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It was well that he did so, for at that moment the grinding sounds became quite perceptible, waxed louder, and then like lightning from a cloud, a row of curved swordblades shot out of slots in the stone-work which the men had not previously noticed, and swept together for all the world like a pair of calliper legs.
But suddenly Lapo Cercamorte was gayer than he had been since the fall of Grangioia Castle. Every morning, when he had inquired after Madonna Gemma's health, and had sent her all kinds of tidbits, he went down to sit among his men, to play morra, to test swordblades, to crack salty jokes, to let loose his husky guffaw.
The swordblades rose and fell so swiftly that they seemed to be arcs of light; the deafening clangour was pierced by the howls of the dying. The dais turned red men slipped on it; Cercamorte's sword caught them; they did not rise. He seemed indeed to wield more swords than one, so terrible was his fighting.
Whether cardinals required him to fashion silver vases for their banquet-tables; or ladies wished the setting of their jewels altered; or a pope wanted the enamelled binding of a book of prayers; or men-at-arms sent swordblades to be damascened with acanthus foliage; or kings desired fountains and statues for their palace courts; or poets begged to have their portraits cast in bronze; or generals needed medals to commemorate their victories, or dukes new coins for their mint; or bishops ordered reliquaries for the altars of their patron saints; or merchants sought for seals and signet rings engraved with their device; or men of fashion asked for medallions of Leda and Adonis to fasten in their caps all these commissions could be undertaken by a workman like Cellini.
The sunset caught the flashing of swordblades behind the spurs and ridges. The numerous figures of the enemy moved busily about preparing for the attack. A dropping fire from the sharpshooters added an appropriate accompaniment. In the middle, at the bottom of the cup, was the "crater" camp and the main enclosure with the smoke of the evening meal rising in the air.
And Ambrose laughed as he had not laughed for weeks. "But what is it, then?" "The old man is of thy calling, or something like it, Stephen, being that he maketh and tempereth sword-blades after the prime Damascene or Toledo fashion, and the familiar spirit is his little daughter." Stephen did not however look mollified. "Swordblades! None have a right to make them save our craft.
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