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Updated: June 25, 2025
"No, no," answered the fool, with a readiness that dispelled the Count's alarm on that score. "I thought I heard a sound of marching in the distance." "The wind in the trees, Peppino," explained Fanfulla. "I do not think " He stopped short and listened and now they all heard it, for it came wafted to them on a gust of the fitful breeze that smote their faces. "You are right," said Francesco.
Two mercenaries were bearing down upon him the same two that had been the last to fall back before him. He braced himself to meet them, thinking that his last hour was indeed come, when Fanfulla degli Arcipreti, who had followed him closely through the press, now descended upon his assailants from behind, and rode them down. Beside the Count he reined up, and stretched down his hand.
But Paolo cut him short ere he had gone very far. "Have done with that," he said, and for all that he said it with a laugh, determination sounded sturdy in his accents. "I am a knight-errant, not a prince, and I'll not be converted from one to the other. It were making a helot of a free man, and you do not love me, Fanfulla, if you drive this argument further.
"You are, well-returned, Fanfulla!" the Count called to him, "This pretty gentleman would have had me bound." "Have you bound?" echoed Fanfulla, in angry horror. "Upon what grounds, pray?" he demanded, turning fiercely upon Gonzaga. Impressed by Fanfulla's lordly air, Romeo Gonzaga grew amazingly humble for one that but a moment back had been so overbearing.
Francesco paused in the act of drawing on a boot, and raised his eyes to stare a moment at his friend. "But if you wish it, Fanfulla, I shall rejoice to have your company." And now the idea of it entered Fanfulla's mind in earnest, for his expression had been more or less an idle one. But since Francesco invited him, why not indeed?
"Not half so odd as that the Lord of Aquila should lie here, roughly clad, a wound in his shoulder, talking to a fool." Francesco eyed him with a smile. "Give thanks to God that Fanfulla is not here to hear you, or they had been your last words for pretty though he be, Messer Fanfulla is a very monster of bloodthirstiness. With me it is different.
Gonzaga bowed, and with a vicious glance at the strangers and an angry "Follow me!" to Beltrame and the others, he departed with the men-at-arms at his heels. Valentina remained with Fanfulla and Peppe, whilst Fra Domenico dressed Francesco's wound, and, presently, when the task was accomplished, they departed, leaving Fanfulla amid the Count alone.
"You said, Fanfulla, that in these days there are no longer maidens held in bondage to whom a knight-errant may lend aid. You were at fault, for in Monna Valentina we have the captive maiden, in my cousin the dragon, in Gonzaga another, and in me the errant knight who is destined I hope to save her." "You will save her from Gian Maria?" questioned Fanfulla incredulously. "I will attempt it."
But the Venetians are on the eve of war, and they will find work for these hands of mine. I want not for friends among them." Fanfulla sighed. "And so we lose you. The stoutest arm in Babbiano leaves us in the hour of need, driven out by that loutish Duke. By my soul, Ser Francesco, I would I might go with you. Here is nothing to be done."
As Fanfulla awoke he beheld an apparition coming towards him, a figure lithe and stalwart as a sylvian god, the water shining on the ivory whiteness of his skin and glistening in his sable hair as the sunlight caught it. "Tell me now, Fanfulla, lives there a man of so depraved a mind that he would prefer a ducal crown to this?"
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