"
For an instant I almost thought that he would take me at my word, as most
fervently I hoped. But he restrained himself.
"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.
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