KING MADE PRISONER THE SARACENS

THE KING MADE PRISONER THE SARACENS REFUSE TO BE BOUND BY TRUCE

Now I will leave off speaking of this matter, and tell you how the king was taken, as he himself related it to me. He told me how he had left his own division and placed himself, he and my lord Geoffry of Sargines, in the division that was under my Lord Gaucher of Chatillon, who commanded the rearguard.

And the king related to me that he was mounted on a little courser covered with a housing of silk; and he told me that of all bis knights and sergeants there only remained behind with him my Lord Geofiry of Sargines, who brought rhe king to a little village, there where the king was taken; and as the king related to me, my Lord Geofiry of Sargines defended him from the Saracens as a good servitor defends his lord’s drinking-cup from flies; for every time that the Saracens approached, he took his spear, which he had placed between himself and the bow of his saddle, and put it to his shoulder, and ran upon them, and drove them away from the kin?.

Philip of Montfort

And thus he brought the king to the little village; and they lifted him into a house, and laid him, almost as one dead, in the lap of a burgher-woman of Paris, and thought he would not last this night. Thither came my Lord Philip of Montfort, and said to the king that he saw the emir with whom he had treated of the truce, and, if the king so willed, he would go to him, and renew the negotiation for a truce in the manner that the Saracens desired. The king begged him to go, and said he was right willing; “So my Lord Philip went to the Saracen; and the Saraceihiad taken off his turban from his head, and took off the ring from his finger in token that he would faithfully observe the truce.!

Meanwhile, a very great rinse chance happened to our people ; for a traitor sergeant, whose name was Marcel, began to cry to our people: “ Yield, lord knights, for the king commands you, and do not cause the king to be slain! ” All thought that the king had so commanded, and gave up their swords to the Saracens. The emir saw that the Saracens were bringing in our people prisoners, so he said to my Lord Philip that it was not fitting that he should grant a truce to our people, for he saw very well that they were already prisoners.

So it happened to my Lord Philip that whereas all our people were taken captive, yet was not he so taken, because he was an envoy. But there is an evil custom in the land of paynimry that when the king sends envoys to the Soldan, oi the Soldan to the king, and the king dies, or the Soldan, before the envoys’ return, then the envoys, from whithersoever they may come, and whether Christians or Saracens, are made prisoners and slaves.