The conqueror rose, went jingling to her, thumbed a strand of her bright hair, touched her soft cheek with his fingers, which smelled of leather and horses.  Grasping her by the elbow, he led her forward.

“Is this your daughter, Grangioia?  Good.  I will take her as a pledge of your loyalty.”

With a gesture old Grangioia commanded his sons to sit still.  After glowering round him at the wall of mail, he let his head sink down, and faltered: 

“Do you marry her, Cercamorte?”

“Why not?” croaked Lapo.  “Having just made a peace shall I give offence so soon?  No, in this case I will do everything according to honour.”

That morning Lapo Cercamorte espoused Madonna Gemma Grangioia.  Then, setting her behind his saddle on a cushion, he took her away to his own castle.  This possession, too, he had won for himself with his sword.  It was called the Vespaione, the Big Hornets’ Nest.  Rude and strong, it crowned a rocky hilltop in a lonely region.  At the base of the hill clustered a few huts; beyond lay some little fields; then the woods spread their tangles afar.

Madonna Gemma, finding herself in this prison, did not weep or utter a sound for many days.

* * * * *

Here Lapo Cercamorte, pouncing upon such a treasure as had never come within his reach before, met his first defeat.  His fire proved unable to melt that ice.  His coarse mind was benumbed by the exquisiteness of his antagonist.  Now, instead of terror and self-abasement, he met scorn—­the cold contempt of a being rarefied, and raised above him by centuries of gentler thought and living.  When he laid his paws on her shoulders he felt that he held there a pale, soft shell empty of her incomprehensible spirit, which at his touch had vanished into space.

So he stood baffled, with a new longing that groped blindly through the veils of flesh and blood, like a brute tormented by the dawning of some insatiable aspiration.

It occurred to him that the delicate creature might be pleased if her surroundings were less soldierly.  So oiled linen was stretched across her windows, and a carpet laid for her feet at table in the hall.  The board was spread with a white cloth on which she might wipe her lips, and in spring the pavement of her bower was strewn with scented herbs.  Also he saw to it that her meat was seasoned with quinces, that her wine was spiced on feast-days.

He got her a little greyhound, but it sickened and died.  Remembering that a comrade-in-arms possessed a Turkish dwarf with an abnormally large head, he cast about to procure some such monstrosity for her amusement.  He sent her jewellery—­necklaces torn by his soldiers from the breasts of ladies in surrendered towns, rings wrested from fingers raised in supplication.

She wore none of these trinkets.  Indeed, she seemed oblivious of all his efforts to change her.

He left her alone.