if he had got the thing
by heart, Cosimo recited his accusation: How he had married Bianca
de' Cavalcanti by her father's consent in her father's own Castle of
Pagliano; how that same night his palace in Piacenza had been violently
invested by myself and others abetting me, and how we had carried off
his bride and burnt his palace to the ground; how I had since held her
from him, shut up in the Castle of Pagliano, which was his fief in his
quality as her husband; and how similarly I had unlawfully held Pagliano
against him to his hurt.

Finally he reminded the Court that he had appealed to the Pope, who had
issued a brief commanding me, under pain of excommunication and death,
to make surrender; that I had flouted the Pontifical authority, and that
it was only upon his appeal to Caesar and upon the Imperial mandate
that I had surrendered. Wherefore he begged the Court to uphold the Holy
Father's authority, and forthwith to pronounce me excommunicate and
my life forfeit, restoring to him his wife Bianca and his domain of
Pagliano, which he would hold as the Emperor's liege and loyal servitor.

Having spoken thus, he bowed to the Court, stepped back, and sat down.

The Ten looked at Gonzaga. Gonzaga looked at me.

"Have you anything to say?" he asked.

I rose imbued by a calm that surprised me.

"Messer Cosimo has left something out of his narrative," said I. "When
he says that I violently invested his palace here in Piacenza on the
night of his marriage, and dragged thence the Lady Bianca, others
abetting me, he would do well to add in the interests of justice, the
names of those who were my abettors."

Cosimo rose again. "Does it matter to this Court and to the affair at
issue what caitiffs he employed?" he asked haughtily.

"If they were caitiffs it would not matter," said I. "But they were not.
Indeed, to say that it was I who invested his palace is to say too much.
The leader of that expedition was Monna Bianca's own father, who, having
discovered the truth of the nefarious traffic in which Messer Cosimo was
engaged, hastened to rescue his daughter from an infamy."

Cosimo shrugged. "These are mere words," he said.

"The lady herself is present, and can bear witness to their truth," I
cried.

"A prejudiced witness, indeed!" said Cosimo with confidence; and Gonzaga
nodded, whereupon my heart sank.

"Will Messer Agostino give us the names of any of the braves who were
with him?" quoth Cosimo. "It will no