"Be still, you adder, you bag of venom."
Fearing worse, the fool gathered himself up.
"Beware!" he cried shrilly. "Bethink you, friar, that anger is a
cardinal sin. Beware, I say!"
Fra Domenico checked his upraised hand, and fell to muttering scraps of
Latin, his lids veiling his suddenly downÂcast eyes. Thus Peppe gained
the door.
"Say, friar; in my ear, now--Was that a hare you stewed, or an outworn
sandal?"
"Now, God forgive me," roared the monk, springing towards him.
"For your cooking? Aye, pray--on your knees." He dodged a blow, ducked,
and doubled back into the room. "A cook, you? Pish! you tun of convent
lard! Your ortolans were burnt, your trout swam in grease, your
pasty----"
What the pasty may have been the company was not to learn, for Fra
Domenico, crimson of face, had swooped down upon the fool, and would have
caught him but that he dived under the table by Valentina's skirts, and
craved her protection from this gross maniac that held himself a cook.
"Now, hold your wrath, father," she said, laughing with the rest. "He
does but plague you. Bear with him for the sake of that beautitude you
cited, which has fired him to reprisals."
Mollified, but still grumbling threats of a beating to be bestowed on
Peppe when the opportunity should better serve him, the friar turned to
his domestic duties. They rose soon after, and at Gonzaga's suggestion
Valentina paused in the great hall to issue orders that Fortemani be
brought before her for judgment.
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