Excerpt from A Jay of Italy

On a hot morning, in the year 1476 of poignant memory, there drew up before an osteria on the Millan road a fair cavalcade of travellers. These were Messer Carlo Lanti and his inamorata, together with a suite of tentmen, pages, falconers, bed-carriers, and other personnel of a migratory lord on his way from the cooling hills to the Indian summer of the plains. The chief of the little party, halting in advance of his fellows, lifted his plumed scarlet biretta with one strong young hand, and with the other, his reins hanging loose, ran a cluster of swarthy fingers through his black hair.

'O little host! he boomed, blaspheming for all good Catholics, conscious of their exclusive caste, swore by God prescriptively - 'O little host, by the thirst of Christs passion, wine!'

'He will bring you hyssop - by the token, he will, ' murmured the lady, who sat her white palfrey languidly beside him. She was a slumberous, ivory faced creature, warm and insolent and lazy, and the little bells of her bridle tinkled sleepily, as her horse pawed, gently rocking her.

The cavalier grunted ferociously. 'Let me see him! and, bonneting himself again, sat with right arm akimbo, glaring for a response to his cry.

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