Niccolò reached down the finely-wrought coat, which fell together into little more than two handfuls.
“There, then,” he said, when the florins had been told down on his palm. “Take the coat. It’s made to cheat sword, or poniard, or arrow. But, for my part, I would never put such a thing on. It’s like carrying fear about with one.”
Niccolò’s words had an unpleasant intensity of meaning for Tito. But he smiled and said—
“Ah, Niccolò, we scholars are all cowards. Handling the pen doesn’t thicken the arm as your hammer-wielding does. Addio!”
He folded the armour under his mantle, and hastened across the Ponte Rubaconte.