Still at the same measured pace the coach advanced; a cumbrous structure, swung high on massive gilded wheels, and open under an embroidered canopy of scarlet silk. At the head of each black horse walked a negro, richly dressed in scarlet and gold. The trappings of the steeds were dazzling, in stamped leather and metal.
But this splendor of array the peasant folk of Lombardy were used to; it was not that that made them crouch as if they would ask the earth to hide them, shiver and shudder yet farther back as if the soft green bank could save them.
In the coach sat two, a man and a woman, but both so old and shrivelled that the distinguishing characteristics of their sex were well-nigh lost. Both were richly clad in furs, and half-hidden in satin cushions, nothing of the old man visible but his wrinkled face, gray beard, and, loaded with rings, thin yellow hands, the fingers of which were clutching nervously at his heavy silken robe. The woman, painted and bedizened under a large red wig, weighed down by a gown of cloth of gold, and with pearls around her neck, wrung her hands together, and whispered incoherently below her breath. Both had sunk together among the cushions in an attitude of despair, the man looking steadily in front of him with white face, the woman casting terror-stricken eyes over the wretched spectators in a mute appeal for help, if even from them.
Behind them rode the single horseman who had struck the terror. His pace was leisurely, his horse's bridle held by a pale-faced man with long red hair, of a stealthy bearing, crushed and mean-looking, but resplendent in a jeweled dress. The rider himself, slight and handsome, about thirty, plainly attired in green, gave, at a first glance, small token of the spell he exercised. He rode with ease and surety: in one hand a half-rolled parchment from which he read aloud in a soft voice, in the other a long whip with which he flicked and teased the occupants of the carriage.
The coach and its occupants, the solitary rider, and the red-haired man, were the whole of the procession.
At the rider's side hung a single dagger, the others were unarmed, yet the crowd trembled under a spell of fear as if half Italy had backed that man. No one gave sign of feeling, no one moved, though the wretched couple looked around keenly and eagerly, with the helpless misery of those who have fallen below everything save fear, and will stoop to ask help of the lowest. And the Visconti banner floated out dreamily upon the light spring breeze, and the rider rode at ease and read from the parchment with a smiling face.