urious, desperate, bloody villain,' was his commentary; and Saint-Pol
lifted up his hand to his master for leave to speak mischief. But King
Philip said fretfully, 'Well, well, we can all speak of something, I
suppose. He scorns me, he has always scorned me. He refuses me homage,
he shamed my sister; and now he takes the lead of me.'

The Marquess kept muttering to the table, 'Hopeless villain, hopeless
villain!' and the Archduke, after staring about him for sympathy,
claimed attention, if not that; for he brought his fist down with a
thump.

'By thunder, but I kill him!' he said deep in his throat. Saint-Pol came
running and kissed his knee, to Luitpold's great surprise.

Philip shivered in his furs. 'I must go home,' he fretted; 'I am smitten
to death. I must die in France.'

'Where is the King of England?' asked the, Marquess, knowing perfectly
well.

'Evil light upon him,' cried Saint-Pol, 'he is in my sister's house.
Between them they give me a nephew.'

'Oho!' Montferrat said. 'Is that it? Why, then, we know where to strike
him quickest. We should make Navarre of our party.'

'He has done that himself, by all accounts: said the Duke of Burgundy,
wide-awake.

The Archduke, returning to his new lodgings in the Bishop's house, sent
for his astrologers and asked them, Could he kill the King of England?

'My lord,' said they, 'you cannot.'

'How is that?' he asked.

'Lord,' they told him, 'by our arts we discover that he will live for a
hundred years.'

'It is very remarkable,' said the Archduke. 'What sort of years will
they be?'

'Lord,' said the astrologers, 'they are divers in complexion; but many
of them are red.'

'I will provide that they be,' said the Archduke. 'Go away.'

The Marquess sought no astrologers, but instead the Street of the Camel
and Jehane's house. He observed this with great care, watching from an
entry to see how King Richard would come out, whether attended or not.
He observed more than the house, for much more was forced upon him.
Human garbage filled the close ways of Acre, men and women marred by
themselves or a hideous begetting, hairless persons and snug little
chamberers, botch-faces, scald-heads, minions of many sorts,
silent-footed Arabians as shameless as dogs, Greeks, pimps and panders,
abominable women. Murder was swiftly and secretly done. Montferrat from
his entry saw the manner of it. A Norman knight called Hamon le Rotrou
came out of an infamous house in the