"Your Excellencies are expected: the citizens await you:" it was said in a tone that meant more than courtesy: Mutio di Costanzo scanned him narrowly.
"From whom dost hold thy orders?" he asked.
"From the Signor Bernardini, commander of the city," the man answered readily.
"Then speak."
"The Signor Bernardini hath this night rescued our infant Prince from the galley of Naples——" He supplemented the statement with an angry oath coupled with Rizzo's name. "We know not where our Signor hath hidden him."
"And the Queen?"
The guard shook his head.
"The Signor hath waited for help to come: it is said that her rescue will be this day. In the Palazzo Reale the guard hath been trebled for her defense, and every man would give his life for the Queen."
"Is there more?"
"Aye, your Excellency: rumor hath it that that devil of a Rizzo hath forced Her Majesty to give him letters of surrender for every fortress of Cyprus, and that to-day he is gone, with other traitors, to receive the keys of all our citadels. Panagia mou! he is capable of every treachery! If he were not within——" He indicated the fortress with a scowl of hatred, then made a motion which seemed to include the entire city and plant the people, resolute, before the windows of the Queen.