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Updated: June 10, 2025
I promised him that I would pull my stoutest, but curtly declined his suggestion that I should try my hand upon Virginia's mouth, although she made no demur. Sooner should Prato swim in blood, I said, than I lay violent hands upon my friend. And in blood swam Prato that day, and Fra Palamone bathed in it eloquently.
Between the obelisks he fell on his knees, and when I reached him was praying, "Sancta Mater! Diva Mater! Ab hostium incidiis libera me!" I saw a head at a window, a head in a night-cap a man's. Over it peeped another a woman's. But I knew my Florence: there would be no interference in a duel. I said, "Get up, Palamone, and fight with me." He was wild with terror cried, "No, no, no spare me!
"Florence is the place for Fra Palamone," I said to Virginia with bitter foreboding, "rather than for you and me. It is horrible to think of Aurelia, with her dutiful regard for the saintly calling, bending her knees to these arrogant rascals." "'Bacchetoni e colli torti, Tutti il diavol se li porti!" said Virginia with scornful nostrils.
He had to do with a man now, I told myself, not with a boy. I went to my bureau, took out, primed and cocked my pistols, returned to the window and showed myself full to the frate. "I wish you good morning, Fra Palamone," I said. His grinning face grinned awry, I promise you; but he recovered himself and made a brave show. "Buon di, Ser Francesco, buon di. You are betimes, I see.
Had it been vitriol I had been too weak to refuse it. It brought my vigour back in a tide; I sat up. Fra Palamone began to talk, with more candour and fair reason than his late exploits warranted.
It was noticeable that far less time was spent upon her instructions than upon mine. Fra Palamone was not at all sure how far I should prove amenable. Crime, however, by which I mean an unfailing fount of ready lying, was a more difficult accomplishment than I had reckoned it. I had no notion when I began what hard work it could be.
This good belly of mine, this broad, easy gullet, these hands, this portly beard, which may now get as white as it can, since I have done with gossip Fra Clemente a wrist of steel, fingers as hard as whipcord, and legs like anchor-cables; all these were fostered and made able by brown St. Francis' merry sons. Fra Palamone, dear unknown, Fra Palamone, ever your servant!
Probably his collection lacked an Englishman but even as I hotly determined that it should for ever lack one sooner than possess me, I remembered that this mad prince lay dying. Palamone must needs know that; and then, what sort of a price did he hope for from a man with the death-rattle rising in his throat? Did the heir-apparent, the Grand Prince Gastone, intend to maintain the collection?
When I said that I had shot Fra Palamone she shook her head. "You might as well hope to shoot the devil. All you have done is to give yourself into the hands of them who hire him. You are to be sent to Volterra or the galleys for this. The men outside are sbirri." I told her that I should write to Count Giraldi. She laughed. "Your Count Giraldi will be out of Florence. Do you think him a child?
The return of Fra Palamone with the gear put an end to our talk. I said, "Come with me, Belviso, as you will but come"; and his reply was, "Servo suo." I left the honest family at Sinalunga calling blessings on my name, and rode forward on a good horse to Arezzo. By my orders Fra Palamone kept behind me. By his own determination, Belviso held him company, and led the sumpter-horse.
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