That done–and with an exceedingly ill grace–the Duke turned on his heel, and with a sullen brow he left the ducal chamber, and passed, unattended, to his own apartments.
Rejoicing, Fabrizio da Lodi went his errand, which he discharged with certain additions that might have cost him his head had knowledge of them come to Gian Maria. 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?”
If for a moment Francesco hesitated, it was rather in consideration of the manner in which the crown was offered than in consequence of any allurement that the offer may have had for him. Once–that night at Sant’ Angelo–he had known temptation, and for a moment had listened to the seductions in the voice that invited him to power. But not so now. A thought he gave to the people who had such faith in him, and showered upon him such admiring love, and whom, as a matter of reciprocity, he wished well, and would have served in any capacity but this. He shook his head, and with a smile of regret declined the offer.
“Have patience, old friend,” he added. “I am not of the stuff that goes to make good princes, although you think it. It is a bondage into which I would not sell myself. A man’s life for me, Fabrizio–a free life that is not directed by councillors and at the mercy of the rabble.”
Fabrizio’s face grew sad. He sighed profoundly, yet since it might not be well for him that he should remain over-long in talk with one who, in the Duke’s eyes, was attainted with treason, he had not leisure to insist with persuasions, which, after all, he clearly saw must in the end prove barren.
“What was the salvation of the people of Babbiano,” he murmured, “was also your Excellency’s, since did you adopt the course I urge there would be no need to go in banishment.”
“Why, this exile suits me excellently well,” returned Francesco. “Idle have I been over-long, and the wish to roam is in my veins again. I’ll see the world once more, and when I weary of my vagrancy I can withdraw to my lands of Aquila, and in that corner of Tuscany, too mean to draw a conqueror’s eye, none will molest me, and I shall rest. Babbiano, my friend, shall know me no more after to-night. When I am gone, and the people realise that they may not have what they would, they may rest content perhaps with what they may.” And he waved a hand in the direction of the doors leading to the ducal chamber. With that he took his leave of his old friend, and, carrying in his hand the sword and dagger which Captain Armstadt had returned to him, he repaired briskly to the northern wing of the Palace, in which he had his lodging.
In the ante-room he dismissed those of his servants who had been taken from the ranks of the Duke’s people, and bade his own Tuscan followers, Zaccaria and Lanciotto, see to the packing of his effects, and make all ready to set out within the hour.
He was no coward, but he had no wish to die just yet if it might be honourably avoided. Life had some sweets to offer Francesco del Falco, and this spurred him to hasten, for he well knew his cousin’s unscrupulous ways. He was aware that Gian Maria had been forced by weight of argument to let him go, and he shrewdly feared that did he linger, his cousin might veer round again, and without pausing to seek advice a second time, have him disposed of out of hand and reckless of consequences.
Whilst Lanciotto was left busy in the ante-room the Count passed into his bedchamber attended by Zaccaria, to make in his raiment such changes as were expedient. But scarce had he begun when he was interrupted by the arrival of Fanfulla degli Arcipreti, whom Lanciotto ushered in. Francesco’s face lighted at sight of his friend, and he held out his hand.
“What is it that has happened?” cried the young gallant, adding that which showed his question to be unnecessary, for from Fabrizio da Lodi he had had the whole story of what was befallen. He sat himself upon the bed, and utterly disregarding the presence of Zaccaria–whom he knew to be faithful–he attempted to persuade the Count where Fabrizio had failed. But Paolo cut him short ere he had gone very far.
“Have done with that,” he said, and for all that he said it with a laugh, determination sounded sturdy in his accents. “I am a knight-errant, not a prince, and I’ll not be converted from one to the other. It were making a helot of a free man, and you do not love me, Fanfulla, if you drive this argument further. Do you think me sad, cast down, at the prospect of this banishment? Why, boy, the blood runs swifter through my veins since I heard the sentence. It frees me from Babbiano in an hour when perhaps my duty–the reciprocation of the people’s love–might otherwise have held me here, and it gives me liberty to go forth, my good Fanfulla, in quest of such adventure as I chose to follow.” He threw out his arms, and displayed his splendid teeth in a hearty laugh.
Fanfulla eyed him, infected by the boisterous gladness of his mood.
“Why, true indeed, my lord,” he acknowledged, “you are too fine a bird to sing in a cage. But to go knight-erranting—-” He paused, and spread his hands in protest. “There are no longer dragons holding princesses captive.”
“Alas no. But the Venetians are on the eve of war, and they will find work for these hands of mine. I want not for friends among them.”
Fanfulla sighed.
“And so we lose you. The stoutest arm in Babbiano leaves us in the hour of need, driven out by that loutish Duke. By my soul, Ser Francesco, I would I might go with you. Here is nothing to be done.”
Francesco paused in the act of drawing on a boot, and raised his eyes to stare a moment at his friend.
“But if you wish it, Fanfulla, I shall rejoice to have your company.”
And now the idea of it entered Fanfulla’s mind in earnest, for his expression had been more or less an idle one. But since Francesco invited him, why not indeed?
And thus it came to pass that at the third hour of that warm May night a party of four men on horseback and two sumpter mules passed out of Babbiano and took the road that leads to Vinamare, and thence into the territory of Urbino. These riders were the Count of Aquila and Fanfulla degli Arcipreti, followed by Lanciotto leading a mule that bore the arms of those knights-errant, and Zaccaria leading another with their general baggage.
All night they rode beneath the stars, and on until some three hours after sunrise, when they made halt in a hollow of the hills not far from Fabriano. They tethered their horses in a grove of peaceful laurel and sheltering mulberry, at the foot of a slope that was set with olive trees, grey, gnarled and bent as aged cripples, and beside the river Esino at a spot where it was so narrow that an agile man might leap its width. Here, then, they spread their cloaks, and Zaccaria unpacked his victuals, and set before them a simple meal of bread and wine and roasted fowl, which to their hunger made more appeal than a banquet at another season. And when they had eaten they laid them down beside the stream, and there beguiled in pleasant talk the time until they fell asleep. They rested them through the heat of the day, and waking some three hours after noon, the Count rose up and went some dozen paces down the stream to a spot where it fell into a tiny lake–a pool deep and blue as the cloudless heavens which it mirrored. Here he stripped off his garments and plunged headlong in, to emerge again, some moments later, refreshed and reinvigorated in body and in soul.
As Fanfulla awoke he beheld an apparition coming towards him, a figure lithe and stalwart as a sylvian god, the water shining on the ivory whiteness of his skin and glistening in his sable hair as the sunlight caught it.
“Tell me now, Fanfulla, lives there a man of so depraved a mind that he would prefer a ducal crown to this?”
And the courtier, seeing Francesco’s radiant mien, understood perhaps, at last, how sordid was the ambition that could lure a man from such a god- like freedom, and from the holy all-consuming joys it brought him. His thoughts being started upon that course, it was of this they talked what time the Count resumed his garments–his hose of red, his knee-high boots of untanned leather, and his quilted brigandine of plain brown cloth, reputed dagger-proof. He rose at last to buckle on his belt of hammered steel, from which there hung, behind his loins, a stout, lengthy dagger, the only weapon that he carried.