The Fortunes of Garin by Mary Johnston (romantic novels in english .txt) 📖

should be a happier man,” said Stephen the Marshal.

“Then almost I wish that I might give it to you! But I cannot—I cannot!” said the princess. “I love earth, fire, air and water, the stars in heaven, the people of the earth, and the thoughts in the mind, but I love no man after the fashion that men desire!—Turn elsewhere, Lord Stephen!”

But Stephen the Marshal shook an obstinate head. “Saint Mark, my witness, I shall wear no other’s favour!”

Prince Gaucelm rose, the Venetian with him, and crossed to Alazais’s side. The girl of the silken cushion had ended her story. The jongleurs distant in the hall began to play viol, lute and harp. “Let us[149] go hearken,” said the princess; and, quitting the chess-table, went to sit beside her step-dame. She had affection for Alazais, and Alazais for Audiart. Stephen the Marshal followed. All drew together to listen to sung poesy.

A favourite jongleur had come forward, harp in hand. He was a dark, wiry, eastern-appearing man, fantastically dressed in brown dashed and streaked with orange. When he had played a dreamy, rich, and murmuring air, he began to sing. He sang well, a fair song and one that was new to a court that was gracious and hospitable to songs.

“Ah, that goes,” said the Princess Audiart, “like the sea in June!”

“It is like a chanson of Bernart de Ventadorn’s,” said Alazais, “and yet it is not like him either. Who made it, Elias?”

“It may have a sound of the sea,” answered Elias, “for it came over the sea. I got it from a palmer. He had learned it at Acre, and he said that, words and music, the troubadour, Garin de l’Isle d’Or, made it there.”

“Oh, we have heard of him! Knights coming back have told us—But never did we hear his singing before! Again, Elias!”

Elias sang. “It is sweet.—The Fair Goal!”

A day or two later, in this hall, the Princess Audiart sat beside her father upon the dais, the occasion a hearing given to the town of Roche-de-Frêne.[150] There was another than Roche-de-Frêne to be received and hearkened to, namely an envoy, arrived the evening before, from Savaric, Count of Montmaure. But the town came first, at the hour that had been set.

The hall presented a different scene from that of the other night. Here now were ranged the prince’s officers of state, the bailiff-in-chief, executives of kinds. At the doors were ushers and likewise men-at-arms. Men of feudal rank stood starkly, right and left of the dais. Others of the castle population, men and women, who found an interest in this happening, watched from the sides of the hall or from the musicians’ gallery. Below the dais sat two clerks with pens, ink, sandbox, and parchment. Before it, in the middle portion of the hall, were massed fifty of the citizens of Roche-de-Frêne.

The Princess Audiart sat in a deep chair, her arms upon its arms. She was dressed in the colour of wine, and the long plain folds of her robe and mantle rested the eye. Her throat was bare, around it a thin chain of gold and a pear-shaped ruby. The thick braids of her hair came over her gown to her knee. Between the dark waves, below a circlet of gold, showed her intent and brooding face.

Castle and town were used to seeing her there, beside her father. Years ago—when castle and town undertook to remember back—it had seemed strange, but now use and wont had done their work. She was not fair—they remembered when they had[151] called her “the ugly princess”—but she was wise. It was usual enough among the great of the earth for fathers to associate with them sons. Here was a prince-father who associated with him his daughter. By degrees Roche-de-Frêne had ceased to wonder. Now, for a long time, the fact had been accepted. Strangeness gone, it seemed, for this one spot on the huge earth, rational.

The town had digested that great meal of liberties obtained years ago, that and smaller loaves since given. It was hungry again; hungry now for no slight stop-gaps, but for another full and great meal. For many months it had given the castle oblique indications that it was hungry. Time was when Gaucelm, a prince not unbeloved, riding through Roche-de-Frêne, met almost wholly broad smiles and faces of welcome. That throughout a year had been changing. Roche-de-Frêne, at first unconsciously reflecting growing desires, but then more and more deliberately, now wore a face of hunger. Roche-de-Frêne saw its interest, and that another meal was to its interest. But it did not wholly expect its lord at once to see that, nor to identify his interest with their interest. It might, it believed, have to fight its lord somewhat as other towns fought theirs. Not with weapons of steel,—it would not win there,—but with persistent and mounting clamour and disaffection, and, most effectively, with making trouble as to tolls, rents, taxes, lord’s rights, and supplies.

[152]

The deputation included men from every guild. Here were chief dyers in scarlet, weavers of fine cloth, makers of weapons, workers in leather, moulders of candles, and here were traders and merchants, dealers in wine and handlers of cattle. Men of substance had been chosen, master workmen and also master agitators.

The prince, addressing himself to a man of venerable aspect, a merchant whose name was known in far places, asked if he were spokesman. There ran a murmur through the deputation. It pressed forward a little, it took on an anxious face.

The merchant advanced a step and addressed the dais. “Fair, good lord and my Lady Audiart, as you both know, I am a judge of merchant’s law, but have no gift of tongue. I know a cause when it is good, but God has not made me eloquent to set it forth to another man—craving pardon, my liege lord and my Lady Audiart! So I will not speak, may it please you both. But here is Thibaut Canteleu, the master of the saddlers—”

“I had expected,” said Prince Gaucelm, “to hear from Thibaut Canteleu.—Stand forth, Thibaut!”

The merchant stepped back. The throng worked like a cluster of bees, then parted, and out of it came a man of thirty, square-shouldered and sturdy, with crisply curling black hair, and black, bold, and merry eyes. It was evident that he was his fellows’ chosen and favourite, their predestined leader. The fifty slanted their bodies toward him, grew suddenly[153] encouraged and bold, hung upon what he should say. Thibaut Canteleu was magnetic, like a fire for warmth, an instiller of courage. He made a gesture of reverence toward the dais.

The prince smiled slightly. “Well, Thibaut Canteleu?”

“Sire and my Lady Audiart,” spoke Thibaut, “few words suffice when here is right and yon is wisdom! Sire, these many years, back to the beginning, have we and our fathers and grandfathers before us, given to our lords duteous service. When the town was a poor village, when there were but a few huts—when the old castle stood—in the old days before the memory of man, we gave it! And this castle and the old castle—and you, lord, and the old lords—have given us succour and protection, holding your shield above us! Beau sire, we do not forget that, nor that you are our lord.” As he spoke he kneeled down on both knees, joined his hands palm to palm, and made a gesture of placing them between other hands. “Sire and my Lady Audiart, many castles have you and not a few towns and all are your sworn men. Shall this town that grew up by your greatest castle and took name from it, be less your man than another? Jesu forbid! Services, dues, rents and tolls, fair-toll and market-toll, are yours, and when you summon us we drop all and come, and if there is war we hold the town for you while there is breath in us! Yea, and if there should chance to be needed in this moment moneys[154] for building, for gathering, clothing, and weaponing men-at-arms, for castle-wants, for pilgrimages or sending knights to the land over the sea, for founding of abbeys and buying of books and holy relics, or for any other great and especial matter, we stand ready, lord, to raise as swiftly as may be, that supply.”

He came to a period in his speech, still kneeling. “That is good hearing, Thibaut Canteleu!” said Gaucelm the Fortunate. He spoke with equanimity, with his large scope of humour. He was as big as a mountain range, and as became mountains he seemed to be able to see in various directions. “Now,” he said, “let us hear, Thibaut, what your lords must do!”

“Fair, good lord—”

“We are yet to guard Roche-de-Frêne from wolf-neighbour and fox-neighbour, Count Dragon and King Lion? Have you heard tell of the siege in your grandfather’s time? But well I wot that the town has no enemies, that none is jealous of its trade, that no wolf thinks, ‘Now if I had its market—or if I had it with its market!’ and no dragon ponders, ‘What if I put forth a claw and drag these weavers and dyers and saddlers where they may weave and dye and work in leather for me? When I have them in my den they may whistle not for new, but for old freedoms!’—We are yet to keep Roche-de-Frêne in as fair safety as we may?”

“Lord, lord,” said Thibaut, “are we not of one[155] another? If you are strong to keep us safe, are we not strong to make you wealth?”

“My father gave you freedoms, and often have I heard him say that he repented his giving! Then I ruled, and for a time held to that later mind of his. Then about many matters I formed my own mind, and in larger measure than he had given, I granted freedom. For a fair space of time you rested content. Then you began to ask again. And again, now this grant and now that, I have given!”

He ceased to speak, sitting dressed in bronze samite, with a knight’s belt of finest work, and on his head a circlet of gold.

Thibaut Canteleu still kneeled. Now he raised his black eyes. “Lord, why did you give?”

“Because it seemed to me right,” said Prince Gaucelm.

Thibaut spread his hands. The corners of the Princess Audiart’s lips twitched. She glanced aside at Gaucelm the Fortunate, and a very sweet and loving look came like a beam of light into her face. She said under her breath, “Ah, Jesu! Judgement in this matter has been given!” turned her head and retook the intent and brooding look. Her eyes, that had marked width between them, received impression from the length and breadth of the hall. She gathered each slight movement and change in the deputation of citizens; and as for Thibaut Canteleu, she saw that Thibaut, also, grasped that judgement had been given.

[156]

Prince Gaucelm sat without movement of body or change of look. His size did not give him a seeming of heaviness, nor the words that he had spoken take power from his aspect. He did not seem conscious of their effect upon others. He sat in silence, then shook himself and returned to the matter in hand. “Tell us now, Thibaut Canteleu, what it is that the town desires.”

“Lord,” said Canteleu, “we wish and desire to elect our own magistrates. And our disputes and offences—saving always, lord, those that are truly treasonable or that err against Holy Church—we wish and desire to bring into our own courts and before judges of our choosing.”

A sharp sound ran through the hall—that portion of it that was not burgher. Truly Roche-de-Frêne was making a demand immense, portentous—The red was in the faces of the prince’s bailiffs and in those of other officials. But Gaucelm the Fortunate maintained a quietness. He looked at Thibaut Canteleu as though he saw the generations behind him and the generations ahead. He spoke.

“That is what you now wish and ask?”

“Lord, that is what we wish and ask.”

“And if I agree not?”

“We are your merchants and artisans, lord! What can we do? But are love and ready service naught? Fair good lord, and my Lady Audiart, we hold that we ask a just—yea, as God lives, a righteous[157] thing! Moreover, we think, lord, that we plead, not to such as the Count of Montmaure, but to Roche-de-Frêne!”

Behind him spread a deep, corroboratory murmur, a swaying of bodies and nodding of heads. The winter sunshine, streaming in through long, narrow windows, made luminous the positive colours, the greens, blues, reds of apparel, the faces swarthy, rosy or pale, the workman hands and the caps held in them, the smoother merchant hands and the better caps held in them. It lighted Thibaut Canteleu, still kneeling, in a blue tunic and grey hose, a blue cap upon the pavement beside him.

The prince spoke. “Get you to your feet, Thibaut, and depart, all of you! A week from to-day, at this hour, come again, and you shall be answered.”

Thibaut Canteleu took up his cap and rose from his knees. He made a deep reverence to the dais, then stepped backward. All the deputation moved backward, kept their faces toward