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

MONTMAURE

There came into the hall, ushered by the seneschal and walking with Stephen the Marshal to whom had been confided his entertainment, a knight banneret, very good-looking, very sumptuously attired, with an air of confidence verging on audacity. Behind and attending him were two other knights, lesser men; behind these, three esquires. All were dressed with a richness; all, indefinably, stood in a debatable strip between friend and foe.

The envoy came before the dais. On yesterday welcome had been given him, and to-day set to hear the desires of Count Savaric of Montmaure. Now, Gaucelm being, by virtue of three castles, his lord’s lord, the envoy just bent the knee, then straightened himself and stood prepared to give that forth which the count had preferred to send by word of mouth rather than by written letter. There occurred, however, some delay. A wider audience than had gathered to the town’s hearing would come to hear what Savaric of Montmaure had to say. Lord and lady, knight and squire, were entering, and now came Alazais, clad in white bordered with ermine. Her lord made her welcome; the Princess Audiart, rising, stood until she was seated. Her[160] ladies, fair and gaily dressed, made about her a coloured cloud. Two that were Audiart’s came and stood behind that princess.

At last, quiet falling, the prince once more gave to Montmaure’s envoy words of welcome, then, “We should have been glad,” he said, “to have greeted in friendly wise Count Savaric himself! His son, too, who is said to be a puissant knight.”

“So please you, they may come some day to Roche-de-Frêne, the one and the other,” answered the envoy. “But now my master, the great count, is busy at home where he makes a muster of lords who are his men. At Autafort, with Duke Richard, is the young count, Sir Jaufre, red-gold, shining and mighty, like a star of high fortune!”

“The ‘great count,’” said Gaucelm, with suavity, “is well employed. And you grow a poet, Sir Guiraut of the Vale, when you speak of the young count.”

“Sir,” said Guiraut of the Vale, “he is poet himself and theme of poets! He is the emerald of knights, the rose of chivalry! That lady counts herself fortunate for whom he rides in tournament. His lance unhorses the best knights, and behind him, in his quarrels, are the many spears of Montmaure—I will be highly bold and say the spears, for number like the trees in the forest, of Duke Richard of Aquitaine!”

Gaucelm smiled. “Duke Richard,” he said, “hath just now, I think, need of his spears before Toulouse.”

[161]

Guiraut of the Vale waved his hand. “Count Raymond will come to terms, and the Duke’s spears be released. But all this, sir, is not the matter of my message! Truly, when I think of Count Jaufre I forget myself in praises!”

“Guiraut, Guiraut!” thought the Princess Audiart. “You forget not one word of what you have been taught to say!”

Gaucelm the Fortunate spoke with serenity. “A servant so devoted is as a sack of gold in the count’s treasury!—Now your message, sir envoy, and the matter upon which you were sent?”

Guiraut of the Vale breathed deep, lifted his chest beneath bliaut and robe of costly stuffs, made his shoulders squarer, included now in the scope of his look alike Gaucelm and his daughter.

“Prince of Roche-de-Frêne,” he said, “it is to my point—though the Blessed Virgin is my witness I am not so commissioned!—to cause you and this priceless lady, the princess your daughter, to see Sir Jaufre de Montmaure as the glass of the world shows him, the brightest coal upon the hearth of chivalry! The world hears of the wisdom of the Princess Audiart—well wot I that did she see and greet him, she would value this knight aright! As for him, like his sword to his side, he would wear there this wisdom! Fair prince, my master, the great count, would see Montmaure and Roche-de-Frêne one in wedlock. Count Savaric of Montmaure offers his son, Count Jaufre, for bridegroom to the Princess Audiart!”

[162]

The great hall rustled loudly. Only the dais seemed quiet, or only the two figures immediately fronting Sir Guiraut of the Vale. Out of the throng seemed to come a whisper, electric and flowing, “Here is a suitor that would hang Roche-de-Frêne at his belt!” It lifted and deepened, the whispering and muttering. It took the tone of distant thunder.

Gaucelm the Fortunate raised his hand for quiet. When it was attained he spoke courteously to Guiraut of the Vale. “Count Savaric echoes my soul when he would have peace and friendliness and not enmity between Roche-de-Frêne and Montmaure. Certes, that may be brought about, or this way or that way! For the way that he advances, it must be considered, and that with gravity and courteousness. But, such is the plenitude of life, the same city may be reached by many roads.”

“Beseeching your pardon,” said Guiraut of the Vale, “that is true of many cities, but not, according to the count my master, of this one!”

The hall rustled again. The lord of Roche-de-Frêne sat quietly in his great chair, but he bent upon Montmaure’s envoy a look profound and brooding. At last he spoke. “We are not to be threated, Sir Guiraut of the Vale, into a road whatsoever! Nor is this city, that is only to be reached so, of such importance, perhaps, to Roche-de-Frêne as imagineth the ‘great count.’” Wherewith he ceased to deal with Guiraut and spoke aside to his daughter.

[163]

The Princess Audiart rose from her chair. She stood in long, flowing red shading from the cherry of her under-robe through the deepened crimson of the bliaut to the almost black of her mantle. At the base of her bare throat glowed on its chain of gold the pear-shaped ruby.

“To-day, Sir Guiraut of the Vale,” she said, “we receive the count your master’s fair proffer of his son for my bridegroom. For my part, I thank the count for his courtesy and good-will and fair words to me-ward. The prince my father consenting, one week from to-day, here in the hall, you shall have answer to bear back. Until then, the prince my father, and the princess my fair and good step-dame, and myself, who must feel the honour your master does me, and all the knights and ladies of this court give you fair welcome! An we may, we will make the days until then pass pleasantly for a knight of whose valiancy this castle is not ignorant.”

She spoke without pride or feeling in her voice, simply, in the tone of princely courtesy. A stranger could not have told if she liked that proffer or no. Guiraut of the Vale made obeisance. Prince Gaucelm rose, putting an end to the audience.

Two hours later he came to the chamber of the ugly princess. It was a room set in a tower, large, with narrow windows commanding three directions. A curtained archway showed a smaller, withdrawing room. Rugs lay upon the oaken floor and the walls were hidden by hangings worked with the wanderings[164] of Ulysses. The bed had silken curtains and a rich coverlet. Jutting from the hearth came a great cushioned settle. There were chairs, carven chests for wardrobe, a silver image of the Virgin, nearby a row of books. Present in the room when the prince came were the Lady Guida and the girl who had told in hall the story of Arthur’s knights. These, upon his entrance, took embroidery-frame and book, and disappeared into the smaller room.

Prince Gaucelm sat in the corner of the settle by the hearth. The Princess Audiart now stood before him, and now walked with slow steps to one or another window and back again. The prince watched her.

“Audiart, Audiart!” he said at last; “I doubt me that the hey-day and summer of peace has passed for Roche-de-Frêne!”

“Winter is the time between summers.”

“Have it so.... It was wise to delay this knight the week out.”

“Ah, where is Wisdom? Even the hem of her mantle turns out to be a stray light-beam in shadow. But it seemed wiser. So one may think a little.”

“Now, by God Almighty!” said Gaucelm, “it needs not much thinking!”

“No. But still one may take time and speak Montmaure fair, while we study what will come and how we meet and defeat it.... Let us deal first with Thibaut Canteleu and Roche-de-Frêne.”

Gaucelm the Fortunate, leaning forward, warmed[165] his hands at the fire which was burning with a singing sound. “Aye, my burghers—Child, all over the green earth they cease to be mine or another’s burghers!”

“They grow to be their own men. Yes.”

“Gaucelm of the Star thought that idea the strangest, most abhorrent!—and his father before him—and so backward into time. It outraged them, angering the very core of the heart within them! Late and soon they would have fought the town!”

“Or late or soon they would have lost.—Does it in truth anger us that Thibaut Canteleu and the others should wish to choose their magistrates?”

“No. Montmaure angers me, but not Thibaut.”

“Then let us act toward the town from our own thought and mind, and not from that of our fathers.”

She paced the floor. “I sorrow for Bishop Ugo’s disappointment. It will be a sword thrust if we and the town embrace!”

“Aye. Ugo desires that quarrel for us.... Well, then we say to Thibaut Canteleu, ‘Burgher, grow your own man!’”

“I counsel it,” said Audiart. “It is right.”

“And wise?”

She turned from the window. “Pardieu! If war is upon us Montmaure’s self might say that it were wise!”

The prince pondered it. “Yes—Put, then, Thibaut Canteleu and the town to one side. Now Montmaure—Montmaure—Montmaure!”

[166]

The princess came to the settle and sat down, leaning her elbow upon a small table drawn before it. Upon the table lay writing materials, together with a number of small counters and figures of wood. There was also a drawing, a rude map as it were, of the territory of Roche-de-Frêne, bordered by the names of contiguous great fiefs. She drew this between them, and the two, father and daughter, studied it as they talked. With her left hand she moved the little pieces of wood to and fro. Upon each was painted a name—names of castles, towns, villages, abbeys that held from Gaucelm. One piece had the name of that fief for which Montmaure had been wont to give homage.

Gaucelm looked at the long space upon the drawing marked “Aquitaine.” “Guiraut of the Vale is a braggart. I know not if he bragged beyond reason of Richard’s great help.”

“It is like enough that he did. But Richard Lion-Heart has often backed another’s quarrel. Pity he looks not to see if it be stained or clean!”

“Toulouse still holds him.... Stephen the Marshal must go quickly to King Philip at Paris.”

“Yes. Before Guiraut of the Vale’s week is gone by—or right upon that departure? Right upon it, I think.”

“Yes. No need to show Guiraut what you expect.” He touched the wooden pieces with his finger, running over the names of his barons. “Letters must be written and heralds sent. Madonna[167] Alazais and Guida. Raimon Seneschal and Aimeric the Gay, had best plan shining and dazzling entertainment for Guiraut and his following.... I know well that the ‘great count’ is making his muster.”

“He makes no secret of it.... But one road to peace for Roche-de-Frêne.”

“That is not a road,” said Prince Gaucelm, “or it is a road of dishonour. Savaric of Montmaure and his son have in them a demon. Waste no words upon a way that we are not going!”

He took a quill from the table, dipped it into ink, and began to write upon a bit of paper, making a computation of strength. He put down many lords whose suzerain he was, and beneath each name its quota of knights, sergeants, and footmen, the walled towns besides Roche-de-Frêne that called him lord, the villages, the castles, manors, and religious houses, Roche-de-Frêne itself, and this great castle that had never been taken. He added allies to the list, and the sum of gold and silver he thought he could command, and with part of it purchase free companies. He paused, then added help—an uncertain quantity—from his suzerain, King Philip. “It is a fair setting-forth,” said Gaucelm the Fortunate. “Once, and that not so long ago, Montmaure would not in his most secret dream have dared—.