The Fortunes of Garin, Mary Johnston [children's ebooks free online txt] 📗

were not with Count Savaric, for it was known that you had lately come back to Montmaure from Italy.” She turned her eyes upon him and smiled again. “I remember almost Count Savaric’s words! ‘My son,’ he said, ‘would go a-hunting! Giving chase to a doe, he outstripped his men. Then burst from a thicket a young wolf which attacked him and tore his side.[253] He cannot yet sit his horse. I have left him at Montmaure where he studies chivalry, and makes, I doubt not, chansons for princesses.’”

The blood flooded Montmaure’s brow and cheek. He stared, not at the Princess of Roche-de-Frêne, but forth upon the train of knights. “Eye of God!” he breathed. “That wolf—! Eye of God!”

“My lord count,” said the princess, “did you afterwards hunt down and kill the wolf? I never heard—and I have always wished to hear.”

“No! He ran free! Heart of Mahound—!”

Light played over the princess’s face, but Jaufre, choking down the thought of the wolf, did not note it. He opened his lips to speak further of that eight-years-past autumn, thus brought up by chance, and of the wolf; then thought better of it. As for Audiart, she thought, “Vengeful so toward a poor squire who but once, and long ago, crossed his evil will! Then what might Roche-de-Frêne hope for?”

Jaufre, regaining command of himself, signalled for wine. A page brought rich flagons upon a rich salver. Jaufre filled a cup, touched it with his lips, offered it to the princess. He was growing cool again, assured as before. There was flattery, in her recalling the moment of his return from Italy, in her remembering, across the years, each word that had been spoken of him!

She took the cup—he noted how long and finely shaped were the fingers that closed upon it—and drank, then, smiling, set it down. “That is a[254] generous wine, my lord—a wine for good neighbours!”

“It is not a wine of Montmaure but of Roche-de-Frêne,” said Jaufre. “Save indeed that, as I have taken the fields that grew the grapes and the town that sold the wine, it may be said, princess, to be of Montmaure!”

Audiart the Wise sat silent a moment, her eyes upon her foe. She was there because the need of Roche-de-Frêne sucked at her heart. But she knew—she knew—that it would not avail! Yet she spoke, low, deep and thrillingly. “My lord, my lord, why should we fight? Truth my witness, if ever I wished Montmaure harm, I’ll now unwish it! Do you so, my lord, toward Roche-de-Frêne! This sunny, autumn day—if we were at peace, how sweet it were! This land garlanded, and Montmaure—and men and women faring upward—and anger, hate, and greed denied—and common good grown dearer, nearer! Ah, my Lord Count Jaufre, lift this siege, and win a knightlier, lordlier name than warring gives—”

Jaufre broke in. “Are marriage bells ringing in your pleading, my princess? If they ring not, all that is said says naught!”

She looked at him with a steadfast face. “Marriage bells?... Give me all that is in your mind, my lord.”

Jaufre drank again. “Marriage bells ringing over our heads where we stand in the Church of Saint Eustace in Montmaure.”

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“In Montmaure.... Did you and I wed, my lord, I must come to you in Montmaure?”

“So! I will give you escort—a thousand spears.”

“And Roche-de-Frêne?—and Roche-de-Frêne—”

“As I may conceive,” said Jaufre, “dealing with my own.”

The princess sat very still. Only her eyes moved, and they looked from Count Jaufre to the walled town and back again. Montmaure had pushed back his seat. He sat propping his chin with his hand, his hot gaze upon her. “Roche-de-Frêne,” she said at last,—”Roche-de-Frêne would have no guaranty?”

“Eye of God!” answered Jaufre. “I will not utterly destroy what comes to me in wedlock! What interest would that serve? It shall feel scourges, but I shall not tumble each stone from its fellow! Take that assurance, princess!”

She sat silent. “After all,” said her thought, “you have only what you knew you would get!” Within she knew grim laughter, even a certain relief. Would she sacrifice or would she not, no good would come from Montmaure to Roche-de-Frêne! Then, fight on, and since thus it was, fight with an undivided will! Resistance rose as from sleep, refreshed. She smiled. “I am glad that I came, my Lord of Montmaure,” she said, and spoke in a pure, limpid, uncoloured voice. “Else, hearing from another your will, I might not have believed—”

“Eye of God! Madame, so it is!” said Jaufre, and[256] in mind heard the bells of the Church of Saint Eustace, and the shouting in Montmaure.

The Princess of Roche-de-Frêne stood up in her brown samite, and sheath of chain-mail and morion that reflected the sunbeams. “Having now your mind, my lord count, I will return to Roche-de-Frêne!”

She signed to her train that was watching. The squires brought before the pavilion her white Arabian and the palfreys of Guida and Maeut. The movement spread to the knights beneath the trees.... Jaufre, rising also, inwardly turned over the matter of how soon she had willed to depart, to bring short this splendidly-prepared-for visit. That she would be gone from him and any further entertainment displeased, but was salved by the thought that she was in flight to conceal her lowered and broken pride. He was conscious that he had not maintained his intention of suavity, courtoisie. When Richard was not there, he did not well keep down the pure savage. That talk of hers of the “wolf” had poured oil on the red embers of a score unpaid. That the wolf was there in presence—that he, Jaufre, did not wish to tell as much to the world and Audiart the Wise, letting them see what score had gone unpaid—increased the heat. It burned within Jaufre with a smouldering that threatened flame. On the other hand, the person of this princess pleased him more than he had looked for. And it was delightsome to him, the taste of having made her taste him, his[257] power, purpose, and mode of dealing! He felt that longer stay would accomplish no more; he was not without a dash of the artist. He, too, signed for his great bay—for his knights to prepare to follow him from these gay pavilions. To-morrow morn this truce would shut—unless, ere that, she sent a herald with her plain surrender!

She was speaking, in the same crystal, uncoloured voice. “Are you so sure, my lord, that you win? Do you always win? What were we talking of at first? A doe that escaped from under your hand, and a wolf that laid you low in a forest glade and went his way in safety?—My Lord of Montmaure, I defy you! and sooner than wed with you I with this dagger will marry Death!” She touched it where it hung at her belt, moved to her Arabian, and sprang to the saddle.

Her following, though but a few had heard what passed between her and Montmaure, saw that there was white wrath, and that the meeting was shortened beyond expectation. Montmaure’s knights marked him no less—that suddenly his mood was black. All of either banner got to horse.

The veins of Jaufre’s brow were swollen. The company of knights forming about the Princess of Roche-de-Frêne, the “wolf” came suddenly into his field of vision.... The “singing knight” placed in her chosen band by Roche-de-Frêne’s princess—the “wolf” protected by her and favoured! Till that instant he had not thought of them together—but[258] now with lightning swiftness his fury forged a red link between them. He did not reason—certainly he gave her no place in the forest, eight years agone—but he desired, he lusted to slay the one before the eyes of the other! He thrust out a clenched hand, he spoke with a thickened voice. Whatever in him had note of a saving quality was passed by the stride of its opposite.

“Ha, my Princess Audiart, that men call the Wise! I will tell you that your wisdom will not save you—nor Roche-de-Frêne—nor yonder knight, my foe, that I hold in loathing and will yet break upon a wheel!” He laughed, sitting his great bay horse, and with a gesture shook forth vengeance. “To-morrow morn, look to yourselves!”

“My Lord of Montmaure, we shall!” The princess gave command, the train from Roche-de-Frêne drew away from the pavilions, the knights of Montmaure and Count Jaufre. “Farewell, my lord!” cried Audiart the Wise, “and for hospitality and frank speech much thanks! I love not war, but, if you will have it so, I will war!”

The trumpets sounded. They who watched from the walls saw the two trains draw apart and their own come in order up the winding road that climbed to the town. Their own reached the gates and entered.... In the market-place, the bell having drawn the people together, the princess spoke to them, her voice, clear, firm, and with hint of depth beyond depth, reaching the outermost fringing sort.[259] She spoke at no great length but to the purpose, then asked their mind and waited to hear it.

Raimon, Lord of Les Arbres, a great baron, the greatest vassal of Roche-de-Frêne there present, spoke from the train of fifty, speaking for those lords and knights and for all chivalry in Roche-de-Frêne. “My Lady Audiart, we are your men! Hold your courage and we shall hold ours! There is not here lord nor belted knight nor esquire who wishes for suzerain the Counts of Montmaure! We will keep Roche-de-Frêne until we know victory or perish!”

The captain of the crossbowmen, a giant of a man, spoke with a booming voice. “The sergeants, the bowmen, the workers of the machines and the foot-soldiers sing Amen! The princess is a good princess and a noble and a wise, and no man here fails of his pay! Montmaure is a niggard and a hard lord. We are yours to the end, my Lady Audiart!”

Thibaut Canteleu spoke for the town. “Since the world will have it that we must have lords, give us your like for lord, my Lady Audiart! We know what a taken and sacked town is when Montmaure takes and sacks it! But open our gates to him at his call, and what better would we get? Long slavery and slow pain, and our children to begin again at the foot of the stair! So we propose to hold this town, how hard it is to hold soever!”

A clerk, standing upon the steps that led to a house door, sent his voice across the crowded place. “I will speak though I be excommunicate for it![260] We hear of the miracle of Father Eustace, and one tells us that God and His Mother would have our princess marry Montmaure! I do not believe that Father Eustace knows the will of God!”

From the throng came a deep, answering note, a multitudinous humming doubt if Our Lady of Roche-de-Frêne had been truly understood. The people looked at the cathedral tower, and they looked at the castle and around at their town, their houses, shops, market, and guild-halls, at the blue sky above and at their princess. The note sustained itself, broadened and deepened, became like the sound of the sea, and said forthright that whatever had been meant by Our Lady of Roche-de-Frêne, it was not alliance with Montmaure!

The Princess of Roche-de-Frêne and her train of knights rode through the town and mounted to the castle. Some change in the order of those about her brought Garin for a moment beside the white Arabian. The princess turned her head, spoke to him. “Count Jaufre holds you in some especial hatred. Why is that?”

“I crossed him in his will one day, long ago. He would have done an evil thing, and I, chancing by, came between him and his prey. He it was who caused me to flee the land.—But not alone for that day is there enmity between us!”

“Ah!” said the princess. “Long is his rosary of ill deeds! Into my mind to-day comes one that was long ago, and on a day like this. It comes so clear—!”

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