"
"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.
In addition to the condottiero, a couple of gentlemen on horseback attended
the Duke, and half a score of his Swiss lanzknechte in gleaming corselets
and steel morions, shouldering their formidable pikes, went afoot to hedge
his excellency.
The people fell back before that little company; the citizens doffed their
caps with the respect that is begotten of fear, but their air was sullen
and in the main they were silent, though here and there some knave, with
the craven adulation of those born to serve at all costs, raised a feeble
shout of "Duca!"
The Duke moved slowly at little more than a walking pace, for he was all
crippled again by the disease that ravaged him, and his face, handsome in
itself, was now repulsive to behold; it was a livid background for the
fiery pustules that mottled it, and under the sunken eyes there were great
brown stains of suffering.
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