Bellarion the Fortunate

Bellarion’s reading had been prodigious. There was no branch of learning⁠—from the Theological Fathers to Vegetius Hyginus on The Art of War⁠—to which he had not addressed his eager spirit. And his exhaustion of all immediately available material for study was one of the causes of his going forth from the peace of the convent of which he was a nursling, in quest of deeper wells of learning, to slake his hot intellectual thirst. Another cause was a certain heretical doctrine of which it was hoped that further study would cure him; a doctrine so subversive of theological teaching that a hundred years later it must have made him closely acquainted with the operations of the Holy Office and probably⁠—in Spain certainly⁠—have brought him to the fire. This abominable heresy, fruit of much brooding, was that in the world there is not, nor can be, such a thing as sin. And it was in vain that the Abbot, who loved him very dearly, sought by argument to convert him.

“It is your innocence that speaks. Alas, my child, in the world, from which hitherto you have been mercifully sheltered, you will find that sin is not only real but terribly abundant.”

Bellarion answered with a syllogism, the logical formula to which he had reduced his doctrine. He presented it in the Socratic manner of inquiry, which was the method of argument he ever preferred.

“Are not all things in the world from God? Is not God the fount of all goodness? Can, therefore, any created thing be other than good?”

“And the devil, then?” quoth the Abbot.

“Lay hands on him!” he cried, in sudden alarm lest his florins and the rest should take flight again, and, that alarm spurring him, himself he leapt to seize Lorenzaccio by arm and shoulder. Fury blazed from the bandit’s beady eyes; his yellow fangs were bared in a grin of rage; something flashed in his right hand, and then his knife sank into the stomach of his assailant. It was a wicked, vicious, upward, ripping thrust, like the stroke of a boar’s tusk, and the very movement that delivered it flung the peasant off, so that he hurtled into the arms of the two soldiers, and momentarily hampered their advance. That moment was all that Lorenzaccio needed. He swung aside, and with a vigour and agility to execute, as remarkable as the rapidity of the conception itself, he hoisted himself to the sill of the narrow, open window, crouched there a second, measuring his outward leap, and was gone.

He left a raging confusion behind him, and an exclamatory din above which rang fierce and futile commands from the Podestà’s young officer. One of the men-at-arms supported the swooning body of the peasant, whilst his fellow vainly and stupidly sought to follow by the way Lorenzaccio had gone, but failed because he lacked the bandit’s vigour.

Bellarion, horror-stricken and half stupefied, stood staring at the wretched peasant whose hurt he judged to be mortal. He was roused by a gentle tugging at his sleeve.

For a half-dozen heartbeats they stood thus, each regarding the other; and the vision of her in that breathless moment was destined never to fade from Bellarion’s mind. She was of middle height, and her close-fitting gown of sapphire blue laced in gold from neck to waist revealed her to be slender. There was about her an air of delicate dignity, of command tempered by graciousness. For the rest, her hair was of a tawny golden, a shade deeper than the golden threads of the jewelled caul in which it was confined; her face was small and pale, too long in the nose, perhaps, for perfect symmetry, yet for that very reason the more challenging in its singular, elusive beauty. Great wistful eyes of brown, wide-set and thoughtful, were charged with questions as they conned Bellarion. They were singularly searching, singularly compelling eyes, and they drew from him forthwith a frank confession.

“Lady!” he faltered. “Of your charity! I am pursued.”

“Pursued!” She moved a step, and her expression changed. The wistfulness was replaced by concern in those great sombre eyes.

“I am likely to be hanged if taken,” he added to quicken the excellent emotions he detected.

“By whom are you pursued?”

“An officer of the Captain of Justice and his men.”

He would have added more. He would have said something to assure her that in seeking her pity he sought it for an innocent man betrayed by appearances. But she gave signs that her pity needed no such stimulant. She made a little gesture of distraction, clasping her long, tapering hands over which the tight, blue sleeves descended to the knuckles. She flung a swift, searching glance behind her, from the green archway to the open spaces.

“Take care that you do not.”

“At least leave me your dagger since you take the light.”

“Here, then.” Spigno unsheathed and surrendered the weapon to him.

Bellarion gripped the hilt. With very sombre eyes he considered the Count. Then the latter turned aside again for the lantern.

“A moment,” said Bellarion.

“What now?”

Impatiently Spigno faced once more the queer glance of those dark eyes, and in that moment Bellarion stabbed him.

It was a swift, hard-driven, merciful stroke that found the unfortunate man’s heart and quenched his life before he had time to realise that it was threatened.

Without a sound he reeled back under the blow. Bellarion’s left arm went round his shoulders to ease him to the ground. But Spigno’s limbs sagged under him. He sank through Bellarion’s embrace like an empty sack, and then rolled over sideways.

“Now, rogue,” the Duke shrilled at him, “let us see you run.” He swung to Squarcia. “Two dogs,” he commanded.

Squarcia detached two hounds from a pack of six which a groom held in leash. Holding each by its collar, he went down on one knee between them, awaiting the Duke’s command for their release.

Bellarion meanwhile had not moved. In fascinated horror he watched these preparations, almost incredulous of their obvious purport. He was not to know that the love of the chase which had led Bernabó Visconti to frame game laws of incredible barbarity, had been transmitted to his grandson in a form that was loathsomely depraved. The deer and the wild boar which had satisfied the hunting instincts of the terrible Bernabó were inadequate for the horrible lusts of Gian Maria; the sport their agonies yielded could not compare in his eyes with the sport to be drawn from the chase of human quarries, to which his bloodhounds were trained by being fed on human flesh.

“You are wasting time,” the Duke admonished him. “In a moment I shall loose the dogs. Be off while you may, and if you are fleet enough, your heels may save your throat.” But he laughed slobberingly over the words, which were merely intended to befool the wretched victim with a false hope that should stimulate him to afford amusement.