A silence followed. My father turned to Falcone, and held out his hand. Falcone sprang to give him a heavy iron gauntlet. Holding this by the fingers, my father took a step towards Cosimo, and he was smiling, very calm again after his late furious mood.
"Be it so," he said. "Since you say that I lie, I do here challenge you to prove it upon my body."
And he crashed the iron glove straight into Cosimo's face so that the skin was broken, and blood flowed about the mouth, leaving the lower half of the visage crimson, the upper dead-white.
Gonzaga sat on, entirely unmoved, and waited, indifferent to the stir there was amid the Ten. For by the ancient laws of chivalry—however much they might be falling now into desuetude—if Cosimo took up the glove, the matter passed beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, and all men must abide by the issue of the trial by battle.
For a long moment Cosimo hesitated. Then he saw ruin all about him. He—who had come to this court so confidently—had walked into a trap. He saw it now, and saw that the only loophole was the chance this combat offered him. He played the man in the end. He stooped and took up the glove.
"Upon your body, then—God helping me," he said.
Unable longer to control myself, I sprang to my father's side. I caught his arm.
"Let me! Father, let me!"
He looked into my face and smiled, and the steel-coloured eyes seemed moist and singularly soft.
"My son!" he said, and his voice was gentle and soothing as a woman's caress.
"My father!" I answered him, a knot in my throat.
"Alas, that I must deny you the first thing you ask me by that name," he said. "But the challenge is given and accepted. Do you take Bianca to the Duomo and pray that right may be done and God's will prevail. Gervasio shall go with you."
And then came an interruption from Gonzaga.
"My lord," he said, "will you determine when and where this battle is to be fought?"
"Upon the instant," answered my father, "on the banks of Po with a score of lances to keep the lists."
Gonzaga looked at Cosimo. "Do you agree to this?"
"It cannot be too soon for me," replied the quivering Cosimo, black hatred in his glance.
"Be it so, then," said the Governor, and he rose, the Court rising with him.
My father pressed my hand again. "To the Duomo, Agostino, till I come," he said, and on that we parted.
My sword was returned to me by Gonzaga's orders. In so far as it concerned myself the trial was at an end, and I was free.
At Gonzaga's invitation, very gladly I there and then swore fealty to the Emperor upon his hands, and then, with Bianca and Gervasio, I made my way through the cheering crowd and came out into the sunshine, where my lances, who had already heard the news, set up a great shout at sight of me.
Thus we crossed the square, and went to the Duomo, to render thanks. We knelt at the altar-rail, and Gervasio knelt above us upon the altar's lowest step.
Somewhere behind us knelt Bianca's women, who had followed us to the church.
Thus we waited for close upon two hours that were as an eternity.
And kneeling there, the eyes of my soul conned closely the scroll of my young life as it had been unfolded hitherto. I reviewed its beginnings in the greyness of Mondolfo, under the tutelage of my poor, dolorous mother who had striven so fiercely to set my feet upon the ways of sanctity. But my ways had been errant ways, even though, myself, I had sought to walk as she directed. I had strayed and blundered, veered and veered again, a very mockery of what she strove to make me—a strolling saint, indeed, as Cosimo had dubbed me, a wandering mummer when I sought after holiness.
But my strolling, my errantry ended here at last at the steps of this altar, as I knew.
Deeply had I sinned. But deeply and strenuously had I expiated, and the heaviest burden of my expiation had been that endured in the past year at Pagliano beside my gentle Bianca who was another's wedded wife. That cross of penitence—so singularly condign to my sin—I had borne with fortitude, heartened by the confidence that thus should I win to pardon and that the burden would be mercifully lifted when the expiation was complete. In the lifting of that burden from me I should see a sign that pardon was mine at last, that at last I was accounted worthy of this pure maid through whom I should have won to grace, through whom I had come to learn that Love—God's greatest gift—is the great sanctifier of man.
That the stroke of that ardently awaited hour was even now impending I did not for a moment doubt.
Behind us, the door opened and steps clanked upon the granite floor.
Fra Gervasio rose very tall and gaunt, his gaze anxious.
He looked, and the anxiety passed. Thankfulness overspread his face. He smiled serenely, tears in his deep-set eyes. Seeing this, I, too, dared to look at last.
Up the aisle came my father very erect and solemn, and behind him followed Falcone with eyes a-twinkle in his weather-beaten face.
"Let the will of Heaven be done," said my father. And Gervasio came down to pronounce the nuptial blessing over us.