"He has six mounted men with him," replied Rinolfo. "In that case," I answered, "you will bid him begone in my name."
"And if he should not go?" was Rinolfo's impudent question.
"You will tell him that I will drive him hence—him and his braves. We keep a garrison of a score of men at least—sufficient to compel him to depart."
"He will return again with more," said Rinolfo.
"Does that concern you?" I snapped. "Let him return with what he pleases. To-day I enrol more forces from the countryside, take up the bridge and mount our cannon. This is my lair and fortress, and I'll defend it and myself as becomes my name and blood. For I am the lord and master here, and the Lord of Mondolfo is not to be dragged away thus at the heels of a Captain of Justice. You have my orders, obey them. About it, sir."
Circumstances had shown me the way that I must take, and the folly of going forth a fugitive outcast at my mother's bidding. I was Lord of Mondolfo, as I had said, and they should know and feel it from this hour—all of them, not excepting my mother.
But I reckoned without the hatred Rinolfo bore me. Instead of the prompt obedience that I had looked for, he had turned again to my mother.
"Is it your wish, Madonna?" he inquired.
"It is my wish that counts, you knave," I thundered and advanced upon him.
But he fronted me intrepidly. "I hold my office from my Lady the Countess. I obey none other here."
"Body of God! Do you defy me?" I cried. "Am I Lord of Mondolfo, or am I a lackey in my own house? You'ld best obey me ere I break you, Ser Rinolfo. We shall see whether the men will take my orders," I added confidently.
The faintest smile illumined his dark face. "The men will not stir a finger at the bidding of any but Madonna the Countess and myself," he answered hardily.
It was by an effort that I refrained from striking him. And then my mother spoke again.
"It is as Ser Rinolfo says," she informed me. "So cease this futile resistance, sir son, and accept the expiation that is offered you."
I looked at her, she avoiding my glance.
"Madonna, I cannot think that it is so," said I. "These men have known me since I was a little lad. Many of them have followed the fortunes of my father. They'll never turn their backs upon his son in the hour of his need. They are not all so inhuman as my mother."
"You mistake, sir," said Rinolfo. "Of the men you knew but one or two remain. Most of our present force has been enrolled by me in the past month."
This was defeat, utter and pitiful. His tone was too confident, he was too sure of his ground to leave me a doubt as to what would befall if I made appeal to his knavish followers. My arms fell to my sides, and I looked at Gervasio. His face was haggard, and his eyes were very full of sorrow as they rested on me.
"It is true, Agostino," he said.
And as he spoke, Rinolfo limped out of the room to fetch the Captain of Justice, as my mother had bidden him; and his lips smiled cruelly.
"Madam mother," I said bitterly, "you do a monstrous thing. You usurp the power that is mine, and you deliver me—me, your son—to the gallows. I hope that, hereafter, when you come to realize to the full your deed, you will be able to give your conscience peace."
"My first duty is to God," she answered; and to that pitiable answer there was nothing to be rejoined.
So I turned my shoulder to her and stood waiting, Fra Gervasio beside me, clenching his hands in his impotence and mute despair. And then an approaching clank of mail heralded the coming of the captain.
Rinolfo held the door, and Cosimo d'Anguissola entered with a firm, proud tread, two of his men, following at his heels.
He wore a buff-coat, under which no doubt there would be a shirt of mail; his gorget and wristlets were of polished steel, and his headgear was a steel cap under a cover of peach-coloured velvet. Thigh-boots encased his legs; sword and dagger hung in the silver carriages at his belt; his handsome, aquiline face was very solemn.
He bowed profoundly to my mother, who rose to respond, and then he flashed me one swift glance of his piercing eyes.
"I deplore my business here," he announced shortly. "No doubt it will be known to you already." And he looked at me again, allowing his eyes to linger on my face.
"I am ready, sir," I said.
"Then we had best be going, for I understand that none could be less welcome here than I. Yet in this, Madonna, let me assure you that there is nothing personal to myself. I am the slave of my office. I do but perform it."
"So much protesting where no doubt has been expressed," said Fra Gervasio, "in itself casts a doubt upon your good faith. Are you not Cosimo d'Anguissola—my lord's cousin and heir?"
"I am," said he, "yet that has no part in this, sir friar."
"Then let it have part. Let it have the part it should have. Will you bear one of your own name and blood to the gallows? What will men say of that when they perceive your profit in the deed?"
Cosimo looked him boldly between the eyes, his hawk-face very white.
"Sir priest, I know not by what right you address me so. But you do me wrong. I am the Podesta of Piacenza bound by an oath that it would dishonour me to break; and break it I must or else fulfil my duty here. Enough!" he added, in his haughty, peremptory fashion. "Ser Agostino, I await your pleasure."
"I will appeal to Rome," cried Fra Gervasio, now beside himself with grief.
Cosimo smiled darkly, pityingly. "It is to be feared that Rome will turn a deaf ear to appeals on behalf of the son of Giovanni d'Anguissola."
And with that he motioned me to precede him. Silently I pressed Fra Gervasio's hand, and on that departed without so much as another look at my mother, who sat there a silent witness of a scene which she approved.
The men-at-arms fell into step, one on either side of me, and so we passed out into the courtyard, where Cosimo's other men were waiting, and where was gathered the entire family of the castle—a gaping, rather frightened little crowd.
They brought forth a mule for me, and I mounted. Then suddenly there was Fra Gervasio at my side again.
"I, too, am going hence," he said. "Be of good courage, Agostino. There is no effort I will not make on your behalf." In a broken voice he added his farewells ere he stood back at the captain's peremptory bidding. The little troop closed round me, and thus, within a couple of hours of my coming, I departed again from Mondolfo, surrendered to the hangman by the pious hands of my mother, who on her knees, no doubt, would be thanking God for having afforded her the grace to act in so righteous a manner.
Once only did my cousin address me, and that was soon after we had left the town behind us. He motioned the men away, and rode to my side. Then he looked at me with mocking, hating eyes.
"You had done better to have continued in your saint's trade than have become so very magnificent a sinner," said he.
I did not answer him, and he rode on beside me in silence some little way.
"Ah, well," he sighed at last. "Your course has been a brief one, but very eventful. And who would have suspected so very fierce a wolf under so sheepish an outside? Body of God! You fooled us all, you and that white-faced trull."
He said it through his teeth with such a concentration of rage in his tones that it was easy to guess where the sore rankled.
I looked at him gravely. "Does it become you, sir, do you think, to gird at one who is your prisoner?"
"And did you not gird at me when it was your turn?" he flashed back fiercely. "Did not you and she laugh together over that poor, fond fool Cosimo whose money she took so very freely, and yet who seems to have been the only one excluded from her favours?"
"You lie, you dog!" I blazed at him, so fiercely that the men turned in their saddles. He paled, and half raised the gauntleted hand in which he carried his whip. But he controlled himself, and barked an order to his followers: