“What?”
“How did it come that the priest was trusted more than any one else?”
“Hush—that is he. He is the Queen’s confessor, an Austrian.”
“Oh, a foreigner,” said Will. “I understand.”
“And the coffin you took from the Palace did not contain a body at all, but the silver-gilt candlesticks of the Queen’s chapel, and other objects too long to be packed in barrels.”
“I had guessed that.”
“But you did bury a body, and it was for him that they chanted all the way from the Palace.”
“Something was changed at the Embassy. I had guessed that; but I thought that they were burying iron or stones.”
“No,—you were burying a spy.”
Will, who had been in a great battle, and seen a hundred men knocked over by round shot in a few minutes, got up and staggered out into the fresh air: the crisp winter night had just closed round them. To Donna Rusidda, gentle as she was, the execution was not shocking,—the man was of low birth, and swift retribution was no novelty at the courts of Italian princes. But with a woman’s quick wit she noted its effect on Will, and followed him out into the darkness.