“Hasten!” he cried. “I was coming for you. Let us begone!”
Below, just within the main doors we found a pile of furniture set on a heap of straw.
“What is this?” I asked.
“You shall see,” he roared. “Get to horse.”
I hesitated a moment, then obeyed him, and took Bianca on the withers in front of me, my arm about her to support her.
Then he called to one of the men-at-arms who stood by with a flaring torch. He snatched the brand from his hand, and stabbed the straw with it in a dozen places, from each of which there leapt at once a tongue of flame. When, at last, he flung the torch into the heart of the pile, it was all a roaring, hissing, crackling blaze.
He stood back and laughed. “If there are any more of his brothel-mates in the house, they can escape as he did. They will be more fortunate than that one.” And he pointed up to the limp figure hanging from the balcony, so that I now learnt what already I have told you.
With my hand I screened Bianca's eyes. “Do not look,” I bade her.
I shuddered at the sight of that limply hanging body. And yet I reflected that it was just. Any man who could have lent his aid to the foul crime that was attempted there that night deserved this fate and worse.
Cavalcanti got to horse, and we rode down the street, bringing folk to their windows in alarm. Behind us the flames began to lick out from the ground floor of Cosimo's palace.