As we rode out from the Citadel of Cesena, we saw the last of Ramiro del’ Orca. Beyond the gates, in the centre of the public square, a block stood planted in the snow. On the side nearer the castle there was a dark mass over which a rich mantle had been thrown; it was of purple colour, and in the uncertain light it was not easy to tell where the cloak ended, and the stain that embrued the snow began. On the other side of the block a decapitated head stood mounted on an upright pike, and the sightless eyes of Ramiro del’ Orca looked from his grinning face upon the town of Cesena, which he had so wantonly misruled. Madonna shuddered and turned her head aside as we rode past that dread emblem of the Borgia justice. To efface from her mind the memory of such a thing on such a day, I talked to her, as we cantered out into the country, of the life to come, of the mother that waited to welcome us, and of the glad tidings with which we were to rejoice her on that Christmas day. There is no moral to my story. I may not end with one of those graceful admonitions beloved of Messer Boccacci to whom in my jester’s days I owed so much. Not mine is it to say with him “Wherefore, gentle ladies”—or “noble sirs—beware of this, avoid that other thing.” Mine is a plain tale, written in the belief that some account of those old happenings that befell me may offer you some measure of entertainment, and written, too, in the support of certain truths which my contemporaries have been shamefully inclined and simoniacally induced to suppress. Many chroniclers set forth how the Lord Vitellozzo Vitelli and his associates were barbarously strangled by Cesare’s orders at Sinigaglia, and wilfully—for I cannot believe that it results from ignorance—are they silent touching the reason, leaving you to imagine that it was done in obedience to a ruthlessness of character beyond parallel, so that you may come to consider Cesare Borgia as black as they were paid to paint him. To confute them do I set down these facts of which my knowledge cannot be called in question, and also that you may know the true story of Paola di Santafior—and more particularly that part of it which lies beyond the death she did not die. The sun of that Christmas day was setting as we drew near to Biancomonte and the humble dwelling of my old mother. We fell into talk of her once more. Suddenly Paola turned in her saddle to confront me. “Tell me, Lord of Biancomonte, will she love me a little, think you?” she asked, to plague me. “Who would not love you, Lady of Biancomonte?” counter-questioned I.