’Ah, dastard cur!  Ah, mongrel!  Ah, white-galled Norman eft!  God’s feet, if I pommel you for this!’ Pommel him he did; and, having drawn blood at his ears, he turned him over his knee as if he had been a schoolboy, and lathered his rump with a chair-leg.  This humiliating punishment had humiliating effects.  Gilles believed himself a boy in the cloister-school again, with his smock up.  ’Mea culpa, mea culpa!  Hey, reverend father, have pity!’ he began to roar.  Dropping him at last, Richard tumbled him on to the bed.  ‘Blubber yourself to sleep, clown,’ he told him.  ’Blessed ass, I have heard you snoring these two hours, snoring and rootling over your jack-knife.  Sleep, man.  But if you rootle again I flog again:  mind you that.’  Gilles slept long, and was awoken in full light by the sound of King Richard calling for his breakfast.

The gaoler came pale-faced in.  ’A thousand pardons, sire, a thousand pardons—­’

‘Bring my food, Dietrich,’ says Richard, ’and send the barber.  Also, the next time the Archduke desires murder done let him find a fellow who knows his trade.  This one is a bungler.  Here’s the third time to my knowledge he has missed.  Off with you.’

Gilles lay face downwards, abject on the bed.  In came the King’s breakfast, a jug of wine, some white bread.  The King’s beard was trimmed, his hair brushed, fresh clothes put on.  He dismissed his attendants, crossed over the room like a stalking cat, and gave Gilles a clap behind which made him leap in the air.

‘Get up, Gurdun,’ said Richard.  ’Tell me that you are ashamed of yourself, and then listen to me.’

Gilles went down on one knee.  ‘God knows, my lord King,’ he mumbled, ‘that I have done shamefully by you.’  He got up, his face clouded, his jaw went square.  ’But not more shamefully, by the same God, than you have done by me.’

The King looked at him.  ‘I have never justified myself to any man,’ he said quietly, ’nor shall I now to you.  I take the consequences of all my deeds when and as they come.  But from the like of you none will ever come.  I speak of men.  Now I will tell you this very plainly.  The next time you cross my path adversely, I shall kill you.  You are a nuisance, not because you desire my life, but because you never get it.  Try no more, Gurdun.’

‘Where is Jehane, my lord?’ said Gurdun, very black.

‘I cannot tell you where the Countess of Anjou may be,’ he was answered.  ‘She is not here, and is not in France.  I believe she is in Palestine.’

‘Palestine!  Palestine!  Lord Christ, have you turned her away?’ Gilles cried, beside himself.  Again King Richard looked at him, but afterwards shrugged.