'I do not. Nor will the circumstances. I am a robber, it is said. I spend a week in Messer Barbaresco's house. On any night of that week I was alone with him, save only for his decrepit old servant. Yet it is pretended that I chose as the occasion for robbing him a night on which seven able-bodied friends are with him. Your potency must see that the facts are mocked by likelihood.'
His potency saw this, as did all present. They saw more. This young man's speech and manner were those of the scholar he proclaimed himself rather than of the robber he was represented.
The justiciary leaned forward, combing his short pointed beard.
'What, then, do you say took place? Let us hear you.'
'Is it not within the forms of law that we should first hear my accuser—this Messer Barbaresco?' Bellarion's bold dark eyes raked the court, seeking the stout person of his late host.
The Podestà smiled a little, and his smile was not quite nice.
'Ah, you know the law? Trust a rogue to know the law.'
'Which is to make a rogue of every lawyer in the land,' said Bellarion, and was rewarded by a titter from the crowd, pleased with a sarcasm that contained more truth than he suspected. 'I know the law as I know divinity and rhetoric and other things. Because I have studied it.'
'Maybe,' said the Podestà grimly. 'But not as closely as you are to study it now.' Messer de' Ferraris, too, could deal in sarcasm.
An officer with excitement spread upon his face came bustling into the court. But paused upon perceiving that the justiciary was speaking.