We slept in Piacenza that night, in a big house in the street that leads to the Church of San Lazzaro, and there was a company of perhaps a dozen assembled there, the principals being the brothers Pallavicini of Cortemaggiore, who had been among the first to feel the iron hand of Pier Luigi; there were also present Agostino Landi, and the head of the house of Confalonieri.
We sat after supper about a long table of smooth brown oak, which reflected as in a pool the beakers and flagons with which it was charged, when suddenly Galeotto spun a coin upon the middle of it. It fell flat presently, showing the ducal arms and the inscription of which the abbreviation PLAC was a part.
Galeotto set his finger to it. “A year ago I warned him,” said he, “that his fate was written there in that shortened word. To-morrow I shall read the riddle for him.”
I did not understand the allusion and said so.
“Why,” he explained, not only to me but to others whose brows had also been knit, “first 'Plac' stands for Placentia where he will meet his doom; and then it contains the initials of the four chief movers in this undertaking—Pallavicini, Landi, Anguissola, and Confalonieri.”
“You force the omen to come true when you give me a leader's rank in this affair,” said I.
He smiled but did not answer, and returned the coin to his pocket.
And now the happening that is to be related is to be found elsewhere, for it is a matter of which many men have written in different ways, according to their feelings or to the hand that hired them to the writing.
Soon after dawn Galeotto quitted us, each of us instructed how to act.
Later in the morning, as I was on my way to the castle, where we were to assemble at noon, I saw Galeotto riding through the streets at the Duke's side. He had been beyond the gates with Pier Luigi on an inspection of the new fortress that was building. It appeared that once more there was talk between the Duke and Galeotto of the latter's taking service under him, and Galeotto made use of this circumstance to forward his plans. He was, I think, the most self-contained and patient man that it would have been possible to find for such an undertaking.