"The fool lied!" said Philip internally: "all is frank and fair. The fool lied!--and led me to slight a noble knight and powerful baron by his falsehood!" and bending forward, as if to do away the coldness with which he had at first treated the Count d'Auvergne, he answered his salute with a marked and graceful inclination of the head.
"Is it possible?" cried Agnes, after the Count had passed. "In truth, I should never have known him, Philip, he is so changed. Why, when he was at the court of Istria, he was a fresh young man; and now he is as deadly pale and worn as one sick of the plague. Oh, what a horrible place must be that Holy Land!--Promise me, Philip, on all the Evangelists, never to go there again, let who will preach new crusades:--nay, promise me, my Lord!"
"I do! I do! sweet Agnes!" replied the king: "once in a life is quite enough. I have other warfares now before me."
After the knights had all passed, a short space of time intervened for the various arrangements of the field; and then, the barriers being opened, the tournament really commenced. Into the particulars of the feats performed, as I have already said, I shall not enter: suffice it that, as the king had predicted, all went down before De Coucy's lance; and that Count Thibalt d'Auvergne, though not hurried on by the same quick spirit, was judged, by the old knights, no way inferior to his friend, though his valour bore a different character. The second course had taken place, and left the same result; and many of the fair dames in the galleries began to regret that neither of the two companions in arms had been decorated with their colours; and to determine upon various little arts and wiles, to engage one or other of the two crusaders to bear some mark of theirs in any subsequent tournament.
Thus stood the day, when the voices of the heralds cried to pause, much to the astonishment, not only of the combatants, but of the king himself. The barriers opened, and, preceded by a stout priest bearing a pontifical cross in silver, the cardinal of St. Mary, dressed as Legate à latere, entered the lists, followed by a long train of ecclesiastics.[[14]]
A quick, angry flush mounted into the king's cheek, and his brow knit into a frown, which sufficiently indicated that he expected no very agreeable news from the visit of the legate. The cardinal, however, without being moved by his frowns, advanced directly towards the gallery in which he sat, and, placing himself before him, addressed him thus:--
"Philip, King of France, I, the cardinal of St. Mary's, am charged, and commanded, by our most holy father, the Pope Innocent, to speak to you thus----"
"Hold, Sir Cardinal!" cried the King, "Let your communication be for our private ear. We are not accustomed to receive either ambassadors or legates in the listed field."
"I have been directed, Sir King," replied the legate, "by the superior orders of his holiness, thus publicly to admonish you, wherever I should find you, you having turned a deaf and contemptuous ear to the frequent counsels and commands of the holy church. Know then, king Philip, that with surprise and grief that a king of France should so forget the hereditary piety of his race, his holiness perceives that you still persist in abandoning your lawful wife, Ingerburge of Denmark!"
"The man will drive me mad!" exclaimed the king, grasping his truncheon, as if he would have hurled it at the daring churchman, who thus insulted him before all the barons of his realm. "Will no one stay him?"