'God give me patience with you, dear Saint Thomas!' said Bellarion, sighing. 'I went to court because the argument I foresaw with the Princess was hardly one to be conducted furtively behind a hedge. It threatened to be protracted. Besides, for furtive dealing, sirs, bold and open approaches are best when they are possible. They were possible to me. It happens, sirs, that I am indeed the adoptive son of Facino Cane, and I perceived how I might use that identity to present myself at court and there move freely.'
A dozen questions rained upon him. He answered them all in a phrase.
'The Ambassador of Milan, Messer Aliprandi, was there to sponsor me.'
There was a silence, broken at last by Barbaresco. 'Aliprandi may have been your sponsor there. He cannot be your sponsor here, and you know it.'
'Aye,' growled white-haired Lungo. 'An impudent tale!'
'And a lame one,' added Casella. 'If you had this means of going to court, why did you wait so long to seize it?'
'Other ways were open on former occasions. You forget that Madonna Valeria was not expecting me; the garden-gate would not be ajar. And I could not this time go as a painter, which was the disguise I adopted on the last occasion. Besides, it is too expensive. It cost me five ducats.'
Again their questions came together, for it was the first they had heard of the disguise which he had used. He told them at last the story. And he saw that it pleased them.
'Why did you not tell us this before?' quoth one.
Bellarion shrugged. 'Is it important? So that I was your Mercury, did it matter in what shape I went? Why should I trouble you with trivial things? Besides, let me remind you—since you can't perceive it for yourselves—that if I had betrayed you to the Marquis Theodore, the Captain of Justice would now be here in my place.'