Anon cometh a white rag thinly from the inner tent—­mark her provenance.  Son kneeleth down.  “Wilt thou have my son, cony?” saith father.  “Yea, dear heart,” saith she. “’Tis my counterpart, mark you,” saith father.  “Better than nothing at all,” saith she.  Benevolent father, supple-kneed son, convenient lady.  Here is agreement.  And thus it ends.’  Again he laughed outright at the steel-blue face of the sky, then jumped in a flash from his seat to the throat of Bertran.  Bertran tumbled backwards with a strangled cry, and Richard pegged him to the ground.

‘Thou yapping cur, Bertran,’ he grated, ’thou sick dog of my kennel, if this snarl of thine goes true thou hast done a service to me and mine thou knowest not of.  There is little to do before I am the richest man in Christendom.  Why, dull rogue, thou hast set me free!’ He looked up exulting from his work at the man’s throat to shout this word.  ’But if it is not true, Bertran’—­he shook him like a rat—­’if it is not true, I return, O Bertran, and tear this false gullet out of its case, and with thy speckled heart feed the crows of Perigord.’  Bertran had foam on his lips, but Richard showed him no mercy.  ‘As it is, Bertran,’ he went on with his teeth on edge, ’I am minded to finish thee.  But that I need something from thee I think I should do it.  Tell me now whence came thy news.  Tell me, Bertran, or thou art in hell in a moment.’

He had to let him up to win from him after a time that his informant was the Count of Saint-Pol.  Little matter that this was untrue, the bringing in of his name set wild alarums clanging in Richard’s head.  It was only too likely to have been Saint-Pol’s doing; there was obvious reason; but by the same token Saint-Pol might be a liar.  He saw that he must by all means find Saint-Pol, and find him at once.  He began to shout for Gaston.  ‘To horse, to horse, Gaston!’ The court rang with his voice; to the clamour he made, which might betoken murder, arson, pillage, or the sin against the Holy Ghost, out came the vassals in a swarm.  ’To horse, to horse, Bearnais!  Where out of hell is Gaston of Bearn?’ The devil of Anjou was loose in Autafort that day.

Gaston came delicately last, drawing his beard through his fist, to see Bertran de Born lie helpless in a lemon-bush hard by the wall.  Richard, quite beyond himself, exploded with his story, and so was sobered.  While Gaston made his comments, he, instead of listening, made comments of his own.

‘Dear Lord Richard,’ said Gaston reasonably, ’if you do not know Bertran by this time it is a strange thing and a pitiful thing.  For it shows you without any wit.  He was appointed, it would seem, to be the thorn in your rosebed of Anjou.  What has he done since he was let be made but set you all by the ears?  What did he do by the young King but miserably?  What by Geoffrey?  Is there a man in the world he hates more than the old King?  Yes, there is one:  you.  Take a token.  The last time they two met was in this very castle; and then the King your father kissed him, and forgiving him Henry’s death, gave him back his Autafort; and Bertran too gave a kiss, that love might abound.  Judas, Judas!  And what did Judas next?  Dear Richard, let us think awhile, but not here.  Let us go to Limoges and think with the Viscount.  But let us by all means kill Bertran de Born first.’