When he was alone he went on frowning, and between whiles tapped his teeth with his beard-comb.  He knew that Bertran had not come lying for nothing to Pampluna; he must find out on whose account he was lying, and upon what rock of truth (if any at all) he had built up his lies.  Was it because he hated the father, or because he hated the son?  Or because he served Prince John?  Let that alone for a moment.  This story of Alois:  it must be, he thought, either true or false, but was no invention of Bertran’s.  Whichever it was, King Philip would make war upon King Henry, not upon Richard; since, wanting timber, you cut at the trunk, not at the branches.  He believed Bertran so far, that the Count of Poictou was in his country, and King Henry with a host in his.  War between Philip and the Count was a foolishness.  Peace between the Count and King Henry was another.  Don Sancho believed (since he believed in God) that old King Henry was at death’s door; and he saw above all things that, if the scandal was reasonably founded, there would be a bachelor prince spoiling for wedlock.  On all grounds, therefore, he decided to write privily to his kinswoman, Queen Eleanor of England.

And so he did, to a very different tune from that imagined by Bertran, the letter which follows:—­

‘Madame (Sister and Aunt),’ he wrote, ’this day has brought tidings to my private ear whereat in part I mourn with you, and rejoice in part, as a wise physician who, hearing of some great lover in the article of death, knows that he has both the wit and the remedy to work his cure.  Madame, with a hand upon my heart I may certify the flow of my blood for the causes, serious and horrific, which have led to strife between your exalted lord and most dear consort in Christ Jesus, my lord Henry the pious King of England (whom God assoil) and his august neighbour of France.  But, Madame (Sister and Aunt), it is no less my comfort to affirm that the estate of your noble son, the Count of Poictou, no less moves my anguish.  What, Madame!  So fierce a youth and so strenuous, widowed of his hopeful bed!  The face of Paris with the fate of Menelaus!  The sweet accomplishments of King David (chief of trobadors) and the ignominy of the husband of Bathsheba!  You see that my eloquence burns me up; and verily, Madame (Sister and Aunt), the hot coal of the wrath of your son has touched my mouth, so that at the last I speak with my tongue.

’I ask myself, Madame, why do not the virgins of Christendom arise and offer their unrifled zones to his noble fingers?  Sister and Aunt, there is one at least, in Navarre, who so arises.  I offer my child Berengere, called by trobadors (because of her chaste seclusion) Frozen Heart, to be thawed in the sun of your son.  I offer, moreover, my great fiefs of Oliocastro, Cingovilas, Monte Negro, and Sierra Alba as far as Agreda; and a dowry also of 60,000 marks in gold of Byzance, to be numbered by three bishops, one each of our choosing, and the third to be chosen by Our lord and ghostly father the Pope.  And I offer to you, Madame (Sister and Aunt), the devotion of a brother and nephew, the right hand of concord, and the kiss of peace.  I pray God daily to preserve your Celsitude.—­From our court of Pampluna, etc.  Under the Privy Signet of the King himself—­Sanchius Navarrensium Rex, Sapiens, Pater Patriae, Pius, Catholicus.’