The Duke moved to the window and stood there in observation awhile, then turning, spoke to Giannotto with a smile. His eyes were a beautiful gray, open wide, and just now lighting up a pensive, pleasant face. But the secretary knew it too under a different guise.
"My sister's alliance with the Duke of Orleans gratifies my ambition, Giannotto," he said, "and is well worth a hundred thousand florins. So far the Valois have never married out of Royal Houses."
"Yet they consider themselves honored by this match, my lord," said the secretary.
"They consider themselves well paid," returned Visconti. "Now, if I can find a daughter of the Plantagenets for brother Tisio, behold us firmly placed among the dynasties of Europe!"
Early in the fourteenth century, but no more than a meager fifty years ago, before the last Visconti culminated the evil of his race, Matteo Visconti, Gian Galeazzo's grandfather, had first firmly established his family as lords of Milan, supplanting their rival the Toriani, who had long reigned as magistrates-in-chief, and under Martin della Torre risen to some eminence. Every year of the fifty since then had seen some increase of territory, some fresh acquisition of power, till with his last overthrow of Della Scala, the seizure of Verona, and the murder of his father, already miserably deposed, Gian Galeazzo had planted himself upon a level with kings.
Almost the whole of Lombardy was under his sway, and that sway extended from Verceli in Piedmont to Feltre and Bellvino. Florence, lately leagued against him in support of his deposed father, had been beaten in battle after battle and was glad to escape, shorn of her fairest possessions, and cherishing only her liberty.
All this Giannotto knew. Della Scala, Duke of Verona, had owned fair lands and wide, Verona, Brescia, all now in Visconti's hands. The secretary wondered, as he thought, how long it would be before the triumphant Gian threw away the mere rag of respect, the mere mockery of a title which bound him to the Empire, and became King of Lombardy in name as well as power.
"And thou thyself, my lord," he said. "Thou wilt marry a Valois to thy sister! Who will be thy bride?"
Visconti smiled. "These marriages are for ambition. Dost thou think I shall marry for ambition? No, Giannotto, I have placed myself above need of that. The alliances that make the Visconti one with the kings of Europe are for Valentine and Tisio; I shall marry——"
"For love, my lord?" ventured the secretary, with a hint of sarcasm.