The celebratory lunch in the Falchi household goes on until nighttime. Baccino returns to the room drunk and with much to report. The cook, he says, prepared her specialty, blanc-mange—an amalgam of lard, chicken breasts, egg whites, rolled in flour and baked in a very hot oven—which went perfectly with the decades-old red wines they brought up from the cellar.
Even more than the food, the Falchi family savored the details of the execution that had been relayed to them. Ramiro the Ogre was dragged before the executioner in his best clothes and sumptuous cape. He was decapitated near the fortress. His clothes were divvied up between the soldiers present. All his possessions—thirty thousand ducats, vases, silverware, and horses—were confiscated.
The Falchi sons praised Valentino for his actions. Their father, who had been skeptical of the man in the past, has since changed his mind and also raised his glass in the duke’s honor, suggesting that perhaps even his own lands, which de Lorqua had appropriated, might now be restored to him.
The people in the farmhouse where Niccolò stopped for a meal also surely rejoiced at the news that Ramiro the Ogre had been executed. Maybe now they will receive some of the grain that he had stockpiled. Even a small quantity would restore hope to them: they could start farming again, and when the prince eventually asks their sons to go to war for him, they will willingly oblige.
An hour after sunset, Ardingo returns from Rimini. He heard about the execution of the governor along the way, which was met with praise all around, the people saying that de Lorqua was punished for the irreverence he showed to Lucrezia Borgia when, at the beginning of the year, she traveled from Romagna to Ferrara to be married to Ercole d’Este.
Why wait so long to punish someone? Niccolò wonders skeptically. The more he thinks about it, the less convinced he is that the governor was truly killed for his thieving ways. And this makes Tinardeschi’s swift departure even more suspicious. There must be a link between the execution, Vitelli, and the others. Where are those men now? And what about Valentino? How many soldiers does he have with him? Ardingo says that Borgia is on his way from Rimini to Pesaro. He has about a thousand men with him. Senigallia has fallen, Oliverotto’s troops broke through the city walls. Other condottieri will arrive soon. The fortress still stands but the castellan has announced that he’s ready to surrender, but only to Cesare in person.
That evening, around the same time that he held Dianora in his arms the night before, he shaves his beard carefully. It makes him feel close to her.