THE NINTH MAN
all was left as it was found. The men-at-arms were as stern and yet as even as Mazzaleone himself. But there they were, the iron witnesses of our defeat, we who three times had been taken and three times had shaken off the yoke of Pisa—free men—and had more than once entered, victorious, through the gates of other cities, not counting the fortresses, the castelli, and intrenched strongholds—fiefs of the empire that we had made our own, one after another, forcing their nobles to become citizens of our own commune.
Now, while Mazzaleone's men patrolled us, we went about our business. The pot-houses were overrun and there was much quiet talking among the nobles. And, although we came and went unmolested, the people were not allowed to congregate in the streets or the piazza. He kept moving those who would stop to prattle, did Egidio Mazzaleone; and while we moved about we pondered upon the meaning of his edict until the hide of each one of us felt an uncomfortable itching, as though it already felt the prick of the sharpened sword.
The third day we had ceased to prattle
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