His father had told him of that old Flanders grandam, who had sworn that his blood came from proud kings.
But chiefly he thought of Louis with a fresh warmth of love.

Surely the King loved him, or he would not have chosen him out of many for this fateful work.

He had asked of him the ultimate service, as a friend should.

Aimery reconstructed in his inner vision all his memories of the King: the close fair hair now thinning about the temples; the small face still contoured like a boy's; the figure strung like a bow; the quick, eager gestures; the blue dove's eyes, kindly and humble, as became one whose proudest title was to be a "sergeant of the Crucified." But those same eyes could also steel and blaze, for his father had been called the Lion, his mother Semiramis, and his grandsire Augustus.

In these wilds Aimery was his vicegerent and bore himself proudly as the proxy of such a monarch.
The hour came when they met the Tartar outposts.