'My price, highness? What does your highness conceive I have to sell?'
'A little patience with his magnificence, my lord,' della Torre begged.
'I thought I was displaying it,' said Facino. 'Otherwise it might be very bad for everybody.' He was really growing angry.
And now the idiot Duke must needs go prodding him into fury.
'What's that? Do you threaten me? Why, here's an insolent dog!'
Facino turned livid with passion. A tall fellow among his captains, very noble-looking in cloth of silver under a blue houppelande, laughed aloud. The pale, bulging eyes of Gian Maria sought him out venomously.
'You laugh, knave?' he snarled, and came to his feet, outraged by the indignity. 'What is here for laughter?'
Bellarion laughed again as he answered: 'Yourself, Lord Duke, who in yourself are nothing. You are Duke of Milan at present by the grace of God and the favour of Facino Cane. Yet you do not hesitate to offend against both.'
'Quiet, Bellarion,' Facino growled. 'I need no advocate.'
'Bellarion!' the Duke echoed, glaring malevolently. 'I remember you, and remember you I shall. You shall be taught ...'