But St.Pol spoke truth, for Aimery, young as he was, had travelled far both on the material globe and in the kingdom of the spirit.

As a stripling he had made one of the Picardy Nation in the schools of Paris.

He had studied the metaphysics of Aristotle under Aquinas, and voyaged strange seas of thought piloted by Roger, the white-bearded Englishman.

Thence, by the favour of the Queen-mother, he had gone as squire to Alphonso's court of Castile, where the Spanish doctors had opened windows for him into the clear dry wisdom of the Saracens.

He had travelled with an embassy to the Emperor, and in Sicily had talked with the learned Arabs who clustered around the fantastic Frederick.