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Updated: June 9, 2025
The bolt was delivered to the Duke of Babbiano, who, with an upward glance at the ramparts, vanished into the tent once more. Gonzaga moved from his eerie, and set wide the door of the tower, so that his eyes could range the whole of the sun-bathed ramparts. Returning to his window, he waited impatiently for the answer. Nor was his impatience to endure long.
Thus, in the gloaming, amid the shadows of that old Italian garden, was the plot laid by which Valentina was to escape alliance with his Highness of Babbiano. But there was more than that in it, although that was all that Valentina saw. It was, too, a plot by which she might become the wife of Messer Romeo Gonzaga.
He dreamt of a Babbiano courted by the great republics, and the honour of its alliance craved by them that they might withstand the onslaughts of French and Spaniard. All this he saw in that fleeting vision of his, and Temptation caught his martial spirit in a grip of steel. And then another picture rose before his eyes. What would he do in times of peace? His was a soul that pined in palaces.
Gonzaga took the man by the sleeve of his doublet, and drew him back to the parapet. They peered over, and from out of the blackness they were hailed by a faint "Ola!" "Who goes there?" demanded Romeo. "A friend," came the answer softly. "A messenger from Babbiano with letters for the Lord Count of Aquila. Throw me a rope, friends, before I drown in this trough."
"Will you give him his answer, my Lord Provost," she said, with a smile, and Francesco, stepping forward and leaning on a merlon of that embattled wall, obeyed her. "Sir Herald," he said, in a gruff voice that was unlike his own, "will you tell me since when has the Duke of Babbiano been at war with Urbino that he should thus beset one of its fortresses, and demand the surrender of it?"
"The matter stands thus: Unless Gian Maria is in Babbiano by morning, he forfeits his crown, and it passes to me by the voice of the people; but if he will relinquish his claim to Monna Valentina in my favour, then I shall journey straight to Aquila, and I shall trouble Babbiano no more.
In fact, he seized the opportunity to again press upon Francesco the throne of Babbiano. "The hour is very ripe," he urged the Count, "and the people love you as surely prince was never loved. It is in their interests that I plead. You are their only hope. Will you not come to them?"
You charge me with having had in that conspiracy a part the part assigned to me. It is so, is it not?" Gian Maria nodded. "You have put it very clearly," he sneered. "If you can make out your innocence as clearly, I shall be satisfied that I have wronged you." "That this conspiracy took place we will accept as proven, although to the people of Babbiano the proof may have seemed scant.
Like an inspiration an idea had come to him; out of this had sprung another, and yet another, until a chain of events by which the frustration of the schemes of Babbiano and Urbino might be accomplished, was complete. "I think," he said slowly, his eyes upon the ground, "that I know a way." Her glance was now eager, her lip tremulous, and her face a little pale. She leant towards him.
"For that was before the world changed for me at the magic of your bidding. And so," he repeated, "I would I knew what is toward at Babbiano!" "But why sigh over a wish so idle?" she exclaimed. "By what means can news reach you here of the happenings of the world without?" He pondered a moment, seeking words in which to answer her.
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