It was a fine night, the air heavy with the vernal scent of fertile lands, and the deep cobalt of the heavens a glittering, star-flecked dome in a lighter space of which floated the half-disk of the growing moon. Such a moon, she bethought her, as she had looked at with thoughts of him, the night after their brief meeting at Acquasparta. She had gained that north rampart on which he had announced that duty took him, and yonder she saw a man—the only tenant of the wall–leaning upon the embattled parapet, looking down at the lights of Gian Maria’s camp. He was bareheaded, and by the gold coif that gleamed in his hair she knew him. Softly she stole up behind him.
“Do we dream here, Messer Francesco?” she asked him, as she reached his side, and there was laughter running through her words.
He started round at the sound of her voice, then he laughed too, softly and gladly.
“It is a night for dreams, and I was dreaming indeed. But you have scattered them.”
“You grieve me,” she rallied him. “For assuredly they were pleasant, since, to come here and indulge them, you left–us.”
“Aye–they were pleasant,” he answered. “And yet, they were fraught with a certain sadness, but idle as is the stuff of dreams. They were yours to dispel, for they were of you.”
“Of me?” she questioned, her heart-beats quickening and bringing to her cheeks a flush that she thanked the night for concealing.
“Yes, Madonna–of you and our first meeting in the woods at Acquasparta. Do you recall it?”
“I do, I do,” she murmured fondly.
“And do you recall how I then swore myself your knight and ever your champion? Little did we dream how the honour that I sighed for was to be mine.”
She made him no answer, her mind harking back to that first meeting on which so often and so fondly she had pondered.
“I was thinking, too,” he said presently, “of that man Gian Maria in the plain yonder, and of this shameful siege.”
“You–you have no misgivings?” she faltered, for his words had disappointed her a little.
“Misgivings?”
“For being here with me. For being implicated in what they call my rebellion?”
He laughed softly, his eyes upon the silver gleam of waters below.
“My misgivings are all for the time when this siege shall be ended; when you and I shall have gone each our separate way,” he answered boldly. He turned to face her now, and his voice rang a little tense. “But for being here to guide this fine resistance and lend you the little aid I can—- No, no, I have no misgiving for that. It is the dearest frolic ever my soldiering led me into. 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. If I could but tell what is happening there I might cheer you with the assurance that this siege can last but a few days longer. Gian Maria must get him home or submit to the loss of his throne. And if he loses that your uncle would no longer support so strenuously his suit with you. To you, Madonna, this must be a cheering thought. To me–alas! Why should I hope for it?”
He was looking away now into the night, but his voice quivered with the emotion that was in him. She was silent, and emboldened perhaps by that silence of hers, encouraged by the memory of what he had seen that morning reflected in her eyes:
“Madonna,” he cried, “I would it might be mine to cut a road for you through that besieging camp, and bear you away to some blessed place where there are neither courts nor princes. But since this may not be, Madonna mia, I would that this siege might last for ever.”
And then–was it the night breeze faintly stirring through his hair that mocked him with the whisper, “So indeed would I?” He turned to her, his hand, brown and nervous, fell upon hers, ivory-white, where it rested on the stone.
“Valentina!” he cried, his voice no louder than a whisper, his eyes ardently seeking her averted ones. And then, as suddenly as it had leapt up, was the fire in his glance extinguished. He withdrew his hand from hers, he sighed, and shifted his gaze to the camp once more. “Forgive, forget, Madonna,” he murmured bitterly, “that which in my madness I have presumed.”
Silent she stood for a long moment; then she edged nearer to him, and her voice murmured back: “What if I account it no presumption?”
With a gasp he swung round to face her, and they stood very close, glance holding glance, and hers the less timid of the two. They thus remained for a little space. Then shaking his head and speaking with an infinite sadness:
“It were better that you did, Madonna,” he made answer.
“Better? But why?”
“Because I am no duke, Madonna.”
“And what of that?” she cried, to add with scorn: “Out yonder sits a duke. Oh, sir, how shall I account presumptuous in you the very words that I would hear? What does your rank signify to me? I know you for the truest knight, the noblest gentleman, and the most valiant friend that ever came to the aid of distressed maiden. Do you forget the very principles that have led me to make this resistance? That I am a woman, and ask of life no more than is a woman’s due–and no less.”
There she stopped; again the blood suffused her cheeks as she bethought her of how fast she talked, and of how bold her words might sound. She turned slightly from him, and leant now upon the parapet, gazing out into the night. And as she stood thus, a very ardent voice it was that whispered in her ear:
“Valentina, by my soul, I love you!” And there that whisper, which filled her with an ecstasy that was almost painful in its poignancy, ended sharply as if throttled. Again his hand sought hers, which was yielded to him as she would have yielded her whole life at his sweet bidding, and now his voice came less passionately.
“Why delude ourselves with cruel hopes, my Valentina?” he was saying. “There is the future. There is the time when this siege shall be done with, and when, Gian Maria having got him home, you will be free to depart. Whither will you go?”
She looked at him as if she did not understand the question, and her eyes were troubled, although in such light as there was he could scarce see this.
“I will go whither you bid me. Where else have I to go?” she added, with a note of bitterness.
He started. Her answer was so far from what he had expected.
“But your uncle—-?”
“What duty do I owe to him? Oh, I have thought of it, and until–until this morning, it seemed that a convent must be my ultimate refuge. I have spent most of my young life at Santa Sofia, and the little that I have seen of the world at my uncle’s court scarce invites me to see more of it. The Mother Abbess loved me a little. She would take me back, unless—-”
She broke off and looked at him, and before that look of absolute and sweet surrender his senses swam. That she was niece to the Duke of Urbino he remembered no more than that he was Count of Aquila, well-born, but of none too rich estate, and certainly no more a match for her in Guidobaldo’s eyes than if he had been the simple knight-errant that he seemed.
He moved closer to her, his hands–as if obeying a bidding greater than his will, the bidding of that glance of hers, perhaps–took her by the shoulders, whilst his whole soul looked at her from his eyes. Then, with a stifled cry, he caught her to him. For a moment she lay, palpitant, within his arms, her tall, bronze head on a level with his chin, her heart beating against his heart. Stooping suddenly, he kissed her on the lips. She suffered it with an unresistance that invited. But when it was done, she gently put him from her; and he, obedient to her slightest wish, curbed the wild ardour of his mood, and set her free.
“Anima mia!” he cried rapturously. “You are mine now, betide what may. Not Gian Maria nor all the dukes in Christendom shall take you from me.”