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

still the clouds hung grey, and the town and castle drawn against them watched breathlessly.

Aimar de Panemonde had joined his brother-in-arms. A brave and beautiful knight, he rode in the onset beside Garin of the Golden Island. The two lowered lances and came against two knights of Montmaure. The knights were good knights, but the men from Palestine defeated and unhorsed them. One was hurt to death, the other his people rescued. Garin and Aimar, sweeping forward, met, by a bit of wall, mounted men of a Free Company.... The din had grown as frightful as if the world was crashing down. Always Montmaure might remember that Montmaure had in field twice as many as Roche-de-Frêne. Garin and Aimar thrust through the press by the wall, rode with other knights where the fight was fiercest. Garin wished to encounter Jaufre de Montmaure; he searched for the green and silver banner. But there was a wild toss of colours, shifting and indeterminate. Moreover the day, dark before, darkened yet further; it was not possible to see clearly to any distance.

And then, suddenly, a knight was before him, on a great bay horse caparisoned with green picked out with black, the knight himself in a green surcoat. The helmet masked the face, all save the eyes. Each combatant shook a spear and drove against the other, but a wave of battle surging by made the[226] course not true. The green knight’s spear struck the edge of Garin’s shield. But the latter’s lance, encountering the other’s casque, burst the fastening, unhelmed him. Red-gold hair showed, hawk nose, scar across the cheek.

“Ha!” cried Garin. “I know you! Do you, perchance, know me?”

But the battle drove them apart. Here in the press was no longer a knight in green. Garin, looking around, saw only dim struggling forms, knights and footmen. Aimar had been with him, but the waves had borne Aimar, too, to a distance. He lost Rainier also, and his men. Here was the grey, resounding plain beneath the livid sky, and the battle, that, as a whole, went against Roche-de-Frêne. His horse sank under him, cut down by Cap-du-Loup’s men. Garin drew his sword, fought afoot. He saw a tossed banner, heard a long trumpet-call, hewed his way where the press was thickest. A riderless horse coming by him, trampling the dead and the hurt that lay thickly, he caught it by the bridle and brought it in time to Stephen the Marshal full in the midst of that seething war. “Gramercy!” cried Stephen, and swung himself into saddle. Roche-de-Frêne rallied, swept toward Montmaure’s coloured tents. Overhead the thunder was rolling.

Garin, his back to a heap of stones, fought as he had fought in the land over the sea. A bay horse came his way again. Jaufre de Montmaure, unhelmed, towered above him, sword in hand. Garin’s[227] casque was without visor; his features showed, and in the pallid light his blue surcoat with the bird upon the breast. “Will you leave your horse?” quoth Garin. “It were better chivalry so.”

“I meet you the second time to-day. Moreover we encountered a fortnight ago, in the fight by the river. Beside that,” said Jaufre, “there is something that comes back to me—but I cannot seize it! Before I slay you, tell me your name.”

“Garin of the Golden Island.”

Jaufre made a pause. “You are the troubadour?”

“Just.”

“So that Richard knows not that I cut you down!” said Jaufre, and struck with his sword.

But not for nothing had Garin trained in the East. The blade that should have bitten deep met an upward glancing blade. The stroke was turned aside. Jaufre made a second and fiercer essay—the sword left his hand, came leaping and clattering upon the heap of stones. “Eye of God!” swore Jaufre and hurled himself from his war horse.

“Take your sword!” said Garin. “And yet once, where I was concerned, you lied, making oath that I struck you from behind and unawares—”

“Who are you with your paynim play? Who are you that I seem to know?”

“I was not knight, but squire—when I tied your hands with your horse’s reins!”

A deeper red came to Montmaure’s face, the[228] veins stood out upon his brow, his frame trembled. “Now I remember—! Flame of Hell! You are that insolent whom I sought—”

“I flew from your grasp, and I wintered well in Palestine.—And still you injure women!”

Jaufre lunged with the recovered sword. “I will kill you now—”

“That is as may be,” said Garin, and began again the paynim play.

But he was not destined to have to-day Jaufre’s death upon him, nor to spill his own life. With shouting and din, through the blackening air, Count Savaric swept this way, a thousand with him. The mêlée became wild, confused and dream-like. Jaufre sprang backward from the sword, like a serpent’s darting tongue, of Garin of the Golden Island. The Lord of Chalus pushed a black steed between and with a mace struck Garin down. He sank beside the heap of stones, and for a time lost knowledge of the clanging fight. It went this way and it went that. But the host of Roche-de-Frêne had great odds against it, and faster and faster it lost....

Garin came back to consciousness. Storm-light and failing day, sound as of world ruin, odour of blood, oppression of many bodies in narrow space, faintness of heat—Garin looked upward and saw through a cleft in the battle Roche-de-Frêne upon its hill-top, and the castle grey against the grey heaven, a looming grey dream. He sank again into the sea and night, but when he lifted again, lifted[229] clear. He opened his eyes and found Aimar beside him, and Rainier.

Aimar bent to him. “What, Garin, Garin! All saints be praised! I thought you dead—”

“I live,” said Garin. “But the day is going against us.”

He spoke dreamily, and rose to his feet. Before and above him he still saw the grey castle. It lightened, and in a wide picture showed the broken host and the faces of fleeing men. One came by with outspread arms. “Lord Stephen is down—sore hurt or dead! Lord Stephen is down—”

Thunder crashed. Beneath its long reverberations sounded a wailing of trumpets. This died, and there arose a savage shouting, noise of Montmaure’s triumph. It lightened and thundered again. Other and many trumpets sounded, not at hand but somewhat distantly, not mournfully, but with voices high and resolved and jubilant. Garin thought that they came from the castle, then that they were blowing in the streets of the town, then that they sounded without the walls, from the downward slope of the great road. Rose came into the grey of the world, salt into its flatness.

“Blessed Mother of God!” cried Aimar. “See yonder, rescue streaming from the gates—”

Forth from Roche-de-Frêne poured the castle garrison, poured the burghers. They came, each man armed as he would run, at the alarum bell, to the walls. Knight and sergeant rode; the many[230] hasted afoot. All the old warriors and the young warriors, whose post of duty had been within the place, sprang forth, and followed them the host of the townsmen, at their head Thibaut Canteleu. But at the head of all, chivalry, foot-soldiers and townsmen, rode the Princess of Roche-de-Frêne. Down came the torrent, in the light of the storm, down the hill of Roche-de-Frêne, over the bridge, then widened itself and came impetuous, with a kind of singing will, freshness, and power upon the plain, to the battle that the one side had thought won and the other lost.

All lethargy passed from Garin’s senses. He beheld the rallying of the host, beheld Stephen the Marshal, sore wounded but not to death, lifted and borne to the great tower, beheld the princess, wearing mail like a man, a helmet upon her head, in her hand a sword. She rode a grey destrier, and where her banner came, came courage, hope, and victory. The battle turned. Montmaure was thrust back upon his tents. When the tempest broke, with a great rain and whistling wind, with lightning that blinded and pealing thunder, when the twilight came down and the battle rested, it was Montmaure that had lost the day.

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