Gilles stopped as one struck, and gaped up at the tower.  To see his stupid mouth open, Jehane’s bosom heaved with pride well-nigh insufferable.  Had any woman, since Mary conceived, such a lover as hers!  ’Oh, Gilles, Gilles, go you on with your knife in your vest.  What can you do, little oaf, against King Richard?’ Gilles went in by the gate, and she let him go.  He was away two days, by which time she had cause to alter her mind.  The prisoner sang nothing; and presently a man dressed like a Bohemian came out of the town and spoke to her.  This was Cogia, the Assassin, bearer of the letter.

‘Well, Cogia?’ said Jehane, holding herself.

’Mistress, the letter of our lord has been delivered.  I think it may go hard with the Melek.’

‘What, Cogia?  Does the Archduke dare?’

’The Archduke, mistress, desires not the Melek’s death.  He is a worthy man.  But many do desire it—­kings of the West, kinsmen of the Marquess, above all the Melek’s blood-brother.  One of that prince’s men, as I judge him, is with him now—­one of your country, mistress.’

In a vision she saw the leper again, a dull smear in the sunny waste, scratching himself on a white stone.  She saw him come hopping from rock to rock, his wagging finger, shapeless face, tongueless voice.

‘Mistress—­’ said Cogia.  She turned blank eyes upon him.  ‘I pray,’ she said; ‘I pray.  Has God no pity?’

Cogia shrugged.  ’What has God to do with pity?  The end of the world is in His hand already.  The Melek is a king, and the Norman dung in his sight.  Who knows the end but God, and how shall He pity what He hath decreed for wisdom?  This I say, if the King dies the man dies.’

Jehane threw up her head.  ’The King will not die, Cogia.  Yet to-morrow, if the man comes not out, I will go to seek him.’

* * * * *

Early in the morning Gilles did come out, turned the angle of the ditch, and shuffled towards her, his head hung.  Jehane moved swiftly out from the shadow of the buttress and confronted him.  She folded her arms over her breast; and at that moment the shadow of Richard’s tower was capped with the shadow of Richard himself.  But she saw nothing of this.  ’Halt there, Sir Gilles,’ she said.  The Norman gave a squeal, like a hog startled at his trough, and went dead-fire colour.

‘Ha, Heart of Jesus!’ said Gilles de Gurdun.

CHAPTER XII

THE CHAPTER OF STRIFE IN THE DARK

One very great power of King Richard’s had never served him better than now, the power of immense quiescence, whereunder he could sit by day or by night as inert as a stone, a block hewn into shape of a man, neither to be moved by outside fret nor by the workings of his own mind.  Into this rapt state he fell when the prison doors shut on him, and so remained for three or four weeks, alone while the Fates were spinning.