“And your life?” wondered his uncle. “Has that ceased to be of value?”
“Without honour it is nothing.”
“A noble sentiment taught in every school. But for practical purposes—” The Cardinal shrugged.
Giovanni, however, paid no heed.
“Did you think, my lord, that I should tamely submit to be a derided, outcast husband, that I should take no vengeance upon, that villainous Pope for having made me a thing of scorn, a byword throughout Italy?” Livid hate writhed in his fair young face. “Did you think I should, indeed, remain in Pesaro, whither I fled before their threats to my life, and present no reckoning?”
“What is the reckoning you have in mind?” inquired his uncle, faintly ironical. “You'll not be intending to kill the Holy Father?”
“Kill him?” Giovanni laughed shortly, scornfully. “Do the dead suffer?”
“In hell, sometimes,” said the Cardinal.
“Perhaps. But I want to be sure. I want sufferings that I can witness, sufferings that I can employ as balsam for my own wounded honour. I shall strike, even as he has stricken me—at his soul, not at his body. I shall wound him where he is most sensitive.”
Ascanio Sforza, towering tall and slender in his scarlet robes, shook his head slowly.