'Giacomo, this is the Knight Bellarion Cane. He comes to us as the envoy of his illustrious father, the Count of Biandrate, for whose sake as for his own you will do him honour.' The youth looked at him languidly. 'Give you welcome, sir,' he said without enthusiasm, and wearily proffered his princely hand, which Bellarion dutifully kissed. The Princess made him a stiff, unsmiling inclination of her head in acknowledgment of his low bow. Fenestrella was jocosely familiar, Corsario absurdly dignified. It was an uncomfortable meal. Fenestrella, having recognized Bellarion for the prisoner in the Podestà's court a year ago, was beginning to recall the incident when the Regent headed him off, and swung the talk to the famous seizure of Alessandria, rehearsing the details of the affair: how Bellarion disguised as a muleteer had entered the besieged city, and how pretending himself next a captain of fortune he had proposed the _camisade_ in which subsequently he had trapped Vignate; and how thereafter with his own men in the shirts of the camisaders he had surprised the city. 'Trick upon trick,' said the Princess in a colourless voice, speaking now for the first time. 'Just that,' Bellarion agreed shamelessly. 'Surely something more,' Theodore protested. 'Never was stratagem more boldly conceived or more neatly executed. A great feat of leadership, Ser Bellarion, deserving the renown it has procured you.' 'And a hundred thousand florins,' said Valeria. So, they knew that, too, reflected Bellarion. Fenestrella laughed. 'You set a monstrous value on the Lord Vignate.' 'I hoped his people of Lodi, who had to find the gold, would afterwards ask themselves if it was worth while to retain a tyrant quite so costly.' 'Sir, I have done you wrong,' the Princess confessed. 'I judged you swayed by the thought of enriching yourself.' He affected to miss the sarcasm. 'Your highness would have done me wrong if you had left that out.' Valeria alone did not smile at that. Her brown eyes were hard as they held his gaze. 'It was Messer Carmagnola, they tell me, who led the charge into the city. That is a gallant knight, ever to be found where knocks are to be taken.' 'True,' said Bellarion. 'It's all he's fit for. An ox of a man.' 'That is your view of a straightforward, honest fighter?' 'Perhaps I am prejudiced in favour of the weapon of intelligence.' She leaned forward a little to dispute with him. All were interested and only Theodore uneasy. 'It is surely necessary even in the lists. I remember at a tournament in Milan the valour and address of this knight Carmagnola. He bore off the palm that day. But, then, you were not present. You had a fever, or was it an ague?' 'Most likely an ague; I always shiver at the thought of a personal encounter.' The Regent led the laugh, and now even Valeria smiled, but it was a smile of purest scorn. Bellarion remained solemn. 'Why do you laugh, sirs? It is no more than true.'