“So you are the sister of my friend Count Nicolloto?”

Raffaele, having licked his lips, managed to answer: 

“You mean his brother, sir.”

Lapo Cercamorte laughed loud; but his laugh was the bark of a hyena, and his eyes were balls of fire.

“No! with these legs and ringlets?  Come here, Baldo.  Here is a girl who says she is a man.  What do you say, to speak only of this pretty skin of hers?”

And with his big hand suddenly he ripped open Raffaele’s tunic half way to the waist, exposing the fair white flesh.  The troubadour, though quivering with shame and rage, remained motionless, staring at the great sword that hung in its scarlet sheath from Lapo’s harness.

Old one-eyed Baldo, plucking his master by the elbow, whispered:  “Take care, Cercamorte.  His brother Nicolotto is your ally.  Since after all, nothing much has happened, do not carry the offence too far.”

“Are you in your dotage?” Lapo retorted, still glaring with a dreadful interest at Raffaele’s flesh.  “Do you speak of giving offence, when all I desire is to be as courteous as my uneducated nature will allow?  She must pardon me that slip of the hand; I meant only to stroke her cheek in compliment but instead I tore her dress.  Yet I will be a proper courtier to her still.  Since she is now set on going home, I myself, alone, will escort her clear to the forest, in order to set her upon the safe road.”

And presently Madonna Gemma, peering from her chamber window, saw her husband, with a ghastly pretense of care, lead young Raffaele Muti down the hill into the darkness from which there came never a sound.  It was midnight when Lapo Cercamorte reentered the castle, and called for food and drink.

Now the shadow over the Big Hornets’ Nest obscured even the glare of the summer sun.  No winsome illusion of nature’s could brighten this little world that had at last turned quite sinister.  In the air that Madonna Gemma breathed was always a chill of horror.  At night the thick walls seemed to sweat with it, and the silence was like a great hand pressed across a mouth struggling to give vent to a scream.

At dinner in the hall she ate nothing, but drank her wine as though burning with a fever.  Sometimes, when the stillness had become portentous, Lapo rolled up his sleeves, inspected his scarred, swarthy arms, and mumbled, with the grin of a man stretched on the rack: 

“Ah, Father and Son! if only one had a skin as soft, white, and delicate as a girl’s!”

At this Madonna Gemma left the table.

Once more her brow became bleaker than a winter mountain; her eyes were haggard from nightmares; she trembled at every sound.  Pacing her bower, interminably she asked herself one question.  And at last, when Lapo would have passed her on the stairs, she hurled into his face: 

“What did you do to Raffaele Muti?”

He started, so little did he expect to hear her voice.  His battered countenance turned redder, as he noted that for the sake of the other she was like an overstretched bow, almost breaking.  Then a pang stabbed him treacherously.  Fearing that she might discern his misery, he turned back, leaving her limp against the wall.