They crowned Richard Duke of Normandy, and to him came all the barons of the duchy one by one, to do him homage.  And first the Archbishop of Rouen, in whose allegiance was that same Sir Gilles.  But Gilles knew very well that there could be no fealty from him to this robber of a duke.  Gilles had seen Jehane; and when he could bear the sight no more for fear his eyes should bleed, he went and walked about the streets to cool his head.  He swore by all the saints in the calendar of Rouen—­and these are many—­that he would close this account.  Let him be torn apart by horses, he would kill the man who had stolen his wife and killed his father and brother, were he duke, king, or Emperor of the West.  Meantime, in the church that golden-haired duke, set high on the throne of Normandy, received between his hands the hands of the Normans; and in a stall of the choir Jehane prayed fervently for him, with her arms enfolding her bosom.

Gilles was seen again at Harfleur, when the King embarked for England.  He had a hood over his head; but Milo knew him by the little steady eyes and bar of black above.  When the great painted sails bellied to the off-shore wind and the dragon-standard of England pointed the sea-way northward into the haze, Milo saw Gilles standing on the mole, a little apart from his friends, watching the galley which took Jehane out of reach.

* * * * *

If Milo found the Normans like ginger in the mouth, it is not to be supposed that the English suited him any better.  He calls them ‘fog-stewed,’ says that they ate too much, and were as proud of that as of everything else they did.  Luckily, he had very little to do with them, though not much less, perhaps, than his master.  Dry facts content him:  how the King disembarked at Southampton and took horse; how he rode through forests to Winchester; how there he was met by the bishop, heard mass in the minster, and departed for Guildford; thence again, how through wood and heath they came to Westminster ’and a fair church set in meadows by a broad stream’—­to tell this rapidly contents him.  But once in London the story begins to concentrate.  It is clear there was danger for Jehane.  King Richard, it seems, caused her to be lodged ’in a place of nuns over the river, in a place which is called in English Lamehithe.’

This was quite true; danger there was, as Richard saw, who knew his mother.  But he did not then know how quick with danger the times were.  The Queen-Mother had upon her the letter of Don Sancho the Wise, and to her the politics of Europe were an open book.  One holy war succeeded another, and one king; but what king that might be depended neither upon holiness nor war so much as on the way each was used.  Marriage with Navarre might push Anjou across the mountains; the holy war might lift it across the sea.  Who was the ‘yellow-haired King of the West’ whom they of the East foretold, if not her goodly son?  Should God be thwarted by a ——?  She hesitated not for a word, but I hesitate.