“If on your part you attempt the slightest treachery,” I said, “you shall be repaid in kind. My men are at the winches, and they have my orders that at the first treacherous movement on your part they are to take up the bridge. You will see that you could not reach the end of it in time to save yourself.”
It was his turn to change colour under the shadow of his beaver. “Have you trapped me?” he asked between his teeth.
“If you had anything of the Anguissola besides the name,” I answered, “you would know me incapable of such a thing. It is because I know that of the Anguissola you have nothing but the name, that you are a craven, a dastard and a dog, that I have taken my precautions.”
“Is it your conception of valour to insult a man whom you hold as if bound hand and foot against striking you as you deserve?”
I smiled sweetly into that white, scowling face.
“Throw down your gauntlet upon this bridge, Cosimo, if you deem yourself affronted, if you think that I have lied; and most joyfully will I take it up and give you the trial by battle of your seeking.”
For an instant I almost thought that he would take me at my word, as most fervently I hoped. But he restrained himself.
“Read!” he bade me again, with a fierce gesture. And accounting him well warned by now, I read with confidence.
It was a papal brief ordering me under pain of excommunication and death to make surrender to Cosimo d’Anguissola of the Castle of Pagliano which I traitorously held, and of the person of his wife, Madonna Bianca.
“This document is not exact,” said I. “I do not hold this castle traitorously. It is an Imperial fief, and I hold it in the Emperor’s name.”
He smiled. “Persist if you are weary of life,” he said. “Surrender now, and you are free to depart and go wheresoever you list. Continue in your offence, and the consequences shall daunt you ere all is done. This Imperial fief belongs to me, and it is for me, who am Lord of Pagliano by virtue of my marriage and the late lord’s death, to hold it for the Emperor.
“And you are not to doubt that when this brief is laid before the Emperor’s Lieutenant at Milan, he will move instantly against you to cast you out and to invest me in those rights which are mine by God’s law and man’s alike.”
My answer may, at first, have seemed hardly to the point. I held out the brief to him.
“To seek the Emperor’s Lieutenant you need not go as far as Milan. You will find him in Piacenza.”
He looked at me, as if he did not understand. “How?” he asked.
I explained. “While you have been cooling your heels in the ante-chambers of the Vatican to obtain this endorsement of your infamy, the world hereabouts has moved a little. Yesterday Ferrante Gonzaga took possession of Piacenza in the Emperor’s name. To-day the Council will be swearing fealty to Caesar upon his Lieutenant’s hands.”
He stared at me for a long moment, speechless in his utter amazement. Then he swallowed hard.
“And the Duke?” he asked.
“The Duke has been in Hell these four-and-twenty hours.”
“Dead?” he questioned, his voice hushed.
“Dead,” said I.
He leaned against the rail of the bridge, his arms fallen limply to his sides, one hand crushing the Pontifical parchment. Then he braced himself again. He had reviewed the situation, and did not see that it hurt his position, when all was said.
“Even so,” he urged, “what can you hope for? The Emperor himself must bow before this, and do me justice.” And he smacked the document. “I demand my wife, and my demand is backed by Pontifical authority. You are mad if you think that Charles V can fail to support it.”
“It is possible that Charles V may take a different view of the memorial setting forth the circumstances of your marriage, from that which the Holy Father appears to have taken. I counsel you to seek the Imperial Lieutenant at Piacenza without delay. Here you waste time.”
His lips closed with a snap. Then, at last, his eyes wandered to Bianca, who stood just beside and slightly behind me.
“Let me appeal to you, Monna Bianca...” he began.
But at that I got between them. “Are you so dead to shame,” I roared, “that you dare address her, you pimp, you jackal, you eater of dirt? Be off, or I will have this drawbridge raised and deal with you here and now, in despite of Pope and Emperor and all the other powers you can invoke. Away with you, then!”
“You shall pay!” he snarled, “By God, you shall pay!”
And on that he went off, in some fear lest I should put my threat into execution.
But Bianca was in a panic. “He will do as he says.” she cried as soon as we had re-entered the courtyard. “The Emperor cannot deny him justice. He must, he must! O, Agostino, it is the end. And see to what a pass I have brought you!”
I comforted her. I spoke brave words. I swore to hold that castle as long as one stone of it stood upon another. But deep down in my heart there was naught but presages of evil.
On the following day, which was Sunday, we had peace. But towards noon on Monday the blow fell. An Imperial herald from Piacenza rode out to Pagliano with a small escort.
We were in the garden when word was brought us, and I bade the herald be admitted. Then I looked at Bianca. She was trembling and had turned very white.
We spoke no word whilst they brought the messenger — a brisk fellow in his black-and-yellow Austrian livery. He delivered me a sealed letter. It proved to be a summons from Ferrante Gonzaga to appear upon the morrow before the Imperial Court which would sit in the Communal Palace of Piacenza to deliver judgment upon an indictment laid against me by Cosimo d’Anguissola.
I looked at the herald, hesitation in my mind and glance. He held out a second letter.
“This, my lord, I was asked by favour to deliver to you also.”
I took it, and considered the superscription:
“These to the Most Noble Agostino d’Anguissola, at Pagliano.
Quickly.
Quickly.
Quickly.”
The hand was Galeotto’s. I tore it open. It contained but two lines:
“Upon your life do not fail to obey the Imperial summons. Send Falcone to me here at once.” And it was signed— “GALEOTTO.”
“It is well,” I said to the herald, “I will not fail to attend.”
I bade the seneschal who stood in attendance to give the messenger refreshment ere he left, and upon that dismissed him.
When we were alone I turned to Bianca. “Galeotto bids me go,” I said. “There is surely hope.”
She took the note, and passing a hand over her eyes, as if to clear away some mist that obscured her vision, she read it. Then she considered the curt summons that gave no clue, and lastly looked at me.
“It is the end,” I said. “One way or the other, it is the end. But for Galeotto’s letter, I think I should have refused to obey, and made myself an outlaw indeed. As it is — there is surely hope!”
“O, Agostino, surely, surely!” she cried. “Have we not suffered enough? Have we not paid enough already for the happiness that should be ours? To-morrow I shall go with you to Piacenza.”
“No, no,” I implored her.
“Could I remain here?” she pleaded. “Could I sit here and wait? Could you be so cruel as to doom me to such a torture of suspense?”
“But if... if the worst befalls?”
“It cannot,” she answered. “I believe in God.”
CHAPTER XV. THE WILL OF HEAVEN
In the Chamber of Justice of the Communal Palace sat that day not the Assessors of the Ruota, but the Councillors in their damask robes — the Council of Ten of the City of Piacenza. And to preside over them sat not their Prior, but Ferrante Gonzaga himself, in a gown of scarlet velvet edged with miniver.
They sat at a long table draped in red at the room’s end, Gonzaga slightly above them on a raised dais, under a canopy. Behind him hung a golden shield upon which was figured, between two upright columns eac
h surmounted by a crown, the double-headed black eagle of Austria; a scroll intertwining the pillars was charged with the motto “PLUS ULTRA.”
At the back of the court stood the curious who had come to see the show, held in bounds by a steel line of Spanish halberdiers. But the concourse was slight, for the folk of Piacenza still had weightier matters to concern them than the trial of a wife-stealer.
I had ridden in with an escort of twenty lances. But I left these in the square when I entered the palace and formally made surrender to the officer who met me. This officer led me at once into the Chamber of Justice, two men-at-arms opening a lane for me through the people with the butts of their pikes, so that I came into the open space before my judges, and bowed profoundly to Gonzaga.
Coldly he returned the salutation, his prominent eyes regarding me from out of that florid, crafty countenance.
On my left, but high up the room and immediately at right angles to the judges’ tables, sat Galeotto, full-armed. He was flanked on the one side by Fra Gervasio, who greeted me with a melancholy smile, and on the other by Falcone, who sat rigid.
Opposite to this group on the judges’ other hand stood Cosimo. He was flushed, and his eyes gleamed as they measured me with haughty triumph. From me they passed to Bianca, who followed after me with her women, pale, but intrepid and self-contained, her face the whiter by contrast with the mourning-gown which she still wore for her father, and which it might well come to pass that she should continue hereafter to wear for me.
I did not look at her again as she passed on and up towards Galeotto, who had risen to receive her. He came some few steps to meet her, and escorted her to a seat next to his own, so that Falcone moved down to another vacant stool. Her women found place behind her.
An usher set a chair for me, and I, too, sat down, immediately facing the Emperor’s Lieutenant. Then another usher in a loud voice summoned Cosimo to appear and state his grievance.
He advanced a step or two, when Gonzaga raised his hand, to sign to him to remain where he was so that all could see him whilst he spoke.
Forthwith, quickly, fluently, and lucidly, as if he had got the thing by heart, Cosimo recited his accusation: How he had married Bianca de’ Cavalcanti by her father’s consent in her father’s own Castle of Pagliano; how that same night his palace in Piacenza had been violently invested by myself and others abetting me, and how we had carried off his bride and burnt his palace to the ground; how I had since held her from him, shut up in the Castle of Pagliano, which was his fief in his quality as her husband; and how similarly I had unlawfully held Pagliano against him to his hurt.
Finally he reminded the Court that he had appealed to the Pope, who had issued a brief commanding me, under pain of excommunication and death, to make surrender; that I had flouted the Pontifical authority, and that it was only upon his appeal to Caesar and upon the Imperial mandate that I had surrendered. Wherefore he begged the Court to uphold the Holy Father’s authority, and forthwith to pronounce me excommunicate and my life forfeit, restoring to him his wife Bianca and his domain of Pagliano, which he would hold as the Emperor’s liege and loyal servitor.
Having spoken thus, he bowed to the Court, stepped back, and sat down.
The Ten looked at Gonzaga. Gonzaga looked at me.
“Have you anything to say?” he asked.
I rose imbued by a calm that surprised me.
“Messer Cosimo has left something out of his narrative,” said I. “When he says that I violently invested his palace here in Piacenza on the night of his marriage, and dragged thence the Lady Bianca, others abetting me, he would do well to add in the interests of justice, the names of those who were my abettors.”
Cosimo rose again. “Does it matter to this Court and to the affair at issue what caitiffs he employed?” he asked haughtily.
“If they were caitiffs it would not matter,” said I. “But they were not. Indeed, to say that it was I who invested his palace is to say too much. The leader of that expedition was Monna Bianca’s own father, who, having discovered the truth of the nefarious traffic in which Messer Cosimo was engaged, hastened to rescue his daughter from an infamy.”
Cosimo shrugged. “These are mere words,” he said.
“The lady herself is present, and can bear witness to their truth,” I cried.
“A prejudiced witness, indeed!” said Cosimo with confidence; and Gonzaga nodded, whereupon my heart sank.
“Will Messer Agostino give us the names of any of the braves who were with him?” quoth Cosimo. “It will no doubt assist the ends of justice, for those men should be standing by him now.”
He checked me no more than in time. I had been on the point of citing Falcone; and suddenly I perceived that to do so would be to ruin Falcone without helping myself.
I looked at my cousin. “In that case,” said I, “I will not name them.”
Falcone, however, was minded to name himself, for with a grunt he made suddenly to rise. But Galeotto stretched an arm across Bianca, and forced the equerry back into his seat.
Cosimo saw and smiled. He was very sure of himself by now.
“The only witness whose word would carry weight would be the late Lord of Pagliano,” he said. “And the prisoner is more crafty than honest in naming one who is dead. Your excellency will know the precise importance to attach to that.”
Again his excellency nodded. Could it indeed be that I was enmeshed? My calm deserted me.
“Will Messer Cosimo tell your excellency under what circumstances the Lord of Pagliano died?” I cried.
“It is yourself should be better able to inform the Court of that,” answered Cosimo quickly, “since he died at Pagliano after you had borne his daughter thither, as we have proof.”
Gonzaga looked at him sharply. “Are you implying, sir, that there is a further crime for which Messer Agostino d’Anguissola should be indicted?” he inquired.
Cosimo shrugged and pursed his lips. “I will not go so far, since the matter of Ettore Cavalcanti’s death does not immediately concern me. Besides, there is enough contained in the indictment as it stands.”
The imputation was none the less terrible, and could not fail of an effect upon the minds of the Ten. I was in despair, for at every question it seemed that the tide of destruction rose higher about me. I deemed myself irrevocably lost. The witnesses I might have called were as good as gagged.
Yet there was one last question in my quiver — a question which I thought must crumple up his confidence.
“Can you tell his excellency where you were upon your marriage night?” I cried hoarsely, my temples throbbing.
Superbly Cosimo looked round at the Court; he shrugged, and shook his head as if in utter pity.
“I leave it to your excellency to say where a man should be upon his marriage night,” he said, with an astounding impudence, and there were some who tittered in the crowd behind me. “Let me again beg your excellency and your worthinesses to pass to judgment, and so conclude this foolish comedy.”
Gonzaga nodded gravely, as if entirely approving, whilst with a fat jewelled hand he stroked his ample chin.
“I, too, think that it is time,” he said, whereupon Cosimo, with a sigh of relief, would have resumed his seat but that I stayed him with the last thing I had to say.
“My lord,” I cried, appealing to Gonzaga, “the true events of that night are set forth in a memorial of which two copies were drawn up, one for the Pope and the other for your excellency, as the Emperor’s vicegerent. Shall I recite its contents — that Messer Cosimo may be examined upon them.
“It is not necessary,” came Gonzaga’s icy voice. “The memorial is here before me.” And he tapped a document upon the table. Then he fixed his prominent eyes upon Cosimo. “You are aware of its contents?” he asked.
Cosimo bowed, and Galeotto moved at last, for the first time since the trial’s inception.
Until now he had sat like a carved image, save when he had thrust out a hand to restrain Falcon
e, and his attitude had filled me with an unspeakable dread. But at this moment he leaned forward turning an ear towards Cosimo, as if anxious not to miss a single word that the man might utter. And Cosimo, intent as he was, did not observe the movement.
“I saw its fellow at the Vatican,” said my cousin, “and since the Pope in his wisdom and goodness judged worthless the witnesses whose signatures it bears, his holiness thought well to issue the brief upon which your excellency has acted in summoning Agostino d’Anguissola before you here.
“Thus is that memorial disposed of as a false and lying document.”
“And yet,” said Gonzaga thoughtfully, his heavy lip between thumb and forefinger, “it bears, amongst others, the signature of the Lord of Pagliano’s confessor.”
“Without violation of the seal of the confessional, it is impossible for that friar to testify,” was the answer. “And the Holy Father cannot grant him dispensation for so much. His signature, therefore, stands for nothing.”
There followed a moment’s silence. The Ten whispered among themselves. But Gonzaga never consulted them by so much as a glance. They appeared to serve none but a decorative office in that Court of his, for they bore no share in the dispensing of a justice of which he constituted himself the sole arbiter.
At last the Governor spoke.
“It seems, indeed, that there is no more to say and the Court has a clear course before it, since the Emperor cannot contravene the mandates of the Holy See. Nothing remains, then, but to deliver sentence; unless...”
He paused, and his eyes singularly sly, his lips pursed almost humorously, he turned his glance upon Galeotto.
“Ser Cosimo,” he said, “has pronounced this memorial a false and lying document. Is there anything that you, Messer Galeotto, as its author, can have to tell the Court?”
Instantly the condottiero rose, his great scarred face very solemn, his eyes brooding. He advanced almost to the very centre of the table, so that he all but stood immediately before Gonzaga, yet sideways, so that I had him in profile, whilst he fully faced Cosimo.
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