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Updated: June 25, 2025
It was a fine night, the air heavy with the vernal scent of fertile lands, and the deep cobalt of the heavens a glittering, star-flecked dome in a lighter space of which floated the half-disk of the growing moon. Such a moon, she bethought her, as she had looked at with thoughts of him, the night after their brief meeting at Acquasparta.
"Nor would you do a perjury," answered him the fool. "For it is that fat hog Fra Domenico he that went with you to the Convent of Acquasparta to fetch unguents for his Excellency." "What does he in that company, and who are they?" asked the Count, turning to the fool as they rode out of their ambush.
The Archbishop was mistaken for John of Bari, of the bedchamber of the late pope, a man of harsh manners and dissolute life, an object of general hatred. Five of the cardinals, Robert of Geneva, Acquasparta, Viviers, Poitou, and De Verny, were seized in their attempt to steal away, and driven back, amid contemptuous hootings, by personal violence.
"You sleep soundly at Roccaleone," quoth Francesco. "Bestir that knavish garrison of yours, and bid the lazy dogs let down the bridge. I have news for Monna Valentina." "At once, Excellency," the fool replied, and would have gone upon the instant but that Francesco recalled him. "Say, Peppe, a knight the knight she met at Acquasparta, if you will. But leave my name unspoken."
"There was a gentleman here, tending him, Madonna; but he is gone with Fra Domenico to the Convent of Acquasparta to seek the necessaries to mend his shoulder." "Poor gentleman," she murmured, approaching the fallen figure. "How came he by his hurt?" "That, Madonna, is more than I can tell."
But he had braved her commands, and astonished her with the information that the true identity of this Messer Francesco had been known to him since that day when they had first met him at Acquasparta. He had meant to say more. He had meant to add the announcement of Francesco's banishment from Babbiano and his notorious unwillingness to mount his cousin's throne.
In other surroundings, he was assured that she would not have cast an eye upon Francesco whilst he, himself, was by; and if he recalled their first meeting at Acquasparta, it was again to curse Circumstance for having placed the knight in such case as to appeal to the tenderness that is a part of woman's nature.
It was a scene in the woods at Acquasparta on that morning after the mountain fight; a man lying wounded in the bracken, and over him a gentle lady bending with eyes of pity and solicitude. Often since had his thoughts revisited that scene, sometimes with a smile, sometimes with a sigh, and sometimes with both at once. He turned suddenly upon Fanfulla. "I will go myself," he announced.
It is from Fanfulla degli Arcipreti to the Count of Aquila. If your memory will bear you back to a certain day at Acquasparta, you may recall that Fanfulla was the name of a very gallant cavalier who addressed this Messer Francesco with marked respect." She took that backward mental glance he bade her, and remembered.
The passing jelousy that he had entertained for that wounded knight they had met at Acquasparta was laid to rest by her present attitude towards him, the knight, himself forgotten. As for Valentina, she listened to his ready speech and earnest tone with growing wonder both at him and at herself. Her own words had been little more than a petulant outburst.
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