“They wait in vain,” he snarled.  “Who cares for them?  The Lord of Pesaro am I.”

“Care you, then, nothing for them?  Will you have your name written in history as that of a coward who would not lift his sword to strike one blow for honour’s sake ere he was driven out like a beast by the mere sound of voices?”

That touched him.  His vanity rose in arms.

“Take up that corselet,” he commanded hoarsely.  I did his bidding, and, without a word, he raised his arms that I might fit it to his breast.  Yet in the instant that I turned me to pick up the back-piece, a crash resounded through the chamber.  He had hurled the breastplate to the ground in a fresh access of terror-rage.  He strode towards me, his eyes glittering like a madman’s.

“Go you!” he cried, and with outstretched arms he pointed wildly across the courtyard.  “You are very ready with your counsels.  Let me behold your deeds, Do you put on the armour and go out to fight those animals.”

He raved, he ranted, he scarce knew what he said or did, and yet the words he uttered sank deep into my heart, and a sudden, wild ambition swelled my bosom.

“Lord of Pesaro,” I cried, in a voice so compelling that it sobered him, “if I do this thing what shall be my reward?”

He stared at me stupidly for a moment.  Then he laughed in a silly, crackling fashion.

“Eh?” he queried.  “Gesu!” And he passed a hand over his damp brow, and threw back the hair that cumbered it.  “What is the thing that you would do, Fool?”

“Why, the thing you bade me,” I answered firmly.  “Put on your armour, and shut down the visor so that all shall think it is the Lord Giovanni, Tyrant of Pesaro, who rides.  If I do this thing, and put to rout the rabble and the fifty men that Cesare Borgia has sent, what shall be my reward?”

He watched me with twitching lips, his glare fixed upon me and a faint colour kindling in his face.  He saw how easy the thing might be.  Perhaps he recalled that he had heard that I was skilled in arms—­having spent my youth in the exercise of them, against the time when I might fling the challenge that had brought me to my Fool’s estate.  Maybe he recalled how I had borne myself against long odds on that adventure with Madonna Paola, years ago.  Just such a vanity as had spurred him to have me write him verses that he might pretend were of his own making, moved him now to grasp at my proposal.  They would all think that Giovanni’s armour contained Giovanni himself.  None would ever suspect Boccadoro the Fool within that shell of steel.  His honour would be vindicated, and he would not lose the esteem of Madonna Paola.  Indeed, if I returned covered with glory, that glory would be his; and if he elected to fly thereafter, he might do so without hurt to his fair name, for he would have amply proved his mettle and his courage.

In some such fashion I doubt not that the High and Mighty Giovanni Sforza reasoned during the seconds that we stood, face to face and eye to eye, in that room, the cries of the impatient ones below almost drowned in the roar of the multitude beyond.