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Updated: June 25, 2025
He reflected assured that he was right that if Francesco had not come to Roccaleone, he might by now have been wed to Valentina; and once wed, he could throw down the bridge and march out of Roccaleone, assured that Gian Maria would not care to espouse his widow, and no less assured that Guidobaldo who was at heart a kind and clement prince would be content to let be what was accomplished, since there would be naught gained beyond his niece's widowhood in hanging Gonzaga.
"It will exercise their minds to discover how we got out," he cried, "and they will be forced to the conclusion that we are angels all, with wings beneath our armour. We have not left them a single ladder or a strand of rope in Roccaleone by which to attempt to follow us, even if they discover how we came. But come, Valentina mia, the comedy is not finished yet.
"You have but to speak," the bully had sworn, by way of showing Francesco the true nature of his feelings, "and the castle is yours. At a word from you my men will flock to obey you, and you may do your will at Roccaleone." "Foul traitor that you are," Francesco had laughed at him. "Do you forget under whom you have taken service? Let be what is, Ercole.
She remembered how strangely moved he had been upon learning yesterday that Gian Maria was marching upon Roccaleone, and how ardently he had advised flight from the fortress he that had so bravely talked of holding it against the Duke. They were still wrangling there in a most unseemly fashion when a trumpet-blast reached them from beyond the walls. "The herald again," she cried.
That it should come to arms, and that Guidobaldo should move to besiege Roccaleone, he did not for a moment believe for what manner of ridicule would he not draw upon himself from the neighbouring States?
"This poor lady so beset on every hand by a parcel of villains, each more unscrupulous than the other. Fanfulla, send for Peppe. We must despatch the fool to her with warning of Gian Maria's coming, and warning, too, against this man of Mantua she has fled with." "Too late," answered Fanfulla. "The fool departed this morning for Roccaleone, to join his patrona." Francesco looked his dismay.
Then, Lanciotto following him, he walked his horse round the western side, where the torrent was replaced by a smooth arm of water, for which a cutting had been made to complete the isolation of the crag of Roccaleone. But here, where the castle might more easily have become vulnerable, a blank wall greeted him, broken by no more than a narrow slit or two midway below the battlements.
He stood still, and leaning with both hands upon his partisan, he sought to make out the courtier's features in the dim light of the rising moon. "Do you mean," he asked, and in his voice sounded the surprise with which Gonzaga's odd speech had filled him, "that we are foolish to have listened to Messer Francesco, and that we should be better advised to march out of Roccaleone?"
The Duke of Urbino's presence would be, he thought, ample justification in her eyes for the challenge Gian Maria had sent, and which he would send again when her uncle arrived to confirm it. Thereafter, the remainder of the day was passed in peace at Roccaleone, if we except the very hell of unrest that surged in the heart of Romeo Gonzaga.
For he was assured that whatever might betide the others, his own fate was sealed, whether Roccaleone fell or not. It would be remembered against him that the affair was of his instigating, and from neither Gian Maria nor Guidobaldo might he look for mercy. And now the thought of extricating himself from his desperate peril turned him cold by its suddenness.
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