No considerations either of policy or of self-interest, however, had any influence on his resolve to fulfil his vow without delay. While his father returned to England,[271] he hurried back to Poitou, sent messengers to his brother-in-law, King William of Sicily, to expedite arrangements for the equipment of the ships needful for his voyage, and busied himself with preparations for setting out in the coming summer.[272] But his plans were checked by a new outbreak of revolt. Geoffrey of Lusignan, it is said, laid an ambush for one of Richard’s most intimate friends and treacherously put him to death. Richard of course marched against Geoffrey, and punished him by taking several of his castles and slaughtering a number of his men, only those being spared who purchased their lives by taking the Cross.[273] Geoffrey’s outrage proved to be part of a concerted rising which ran what had now become the ordinary course of an Aquitanian revolt. The rebels, headed as usual by Aimar of Angoulême and Geoffrey of Rancogne, harried the domains of the count of Poitou, and the count retaliated by overrunning their lands, capturing and destroying their castles, burning and wasting their farms and orchards, till he had once more subdued them to his will.[274] The leaders took refuge in Taillebourg, and there they were surrounded by Richard’s forces. The damage inflicted by him on that famous stronghold in 1179 had doubtless been long ago repaired; but this time the siege lasted only a few days, though the place was occupied by “more than seventy picked men of might.” They surrendered on the only condition which Richard would grant—that every one of them should join him in his Crusade.[275] This was an excellent practical expedient for increasing the force which he hoped to lead to Palestine, and at the same time withdrawing from Aquitaine the men who were most likely to cause a disturbance if left there during his absence.