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Updated: June 9, 2025
From a window of the Palace of Babbiano the Lord of Aquila watched the amazing bustle in the courtyard below, and at his side stood Fanfulla degli Arcipreti, whom he had summoned from Perugia with assurances that, Masuccio being dead, no peril now menaced him.
"Man's work!" she sneered. "And you perform it like a petulant boy or a peevish woman." "I perform it, Madonna, as best seems to me, for it happens that I am Duke of Babbiano," he answered sullenly. "I do not fear any Pope's son that ever stepped. The alliance with Urbino is all but completed. Let that be established, and if Valentino shows his teeth by God we'll show ours."
"A little knowledge of history would afford you an answer. Such political alliances are daily made, and daily broken when more profit offers in another quarter. But cemented by marriage, the tie, whilst continuing political, becomes also one of blood. In the case of Urbino and Babbiano it enters also into consideration that I have no son.
A strong party had been formed, and the leaders had nailed upon the Palace gates a proclamation that, unless Gian Maria returned within three days to organise the defence of Babbiano, they would depose him and repair to Aquila to invite his cousin, Francesco del Falco whose patriotism and military skill were known to all to assume the crown of Babbiano and protect them.
But he had braved her commands, and astonished her with the information that the true identity of this Messer Francesco had been known to him since that day when they had first met him at Acquasparta. He had meant to say more. He had meant to add the announcement of Francesco's banishment from Babbiano and his notorious unwillingness to mount his cousin's throne.
Answer me now, and by the same means as I am employing, but dispatch not your answer if I show myself upon the ramparts. He folded the paper, and on the back he wrote the superscription "To the High and Mighty Duke of Babbiano." Then opening a large chest that stood against the wall, he rummaged a moment, and at last withdrew an arbalest quarrel. About the body of this he tied his note.
"I had thought," hazarded seriously the gay Fanfulla, "that with such a man as your Excellency, patriotism and the love of Babbiano would have weighed even more than the ties of blood." "And you had thought well, Fanfulla. Did I not say that the reason I gave you was but one of many? Tell me, sirs, what cause have you to believe that I should rule you wisely and well?
This, then, goes by the hand of Zaccaria, to tell you that to-day has word been sent Gian Maria giving him three days in which to return to Babbiano, or to abandon all hope of his crown, of which the people will send the offer then to you at Aquila, where you are believed to be. So now, my dear lord, you have the tyrant at your mercy, tossed between Scylla and Charybdis.
He held out long enough against this alliance, but now that necessity is driving him at last, he goes about it much as he would go about any other State affair a coronation, a banquet, or a ball. Can you wonder now that I would not accept the throne of Babbiano when it was offered me?
I came to Roccaleone with a message of warning; but underneath, deep down in my heart, I bore the hope that mine should be more than a messenger's part; that mine it might be to remain by you and do such work as I am doing." "Without you they would have forced me by now to surrender." "Perhaps they would. But while I am here I do not think they will. I burn for news of Babbiano.
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