This was quite true; danger there was, as Richard saw, who knew his mother. But he did not then know how quick with danger the times were. The Queen-Mother had upon her the letter of Don Sancho the Wise, and to her the politics of Europe were an open book. One holy war succeeded another, and one king; but what king that might be depended neither upon holiness nor war so much as on the way each was used. Marriage with Navarre might push Anjou across the mountains; the holy war might lift it across the sea. Who was the 'yellow-haired King of the West' whom they of the East foretold, if not her goodly son? Should God be thwarted by a ----? She hesitated not for a word, but I hesitate. If the Queen-Mother was afraid of anything in the world, it was of the devil in the race she had mothered. It had thwarted her in their father, but it cowed her in her sons. Most of all, I think, in Richard she feared it, because Richard could be so cold. A flamy devil as in young Henry, or a brimstone devil as in Geoffrey of Brittany, or a spitfire devil as was John's--with these she could cope, her lord had had them all. But in Richard she was shy of the bleak isolation, the self-sufficing, the hard, chill core. She dreaded it, yet it drew her; she was tempted to beat vainly at it for the passion's sake; and so in this case she dared to do. She would cheerfully have killed the minion, but she dared the King first. When she opened to him the matter of Don Sancho's letter, none knew better than Richard that the matter might have been good. Yet he would have nothing to say to it. 'Madame,' his words were, 'this is an idle letter, if not impertinent. Don Sancho knows very well that I am married already.' 'Eh, sire! Eh, Richard!' said the Queen-Mother, 'then he knows more than I.' 'I think not, Madame,' the King replied, 'since I have this moment informed you.' The Queen swallowed this; then said, 'This wife of yours, Richard, who is not Duchess of Normandy, will not be Queen, I doubt?' Richard's face grew haggard; for the moment he looked old. 'Such again is the fact, Madame.' 'But--' the Queen began. Richard looked at her, so she ended there. Afterwards she talked with the Archbishop of Canterbury, with the Marshal, with Longchamp of Ely, and her son John. All these worthies were pulling different ways, each trying to get the rope to himself. With that rope John hoped to hang his brother yet. 'Dearest Madame,' he said, 'Richard cannot marry in Navarre even if he were willing. Once he has been betrothed, and has broken plight; once he saw his mistress betrothed, and broke her plight. Now he is wedded, or says that he is. Suppose that you get him to break this wedlock, will you give him another woman to deceive? There is no more faithless beast in the world than Richard.' 'Your words prove that there is one at least,' said the Queen-Mother with heat. 'You speak very ill, my son.' Said John, 'And he does very ill, by the Bread!'