Who would enter the banqueting hall?
All shrank.
"Tis almost certain death," they muttered, and Giannotto smiled.
"The Duke carries deadly weapons."
As he spoke the curtains were pulled aside for a moment as one of the serving men stepped out, and Giannotto, bending eagerly forward, caught a glimpse of two faces at the far end of the brilliant table.
Visconti's, laughing, triumphant, insolently handsome, and Valentine's, set and white, with dangerous eyes.
The curtains fell to again, but Giannotto had a thought.
"Leave it to me, good friends," he said, and passed into the hall.
"The Lady Valentine shall give the news!" That was the secretary's inspiration. "The Duke dare not touch her, and it will be a pleasure to her that she may reward." And the crowd, gathering in the anteroom, waited, bewildered and terrified, to hear the blow had fallen.
"They will stop their song and jest," said the man from Brescia, "let the Duke once know—" The entry of another, panting and torn, interrupted him.