There, to the general disappointment, ended for the moment the odd affair of Bellarion Cane, which in the disclosures it foreshadowed had promised such unusual entertainment.
The Regent remained in court after Bellarion's removal, lest it be supposed that his interest in the administration of justice had been confined to that case alone. But Messer Aliprandi withdrew, as did most of those others who came from the palace, and amongst them, pale and troubled, went the Princess Valeria. To Dionara she vented something of her dismay and anger.
'A thief, a spy, a murderer,' she said. 'And I trusted him that he might ruin all my hopes. I have the wages of a fool.'
'But if he were what he claims to be?' Monna Dionara asked her.
'Would that make him any less what he is? He was sent to spy on me, that he might discover what was plotting. My heart told me so. Yet to the end I heeded rather his own false tongue.'
'But if he were a spy, why should he have urged you to break off relations with these plotters?'
'So that he might draw from me a fuller revelation of my intentions. It was he who murdered Spigno; Spigno the shrewdest, the most loyal and trustworthy of them all. Spigno upon whom I depended to curb their recklessness and yet to give them audacity in season. And this vile creature of my uncle's has murdered him.' Her eyes were heavy with unshed tears.
'But if so, why was he arrested?'
'An accident. That was not in the reckoning. I went to see how they would deal with that. And I saw.'
Madonna Dionara's vision, however, was less clear, or else clearer.