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 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 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! 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? 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 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 man was dismounted, he knelt with his brother for the lifted
fingers and blessing. The abbot was marshalled across the court to
the hall, followed by those two from Saint Pamphilius whom his nod
indicated. Jean and Sicart disposed of the following. Foulque’s anxious
drill bore fruits; everything went as if oiled.
Mistral still blew, high, cold and keen. “Have you a fire, kinsman?”
cried Abbot Arnaut. “I am as cold as a merman in the sea!”
Foulque made haste. The torch was at hand—in a moment there sprang a
blaze—the hangings from Genoa were all firelit and the great beams of
the roof.
“Hungry!” cried the abbot. “I am as hungry as Tantalus in hell! I
remember when once I came here, a boy, good fishing—”
The fish were good, Pierre’s sauce was good. All received commendation.
The abbot was portly and tall, with a massy head, with a countenance
so genial, a voice so bland, an eye so approving, that all appeared
nature and no art. His lips seemed made for golden syllables, he had an
unctuous and a mellow tongue. It was much to hear him speak Latin and
much to hear him discourse in the vernacular. The _langue d’oc_ came
richly from his mouth. He was a mighty abbot, a gracious power, timber
from which were made papal legates.
Foulque sat with him at the raised end of the table, the monks of his
company being ranged a foot lower. But Garin, as was squire-like,
waited upon the great guest and his brother. The abbot, the keen edge
of hunger abated, showed himself gracious and golden, friendly, almost
familiar. He spoke of the past, and of the father of his hosts. He
asked questions that showed that he knew Castel-Noir, dark wood and
craggy hills, mountains to the north, stream to the south. It even
seemed that he remembered old foresters and bowmen. He knew the
neighbouring fiefs, the disputed ground, the Convent of Our Lady in
Egypt. He was warm and pleasant with his kinsmen; he said that he had
loved their father and that their mother had been a fair, wise lady.
He remarked that poverty was a sore that might be salved; and when he
had drunk a great cup of spiced wine,—having, for his health’s sake,
a perpetual dispensation in that wise,—he said that he was of mind
that a man should serve and be served by his own blood. “Kin may prove
faithless, but unkin beats them to the post!”
Dinner was eaten, wine drunken, hands washed. The abbot and Foulque
rose, the monks of Saint Pamphilius rose, the table was cleared, the
boards and trestles taken from the hall.
Abbot Arnaut, standing by the fire, looked at the great bed. “By the
rood!” he said, “to face mistral clean from Roche-de-Frêne to this rock
is a wearisome thing! I will repose myself, kinsman, for one hour.”
All withdrew save the lay brother whom he retained for chamberlain.
Foulque offered Garin’s service, who stood with ready hands. But the
abbot was used to Brother Anselm, said as much, and with a sleepy and
mellow voice dismissed the two brothers. “Return in an hour when I
shall be refreshed. Then will we talk of that of which I wrote.”
The two left the hall. Without, Foulque must discover from Jean and
Sicart if all went well and the abbot’s train was in good humour.
“I’ve known a discontented horse-boy make a prince as discontented!”
But they who followed the abbot were laughing in the small, bare court,
and the bare ward room. Even mistral did not seem to trouble them.
South of the tower, in the angle between it and the wall, lay the
tiniest of grass-plots, upbearing one tall cypress. Foulque, his mantle
close around him, beckoned hither Garin. Here was a stone seat in the
sun, and the black tower between one and that wind from the mountains.
Foulque sat and argued, Garin stood with his back against the cypress.
The hour dropped away, and Foulque saw nothing gained. He shook with
wrath and concern for slipping fortunes. “Since yesterday! This has
happened since yesterday! You took your rod and went down to the river
to fish. What siren sang to you from what pool?”
Garin lifted his head. “No siren. Something wakened within me, and now
I will be neither monk nor priest. I am sorry to grieve you, Foulque.”
But Foulque nursed his wrath. “The hour has passed,” he said. “So we
go back to the abbot and spurn a rich offer!” He rose and with a bleak
face left the grass-plot.
Garin followed, but not immediately. He stood, beneath the cypress tree
and tried to see his life. He could not do so; he could only tell that
his heart was parted between sorrow and joy, and that a nightingale
sang and sang. He could tell that he wished to live beautifully, to do
noble deeds, to win honour, to serve, if need be to die for, a goddess
whose face was veiled. His life whirled; at once he felt generous,
wealthy, and great, and poor, humble, and despairing. He seemed to see
through drifting mists a Great Meaning; then the cloud thickened and he
was only Garin, Raimbaut’s squire—then again images and music, then
aching sadness. He stood with parted lips, beneath the cypress, and he
looked south. At last he sighed and covered his eyes with his hand,
then turned and went back to the hall.
The abbot was awake, had left the great bed and come to the great
chair. Seated at ease in the light of the renewed fire, he was goldenly
discoursing to Foulque who sat on a stool, of Roche-de-Frêne and its
prince and his court, and of Bishop Ugo. “Ah, the great chances in
the fair lap of Mother Church! Ugo is ambitious. There it is that we
differ. I am not ambitious—no, no! I am an easy soul, and but take
things as they come my way!” He turned in his chair and looked at Garin
standing behind his brother. “Ha!” he said, “and this is the squire who
would become canon?”
Foulque groaned. “Most Reverend Father, the boy is mad! I think that he
is bewitched. I pray that of your goodness, wisdom and eloquence you
bring him to a right mind—”
The Abbot of Saint Pamphilius smiled, assured as the sun. “What is it?
Does he think that already he has Fortune for mistress?”
“He will choose knighthood,” said Foulque. “He has no doubt of winning
it.”
The abbot lifted his brows. He looked with dignity into the fire, then
back at Foulque and at Garin the squire. “It pains me,” he said, “the
folly of mankind! Are you born prince, count or baron, then in reason,
you must run the course where you are set. Though indeed, time out of
mind, have been found castellans, vavasours, barons, dukes, and princes
who have laid aside hauberk, shield, and banner, and blithely come with
all their wealth into the peaceful hive of Holy Church—so rightly
could they weigh great value against low! But such as you, young
man—but such as you—poor liegemen of poor lords! What would you have?
Verily, the folly is deep! By no means all who would have knighthood
gain it, and if it is gained, what then? Another poor knight in a world
where they are as thick and undistinguishable as locusts!—Ha, what do
you say?”
Garin’s lips had moved, but now he flushed red.
“Speak out!” commanded the abbot, blandly imperious. “What was it that
you said?”
Garin lowered his eyes. “I said that there were many churchmen in the
world, as thick and undistinguishable—”
Foulque drew a dismayed breath. But the Abbot of Saint Pamphilius
laughed. He sat well back in his chair and looked at the squire with
freshened interest. “Granted, Bold Wit! The point is this. Did you
show me here the signet ring, not—God defend us!—of Raimbaut the
Six-fingered, but of Raimbaut’s lord and yours, Savaric of Montmaure,
then would I say, ‘So you have your patron! Good fortune, fair kinsman,
who are half-way up the ladder!’” He looked at the squire and laughed.
“You have it not by you, I think?” Garin shook his head. “Well then,”
said the abbot, “choose Holy Church. For here, I think,”—he spoke very
goldenly,—“you may show a patron. A feeble one, my son—of course, a
feeble one—”
Garin came from behind Foulque, kneeled before the abbot, and thanked
him for great kindness and condescension. “But, Reverend Father, with
all gratefulness and humbleness, yet I will not the tonsure—”
The abbot with a gesture kept him kneeling. “There is some reason here
that you hide. You are young, you are young! I guess that your reason
goes by name of woman—”
Garin knelt silent, but Foulque uttered an exclamation. “No, Reverend
Father, no! What has changed him I know not, but it has happened here
at Castel-Noir, since yesterday! There is no woman here, in hut or
tower, that could tempt him—”
But the Abbot of Saint Pamphilius continued to gaze upon Garin, and
to tap gently with his fingers upon the arm of the great chair. “I
hold not,” he said softly, “with those who would condone concubinage,
and who see no harm in a too fair cousin, niece, or servant in
priests’ dwellings. It is all sin—it is all sin—and Holy Church
must reprobate—yea, must chastise. But flesh is weak, my son, flesh
is weak! Somewhat may be compounded—somewhat overlooked—somewhat
pardoned! Especially, if not solely, in the case of those whose service
is great. As for courtly love—” The abbot smiled. “When you come to
courtly love,” he said, “there are many lordly churchmen have praised
fair ladies!—Do I resolve your scruples, my son?”
But Garin’s look showed no shaken determination. The abbot leaned
back in his chair. “The time grows tender,” he said. “Womanish and
tender! Your father would have known how to bring you to reason. Your
grandfather would have disposed of you like any Roman of old. But now
any sir squire is let to say, ‘I will’—or ‘I will not!’—Think not
that I wish him about me who is sullen and intractable! Nor that I
lack other kinsmen who are pleaders for that kindness I would have
shown Castel-Noir! There is young Enric, Bernart’s son—and there are
others.—Rise and begone to Raimbaut the Six-fingered’s keep!”
Garin stood up. Foulque made to speak, but the abbot waved the matter
down.
“All is said. It is a trifle, and we will disturb ourselves no further.
God knows, ungrateful young men are no rarity! Doubtless he hath,
after all, Montmaure’s signet—What is it now?”
Into the hall, from the court without, had come a sound of trampling
hoofs and of voices—one voice sullen and heavy. Garin started
violently, Foulque sprang to his feet. The great door was flung open,
admitting a burst of wind that shook the hangings, and behind it,
Sicart open-mouthed and breathless.
“Master, master! here is Lord Raimbaut!”