“Which was?” I prompted, unable for the life of me to guess what I could have said.
“Which was the heart of one, a black buzzard, you said, by name Martinelli—whoever he may be—for the heart of Martinelli smoking on a gold platter. The platter must be gold, you said; and you said I must call you by singing, ‘Sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu.’ Whereat you began to teach me how to sing, ‘Sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu.’”
And when Pons had said the name, I knew it at once for the priest, Martinelli, who had been knocking his heels two mortal hours in the room without.
When Martinelli was permitted to enter and as he saluted me by title and name, I knew at once my name and all of it. I was Count Guillaume de Sainte-Maure. (You see, only could I know then, and remember afterward, what was in my conscious mind.)
The priest was Italian, dark and small, lean as with fasting or with a wasting hunger not of this world, and his hands were as small and slender as a woman’s. But his eyes! They were cunning and trustless, narrow-slitted and heavy-lidded, at one and the same time as sharp as a ferret’s and as indolent as a basking lizard’s.
“There has been much delay, Count de Sainte-Maure,” he began promptly, when Pons had left the room at a glance from me. “He whom I serve grows impatient.”
“Change your tune, priest,” I broke in angrily. “Remember, you are not now in Rome.”
“My august master—” he began.
“Rules augustly in Rome, mayhap,” I again interrupted. “This is France.”
Martinelli shrugged his shoulders meekly and patiently, but his eyes, gleaming like a basilisk’s, gave his shoulders the lie.