“A plan may meet with disaster, even where every precaution has been taken.  We did the best we could, and if the men we had paid for the protection of the flotilla had not, with base cowardice, deserted their posts, these barges would have reached Cologne.”

“Never!  The defenders you chose were riff-raff, picked up in the gutters of Frankfort, and you actually supposed such cattle, undisciplined and untrained, would stand up against the fearless fighters of the Barons, swashbucklers, hardened to the use of sword and pike.  What else was to be expected?  The goods were not theirs, but yours.  They had received their pay, and so speedily took themselves out of danger.”

“You forget, sir, or you do not know, that several hundred of them were cut to pieces.”

“I know that, also, but the knowledge does not in the least nullify my contention.  I am merely endeavoring to show you that the heads you spoke of a moment ago were only older, but not necessarily wiser than mine.  It would be impossible for me to devise an expedition so preposterous.”

“What should we have done?”

“For one thing, you should have gone yourselves, and defended your own bales.”

The merchant showed visible signs of a slowly rising anger, and had the young man’s head contained the wisdom he appeared to claim for it, he would have known that his remarks were entirely lacking in tact, and that he was making no progress, but rather the reverse.  “You speak like a heedless, untutored youth.  How could we defend our bales, when no merchant is allowed to wear a sword?”

Roland rose and put his hands to the throat of his cloak.

“I am not allowed to wear a sword;” and saying this, he dramatically flung wide his cloak, displaying the prohibited weapon hanging from his belt.  The merchant sat back in his chair, visibly impressed.

“You seem to repose great confidence in me,” he said.  “What if I were to inform the authorities?”

The youth smiled.

“You forget, Herr Goebel, that I learned much about you from your friend last night.  I feel quite safe in your house.”

He flung his cloak once more over the weapon, and sat down again.

“What is your occupation, sir?” asked the merchant.

“I am a teacher of swordsmanship.  I practice the art of a fencing-master.”

“Your clients are aristocrats, then?”

“Not so.  The class with which I am now engaged contains twenty skilled artisans of about my own age.”

“If they do not belong to the aristocracy, your instruction must be surreptitious, because it is against the law.”

“It is both surreptitious and against the law, but in spite of these disadvantages, my twenty pupils are the best swordsmen in Frankfort, and I would willingly pit them against any twenty nobles with whom I am acquainted.”

“So!” cried the merchant.  “You are acquainted with twenty nobles, are you?”