Bellarion the Fortunate

by Rafael Sabatini

Carmagnola, his spirit badly bruised and battered, looked at the Princess, who had sunk back into her chair.

'However it has been achieved,' she said, 'Theodore's ends could not better have been served. What is left us now?'

'If I might venture to advise ...' quoth Barbaresco, smooth as oil, 'I should say that you could not do better than follow Ugolino da Tenda's example.'

'What?'

'Return to your fealty to Bellarion.'

'Return?' Carmagnola leaned towards him from his fine height, and his mouth gaped. 'Return?' he repeated. 'And leave Vercelli?'

'Why not? That would no more than fulfil Bellarion's intention to raise the siege. He will have an alternative.'

'I care nothing for his alternatives, and let us be clear upon this: I owe him no fealty. My fealty was sworn not to him, but to the Duchess Beatrice. And my orders from Duke Filippo Maria are to assist in the reduction of Vercelli. I know where my duly lies.'

'It is possible,' said the Princess slowly, 'that Bellarion had some other plan for bringing Theodore to his knees.'

He stared at her. There was pain in his handsome eyes. His face was momentarily almost convulsed. And there was little more than pain in his voice when he spoke.