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Updated: September 24, 2025
Wherefore he begged the Court to uphold the Holy Father's authority, and forthwith to pronounce me excommunicate and my life forfeit, restoring to him his wife Bianca and his domain of Pagliano, which he would hold as the Emperor's liege and loyal servitor. Having spoken thus, he bowed to the Court, stepped back, and sat down. The Ten looked at Gonzaga. Gonzaga looked at me.
"I have thought," I answered after a moment's hesitation, "of a means by which this unwelcome visit of Farnese's might be brought to an end." And with that I told him as delicately as was possible that I believed Madonna Bianca to be the lodestone that held him there, and that were she removed from his detestable attentions, Pagliano would cease to amuse him and he would go his ways.
"And I swear to God, as I stand here in His sight," he continued in a ringing voice, "that every word there set down is as spoken by Ettore Cavalcanti, Lord of Pagliano, some hours before he died; and so will those others swear.
"This insolence, my lord Duke, must be punished; this insult wiped out. Suffer me..." But Pier Luigi reached forward across Bianca, set a hand upon my cousin's sleeve, and pressed him back into his seat silencing him. "Let be," he said. And looked up the board at Cavalcanti. "It is for my Lord of Pagliano to say if a guest shall be thus affronted at his board."
All was turmoil in my soul, turmoil and hatred and anger. Anon to soothe me came the memory of those sweet words that Bianca had spoken in my defence, and those words emboldened me at last to seek her but as I had never yet dared in all the time that I had spent at Pagliano. I found her that evening, by chance, in the gallery over the courtyard.
She had her own apartments at Pagliano with her own maids of honour, like a princess; and the castle garden was entirely her domain into which even her father seldom intruded. He gave me the freedom of it; but it was a freedom of which I never took advantage in the week that we abode there. Several times was I on the point of doing so. But I was ever restrained by my unconquerable diffidence.
Cosimo saw and smiled. He was very sure of himself by now. "The only witness whose word would carry weight would be the late Lord of Pagliano," he said. "And the prisoner is more crafty than honest in naming one who is dead. Your excellency will know the precise importance to attach to that." Again his excellency nodded. Could it indeed be that I was enmeshed? My calm deserted me.
The fortress of Pagliano is one of the most wholesome. When I walked through it there were two hundred and fifty prisoners, all political. The people of the country told me that in 1856 these unfortunate men had made an attempt at escape. Five or six had been shot on the roof like so many sparrows.
Why, then, I counsel that a change of air might benefit Madonna Bianca's health, and that if my Lord of Pagliano is wise, he will send her into retreat in some convent until the Duke's visit here is at an end. And I can promise you that in that case it will be the sooner ended. Now, I think that even a saint should understand me." With that last gibe she moved resolutely on and left me.
And meanwhile they revelled at Pagliano and made free with the hospitality to which they had not been bidden. Thus sped another week in which I had not the courage again to approach Bianca after what had passed between us at our single interview. Nor for that matter was I afforded the opportunity.
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