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The poor King, seeing his daughter's head thus turned, issued a proclamation, bidding any one in his kingdom who should answer to Cannetella's wishes to appear, and he would give him his daughter and the kingdom. Now this King had a mortal enemy named Fioravante, whom he could not bear to see so much as painted on a wall.
Meanwhile Fioravante, returning home, was told by the horses that the locksmith had carried off Cannetella in the cask, on hearing which, burning with shame, and all on fire with rage, off he ran towards High-Hill, and, meeting an old woman who lived opposite to the palace, he said to her, "What will you charge, good mother, to let me see the King's daughter?"
And she begged so hard that Fioravante replied, "I forgive you this time, and grant you your life out of charity, but if ever again you are tempted to disobey me, and I find that you have let the sun see you, I will make mincemeat of you. Now, mind me; I am going away once more, and shall be gone seven years.
Then she asked a hundred ducats, and Fioravante, putting his hand in his purse, instantly counted them out, one a-top of the other. Thereupon the old woman took him up on the roof, where he saw Cannetella drying her hair on a balcony. But just as if her heart had whispered to her the maiden turned that way and saw the knave.
Giovanni Sforza, however, was not yet certain of his victory; December 9th the Mantuan agent Fioravante Brognolo, wrote the Marchese Gonzaga, "The affairs of the illustrious nobleman, Giovanni of Pesaro, are still undecided; it looks to me as if the Spanish nobleman to whom his Highness's niece was promised would not give her up.
So Fioravante threw down all the seven doors, and, entering her room, seized up Cannetella, bed-clothes and all, to carry her off. But, as luck would have it, the paper the old woman had put there fell on the ground, and the spell was broken.
As soon as Cannetella set eyes upon him she cried out, "Ay, that is he! he could not be better if I had kneaded him with my own hands." When Fioravante was getting up to go away the King said to him, "Wait a little, brother; why in such a hurry! One would think you had quicksilver in your body!
When Fioravante heard of this he went again to the old woman and said to her, "What shall I give you now? When you are there contrive to slip this little piece of paper between the bed-clothes, saying, in an undertone, as you place it there Let every one now soundly sleep, But Cannetella awake shall keep." So the old woman agreed for another hundred ducats, and she served him faithfully.
Fair and softly, I will give you my daughter and baggage and servants to accompany you, for I wish her to be your wife." "I thank you," said Fioravante, "but there is no necessity; a single horse is enough if the beast will carry double, for at home I have servants and goods as many as the sands on the sea-shore."
Cannetella replied, "You are my lord and master, and I will carry out your commands exactly, but tell me what you will leave me to live upon in the meantime." And Fioravante answered, "What the horses leave of their own corn will be enough for you." Only conceive how poor Cannetella now felt, and guess whether she did not curse the hour and moment she was born!
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