“Way!” he shouted.  “Make way for the High and Mighty Lord of Pesaro!”

Thus I passed through, my half-shattered visor sufficiently closed still to conceal my face, and in this manner I gained the door of the eastern wing and dismounted.  Two or three attendants sprang forward, ready to go with me that they might assist me to disarm.  But I waved them imperiously back, and mounted the stairs alone.  Alone I crossed the ante-chamber, and tapped at the door of the Lord Giovanni’s closet.  Instantly it opened, for he had watched my return and been awaiting me.  Hastily he drew me in and closed the door.

He was flushed with excitement and trembling like a leaf.  Yet at the sight that I presented he lost some of his high colour, and recoiled to stare at my armour, battered, dinted, and splashed with browning stains, which loudly proclaimed the fray through which I had been.

He fell to praising my valour, to speaking of the great service I had rendered him, and of the gratitude that he would ever entertain for me, all in terms of a fawning, cloying sweetness that disgusted me more than ever his cruelties had done.  I took off my helmet whilst he spoke, and let it fall with a crash.  The face I revealed to him was livid with fatigue, and blackened with the dust that had caked upon my sweat.  He came forward again and helped hastily to strip off my harness, and when that was done he fetched a great silver basin and a ewer of embossed gold from which he poured me fragrant rose-water that I might wash.  Macerated sweet herbs he found me, lupin meal and glasswort, the better that I might cleanse myself; and when, at last, I was refreshed by my ablutions, he poured me a goblet of a full-bodied golden wine that seemed to infuse fresh life into my veins.  And all the time he spoke of the prowess I had shown, and lamented that all these years he should have had me at his Court and never guessed my worth.

At length I turned to resume my clothes.  And since it must excite comment and perhaps arouse suspicion were I to appear in any but my jester’s garish livery, I once more assumed my foliated cape, my cap and bells.

“Wear it yet for a little while,” he said, “and thus complete the service you have done me.  Presently you may doff it for all time, and resume your true estate.  Biancomonte, as I promised you, shall be yours again.  The Lord of Pesaro does not betray his word.”

I smiled grimly at the pride of his utterance.

“It is an easy thing,” said I, “freely to give that which is no longer ours.”

He coloured with the anger that was ever ready.

“What shall that mean?” he asked.

“Why, that in a few days you will have Cesare Borgia here, and you will be Lord of Pesaro no more.  I have saved your honour for you.  More than that it were idle to attempt.”

“Think not that I shall submit,” he cried.  “I shall find in Italy the help I need to return and drive the usurper out.  You must have faith in that, yourself, else had you never bargained with me as you have done for the return of your Estates.”