Singing to him Facino found her, and he was not to guess with what reluctance Bellarion had suffered her voice to substitute the voice of Dante Alighieri. Nor, in any case, was he at all concerned with that. He came abruptly into the room from which the loggia opened, his manner a little pressed and feverish. And the suddenness of his entrance, acting upon a conscience not altogether at rest, cropped her song in mid-flight. The eyes she raised to his flushed and frowning face were startled and uneasy. Bellarion, who sat dreaming, holding the vellum-bound manuscript which was closed upon his forefinger, sprang up, with something in his manner of that confusion usually discernible in one suddenly recalled from dreams to his surroundings. Facino strode out to the loggia, and there loosed his news at once. 'Buonterzo is moving. He left Parma at dawn yesterday, and is advancing towards Piacenza with an army fully four thousand strong.' 'Four thousand!' cried Bellarion. 'Then he is in greater strength than you even now.' 'Thanks to the French contingent and the communal militia, the odds do not perturb me. Buonterzo is welcome to the advantage. He'll need a greater when we meet. That will be in two days' time, in three at latest. For we march at midnight. All is in readiness. The men are resting between this and then. You had best do the same, Bellarion.' Thus, with a complete change from his usual good-tempered, easy-going manner, already the commander rapping out his orders without waste of words, Facino delivered himself. But now his Countess, who had risen when he announced the imminence of action, expressed her concern. 'Bellarion?' she cried. Her face was white to the lips, her rounded bosom heaving under its close-fitting sheath; there was dread in her eyes. 'Bellarion goes with you?' Facino looked at her, and the lines between his brows grew deeper. It wounded him sharply that in this hour concern for another should so completely override concern for himself. Beyond that, however, his resentment did not go. He could think no evil where his Bice was concerned, and, indeed, Bellarion's eager interposition would have supplied the antidote had it been necessary. 'Why, madonna, you would not have me left behind! You would not have me miss such an occasion!' His cheeks were aglow; his eyes sparkled. Facino laughed. 'You hear the lad? Would you be so cruel as to deny him?' She recaptured betimes the wits which surprise had scattered, and prudently dissembled her dismay. On a more temperate note, from which all passion was excluded, she replied: 'He's such a child to be going to the wars!' 'A child! Pooh! Who would become master should begin early. At his age I was leader of a troop.' He laughed again. But he was not to laugh later, when he recalled this trivial incident. CHAPTER VII MANŒUVRES