'But you are distraught, you old hag,' cried the lady. 'Beware, lest I have you thrown from this roof, so that not even a crow can get your bones together.'
The threat did not frighten Monna Sidonia. Beatrice also soon calmed.
'I don't believe a word of it,' she said, observing the crone furtively.
'As you please, Excellency,' answered the other, shrugging lean shoulders, 'but nothing can prevent my words from being true. See you,' she continued insinuatingly, 'you make a small figure of wax, and you put a swallow's heart in at the right side, at the left its liver, then you pierce it with a needle, uttering charms the while; and he will die of a slow death, nor is there doctor who can save him.'
'Silence!' commanded the duchess.
The hag again devoutly kissed the hem of the schiavinetta. 'Your Grace is my sun. I love you overmuch, 'tis my worst fault.' She paused, then added, 'It can be done also without witchcraft.'
The duchess was silent, but she looked at the woman curiously.
'As I came by the palace garden,' resumed Monna Sidonia, dryly, 'I saw the gardener collecting fair ripe peaches in a basket, a present doubtless for Messer Gian Galeazzo.' Another pause, and she continued, 'And likewise in the garden of Messer Leonardo da Vinci, the Florentine, there are fair ripe peaches, but empoisoned.'
'Empoisoned?'
'Ay, Monna Cassandra, my niece, saw——' And again she whispered.