He stood with one foot rather advanced, and his chest and head thrown back, while his eagle eye fixed with a keen and somewhat stern regard upon a mitred prelate--the abbot of Three Fountains Abbey--who seemed to have been speaking the moment before De Coucy entered, Guerin the chancellor, still in the simple dress of the knights hospitallers, stood beside the king; and around appeared a small but brilliant circle of nobles, amongst whom were to be seen the dukes of Burgundy and Champagne, the counts of Nevers and Dampierre; and the unhappy count of Toulouse, afterwards sacrificed to the intolerant spirit of the Roman Church.
"How is this?" said Philip, just as the young knight passed into the hall;--"Will Rome never be satisfied? Do concessions wrung from our very heart's blood but stimulate new demands? What has Innocent the Third to do with the wars of Philip of France against his traitorous and rebellious vassal, John duke of Normandy? What pretext of clerical authority and the church's rights has the pontiff now to show, why a monarch should not in his own dominions compel his vassals to obedience, and punish crime and baseness? By the holy rood! there must be some new creed we have not heard of, to enjoin implicit obedience, in all temporal as well as spiritual things, to our moderate, temperate, holy father, Innocent the Third, and his successors for ever! We pray thee, my lord abbot, to communicate to us all the tenets of this blessed doctrine; and to tell us, whether it has been made manifest by inspiration or revelation."
"You speak scornfully, my son," said the abbot mildly, "ay, and somewhat profanely; but you well know the causes that move our holy father to interfere, when he sees two christened kings wasting their blood, their treasure, and their time, in vain and impious wars against each other, while the holy sepulchre is still the prey of miscreants and infidels, and the land of our blessed Redeemer,--the land in which so many saints have died, and for which so many heroes have bled,--still lies bowed down to heathens and blasphemers,--you well know the causes that move him to interfere, I say, and therefore need ask no new motive for his christianlike and holy zeal."
"His christianlike and holy zeal!!" exclaimed the king, holding up his hands. "Ay, abbot," he continued, his lip curling with a bitter smile, "I do know the causes, and Christendom shall find I estimate them justly. For all answer, then, to the mild good father pope his exhortation to peace, I reply that Philip is king of France; and that, though I will, in all strictly ecclesiastical affairs, yield reverence and due submission to the supreme pontiff; yet when he dares--ay, when he dares, abbot--to use the word command to me, in my just wars, or in the dispensation of justice unto my vassals, I shall scoff his idle threats to scorn, and, by God's will, pursue my way, as if there were neither priest nor prelate on the earth. Now, fair Sir Guy de Coucy! most welcome to Philip of France!" he continued, abruptly turning away from the abbot and addressing the young knight. "We were arming even now to march to deliver you and our fair cousin Arthur Plantagenet. What cheer do you bring us from him?"
"I had hoped, my liege," replied De Coucy, with a pained and melancholy air, "that fame, who speeds fast enough in general to bear ill news, would have spared me the hard and bitter task of telling you what I have to communicate. He for whom you inquire is no more! Basely has he been murdered in the prisons of Rouen by his own uncle, John king of England!"
Philip's brow had been cloudy before; but as the young knight spoke, fresh shadows came quickly over it, as we see storm after storm roll up over a thundery sky. At the same time, each of the nobles of France took an involuntary step forward, and with knitted brow, and eager, horrified eyes, gazed upon De Coucy while he told his news.
"God of heaven!" exclaimed the monarch rapidly. "What would you say? Are you very sure, sir knight? Not with his own hand? His nephew too! His own brother's child! As noble a boy as ever looked up in the face of heaven! Speak, sir knight! Speak! What was the manner of his death! Have you heard? But be careful that each word be founded on certain knowledge, for on your lips hangs the fate of thousands!"
De Coucy related clearly and distinctly all that had occurred on the day of Arthur's murder--all that he had seen, all that he had heard; but, with scrupulous care, he took heed that not one atom of surmise should mingle with his discourse. He painted strongly, clearly, minutely, every circumstance; but he left his auditors to draw their own conclusions.
The nobles of France looked silently in each other's faces, where each read the same feelings of horror and indignation that swelled in his own bosom. At the same time, the king glanced his keen eye round the circle, with a momentary gaze of inquiry at the countenances of his barons, as if he sought to gather whether the feelings of wrath and hatred which the young knight's tale had stirred up in his heart were common to all around.
"Now, by the bones of the saints!" cried he, "we will this day--nay this hour,--send a herald to defy that felon king, and dare him to the field. Ho! serjeant-at-arms, bid Mountjoy hither!"