar behind him.
'I cannot,' he gasped—'it's blind, struggling—it—does not look like a man!'
'Shut the door!' yelled Visconti, and then fell back against de Lana, shaking, for a livid face appeared, with dim eyes and a bare throat streaked with blood. For one moment the ghastly apparition showed there, then fell into the dark again.
There was a sickening pause. Visconti spoke first, looking around.
'Are we fools or women? He came to murder me, and he is slain—what is there in that? Go and see now if he be dead.' Someone went, fearfully.
'He lies very still, my lord; he is dead—'
The trembling pages had brought more lights, and light was life to Visconti. He came forward and looked, a little nearer, on the figure in the doorway, but very slowly, with de Lana between.
Mastino lay out straight, in a sudden up-flare from the burning city, his arm flung over his face.
'He was a giant,' whispered Visconti, fearfully. 'And how dark! I do not remember him so dark—'
He looked over de Lana's shoulder at him.
The soldiers peered behind him. That man was Mastino della Scala once! It was strange even to their cold hearts.
He was dead—dead! Visconti's fear, the superstitious fear of a righteous, God-sent vengeance, turned to a savage joy; still he was afraid, still afraid.
He touched the body with the point of his gold shoe.
'Throw him into the garden,' he said to the soldiers, showing his teeth.
Giannotto and de Lana exchanged a curious glance; the soldier set his lips.
'Are you all traitors or cowards, that you do not heed me?' cried Visconti in a fury. 'Throw, thrust, kick this thing into the garden—let him lie there till the morning.'
'My lord,' said de Lana, with a dangerous look in his eyes, 'he was a prince and a Scaligeri!'
'He was my enemy—scorn for scorn! Throw Mastino della Scala from the balcony—or—'
And half a dozen men came forward and lifted the prostrate body.
'Haste,' said Visconti, his eyes on de Lana. 'Throw him out of my sight.'
'Let them carry him down the steps, my lord,' cried de Lana. But Visconti turned on him, his face and hair glowing in the light of the flames from Novara, his face fiendish.
'They shall do as I bid, or hang from the nearest tree! Now haste!' he said again, as if he feared the dead might yet arise.
They carried the body to the edge of the steps and pushed it over, crashing dully down the foliage that half overspread the marble.
Visconti stepped to the parapet and looked over.
'He said something as he fell,' he whispered to himself. 'I heard him—but he must be dead now—'
He turne
d back into the room, breathing more freely.
'Now close the door again,' he said, and watched while it was done.
* * *
* * *
Chapter 34. — An Instrument of God
'How many, de Lana—how many?'
'Five—six or seven—'
'Hundreds!'
'Thousands, my lord!'
Visconti leaned forward in his chair in his excitement. 'Thousands?'
The men from Magenta are come in, laden with plunder.'
Visconti laughed.
'I said I would give them Lombardy to sack—and there are thousands of prisoners?'
The scene was the summer palace, that same night. Visconti sat at the head of a table in a room adjoining the one in which the tapestry was torn and the floor still sticky with blood. It was a small apartment, beautifully inlaid with mosaic, and now blazing with lights, and full of a fine company of officers and nobles.
'Thousands—men, women, and children—some men of note, too, my lord; the ransacking of palaces for miles—'
'And Novara?'
'Some beat the flames out still—they say half the place is saved'
'Let them plunder it cried Visconti. 'Let them pick Novara bare! The palace was burned?'
'To a cinder.'
'To a heap of ashes!' said another. 'There is nothing but the bastion, red hot—'
'As you should know, da Ribera,' laughed the officer next him, 'seeing you tried to ride over it.'
'And killed his horse,' said another.
'And saved myself!' shouted da Ribera. 'I look for a reward for that, my lord—the saving of a valiant officer of yours—'
'Shall not be forgotten!' laughed Visconti. 'Be paid by this advice. Remember burning towns are dangerous, as to his mortal cost a certain great Frenchman found at Rouen, and several great Germans more recently at Milan—'
'When they lay along the rampart like flies, I have heard my grandfather say, striving to loot in the midst of the very flames,' said de Lana, 'like da Ribera here.'
'Had I been in Milan, Barbarossa himself would have burned in the midst of it,' said Visconti, sweeping back the glass and silver before him. 'The town had weeks to prepare'
'Had you been there, Milan would not have burned at all, my lord!' said a flattering voice.
'Maybe it would not. It was certainly before the Visconti's rule began,' and he looked down the table with a smile at the dark face of Martin della Torre.
'And now the plans, de Lana—Novara to Magenta, Magenta to Vercelli.'
He swept the glasses still further back, and spread the parchment de Lana handed him on the coloured marble table. 'Vercelli—we hold Vercelli, de Lana?' The officers moved up closer, leaning over the table.
'We hold Vercelli—and Magenta.'
Visconti placed a silver goblet to keep the parchment down, and traced the route with the point of his dagger.
To Turin—to Cuneo—as near as we dare to the stiff-necked Genoese, and we have circled Piedmont.'
'And these same Genoese?'
'Let them keep quiet,' said Visconti; sheathing his dagger and leaning back, 'and they may keep Genoa; we have larger game in view—the Empire. From the walls of Novara the Alps are to be seen, from the walls of Magenta they hide half the sky, from Turin one may touch them, and so we go closer—'
'And hold the Empire in check,' said de Lana, with excited eyes. 'Ah, my lord, it was almost worth it—'
Visconti turned to him sharply.
'What do you say, de Lana?'
There was a second's pause. This was the first, even vague, reference to what had happened earlier that same night; it seemed weeks since, and yet the sun had not risen on it. Visconti looked at de Lana and laughed.
'Almost worth it—almost worth what, de Lana?'
The soldier, recovering himself, returned his glance. 'The extinction of four noble families, my lord.'
'Did my lord do it?' cried another.
Did he ask the d'Estes to burn Novara?'
'No,' smiled Visconti. 'But had they not, I had done it for them, as I will burn Mantua, and the Gonzagas in it. We will have no seditious spots in the Lombardy I rule. There will be one capital and one ruler,' he added sternly. 'The d'Estes knew enough to anticipate it.'
De Lana was silent.
'And these prisoners, my lord?' asked da Ribera. What of them?'
'They choke the camp,' said another.
'They are partisans of Mastino della Scala, naturally,' said Visconti. It was the first time the name had been mentioned, and Visconti's eyes flared to see that there was silence at it. 'Mastino della Scala, I said—they favoured him.'
'Yes, my lord; him, or the Estes.'
'You will put them to the sword.'
'All?'
'All!' shouted Visconti, half rising. 'I will have no rebellious slaves to groan over della Scala's grave, and hatch me plots from the ashes of their bones—we will raze the cities to the ground, and put them to the sword. My triumph will need no prisoners to prove it—and see it done, de Lana.'
They quailed; their attitude acknowledged him the master. 'Spare the churches,' said Visconti, 'and see that all relics are brought with due honour to Milan. Da Ribera, you ventured furthest into Novara; saw you any churches?'
'One, my lord, is saved: the church of Santa Chiara.'
We tried to rescue the monks,' struck in Martin della Torre. 'They refused our succour, and returned into the flames—screaming—'
He paused.
'What?' demanded Visconti.
'Somewhat about God's curse,' answered della Torre. 'Their execration was not pleasant.'
'Had you not been there, you had not heard it,' said de Lana. 'And a few crazy—hark!'
There came a great noise from without, and the trampling of crowding feet.
'Another company is joining us,' remarked Visconti.
'The soldiers from Novara,' said della Torre, and put his goblet down, and de Lana turned expectantly to the door. Visconti, facing it, rose in his seat as it was flung wide and a couple of scorched and bleeding soldiers entered followed by a trampling guard.
'From Novara?' asked the Duke.
They stopped short, saluting.
'From Novara! We have saved the library and the college, my lord, and some three palaces.'
'They would have burned the library,' cried Visconti, 'sooner than it should enrich Milan—the jealous fools!'
'Now, hark you,' he added to the soldiers, 'every man bringing a book or a gem or a picture, I reward; every man destroying one, I hang. Now, which is he who saved the library?'
An officer pushed forward.
'This is he, my lord; one of my company.'
'Take this from me,' and Visconti handed the man his neck-chain.
'And the prisoners, my lord?'
'What care I for the prisoners! You will give no quarter, I say!'
The officer bowed, and drew a little book from his doublet, laying it on the table.
'A monk gave me this for his life,' he said. 'And all Lombardy knows your taste in books, my lord.'
'Remember we league with the Pope,' said Visconti, taking it up. 'The monk should have had his life without a bribe; now go, and heed what I have said.' He turned to de Lana: 'Follow, and see if the flames be out; 'tis daylight.'
The curtains were drawn away from the window, and the early light, fast glowing into sunlight, and the fresh morning air, filled the heated chamber.
The lamps flared pale, the gorgeous dresses and flushed eager faces of the men round the table, the glimmer of the gold and silver vessels before them, showed in a garish contrast with the soft light.
'Seneca,' said Visconti, turning over the volume the soldier had brought. 'Where is that knave Giannotto? Seneca, spoiled by interlining, but still Seneca. Giannotto—I say!'
The secretary was not in the room, but the page dispatched soon brought him. He stood in the doorway, blinking at the daylight, looking around confused, and the compan
y broke into laughter.
'Take this!' cried Visconti. 'A Seneca on vellum, with some dolt's comments; take it, Giannotto.'
'There is a library being brought in below,' said the secretary.
'Because we spared the church of Santa Chiara, who must have been the patron saint of poets—eh, de Lana?'
'Messer Francesco Petrarca found her so,' said a noble laughing. 'A lucky day for him when he stepped inside the church of Santa Chiara!'
'He had cause to thank her, doubtless—'
'If Messer Hugues had not,' smiled Visconti.
'I know not, my lord; for a dull boor like that, he gathered some fame else never his.'
'And the poet turned it to good account,' said Visconti. 'Methinks he used his love for money-making; he coined the Lady Laura into good gold pieces!'
'Now, my lord, is not that spite because Messer Petrarca left his library to Venice?'
Visconti laughed.
'Let him leave his library where he pleased, he was a fine man of business, say!'
'And a wearisome poet,' said de Lana.
'O Fiametta!' said Visconti laughing. 'Joanna! Naples and the blue sea! These are thy patron saints, de Lana?'
'Nay, I like not that book of feeble love-making any better,' replied de Lana; 'a Florentine dallying!'
'I doubt me if thou hast ever read it,' said the Duke gaily.
'Alighieri is more to de Lana's mind,' remarked da Ribera, pouring wine, 'and the fair daughter of old Folco. I myself used to sing Alighieri's verses till I tired.'
'Yourself or your audience, my friend?'
But Visconti looked at the speaker, frowning.
'You have mentioned Alighieri, forgetting who was his patron,' whispered della Torre.
'The court of Verona and Can' Gran' della Scala—'
'He recanted, my good lord; he died a Ghibelline,' said da Ribera, acting on the whisper.
'Mastino della Scala was a Ghibelline; we never quarrelled over that,' said Visconti easily. 'But Mastino was no patron of poets like his father.' He leaned back in his chair and looked out of the window, where above the beautiful fresh green of the garden faint smoke-wreaths showed the last of Novara.
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