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Love-at-Arms by Rafael Sabatini
page 92 of 322 (28%)

"Learn, sir," he announced, "that I am Captain Ercole Fortemani. I held
that rank in the army of the Pope. I have served the Pisans and the
noble Baglioni of Perugia with honour and distinction. I have commanded
a hundred lances of Gianinoni's famous free-company. I have fought with
the French against the Spaniards, and with the Spaniards against the
French, and I have served the Borgia, who is plotting against both. I
have trailed a pike in the emperor's following, and I have held the rank
of captain, too, in the army of the King of Naples. Now, young sir, you
have learned something of me, and if my name is not written in letters of
fire from one end of Italy to the other, it is--Body of God!--because the
hands that hired me to the work garnered the glory of my deeds."

"A noble record," said Gonzaga, who had credulously absorbed that
catalogue of lies, "a very noble record."

"Not so," the other contradicted, for the lust of contradiction that was
a part of him. "A great record, if you will, to commend me to hireling
service. But you may not call the service of a hireling noble."

"It is a matter we will not quarrel over," said Gonzaga soothingly. The
man's ferocity was terrific.

"Who says that we shall not?" he demanded. "Who will baulk me if I have
a mind to quarrel over it? Answer me!" and he half rose from his seat,
moved by the anger into which he was lashing himself. "But patience!" he
broke off, subsiding on a sudden. "I take it, it was not out of regard
for my fine eyes, nor drawn by the elegance of my apparel"--and he raised
a corner of his tattered cloak--" nor yet because you wish to throw a
main with me, that you have sought my acquaintance, and called for this
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