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

THE ABBOT

Friday the mistral blew, and Foulque was always wretched in that wind. He gloomed now from this narrow window and now from that in the black castle’s thick walls. The abbot was not expected before the dial showed twelve, but Foulque looked from here and looked from there, and kept a man atop of the tower to scan the road beyond the wood. The hall was ready for the abbot, the arras hung, the floor strewn with leaves and autumn buds, the great chair placed aright, a rich coverlet spread upon the state bed. Pierre was ready,—the sauce for the fish, the fish themselves were ready for the oven. Castel-Noir rested clean and festive, and every man knew that he was to sink down upon both knees and ask the abbot’s blessing.

The wind blew and hurled the leaves on high. The sun shone, the sky was bright, but the moving air, dry and keen, was as a grindstone upon which tempers were edged. A shrivelled, lame man must feel it. Under the hooded mantel a fire was laid, but not kindled. Foulque could not decide whether the abbot would feel the wind as he felt it, and want to be welcomed with physical as well as other warmth, or whether, riding hard, he would be heated and[48] would frown at the sight of the fire. Foulque would have liked a roaring blaze, out-sounding the wind. But the Abbot of Saint Pamphilius was of a full body, tall and stout, a hunter and a hawker. Foulque determined to have a torch from the kitchen immediately at hand and kindle or not kindle according to the first glimpse of his kinsman’s face.

The window embrasures were deep enough to swallow a family. Foulque, a sensitive, knew without turning his head when Garin, too, stood within the one that overlooked the road where it emerged from the wood. “He should be here at any minute,” said Foulque. “Well? Well?”

“Brother Foulque,” said Garin, “I have determined, an it please you, to bide with Lord Raimbaut and become a knight.”

Foulque let his wrath gather to a head. When it was at the withering point, his gaze having been directed upon Garin for full thirty seconds, he spoke. “Marry and crave pardon! Who is it hath determined?”

“I,” said Garin. “I.”

Foulque moistened his lips. “What has come to you? Raimbaut will let you go. The Abbot of Saint Pamphilius invites—nay, he will himself smooth your way to Holy Church’s high places. I, your elder brother, command—”

“Your entreaty would do more, brother,” said Garin. “But I can no other.”

“‘Can no other!—can no other!’ Does the fool[49] see himself Alexander or Roland or Arthur?” Foulque laughed. “Raimbaut the Six-fingered’s squire!”

Garin was patient. “All the same he can give me knighthood.”

His brother laughed again and struck his hands together. “Knighthood! Knighthood! Oh, your advantage from his buffet on your shoulder! Raimbaut!” He held by the wall and stamped with the foot that was not lamed. “Fight—fight—fight! then eat an ox and drink a cask and go sleep! Ride abroad whenever you hear of a tourney that’s not too difficult to enter. Tilt—tilt—tilt! and if you are not killed or dragged to the barrier, win maybe prizes enough to keep body and soul together until you hear of another joust! Between times, eat, drink, and sleep and have not a thought in your head! Sprawl in the sun by the keep, or yawn in the hall, or perhaps hunt a boar until there’s more fighting! When there is, be dragged from the wall or smothered in the moat or killed in the breach when the castle’s taken! Oh aye! Your lord may take his foe’s castle and you be drunk for a day with victory and smothering and hanging and slaying on your part! Yet forecast the day when you’ll drink the cup you’re giving others! Look at the dice in your hand and know that if you throw six, yet will you throw ace!”

“I may not be always bound to Raimbaut.”

“He is not old, and hath the strength of a bull![50] And what of the young Raimbaut? Son grows like sire—”

“Even so,” said Garin desperately, “things happen.”

Foulque’s anger and scorn flowed on. “Oh, I grant you! Have I forgotten large wars that may arise—fighting behind your lord for Prince or King or Emperor? I have not. Cities and great castles instead of small—thousands to kill and be killed instead of hundreds—the same thing but more of it! Still a poor knight—still in the train of Raimbaut the Six-fingered! The young Raimbaut hath six fingers also, hath he not?—Oh, you may go crusading, too, and see strange lands and kill the infidel who dares have his country spread around the Holy Sepulchre! Go!—and die of thirst or be slain with a scimitar, or have your eyes taken out and no new ones put in! Or, if you can, slay and slay and slay the infidel! What have you got? Tired arm and bloody hands and leave to go eat, drink, and sleep! A crusade! Your crusade enriches one, beggars fifty! Returns one, keeps the bones of a hundred—”

“I do not think of taking the cross,” said Garin.

His brother laughed again with a bitter mirth. “Well, what’s left? Let’s see! If you can get Raimbaut’s consent, you might become an errant knight and go vagabonding through the land! ‘Fair sir, may I fight thee—all for the glory of valour and for thy horse and trappings?’—‘Fair dame, having no business of mine own, may I take thine upon me?[51] Tell me thy grievance, and I will not enquire if it be founded or no. Nor when, pursuing chivalry, I have redressed it, will I refuse rich gifts.’—Bah!” cried Foulque. “I had rather eat, drink, fight, and sleep with Raimbaut!”

“Aye,” said Garin; then painfully, “You are picturing the common run of things. There have been and there are and there will be true and famous knights—aye, and learned, who make good poesy and honour fair ladies, and are courteous and noble and welcome in every castle hall! I mean not to be of the baser sort. And those knights I speak of had, some of them, as meagre a setting forth as mine—”

“In romans!” answered Foulque. “You are a fool, Garin! Take the other road—take the other road!”

“I’ve made my choice.”

“Raimbaut the Six-fingered against the Abbot of Saint Pamphilius, who is close friend to Bishop Ugo, who is ear and hand to the Pope—”

“I choose.”

“Now,” cried Foulque, choking, “by the soul of our father, little lacks but I call Sicart and Jean and have you down into the dungeon! You are too untamed—you are too untamed!”

“In your dungeon,” said Garin, “I would think, ‘How like is this to abbey cell and cloister!’”

A silence fell. Only mistral whistled and eddied around the black tower. Then said Foulque tensely: “What has come to you? Two nights ago I saw you[52] ready to put your hands in those of Holy Church—” He broke off, facing the man from the tower top, framed now in the great door.

“Horsemen, my masters!” cried the watchman; “horsemen at the two pines!”

Foulque flung up his arms. “He is coming! Mayhap he will work upon you—seeing that a brother cannot! Let me by—”

Garin stood at the window watching the abbot and the twenty with him—ecclesiastical great noble and his cowled following—stout lay brothers and abbey serfs well clad and fed—the abbot’s palfrey, sleek mules and horses—all mounting with a jingle of bits and creaking of leather, but with a suave lack of boisterous laughter, whoop, and shout, the grey zig-zag cut in the crag upon which was perched Castel-Noir. When they were immediately below the loophole window, he turned and, leaving the hall, went to the castle gate and stood beside Foulque.

When Abbot Arnaut and his palfrey reached them he sprang, squire-like, to the stirrup, gave his shoulder to the abbot’s gloved hand. When the great