Bellarion the Fortunate. Rafael Sabatini

the time of siesta in which all labour is suspended, by wandering in the vineyard whither the peasant’s daughters led him, and where they engaged him in chatter that he found monstrous tedious and silly.

      Yet but for this and the fact that the vineyard bordered on the road, Bellarion’s association with the friar would have ended there, and all his subsequent history must have been different indeed. The minorite’s siesta was shorter than might have been expected, and when something less than an hour later he resumed his journey, so confused was he by sleep and wine that he appeared to have forgotten his companion quite. Had not Bellarion seen him striding away along the road to Casale, it is certain the young man would have been left behind.

      Nor did he manifest much satisfaction when Bellarion came running after him. The scowl on his face argued displeasure. But his excuses and his explanations that he was but half awake permitted the assumption that it was himself with whom he was displeased.

      He moved briskly now, swinging his long legs in great strides, and casting ever and anon a glance behind him.

      Bellarion offered a remonstrance at the pace, a reminder that Casale was but some two leagues away and they had the afternoon in which to reach it.

      ‘If I go too fast for you, you may follow at your leisure,’ the friar grumbled.

      It was for an instant in Bellarion’s mind to take him at his word, then, partly perversity, and partly a suspicion which he strove in vain to stifle, overcame his natural pride.

      ‘No, no, little brother. I’ll accommodate my pace to yours, as befits.’

      A grunt was the only answer; nor, indeed, although Bellarion made several attempts to resume conversation, was there much said between them thereafter as they trudged on in the heat of the afternoon along the road that crosses the fertile plains from Trino to Casale.

      They did not, however, proceed very far on foot. For, being presently overtaken by a string of six or seven mules with capacious panniers slung on either flank, the leading beast bestridden by the muleteer, Bellarion received another demonstration of how a little brother of Saint Francis may travel upon charity. As the column advanced upon them at a brisk trot, Fra Sulpizio stepped to the middle of the road, with arms held wide as if to offer a barrier.

      The muleteer, a brawny, black-bearded fellow, drew rein within a yard of him.

      ‘What now, little brother? How can I serve you?’

      ‘The blessing of God upon you, brother! Will you earn it by a little charity besought in the name of the Blessed Francis? If your beasts are not overladen, will you suffer them to carry a poor footsore Franciscan and this gentle lad into Casale?’

      The muleteer swung one cross-gartered leg over to the side of the other and slipped to the ground, that he might assist them to mount, each on one of the more lightly laden mules. Thereupon, having begged and received Fra Sulpizio’s blessing, he climbed back into his own saddle and they were off at a sharp trot.

      To Bellarion the experience of a saddle, or of what did duty for a saddle, was as novel as it was painful, and so kept his thoughts most fully engaged. It was his first essay in equitation, and the speed they made shook and tossed and bruised him until there was not a bone or muscle in his body that did not ache. His humour, too, was a little bruised by the hilarity which his efforts to maintain his seat excited in his two companions.

      Thankful was he when they came in sight of the brown walls of Casale. These surged before them almost suddenly in the plain as they took a bend of the road; for the city’s level position was such as to render it inconspicuous from afar. The road led straight on to the San Stefano Gate, towards which they clattered over the drawbridge spanning the wide moat. There was a guard-house in the deep archway, and the door of this stood open revealing some three or four soldiers lounging within. But they kept a loose and careless guard, for these were peaceful times. One of them, a young man in a leather haqueton, but bare of head, sauntered forward as far as the doorway to fling a greeting at the muleteer, which was taken by the fellow as permission to pass on.

      From that gateway, cool and cavernous, they emerged into one of the streets of the busy capital of the warlike State of Montferrat, which at one time, none so far distant, had bidden fair to assume the lordship of Northern Italy.

      They proceeded slowly now, perforce. The crooked street, across which the crazy houses seemed to lean towards each other so as to exclude the sunlight from all but a narrow middle line, was thronged with people of all degrees. It was ever a busy thoroughfare, this street of San Stefano, leading from the gate of that name to the Cathedral Square, and from his post of vantage on the back of the now ambling mule, Bellarion, able at last to sit unshaken, looked about him with deep interest upon manifestations of life known to him hitherto through little more than the imagination which had informed his extensive reading.

      It was market-day in Casale, and before the shops the way was blocked by trestle tables, on which the merchants displayed their wares, shouting their virtues to lure the attention of the wayfarers.

      Through this they came, by low and narrow archways, to an even greater bustle in the open space before the cathedral, founded, as Bellarion knew, some seven hundred years before by Liutprand, King of the Lombards. He turned to stare at the Roman architecture of the red and white façade, flanked by slender square towers, each surmounted by an hexagonal extinguisher roof. He was still considering the cruciform windows when the mule halted and recalled his attention.

      Ahead of him Fra Sulpizio was slipping to the ground, bestowing thanks and invoking the blessings of God upon the muleteer. Bellarion dismounted, a little stiff from his ride and very thankful to be at the end of it. The muleteer flung them a ‘God guard you,’ over his shoulder, and the string of mules passed on.

      ‘And now, brother, we’ll seek a supper, if you please,’ the friar announced.

      To seek it was natural enough, but hardly, thought Bellarion, in the tavern across the square, whither he was led.

      On the threshold, under the withered bough that was hung as a sign above the portal, the young man demurred, protesting that one of the religious houses of the town were a fitter resort, and its charitable shelter more suitable to a friar mendicant.

      ‘Why, as to charity,’ quoth Fra Sulpizio, ‘it is on charity I depend. Old Benvenuto here, the taverner, is my cousin. He will make us free of his table, and give me news of my own folk at the same time. Is it not natural and proper that I seek him?’

      Reluctantly Bellarion was forced to agree. And he reminded himself, to buttress a waning faith in his companion, that not once had he voiced a suspicion of the friar’s actions to which the friar’s answer had not been ready and complete.

      CHAPTER III

       THE DOOR AJAR

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      The event which was to deviate Bellarion so abruptly and brutally from the peaceful ways of a student and a scholar, and to extinguish his cherished hopes of learning Greek at Pavia under the far-famed Messer Chrysolaras, was upon him so suddenly and so unheralded that he scarcely realised it until it was overpast.

      He and the friar had supped in the unclean and crowded common room of the hostelry of the Stag—so called, it is presumed, in honour of the Lords of Montferrat, who had adopted the stag as their device—and it is to be confessed that they had supped abundantly and well under the particular auspices of Ser Benvenuto, the host, who used his cousin Fra Sulpizio with almost more than cousinly affection. He had placed them a little apart from the noisy occupants of that low-ceilinged, grimy chamber, in a recess under a tall, narrow window, standing open, so that the stench, compounded of garlic, burnt meats, rancid oil, and other things, which pervaded the apartment was here diluted for them by the pure evening air. And he waited upon them himself, after a protracted entertainment with the friar, conducted in a mutter of which nothing reached Bellarion. He brought them of his best, of which the most conspicuous item was a lean and stringy