“Now, for all that you deserve a hanging for your insolence, I am willing that you should come by no hurt so that you answer truthfully such questions as I have for you.”
Peppino's grotesque figure was doubled in a bow.
“I await your questions, glorious lord,” he answered.
“You spoke——” the Duke hesitated a moment, writhing inwardly at the memory of the exact words in which the fool had spoken. “You spoke this morning of one whom the Lady Valentina had met.”
The fear seemed to increase on the jester's face. “Yes,” he answered, in a choking voice.
“Where did she meet this knight you spoke of, and in such wondrous words of praise described to me?”
“In the woods at Acquasparta, where the river Metauro is no better than a brook. Some two leagues this side of Sant' Angelo.”
“Sant' Angelo!” echoed Gian Maria, starting at the very mention of the place where the late conspiracy against him had been hatched. “And when was this?”
“On the Wednesday before Easter, as Monna Valentina was journeying from Santa Sofia to Urbino.”
No word spake the Duke in answer. He stood still, his head bowed, and his thoughts running again on that conspiracy. The mountain fight in which Masuccio had been killed had taken place on the Tuesday night, and the conviction—scant though the evidence might be—grew upon him that this man was one of the conspirators who had escaped.