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THE patriotism of His Serenity the Doge Antoniotto Adorno stood high enough to surmount the tribulation of those days.

Behind her proud exterior, under her marble splendours, effulgent in the burning August sunshine, Genoa was succumbing to starvation. Of the troops sent by Marshal de Lautrec to invest her by land, she might be contemptuous. Abundantly were her flanks and rear protected by the towering natural ramparts, the bare, craggy masses forming the amphitheatre in which she was set. If she was vulnerable along the narrow littoral at the base of these mountain bastions, yet here any attack, from east or west, would be as easy to repel as it would be hazardous to launch.

But the forces which knew themselves utterly inadequate to attempt an assault were more than adequate to cut off her supplies; and for ten days before the arrival of Doria in the gulf, the sea approaches had effectively been guarded by seven Provençal war-galleys from Marseilles, which were now incorporated in the Admiral’s fleet. So Genoa had begun to know starvation, and starvation never fostered heroism. A hungry population is prone to rebel against whatever government sits over it, visiting the blame for the famine upon its rulers. And lest the population of Genoa should be slow to rebel now, the Fregosi faction, in its rivalry of the Adorni for dominion in the Republic, perceived its opportunity and employed it ruthlessly. Those who form the populace are ever the ready gulls of the promises of crafty opportunists; and the populace of Genoa gave heed now to hollow promises of a golden age, to be ushered in by the King of France, which would not merely set a term to the present pangs of hunger, but create for all time an abiding and effortless abundance. So from artisans, from sailmakers, from fishermen who no longer dared put to sea, from stevedores’ labourers, from carders, from sailors, from caulkers and all those who toiled in the shipbuilding yards, and from all those who made up the less defined sections of the people came the angrily swelling demand for surrender.

Up and down the streets of Genoa, so steep and narrow that a horse was rarely seen in them and the mule was the common beast of burden, moved with increasing menace in those hot days a people in revolt against a Doge who—because the devil he knew seemed preferable to the devil with whom he had yet to become acquainted—accounted it his duty to the Emperor to persist in holding out against the King of France and his Papal and Venetian allies.

With the menace from without he had shown last night at Portofino that he was competent to deal, whilst awaiting the relief that sooner or later should reach him from Don Antonio de Leyva, the Imperial Governor of Milan. But the menace from within was of graver sort. It left him to choose between impossible courses. Either he must employ his Spanish regiment to quell the insurgence, or else he must surrender the city to the French, who would probably deal with it as the German mercenaries had dealt with Rome. From this cruel dilemma Prospero’s answer to his letter almost brought relief.

With that letter in his hand, the Doge now sat in a room of the Castelletto, the red fortress, deemed impregnable, that from the eastern heights dominated the city. The chamber was a small one in the eastern turret, hung with faded blue-grey tapestries, an eyrie commanding from its narrow windows a view of the city, the harbour, and the gulf beyond, where the blockading fleet rode on guard.

The Doge reclined in a high, broad chair of blue velvet, his right elbow on the heavy table. His left arm was in a sling, so as to ease the shoulder, in which he had taken a pike-thrust last night at Portofino. Perhaps because the heavy loss of blood left him chilled even in that sweltering heat, he was wrapped in a cloak. A flat cap was pulled down over his high, bald forehead, deepening the shadows in his pallid, hollow cheeks.

Beyond the table stood the Dogaressa; a woman moderately tall, and still, even now, in middle life, of a slender, graceful shape, retaining in her finely chiselled features much of the beauty that in her youth had been sung by poets and painted by the great Vecelli, she possessed the masterfulness that comes to all egoists who have been greatly courted.

With her were the middle-aged patrician captain, Agostino Spinola, and Scipione de’ Fieschi, the handsome, elegant younger brother of the Count of Lavagna, who was a Prince of the Empire and of a lineage second to no man’s in the State of Genoa.

Having read his son’s letter once, the Lord Antoniotto sat long in a silence which not even his imperious lady ventured to disturb. Then he read it yet again before attempting to speak.

‘You cannot suppose,’ ran the vital part of it, ‘that I should be where I am if the cause we serve were not the cause of Genoa rather than that of the Alliance. We come, not to support the French, but supported by the French; not so much to promote French interests as to deliver Genoa from foreign thraldom and establish her independence. Therefore I have not hesitated to continue in command of a squadron that is bearing part in so laudable a task, confident that once you were made aware of the real aim you would join eager hands with us in this redemption of our native land.’

The Doge raised at last his troubled eyes, and looked from one to the other of his companions.

The Dogaressa’s patience gave out. ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘What has he to say?’

He pushed the sheet across the table to her. ‘Read it for yourself. Read it to them.’

She snatched it up and read it aloud, and when she had read she pronounced upon it. ‘God be praised! That should settle your doubts, Antoniotto.’

‘But is it to be believed?’ he questioned gloomily.

‘What else,’ Scipione asked him, ‘could explain Prospero’s part?’

Less quietly the Dogaressa added the question: ‘Are you doubting your own son?’

‘Not his faith. No. Never that. But the trust in others on which it stands.’

Scipione, whose ambitious, intriguing soul was fierce with hatred of all the Doria brood, was quick to agree. But the Dogaressa paid no heed.

‘Prospero is never rash. He is like me; more Florentine than Genoese. If he writes positively, it is because he is positive.’

‘That the French have no thought of profit? That is to be credulous.’

‘What do you gain by mistrust?’ she demanded. ‘Can’t even Prospero persuade you that if you hold your gates against Doria now, you hold them against the best interests of your country?’

‘Dare I be persuaded? Heaven help me! I am in a fog. The only thing that I see clearly is that I hold the ducal crown from the Emperor. Have I, then, no duty to him?’

He seemed to put the question to them all. It was answered by Madonna Aurelia.

‘Is not your highest duty to Genoa? Whilst you stand balancing between the cause of the Emperor and the cause of your own people, the only interest you are really serving is that of the Fregosi. Have no illusions upon that. Give heed to me. You should know by now that I am clear-sighted.’

The Doge’s heavy glance sought Spinola’s, plainly asking a question.

The stalwart captain raised shoulders and eyebrows expressively.

‘To me it seems, Highness, that what Prospero tells us changes everything. As between the Emperor and the King of France, your duty, as you say, is clearly to the Emperor. But as between either of them and Genoa, your duty, as Prospero assumes, is still more clearly to Genoa. That is how I see the thing. But if Your Serenity sees otherwise and is determined to resist, why then you must resolve to crush the mutineers.’

Gloomily the Doge considered. Gloomily, at last, he sighed. ‘Yes. It is well argued, Agostino. Yes. And it is thus Prospero will have argued.’

Scipione interposed. ‘His presence and his assurances would make the case for surrender very strong.’ But he added, with a tightening of the lips: ‘Provided that you could trust Andrea Doria.’

‘If I mistrust him, of what shall I mistrust him?’

‘Of too much ambition. Of aspiring to become Prince of Genoa.’

‘With that danger we can deal when it arises. If it arises.’ He shook his head, and sighed. ‘I must not sacrifice the people and set Genoese blood flowing in the streets because of no more than that mistrust. So much, at least, seems clear.’

‘In that case,’ said Spinola, ‘nothing hinders Your Serenity’s decision.’

‘Saving, of course,’ Scipione added, and it is easy to conceive the sneer in his tone, ‘that for Prospero’s faith there is no warrant but the word of Andrea Doria.’