''I wish we could have fought with the Condottieri when all you had to do was out-think them and they conceded.
You could think and I would convey your orders.''
''We'd have to take a few towns for them to respect our thinking.''
''We would sack them if they defended them,'' the Gran Maestro said. ''What towns would you take?''
''Not this one,'' the Colonel said. ''I'd take Vicenza, Bergamo and Verona.
Not necessarily in that order.''
''You'd have to take two more.''
''I know,'' the Colonel said.
He was a general now again, and he was happy. ''I figured that I'd by-pass Brescia.
It could fall of its own weight.''
''And how are you, Supreme Commander?'' the Gran Maestro said, for this taking of towns had pulled him out of his depth.
He was at home in his small house in Treviso, close to the fast flowing river under the old walls.
The weeds waved in the current and the fish hung in the shelter of the weeds and rose to insects that touched the water in the dusk.
He was at home, too, in all operations that did not involve more than a company, and understood them as clearly as he understood the proper serving of a small dining room; or a large dining room.
But when the Colonel became a general officer again, as he had once been, and thought in terms that were as far beyond him as calculus is distant from a man who has only the knowledge of arithmetic, then he was not at home, and their contact was strained, and he wished the Colonel would return to things they both knew together when they were a lieutenant and a sergeant.
''What would you do about Mantova?'' the Colonel asked.
''I do not know, my Colonel.
I do not know whom you are fighting, nor what forces they have, nor what forces are at your disposal.''
''I thought you said we were Condottieri.
Based on this town or on Padova.''
''My Colonel,'' the Gran Maestro said, and he had diminished in no way, ''I know nothing, truly, about Condottieri.
Nor really how they fought then.
I only said I would like to fight under you in such times.''
''There aren't any such times any more,'' the Colonel said and the spell was broken.
What the hell, maybe there never was any spell, the Colonel thought.
The hell with you, he said to himself. Cut it out and be a human being when you're half a hundred years old.
''Have another Carpano,'' he said to the Gran Maestro.
''My Colonel, you will allow me to refuse because of the ulcers?''
''Yes. Yes. Of course.
Boy, what's your name, Giorgio?
Another dry Martini.
Secco, molto secco e doppio.''
Breaking spells, he thought. It is not my trade. My trade is killing armed men.
A spell should be armed if I'm to break it.
But we have killed many things which were not armed.
All right, spell breaker, retract.
''Gran Maestro,'' he said. ''You are still Gran Maestro and fornicate the Condottieri.''
''They were fornicated many years ago, Supreme Commander.''
''Exactly,'' the Colonel said.
But the spell was broken.
''I'll see you at dinner,'' the Colonel said. ''What is there?''
''We will have anything you wish, and what we do not have I will send out for.''
''Do you have any fresh asparagus?''
''You know we cannot have it in these months.
It comes in April and from Bassano.''
''Then I'll just urinate the usual odor,'' the Colonel said. ''You think of something and I'll eat it.''
''How many will you be?'' the Maitre d'Hotel asked.
''We'll be two,'' the Colonel said. ''What time do you close the bistro?''
''We will serve dinner as late as you wish to eat, my Colonel.''
''I'll try to be in at a sound hour,'' the Colonel said. ''Good-bye, Gran Maestro,'' he said and smiled, and gave the Gran Maestro his crooked hand.