Cane, for his part, was neither going slowly nor safely. Giovanni, Duke of Milan, had but recently died. He had been as good a soldier as any Condottiere that ever drew sword, and he had held his dukedom together with his own good right arm. But now, in the hands of his eldest son, Gian Maria, the inheritance was falling to pieces. Gian Maria was a degenerate—a lunatic—it is even said that he fed his hounds with human flesh; and, in a very short time, the cities of the dukedom—Piacenza, Parma, Cremona, Lodi—revolted, and the several Condottieri, who had formerly served Giovanni, seized the opportunity of realizing their ambition, which was to become independent rulers themselves. There was no great difficulty about this, once a division of the spoil was agreed upon, for each had a small army at his back and the ability to use it. The inhabitants, helpless in the face of trained fighters, put forward no opposition, so that, in six months or less, six or seven dukes existed where only one had existed before. Cane seized upon Pavia, the younger son’s portion, and kept the heir a prisoner in his own court. Not long afterwards he dethroned the elder son, and, it is to be supposed, arranged his end for him at the hands of the Milanese. He himself died in Pavia within a day of the Duke’s assassination. No remark is made by historians on the subject of his death save that he died, but where the character of his ducal prisoner is considered and the excellent reasons he had for wishing his jailor dead are taken into account, the latter’s end may, I think, be safely laid at Filippo Maria’s door. So that, in the end, Carmagnola was right in his determination to wait upon events. Now his turn came. The soldiers were left leaderless, and Carmagnola seized the captainship instantly—at the age of twenty-two—while Filippo Maria as instantly married Cane’s widow, in order to get the old soldier’s estates, and, these being secured, brought a false accusation against her, and had her executed. This worthy couple then joined hands, to recover the lost cities, and Carmagnola began to show something of his quality. He recaptured Milan, killing the usurper, and one by one brought back the other cities to his employer, as a reward for which he was made Count of Castelmuro and married to a daughter of Giovanni Galleazzo, one Antonia. It seemed as though Fortunatus’s purse had been emptied over him in the years that followed; wealth, honour, position, all were his, and so rich and powerful did he become that he was even permitted to invest in the bonded debt of Venice.