Explore "The Viper of Milan: a Romance of Lombardy" by Marjorie Bowen on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Duke of Milan had sent a secret embassy to Mastino della Scala, lying crushed outside Milan--a secret embassy he had long been meditating. The master-stroke of his policy should be the Duke of Verona's ruin, and his complete triumph.
And the moment of his sending was well chosen. The two days of which Mastino spoke had passed. The answer from d'Este at Novara had been unfavourable. His plans, he said, were to march back to Modena and Ferrara, protecting that part of Lombardy, held now by Julia Gonzaga's men alone, against Visconti; he would wait for his army to come up; he would wait for Mastino, but not long; his duty lay inside Modena and Ferrara, not outside the hopeless walls of Milan.