“Read!” he bade me again, with a fierce gesture. And accounting him well warned by now, I read with confidence.
It was a papal brief ordering me under pain of excommunication and death to make surrender to Cosimo d'Anguissola of the Castle of Pagliano which I traitorously held, and of the person of his wife, Madonna Bianca.
“This document is not exact,” said I. “I do not hold this castle traitorously. It is an Imperial fief, and I hold it in the Emperor's name.”
He smiled. “Persist if you are weary of life,” he said. “Surrender now, and you are free to depart and go wheresoever you list. Continue in your offence, and the consequences shall daunt you ere all is done. This Imperial fief belongs to me, and it is for me, who am Lord of Pagliano by virtue of my marriage and the late lord's death, to hold it for the Emperor.
“And you are not to doubt that when this brief is laid before the Emperor's Lieutenant at Milan, he will move instantly against you to cast you out and to invest me in those rights which are mine by God's law and man's alike.”
My answer may, at first, have seemed hardly to the point. I held out the brief to him.
“To seek the Emperor's Lieutenant you need not go as far as Milan. You will find him in Piacenza.”
He looked at me, as if he did not understand. “How?” he asked.
I explained. “While you have been cooling your heels in the ante-chambers of the Vatican to obtain this endorsement of your infamy, the world hereabouts has moved a little. Yesterday Ferrante Gonzaga took possession of Piacenza in the Emperor's name. To-day the Council will be swearing fealty to Caesar upon his Lieutenant's hands.”
He stared at me for a long moment, speechless in his utter amazement. Then he swallowed hard.