"To what effect?" asked Barbara with a smile.
"'Whether does Cardinal Ravenna live at Slavowitz or at Rome?' I confess I am unable to answer it. It is but forty-eight hours since the cardinal's return, and yet we now hear that he has set off again for Rome, and will not come back till your coronation eve."
"When he will bring with him," observed Barbara, quietly, "a papal bull excommunicating the Princess of Czernova."
"Ha! he'll be well advised not to read it," said Zabern, touching the hilt of his sabre significantly. "I plainly foresaw that our preference for Faustus would make an enemy of Ravenna. And so he hath gone to Rome to solicit a bull of excommunication? And he'll obtain it. Our intended attack on the Jesuits will not please Pio Nono; once their foe, he hath of late become their friend and patron. Excommunication! Thus does the Church reward us for preserving her property, since in fighting for our own Convent of the Transfiguration, we were fighting likewise for all the other monasteries of Czernova; for which service it now appears we are to receive papal curses. Humph! 'Catholicism without the Pope' will soon have to be our cry."
"Marshal," said Barbara, resolving to make Zabern a confidant of her secret history, "did you not present me with a handsome bow and quiver about six months ago?"
Zabern replied in the affirmative, wondering why the princess should have introduced a matter seemingly irrelevant.
"Have you not felt hurt that I have never once made use of your gifts?"
"The princess has been occupied with more important matters."
"Shall I give you my reason?"
"If your Highness wills."