He affected to miss the sarcasm. 'Your highness would have done me wrong if you had left that out.'
Valeria alone did not smile at that. Her brown eyes were hard as they held his gaze.
'It was Messer Carmagnola, they tell me, who led the charge into the city. That is a gallant knight, ever to be found where knocks are to be taken.'
'True,' said Bellarion. 'It's all he's fit for. An ox of a man.'
'That is your view of a straightforward, honest fighter?'
'Perhaps I am prejudiced in favour of the weapon of intelligence.'
She leaned forward a little to dispute with him. All were interested and only Theodore uneasy.
'It is surely necessary even in the lists. I remember at a tournament in Milan the valour and address of this knight Carmagnola. He bore off the palm that day. But, then, you were not present. You had a fever, or was it an ague?'
'Most likely an ague; I always shiver at the thought of a personal encounter.'
The Regent led the laugh, and now even Valeria smiled, but it was a smile of purest scorn.