'It asks courage. Which shows that whilst afraid I am not a coward. Life is full of paradox, I find.'
Stoffel laughed. 'No need to protest your courage to me. I remember Travo.'
'There I had a chance to succeed. Here I have none. And who accepts such odds is not a brave man, but a fool. I don't like broken bones; and still less a broken reputation. I mean to keep what I've won against the day when I may need it. Reputation, Stoffel, is a delicate bubble, easily pricked. To be unhorsed in the lists is no proper fate for a hero.'
'You're a calculating rogue!'
'That is the difference between me and Carmagnola, who is just a superior man-at-arms. Each to his trade, Werner, and mine isn't of the tilt-yard, however many knighthoods they bestow on me. Which is why to-morrow I shall have the fever.'
This resolve, however, went near to shipwreck that same evening.
In the Hall of Galeazzo the Duke gave audience, which was to be followed by a banquet. Bidden to this came the new knight Bellarion, trailing a splendid houppelande of sapphire velvet edged with miniver that was caught about his waist by a girdle of hammered silver. He had dressed himself with studied care in the azure and argent of his new blazon. His tunic, displayed at the breast, where the houppelande fell carelessly open, and at the arms which protruded to the elbow from the wide short sleeves of his upper garment, was of cloth of silver, whilst his hose was in broad vertical stripes of alternating blue and white. Even his thick black hair was held in a caul of fine silver thread that was studded with sapphires.
Imposingly tall, his youthful lankness dissembled by his dress, he drew the eyes of the court as he advanced to pay homage to the Duke.
Thereafter he was held awhile in friendly talk by della Torre and the Archbishop. It was in escaping at last from these that he found himself suddenly looking into the solemn eyes of the Princess Valeria, of whose presence in Milan this was his first intimation.
She stood a little apart from the main throng under the fretted minstrel's gallery, at the end of the long hall, with the handsome Monna Dionara for only companion.