Both Griffons and Lombards did their utmost to make the position of the “tailed Englishmen”—as they called Richard and all his followers indiscriminately—absolutely intolerable. They tried to starve them by refusing to let them buy food in the city; they fell upon and slew any whom they caught in small parties and unarmed; they even began to raise the town walls, as if challenging the strangers to besiege them.[518] By the time of Joan’s arrival matters had come to such a pass that two days later (September 30) Richard with a small armed force re-crossed the strait into Calabria, turned the Griffons out of a fortress called La Bagnara, [Sidenote: _Oct. 1_] and next day established his sister in it with a guard of his own men.[519] He next seized a very strong fort or tower, which went by the name of “the Griffons’ Minster,” on an island in the Far, midway between La Bagnara and Messina,[520] put its garrison to death, and made it a storehouse for the provisions which had been brought by his fleet from England and his other dominions.[521] Scarcely was this done when on October 3 a dispute between a pilgrim and a townswoman about the price of some bread which the woman brought into the camp for sale led to an outbreak of hostilities. Richard, hearing the noise, sprang on horseback and strove to recall his men, riding in and out among them and striking with his staff all whom he could reach, to check the attack which they were threatening on the city gate. His efforts and those of the “elders” of the city at length quieted the tumult.[522] Both parties, however, felt that the matter was not ended. Before nightfall Richard went by boat to the palace [Sidenote: _Oct. 4_] and held a consultation with Philip.[523] Next morning the archbishops of Messina, Monreale, and Reggio, with the “justices of Sicily”—that is, the governors whom Tancred had put in charge of Messina, Margarit and Jordan du Pin[524]—and some others of Tancred’s chief counsellors came to Richard’s lodging, bringing with them the French king and some of his nobles, and also some of the chief nobles of Richard’s dominions, to discuss terms of peace.[525] Three times the colloquy was interrupted by tidings, first that the English were being attacked, next that they were getting worsted, and finally that they were being killed “both within and without the city.” The Sicilian members of the conference hurried away, ostensibly for the purpose of checking their own people, “but they lied,” says Richard’s Norman chronicler.[526] Richard hastened forth to control his troops, learned that the quarters of one of his Aquitanian followers, Hugh the Brown of Lusignan, had been attacked by a party of the townsfolk, and that another party was lying in wait for himself, the city wall bristling with armed men, and another strong body of citizens posted on the hills at the back of the town.[527] He hurried back for his armour and instantly gave orders