THIBAUT CANTELEU

“Who would risk never, risks ever,” said the Princess Audiart, and moving her rook, checked the marshal’s king.

Her cousin Guida, a blonde of much beauty, sitting watching the game, made a sound of demurral. The marshal’s hand hovered over a piece.

“Do not play courtly, Lord Stephen,” said the princess. “Play fairly!”

Whereupon Stephen pushed forward a different piece and, releasing his own king, put hers in jeopardy.

“Now what will you do, Audiart?” cried Guida. “You were too daring!”

“That is as may be,” answered the princess, and studied the board.

In the great fireplace of the hall beechwood blazed and helped the many candles to give light. It was Lenten tide and cold enough to make the huge fire a need and a pleasure. In the summer the floor had been strewn with buds and leaves, but now there lay upon it eastern cloths with bear-skins brought from the North. There were seats of various kinds,—settles or benches, divan-like arrangements of cushions. Knights and ladies occupied these, or stood, or moved about at will. So spacious was the hall that these and other folk of the court—pages, jongleurs, a jester with cap-and-bells, dogs, a parrot on a swinging perch, two chaplains in a corner, various clerkly and scholarly persons such as never lacked in Gaucelm’s court, two or three magnificently dressed people in the train of a Venetian, half merchant, half noble, and rich as a soldan, whom Gaucelm at the moment entertained—gave no feeling of a throng. The raised or princely part of the hall, in itself a goodly space, had quiet enough for rational converse, even for sitting withdrawn into one’s self, studying with eyes upon the fire matters beyond the beechwood flame.

Gaucelm the Fortunate, seated in his great, richly carved chair, talked with the Venetian. Some paces away, but yet upon the dais, Alazais held court. Between, the Princess Audiart played chess with Stephen the Marshal. The castle and town and princedom of Roche-de-FrÊne and all that they held were seven years and some months older than upon that autumn day when the squire Garin had knelt in the cathedral, and ridden through the forest, and fought for a shepherdess.

The years had not made Alazais less beauteous. She sat in a low chair, robed in buttercup yellow richly embroidered and edged with fur. She held a silver ball pierced and filled with Arabian perfumes. The Venetian had given it to her, and now she raised it to her nostrils, and now she played with it with an indolent, slow, graceful movement of her white hands. About her were knights and ladies, and in front, upon a great silken cushion placed upon the floor, sat a slender, brilliant girl with a voice of beauty and flexibility and a genius for poetic narration. The court took toll of such a talent, was taking toll now. The damosel, in a low and thrilling voice and with appropriate gesture, told a lay of Arthur’s knights. Those around listened; firelight and candle-light made play; at the lower end of the hall a jongleur, trying his viol, came in at the pauses with this or that sweet strain.

At the other end of the broad, raised space Prince Gaucelm and the Venetian left talk of Venice trade, of Cyprus and Genoa, and came to status and event this side the Alps.

“Duke Richard of Aquitaine plays the rebel to his father the King of England and quarrels with his cousin the King of France and wars against his neighbour the Count of Toulouse. Count Savaric of Montmaure and his son Count Jaufre—”

The Princess Audiart won the game of chess, won fairly. “You couch a good lance and build a good house, Lord Stephen,” she said. “Yesterday, it was I who was vanquished!”

Guida had moved away, joining the group about the girl on the silk cushion. Stephen the Marshal took one of the ivory chessmen in his hand and turned it from side to side. “Montmaure!” he said. “Montmaure grows more puffed with pride than mortal man should be!”

The princess nodded. “Yes. My lord count sees himself as the great fish for whom the ocean was built.”

The marshal put down the chess-piece and took up another. “Have you ever seen Jaufre de Montmaure?”

“No.”

“I saw him at PÉrigueux. He is tall and red-gold like his father, but darker in hue. He has a hawk nose, and there is a strange dagger-scar across his cheek.—What is it, my Lady Audiart?”

The princess was sitting with parted lips and with eyes that looked far away. She shivered a little, shrugging her shoulders. “Nothing! A fancy. I remembered something. But a-many men have dagger scars.—Jaufre de Montmaure! No, I think that I never saw him. Nor do I wish to see him. Let him stay with Aquitaine and be his favourite!”

“I know not how long that will last. Now they are ruthless and reckless together, and they say that any day you can see Richard’s arm around his neck. But Duke Richard,” said the marshal, “is much the nobler man.”

The princess laughed. “You give faint praise! Jesu! If what they say of Count Jaufre be true—”

There fell a silence. Stephen the Marshal turned and turned the chess-piece. “The prince will send me presently with representations to King Philip at Paris.”

“I know. It seems wise to do that.”

“I will do my best,” said Stephen the Marshal; and sat silent again. Then, “I will find at Paris festivals and tourneys, no doubt, and for Roche-de-FrÊne’s honour and my own, I must play my part in those matters also.” He put down the chess-piece, and brought his hands together. “Queens and princesses may accept, in courtly wise, heart and devoir of true knights! My Lady Audiart! I plead again for some favour of yours that I may wear. For, as God lives, I will wear no other lady’s!”

The Princess Audiart looked at him kindly, a little mockingly, a little mournfully. “Stephen—Stephen! will you be a better or a braver man, or a fitter envoy to King Philip, with my glove in your helmet? No, you will not!”

“I should be a happier man,” said Stephen the Marshal.

“Then almost I wish that I might give it to you! But I cannot—I cannot!” said the princess. “I love earth, fire, air and water, the stars in heaven, the people of the earth, and the thoughts in the mind, but I love no man after the fashion that men desire!—Turn elsewhere, Lord Stephen!”

But Stephen the Marshal shook an obstinate head. “Saint Mark, my witness, I shall wear no other’s favour!”

Prince Gaucelm rose, the Venetian with him, and crossed to Alazais’s side. The girl of the silken cushion had ended her story. The jongleurs distant in the hall began to play viol, lute and harp. “Let us go hearken,” said the princess; and, quitting the chess-table, went to sit beside her step-dame. She had affection for Alazais, and Alazais for Audiart. Stephen the Marshal followed. All drew together to listen to sung poesy.

A favourite jongleur had come forward, harp in hand. He was a dark, wiry, eastern-appearing man, fantastically dressed in brown dashed and streaked with orange. When he had played a dreamy, rich, and murmuring air, he began to sing. He sang well, a fair song and one that was new to a court that was gracious and hospitable to songs.

“Ah, that goes,” said the Princess Audiart, “like the sea in June!”

“It is like a chanson of Bernart de Ventadorn’s,” said Alazais, “and yet it is not like him either. Who made it, Elias?”

“It may have a sound of the sea,” answered Elias, “for it came over the sea. I got it from a palmer. He had learned it at Acre, and he said that, words and music, the troubadour, Garin de l’Isle d’Or, made it there.”

“Oh, we have heard of him! Knights coming back have told us—But never did we hear his singing before! Again, Elias!”

Elias sang. “It is sweet.—The Fair Goal!”

A day or two later, in this hall, the Princess Audiart sat beside her father upon the dais, the occasion a hearing given to the town of Roche-de-FrÊne. There was another than Roche-de-FrÊne to be received and hearkened to, namely an envoy, arrived the evening before, from Savaric, Count of Montmaure. But the town came first, at the hour that had been set.

The hall presented a different scene from that of the other night. Here now were ranged the prince’s officers of state, the bailiff-in-chief, executives of kinds. At the doors were ushers and likewise men-at-arms. Men of feudal rank stood starkly, right and left of the dais. Others of the castle population, men and women, who found an interest in this happening, watched from the sides of the hall or from the musicians’ gallery. Below the dais sat two clerks with pens, ink, sandbox, and parchment. Before it, in the middle portion of the hall, were massed fifty of the citizens of Roche-de-FrÊne.

The Princess Audiart sat in a deep chair, her arms upon its arms. She was dressed in the colour of wine, and the long plain folds of her robe and mantle rested the eye. Her throat was bare, around it a thin chain of gold and a pear-shaped ruby. The thick braids of her hair came over her gown to her knee. Between the dark waves, below a circlet of gold, showed her intent and brooding face.

Castle and town were used to seeing her there, beside her father. Years ago—when castle and town undertook to remember back—it had seemed strange, but now use and wont had done their work. She was not fair—they remembered when they had called her “the ugly princess”—but she was wise. It was usual enough among the great of the earth for fathers to associate with them sons. Here was a prince-father who associated with him his daughter. By degrees Roche-de-FrÊne had ceased to wonder. Now, for a long time, the fact had been accepted. Strangeness gone, it seemed, for this one spot on the huge earth, rational.

The town had digested that great meal of liberties obtained years ago, that and smaller loaves since given. It was hungry again; hungry now for no slight stop-gaps, but for another full and great meal. For many months it had given the castle oblique indications that it was hungry. Time was when Gaucelm, a prince not unbeloved, riding through Roche-de-FrÊne, met almost wholly broad smiles and faces of welcome. That throughout a year had been changing. Roche-de-FrÊne, at first unconsciously reflecting growing desires, but then more and more deliberately, now wore a face of hunger. Roche-de-FrÊne saw its interest, and that another meal was to its interest. But it did not wholly expect its lord at once to see that, nor to identify his interest with their interest. It might, it believed, have to fight its lord somewhat as other towns fought theirs. Not with weapons of steel,—it would not win there,—but with persistent and mounting clamour and disaffection, and, most effectively, with making trouble as to tolls, rents, taxes, lord’s rights, and supplies.

The deputation included men from every guild. Here were chief dyers in scarlet, weavers of fine cloth, makers of weapons, workers in leather, moulders of candles, and here were traders and merchants, dealers in wine and handlers of cattle. Men of substance had been chosen, master workmen and also master agitators.

The prince, addressing himself to a man of venerable aspect, a merchant whose name was known in far places, asked if he were spokesman. There ran a murmur through the deputation. It pressed forward a little, it took on an anxious face.

The merchant advanced a step and addressed the dais. “Fair, good lord and my Lady Audiart, as you both know, I am a judge of merchant’s law, but have no gift of tongue. I know a cause when it is good, but God has not made me eloquent to set it forth to another man—craving pardon, my liege lord and my Lady Audiart! So I will not speak, may it please you both. But here is Thibaut Canteleu, the master of the saddlers—”

“I had expected,” said Prince Gaucelm, “to hear from Thibaut Canteleu.—Stand forth, Thibaut!”

The merchant stepped back. The throng worked like a cluster of bees, then parted, and out of it came a man of thirty, square-shouldered and sturdy, with crisply curling black hair, and black, bold, and merry eyes. It was evident that he was his fellows’ chosen and favourite, their predestined leader. The fifty slanted their bodies toward him, grew suddenly encouraged and bold, hung upon what he should say. Thibaut Canteleu was magnetic, like a fire for warmth, an instiller of courage. He made a gesture of reverence toward the dais.

The prince smiled slightly. “Well, Thibaut Canteleu?”

“Sire and my Lady Audiart,” spoke Thibaut, “few words suffice when here is right and yon is wisdom! Sire, these many years, back to the beginning, have we and our fathers and grandfathers before us, given to our lords duteous service. When the town was a poor village, when there were but a few huts—when the old castle stood—in the old days before the memory of man, we gave it! And this castle and the old castle—and you, lord, and the old lords—have given us succour and protection, holding your shield above us! Beau sire, we do not forget that, nor that you are our lord.” As he spoke he kneeled down on both knees, joined his hands palm to palm, and made a gesture of placing them between other hands. “Sire and my Lady Audiart, many castles have you and not a few towns and all are your sworn men. Shall this town that grew up by your greatest castle and took name from it, be less your man than another? Jesu forbid! Services, dues, rents and tolls, fair-toll and market-toll, are yours, and when you summon us we drop all and come, and if there is war we hold the town for you while there is breath in us! Yea, and if there should chance to be needed in this moment moneys for building, for gathering, clothing, and weaponing men-at-arms, for castle-wants, for pilgrimages or sending knights to the land over the sea, for founding of abbeys and buying of books and holy relics, or for any other great and especial matter, we stand ready, lord, to raise as swiftly as may be, that supply.”

He came to a period in his speech, still kneeling. “That is good hearing, Thibaut Canteleu!” said Gaucelm the Fortunate. He spoke with equanimity, with his large scope of humour. He was as big as a mountain range, and as became mountains he seemed to be able to see in various directions. “Now,” he said, “let us hear, Thibaut, what your lords must do!”

“Fair, good lord—”

“We are yet to guard Roche-de-FrÊne from wolf-neighbour and fox-neighbour, Count Dragon and King Lion? Have you heard tell of the siege in your grandfather’s time? But well I wot that the town has no enemies, that none is jealous of its trade, that no wolf thinks, ‘Now if I had its market—or if I had it with its market!’ and no dragon ponders, ‘What if I put forth a claw and drag these weavers and dyers and saddlers where they may weave and dye and work in leather for me? When I have them in my den they may whistle not for new, but for old freedoms!’—We are yet to keep Roche-de-FrÊne in as fair safety as we may?”

“Lord, lord,” said Thibaut, “are we not of one another? If you are strong to keep us safe, are we not strong to make you wealth?”

“My father gave you freedoms, and often have I heard him say that he repented his giving! Then I ruled, and for a time held to that later mind of his. Then about many matters I formed my own mind, and in larger measure than he had given, I granted freedom. For a fair space of time you rested content. Then you began to ask again. And again, now this grant and now that, I have given!”

He ceased to speak, sitting dressed in bronze samite, with a knight’s belt of finest work, and on his head a circlet of gold.

Thibaut Canteleu still kneeled. Now he raised his black eyes. “Lord, why did you give?”

“Because it seemed to me right,” said Prince Gaucelm.

Thibaut spread his hands. The corners of the Princess Audiart’s lips twitched. She glanced aside at Gaucelm the Fortunate, and a very sweet and loving look came like a beam of light into her face. She said under her breath, “Ah, Jesu! Judgement in this matter has been given!” turned her head and retook the intent and brooding look. Her eyes, that had marked width between them, received impression from the length and breadth of the hall. She gathered each slight movement and change in the deputation of citizens; and as for Thibaut Canteleu, she saw that Thibaut, also, grasped that judgement had been given.

Prince Gaucelm sat without movement of body or change of look. His size did not give him a seeming of heaviness, nor the words that he had spoken take power from his aspect. He did not seem conscious of their effect upon others. He sat in silence, then shook himself and returned to the matter in hand. “Tell us now, Thibaut Canteleu, what it is that the town desires.”

“Lord,” said Canteleu, “we wish and desire to elect our own magistrates. And our disputes and offences—saving always, lord, those that are truly treasonable or that err against Holy Church—we wish and desire to bring into our own courts and before judges of our choosing.”

A sharp sound ran through the hall—that portion of it that was not burgher. Truly Roche-de-FrÊne was making a demand immense, portentous—The red was in the faces of the prince’s bailiffs and in those of other officials. But Gaucelm the Fortunate maintained a quietness. He looked at Thibaut Canteleu as though he saw the generations behind him and the generations ahead. He spoke.

“That is what you now wish and ask?”

“Lord, that is what we wish and ask.”

“And if I agree not?”

“We are your merchants and artisans, lord! What can we do? But are love and ready service naught? Fair good lord, and my Lady Audiart, we hold that we ask a just—yea, as God lives, a righteous thing! Moreover, we think, lord, that we plead, not to such as the Count of Montmaure, but to Roche-de-FrÊne!”

Behind him spread a deep, corroboratory murmur, a swaying of bodies and nodding of heads. The winter sunshine, streaming in through long, narrow windows, made luminous the positive colours, the greens, blues, reds of apparel, the faces swarthy, rosy or pale, the workman hands and the caps held in them, the smoother merchant hands and the better caps held in them. It lighted Thibaut Canteleu, still kneeling, in a blue tunic and grey hose, a blue cap upon the pavement beside him.

The prince spoke. “Get you to your feet, Thibaut, and depart, all of you! A week from to-day, at this hour, come again, and you shall be answered.”

Thibaut Canteleu took up his cap and rose from his knees. He made a deep reverence to the dais, then stepped backward. All the deputation moved backward, kept their faces toward the prince until they reached the doors out of which they passed, between the men-at-arms. The blur of red and blue and green, of faces pale or sanguine or swarthy, filtered away, disappeared. The hall became again all castle—a place of lord and lady, knight, esquire, man-at-arms, and page, a section of the world of chivalry. All around occurred a slight shifting of place, a flitting of whispers. The prince stirred, turned slightly in his great chair, and spoke in an undertone to his daughter. She answered in as low a voice, sitting quite still, her long, slender hands resting upon the arms of her chair.

Gaucelm nodded, then spoke to the seneschal standing to the right of the dais. “Now will we hear Montmaure’s envoy.”