“This is not Florence,” murmured the Friar.
“This is Florence,” came the answer. “And these are the people–thy people—”
Frà Girolamo felt a hand on his shoulder, and withdrawing his horrified eyes from the devilish crowd, saw at his side the tall figure of the stranger who had accosted him before the hospital.
“Look closer,” he urged. “Look closer. What vain things do they burn now? Not cards, lutes and paintings. Look closer.”
The Friar again gazed at the Piazza, and this time discerned above the flames the outline of a huge gallows from which depended several bodies, hung by the necks, and the blood of these men rained down on to the fire, for the crowd with jeering and laughter threw stones at them that broke their flesh.
“They wear monks’ habits,” said Frà Girolamo, and he strained forward.
At this moment the fire consumed the rope holding one of the victims, and as the crowd gave a shout of rejoicing he fell into the white heat of the fire. In that second the Friar had caught sight of the face; it was the dead tortured countenance of his beloved disciple, Frà Domenico. He gave a cry of anguish, and would have thrown himself into the crowd, but the tall stranger held him back.
And now his maddened eyes noticed a man in scarlet and purple, mounted on a white mule, who rode round the edge of the pyre and urged on the crowd with ribald triumph. This man was old, and wore a triple crown; and at his bridle were two younger men, like him in the face–horribly beautiful, wearing extravagant garments.
“Alessandro Borgia,” said the stranger in the Friar’s ear, “and his two sons, Francesco and Cesare.”