Belladonna

“ There was now in his voice a note that the Princess had never heard, a note that made Belluno's blood run cold. 'Speak out, man! Though I give licence for innuendo to a lady, I require clear speech from every man. So let us have this thing quite plainly.'
Belluno was brave and obstinate. He conquered his fear of Bellarion sufficiently to make a show of standing his ground.
'It is clear,' he answered sullenly, 'that we have been betrayed.'
'How is it clear, you fool?' Bellarion shifted again from cold wrath with an insubordinate inferior to argument with a fellow man. ”

“ Facino turned livid with passion. A tall fellow among his captains, very noble-looking in cloth of silver under a blue houppelande, laughed aloud. The pale, bulging eyes of Gian Maria sought him out venomously.
'You laugh, knave?' he snarled, and came to his feet, outraged by the indignity. 'What is here for laughter?'
Bellarion laughed again as he answered: 'Yourself, Lord Duke, who in yourself are nothing. You are Duke of Milan at present by the grace of God and the favour of Facino Cane. ”

“ Bellaroba was tearful, clung to him, kissed and murmured incoherently because of sobbing. He loved her more than ever for that, but as became a prudent husband, thought to say a word in season.
"My dear," he said in her ear, as he held her close, "you are very young to be a wife, and too young to be properly left alone with such companions as your Olimpia, whom I distrust, and Monna Matura, whom I abhor. But what can I do? I must make our fortunes, and pray to God that your beauty do not mar them. ”

“ To view those frescoes came the Lady Valeria alone, leaving Monna Dionara to loiter on the bridge. Within the temple her highness found the bedaubed young painter dangling his legs from a scaffold and flourishing a brush in one hand, a mahlstick in the other. She looked at him in waiting silence. He did not try her patience.
'Madonna, you do not recognise me.' With the sleeve of his smock he wiped the daub of paint from across his features. But already his voice had made him known.
'Messer Bellarion! ”

“ Gabriello Maria conceived an attachment for him; the Duke himself chose to be pleasant and completely to forget the incident of the dogs. Even della Torre, Facino's mortal but secret enemy, sought to conciliate him.
Bellarion, whose bold, penetrating glance saw everything, whose rigid features betrayed nothing, steered a careful course by the aid of philosophy and a sense of humour which grew steadily and concurrently with the growth of his knowledge of men and women. ”

“ One autumn day when a northerly wind from the distant snows brought a sting which the bright sunshine scarcely sufficed to temper, Bellarion and the Countess Beatrice, following the flight of a falcon that had been sent soaring to bring down a strong-winged heron, came to the edge of an affluent of the Ticino, now brown and swollen from recent rains, on the very spot where Duke Gian Maria had loosed his hounds upon Bellarion. ”

“ He cast his cloak more tightly about him, wished them good-night almost gaily, and went striding away towards his pavilion.
Carmagnola, crestfallen, swallowing his chagrin as best he could, stood there in silence beside the equally silenced Princess.
Belluno swore softly, and vented a laugh of some little bitterness.
'He's deep, always deep, by Saint Januarius! Never does he do the things he seems to do. Never does he aim where he looks.' ”

“ I have been your friend, Bellarion—aye, and more. But that is over now.'
'Madonna, if I have offended ...'
'Let be.' She became imperious. 'Listen now. You must not continue with my Lord Facino because where he goes thither must I go, too.'
'You ask me to take my dismissal from his service?' He was incredulous.
'I beg it ... a favour, Bellarion. It is yourself have brought things to the pass where I may not meet you without humiliation. And continue daily to meet you I will not.' Her ready wicked temper flared up. ”

“ Propped on his crutch and his one sound leg, Bellarion considered her, his head on one side, and fetched a sigh.
'You are very beautiful, madonna.'
She was startled. 'God save us!' she cried. 'Does the soldier-sage contain a mere man, after all?'
'Your mouth, madonna, is too sweetly formed for acids.'
'The choicest fruits, sir, have an alloy of sharpness. What else about me finds favour in your eyes?'
'In my eyes! My eyes, madonna, are circumspect. ”

“ Filippo Maria stared unbelieving at the board. The lines of his mouth drooped, and his great pendulous cheeks trembled. Almost he seemed on the point of tears.
'God rot you, Bellarion! Always, always is it the same! I plan and build and whilst you seem to do no more than defend, you are preparing a death-stroke in an unexpected quarter.' Between jest and earnest he added: 'You slippery rogue! Always you defeat me by a trick.'
The Princess Valeria looked up from her embroidery on the word. Bellarion caught the movement and the glance in his direction. ”

“ Here at Abbiategrasso, away from turbulence, and able for the first time since Gian Galeazzo's death to live without being perpetually on guard, he confessed himself happier than he could remember to have been.
'If this were life,' he said to Bellarion one evening as they sauntered through the parklands where the red deer grazed, 'a man might be content.'
'Content,' said Bellarion, 'is stagnation. And man was not made for that. I am coming to perceive it. The peace of the convent is as the peace of the pasture to the ox.'
Facino smiled. ”

“ When he has damaged and weakened you by hurling back your assault, then he will come out in force to complete your discomfiture.'
'You have it all clear!' sneered Carmagnola. 'And you see it all in the cast shoe of a mule and a few grains of wheat.' He swung about to the others, flinging wide his arms. 'Listen to him! Learn our trade, sirs! Go to school to Master Bellarion.'
'Indeed, you might do worse,' cut in Facino, and so struck him into gaping, angry amazement. 'Bellarion reasons soundly enough to put your wits to shame. ”

“ That Count Spigno has risen from the grave at last for vengeance.'
'Will you not send for this clown, at least?' cried Gian Giacomo.
'To what purpose now? What can he add to what we know? The matter, Lord Marquis, is finished.'
And meanwhile Belluno was seeking Bellarion in the small chamber in which they had confined him on the ground floor of the castle.
With perfect composure Bellarion heard the words of doom. He did not believe them. This sudden thing was too monstrously impossible. ”

“ Filippo Maria raised his beady eyes. They kindled as they observed her, raking her generous yet supple lines from head to foot. It was not the first time that the watchful Bellarion had seen him look so at Facino's lady, nor the first time that he had seen her wantonly display herself to provoke that unmistakable regard. She bent now to the board, and Filippo's smouldering glance was upon the warm ivory beauty of her neck, and the swell of her breast revealed by the low-cut gown.
'It is human to despise what we do not understand,' Bellarion was answering her. ”

“ PRINCE OF VALSASSINA
As Bellarion had calculated and disposed, so things fell out, and Filippo Maria Visconti in the twenty-second year of his age led to the altar the widowed Countess of Biandrate who was thirty-nine. As a young girl, she had married, at the bidding of ambition, a man who was twenty years her senior; as a middle-aged woman now, and for the same reason, she married one who was almost as much her junior. ”

“ On odd visits to Pavia, Carmagnola had been very attentive to the Princess, employing all a peacock's arts of self-display to dazzle her.
'He is an honest gentleman,' she countered hotly. 'It is better to trust an upright, honest soldier than a sly schemer whose falsehood has been proven to us.'
'If he schemes my ruin for my uncle's profit, he goes about it oddly, neglecting opportunities.'
She looked at him with compassion. 'Bellarion never aims where he looks. ”

“ His gesture dismissed the Swiss halberdiers, who had ushered in this visitor. The very name of Venegono was of ill omen, and ill-omened was the man's haggard countenance now, and his own announcement.
'I bring evil tidings, Lord Count.'
'You are consistent,' said Bellarion. 'A great quality.'
Venegono stared at him. 'Give me to drink,' he begged. 'God! How I thirst. I have ridden from Pavia without pause save to change horse at Caravaggio.'
'From Pavia!' Bellarion's tone and manner changed; apprehension showed in both. ”

“ Is it worthy that I shall be called "dog" by a cross-grained brat to whom I've played the foster-father? Out of my sight, sir! Out of my sight, all of you! The door, Bellarion! The Duke of Milan to the door!'
They went without another word, fearing, indeed, that another word might be their last. But they did not yet return to Milan. They remained in Vigevano, and that evening della Torre came seeking audience again of Facino to make the Duke's peace with him, and Facino, having swallowed his rage by then, consented to receive his highness once more. ”

“ He no more than carried out the orders of the Count of Biandrate. His whole life bears witness to his false nature.'
'Nay, now, Valeria, nay. You'll not deny that he is what all Italy now proclaims him: one of the greatest captains of his time.'
'And how has he made himself that? Is it by knightly qualities, by soldierly virtues? All the world knows that he prevails by guile and trickery.'
'You've been listening to Carmagnola,' said her brother. 'He would give an eye for Bellarion's skill.'
'You're but a boy,' she reminded him with some asperity. ”

“ She gasped now in her amazement. 'With the world at your feet if you choose! To renounce all? To go back to the chill loneliness and joylessness of monkhood? Bellarion, you are mad.'
'Or else sane, madonna. Who shall judge?'
'And love, Bellarion? Is there no love in the world? Does that not lend reality to all these things that you deem shams?'
'Does it heal the vanity of the world?' he cried. 'It is a great power, as I perceive. For love men will go mad, they will become beasts: they will murder and betray.'
'Heretic!'
That startled him a little. ”

“ At last he gained the Broletto and the courtyard of the Arrengo, which was thronged almost as densely as the square outside. Thronged, too, were the windows overlooking it, and in the loggia on the right Bellarion perceived the Duke himself, standing between the tall, black, saturnine della Torre and the scarlet Archbishop of Milan, and, beside the Archbishop, the Countess Beatrice, a noble lady sheathed in white samite with black hair fitting as close and regularly to her pale face as a cap of ebony. ”

“ A bridgeless nose broad as a negro's splayed across his fresh-complexioned face, immediately above the enormous purple lips of his shapeless mouth. Round, pale-coloured eyes bulged on the very surface of his face; his brow was sloping and shallow and his chin receded. From his handsome father he inherited only the red-gold hair that had distinguished Gian Galeazzo.
Bellarion stared at him, fascinated by that unsurpassable ugliness, and, meeting the stare, a frown descended between the thick sandy eyebrows. ”

“ That is what you love, Bellarion; to excel; to wield mastery.'
'Do we not all? Do not you, yourself, madonna, glory in the power your beauty gives you?'
She looked at Filippo. Her heavy eyelids drooped. 'Behold him turned courtier, my lord. He perceives beauty in me.'
'He would be blind else,' said the fat youth, greatly daring. And the next moment in a reaction of shyness a mottled flush was staining his unhealthy pallor.
Lower drooped the lady's eyelids, until a line of black lashes lay upon her cheek.
'The game,' Gian Giacomo interposed, 'is a very proper one for princes. ”

“ Can you claim nothing for yourself?'
'Valeria!'
She stooped to kiss his lips. 'My very hate of you in all these years was love dissembled. Because my spirit leapt to yours, almost from that first evening in the garden there, did it so wound and torture me to discover baseness in you. I should have trusted my own heart, rather than my erring senses, Bellarion. You warned me early that I am not good at inference. I have suffered as those suffer who are in rebellion against themselves.'
He pondered her, very pale and sorrowful. ”

“ Bellarion poured a cup of strong red Valtelline. Venegono drained it.
'Aye, I am consistent, as you say. And so is that hellspawn Gian Maria Visconti. Of his consistency, mine. By your leave.'
He flung himself wearily into the cushioned fald-stool by the table, and set down his cup. Bellarion nodded, and resumed his seat on the bear-skin.
'What has happened in Pavia?'
'In Pavia nothing. Nothing yet. I rode there to warn Facino of what is happening in Milan, but Facino ... The man is ill. ”

“ If he does, I have a notion who will be Duke of Milan. He's a man, this Buonterzo.'
'When he's Duke of Milan, Bice, I shall be dead,' said Facino, smiling. 'So you may marry him then, become his duchess, and be taught how to behave to a husband. Call the servants, Bellarion.'
They dined in haste, a brooding silence presiding over the meal, and within an hour of dining they were ready to set out.
There was a mule litter for the Countess, horses for Facino and Bellarion, a half-dozen mounted grooms, and a score of lances to serve as escort. ”

“ Bellamy, a steady young man, looking out for a wife "capable of friendship, love, and tenderness, with good sense enough to be easy, and good nature enough to like him." He found his beau-ideal in Jacintha, who had besides a fortune of £30,000.—Dr. Hoadly, The Suspicious Husband (1761) .
Bella'rio, the assumed name of Euphrasia, when she put on boy's apparel that she might enter the service of prince Philaster, whom she greatly loved.—Beaumont and Fletcher, Philaster, or Love Lies A-Bleeding (1622) .
Bellaston (Lady) , a profligate, from whom Tom Jones accepts support. ”