‘Deus!’ cried Gaston here, ’Such marriages may be more to the taste of heaven than of men, Richard.  Man is a creature of sense.’

‘He hath a spiritual part,’ said Richard, ’so rarely hidden that only the thin fingers of a girl may get in to touch it.  Then, being touched, he knows that it is quick.  Let me alone; I am not all mud nor all devil.  I shall do my duty, marry the French girl, and love my golden Jehane until I die.’

’That is the saying of a poet and king at once, said Gaston, and really believed it.

So they came at dusk to Autafort, a rock castle on the confines of Perigord, held by Bertran de Born.

It looked, and was, a robber’s hold, although it had a poet for castellan.  Its walls merely prolonged the precipices on which they were founded, its towers but lifted the mountain spurs more sharply to the sky.  It dominated two watersheds, was accessible only on one side, and then by a ridgeway; from it the valley roads and rockstrewn hillsides could be seen for many leagues.  Long before Richard was at the gate the Lord of Autafort had had warning, and had peered down upon his suzerain at his clambering.  ‘The crows shall have Richard before Richard me,’ said Bertran de Born; so he had his bridge pulled up and portcullis let down, and Autafort showed a bald face to the newcomers.

Gaston grinned.  ’Hospitality of Aquitaine!  Hospitality of your duchy, Richard.’

‘By my head,’ said the Count, ’if I sleep under the stars I sleep at Autafort this night.  But hear me charm this plotter.’  He called at the top of his voice, ‘Ha, Bertran!  Come you down, man.’  The surrounding hills echoed his cries, the jackdaws wheeled about the turrets; but presently came one and put his eye to the grille.  Richard saw him.

‘Is that you, then, Bertran?’ he shouted.  There was no answer, but the spyer was heard breathing hard at his vent.

‘Come out of your earth, red fox,’ Richard chid him.  ’Show your grievous snout to the hills; do your snuffling abroad to the clear sky.  I have whipped off the hounds; my father is not here.  Will you let starve your liege-lord?’

At this the bolts were drawn, the bridge went down with a clatter, and Bertran de Born came out—­a fine stout man, all in a pother, with a red, perplexed face, angry eyes, hair and beard cut in blocks, a body too big for his clothes—­a man of hot blood, fumes and rages.  Richard at sight of him, this unquiet sniffer of offences, this whirled about with stratagems, threw back his head and laughed long and loud.

’O thou plotter of thine own dis-ease!  O rider of nightmares, what harm can I do thee?  Not, believe me, a tithe of thy desert.  Come thou here straightly, Master Bertran, and take what I shall give thee.’

‘By God, Lord Richard—­’ said Bertran, and boggled horribly; but the better man waited, and in the end he came up sideways.  Richard swung from his horse, took his host by the shoulders, shook him well, and kissed him on both cheeks.  ’Spinner of mischief, red robber, singer of the thoughts of God!’ he said, ’I swear I love thee through it all, Bertran, though I should do better to wring thy neck.  Now give us food and drink and clean beds, for Gaston at least is a dead man without them.  Afterwards we will sing songs.’