They were all under the pope's ban, outlaws with a price upon the head of
each, hunted and harried from State to State by the papal emissaries, so
that my father never more dared set foot in Mondolfo, or, indeed, within
the State of Piacenza, which had been rudely punished for the
insubordination it had permitted to be reared upon its soil.

And Mondolfo went near to suffering confiscation. Assuredly it would have
suffered it but for the influence exerted on my mother's and my own behalf
by her brother, the powerful Cardinal of San Paulo in Carcere, seconded by
that guelphic cousin of my father's, Cosimo d'Anguissola, who, after me,
was heir to Mondolfo, and had, therefore, good reason not to see it
confiscated to the Holy See.

Thus it fell out that we were left in peace and not made to suffer from my
father's rebellion. For that, he himself should suffer when taken. But
taken he never was. From time to time we had news of him. Now he was in
Venice, now in Milan, now in Naples; but never long in any place for his
safety's sake. And then one night, six years later, a scarred and grizzled
veteran, coming none knew whence, dropped from exhaustion in the courtyard
of our citadel, whither he had struggled. Some went to minister to him,
and amongst these there was a groom who recognized him.

"It is Messer Falcone!" he cried, and ran to bear the news to my mother,
with whom I was at table at the time. With us, too, was Fra Gervasio, our
chaplain.

It was grim news that old Falcone brought us. He had never quitted my
father in those six weary years of wandering until now that my father was
beyond the need of his or any other's service.