As I passed him by a sudden movement he jostled me.  Oh, of course, the thing was deliberate.  And he flamed at me while his hand dropped to his rapier.

“Faith,” thought I, “the gray old man has many and strange tools,” while to the cockerel I bowed and murmured, “Your pardon for my clumsiness.  The fault was mine.  Your pardon, Villehardouin.”

But he was not to be appeased thus easily.  And while he fumed and strutted I glimpsed Robert Lanfranc, beckoned him to us, and explained the happening.

“Sainte-Maure has accorded you satisfaction,” was his judgment.  “He has prayed your pardon.”

“In truth, yes,” I interrupted in my suavest tones.  “And I pray your pardon again, Villehardouin, for my very great clumsiness.  I pray your pardon a thousand times.  The fault was mine, though unintentioned.  In my haste to an engagement I was clumsy, most woful clumsy, but without intention.”

What could the dolt do but grudgingly accept the amends I so freely proffered him?  Yet I knew, as Lanfranc and I hastened on, that ere many days, or hours, the flame-headed youth would see to it that we measured steel together on the grass.

I explained no more to Lanfranc than my need of him, and he was little interested to pry deeper into the matter.  He was himself a lively youngster of no more than twenty, but he had been trained to arms, had fought in Spain, and had an honourable record on the grass.  Merely his black eyes flashed when he learned what was toward, and such was his eagerness that it was he who gathered Henry Bohemond in to our number.

When the three of us arrived in the open space beyond the fish-pond Fortini and two friends were already waiting us.  One was Felix Pasquini, nephew to the Cardinal of that name, and as close in his uncle’s confidence as was his uncle close in the confidence of the gray old man.  The other was Raoul de Goncourt, whose presence surprised me, he being too good and noble a man for the company he kept.

We saluted properly, and properly went about the business.  It was nothing new to any of us.  The footing was good, as promised.  There was no dew.  The moon shone fair, and Fortini’s blade and mine were out and at earnest play.

This I knew:  good swordsman as they reckoned me in France, Fortini was a better.  This, too, I knew:  that I carried my lady’s heart with me this night, and that this night, because of me, there would be one Italian less in the world.  I say I knew it.  In my mind the issue could not be in doubt.  And as our rapiers played I pondered the manner I should kill him.  I was not minded for a long contest.  Quick and brilliant had always been my way.  And further, what of my past gay months of carousal and of singing “Sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu,” at ungodly hours, I knew I was not conditioned for a long contest.  Quick and brilliant was my decision.

But quick and brilliant was a difficult matter with so consummate a swordsman as Fortini opposed to me.  Besides, as luck would have it, Fortini, always the cold one, always the tireless-wristed, always sure and long, as report had it, in going about such business, on this night elected, too, the quick and brilliant.