'Yet I do not believe him guilty,' the young Marquis startled them, 'and I will be no party to the death of an innocent man.'
'Would any of us?' Carmagnola asked him. 'Is there any room for doubt? The letter ...'
'The letter,' the boy interrupted hotly, 'is, as Bellarion says, a trick of my uncle's to remove the one enemy he fears.'
That touched Carmagnola's vanity with wounding effect. He dissembled the hurt. But it served to strengthen his purpose.
'That vain boaster has seduced you with his argument, eh?'
'No; not with his argument, but with his conduct. He could have challenged me to trial by combat, as he showed. What am I to stand against him? A thing of straw. Yet he declined. Was that the action of a trickster?'
'It was,' Carmagnola answered emphatically. 'It was a trick to win you over. For he knew, as we all know, that a sovereign prince does not lie under that law of chivalry. He knew that if he had demanded it, you would have been within your right in appointing a deputy.'
'Why, then, did you not say so at the time?' the Princess asked him.
'Because he did not press the matter. Oh, madonna, believe me there is no man in Italy who less desires to have Bellarion's blood on his hands than I.' He spoke sorrowfully, heavily. 'But my duty is clear, and whether it were clear or not, I must be governed by the voice of these captains, all of whom demand, and rightly, this double-dealing traitor's death.'
Emphatically the captains confirmed him in the assertion, as emphatically Gian Giacomo repeated that he would be no party to it.