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

COUNT JAUFRE

The day was soft and bright, neither hot nor cold, and at the mid-morning. Half-way between the walls of Roche-de-Frêne and the host of Montmaure, in a space clear of any cover that might be used for ambushes, rose a blue pavilion, a green and silver pavilion, and one between that carried these colours blended. Before the blue pavilion hung a banner with a blue field and the arms of Roche-de-Frêne, before the green and silver Montmaure’s banner; before the third pavilion the two ensigns were fixed side by side. Those who had pitched the pavilions and made lavish preparation were servants of Montmaure. Montmaure was the host this day. Led blindfold into Roche-de-Frêne, through the streets and in at the castle gate, had gone four great barons, hostages for the green and silver’s faith.

A trumpet sounded from the town. A trumpet answered for Montmaure. The Princess of Roche-de-Frêne rode through the gates upon her white Arabian. Behind her came two ladies, Guida and Maeut, and after these rode fifty knights. All wound down the hillside that was pitted and scarred and strewn with many a battle token. To meet them, started from the tented plain fifty knights of Montmaure,[247] and at their head Count Jaufre. Count Savaric, it was known, suffered yet at times with the wound he had got in the spring from Stephen the Marshal. It seemed that it was so in the week of this meeting. He was laid in his tent in the hands of his leech. But by cry of herald he had made known that his son’s voice and presence were his own. The Princess of Roche-de-Frêne would meet in Count Jaufre no less a figure than the reigning count. Thus Jaufre rode alone at the head of the fifty knights.

He rode a great steed caparisoned as for a royal tourney. He himself wore mail beneath a surcoat of the richest samite, but he had embroidered gloves, not battle gauntlets, and in place of helmet a cap sewn with gems and carrying an eagle feather. The one train came down the hill, the other crossed the level, overburned, and trodden earth. The two met with fanfare of trumpets and caracoling of steeds and chivalrous parade, close at hand the coloured pavilions, overhead the sapphire sky, around the breath of autumn.

Jaufre sprang from his courser, hastened to the Arabian and would aid the princess to dismount. He swept his cap from his head. Red-gold locks and hawk nose, and on the right cheek a long scar, curiously shaped.... The Princess Audiart sat very still upon her white Arabian. Then she smiled, dismounted, and gave Jaufre de Montmaure her gloved hand.

[248]

Jaufre was adept, when he so chose, in courtoisie. He had learned the value and the practice of it in Italy, and learned, in his fellowship with Richard Lion-Heart, to temper it with the cool snow of exaltation and poetry—or to seem to temper it. Richard truly did so. To-day this one acre of earth was a court, and he was prepared to behave to the ruler of Roche-de-Frêne as to a fair woman who chanced to be high-born. All the past fighting should be treated with disdain as a lovers’ quarrel! Count Jaufre had chosen a rôle, and practised it in his mind, with a smile upon his lips. He did not forget, nor did he wish the princess to forget, how much stronger was the host of Montmaure, and that the siege must end in humbling for Roche-de-Frêne and victory for Montmaure. Male strength—male strength was his! He was prepared to show his consciousness of that. He had had lovers’ quarrels before—he could not remember how many. He remembered with complacence that—usually—the other side had come to its knees. If the other side had given him much trouble, made him angry, he then repaid it. That was what was going to happen here. But, to-day, joy and courtesies and the gai science! Show this Audiart the Wise the lord she thought she could refuse! So he met the princess, curled, pressed, and panoplied with courtliness. He out-poetized the poets, beggared the goddesses of attributes. He strewed painted flowers before the Princess of Roche-de-Frêne, then, his count’s cap[249] again upon his head, led her over the battle-cleansed space to the three pavilions.

Her ladies followed her. The hundred knights, dismounting, fraternized. The air was sweet; over high-built town and castle, sweep of martial plain, cloud-like blue mountains, sprang a serenest roof of heaven. The knights gave mutual enmity a day’s holiday, and, having done a good deed, gained thereupon a line in stature. Many of them knew one another, name and appearance and fame. They had encountered in tourney, in hall and bower, and in battle. Fortune had at times ranged them on the same side. A fair number wore the sign of the crusader. Under either banner were famous knights. The time craved fame and worshipped it. War, love, song, and—the counter-pole—asceticism were your trodden roads to fame. Now and then one reached it by a path just perceptible in the wilderness; but more fell in striving to make such a path. There were famous knights among the hundred, and by this time none more famed than Garin of Castel-Noir, Garin of the Golden Island. Sir Aimar de Panemonde was as brave, but Garin was troubadour no less than knight, and about what he did, in either way, dwelt a haunting magic.

Montmaure led the princess to the blue pavilion. It was hers, with her ladies, to refresh herself therein. He himself crossed to the green and silver, drank wine, and looked forth upon the mingling of knights. “Let us see,” ran his thought, “the jade’s choice![250]” He saw valiant men, known afar, or come in this siege to their kind’s admiration. “Ha!” he said to Guiraut of the Vale who stood beside him. “She knows how to cull her garden!”.

“She has more mind, lord, than a woman should have!”

He thought to please Count Jaufre, what he said differing not at all from what he had heard his lord say. But Jaufre frowned. Reckoning the princess his own, it was not for a vassal to speak slightingly! A shifting of the knights took place. It brought into view one whom Montmaure had not earlier seen. “Eye of God! will she bring that devil with her?”

Guiraut followed the pointing finger. “That is the crusader and troubadour, Garin de Castel-Noir.”

“Devil and double-devil!” burst forth Jaufre. “When I take Roche-de-Frêne, woe to you, devil! I hope you be not slain before that day!”

The blood was in his face, his eyes narrowed to a slit, his red-gold locks seemed to quiver. Another movement of knights in the giant cluster, and Garin was hid from his sight. He turned and drank again, with an effort composed his countenance and, a signal being given, left his pavilion. At the same moment the princess quitted the blue; they came together to the great pavilion of the blended colours and the two banners. Here, beneath a canopy, were chairs, with a rich carpet for the feet. Jaufre had provided music, which played,—not loudly, nor so as to trouble their parley.

[251]

The princess had a robe of brown samite, with a mantle of the same; but over the robe, in place of silken bliaut, she wore fine chain-mail, and in a knight’s belt of worked leather, a rich dagger. Her braided hair was fastened close, with silver pins, beneath a light morion. She sat down, looked at Jaufre opposite. “In this war, my lord, we have not met so near before.”

“Never have we met, princess, so near before!” He bent toward her, warm, red-gold, and mighty. This meeting was for condescension, grace, spring touches in autumn! He found her face not so bad, better much than long-ago rumour had painted. His memory carried pictures of her in this siege—upon her war horse before the bridge was taken, or in sallies from the gates, in a night-time surprise, by the flare of torches, or upon the walls, above the storming parties. But he had seen her somewhat distantly, never so close as this. That was the inward reason why he had urged this meeting: he wished to see her close. He felt the stirring of a thwart desire. He wished to embrace—since that was what she refused—and to crush. He could admire the courage in her—he had courage himself, though little did he know of magnanimity. “We should have met,” he said, “before we went to war!”

Audiart regarded him with a stilly look. “Perhaps, my lord, we should have warred where’er we met.—It has been eight years since you came from Italy.”

[252]

“Eight years.—Eye of God! they have been full years!”

“Yes. Each has been an ocean. I remember, it was near this season.”

Jaufre’s brows bore a marking of surprise. “Tell me why you hold that year in memory—”

The princess sat with a faint smile upon her face, her eyes upon the world beyond the canopy. The latter stretched but overhead; the hillside, the town, the tented plain were visible, and in the foreground the company of knights where they were gathered beneath olive and almond trees.

“That year, my lord count, I first saw your father, the ‘great count.’ The prince my father made a tourney in honour of a guest who, like you, my lord, sought a bride. And by chance there came riding by Roche-de-Frêne—that you must know, my lord, gave always frank welcome to neighbours—Count Savaric of Montmaure. My father gave him good welcome, and also my step-dame, Madame Alazais, and myself, and he sat with us and watched the knights joust.... There is where you come in, my lord! One asked why you