Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookow-slit, he shouldered his arbalest. He took careful aim in the direction of the ducal tent, and loosed the quarrel. He watched its light, and it almost thrilled him with pride in his archery to see it strike the tent at which he had aimed, and set the canvas shuddering. In a moment there was a commotion. Men ran to the spot, others emerged from the tent, and amongst the latter Gonzaga recognised the figures of Gian Maria and Guidobaldo. The bolt was delivered to the Duke of Babbiano, who, with an upward glance at the ramparts, vanished into the tent once more. Gonzaga moved from his eerie, and set wide the door of the tower, so that his eyes could range the whole of the sun-bathed ramparts. Returning to his window, he waited impatiently for the answer. Nor was his impatience to endure long. At the end of some ten minutes Gian Maria reappeared, and, summoning an archer to his side, he delivered him something and made a motion of his hand towards Roccaleone. Gonzaga moved to the door, and stood listening breathlessly. At the least sign of an approach, he would have shown himself, and thus, by the provision made in his letter have cautioned the archer against shooting his bolt. But all was quiet, and so Gonzaga remained where he was until something flashed like a bird across his vision, struck sharply against the posterior wall, and fell with a tinkle on the broad stones of the rampart. A moment later the answer from Gian Maria was in his hands. He swiftly unwound it from the shaft that had brought it, and dropped the bolt into a corner. Then unfolding the letter, he read it, leaning against one of the merlons of the wall. "If you can devise a means to deliver Roccaleone at once into my hands you shall earn my gratitude, full pardon for your share in Monna Valentina's rebellion, and the sum of a thousand gold florins. "GIAN MARIA." As he read, a light of joy leapt to his eyes. Gian Maria's terms were very generous. He would accept them, and Valentina should realise when too late upon what manner of broken reed she leaned in relying upon Messer Francesco. Would he save her now, as he so loudly boasted? Would there indeed be no mutiny, as he so confidently prophesied? Gonzaga chuckled evilly to himself. She should learn her lesson, and when she was Gian Maria's wife, she might perhaps repent her of her treatment of Romeo Gonzaga. He laughed softly to himself. Then suddenly he turned cold, and he felt his skin roughening. A stealthy step sounded behind him. He crumpled the Duke's letter in his hand, and in the alarm of the moment, he dropped it over the wall. Seeking vainly to compose the features that a chilling fear had now disturbed, he turned to see who came. Behind him stood Peppe, his solemn eyes bent with uncanny intentness upon Gonzaga's face. "You were seeking me?" quoth Romeo, and the quaver in his voice sorted ill with his arrogance. The fool made him a grotesque bow. "Monna Valentina desires that you attend her in the garden, Illustrious." CHAPTER XIX. PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT Peppe's quick eyes had seen Gonzaga crumple and drop the paper, no less than he had observed the courtier's startled face, and his suspicions had been aroused. He was by nature prying, and experience had taught him that the things men seek to conceal are usually the very things it imports most to have knowledge of. So when Gonzaga had gone, in obedience to Valentina's summons, the jester peered carefully over the battlements. At first he saw nothing, and he was concluding with disappointment that the thing Gonzaga had cast from him was lost in the torrential waters of the moat. But presently, lodged on a jutting stone, above the foaming stream into which it would seem that a miracle had prevented it from falling, he espied a ball of crumpled paper. He observed with satisfaction that it lay some ten feet immediately below the postern-gate by the drawbridge. Secretly, for it was not Peppy's way to take men into his confidence where it might be avoided, he got himself a coil of rope. Having descended and quietly opened the postern, he made one end fast and lowered the other to the water with extreme care, lest he should dislodge, and so lose, that paper. Assuring himself again that he was unobserved, he went down, hand over hand, like a monkey, his feet against the rough-hewn granite of the wall. Then, with a little swinging of the rope, he brought himself nearer that crumpled ball, his legs now dangling in the angry water, and by a mighty stretch that all but precipitated him into the torrent, he seized the paper and transferred it to his teeth. Then hand over hand again, and with a frantic haste, for he feared observation not only from the castle sentries but also from the watchers in the besieger's camp, he climbed back to the postern, exulting in that he had gone unobserved, and contemptuous for the vigilance of those that should have observed him. Softly he closed the wicket, locked it and shot home the bolts at top and base, and went to replace the key on its nail in the guard-room, which he found untenanted. Next, with that mysterious letter in his hand, he scampered off across the courtyard and through the porch leading to the domestic quarters, nor paused until he had gained the kitchen, where Fra Domenico was roasting the quarter of a lamb that he had that morning butchered. For now that the siege was established, there was no more fish from the brook, nor hares and ortolans from the country-side. The friar cursed the fool roundly, as was his wont upon every occasion, for he was none so holy that he disdained the milder forms of objurgatory oaths. But Peppe for once had no vicious answer ready, a matter that led the Dominican to ask him was he ill. Never heeding him, the fool unfolded and smoothed the crumpled paper in a corner by the fire. He read it and whistled, then stuffed it into the bosom of his absurd tunic. "What ails you?" quoth the friar. "What have you there?" "A recipe for a dish of friar's brains. A most rare delicacy, and rendered costly by virtue of the scarcity of the ingredients." And with that answer Peppe was gone, leaving the monk with an ugly look in his eyes, and an unuttered imprecation on his tongue. Straight to the Count of Aquila went the fool with his letter. Francesco read it, and questioned him closely as to what he knew of the manner in which it had come into Gonzaga's possession. For the rest, those lines, far from causing him the uneasiness Peppe expected, seemed a source of satisfaction and assurance to him. "He offers a thousand gold florins," he muttered, "in addition to Gonzaga's liberty and advancement. Why, then, I have said no more than was true when I assured the men that Gian Maria was but idly threatening us with bombardment. Keep this matter secret, Peppe." "But you will watch Messer Gonzaga?" quoth the fool. "Watch him? Why, where is the need? You do not imagine him so vile that this offer could tempt him?" Peppe |