To that end he laid a trap.  He seized and fortified two hill-castles in the Limousin, between which lay straggling a village called Chaluz.  ‘Let us get Richard down here,’ was his plan.  ‘He will think the job a light one, and we shall nip him in the hills.’  The Bishop of Beauvais lent a hand, so did Adhemar Viscount of Limoges, and Achard the lord of Chaluz, not because he desired, but because he was forced by Limoges his suzerain.  Another forced labourer was Sir Gilles de Gurdun, who had been found by Saint-Pol doing work in Poictou and won over after a few trials.

Now, when King Richard had been some four, nearly five, years at home, neither nearer to his rest nor fitter for it than he had been when he landed, he got word from the south that a great treasure had been found in the Limousin.  A man driving the plough on a hillside by Chaluz had upturned a gold table, at which sat an emperor, Charles or another, with his wife and children and the lords of his council, all wrought in fine gold.  ‘I will have that golden emperor,’ said Richard, ’having just made one out of clay.  Let him be sent to me.’  He spoke carelessly, as they all thought, simply to get in his gibe at the new Emperor of the Romans, his nephew, whom he had caused to be chosen; and seeing that that was not the treasure he craved, it is like enough.  But somebody took his word into Languedoc, and somebody brought back word (Saint-Pol’s word) that the Viscount of Limoges, as suzerain of Chaluz, claimed treasure-trove in it.  ’Then I will have the Viscount of Limoges as well,’ said Richard.  ‘Let him be sent to me, and the table with him.’

The Viscount did not go.  ‘We have him, eh, we have him!’ cheered Saint-Pol, rubbing his hands together.

But the Viscount, ’Be not so very sure.  He may send Gaston or Mercadet.  Or if the fit is on him he may come in force.  We cannot support that.  I believe that you have played a fool’s part, Saint-Pol.’

‘I am playing a gentleman’s part,’ replied the other, ’to entrap a villain.’

‘Your villain is six foot two inches, and hath arms to agree,’ said the Viscount, a dry man.

’We will lay him by the heels, Viscount; we will lop those long arms, cold-blooded, desperate tyrant.  He has brought two lovely ladies to misery.  Now let him know misery.’  Thus Saint-Pol, feeling very sure of himself.

* * * * *

The Queen was at Cahors all this time, living in a convent of white nuns, probably happier than she had ever been in her life before.  Count John kept her informed of all Richard’s offences; Saint-Pol, you may take my word for it, was so exuberantly on her side that it must be almost an offence in her to refuse him.  But she, in a pure mood of abnegation, would hear nothing against King Richard.  Even when she was told, with proof positive, that he was in treaty with Rome, she said not a word to her friends.  Secretly she hugged herself, beginning (like most