Facino made now of Pavia his headquarters, coming to dwell in the great castle itself, and bringing thither from Alessandria his Countess. And with the Countess of Biandrate came also the Princess Valeria of Montferrat to rejoin at last her brother who had continued throughout in Facino's train. The Princess had left Casale with the Countess when Carmagnola appeared there as Facino's envoy with an escort. Her going had been in the nature of a flight, whose object had been first to rejoin her cherished brother, and second, to remove herself from the power of her uncle, which, in all the circumstances made clear by Carmagnola, seemed prudent. It is possible that she may also have hoped by her presence near Facino to stimulate him into the fulfilment of the threat against the Regent on which he had parted from him in Genoa. But Facino had still more immediate matters to rectify before coming to the affair of the Lord Theodore. The Regent must wait his turn. He moved against Canturio in the following May, and made short work of it. The campaign against Crema followed, and meanwhile Bellarion, with a condotta increased to fifteen hundred men and supported by Koenigshofen, had marched out of Milan to deal with the rebellious Bignate, whom in the end he finally and definitely defeated. That done he returned to Milan, where, ever since Facino's descent upon Pavia, he had held the position of Facino's deputy, and had earned respect and even affection by the equable wisdom of his rule. All this in greater detail you will find set forth by Corio and Fra Serafino of Imola, and it is Fra Serafino who tells us that Facino, determined that Bellarion should not suffer by the loyalty which had made him refuse the County of Asti, had constrained Gian Maria to create him Count of Gavi, and the Commune of Milan to enlist the services of his condotta for two years at a stipend of thirty thousand ducats monthly. CHAPTER IV THE COUNT OF PAVIA In the vast park of Pavia the trees stood leafless and black against the white shroud of snow that covered the chilled earth. The river Ticino gurgled and swirled about the hundred granite pillars which carried the great roofed bridge, five hundred feet in length, spanning its grey and turgid waters. Beyond this, Pavia the Learned reared above white roofs her hundred snow-capped towers to the grey December sky, and beyond the city, isolated, within the girdle of a moat that was both wide and deep, stood the massive square castle, pink as coral, strong as iron, at once impregnable fortress and unrivalled palace, one of the great monuments of Viscontian power and splendour, described by Petrarch as the princeliest pile in Italy.