I set it down as it was told to me later by those who bore their share in
it, and particularly by Falcone, who, as you shall learn, came to be a
witness of all, and retailed to me the affair with the greatest detail of
what this one said and how that one looked.
I reached Rome on the fourth day after my setting out with my grim escort,
and on that same day, at much the same hour as that in which the door of my
dungeon in Sant' Angelo closed upon me, Galeotto rode into the courtyard of
Pagliano on his return from his treasonable journey.
He was attended only by Falcone, and it so chanced that his arrival was
witnessed by Farnese, who with various members of his suite was lounging in
the gallery at the time.
Surprise was mutual at the encounter; for Galeotto had known nothing of the
Duke's sojourn at Pagliano, believing him to be still at Parma, whilst the
Duke as little suspected that of the five score men-at-arms garrisoned in
Pagliano, three score lances were of Galeotto's free company.
But at sight of this condottiero, whose true aims he was far from
suspecting, and whose services he was eager to enlist, the Duke heaved
himself up from his seat and went down the staircase shouting greetings to
the soldier, and playfully calling him Galeotto in its double sense, and
craving to know where he had been hiding himself this while.
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