Bellarion the Fortunate. Rafael Sabatini

place, was engaged in painting an outrageous scarlet angel against a star-flecked background of cobalt blue. Bellarion’s first question ascertained that the painting of the pavilion was indeed in Gobbo’s hands.

      ‘My two lads are engaged upon it now, my lord.’

      Bellarion winced at the distinguished form of address, which took him by surprise until he remembered his scarlet suit with its imposing girdle and gold-hilted dagger.

      ‘The work progresses all too slowly,’ said he sharply.

      ‘My lord! My lord!’ The old man was flung into agitation. ‘It is a beautiful fresco, and . . .’

      ‘They require assistance, those lads of yours.’

      ‘Assistance!’ The old man flung his arms to heaven. ‘Where shall I find assistants with the skill?’

      ‘Here,’ said Bellarion, and tapped his breast with his forefinger.

      Amazed, Gobbo considered his visitor more searchingly. Bellarion leaned nearer, and lowered his voice to a tone of confidence.

      ‘I’ll be frank with you, Ser Gobbo. There is a lady of the palace, a lady of her highness . . .’ He completed his sentence, by roguishly closing an eye.

      Gobbo’s lean brown old face cracked across in a smile, as becomes an old artist who finds himself face to face with romance.

      ‘You understand, I see,’ said Bellarion, smiling in his turn. ‘It is important that I should have a word with this lady. There are grave matters . . . I’ll not weary you with these and my own sad story. Perform a charitable act to your own profit.’

      But Gobbo’s face had grown serious. ‘If it were discovered . . .’ he was beginning.

      ‘It shall not be. That I promise you full confidently. And to compensate you . . . five ducats.’

      ‘Five ducats!’ It was a great sum, and confirmed Master Gobbo in the impression made by Bellarion’s appearance, dress, and manner, that here he dealt with a great lord. ‘For five ducats . . .’ He broke off, and scratched his head.

      Bellarion perceived that he must not be given time for thought.

      ‘Come, my friend, lend me the clothes for the part and a smock such as is proper, and do you keep these garments of mine in pledge for my safe return and for the five ducats that shall then be yours.’

      He knew how to be irresistible, and he was fortunate in his present victim. He went off a half-hour or so later in the garb of his suddenly assumed profession and bearing a note from Gobbo to his sons.

      Late in the afternoon Bellarion lounged in the pavilion in the palace garden to which his pretence had gained him easy admission. He mixed some colours for the two young artists under their direction. But beyond that he did nothing save wait for sunset when the light would fail and the two depart. Himself, though not without the exertion of considerable persuasions based upon a display of his amorous intentions, he remained behind to clear things up.

      Thus it happened that, as the Lady Dionara was walking by the lake, she heard herself addressed from the bridge that led to the pavilion.

      ‘Madonna! Gracious madonna!’

      She turned to behold a tall young man with tumbled black hair and a smear of paint across his face in a smock that was daubed with every colour of the rainbow, waving a long-handled brush in a gesture towards the temple.

      ‘Would not her highness,’ he was asking, ‘graciously condescend to view the progress of the frescoes.’

      The Lady Dionara looked down her nose at this greatly presumptuous fellow until he added softly: ‘And receive news at the same time of the young man she befriended yesterday?’ That changed her expression, so swift and ludicrously that Bellarion was moved to silent laughter.

      To view those frescoes came the Lady Valeria alone, leaving Monna Dionara to loiter on the bridge. Within the temple her highness found the bedaubed young painter dangling his legs from a scaffold and flourishing a brush in one hand, a mahlstick in the other. She looked at him in waiting silence. He did not try her patience.

      ‘Madonna, you do not recognise me.’ With the sleeve of his smock he wiped the daub of paint from across his features. But already his voice had made him known.

      ‘Messer Bellarion! Is it yourself?’

      ‘Myself.’ He came to the ground. ‘To command.’

      ‘But . . . why this? Why thus?’ Her eyes were wide, she was a little breathless.

      ‘I have had a busy day, madonna, and a busy night, and I have more to report than may hurriedly be muttered behind a hedge.’

      ‘You bring messages?’

      ‘The message amounts to nothing. It is only to say that Messer Giuffredo, fancying himself followed and watched on the last occasion, is not to be induced to come again. And in the meanwhile nothing has happened of which it was worth while to inform you. Messer Barbaresco desires me further to say that everything progresses satisfactorily, which I interpret to mean that no progress whatever is being made.’

      ‘You interpret . . .’

      ‘And I venture to add, having been entertained at length, not only by Messer Barbaresco, but also by the other out-at-elbow nobles in this foolish venture, that it never will progress in the sense you wish, nor to any end but disaster.’

      He saw the scarlet flame of indignation overspread her face, he saw the anger kindle in her great dark eyes, and he waited calmly for the explosion. But the Lady Valeria was not explosive. Her rebuke was cold.

      ‘Sir, you presume upon a messenger’s office. You meddle in affairs that are not your concern.’

      ‘Do you thank God for it,’ said Bellarion, unabashed. ‘It is time some one gave these things their proper names so as to remove all misconception. Do you know whither Barbaresco and these other fools are thrusting you, madonna? Straight into the hands of the strangler.’

      Having conquered her anger once, she was not easily to be betrayed into it again.

      ‘If that is all you have to tell me, sir, I will leave you. I’ll not remain to hear my friends and peers maligned by a base knave to whom I speak by merest accident.’

      ‘Not accident, madonna.’ His tone was impressive. ‘A base knave I may be. But base by birth alone. These others whom you trust and call your peers are base by nature. Ah, wait! It was no accident that brought me!’ he cried, and this with a sincerity from which none could have suspected the violence he did to his beliefs. ‘Ask yourself why I should come again to do more than is required of me, at some risk to myself? What are your affairs, or the affairs of the State of Montferrat, to me? You know what I am and what my aims. Why, then, should I tarry here? Because I cannot help myself. Because the will of Heaven has imposed itself upon me.’

      His great earnestness, his very vehemence, which seemed to invest his simple utterances with a tone of inspiration, impressed her despite herself, as he intended that they should. Nor did she deceive him when she dissembled this in light derision.

      ‘An archangel in a painter’s smock!’

      ‘By Saint Hilary, that is nearer the truth than you suppose it.’

      She smiled, yet not entirely without sourness. ‘You do not lack a good opinion of yourself.’

      ‘You may come to share it when I’ve said all that’s in my mind. I have told you, madonna, whither these crack-brained adventurers are thrusting you, so that they may advance themselves. Do you know the true import of the conspiracy? Do you know what they plan, these fools? The murder of the Marquis Theodore.’

      She stared at him round-eyed, afraid. ‘Murder?’ she said in a voice of horror.

      He smiled darkly. ‘They had not told you, eh? I knew they dared not. Yet so indiscreet and rash are they that they betrayed it