"You spoke this
morning of one whom the Lady Valentina had met."
The fear seemed to increase on the jester's face. "Yes," he answered, in
a choking voice.
"Where did she meet this knight you spoke of, and in such wondrous words
of praise described to me?"
"In the woods at Acquasparta, where the river Metauro is no better than a
brook. Some two leagues this side of Sant' Angelo."
"Sant' Angelo!" echoed Gian Maria, starting at the very mention of the
place where the late conspiracy against him had been hatched. "And when
was this?"
"On the Wednesday before Easter, as Monna Valentina was journeying from
Santa Sofia to Urbino."
No word spake the Duke in answer. He stood still, his head bowed, and
his thoughts running again on that conspiracy. The mountain fight in
which Masuccio had been killed had taken place on the Tuesday night, and
the conviction--scant though the evidence might be--grew upon him that
this man was one of the conspirators who had escaped.
"How came your lady to speak with this man--was he known to her?" he
inquired at last.
"No, Highness; but he was wounded, and so aroused her compassion. She
sought to minister to his hurt."
"Wounded?" cried Gian Maria, in a shout. "Now, by God, it is as I
suspected. I'll swear he got that wound the night before at Sant'
Angelo. What was his name, fool? Tell me that, and you shall go free."
For just a second the hunchback seemed to hesitate. He stood in awesome
fear of Gian Maria, of whose cruelties some ghastly tales were told.
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