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 each 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 Falcone, 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.

Cosimo at least had ceased to smile. His handsome white face had lost some of its supercilious confidence. Here was something unexpected, something upon which he had not reckoned, against which he had not provided.

“What has Ser Galeotto to do with this?” he demanded harshly.

“That, sir, no doubt he will tell us, if you will have patience,” Gonzaga answered, so sweetly and deferentially that of a certainty some of Cosimo's uneasiness must have been dissipated.

I leaned forward now, scarce daring to draw breath lest I should lose a word of what was to follow. The blood that had earlier surged to my face had now all receded again, and my pulses throbbed like hammers.

Then Galeotto spoke, his voice very calm and level.

“Will your excellency first permit me to see the papal brief upon which you acted in summoning hither the accused?”

Silently Gonzaga delivered a parchment into Galeotto's hands. The condottiero studied it, frowning. Then he smote it sharply with his right hand.

“This document is not in order,” he announced.

“How?” quoth Cosimo, and he smiled again, reassured completely by now, convinced that here was no more than a minor quibble of the law.

“You are here described as Cosimo d'Anguissola, Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina. These titles are not yours.”

The blood stirred faintly in Cosimo's cheeks.

“Those fiefs were conferred upon me by our late lord, Duke Pier Luigi,” he replied.

Gonzaga spoke. “The confiscations effected by the late usurping Duke, and the awards made out of such confiscations, have been cancelled by Imperial decree. All lands so confiscated are by this decree revertible to their original holders upon their taking oath of allegiance to Caesar.”

Cosimo continued to smile. “This is no matter of a confiscation effected by Duke Pier Luigi,” he said. “The confiscation and my own investiture in the confiscated fiefs are a consequence of Agostino d'Anguissola's recreancy—at least, it is in such terms that my investiture is expressly announced in the papal bull that has been granted me and in the brief which lies before your excellency. Nor was such express announcement necessary, for since I was next heir after Ser Agostino to the Tyranny of Mondolfo, it follows that upon his being outlawed and his life forfeit I enter upon my succession.”

Here, thought I, were we finally checkmated. But Galeotto showed no sign of defeat.

“Where is this bull you speak of?” he demanded, as though he were the judge himself.

Cosimo haughtily looked past him at Gonzaga. “Does your excellency ask to see it?”

“Assuredly,” said Gonzaga shortly. “I may not take your word for its existence.”

Cosimo plucked a parchment from the breast of his brown satin doublet, unfolded it, and advanced to lay it before Gonzaga, so that he stood near Galeotto—not more than an arm's length between them.

The Governor conned it; then passed it to Galeotto. “It seems in order,” he said.

Nevertheless, Galeotto studied it awhile; and then, still holding it, he looked at Cosimo, and the scarred face that hitherto had been so sombre now wore a smile.

“It is as irregular as the other,” he said. “It is entirely worthless.”

“Worthless?” quoth Cosimo, in an amazement that was almost scornful. “But have I not already explained...”

“It sets forth here,” cut in Galeotto with assurance, “that the fief of Mondolfo and Carmina are confiscated from Agostino d'Anguissola. Now I submit to your excellency, and to your worthinesses,” he added, turning aside, “that this confiscation is grotesque and impossible, since Mondolfo and Carmina never were the property of Agostino d'Anguissola, and could no more be taken from him than can a coat be taken from the back of a naked man—unless,” he added, sneering, “a papal bull is capable of miracles.”

Cosimo stared at him with round eyes, and I stared too, no glimmer of the enormous truth breaking yet upon my bewildered mind. In the court the silence was deathly until Gonzaga spoke.

“Do you say that Mondolfo and Carmina did not belong—that they never were the fiefs of Agostino d'Anguissola?” he asked.

“That is what I say,” returned Galeotto, towering there, immense and formidable in his gleaming armour.

“To whom, then, did they belong?”

“They did and do belong to Giovanni d'Anguissola—Agostino's father.”

Cosimo shrugged at this, and some of the dismay passed from his countenance.

“What folly is this?” he cried. “Giovanni d'Anguissola died at Perugia eight years ago.”

“That is what is generally believed, and what Giovanni d'Anguissola has left all to believe, even to his own priest-ridden wife, even to his own son, sitting there, lest had the world known the truth whilst Pier Luigi lived such a confiscation as this should, indeed, have been perpetrated.

“But he did not die at Perugia. At Perugia, Ser Cosimo, he took this scar which for thirteen years has served him for a mask.” And he pointed to his own face.

I came to my feet, scarce believing what I heard. Galeotto was Giovanni d'Anguissola—my father! And my heart had never told me so!

In a flash I saw things that hitherto had been obscure, things that should have guided me to the truth had I but heeded their indications.

How, for instance, had I assumed that the Anguissola whom he had mentioned as one of the heads of the conspiracy against Pier Luigi could have been myself?

I stood swaying there, whilst his voice boomed out again.

“Now that I have sworn fealty to the Emperor in my true name, upon the hands of my Lord Gonzaga here; now that the Imperial aegis protects me from Pope and Pope's bastards; now that I have accomplished my life's work, and broken the Pontifical sway in this Piacenza, I can stand forth again and resume the state that is my own.

“There stands my foster-brother, who has borne witness to my true identity; there Falcone, who has been my equerry these thirty years; and there are the brothers Pallavicini, who tended me and sheltered me when I lay at the point of death from the wounds that disfigured me at Perugia.”

“So, my Lord Cosimo, ere you can proceed further in this matter against my son, you will need to take your brief and your bull back to Rome and get them amended, for there is in Italy no Lord of Mondolfo and Carmina other than myself.”

Cosimo fell back before him limp and trembling, his spirit broken by this shattering blow.

And then Gonzaga uttered words that might have heartened him. But after being hurled from what he accounted the pinnacle of success, he mistrusted now the crafty Lieutenant, saw that he had been played with as a mouse by this Imperial cat with the soft, deadly paws.

“We might waive the formalities in the interests of justice,” purred the Lieutenant. “There is this memorial, my lord,” he said, and tapped the document, his eyes upon my father.

“Since your excellency wishes the matter to be disposed of out of hand, it can, I think, be done,” he said, and he looked again at Cosimo.

“You have said that this memorial is false, because the witnesses whose names are here cannot be admitted to testify.”

Cosimo braced himself for a last effort. “Do you defy the Pope?” he thundered.

“If necessary,” was the answer. “I have done so all my life.”

Cosimo turned to Gonzaga. “It is not I who have branded this memorial false,” he said, “but the Holy Father himself.”

“The Emperor,” said my father, “may opine that in this matter the Holy Father has been deluded by liars. There are other witnesses. There is myself, for one. This memorial contains nothing but what was imparted to me by the Lord of Pagliano on his death-bed, in the presence of his confessor.”

“We cannot admit the confessor,” Gonzaga thrust in.

“Give me leave, your excellency. It was not in his quality as confessor that Fra Gervasio heard the dying man depone. Cavalcanti's confession followed upon that. And there was in addition present the seneschal of Pagliano who is present here. Sufficient to establish this memorial alike before the Imperial and the Pontifical Courts.

“And I swear to God, as I stand here in His sight,” he continued in a ringing voice, “that every word there set down is as spoken by Ettore Cavalcanti, Lord of Pagliano, some hours before he died; and so will those others swear. And I charge your excellency, as Caesar's vicegerent, to accept that memorial as an indictment of that caitiff Cosimo d'Anguissola, who lent himself to so foul and sacrilegious a deed—for it involved the defilement of the Sacrament of Marriage.”

“In that you lie!” screamed Cosimo, crimson now with rage, the veins at his throat and brow swelling like ropes.

A silence followed. My father turned to Falcone, and held out his hand. Falcone sprang to give him a heavy iron gauntlet. Holding this by the fingers, my father took a step towards Cosimo, and he was smiling, very calm again after his late furious mood.

“Be it so,” he said. “Since you say that I lie, I do here challenge you to prove it upon my body.”

And he crashed the iron glove straight into Cosimo's face so that the skin was broken, and blood flowed about the mouth, leaving the lower half of the visage crimson, the upper dead-white.

Gonzaga sat on, entirely unmoved, and waited, indifferent to the stir there was amid the Ten. For by the ancient laws of chivalry—however much they might be falling now into desuetude—if Cosimo took up the glove, the matter passed beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, and all men must abide by the issue of the trial by battle.

For a long moment Cosimo hesitated. Then he saw ruin all about him. He—who had come to this court so confidently—had walked into a trap. He saw it now, and saw that the only loophole was the chance this combat offered him. He played the man in the end. He stooped and took up the glove.

“Upon your body, then—God helping me,” he said.

Unable longer to control myself, I sprang to my father's side. I caught his arm.

“Let me! Father, let me!”

He looked into my face and smiled, and the steel-coloured eyes seemed moist and singularly soft.

“My son!” he said, and his voice was gentle and soothing as a woman's caress.

“My father!” I answered him, a knot in my throat.

“Alas, that I must deny you the first thing you ask me by that name,” he said. “But the challenge is given and accepted. Do you take Bianca to the Duomo and pray that right may be done and God's will prevail. Gervasio shall go with you.”

And then came an interruption from Gonzaga.

“My lord,” he said, “will you determine when and where this battle is to be fought?”

“Upon the instant,” answered my father, “on the banks of Po with a score of lances to keep the lists.”

Gonzaga looked at Cosimo. “Do you agree to this?”

“It cannot be too soon for me,” replied the quivering Cosimo, black hatred in his glance.

“Be it so, then,” said the Governor, and he rose, the Court rising with him.

My father pressed my hand again. “To the Duomo, Agostino, till I come,” he said, and on that we parted.

My sword was returned to me by Gonzaga's orders. In so far as it concerned myself the trial was at an end, and I was free.

At Gonzaga's invitation, very gladly I there and then swore fealty to the Emperor upon his hands, and then, with Bianca and Gervasio, I made my way through the cheering crowd and came out into the sunshine, where my lances, who had already heard the news, set up a great shout at sight of me.

Thus we crossed the square, and went to the Duomo, to render thanks. We knelt at the altar-rail, and Gervasio knelt above us upon the altar's lowest step.

Somewhere behind us knelt Bianca's women, who had followed us to the church.

Thus we waited for close upon two hours that were as an eternity.

And kneeling there, the eyes of my soul conned closely the scroll of my young life as it had been unfolded hitherto. I reviewed its beginnings in the greyness of Mondolfo, under the tutelage of my poor, dolorous mother who had striven so fiercely to set my feet upon the ways of sanctity. But my ways had been errant ways, even though, myself, I had sought to walk as she directed. I had strayed and blundered, veered and veered again, a very mockery of what she strove to make me—a strolling saint, indeed, as Cosimo had dubbed me, a wandering mummer when I sought after holiness.

But my strolling, my errantry ended here at last at the steps of this altar, as I knew.

Deeply had I sinned. But deeply and strenuously had I expiated, and the heaviest burden of my expiation had been that endured in the past year at Pagliano beside my gentle Bianca who was another's wedded wife. That cross of penitence—so singularly condign to my sin—I had borne with fortitude, heartened by the confidence that thus should I win to pardon and that the burden would be mercifully lifted when the expiation was complete. In the lifting of that burden from me I should see a sign that pardon was mine at last, that at last I was accounted worthy of this pure maid through whom I should have won to grace, through whom I had come to learn that Love—God's greatest gift—is the great sanctifier of man.

That the stroke of that ardently awaited hour was even now impending I did not for a moment doubt.

Behind us, the door opened and steps clanked upon the granite floor.

Fra Gervasio rose very tall and gaunt, his gaze anxious.

He looked, and the anxiety passed. Thankfulness overspread his face. He smiled serenely, tears in his deep-set eyes. Seeing this, I, too, dared to look at last.

Up the aisle came my father very erect and solemn, and behind him followed Falcone with eyes a-twinkle in his weather-beaten face.

“Let the will of Heaven be done,” said my father. And Gervasio came down to pronounce the nuptial blessing over us.