At the word “treasure” Nobel pricked up his ears and bade Reynard relate how this hoard was obtained and where it was concealed.  The artful fox, seeing the king’s evident interest, rapidly prepared more lies, and, speaking to the king and queen, declared that ere he died it would be better for him to reveal the carefully guarded secret of a conspiracy which would have resulted in the king’s death had it not been for his devotion.

The queen, shuddering at the mere thought of the danger her royal consort had run, now begged that Reynard might step down from the scaffold and speak privately to her and to Nobel.  In this interview Reynard, still pretending to prepare for immediate death, told how he discovered a conspiracy formed by his father, Isegrim the wolf, Brown the bear, and many others, to slay the king and seize the scepter.  He described the various secret conferences, the measures taken, and his father’s promise to defray all the expenses of the enterprise and to subsidize mercenary troops by means of the hoard of King Ermenrich, which he had discovered and concealed for his own use.

Reynard then continued to describe his loyal fears for his beloved sovereign, his resolve to outwit the conspirators, and his efforts to deprive them of the sinews of war by discovering and abstracting the treasure.  Thanks to his ceaseless vigilance, he saw his father steal forth one night, uncover his hoard, gloat over the gold, and then efface the traces of his search with the utmost skill.

                                              “’Nor could one,
    Not having seen, have possibly known.  And ere he went onwards
    Well he understood at the place where his feet had been planted,
    Cleverly backwards and forwards to draw his tail, and to smooth it,
    And to efface the trace with the aid of his mouth.’”

Reynard then told the king how diligently he and his wife, Ermelyn, labored to remove the gold and conceal it elsewhere, and how the conspiracy came to naught when no gold was found to pay the troops.  He mournfully added that his loyalty further deprived him of a loving father, for the latter had hung himself in despair when he found his treasure gone and all his plans frustrated.  With hypocritical tears he then bewailed his own fate, saying that, although ready to risk all for another, there was no one near him to speak a good word for him in his time of bitterest need.

[Sidenote:  Reynard Pardoned.] The queen’s soft heart was so touched by this display of feeling that she soon pleaded for and obtained Reynard’s pardon from Nobel, who freely granted it when the fox promised to give him his treasure.  Most accurately now he described its place of concealment, but said that he could not remain at court, as his presence there was an insult to royalty, seeing that he was under the Pope’s ban and must make a pilgrimage ere it could be removed.