For one moment Giannotto thrilled with terror, but a covert glance at the Duke's face reassured him.
"I have this to give you, my lord," he began at once. "It was left in the Lady Isotta's prison."
"I know not, my lord," said Giannotto. "Luisa brought it, but dared not leave her post."
His own narrow escape of a moment since had tied up Giannotto's tongue.
"It will not be hard to discover," said Visconti. "Some one who did not bribe Luisa high enough."
"Mastino della Scala lives," he read again. He handed the parchment back to the secretary.
"Let the Lady Isotta have it," he said. "It may keep her alive. It looks to me that she may die, Giannotto, of the bad air and the confinement," and he smiled. "I would certainly not have her death. Give her the parchment." And he handed the parchment back, dismissing Giannotto with the gesture.
Clearly Visconti was in a mood that held neither comment nor reward, but one the secretary was glad to escape from so easily. With a deep obeisance he departed.
"Who bribes the woman to comfort Isotta d'Este? The soldiers are to be trusted," mused Visconti. "Once I know I will remember it."
He drew from his doublet the velvet gloves of turquoise hue and laid them on the table.
They were beautiful in their perfect workmanship, huge gauntlets fringed with pearl and gold, and tasseled at the points with rubies. On the back was a rich design also in pearl and gold, and they were lined with white satin, covered in fine silk lace.
Truly they were a work of art. Visconti raised them delicately by the tassels and looked long at their rich blue, admiringly, and with a curious expression.
In the council chamber of the Estes' summer palace at Ferrara were gathered the heads of the reigning families of Lombardy.
At a long table, set across one end of the apartment, two men were seated talking to one another in low voices. They were Ippolito d'Este and Giacomo Carrara, Duke of Padua. D'Este, a stern, gray-haired man of fifty or so, with keen eyes and a hard mouth, was talking rapidly, tapping the while his fingers nervously upon the table.
Carrara, florid, pleasant-mannered, with brilliant black eyes, black hair, and a ready smile, leaned forward and listened, observing him keenly. Opposite them, but the length of the table away, a lady with tired eyes and a patient mouth leaned back in her chair, motionless, watching the trees seen through the window.