s,' he writes, 'were surely a great scandal in any
Christian king. Not that the punishment were undeserved or the
executioner insufficient, God knoweth! But very often true policy points
out the wisdom of the mean; and this is its deliberative, that to hang a
bad man when another vengeance is open--such as burning in his castle,
killing on his walls, or stabbing by apparent mistake for a common
person--to hang him, I say, suggests to the yet unhanged a way of
treating his betters. There are more ways of killing a dog than choking
him with butter; and so it is with lords and other rebels against kings.
In this particular case King Richard only thought to follow his great
father (whom at this time he much resembled): what in the end he did was
very different from any act of that monarch's that I ever heard tell of,
to remember which makes me weep tears of blood. But so he fully purposed
at that time, being in his hottest temper of Yea.'

He said Yea to the hanging of Saint-Pol and Limoges, and made ready a
host which must infallibly crush Chaluz were it twenty times prepared.
But he said Nay to the sacrifice of Jehane on Lebanon, and to that end
increased his arms to overawe all the kingdoms of the South which had
sanctioned it. Vanguard, battle and rear, he mustered fifteen thousand
men. Des Barres led the van, English bowmen, Norman knights. Battle was
his, all arms from Anjou, Poictou, and Touraine. Rearguard the Earl of
Leicester took, his viceroy in Aquitaine. When the garrison of Chaluz
saw the forested spears on the northern heights, the great engines piled
against the sky-line, the train of followers, pennons of the knights,
Dragon of England, Leopards of Anjou, the single Lion of Normandy, the
wise among them were for instant surrender.

'Here is an empery come out against us!' cried Adhemar. 'If I was not
right when I told you that I knew King Richard.'

'The filched empery of a thief,' said Saint-Pol. 'Honesty is ours. I
fight for my lady Berengere, the glory of two realms, my sovereign
mistress till I die.'

'Vastly well,' returned the other; 'but I do not fight for this lady,
but for a gold table with gold dolls sitting at it.' Such also was the
reflection of Achard, castellan of Chaluz, looking ruefully at his crazy
walls.

* * * * *

Two grassy hills rise, like breasts, out of a rolling plain of grass.
Each is crowned with a tower; between them are the church and village