CHAPTER VII. GONZAGA THE INSIDIOUS
Well indeed had it been for Ser Peppe had he restrained his maliciousmood and curbed the mocking speech that had been as vinegar toGian Maria's wounds. For when Gian Maria was sore he was wont to bevindictive, and on the present occasion he was something even more.
There abode with him the memory of the fool's words, and the suggestionthat in the heart of Valentina was framed the image of some other man.Now, loving her, in his own coarse way, and as he understood love, therejected Duke waxed furiously jealous of this other at whose existencePeppe had hinted. This unknown stood in his path to Valentina, and toclear that path it suggested itself to Gian Maria that the simplestmethod was to remove the obstacle. But first he must discover it, andto this he thought, with a grim smile, the fool might--willy-nilly--helphim.
He returned to his own apartments, and whilst the preparations forhis departure were toward, he bade Alvaro summon Martin Armstadt--thecaptain of his guard. To the latter his orders were short and secret.
"Take four men," he bade him, "and remain in Urbino after I am gone.Discover the haunts of Peppe the fool. Seize him, and bring him afterme. See that you do it diligently, and let no suspicion of your taskarise."
The bravo--he was little better, for all that he commanded the guards ofthe Duke of Babbiano--bowed, and answered in his foreign, guttural voicethat his Highness should be obeyed.
Thereafter Gian Maria made shift to depart. He took his leave ofGuidobaldo, promising to return within a few days for the nuptials, andleaving an impression upon the mind of his host that his interview withValentina had been very different from the actual.
It was from Valentina herself that Guidobaldo was to learn, after GianMaria's departure, the true nature of that interview, and what hadpassed between his niece and his guest. She sought him out in hiscloset, whither he had repaired, driven thither by the demon of goutthat already inhabited his body, and was wont to urge him at times toisolate himself from his court. She found him reclining upon a couch,seeking distraction in a volume of the prose works of Piccinino. He wasa handsome man, of excellent shape, scarce thirty years of age. His facewas pale, and there were dark circles round his eyes, and lines of painabout his strong mouth.
He sat up at her advent, and setting his book upon the table beside him,he listened to her angry complaints.
At first, the courtly Montefeltro inclined to anger upon learning ofthe roughness with which Gian Maria had borne himself. But presently hesmiled.
"When all is said, I see in this no great cause for indignation," heassured her. "I acknowledge that it may lack the formality that shouldattend the addresses of a man in the Duke's position to a lady in yours.But since he is to wed you, and that soon, why be angered at that heseeks to pay his court like any other man?"
"I have talked in vain, then," she answered petulantly, "and I ammisunderstood. I do not intend to wed this ducal clod you have chosen tobe my husband."
Guidobaldo stared at her with brows raised, and wonder in his fineeyes. Then he shrugged his shoulders a trifle wearily. This handsome andwell-beloved Guidobaldo was very much a prince, so schooled to princelyways as to sometimes forget that he was a man.
"We forgive much to the impetuousness of youth," said he, very coldly."But there are bounds to the endurance of every one of us. As your uncleand your prince, I claim a double duty from you, and you owe a doubleallegiance to my wishes. By my twofold authority I have commanded you towed with Gian Maria."
The princess in her was all forgotten, and it was just the woman whoanswered him, in a voice of protest:
"But, Highness, I do not love him."
A shade of impatience crossed his lofty face.
"I do not remember," he made answer wearily, "that I loved your aunt.Yet we were wed, and through habit came to love each other and to behappy together."
"I can understand that Monna Elizabetta should have come to love you,"she returned. "You are not as Gian Maria. You were not fat and ugly,stupid and cruel, as is he."
It was an appeal that might have won its way to a man's heart throughthe ever-ready channel of his vanity. But it did not so with Guidobaldo.He only shook his head.
"The matter is not one that I will argue. It were unworthy in us both.Princes, my child, are not as ordinary folk."
"In what are they different?" she flashed back at him. "Do they nothunger and thirst as ordinary folk? Are they not subject to the sameills; do they not experience the same joys? Are they not born, and dothey not die, just as ordinary folk? In what, then, lies this differencethat forbids them to mate as ordinary folk?"
Guidobaldo tossed his arms to Heaven, his eyes full of a consternationthat clearly defied utterance. The violence of his gesture drew a gaspof pain from him. At last, when he had mastered it:
"They are different," said he, "in that their lives are not their own todispose of as they will. They belong to the State which they were bornto govern, and in nothing else does this become of so much importanceas in their mating. It behoves them to contract such alliances as shallredound to the advantage of their people." A toss of her auburn head wasValentina's interpolation, but her uncle continued relentlessly in hiscold, formal tones--such tones as those in which he might have addressedan assembly of his captains:
"In the present instance we are threatened--Babbiano and Urbino--bya common foe. And whilst divided, neither of us could withstand him,united, we shall combine to his overthrow. Therefore does this alliancebecome necessary--imperative."
"I do not apprehend the necessity," she answered, in a voice thatbreathed defiance. "If such an alliance as you speak of is desirable,why may it not be made a purely political one--such a one, for instance,as now binds Perugia and Camerino to you? What need to bring me intoquestion?"
"A little knowledge of history would afford you an answer. Suchpolitical alliances are daily made, and daily broken when more profitoffers in another quarter. But cemented by marriage, the tie, whilstcontinuing political, becomes also one of blood. In the case of Urbinoand Babbiano it enters also into consideration that I have no son. Itmight well be, Valentina," he pursued, with a calculating coldness thatrevolted her, "that a son of yours would yet more strongly link the twoduchies. In time both might become united under him into one great powerthat might vie successfully with any in Italy. Now leave me, child.As you see, I am suffering, and when it is thus with me, and this eviltyrant has me in its clutches, I prefer to be alone."
There was a pause, and whilst his eyes were upon hers, hers were uponthe ground in avoidance of his glance. A frown marred her white brow,her lips were set and her hands clenched. Pity for his physical illsfought a while with pity for her own mental torment. At last she threwback her beautiful head, and the manner of that action was instinct withinsubordination.
"It grieves me to harass your Highness in such a season," she assuredhim, "but I must beg your indulgence. These things may be as you say.Your plans may be the noblest that were ever conceived, since to theirconsummation would be entailed the sacrifice of your own flesh andblood--in the person of your niece. But I will have no part in them.It may be that I lack a like nobility of soul; it may be that I am allunworthy of the high station to which I was born, through no fault of myown. And so, my lord," she ended, her voice, her face, her gesture, allimparting an irrevocable finality to her words, "I will not wed thisDuke of Babbiano--no, not to cement alliances with a hundred duchies."
"Valentina!" he exclaimed, roused out of his wonted calm. "Do you forgetthat you are my niece?"
"Since you appear to have forgotten it."
"These woman's whims----" he began, when she interrupted him.
"Perhaps they will serve to remind you that I am a woman, and perhaps ifyou remember that, you may consider how very natural it is that, being awoman, I should refuse to wed for--for political ends."
"To your chamber," he commanded, now thoroughly aroused. "And on yourknees beg Heaven's grace to help you to see your duty, since no words ofmine
prevail."
"Oh, that the Duchess were returned from Mantua," she sighed. "The goodMonna Elizabetta might melt you to some pity."
"Monna Elizabetta is too dutiful herself to do aught but urge you todutifulness. There, child," he added, in a more wheedling tone, "setaside this disobedient mood, which is unlike you and becomes you ill.You shall be wed with a splendour and magnificence that will set everyprincess in Italy green with envy. Your dowry is set at fifty thousandducats, and Giuliano della Rovere shall pronounce the benediction.Already I have sent orders to Ferrara, to the incomparable Anichino, forthe majestate girdle; I will send to Venice for gold leaf and----"
"But do you not heed me that I will not wed?" she broke in withpassionate calm, her face white, her bosom heaving.
He rose, leaning heavily upon a gold-headed cane, and looked at her amoment without speaking, his brows contracted. Then:
"Your betrothal to Gian Maria is proclaimed," he announced in a voicecold with finality. "I have passed my word to the Duke, and yourmarriage shall take place so soon as he returns. Now go. Such scenes asthese are wearisome to a sick man, and they are undignified."
"But, your Highness," she began, an imploring note now taking the placethat lately had been held by defiance.
"Go!" he blazed, stamping his foot, and then to save his dignity--forhe feared that she might still remain--he himself turned on his heel andpassed from the apartment.
Left to herself, she stood there a moment, allowed a sigh to escapeher, and brushed an angry tear from her brown eyes. Then, with a suddenmovement that seemed to imply suppression of her mood, she walked to thedoor by which she entered, and left the chamber.
She went down the long gallery, whose walls glowed with the new frescoesfrom the wonder-working brush of Andrea Mantegna; she crossed herante-chamber and gained the very room where some hours ago she hadreceived the insult of Gian Maria's odious advances. She passed throughthe now empty room, and stepped out on to the terrace that overlookedthe paradise-like gardens of the Palace.
Close by the fountain stood a white marble seat, over which, earlierthat day, one of her women had thrown a cloak of crimson velvet. Thereshe now sat herself to think out the monstrous situation that beset her.The air was warm and balmy and heavy with the scent of flowers from thegarden below. The splashing of the fountain seemed to soothe her, andfor a little while her eyes were upon that gleaming water, which rosehigh in a crystal column, then broke and fell, a shower of glitteringjewels, into the broad marble basin. Then, her eyes growing tired,they strayed to the marble balustrade, where a peacock strode withoverweening dignity; they passed on to the gardens below, gay with earlyblossoms, in their stately frames of tall, boxwood hedges, and flankedby myrtles and tall cypresses standing gaunt and black against the deepsaffron of the vesper sky.
Saving the splashing of the fountain, and the occasional harsh screamof the peacock, all was at peace, as if by contrast with the tumult thatraged in Valentina's soul. Then another sound broke the stillness--asoft step, crunching the gravel of the walk. She turned, and behind herstood the magnificent Gonzaga, a smile that at once reflected pleasureand surprise upon his handsome face.
"Alone, Madonna?" he said, in accents of mild wonder, his fingers softlystirring the strings of the lute he carried, and without which he seldomappeared about the Court.
"As you see," she answered, and her tone was the tone of one whosethoughts are taken up with other things.
Her glance moved away from him again, and in a moment it seemed as ifshe had forgotten his presence, so absorbed grew the expression of herface.
But Gonzaga was not easily discouraged. Patience was the one virtuethat Valentina more than any woman--and there had been many in hisyoung life--had inculcated into a soul that in the main was anything butvirtuous. He came a step nearer, and leant lightly against the edge ofher seat, his shapely legs crossed, his graceful body inclining ever soslightly towards her.
"You are pensive, Madonna," he murmured, in his rich, caressing voice.
"Why then," she reproved him, but in a mild tone, "do you intrude uponmy thoughts?"
"Because they seem sad thoughts, Madonna." he answered, glibly, "and Iwere a poor friend did I not seek to rouse you out of them."
"You are that, Gonzaga?" she questioned, without looking at him. "Youare my friend?"
He seemed to quiver and then draw himself upright, whilst across hisface there swept a shade of something that may have been good or bad orpartly both. Then he leant down until his head came very near her own.
"Your friend?" quoth he. "Ah, more than your friend. Count me your veryslave, Madonna."
She looked at him now, and in his countenance she saw a reflection ofthe ardour that had spoken in his voice. In his eyes there was a glanceof burning intensity. She drew away from him, and at first he accountedhimself repulsed, but pointing to the space she had left:
"Sit here beside me, Gonzaga," she said quietly, and he, scarcecrediting his own good fortune that so much favour should be showeredupon him, obeyed her in a half-timid fashion that was at odd variancewith his late bold words.
He laughed lightly, perhaps to cover the embarrassment that beset him,and dropping his jewelled cap, he flung one white-cased leg over theother and took his lute in his lap, his fingers again wandering to thestrings.
"I have a new song, Madonna," he announced, with a gaiety that wasobviously forced. "It is in ottava rima, a faint echo of the immortalNiccolo Correggio, composed in honour of one whose description is beyondthe flight of human song."
"Yet you sing of her?"
"It is no better than an acknowledgment of the impossibility to sing ofher. Thus----" And striking a chord or two, he began, a mezza voce:
"Quando sorrideran' in ciel Gli occhi tuoi ai santi--"
She laid a hand upon his arm to stay him.
"Not now, Gonzaga," she begged, "I am in no humour for your song, sweetthough I doubt not that it be."
A shade of disappointment and ruffled vanity crossed his face. Womenhad been wont to listen greedily to his strambotti, enthralled by thecunning of the words and the seductive sweetness of his voice.
"Ah, never look so glum," she cried, smiling now at his crestfallen air."If I have not hearkened now, I will again. Forgive me, good Gonzaga,"she begged him, with a sweetness no man could have resisted. And then asigh fluttered from her lips; a sound that was like a sob came after it,and her hand closed upon his arm.
"They are breaking my heart, my friend. Oh, that you had left me atpeace in the Convent of Santa Sofia!"
He turned to her, all solicitude and gentleness, to inquire the reasonof her outburst.
"It is this odious alliance into which they seek to force me with thatman from Babbiano. I have told Guidobaldo that I will not wed this Duke.But as profitably might I tell Fate that I will not die. The one is asunheeding as the other."
Gonzaga sighed profoundly, in sympathy, but said nothing.
Here was a grief to which he could not minister, a grievance thathe could do nothing to remove. She turned from him with a gesture ofimpatience.
"You sigh," she exclaimed, "and you bewail the cruelty of the fate instore for me. But you can do nothing for me. You are all words, Gonzaga.You can call yourself more than my friend--my very slave. Yet, when Ineed your help, what do you offer me? A sigh!"
"Madonna, you are unjust," he was quick to answer, with some heat. "Idid not dream--I did not dare to dream--that it was my help you sought.My sympathy, I believed, was all that you invited, and so, lest I shouldseem presumptuous, it was all I offered. But if my help you need; if youseek a means to evade this alliance that you rightly describe as odious,such help as it lies in a man's power to render shall you have from me."
He spoke almost fiercely and with a certain grim confidence, for allthat as yet no plan had formed itself in his mind.
Indeed, had a course been clear to him, there had been perhaps lessconfidence in his tone, for, after all, he was not by nature a manof ac
tion, and his character was the very reverse of valiant. Yet soexcellent an actor was he as to deceive even himself by his acting, andin this suggestion of some vague fine deeds that he would do, he felthimself stirred by a sudden martial ardour, and capable of all. He wasstirred, too, by the passion with which Valentina's beauty filledhim--a passion that went nearer to making a man of him than Nature hadsucceeded in doing.
That now, in the hour of her need, she should turn so readily to him forassistance, he accepted as proof that she was not deaf to the voice ofthis great love he bore her, but of which he never yet had dared to showa sign. The passing jelousy that he had entertained for that woundedknight they had met at Acquasparta was laid to rest by her presentattitude towards him, the knight, himself forgotten.
As for Valentina, she listened to his ready speech and earnest tone withgrowing wonder both at him and at herself. Her own words had been littlemore than a petulant outburst. Of actually finding a way to elude heruncle's wishes she had no thought--unless it lay in carrying out thatthreat of hers to take the veil. Now, however, that Gonzaga spoke sobravely of doing what man could do to help her to evade that marriage,the thought of active resistance took an inviting shape.
A timid hope--a hope that was afraid of being shattered before it grewto any strength--peeped now from the wondering eyes she turned on hercompanion.
"Is there a way, Gonzaga?" she asked, after a pause.
Now during that pause his mind had been very busy. Something of a poet,he was blessed with wits of a certain quickness, and was a man of veryready fancy. Like an inspiration an idea had come to him; out of thishad sprung another, and yet another, until a chain of events bywhich the frustration of the schemes of Babbiano and Urbino might beaccomplished, was complete.
"I think," he said slowly, his eyes upon the ground, "that I know away."
Her glance was now eager, her lip tremulous, and her face a little pale.She leant towards him.
"Tell me," she besought him feverishly.
He set his lute on the seat beside him, and his eyes looked round inapprehensive survey.
"Not here," he muttered. "There are too many ears in the Palace ofUrbino. Will it please you to walk in the gardens? I will tell youthere."
They rose together, so ready was her assent. They looked at each otherfor a second. Then, side by side, they passed down the wide marble stepsthat led from the terrace to the box-flanked walks of the gardens. Here,among the lengthening shadows, they paced in silence for a while, whattime Gonzaga sought for words in which to propound his plan. At length,grown impatient, Valentina urged him with a question.
"What I counsel, Madonna," he answered her, "is open defiance."
"Such a course I am already pursuing. But whither will it lead me?"
"I do not mean the mere defiance of words--mere protestations that youwill not wed Gian Maria. Listen, Madonna! The Castle of Roccaleone isyour property. It is perhaps the stoutest fortress in all Italy, to-day.Lightly garrisoned and well-provisioned it might withstand a year'ssiege."
She turned to him, having guessed already the proposal in his mind,and for all that at first her eyes looked startled, yet presentlythey kindled to a light of daring that augured well for a very stoutadventure. It was a wildly romantic notion, this of Gonzaga's, worthy ofa poet's perfervid brain, and yet it attracted her by its unprecedentedflavour.
"Could it be done?" she wondered, her eyes sparkling at the anticipationof such a deed.
"It could, indeed it could," he answered, with an eagerness no whit lessthan her own. "Immure yourself in Roccaleone, and thence hurl defianceat Urbino and Babbiano, refusing to surrender until they grant yourterms--that you are to marry as you list."
"And you will help me in this?" she questioned, her mind--in itsinnocence--inclining more and more to the mad project.
"With all my strength and wit," he answered, readily and gallantly. "Iwill so victual the place that it shall be able to stand siege for awhole year, should the need arise, and I will find you the men to armit--a score will, I should think, be ample for our needs, since it ismainly upon the natural strength of the place that we rely."
"And then," said she, "I shall need a captain."
Gonzaga made her a low bow.
"If you will honour me with the office, Madonna, I shall serve youloyally whilst I have life."
A smile quivered for a second on her lips, but was gone ere the courtierhad straightened himself from his bow, for far was it from her wishesto wound his spirit. But the notion of this scented fop in the roleof captain, ruling a handful of rough mercenaries, and directing theoperations for the resistance of an assiduous siege, touched her withits ludicrous note. Yet, if she refused him this, it was more thanlikely he would deem himself offended, and refuse to advance theirplans. It crossed her mind--in the full confidence of youth--that if heshould fail her when the hour of action came, she was of stout enoughheart to aid herself. And so she consented, whereat again he bowed, thistime in gratitude. And then a sudden thought occurred to her, and withit came dismay.
"But for all this, Gonzaga--for the men and the victualling--money willbe needed."
"If you will let my friendship be proven also in that----" he began.
But she interrupted him, struck suddenly with a solution to the riddle.
"No, no!" she exclaimed. His face fell a little. He had hoped to placeher in his debt in every possible way, yet here was one in which sheraised a barrier. Upon her head she wore a fret of gold, so richly lacedwith pearls as to be worth a prince's ransom. This she now made haste tounfasten with fingers that excitement set a-tremble. "There!" she cried,holding it out to him. "Turn that to money, my friend. It should yieldyou ducats enough for this enterprise."
It next occurred to her that she could not go alone into that castlewith just Gonzaga and the men he was about to enrol. His answer camewith a promptness that showed he had considered, also, that.
"By no means," he answered her. "When the time comes you must selectsuch of your ladies--say three or four--as appear suitable and haveyour trust. You may take a priest as well, a page or two, and a fewservants."
Thus, in the gloaming, amid the shadows of that old Italian garden,was the plot laid by which Valentina was to escape alliance with hisHighness of Babbiano. But there was more than that in it, althoughthat was all that Valentina saw. It was, too, a plot by which she mightbecome the wife of Messer Romeo Gonzaga.
He was an exiled member of that famous Mantua family, which has bredsome scoundrels and one saint. With the money which, at parting, adoting mother had bestowed upon him, he was cutting a brave figure atthe Urbino court, where he was tolerated by virtue of his kinship withGuidobaldo's Duchess, Monna Elizabetta. But his means were running low,and it behoved him to turn his attention to such quarters as might yieldhim profit. Being poor-spirited, and--since his tastes had not inclinedthat way--untrained in arms, it would have been futile for him to havesought the career common to adventurers of his age. Yet an adventurerat heart he was, and since the fields of Mars were little suited to hisnature, he had long pondered upon the possibilities afforded him bythe lists of Cupid. Guidobaldo--purely out of consideration for MonnaElizabetta--had shown him a high degree of favour, and upon this he hadbeen vain enough to found great hopes--for Guidobaldo had two nieces.High had these hopes run when he was chosen to escort the lovelyValentina della Rovere from the Convent of Santa Sofia to her uncle'scourt. But of late they had withered, since he had learnt what were heruncle's plans for this lady's future. And now, by her own action, and bythe plot into which she had entered with him, they rose once more.
To thwart Guidobaldo might prove a dangerous thing, and his life mightpay the forfeit if his schemes miscarried--clement and merciful thoughGuidobaldo was. But if they succeeded, and if by love or by forcehe could bring Valentina to wed him, he was tolerably confident thatGuidobaldo, seeing matters had gone too far--since Gian Maria wouldcertainly refuse to wed Gonzaga's widow--would let them be. To this endno plan could be m
ore propitious than that into which he had lured her.Guidobaldo might besiege them in Roccaleone and might eventually reducethem by force of arms--a circumstance, however, which, despite hiswords, he deemed extremely remote. But if only he could wed Valentinabefore they capitulated, he thought that he would have little cause tofear any consequences of Guidobaldo's wrath. After all, in so far asbirth and family were concerned, Romeo Gonzaga was nowise the inferiorof his Highness of Urbino. Guidobaldo had yet another niece, and hemight cement with her the desired alliance with Babbiano.
Alone in the gardens of the Palace, Gonzaga paced after night hadfallen, and with his eyes to the stars that began to fleck the violetsky, he smiled a smile of cunning gratification. He bethought him howwell advised had been his suggestion that they should take a priest toRoccaleone. Unless his prophetic sense led him deeply into error, theywould find work for that priest before the castle was surrendered.
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