"To no lesser a man than the Viceroy of Apulia!"
A sneer he did not try to conceal, distorted the older man's face and, irritated by a gesture which heightened his sinister appearance, Francesco leaned towards him.
"Perchance you boast a better?"
He, to whom the question was put, exchanged a swift look with his companion, as if to warn him to keep quiet.
"Charles of Anjou and Provence has no ugly favor to look upon," came the drawling reply.
"The blood-thirsty butcher!" burst out Francesco, with all the innate hatred of the Ghibelline for his hereditary foe. "Yet I might have thought so!"
"Indeed!" drawled he of the Leaden Lamb with a swift side glance at his companion, who moved restlessly in his seat. "And would you tell him so, were you to meet him face to face?"
"Yea,—and in his native hell!" exclaimed Francesco.
"Magnificent!" uttered his interlocutor, whose face seemed utterly bloodless in the waning evening light, while that of his companion seemed to have borrowed all its leaden tints. "Yet, fair youth, we are in King Charles' realm, and they say even the leaves of the trees have ears which carry all that is spoken to the King's own!"