" I besought her very humbly.
"My poor Agostino," was all she answered me, what time her fingers
fluttered gently over my sable hair.
Thereafter I shunned her for a whole week, and was never in her company
save at meals under the eyes of our attendants.
At last, one day in the early part of September, on the very anniversary of
her father's death--the eighth of that month it was, and a Thursday--came
Galeotto with a considerable company of men-at-arms; and that night he was
gay and blithe as I had never seen him in these twelve months past.
When we were alone, the cause of it, which already I suspected, at last
transpired.
"It is the hour," he said very pregnantly. "His sands are swiftly running
out. To-morrow, Agostino, you ride with me to Piacenza. Falcone shall
remain here to captain the men in case any attempt should be made upon
Pagliano, which is not likely."
And now he told us of the gay doings there had been in Piacenza for the
occasion of the visit of the Duke's son Ottavio--that same son-in-law of
the Emperor whom the latter befriended, yet not to the extent of giving him
the duchy in his father's place when that father should have gone to answer
for his sins.
Daily there had been jousts and tournaments and all manner of gaieties, for
which the Piacentini had been sweated until they could sweat no more.
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