It was news indeed; no hint of it had passed beyond the walls of the Fortress.
"Of where he may be hidden, naught is known. Yet the galley of Naples lieth in our port, and one may reach it at low tide over the shallows—a few feet away from the tower of the Fort. It were easy to carry the child there unseen."
"Aye; it were easy—and not so hard to find him—if he were there."
"Nay, but to hold him when found! Do it not rashly, lest harm come to him. The Bernardini will plan the emprise. Tell him the Lady Margherita came at risk of life—in this disguise—to put his true men on the quest. Tell him——"
She was interrupted by an exclamation.
"Margherita!—the Lady de Iblin—thus!"
The Bernardini had just entered the court of the Palace.
A vivid flush rose to her cheek, but she stood quite still in the place where he had found her, and he came and bent his knee and kissed her hand with the customary homage.
"Else might I not have crossed the Piazza," she said, "nor left the gate of the Castle. It is easy to forfeit one's head at a moment of wrath where Rizzo commandeth! And one—a guard within the Fortress, friend to our cause unguessed of the Council—hath lent me this disguise that I might bring thee my so weighty tidings of woe."
"'So weighty tidings of woe?'" he echoed startled.