As he spoke the great clock of the palace slowly clanged midnight, and Brandilancia turned white and caught Essex's arm for support. "Would to God that I might go with you," he groaned; "would that I had never come to Italy upon your cursed business. I stand here a doubly perjured man. How, I scarcely know (for I swear I set not about it cold-bloodedly), I have won the love of the peerless Marie de' Medici. For me she has discarded the King of France, and has promised to meet me at this spot and at this very hour and fly with me to El Dorado. I left her stricken to the heart by my misfortunes. If I desert her now her death will be upon my head. See you not the Gonzaga barge is approaching in which she promised to forsake the world with me."
"Make yourself easy on the score of my mistress," exclaimed Malespini. "You have kept your appointment, but when she made hers she had no intention of keeping it with a man of your quality. Under a strange hallucination she has fancied all along that you were the King of France, and her fainting fit was occasioned by her dismay and humiliation on discovering that you were only the king of poets. I will not say that she did not find you agreeable. She was pleased when she learned that your friend had arrived in time to rescue you, and ere she left for Florence this afternoon bade me wish you bon voyage, and to thank you for much merry entertainment."
The Earl of Essex whistled softly, and an expression of infinite relief relaxed the contorted features of Brandilancia. "I have learned how the women of the Medici love," he murmured. "Thank God, our English women love in a different fashion."
CHAPTER VIII
THE LADIES OF PALLIANO
(BEING A RELATION BY THE CONDOTTIERE LUIGI RODOMONTE
GONZAGA OF CERTAIN OF HIS ADVENTURES DURING
THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1525 TO 1528)
I
THE NEST OF THE PHŒNIX