be obtained. The victuals he had already provided for, whilst of arms he
had no need to think; Roccaleone should be well stocked with them. But
the finding of the men gave him some concern. He had decided to enrol a
score, which was surely the smallest number with which he could make a
fair show of being martially in earnest. But even though the number
was modest, where was he to find twenty fellows who reeked so little
of their lives as to embark upon such an enterprise--even if lured by
generous pay--and thereby incur the ducal displeasure of Guidobaido?

He dressed himself with sober rigour for once in his foppish life, and
descended, after night had fallen, to a tavern in a poor street behind
the Duomo, hoping that there, among the dregs of wine, he might find
what he required.

By great good fortune he chanced upon an old freebooting captain, who
once had been a meaner sort of condottiero, but who was sorely reduced
by bad fortune and bad wine.

The tavern was a dingy, cut-throat place, which the delicate Gonzaga
had not entered without a tremor, invoking the saints' protection, and
crossing himself ere he set foot across the threshold. Some pieces of
goat were being cooked on the embers, in a great fireplace at the end
of the room farthest from the door. Before this, Ser Luciano--the
taverner--squatted on his heels and fanned so diligently that a cloud
of ashes rose ceiling high and spread itself, together with the noisome
smoke, throughout the squalid chamber. A brass lamp swung from the
ceiling, and shone freely through that smoke, as shines the moon through
an evening mist. So foully stank the place that at first Gonzaga was
moved to get him thence. Only the reflection that nowhere in Urbino was
he as likely as here to find the thing he sought, impelled him to stifle
his natural squeamishness and remain. He slipped upon some grease, and
barely saved himself from measuring his length upon that filthy floor,
a matter which provoked a malicious guffaw from a tattered giant who
watched with interest his mincing advent.

Perspiring, and with nerves unstrung, the courtier picked his way to a
table by the wall, and seated himself upon the coarse deal bench before
it, praying that he might be left its sole occupant.

On the opposite wall hung a blackened crucifix and a small holy-water
stoup that had been dry for a generation, and was now a receptacle for
dust and a withered sprig of rosemary. Immediately beneath