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Updated: June 20, 2025
Baldo raised his shoulders, pressed his withered eyelids together, and answered, in disgust: "God pity you, Cercamorte! You are certainly changed these days. Evidently your Arabian has given you a charm that turns men's brains into goose-eggs." Lapo stamped away angrily, yet he was soon smiling again. And now his coarse locks were not unkempt, but cut square across brow and neck.
And when Lapo found no reply in his head, Ercole Azzanera, with a humble bow, descended from the high tower and followed the others away. Lapo Cercamorte sat down on a stool. "All my good men," he murmured, "and my dear gossip, Baldo! My castle rushed by so shabby a ruse; my name a laughing-stock! And the Marquis Azzo gave them my house as one gives a child a leaden gimcrack to stamp on.
Here Cercamorte kept his treasures his scraps of looted finery, the weapons taken from fallen knights, the garrison's surplus of arms. When he had locked the door and with Foresto's slow help braced some pike-shafts against it, he tried to make Baldo lie down. The old man vowed profanely that he would die on his feet. Shambling to the casement niche, he gaped forth at the dawn.
Every week he trimmed his fingernails; every day or so, with a flush and a hangdog look, he drenched himself with perfume. Even while wearing that garment at thought of which Madonna Gemma, isolate in her chamber, still shivered and moaned Cercamorte resembled one who prepares himself for a wedding, or gallant rendezvous, that may take place any moment.
And with his big hand suddenly he ripped open Raffaele's tunic half way to the waist, exposing the fair white flesh. The troubadour, though quivering with shame and rage, remained motionless, staring at the great sword that hung in its scarlet sheath from Lapo's harness. Old one-eyed Baldo, plucking his master by the elbow, whispered: "Take care, Cercamorte. His brother Nicolotto is your ally.
He spoke as follows: "Cercamorte, this array came up against you because it was published that you had killed and flayed Raffaele Muti, and, out of jealous malignancy, were wearing his skin as a vest. But just now a marvellous thing has happened, for at the foot of the hill Raffaele Muti has been found, freshly slain by a wandered arrow. Save for that wound his skin is without flaw.
"Though I am not in your confidence, I agree that a nice day is coming, a beautiful day like a pig. Look you, Cercamorte, shake off this strange spell of folly. Prepare for early trouble. Just as a Venetian sailor can feel a storm of water brewing, so can I feel, gathering far off, a storm of arrows. Do you notice that the crows hereabouts have never been so thick?
But all this does not find me my brother." And with a sad, gentle smile Count Nicolotto closed his frosty eyes. Cercamorte, despite all this cooing, received an impression of enmity. As always when danger threatened, he became still and wary, much more resourceful than ordinarily, as if perils were needed to render him complete.
Moreover, he lived and breathed but a moment ago. So the whole tale was false, and this war against you outrageous. All the gentlemen who came here have gone away in great amazement and shame, leaving me to ask pardon for what they have done. Forgive them, Cercamorte, in the name of Christ, for they believed themselves to be performing a proper deed."
Yet even the long stare of Lapo Cercamorte she answered with a look of defiance. The conqueror rose, went jingling to her, thumbed a strand of her bright hair, touched her soft cheek with his fingers, which smelled of leather and horses. Grasping her by the elbow, he led her forward. "Is this your daughter, Grangioia? Good. I will take her as a pledge of your loyalty."
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