“Let it be supplied him,” said Cesare coldly, and we all stood waiting while a servant filled him a cup. Ramiro gulped the wine avidly, never pausing until the goblet was empty.
“Now,” said Cesare, who had been watching him, “will it please you to answer my question?”
“My lord,” said Ramiro, revived and strengthened in spirit by the draught, “I must ask your Excellency to be a little plainer with me. To what conspiracy is it that you refer? I know of none. What is this letter which you say Vitelli wrote me? I take it you refer to the Lord of Citta di Castello. But I can recall no letters passing between us. My acquaintance with him is of the slightest.”
Cesare looked at him a second.
“Approach,” he curtly bade him, and Ramiro came forward, one of the Borgia halberdiers on either side of him, each holding him by an arm. The Duke thrust the letter under his eyes. “Have you never seen that before?”
Ramiro looked at it a moment, and his attempt at dissembling bewilderment was a ludicrous thing to witness.
“Never,” he said brazenly at last.
Cesare folded the letter and slipped it into the breast of his doublet. From his girdle he took a second paper. He turned from Ramiro.
“Don Miguel,” he called.
From behind his men-at-arms a tall man, all dressed in black, stood forward. It was Cesare’s Spanish captain, one whose name was as well known and as well-dreaded in Italy as Cesare’s own. The Duke held out to him the paper that he had produced.