With one voice they broke into loud shouts.
"To the city walls! to the city walls! Down with Della Scala! To the city walls!"
And while the cry still sounded, before the enthusiasm could abate, Visconti, armed and mounted, rode at the head of some thousand mercenaries and Milanese, to the farthest rampart of the city.
D'Orleans had not volunteered. The French duke remained in the well-guarded palace, of which the Lady Valentine was left the governor during the Duke's absence, an office she had often filled before quarrels had sprung up between her and her brother, and while he held Milan against his father and she was his counselor and ally.
For a few brief hours, power again was hers, for Visconti had not weakened her authority yet—outwardly at least. She could do nothing.
She thought of her helplessness with bitterness. All day long she set herself to revolving schemes of escape—some way whereby to avail herself of the confusion into which Milan had been thrown—some means to outwit her brother.
She could not rest for her anxious thoughts. The Visconti palace was near the walls, and Valentine, stepping onto the open balcony, looked through the clustered pillars over the flat house-roofs to the distant country where the advancing army lay.
The air was heavy. From the streets came the sound of tumult, noise, and hurry: the walls were manned.
"There is to be some fighting," murmured Valentine.
She shaded her eyes from the sun that, beating on the red brickwork of the palace, gave back a blinding glare.