dden, stiffen as with a gush of sap in his veins, dart his head
forward, gather his horse together under him, and fling into the midst
of them like a tiger into a herd of bulls. One saw nothing but tossing
steel; yet Richard ever emerged, red but scatheless, on the further
side.

Upon this man the brunt of war fell naturally: having begun, he did not
hold his hand. By the beginning of February he had laid his plans, by
the end of it he had taken Saumur, cut Angers off from Tours, and turned
all the valley of the Loire into a scorched cinder-bed. In the early
days of March he sat down before Tours with his siege-engines,
petraries, mangonels, and towers, and daily battered at the walls, with
intent to reduce it before the war was really afloat. The city of Saint
Martin was doomed; no help from Anjou could save it, for none could come
that way. Meantime the King his father had landed at Honfleur, assembled
his Normans at Rouen, and was working his way warily down through the
duchy, feeling for the French on his left, and for the Bretons on his
right. He never found the French; they were far south of him, pushing
through Orleans to join Richard at Le Mans. But the Countess of
Brittany's men, under Hugh of Dinan, were sacking Avranches when old
Henry heard the bad news from Touraine. That country and Maine were as
the apple of his eye; yet he dared not leave Avranches fated behind him.
All he could do was to send William the Marshal with a small force into
Anjou, while he himself spread out westward to give Hugh of Dinan battle
and save Avranches, if that might be. So it was that King Philip slipped
in between him and Le Mans. By this time Richard was master of Tours,
and himself on the way to Le Mans, nosing the air for William the
Marshal. This was in the beginning of April. Then on one and the same
day he risked all he had won for the sake of a girl's proud face, and
nearly lost his life into the bargain.

He had to cross the river Aune above La Fleche. That river, a sluggish
but deep little stream, moves placidly among osiers on its way to swell
the Loire. On either side the water-meadows stretch for three-quarters
of a mile; low chalk-hills, fringed at the top, are ramparts to the
sleepy valley. Creeping along the eastern spurs at dawn, Richard came in
touch with his enemy, William the Marshal and his force of Normans and
English. These had crossed the bridge at La Fleche, and came pricking
now up the valley to save L