"Nowhere better," replied the friar; "woodcocks with bills that long, and breasts that thick" (and he demonstrated the measures on his arm and hand); "beef as fat and as juicy as if it had been cut out of an abbot's sirloin; fish from the Adriatic and the brook for Fridays; and now and then a wild-boar steak, which would make a hermit break Lent."
"Well then, my lady will fare sumptuously, and I shall be spared scolding the purveyors, as I was obliged to do at Forli," was Antonio's reply.
"But you speak only of your lady," remarked Mardocchi; "does not your lord come likewise?"
"That I cannot tell," answered Antonio; "I only know that she comes first, and waits for him here, while he makes a tour through the legations. He thinks the air of Rome too cool for her health, and, as he is very careful of her, she comes hither."
There was a sly humour in his speech which Mardocchi well understood; and he asked, "But why did he choose Imola for her residence; because he thought it was so dull, as you said just now?"
"He did not choose it," replied Antonio; "no, no, 'twas she. He gave her the choice of several cities around, and she chose Imola. She knew, perhaps, it was the place he would least like; for some of the good-natured babblers of the court had taken care to tell her of certain passages in days past, and also that the lady of his early love lived here. Madonna Eloise might think it would give him pain to meet a dame who had treated him so unkindly, and so she chose Imola."
"Theirs must be a sweet life, by all accounts," said the friar; "I have heard a good deal of this matter before from men in the cardinal's train when he went to France. They say she is unfaithful to him."
"Nay, nay, not unfaithful," replied Antonio, quickly, "but light enough to make men think her so. But now, my good friend Mardocchi, what makes you interest yourself so much in all this matter? You have got over all old grudges by this time, I hope."
"No," answered Mardocchi bluntly, "I never forget grudges or promises either, Antonio. You tied my hands, or I would have sent your lord to a better world long ago. I could have taken his life in the French camp, just when he parted from the old Cardinal Julian; for I was close behind them both, and nobody would have known it."
"I should," replied Antonio, "for I know your handiwork, Mardocchi, just as a connoisseur knows the touch of a great master's pencil. But why should you bear him ill-will? His sword got you a much better master than Buondoni."