They had come to the run of an abyss, where, the trees receding, the ground broke abruptly into rocky slopes, plunging down perpendicular under thickets of arbutus and pine. Four roads crossed at a spot where a great wooden crucifix stretched out rough arms athwart the sky.
For a time the Duke of Spoleto had maintained a grim silence, and Francesco began to wonder what his captors, if such they were, held in store for him. The gray walls of a ruin encrusted with lichen gold and green, rose towards the azure of the evening sky. A great silence covered the valley, save for the bleating of sheep on remote meadows, or the cry of the lapwing from the marshes. Distance purpled the far horizon. The woods stood wondrous green and silent, as mute guardians of the past.
On the slope of a hill, in the shade of the battered masonry of a feudal castle overlooking to the north Romagna and the hills of Umbria, to southward the sun-steeped plains of Calabria, Francesco at last faced the Duke of Spoleto, his bare, blood-stained sword across his knees. He had partaken of drink and food, while his steed was grazing on the emerald turf, and the men-at-arms were roasting a kid and some chestnuts they had gathered, over a fire kindled with dried branches and decayed leaves.
Then only the Duke of Spoleto addressed the youth, whose air and manner had impressed the captain of free-lances to a degree that confidence challenged confidence, for the duke was not slow to discern the stalwart metal under the friar's garb.
"Honest men are best out of the way when great folk are upon the road," he expounded largely, breaking the long silence. "By what special dispensation have you incurred the love of the Lord of Astura? Have you perchance confessed his wife?"
And the Duke of Spoleto roared, as if he had given vent to some uncommon witticism.
The degrading nature of his predicament caused Francesco to be more frank than he had intended. Nevertheless he replied tentatively.
"The Lord of Astura is a Ghibelline. No doubt it was the friar's garb which aroused his choler, for I never saw him before."
The Duke of Spoleto nodded grimly.
"A renegade is ever the worst enemy of his kind."