And the lords in his retinue, angry like him, muttered sour speeches. The porter who was on the summit of the ramparts cried out to them that if they did not put an end to this hubbub he would spray them with grapeshot to cool their impatience.
But His Majesty in a fury:
“Blind hog,” said he, “dost thou not know thy Emperor?”
The porter answered:
That the least hoggish are not always the most gilded; that he knew, besides, that the French were good mockers by their nature, since the Emperor Charles, at this moment waging war in Italy, could not be at the gates of Audenaerde.
Thereupon Charles and the lords cried out the more, saying:
“If thou dost not open, we shall roast thee on the point of a spear. And thou shalt eat thy keys first and foremost.”
At the noise they were making, an old man-at-arms came out from the artillery room and showing his nose above the wall:
“Porter,” said he, “you are all wrong, it is our Emperor yonder; I know him well, though he has aged since he took Maria van der Gheynst from here to the Castle of Lallaing.”
The porter fell down stiff as death with terror, and the man-at-arms seized his keys and went to open the gate.