Fain would the Prince have proceeded at once to Palestine; but the Genoese, from whom, in the abeyance of the English navy, he had been obliged to hire his transports, absolutely refused to sail for the East until after the three winter months; and he was therefore obliged to remain in Sicily. King Charles invited him to spend Christmas at the court at Syracuse or Naples, in hopes, perhaps, of persuading him to the Greek expedition; but Edward was far too much displeased with the Angevin to accept his hospitality; recollecting, perhaps, that such a sojourn had been little beneficial to his great-uncle Cœur de Lion’s army. He decided upon staying where he was, in the remotest corner of Sicily, and keeping his three hundred crusaders as much to themselves and to strict military discipline as possible, maintaining them at his own cost, and avoiding as far as he could all transactions with the cruel and violent Provençal adventurers, with whom Charles had filled the island. Thus Richard found his hopes of obtaining further intelligence about his brothers entirely passing away. He did, indeed, venture on one day saying to the Prince, “My Lord, I hear that my brother Guy hath become a Neapolitan count!” “A Tuscan robber would be nearer the mark!” coldly replied Edward. “And,” added Richard, “methought, while the host is in winter quarters, I would venture on craving your license, my Lord, to visit him?” “Thou hast thy choice, Richard,” answered the Prince, with grave displeasure; “loyalty and honour with me, or lawlessness and violence with thy brother. Both cannot be thine!”