For three days I had been cooling my heels about the Vatican, vexed by suspense. It fretted me that I should have been so lightly dealt with after I had discharged the mission that had brought me all the way from Pesaro, and I wondered how long it might be ere his Most Illustrious Excellency the Cardinal of Valencia might see fit to offer me the honourable employment with which Madonna Lucrezia had promised me that he would reward the service I had rendered the House of Borgia by my journey. Three days were sped, yet nought had happened to signify that things would shape the course by me so ardently desired; that the means would be afforded me of mending my miserable ways, and repairing the wreck my life had suffered on the shoals of Fate. True, I had been housed and fed, and the comforts of indolence had been mine; but, for the rest, I was still clothed in the livery of folly which I had worn on my arrival, and, wherever I might roam, there followed ever at my heels a crowd of underlings, seeking to have their tedium lightened by jests and capers, and voting me--when their hopes proved barren--the sorriest Fool that had ever worn the motley.
Author Biography
Rafael Sabatini (1875 - 1950) was an Italian/English writer of novels of romance and adventure. He is best known for his worldwide bestsellers: The Sea Hawk (1915), Scaramouche (1921) (Sabatini wrote a sequel ten years later: Scaramouche the Kingmaker (1931)), Captain Blood (1922) and Bellarion the Fortunate (1926). In all, Sabatini produced 31 novels, eight short story collections, six non-fiction books, numerous uncollected short stories and several plays.
