He came in supported by two of his Swiss, and closely followed by Stoffel. His armour had been removed, and the right sleeve of his leather haqueton, as of the silken tunic and shirt beneath, had been ripped up, and now hung empty at his side, whilst his breast bulged where his arm was strapped to his body. He was very pale and obviously weak and in pain.
Valeria came to her feet at sight of him thus, and her face was whiter than his own.
'You are wounded, my lord!'
He smiled, rather whimsically. 'It sometimes happens when men go to battle. But I think my Lord Theodore here has taken the deeper hurt.'
Stoffel pushed forward a chair, and the Swiss carefully lowered Bellarion to it. He sighed in relief, and leaned forward so as to avoid contact with the back.
'One of your knights, my lord, broke my shoulder in the last charge.'
'I would he had broken your neck.'
'That was the intention.' Bellarion's pale lips smiled. 'But I am known as Bellarion the Fortunate.'
'Just now my lord had another name for you,' said Valeria, and Bellarion, observing the set of her lips and the scorn in her glance as it flickered over Theodore, marvelled at the power of hate in one naturally so gracious. He had had a taste of it, himself, he remembered, and perhaps she was but passing on to Theodore what rightly had belonged to him throughout. 'He is a rash man,' she continued, 'who will not trouble to conciliate the arbiter of his fate. My Lord Theodore has lost his guile, I think, together with the rest.'
'Aye,' said Bellarion, 'we have stripped him of all save his life. Even his mask of benignity is gone.'