‘No news! So many days, and still no news!’

Ippolito d’Este spoke in an anxious voice, leaning in the wide-cut window of the watch-tower that rose above the gates of Novara.

‘I would we had not sent those last men,’ said Vincenzo gloomily.

He was seated at the table, his head resting in his hands. The chamber was large and dark, built of rough stone for strength and defence, fixed with narrow windows, and set with three doors — one into the narrow stairs, standing open, one on either side of it, shut. The walls were bare of arras. Vincenzo’s armour lay piled in a corner, and a great crucifix, a red praying hassock beneath, hung near one of the windows.

‘How many have we, my father?’ asked Vincenzo, rising.

‘Six hundred trained soldiers,’ was the brief answer.

‘And the townsfolk!’

‘And the townsfolk,’ replied d’Este, ‘and useless.’

Novara had been stormed and taken from Visconti some months ago, and the Estes, fixing their headquarters there, had foraged the country around as far as the ramparts of Magenta, a large town held by Visconti’s men.

For these last fatal ten days, disaster after disaster had reduced the Modenese soldiers to a mere handful; and when Mastino, sending word he was in desperate straits, had called out all of the Veronese that manned the town, they were left practically defenceless, in the midst of a country where Visconti’s arms were everywhere triumphant.

They dared not leave the town; behind its walls was the only chance of safety. They knew not what positions Visconti held, nor what positions della Scala. Since that last appeal for aid, they had had no message, no sign from him. Scouts sent out had not returned; one company, advancing from the walls, to find no sign or trace of Mastino, was surrounded and cut to pieces — the few who escaped returning to Novara with ghastly tales. Visconti’s arms seemed everywhere victorious. The country was laid waste — and not by their allies.

But the d’Estes’ hope was still in della Scala. Urgent messages were sent to his camp outside Milan, and when neither answer nor messengers returned, the Duke of Modena grew sick at heart indeed.

He had not mentioned all his fears to his son, though Vincenzo could not but know their strait desperate.

‘If we hear not today,’ said d’Este slowly, ‘I shall think there is treachery; not one messenger has returned — treachery, or some misfortune to della Scala.’

‘Then are we lost indeed!’ cried Vincenzo. ‘So far from Modena — so near Milan — only, what of the army that is with della Scala — our army, his and ours?’

‘What army we had with us,’ replied Ippolito, still looking with anxious eyes on the level country, ‘I sent to della Scala — he was in sore need. What men we had outside the town have melted away like snow.’

Vincenzo began to pace the room impulsively — a slender figure in a scarlet velvet doublet, his great black eyes bright and angry.

‘Shall we not make a sortie, my father? Shall we not dash out and fight, seeing for ourselves what has become of della Scala?’

Ippolito turned and looked at him, with a yearning love lighting his dark face.

‘I am waiting, Vincenzo. I have sent trusty scouts to Brescia. This silence cannot last long now; either Mastino or Visconti march this way — and in either case we shall be ready to receive them, Vincenzo.’

The younger d’Este lapsed into silence. Ippolito, too, was quiet, and the pause was broken by an officer entering. ‘The Count von Schulembourg,’ he began.

‘Conrad!’ cried Vincenzo, springing up.

‘Has he news?’ asked his father, eagerly.

‘I know not, my lord,’ replied the soldier. ‘He is riding unattended, and craves a passage through the town.’

‘He is riding away!’ said Vincenzo, ‘away from Milan!’

‘I must see him,’ said d’Este, with a darkening face, ‘at once.’

As the soldier left, Vincenzo looked at his father eagerly. ‘What may this mean, that Count Conrad rides away?’

‘We lie on the route to the Empire. The German maybe rides home from a losing cause.’

‘I never thought such of Conrad,’ began Vincenzo, when the door opened and the Count himself stepped into the room, brilliant, gay as ever, well armed, the double-headed eagle on his breastplate, and the black and yellow of the Empire floating from his helm.

‘Now well met, my good lords,’ he cried, ‘and fair fortune smile on you! I would ask the favour of a good horse — I am on my way to Germany.’

‘You leave the fight?’ asked d’Este.

Conrad nodded.

‘For better men — i’ faith, I’ve tried all I know — no man is asked to break his head against a brick wall for nothing — not while the sun shines, and there is such a place as his own land to see again!’

‘You used not to hold such language, Conrad,’ said Vincenzo, with some reproach.

‘I have tried everything,’ cried Conrad, gaily. ‘I tried to rescue the Lady Valentine, I tried to kill Visconti, I tried to make him kill me — I have failed. My Lady Valentine is married, and is set out for France.

‘For France!’ interrupted d’Este. ‘Then must the country indeed be in Visconti’s hands if his sister and a wedding-train set out for France! What news, Count? Surely there is some news?’

Not much I care to repeat,’ replied Conrad. ‘Only rumours — all the country I rode through, from here to Milan, seems to swarm with Visconti’s men — I saw no sign of della Scala — there were wild tales abroad, and wild sights.’

‘On my honour, Count, you might have come with better information than this — days have we been waiting with no sign nor word —’

‘From Mastino, would you say?’ asked Conrad, eagerly. ‘From Mastino. Have you not heard or seen aught of him?’ cried Ippolito.

Conrad looked at d’Este’s intent face, and from him to Vincenzo, waiting expectantly for his answer.

‘I— I cannot say I have,’ he answered. ‘But as I tell you, I heard nothing save rumours —’

‘And they —?’

Conrad fingered his yellow sash uneasily.

‘One said Modena had fallen —’

Ippolito gave a sudden cry.

‘Modena!’

‘Aye,’ said Conrad, regretfully. ‘And Ferrara and Verona — so I heard —’

‘Mastino is dead!’ cried d’Este, and Vincenzo echoed the cry wildly.

‘Mastino is dead!’

‘I know not,’ said the Count. ‘I cannot tell — only this, that Visconti marches this way — and once more — a good horse. Vincenzo, Saint Hubert has saved me once — I dare not ask him again!’

‘Modena fallen,’ murmured d’Este, unheeding Conrad’s words. ‘And Verona — Mastino dead — Visconti marches on Novara!’

‘My father, we are lost indeed!’ cried Vincenzo, with a white face. ‘If Mastino be dead —’

‘If!’ said the elder d’Este, sternly. ‘There is no if, Vincenzo.’ The boy looked round bewildered, and his eye fell on Conrad, waiting by the door.

‘I will give orders for thy horse,’ he said. ‘Come with me —’ and he led the way from the room. Conrad paused in the door, but Ippolito waved him aside sternly.

‘Fare you well, Count, Vincenzo will see to your needs; meanwhile I have other things to think of —’ and he strode past them, swiftly ascending the stairs to the soldiers in the higher chamber of the watch-tower.

Vincenzo, leaning on the stair-rail, with very bright eyes, looked after his father, and then toward Conrad with a sudden wistful smile. ‘I almost would I were to be riding gaily across a summer plain, away — away — this castle has grown gloomy of late — there is horror in the air.’ He shook the feeling off, speaking gaily. ‘Well, be glad thou art on thy way, Count Conrad, and in exchange for the horse, take, for my sake, with thee the little page Vittore. He is very young, and not of Lombardy.’

‘Gladly will I,’ replied Conrad, as they descended the narrow stairs. ‘And always shall I keep him for thy sake.’

‘Aye, do,’ said Vincenzo wistfully again, ‘otherwise thou wouldst forget — of a surety, forget.’

‘Not I— I shall always remember.’

Horses were brought to the courtyard, and Vincenzo called his little page and put him on one.

The sight of him brought memories to both of a certain game of chess — how fatal it had been: how long ago it seemed!

‘I tried to make atonement,’ Conrad murmured.

‘My atonement, methinks, is to come,’ said Vincenzo. ‘But Mastino will never hear of it — Mastino is dead.’

Conrad winced. He knew Mastino was not dead, but he would as soon have stabbed Vincenzo d’Este as told him.

‘Fare thee well,’ he said, holding out his hand.

‘Fare thee well.’

Vincenzo took his hand, smiled up at him gravely, and reentered the castle, mounting to the room he had left.

Visconti was on the march.

Vincenzo caught his breath sharply and went to the window to see the last of Conrad. Again he wished he was riding away into the sunshine, away from the dark walls that seemed closing round him for ever.

‘Farewell!’ called back Conrad, gaily waving his mailed hand, and Vittore, excited at the sudden journey, drew off his cap and waved it gaily too. ‘I go to my own land,’ cried the Count. Vincenzo’s lips trembled, but his words sounded as cheerily as Conrad’s.

‘And we stay here in ours,’ he called back.

And in after days in peaceful times in Germany, when that brilliant, bloodstained Lombard summer seemed far away and strange as a wild dream, Conrad remembered; a memory he shared only with the dead.

The spurs jingled, with a trampling of hoofs the horses turned, the strong sun caught Conrad’s plumes and Vittore’s bright hair, he looked back with a laugh, and at a swift trot they passed through the castle gate............