CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE THE PRIDE OF THE D'ESTES
"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 defense, 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 armor 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?"
"Are the townsfolk," replied d'Este—"and useless."