Chapter 18
It takes years of hard work to gain credibility,
but it only takes a few moments to lose it.
Artemio Baldeschi had followed his lieutenant along Via delle Botteghe, casting poisonous glances on anyone he met along the way. The words that Balistreri had whispered to him just before still resounded in his ears and wounded his pride like sharp knives that rummaged through the flesh in search of a large blood vessel to cut. But it would have been him who would have cut the vase to the opponent, of course it would have been him! Why could the Duke of Ancona, after all the money he had taken, afford to send an emissary on that day? And with what demands then! A blackmail, a real blackmail, could not have been called otherwise!
«The messenger of the Duke of Montacuto wishes to spea
