“Noble Cattrina, you have heard the story of the English knight.  What do you answer to it?”

“Only that it is a lie, Illustrious, like everything else that he has told us,” replied Acour with a shrug of his broad shoulders.

“You said that you had a witness, Cavalier de Cressi,” said the Doge.  “Where is he?”

“Here,” answered Hugh.  “Stand forward, Dick, and tell what you saw.”

Dick obeyed, and in his low, rasping voice, with more detail than Hugh had given, set out the story of those two combats at Crecy, of the sparing of the wolf knight and the slaying of the swan knight.

“What say you now, noble Cattrina?” asked the Doge.

“I say that the man lies even better than his master,” answered Acour coolly, and all the Court laughed.

“Illustrious,” said Hugh, “doubtless you have some herald at your Court.  I pray that he may fetch his book and tell us what are the arms of de Noyon and Cattrina, with all their colourings and details.”

The Doge beckoned to an officer in a broidered tabard, who with bows, without needing to fetch any book, described the crest and arms of Cattrina in full particular.  He added that, to his knowledge, these were borne by no other family or man in Italy, France, or England.

“Then you would know them if you saw them?” said Hugh.

“Certainly, cavalier.  On it I stake my repute as a herald.”

Now while all wondered what this talk might mean, the Doge and Acour most of any, although the latter grew uneasy, fearing he knew not what, Hugh whispered to Dick.  Then Dick loosed the mouth of the leather sack he carried, and out of it tumbled on to the marble floor a whole suit of blood-stained armour.

“Whence came these?” asked Hugh of Dick.

“Off the body of the night, Sir Pierre de la Roche, whom you slew at Crecy.  I stripped him of them myself.”

“Whose crest and cognizance are these, herald?” asked Hugh again, lifting the helm and shield and holding them on high that all might see.

The herald stepped forward and examined them.

“Without doubt,” he said slowly, “they are those of the lord of Cattrina.  Moreover,” he added, “five years ago I limned yonder swan upon this very shield with my own hand.  I did it as a favour to Cattrina there, who said that he would trust the task to none but an artist.”

Now the silence grew intense, so much so that the rustle of a lady’s dress sounded loud in the great hall.

“What say you now, my lord of Cattrina?” asked the Doge.

“I say that there is some mistake, Illustrious.  Even if there were none,” he added slowly, “for their own good and lawful purposes knights have changed armour before to-day.”