Bellarion the Fortunate (Historical Novel). Rafael Sabatini

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СКАЧАТЬ 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! Is it yourself?’

      ‘Myself.’ He came to the ground. ‘To command.’

      ‘But . . . why this? Why thus?’ Her eyes were wide, she was a little breathless.

      ‘I have had a busy day, madonna, and a busy night, and I have more to report than may hurriedly be muttered behind a hedge.’

      ‘You bring messages?’

      ‘The message amounts to nothing. It is only to say that Messer Giuffredo, fancying himself followed and watched on the last occasion, is not to be induced to come again. And in the meanwhile nothing has happened of which it was worth while to inform you. Messer Barbaresco desires me further to say that everything progresses satisfactorily, which I interpret to mean that no progress whatever is being made.’

      ‘You interpret . . .’

      ‘And I venture to add, having been entertained at length, not only by Messer Barbaresco, but also by the other out-at-elbow nobles in this foolish venture, that it never will progress in the sense you wish, nor to any end but disaster.’

      He saw the scarlet flame of indignation overspread her face, he saw the anger kindle in her great dark eyes, and he waited calmly for the explosion. But the Lady Valeria was not explosive. Her rebuke was cold.

      ‘Sir, you presume upon a messenger’s office. You meddle in affairs that are not your concern.’

      ‘Do you thank God for it,’ said Bellarion, unabashed. ‘It is time some one gave these things their proper names so as to remove all misconception. Do you know whither Barbaresco and these other fools are thrusting you, madonna? Straight into the hands of the strangler.’

      Having conquered her anger once, she was not easily to be betrayed into it again.

      ‘If that is all you have to tell me, sir, I will leave you. I’ll not remain to hear my friends and peers maligned by a base knave to whom I speak by merest accident.’

      ‘Not accident, madonna.’ His tone was impressive. ‘A base knave I may be. But base by birth alone. These others whom you trust and call your peers are base by nature. Ah, wait! It was no accident that brought me!’ he cried, and this with a sincerity from which none could have suspected the violence he did to his beliefs. ‘Ask yourself why I should come again to do more than is required of me, at some risk to myself? What are your affairs, or the affairs of the State of Montferrat, to me? You know what I am and what my aims. Why, then, should I tarry here? Because I cannot help myself. Because the will of Heaven has imposed itself upon me.’

      His great earnestness, his very vehemence, which seemed to invest his simple utterances with a tone of inspiration, impressed her despite herself, as he intended that they should. Nor did she deceive him when she dissembled this in light derision.

      ‘An archangel in a painter’s smock!’

      ‘By Saint Hilary, that is nearer the truth than you suppose it.’

      She smiled, yet not entirely without sourness. ‘You do not lack a good opinion of yourself.’

      ‘You may come to share it when I’ve said all that’s in my mind. I have told you, madonna, whither these crack-brained adventurers are thrusting you, so that they may advance themselves. Do you know the true import of the conspiracy? Do you know what they plan, these fools? The murder of the Marquis Theodore.’

      She stared at him round-eyed, afraid. ‘Murder?’ she said in a voice of horror.

      He smiled darkly. ‘They had not told you, eh? I knew they dared not. Yet so indiscreet and rash are they that they betrayed it to me—to me of whom they know nothing save that I carried as an earnest of my good faith your broken half-ducat. What if I were just a scoundrel who would sell to the Marquis Theodore a piece of information for which he would no doubt pay handsomely? Do you still think that it was accident brought me to interfere in your concerns?’

      ‘I can’t believe you! I can’t!’ and again she breathed, aghast, that horrid word: ‘Murder!’

      ‘If they succeeded,’ said Bellarion coldly, ‘all would be well. Your uncle would have no more than his deserts, and you and your brother would be rid of an evil incubus. The notion does not shock me at all. What shocks me is that I see no chance of success for a plot conducted by such men with such inadequate resources. By joining them you can but advance the Regent’s aims, which you believe to be the destruction of your brother. Let the attempt be made, and fail, or even let evidence be forthcoming of the conspiracy’s existence and true purpose, and your brother is at the Regent’s mercy. The people themselves might demand his outlawry or even his death for an attempt upon the life of a prince who has known how to make himself beloved.’

      ‘But my brother is not in this,’ she protested. ‘He knows nothing of it.’

      Bellarion smiled compassionately. ‘Cui bono fuerit? That is the first question which the law will ask. Be warned, madonna! Dissociate yourself from these men while it is time or you may enable the Regent at a single stride to reach his ultimate ambition.’

      The pallor of her face, the heave of her breast, were witnesses to her agitation. ‘You would frighten me if I did not know how false is your main assumption: that they plot murder. They would never dare to do this thing without my sanction, and this they have never sought.’

      ‘Because they intend to confront you with an accomplished fact. Oh, you may believe me, madonna. In the last twenty-four hours and chiefly from these men I have learnt much of the history of Montferrat. And I have learnt a deal of their own histories too. There is not one amongst them who is not reduced in circumstances, whose state has not been diminished by lack of fortune or lack of worth.’

      But for this she had an answer, and she delivered it with a slow, wistful smile.

      ‘You talk, sir, as if you contained all knowledge, and yet you have not learnt that the fortunate desire no change, but labour to uphold the state whence their prosperity is derived. Is it surprising, then, that I depend upon the unfortunate?’

      ‘Say also the venal, those greedy of power and of possessions, whose only spur is interest; desperate gamblers who set their heads upon the board and your own and your brother’s head with theirs. Almost they divided among themselves in their talk the offices of State. Barbaresco promised me that the ambition he perceived in me should be fully gratified. He assumed that I, too, had no aim but self-aggrandisement, simply because he could assume no other reason why a man should expose himself to risks. That told me all of him that I required to know.’

      ‘Barbaresco is poor,’ she answered. ‘He has suffered wrongs. Once, in my father’s time he was almost the greatest man in the State. My uncle has stripped him of his honours and almost of his possessions.’

      ‘That is the best thing I have heard of the Marquis Theodore yet.’

      She did not heed him, but went on: ‘Can I desert him now? Can I . . .’ She checked and stiffened, seeming to grow taller. ‘What am I saying? What am I thinking?’ She laughed, and there was scorn of self in her laugh. ‘What arts do you employ, you, an unknown man, a self-confessed starveling student, base and nameless, that upon no better warrant than your word СКАЧАТЬ