'My despatch is natural enough since I have no object but the service of his highness and the duchy.'
Later, however, when Facino attended a council that evening to determine measures a certain asperity was again in his tone.
He came to the business exacerbated by another scene with his Countess, in which again she had upbraided him for not dealing with these men as their ill will deserved by seizing upon the duchy for himself.
Della Torre's undisguised malice, the Duke's mean, vindictive, unreasoning jealousy, scarcely held in curb even by his needs, and Gabriello's hopeless incompetence, almost drove Facino to conclude that Beatrice was in the right and that he was a fool to continue to serve where he might command.
Trouble came when the question arose of the means at their command to resist Buonterzo, and Gabriello announced that the whole force under their hands amounted to the thousand mercenaries of Facino's own condotta, commanded by his lieutenant, Francesco Busone of Carmagnola, and some five hundred foot made up of Milanese levies.
Facino denounced this force as utterly inadequate, and informed the Council that to supplement it he had sent to Boucicault for a thousand men.
'A thousand men!' Gabriello was aghast, and so were the others. 'But a thousand men will cost the treasury ...'
Facino interrupted him. 'I have offered fifteen gold florins a month for each man and fifty for the officer commanding them. But my messenger is authorised to pay twice that sum if necessary.'
'Fifteen thousand florins, and perhaps thirty thousand! Why, you're surely mad! That is twice the sum contributed by the Commune. Whence is the remainder to come? His highness's allowance is but two thousand five hundred florins a month.'
'The Commune must be made to realise that the duchy is in danger of utter shipwreck. If Buonterzo sacks Milan, it will cost them fifty times the hire of these troops. So they must provide the means to defend it. It is your business, my lord, as one of the ducal governors, to make that clear to them.'