Della Torre took it up. 'It is from your brother, highness; the Lord Filippo Maria.'
'That skin of lard!' Gian Maria was contemptuous. 'If he remembers my existence, he must be in need of something.'
Della Torre gravely read the letter aloud. The Prince guffawed once or twice over a piteous phrase, meanwhile toying with the head of a great mastiff that lay stretched at his feet.
He guffawed more heartily than ever at the end, the malice of his nature finding amusement in the calamities of his brother. 'His Obesity of Pavia is disturbed at last! Let the slothful hog exert himself, and sweat away some of his monstrous bulk.'
'Do not laugh yet, my lord.' Della Torre's lean, crafty, swarthy face was grave. 'I have ever warned you against the ambition of Vignate, and that it would not be satisfied with the reconquest of Lodi. He is in arms, not so much against your brother as against the house of Visconti.'
'God's bones!' Goggle-eyed, the Duke stared at his adviser. Then to vent unreasoning fury he rose and caught the dog a vicious kick which drove it yelping from him. 'By Hell, am I to go in arms against Vignate? Is that your counsel?'
'No less.'
'And this campaign against Buonterzo scarcely ended! Am I to have nothing but wars and feuds and strife to distract my days? Am I to spend all in quelling brigandage? By the Passion! I'd as soon be Duke of Hell as reign in Milan.'
'In that case,' said della Torre, 'do nothing, and the rest may follow.'
'Devil take you, Antonio!' He caught up a hawk-lure from the table, and set himself to strip it as he talked, scattering the feathers about the room. 'Curb him, you say? Curb this damned thief of Lodi? How am I to curb him? The French lances are gone back to Boucicault. The parsimonious fathers of this miserly city were in haste to dismiss them. They think of nothing but ducats, may their souls perish! They think more of ducats than of their duke.' Inconsequently, peevishly, he ranted on, reducing the hawk-lure to rags the while, and showing the crafty della Torre his opportunity.