"Faith! my lord, you shall not break their bones for me," replied the count. "For I have made a resolution to be your good vassal for the future; and, as my good friend Count Julian of the Mount says, my resolutions are as immoveable as the centre."
"Ha, Count Julian!" said the king. "You are welcome, fair count; and, by Heaven, we have a mind to deal hardly with you. You have been a comer and goer, sir, in all these errands. You have been one of the chief stirrers-up of my vassals against me; and by the Lord! if block and axe were ever well won, you have worked for them. However, here stands sir Guy de Coucy, true knight, and the king's friend; give him the hand of your daughter, his lady-love, and you save your head upon your shoulders."
"My lord, it cannot be," replied old sir Julian stoutly. "I have already given the knight his answer. What I have said, is said--my resolutions are as immoveable as the centre, and I'd sooner encounter the axe than break them."
"Then, by Heaven! the axe shall be your doom!" cried Philip, giving way to one of his quick bursts of passion, at the bold and obstinate tone in which his rebellious vassal dared to address him. "Away with him to the block! and know, old mover of rebellions, that your lands and lordships, and your daughter's hand, I, as your sovereign lord, will give to this brave knight, after you have suffered the punishment of your treason and your obstinacy."
Sir Julian's cheek turned somewhat pale, and his eye twinkled; but he merely bit his lip; and, firm in his impenetrable obstinacy, offered no word to turn aside the monarch's wrath. De Coucy, however, stepped forward, and prayed the king, as sir Julian had been taken by his own men, to give him over to him, when he doubted not he would be able to bring him to reason.
"Take him then, De Coucy," said Philip; "I give you power to make what terms with him you like; but before he quits this presence, he consents to his daughter's marriage with you, or he quits it for the block. Let us hear how you will convert him."
"What I have said, is said!" muttered sir Julian,--"my resolutions are as immoveable as the centre!"
"Sir Julian," said De Coucy, standing forward before the circle, while the prisoner made up his face to a look of sturdy obstinacy, that would have done honour to an old, well-seasoned mule, "you told me once, that I might claim your daughter's hand, if ever--Guillaume de la Roche Guyon, to whom you had promised her, being dead--you should be fairly my prisoner, and I could measure acre for acre with your land. Now, I have to tell you, that William de la Roche fell on yonder plain, pierced from the back to the front by one of the lances of Tankerville, as he was flying from the field. You are, by the king's bounty and my good fortune, my true and lawful prisoner; and surely the power of saving your life, and giving you freedom, may be reckoned against wealth and land."
"No, no!" said sir Julian. "What I have said----"
But he was interrupted by the king, who had recovered from the first heat into which sir Julian's obstinacy had cast him, and was now rather amused than otherwise with the scene before him. "Hold, count Julian!" cried he, "Do not make any objection yet. The only difficulty is about the lands, it seems--that we will soon remove."