He asked me what I read, and when I had told him, a thin smile fluttered across his white face. “You choose your reading with rare judgment,” said he. “Read on, and prime your mind with fresh humour, prepare yourself with new conceits for our amusement against the time when health shall be more fully restored you.” It was in such words as these that he intimated to me that I was pardoned, and reinstated—as the Fool of the Court of Pesaro. That was to be the sum of his clemency. We were precisely where we had been. Once before had he granted me my life on condition that I should amuse him; he did no more than repeat that mercy now. I stared at him in wonder, open-mouthed, whereit he laughed. “You are agreeably surprised, my Boccadoro?” said he, his fingers straying to his beard as was his custom. “My clemency is no more than you deserve in return for the service you have rendered to the House of Sforza.” And he patted my head as though I had been one of his dogs that had borne itself bravely in the chase. I answered nothing. I sat there as if I had been a part of the stone from which my seat was hewn, for I lacked the strength to rise and strangle him as he deserved—moreover, I was bound by an oath, which it would have damned my soul to break, never to raise my hand against him. And then, before he could say more, two ladies issued from the doorway on my right. They were Madonna Lucrezia and Madonna Paola. Upon espying me they hastened forward with expressions of pleased surprise at seeing me risen and out, and when I would have got to my feet they stayed me as Giovanni had done. Madonna Paola’s words seemed addressed to heaven rather than to me, for they were words of thanksgiving for this recovery of my strength. “I have no thanks,” she ended warmly, “that can match the deeds by which you earned them, Messer Biancomonte.” My eyes drifting to Giovanni’s face surprised its sudden darkening. “Madonna Paola,” said he, in an icy voice, “you have uttered a name that must not be heard within my walls of Pesaro, if you would prove yourself the friend of Boccadoro. To remind me of his true identity is to remind me of that which counts not in his favour.” She turned to regard him, a mild surprise in her blue eyes. “But, my lord, you promised—” she began. “I promised,” he interposed, with an easy smile and manner never so deprecatory, “that I would pardon him, grant him his life and restore him to my favour.” “But did you not say that if he survived and was restored to strength you would then determine the course his life should take?” Still smiling, he produced his comfit-box, and raised the lid. “That is a thing he seems to have determined for himself,” he answered smoothly—he could be smooth as a cat upon occasion, could this bastard of Costanzo Sforza. “I came upon him here, arrayed as you behold him, and reading a book of Spanish quips. Is it not clear that he has chosen?”