Now, when King Richard had been some four, nearly five, years at home, neither nearer to his rest nor fitter for it than he had been when he landed, he got word from the south that a great treasure had been found in the Limousin. A man driving the plough on a hillside by Chaluz had upturned a gold table, at which sat an emperor, Charles or another, with his wife and children and the lords of his council, all wrought in fine gold. 'I will have that golden emperor,' said Richard, 'having just made one out of clay. Let him be sent to me.' He spoke carelessly, as they all thought, simply to get in his gibe at the new Emperor of the Romans, his nephew, whom he had caused to be chosen; and seeing that that was not the treasure he craved, it is like enough. But somebody took his word into Languedoc, and somebody brought back word (Saint-Pol's word) that the Viscount of Limoges, as suzerain of Chaluz, claimed treasure-trove in it. 'Then I will have the Viscount of Limoges as well,' said Richard. 'Let him be sent to me, and the table with him.'
The Viscount did not go. 'We have him, eh, we have him!' cheered Saint-Pol, rubbing his hands together.
But the Viscount, 'Be not so very sure. He may send Gaston or Mercadet. Or if the fit is on him he may come in force. We cannot support that. I believe that you have played a fool's part, Saint-Pol.'
'I am playing a gentleman's part,' replied the other, 'to entrap a villain.'
'Your villain is six foot two inches, and hath arms to agree,' said the Viscount, a dry man.
'We will lay him by the heels, Viscount; we will lop those long arms, cold-blooded, desperate tyrant. He has brought two lovely ladies to misery. Now let him know misery.' Thus Saint-Pol, feeling very sure of himself.
The Queen was at Cahors all this time, living in a convent of white nuns, probably happier than she had ever been in her life before. Count John kept her informed of all Richard's offences; Saint-Pol, you may take my word for it, was so exuberantly on her side that it must be almost an offence in her to refuse him. But she, in a pure mood of abnegation, would hear nothing against King Richard. Even when she was told, with proof positive, that he was in treaty with Rome, she said not a word to her friends. Secretly she hugged herself, beginning (like most women) to find pleasure in pain. 'Let him deny me, let him deny me thrice, even as Thou wert denied, sweet Lord Jesus!' she prayed to Christ on the wall. 'So denied, Thou didst not cease from loving. I think the woman in Thee outcried the man.' She got a piercing bliss out of each new knife stuck in her little jumping heart. Once or twice she wrote to Alois of France, who was at Fontevrault, in her King's country. 'Dear lady,' she wrote, 'they seek to enrage my lord against me. If you see him, tell him that I believe nothing that I hear until I receive the word from his own glorious mouth.' Alois, chilly in her cell, took no steps to get speech with King Richard. 'Let her suffer: I suffer,' she would say. And then, curiously jealous lest more pain should be Berengère's than was hers, a daughter's of France, she made haste to send assuring messages to Cahors. Still Berengère sweetly agonised. Saint-Pol sent her letters full of love and duty, enthusiastic, breathing full arms against her wrongs. But she always replied, 'Count of Saint-Pol, you do me injury in seeking to redress your own. I admit nothing against my lord the King. Many hate him, but I love him. My will is to be meek. Meekness would become you very well also.' Saint-Pol could not think so.
Lastly came the intelligence that King Richard in person was moving south with a great force to win the treasure of Chaluz. The news was true. Not only did he dwell with the nervous persistency of the afflicted upon the wretched gold Cæsar, but with clearer political vision saw a chance of subduing all Aquitaine. 'Any stick will do, even Adhémar of Limoges,' he said, not suspecting Saint-Pol's finger in the dish; and told Mercadet to summon the knights, and the knights their array. Before he set out he sent two messengers more—one to Rome, and one much further east. Then he began his warlike preparations with great heart.