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, 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.

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 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!” 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.

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.”

“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 were not with Count Savaric, for it was known that you had lately come back to Montmaure from Italy.” She turned her eyes upon him and smiled again. “I remember almost Count Savaric’s words! ‘My son,’ he said, ‘would go a-hunting! Giving chase to a doe, he outstripped his men. Then burst from a thicket a young wolf which attacked him and tore his side. He cannot yet sit his horse. I have left him at Montmaure where he studies chivalry, and makes, I doubt not, chansons for princesses.’”

The blood flooded Montmaure’s brow and cheek. He stared, not at the Princess of Roche-de-FrÊne, but forth upon the train of knights. “Eye of God!” he breathed. “That wolf—! Eye of God!”

“My lord count,” said the princess, “did you afterwards hunt down and kill the wolf? I never heard—and I have always wished to hear.”

“No! He ran free! Heart of Mahound—!”

Light played over the princess’s face, but Jaufre, choking down the thought of the wolf, did not note it. He opened his lips to speak further of that eight-years-past autumn, thus brought up by chance, and of the wolf; then thought better of it. As for Audiart, she thought, “Vengeful so toward a poor squire who but once, and long ago, crossed his evil will! Then what might Roche-de-FrÊne hope for?”

Jaufre, regaining command of himself, signalled for wine. A page brought rich flagons upon a rich salver. Jaufre filled a cup, touched it with his lips, offered it to the princess. He was growing cool again, assured as before. There was flattery, in her recalling the moment of his return from Italy, in her remembering, across the years, each word that had been spoken of him!

She took the cup—he noted how long and finely shaped were the fingers that closed upon it—and drank, then, smiling, set it down. “That is a generous wine, my lord—a wine for good neighbours!”

“It is not a wine of Montmaure but of Roche-de-FrÊne,” said Jaufre. “Save indeed that, as I have taken the fields that grew the grapes and the town that sold the wine, it may be said, princess, to be of Montmaure!”

Audiart the Wise sat silent a moment, her eyes upon her foe. She was there because the need of Roche-de-FrÊne sucked at her heart. But she knew—she knew—that it would not avail! Yet she spoke, low, deep and thrillingly. “My lord, my lord, why should we fight? Truth my witness, if ever I wished Montmaure harm, I’ll now unwish it! Do you so, my lord, toward Roche-de-FrÊne! This sunny, autumn day—if we were at peace, how sweet it were! This land garlanded, and Montmaure—and men and women faring upward—and anger, hate, and greed denied—and common good grown dearer, nearer! Ah, my Lord Count Jaufre, lift this siege, and win a knightlier, lordlier name than warring gives—”

Jaufre broke in. “Are marriage bells ringing in your pleading, my princess? If they ring not, all that is said says naught!”

She looked at him with a steadfast face. “Marriage bells?... Give me all that is in your mind, my lord.”

Jaufre drank again. “Marriage bells ringing over our heads where we stand in the Church of Saint Eustace in Montmaure.”

“In Montmaure.... Did you and I wed, my lord, I must come to you in Montmaure?”

“So! I will give you escort—a thousand spears.”

“And Roche-de-FrÊne?—and Roche-de-FrÊne—”

“As I may conceive,” said Jaufre, “dealing with my own.”

The princess sat very still. Only her eyes moved, and they looked from Count Jaufre to the walled town and back again. Montmaure had pushed back his seat. He sat propping his chin with his hand, his hot gaze upon her. “Roche-de-FrÊne,” she said at last,—”Roche-de-FrÊne would have no guaranty?”

“Eye of God!” answered Jaufre. “I will not utterly destroy what comes to me in wedlock! What interest would that serve? It shall feel scourges, but I shall not tumble each stone from its fellow! Take that assurance, princess!”

She sat silent. “After all,” said her thought, “you have only what you knew you would get!” Within she knew grim laughter, even a certain relief. Would she sacrifice or would she not, no good would come from Montmaure to Roche-de-FrÊne! Then, fight on, and since thus it was, fight with an undivided will! Resistance rose as from sleep, refreshed. She smiled. “I am glad that I came, my Lord of Montmaure,” she said, and spoke in a pure, limpid, uncoloured voice. “Else, hearing from another your will, I might not have believed—”

“Eye of God! Madame, so it is!” said Jaufre, and in mind heard the bells of the Church of Saint Eustace, and the shouting in Montmaure.

The Princess of Roche-de-FrÊne stood up in her brown samite, and sheath of chain-mail and morion that reflected the sunbeams. “Having now your mind, my lord count, I will return to Roche-de-FrÊne!”

She signed to her train that was watching. The squires brought before the pavilion her white Arabian and the palfreys of Guida and Maeut. The movement spread to the knights beneath the trees.... Jaufre, rising also, inwardly turned over the matter of how soon she had willed to depart, to bring short this splendidly-prepared-for visit. That she would be gone from him and any further entertainment displeased, but was salved by the thought that she was in flight to conceal her lowered and broken pride. He was conscious that he had not maintained his intention of suavity, courtoisie. When Richard was not there, he did not well keep down the pure savage. That talk of hers of the “wolf” had poured oil on the red embers of a score unpaid. That the wolf was there in presence—that he, Jaufre, did not wish to tell as much to the world and Audiart the Wise, letting them see what score had gone unpaid—increased the heat. It burned within Jaufre with a smouldering that threatened flame. On the other hand, the person of this princess pleased him more than he had looked for. And it was delightsome to him, the taste of having made her taste him, his power, purpose, and mode of dealing! He felt that longer stay would accomplish no more; he was not without a dash of the artist. He, too, signed for his great bay—for his knights to prepare to follow him from these gay pavilions. To-morrow morn this truce would shut—unless, ere that, she sent a herald with her plain surrender!

She was speaking, in the same crystal, uncoloured voice. “Are you so sure, my lord, that you win? Do you always win? What were we talking of at first? A doe that escaped from under your hand, and a wolf that laid you low in a forest glade and went his way in safety?—My Lord of Montmaure, I defy you! and sooner than wed with you I with this dagger will marry Death!” She touched it where it hung at her belt, moved to her Arabian, and sprang to the saddle.

Her following, though but a few had heard what passed between her and Montmaure, saw that there was white wrath, and that the meeting was shortened beyond expectation. Montmaure’s knights marked him no less—that suddenly his mood was black. All of either banner got to horse.

The veins of Jaufre’s brow were swollen. The company of knights forming about the Princess of Roche-de-FrÊne, the “wolf” came suddenly into his field of vision.... The “singing knight” placed in her chosen band by Roche-de-FrÊne’s princess—the “wolf” protected by her and favoured! Till that instant he had not thought of them together—but now with lightning swiftness his fury forged a red link between them. He did not reason—certainly he gave her no place in the forest, eight years agone—but he desired, he lusted to slay the one before the eyes of the other! He thrust out a clenched hand, he spoke with a thickened voice. Whatever in him had note of a saving quality was passed by the stride of its opposite.

“Ha, my Princess Audiart, that men call the Wise! I will tell you that your wisdom will not save you—nor Roche-de-FrÊne—nor yonder knight, my foe, that I hold in loathing and will yet break upon a wheel!” He laughed, sitting his great bay horse, and with a gesture shook forth vengeance. “To-morrow morn, look to yourselves!”

“My Lord of Montmaure, we shall!” The princess gave command, the train from Roche-de-FrÊne drew away from the pavilions, the knights of Montmaure and Count Jaufre. “Farewell, my lord!” cried Audiart the Wise, “and for hospitality and frank speech much thanks! I love not war, but, if you will have it so, I will war!”

The trumpets sounded. They who watched from the walls saw the two trains draw apart and their own come in order up the winding road that climbed to the town. Their own reached the gates and entered.... In the market-place, the bell having drawn the people together, the princess spoke to them, her voice, clear, firm, and with hint of depth beyond depth, reaching the outermost fringing sort. She spoke at no great length but to the purpose, then asked their mind and waited to hear it.

Raimon, Lord of Les Arbres, a great baron, the greatest vassal of Roche-de-FrÊne there present, spoke from the train of fifty, speaking for those lords and knights and for all chivalry in Roche-de-FrÊne. “My Lady Audiart, we are your men! Hold your courage and we shall hold ours! There is not here lord nor belted knight nor esquire who wishes for suzerain the Counts of Montmaure! We will keep Roche-de-FrÊne until we know victory or perish!”

The captain of the crossbowmen, a giant of a man, spoke with a booming voice. “The sergeants, the bowmen, the workers of the machines and the foot-soldiers sing Amen! The princess is a good princess and a noble and a wise, and no man here fails of his pay! Montmaure is a niggard and a hard lord. We are yours to the end, my Lady Audiart!”

Thibaut Canteleu spoke for the town. “Since the world will have it that we must have lords, give us your like for lord, my Lady Audiart! We know what a taken and sacked town is when Montmaure takes and sacks it! But open our gates to him at his call, and what better would we get? Long slavery and slow pain, and our children to begin again at the foot of the stair! So we propose to hold this town, how hard it is to hold soever!”

A clerk, standing upon the steps that led to a house door, sent his voice across the crowded place. “I will speak though I be excommunicate for it! We hear of the miracle of Father Eustace, and one tells us that God and His Mother would have our princess marry Montmaure! I do not believe that Father Eustace knows the will of God!”

From the throng came a deep, answering note, a multitudinous humming doubt if Our Lady of Roche-de-FrÊne had been truly understood. The people looked at the cathedral tower, and they looked at the castle and around at their town, their houses, shops, market, and guild-halls, at the blue sky above and at their princess. The note sustained itself, broadened and deepened, became like the sound of the sea, and said forthright that whatever had been meant by Our Lady of Roche-de-FrÊne, it was not alliance with Montmaure!

The Princess of Roche-de-FrÊne and her train of knights rode through the town and mounted to the castle. Some change in the order of those about her brought Garin for a moment beside the white Arabian. The princess turned her head, spoke to him. “Count Jaufre holds you in some especial hatred. Why is that?”

“I crossed him in his will one day, long ago. He would have done an evil thing, and I, chancing by, came between him and his prey. He it was who caused me to flee the land.—But not alone for that day is there enmity between us!”

“Ah!” said the princess. “Long is his rosary of ill deeds! Into my mind to-day comes one that was long ago, and on a day like this. It comes so clear—!”