A Jay of Italy

A JAY OF ITALY
BERNARD CAPES
'...Some Jay of Italy,
Whose mother was her painting, hath betrayed him.'
CYMBELINE
FOURTH EDITION
METHUEN AND CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON
First Published . . July 1905 Second Edition . . August 1905 Third Edition . . September 1905 Fourth Edition . . October 1905
A JAY OF ITALY
CHAPTER I
On a hot morning, in the year 1476 of poignant memory, there drew up before an osteria on the Milan road a fair cavalcade of travellers. These were Messer Carlo Lanti and his inamorata, together with a suite of tentmen, pages, falconers, bed-carriers, and other personnel of a migratory lord on his way from the cooling hills to the Indian summer of the plains. The chief of the little party, halting in advance of his fellows, lifted his plumed scarlet biretta with one strong young hand, and with the other, his reins hanging loose, ran a cluster of swarthy fingers through his black hair.
'O little host!' he boomed, blaspheming—for all good Catholics, conscious of their exclusive caste, swore by God prescriptively—'O little host, by the thirst of Christ's passion, wine!'