Colt’s Crossing

On the following day the host lay at a place called the “ Colt’s Crossing,” where the water is very good, and there with they water the plants from which sugar comes. When we were encamped, one of my knights came to me and said: “ Lord, I have lodged you in a fairer place than you were lodged in yesterday.” “mother knight, who had chosen my yesterday’s camping-ground, sprang upon him in wrath, and cried: “ You are over-bold in speaking of any thing I may have done! ” And he sprang upon him and took him by the hair. Then I sprang upon him in turn, and hit him with my fist between the two shoulders, and he let go. And I said to him: “ Quick, out of my quarters, for, so help me God, you shall never again be follower of mine.”

The knight went away, showing great dole and sorrow, and brought to me my Lord Giles le Bran, the Constable of France; and for the great repentance that my Lord Giles saw in the knight on account of the folly he had wrought, he besought me, as instantly as he could, to take him back into my household. And I replied that I would not take him back unless the legate released me from my oath. To the legate they went, and told him of the matter; and the legate answered that he had not power to release me, because the oath was reasonable; for the knight had well deserved his punishment. And these things I relate to you so that you may keep from taking any oath which in reason it were not convenient to take; for, as the wise man says, “ Who swears lightly, lightly forswears himself.”

EXPEDITION AGAINST BELINAS AND JOINVILLE IN ERIL

On the following day the king went and encamped before the city of Assur, which in the Bible is called Tyre. There the king called together the men of note in the host, and asked them if it would be well to go and rake the city of Belinas before he went to Sayette. We all thought it would be well if the king sent his people thither; but no one advised that he should go thither himself; and with great difficulty was he dissuaded therefrom. Finally it was decided that the Count of Eu should go, and mv Lord Philip of Montfort, the Lord of Assur, my Lord Giles le Bran, Constable of trainee, my Lord Peter the Chamberlain, the Master of the temple and his brethren, and the Master of the Hospital and is bretliren also.