“As God hears me, cavalier, they are his twin children, born in the convent of Santa Maria di Fosciandora, in the valley of the Serchio, some leagues to the north of Florence; and on the feast-day of Saint Mark these sixteen years ago.”

“Then King Theodore either knew nothing of it, or he was a liar.”

“He was a liar, cavalier.”

“Stay a moment.  I have a mind to tell you the whole story as it came to me, and as I should have told it to the Prince Camillo, had he treated me with decent courtesy.”

Marc’antonio ceased blowing the fire and sitting back on his heels disposed himself to listen.  Very briefly I told him of my journey to London, my visit to the Fleet, and how I received the crown with Theodore’s blessing.

“That he denied having children I will not say:  but (I remember well) my father took it for granted that he had no children, and he said nothing to the contrary.  Indeed on any other assumption his gift of the crown to me would have been meaningless.”

Marc’antonio nodded, following my argument.  “But there is another difficulty,” I went on.  “My father, who does not lie, told me once that King Theodore returned to the island in the year ’thirty-nine, where he stayed but for a week; and that not until a year later did his queen escape across to Tuscany.”

But here Marc’antonio shook his head vigorously.  “Whoever told your father that, told him an untruth.  The Queen fled from Porto Vecchio in that same winter of ’thirty-nine, a few days before Christmas.  I myself steered the boat that carried her.”

“To be sure,” said I, “my father may have had his information from King Theodore.”

“The good sisters of the convent,” continued Marc’antonio, “received the Queen and did all that was necessary for her.  But among them must have been one who loved the Genoese or their gold:  for when the children were but ten days old they vanished, having been stolen and handed secretly to the Genoese—­yes, cavalier, out of the Queen’s own sleeping-chamber.  Little doubt had we they were dead—­for why should their enemies spare them?  And never should we have recovered trace of them but for the Father Domenico, who knew what had become of them (having learnt it, no doubt, among the sisters’ confessions, to receive which he visited the convent) and that they were alive and unharmed; but he kept the secret, for his oath’s sake, or else waiting for the time to ripen.”

“Then King Theodore may also have believed them dead,” I suggested.  “Let us do him that justice.  Or he may never have known that they existed.”

Marc’antonio brushed this aside with a wave of his hand.

“The cavalier,” he answered with dignity, “may have heard me allude to my travels?”

“Once or twice.”

“The first time that I crossed the Alps”—­great Hannibal might have envied the roll in Marc’antonio’s voice—­“I bore the King tidings of his good fortune.  It was Stephanu who followed, a week later, with the tale that the children were stolen.”