“These are matters, Madonna, that are not to be discussed in shouts from the walls of a castle—nor, indeed, do I wish to discuss them anywhere. I am here to summon you to surrender. If you resist us, you do so at your peril.”
“Then at my peril I will resist you—gladly. I defy you. Do your worst against me, disgrace your manhood and the very name of chivalry by whatsoever violence may occur to you, yet I promise you that Valentina della Rovere never shall become the wife of his Highness of Babbiano.”
“You refuse to open your gates?” he returned, in a voice that shook with anger.
“Utterly and finally.”
“And you think to persist in this?”
“As long as I have life.”
The Prince laughed sardonically.
“I wash my hands of the affair and of its consequences,” he answered grimly. “I leave it in the care of your future husband, Gian Maria Sforza, and if, in his very natural eagerness for the nuptials, he uses your castle roughly, the blame of it must rest with you. But what he does, he does with my full sanction, and I have come hither to advise you of it since you appeared in doubt. I beg that you will remain there for a few moments, to hear what his Highness himself may have to say. I trust his eloquence may prove more persuasive.”
He saluted ceremoniously, and, wheeling his horse about, he rode away. Valentina would have withdrawn, but Francesco urged her to remain, and await the Duke of Babbiano's coming. And so they paced the battlements, Valentina in earnest talk with Francesco, Gonzaga following in moody silence with Fortemani, and devouring them with his eyes.
From their eminence they surveyed the bustling camp in the plain, where tents, green, brown, and white, were being hastily erected by half-stripped soldiers. The little army altogether, may have numbered a hundred men, which, in his vainglory, Gian Maria accounted all that would be needed to reduce Roccaleone. But the most formidable portion of his forces rolled into the field even as they watched. It was heralded by a hoarse groaning of the wheels of bullock-carts to the number of ten, on each of which was borne a cannon. Other carts followed with ammunition and victuals for the men encamped.