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keep Ascanio out, adding: “This little peasant comes here to add to my great trouble; I entreat you, therefore, my lord, not to let him enter any more.” The castellan was much grieved, because he knew him to be a lad of marvellous talents; he was, moreover, so fair a person that every one who once set eyes on him seemed bound to love him beyond measure.
The boy went away weeping. That day he had with him a small scimitar, which it was at times his wont to carry hidden beneath his clothes. Leaving the castle then, and having his face wet with tears, he chanced to meet two of my chief enemies, Jeronimo the Perugian, [2] and a certain Michele, goldsmiths both of them. Michele, being Jeronimo’s friend and Ascanio’s enemy, called out: “What is Ascanio crying for? Perhaps his father is dead; I mean that father in the castle!” Ascanio answered on the instant: “He is alive, but you shall die this minute.” Then, raising his hand, he struck two blows with the scimitar, both at the fellow’s head; the first felled him to earth, the second lopped three fingers off his right hand, though it was aimed at his head. He lay there like a dead man. The matter was at once reported to the Pope, who cried in a great fury: “Since the King wants him to be tried, go and give him three days to prepare his defence!” So they came, and executed the commission which the Pope had given them.
The excellent castellan went off upon the spot to his Holiness, and informed him that I was no accomplice in the matter, and that I had sent Ascanio about his business. So ably did he plead my cause that he saved my life from this impending tempest. Ascanio meanwhile escaped to Tagliacozzo, to his home there, whence he wrote begging a thousand times my pardon, and acknowledging his wrong in adding troubles to my grave disaster; but protesting that if through God’s grace I came out from the prison, he meant never to abandon me. I let him understand that he must mind his art