“Did your Excellency know all!” I cried.

“I know enough,” he answered, with stern sorrow; “enough to make me marvel that the son of Ettore Biancomonte of Biancomonte should play the Fool to Costanzo Sforza, Lord of Pesaro.  Oh you will tell me that you went there for revenge, to seek to right the wrong his father did your father.”

“It was, it was!” I cried, with heated vehemence.  “Be flames everlasting the dwelling of my soul if any other motive drove me to this shameful trade.”

There was a pause.  His beautiful eyes flamed with a sudden light as they rested on me.  Then the lids drooped demurely, and he drew a deep breath.  But when he spoke there was scorn in his voice.

“And, no doubt, it was that same motive kept you there, at peace for three whole years, in slothful ease, the motleyed Fool, jesting and capering for his enemy’s delectation—­you, a man with the knightly memory of your foully-wronged parent to cry hourly shame upon you.  No doubt you lacked the opportunity to bring the tyrant to account.  Or was it that you were content to let him make a mock of you so long as he housed and fed you and clothed you in your garish livery of shame?

“Spare me, Excellency,” I cried again.  “Of your charity let my past be done with.  When he drove me forth with threats of hanging, from which your gracious sister saved me, I turned my steps to Rome at her bidding to—­”

“To find honourable employment at my hands,” he interrupted quietly.  Then suddenly rising, and speaking in a voice of thunder—­“And what, then, of your revenge?” he cried.

“It has been frustrated,” I answered lamely.  “Sufficient do I account the ruin that already I have wrought in my life by the pursuit of that phantom.  I was trained to arms, my lord.  Let me discard for good these tawdry rags, and strap a soldier’s harness to my back.”

“How came you to journey hither thus?” he asked, suddenly turning the subject.

“It was Madonna Lucrezia’s wish.  She held that my errand would be safer so, for a Fool may travel unmolested.”

He nodded that he understood, and paced the chamber with bowed head.  For a spell there was silence, broken only by the soft fall of his slippered feet and the swish of his silken purple.  At last he paused before me and looked up into my face—­for I was a good head taller than he was.  His fingers combed his auburn beard, and his beautiful eyes were full on mine.

“That was a wise precaution of my sister’s,” he approved.  “I will take a lesson from her in the matter.  I have employment for you, Messer Biancomonte.”

I bowed my head in token of my gratitude.

“You shall find me diligent and faithful, my lord,” I promised him.

“I know it,” he sniffed, “else should I not employ you.”

He turned from me, and stepped back to his table.  He took up a package, fingered it a moment, then dropped it again, and shot me one of his quiet glances.