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

CAP-DU-LOUP

The giant was a Saint Christopher to Jael and Elias. He was great of height and bulk, feared for his strength and liked because of a broad simplicity and good-nature, apparent when he was not angry or hot in the midst of allowed slaughter and rapine. For the saffron cross and the jongleur he proved, this day, the right convoy.

Cap-du-Loup had two hundred knights and a thousand fighting men. The knights’ encampment they did not approach; it lay to the west, neighbouring the Lord of Chalus’s quarter. But they went by, they went between, the tents and booths of the thousand men.

These shouted to them, these stopped them, these ran from farther tents. “Game! Game!” Cap-du-Loup’s men cried. “Leveret! leveret! leveret!”—then saw the cross that the woman wore. It was a weapon to halt snatching hands, a spell to wither the lust in men’s eyes. And when the heat turned to cold, and where, as twice again happened, another zeal sprang up and there threatened stoning, came in the giant’s voice and arm, making room for the jongleur’s voice and hand upon the strings.... Thrice-guarded, the two from Roche-de-Frêne[310] threaded the camp of Cap-du-Loup. It was noon now, and autumn sunshine thick about them. In broad day they passed the folds of the dragon, and then by a ruined house, cold and vacant as clay, they met with suddenness Cap-du-Loup.

The giant was afraid. “Little Mother of God, take care of us!” he said and caught his breath.

Cap-du-Loup was neither tall nor stout of build; he was rusty-red and small, but he could fright the giant, hold him knock-kneed. “What are you doing, Jean le Géant, wandering with hellfroth such as these?”

Jean le Géant answered like a child, telling all the why and wherefore.

“Begone where you kennel!” said Cap-du-Loup, when he had made an end. “You two, who came from Burgundy, what talk is made there of this war?”

He sat on a stone in the noon light, behind him a black and broken wall, and questioned the jongleur. He had looked once at the figure wrapped in frieze whereon was sewed a saffron cross. The woman seemed young, but the mantle was hooded, and that and the black hair astream about her face—She appeared dark as a Saracen and without beauty, and the cross did put a ring about her and a pale, cold light ... Cap-du-Loup, who came from Burgundy,—though that had never interfered with the sale of his services to any high-bidding foe of Burgundy,—turned to the jongleur. “What talk is there?”

[311]

“Lord, as you know, the barons there have wars of their own! But I played upon a time in a hall where afterwards I listened to the talk of knights. It seemed to me that they inclined to Roche-de-Frêne. But what do I know?”

“Did any speak of me?”

“Lord, one was talking with a great merchant of Italy who was present. He said, ‘There is a bold captain of Burgundy, Gaultier Cap-du-Loup, with Montmaure. He had been wiser, methinks, to have taken his sword to Roche-de-Frêne! If Aquitaine drops off—’”

“Wait there!” cried Cap-du-Loup. “What colour did they give for Aquitaine ceasing from us?”

“None, lord, that I heard. I heard no more,” said Elias, “for I went out in the night to give my sister bread.”

“Jean the foolish giant has said that you went first from Limousin to Our Lady of Roche-de-Frêne. When were you in Roche-de-Frêne?”

“Lord, at Pentecost, before the siege began.”

“What did you think, jongleur, of that town and castle?”

Cap-du-Loup looked at what he spoke of, lifted before them, shimmering in the light. Montmaure was attacking at the eastern gate. A noise as of dull thunder rolled over the plain.

“Lord,” said the jongleur, “there are fellows of my art, who, to please, would say ‘a poor town and a trembling castle!’ But I think that you are not[312] such an one, but a man who greets with valiancy bare truth! To my apprehension, lord, it seemed a great town and a strong castle.”

“It is God’s truth!” said Cap-du-Loup, who for two months had received no pay for himself nor for his men. “At Pentecost the old prince yet lived. Saw you Audiart?”

“Lord, it was said that she was at mass one day when we stood without the church. When ladies and knights came forth some one cried, ‘Audiart!’ and I saw her, as it were among clouds.”

“They say that she pays well and steadily.—Holy Virgin!” said Cap-du-Loup, “I would that Count Jaufre, who is to be her lord and husband, would take ensample!”

He spoke in a barking tone, and grew redder and fiercer. His small eyes without lashes looked at Elias of Montaudon as though he had suddenly remembered to call one to break the lute of the fainéant and cudgel him deep into the camp to wait on men who fought! But perhaps the jongleur’s remembering the words “bold captain of Burgundy,” or his knowing character and that Cap-du-Loup was not afraid of false or true, saved lute and shoulders. Perhaps it was something else, wolves being softened long ago by Orpheus. Or the giant’s stammered explanation before, frightened, he went away, may have worked, or the pale, cold light about the woman have touched, to Cap-du-Loup’s perception, her brother also. Perhaps it was something of all of[313] these. However that may be, Cap-du-Loup stared at Roche-de-Frêne against the sky, and, not for the first time of late, thought to himself that, all things being equal and Montmaure less strong by certain divisions than was the case, then a man would be a fool to come into his service rather than into that of the banner yonder! Then he somewhat lost himself, listening to Count Jaufre’s battering the town’s eastern gate.

Jael and Elias, standing in the shadow of the ruined house, listened, too, and with the eye of the mind saw the attack and the defenders....

Cap-du-Loup rose from his stone, spoke to the jongleur. “If I have passed you, all shall pass you. If they stop you, tell them to come speak with Cap-du-Loup!” With that, and with a wolf-like suddenness, both fierce and stealthy, he was gone.

Jael and Elias, in the shadow of the black wall, saw him one moment, then a cairn-like heap of stones came between.... It was after the noon hour; though it was late autumn the southern land blazed light. Into their ears came the rhythmic dash and recoil of the distant conflict, came, too, the nearer buzz and hum, the sharp, discrete noises of the encampment whose edge they had gained. They saw that they were upon its edge, and that before them lay a road less crowded. This they took. At first men were about them, but these had seen them with Cap-du-Loup and disturbed them not. A trumpet blew and a drum was beat, and the Free Companions[314] hurried to the sound. The two quickened their steps; they took advantage; before the diversion of vision and attention was ended, they were clear of the camp of Gaultier Cap-du-Loup.

Right and left lay the host of Montmaure, but ahead was rough, sharp, and broken ground, where horsemen might not manage their horses and disliked by men without steeds. Here was a bend of the brook Saint Laurent, and ground stony and sterile or ashen and burned over. The dragon possessed the wide plain; he drew water from the stream where he wished it, but for the rest left unoccupied this northward-drawn rough splinter of the world.... The two saw an outpost, a sentinel camp, but it was intent upon the crescendo of battle-sound pouring from Roche-de-Frêne, and upon what might be the meaning of Cap-du-Loup’s calling trumpets. Jael and Elias slipped by, in the dry sunshine, beneath the brow of a hill, like a brace of tinted, wind-blown leaves.

After this they came into a solitude. It had not been always so, for here the rough ground fell away, Saint Laurent bent his stream like a sickle, and once had been bright fields and graceful vineyards. Here had stood many small houses of peasants who had tilled their fields, tended their vineyards, brought the produce and sold it to Roche-de-Frêne, trudging through life, often in the shadow and often in the sun. Now death only lived and abode and, black-winged, visited the fields. All things were[315] cut down, charred, and withered. The people were gone, and where had been houses stood ruins.

The herd-girl sighed as she walked. Once the jongleur saw her weeping.

It lasted a long way, this black swath beneath the sun. It led them out of the dragon’s immediate field, away from his mailed and glittering coils. The dragon lay well behind them, his eyes upon Roche-de-Frêne. Roche-de-Frêne itself, now, was distant.

But the venom of the dragon had been spread wherever his length had passed. Not alone here, by the brook Saint Laurent, but all around now, as far as the eye could see, stretched blackening and desolation. All was overcovered with the writing of war. The princess of the land had ceased to weep. She viewed ruin with the face of a sibyl.

In the mid-afternoon they came upon knights resting by a great stone, in a ring of trees with russet leaves. These hailed the jongleur and the woman with him—when they saw what manner of penitent was the latter they crossed themselves and let her stay without the ring, seated among stones some distance from it. But they and their squires listened to Garin’s singing.

He sang for them a many songs, for when one was done they clamoured for another. Then they gave him largesse, and would have constrained him to turn and go with them to the host of Montmaure, where would be employment enough, since Count[316] Jaufre nor no one else had many jongleurs of such voice and skill! Though they knew it not, voice and skill served him again when he turned them from constraining to agreement to let him go his way, on pilgrimage with her who sat among the stones. They made him sing again, and then, as all rested, they asked questions as to the host through which he had come. He knew, from this dropped word and that, that they were knights of Aquitaine, riding to join that same Jaufre.

With their squires they numbered but twelve in all. Food and wine were taken from the lading of a sumpter mule and placed upon the ground. They gave the jongleur a generous portion, consented to his bearing to the penitent of the cross, the Unfortunate his sister, portion of his portion. Returned, he asked of one of the squires with whom he ate, where was Duke Richard? He was at Excideuil.

“They say,” said the jongleur, “that he and Count Jaufre laugh and sigh in the same moment.”

“It was once so,” answered the squire and drank wine.

“Is’t not so now?”

The other put down the wine cup. “Did you make poesy, jongleur, as well as you sing it, I could give you subjects! Songs of Absence, now. Songs of a subtile vapour called Difference, that while you turn your head becomes thick and hard!—Perhaps they think that they yet laugh and sigh in the same moment.”

[317]

“One must be near a man to see the colour of his soul.”

“Aye, so!—The knight I serve—him with the grey in his beard—is of Richard’s household.”

“I have sung in this court