MONTMAURE
THERE came into the hall, ushered by the seneschal and walking with
Stephen the Marshal to whom had been confided his entertainment, a
knight banneret, very good-looking, very sumptuously attired, with an
air of confidence verging on audacity. Behind and attending him were
two other knights, lesser men; behind these, three esquires. All were
dressed with a richness; all, indefinably, stood in a debatable strip
between friend and foe.
The envoy came before the dais. On yesterday welcome had been given
him, and to-day set to hear the desires of Count Savaric of Montmaure.
Now, Gaucelm being, by virtue of three castles, his lord’s lord, the
envoy just bent the knee, then straightened himself and stood prepared
to give that forth which the count had preferred to send by word of
mouth rather than by written letter. There occurred, however, some
delay. A wider audience than had gathered to the town’s hearing would
come to hear what Savaric of Montmaure had to say. Lord and lady,
knight and squire, were entering, and now came Alazais, clad in white
bordered with ermine. Her lord made her welcome; the Princess Audiart,
rising, stood until she was seated. Her ladies, fair and gaily
dressed, made about her a coloured cloud. Two that were Audiart’s came
and stood behind that princess.
At last, quiet falling, the prince once more gave to Montmaure’s envoy
words of welcome, then, “We should have been glad,” he said, “to have
greeted in friendly wise Count Savaric himself! His son, too, who is
said to be a puissant knight.”
“So please you, they may come some day to Roche-de-Frêne, the one and
the other,” answered the envoy. “But now my master, the great count,
is busy at home where he makes a muster of lords who are his men. At
Autafort, with Duke Richard, is the young count, Sir Jaufre, red-gold,
shining and mighty, like a star of high fortune!”
“The ‘great count,’” said Gaucelm, with suavity, “is well employed. And
you grow a poet, Sir Guiraut of the Vale, when you speak of the young
count.”
“Sir,” said Guiraut of the Vale, “he is poet himself and theme of
poets! He is the emerald of knights, the rose of chivalry! That lady
counts herself fortunate for whom he rides in tournament. His lance
unhorses the best knights, and behind him, in his quarrels, are the
many spears of Montmaure—I will be highly bold and say the spears, for
number like the trees in the forest, of Duke Richard of Aquitaine!”
Gaucelm smiled. “Duke Richard,” he said, “hath just now, I think, need
of his spears before Toulouse.”
Guiraut of the Vale waved his hand. “Count Raymond will come to terms,
and the Duke’s spears be released. But all this, sir, is not the matter
of my message! Truly, when I think of Count Jaufre I forget myself in
praises!”
“_Guiraut, Guiraut!_” thought the Princess Audiart. “_You forget not
one word of what you have been taught to say!_”
Gaucelm the Fortunate spoke with serenity. “A servant so devoted is as
a sack of gold in the count’s treasury!—Now your message, sir envoy,
and the matter upon which you were sent?”
Guiraut of the Vale breathed deep, lifted his chest beneath bliaut and
robe of costly stuffs, made his shoulders squarer, included now in the
scope of his look alike Gaucelm and his daughter.
“Prince of Roche-de-Frêne,” he said, “it is to my point—though the
Blessed Virgin is my witness I am not so commissioned!—to cause you
and this priceless lady, the princess your daughter, to see Sir Jaufre
de Montmaure as the glass of the world shows him, the brightest coal
upon the hearth of chivalry! The world hears of the wisdom of the
Princess Audiart—well wot I that did she see and greet him, she would
value this knight aright! As for him, like his sword to his side, he
would wear there this wisdom! Fair prince, my master, the great count,
would see Montmaure and Roche-de-Frêne one in wedlock. Count Savaric of
Montmaure offers his son, Count Jaufre, for bridegroom to the Princess
Audiart!”
The great hall rustled loudly. Only the dais seemed quiet, or only
the two figures immediately fronting Sir Guiraut of the Vale. Out of
the throng seemed to come a whisper, electric and flowing, “Here is
a suitor that would hang Roche-de-Frêne at his belt!” It lifted and
deepened, the whispering and muttering. It took the tone of distant
thunder.
Gaucelm the Fortunate raised his hand for quiet. When it was attained
he spoke courteously to Guiraut of the Vale. “Count Savaric echoes my
soul when he would have peace and friendliness and not enmity between
Roche-de-Frêne and Montmaure. Certes, that may be brought about,
or this way or that way! For the way that he advances, it must be
considered, and that with gravity and courteousness. But, such is the
plenitude of life, the same city may be reached by many roads.”
“Beseeching your pardon,” said Guiraut of the Vale, “that is true of
many cities, but not, according to the count my master, of this one!”
The hall rustled again. The lord of Roche-de-Frêne sat quietly in his
great chair, but he bent upon Montmaure’s envoy a look profound and
brooding. At last he spoke. “We are not to be threated, Sir Guiraut of
the Vale, into a road whatsoever! Nor is this city, that is only to be
reached so, of such importance, perhaps, to Roche-de-Frêne as imagineth
the ‘great count.’” Wherewith he ceased to deal with Guiraut and spoke
aside to his daughter.
The Princess Audiart rose from her chair. She stood in long, flowing
red shading from the cherry of her under-robe through the deepened
crimson of the bliaut to the almost black of her mantle. At the base of
her bare throat glowed on its chain of gold the pear-shaped ruby.
“To-day, Sir Guiraut of the Vale,” she said, “we receive the count
your master’s fair proffer of his son for my bridegroom. For my part,
I thank the count for his courtesy and good-will and fair words to
me-ward. The prince my father consenting, one week from to-day, here in
the hall, you shall have answer to bear back. Until then, the prince
my father, and the princess my fair and good step-dame, and myself,
who must feel the honour your master does me, and all the knights and
ladies of this court give you fair welcome! An we may, we will make the
days until then pass pleasantly for a knight of whose valiancy this
castle is not ignorant.”
She spoke without pride or feeling in her voice, simply, in the tone
of princely courtesy. A stranger could not have told if she liked that
proffer or no. Guiraut of the Vale made obeisance. Prince Gaucelm rose,
putting an end to the audience.
Two hours later he came to the chamber of the ugly princess. It was
a room set in a tower, large, with narrow windows commanding three
directions. A curtained archway showed a smaller, withdrawing room.
Rugs lay upon the oaken floor and the walls were hidden by hangings
worked with the wanderings of Ulysses. The bed had silken curtains and
a rich coverlet. Jutting from the hearth came a great cushioned settle.
There were chairs, carven chests for wardrobe, a silver image of the
Virgin, nearby a row of books. Present in the room when the prince came
were the Lady Guida and the girl who had told in hall the story of
Arthur’s knights. These, upon his entrance, took embroidery-frame and
book, and disappeared into the smaller room.
Prince Gaucelm sat in the corner of the settle by the hearth. The
Princess Audiart now stood before him, and now walked with slow steps
to one or another window and back again. The prince watched her.
“Audiart, Audiart!” he said at last; “I doubt me that the hey-day and
summer of peace has passed for Roche-de-Frêne!”
“Winter is the time between summers.”
“Have it so.... It was wise to delay this knight the week out.”
“Ah, where is Wisdom? Even the hem of her mantle turns out to be a
stray light-beam in shadow. But it seemed wiser. So one may think a
little.”
“Now, by God Almighty!” said Gaucelm, “it needs not much thinking!”
“No. But still one may take time and speak Montmaure fair, while we
study what will come and how we meet and defeat it.... Let us deal
first with Thibaut Canteleu and Roche-de-Frêne.”
Gaucelm the Fortunate, leaning forward, warmed his hands at the fire
which was burning with a singing sound. “Aye, my burghers—Child, all
over the green earth they cease to be mine or another’s burghers!”
“They grow to be their own men. Yes.”
“Gaucelm of the Star thought that idea the strangest, most
abhorrent!—and his father before him—and so backward into time. It
outraged them, angering the very core of the heart within them! Late
and soon they would have fought the town!”
“Or late or soon they would have lost.—Does it in truth anger us
that Thibaut Canteleu and the others should wish to choose their
magistrates?”
“No. Montmaure angers me, but not Thibaut.”
“Then let us act toward the town from our own thought and mind, and not
from that of our fathers.”
She paced the floor. “I sorrow for Bishop Ugo’s disappointment. It will
be a sword thrust if we and the town embrace!”
“Aye. Ugo desires that quarrel for us.... Well, then we say to Thibaut
Canteleu, ‘Burgher, grow your own man!’”
“I counsel it,” said Audiart. “It is right.”
“And wise?”
She turned from the window. “Pardieu! If war is upon us Montmaure’s
self might say that it were wise!”
The prince pondered it. “Yes—Put, then, Thibaut Canteleu and the town
to one side. Now Montmaure—Montmaure—Montmaure!”
The princess came to the settle and sat down, leaning her elbow upon
a small table drawn before it. Upon the table lay writing materials,
together with a number of small counters and figures of wood. There
was also a drawing, a rude map as it were, of the territory of
Roche-de-Frêne, bordered by the names of contiguous great fiefs. She
drew this between them, and the two, father and daughter, studied it
as they talked. With her left hand she moved the little pieces of wood
to and fro. Upon each was painted a name—names of castles, towns,
villages, abbeys that held from Gaucelm. One piece had the name of that
fief for which Montmaure had been wont to give homage.
Gaucelm looked at the long space upon the drawing marked “Aquitaine.”
“Guiraut of the Vale is a braggart. I know not if he bragged beyond
reason of Richard’s great help.”
“It is like enough that he did. But Richard Lion-Heart has often backed
another’s quarrel. Pity he looks not to see if it be stained or clean!”
“Toulouse still holds him.... Stephen the Marshal must go quickly to
King Philip at Paris.”
“Yes. Before Guiraut of the Vale’s week is gone by—or right upon that
departure? Right upon it, I think.”
“Yes. No need to show Guiraut what you expect.” He touched the wooden
pieces with his finger, running over the names of his barons. “Letters
must be written and heralds sent. Madonna Alazais and Guida. Raimon
Seneschal and Aimeric the Gay, had best plan shining and dazzling
entertainment for Guiraut and his following.... I know well that the
‘great count’ is making his muster.”
“He makes no secret of it.... _But one road to peace for
Roche-de-Frêne._”
“That is not a road,” said Prince Gaucelm, “or it is a road of
dishonour. Savaric of Montmaure and his son have in them a demon. Waste
no words upon a way that we are not going!”
He took a quill from the table, dipped it into ink, and began to
write upon a bit of paper, making a computation of strength. He put
down many lords whose suzerain he was, and beneath each name its
quota of knights, sergeants, and footmen, the walled towns besides
Roche-de-Frêne that called him lord, the villages, the castles, manors,
and religious houses, Roche-de-Frêne itself, and this great castle that
had never been taken. He added allies to the list, and the sum of gold
and silver he thought he could command, and with part of it purchase
free companies. He paused, then added help—an uncertain quantity—from
his suzerain, King Philip. “It is a fair setting-forth,” said Gaucelm
the Fortunate. “Once, and that not so long ago, Montmaure would not in
his most secret dream have dared—. But he has made favour and wily
bargains, and snapping up this fief and that, played the great carp in
the pool! And now drifts by this fancy of Aquitaine for Count Jaufre,
and he seizes it.”
“Aye, it is Richard that gives sunshine to his war!”
Gaucelm rose from the settle. “I love not war, though we live in a
warring world. Little by little, child, it may change.”
The day passed, the evening of courtly revel, of paces woven around
Guiraut of the Vale. The Princess Audiart was again in her chamber, her
women dismissed, the candles extinguished, the winter stars looking in
at window, fresh logs upon the hearth casting tongues of light. These
struck in places the pictured hangings. Here Ulysses dallied with
Calypso and here he met Circe. Here Nausicaa threw the ball, and here
Penelope wove the web and unravelled it, and here Minerva paced with
shield and spear. The figures were as rude as the hues were bright,
but a fresh and keen imagination brought them into human roundness and
proportion.
Audiart lay in her bed, and they surrounded her as they had done since
early girlhood when at her entreaty this chamber in the White Tower had
been given her. She was glad now to be alone with the familiar figures
and with the fitful firelight and the stars that, when the hearth-blaze
sank, she could see through the nearest window. She was read in the
science of her time; those points of light, white or bluish or golden,
had for her an interest of the mind and of the spirit. Now, through
the window, there gleamed in upon her one of the astrologers’ “royal”
stars. She by no means believed all that the astrologers said. She
was sceptic toward much that was preached, doubted the usefulness of
much that was done, and yet could act though she doubted. When doubt,
growing, became a sense of probability, then—swerve her as it might
from her former course—she would act, as forthright as might be, in
the interest of that sense.
The star shone in the western window—red Aldebaran. “You look like
war, Aldebaran, Aldebaran!” thought the princess. “Come, tell me if
Gaucelm, the good man, will win over Savaric, the wicked man—You tell
naught—you tell naught!”
She turned on her side and spread her arms and buried her face between
them, and lay so for some minutes. Then she rose from the bed, and
taking from a chair beside it a long and warm robe of fine wool,
slipped her arms into its great hanging sleeves, girded it around
her and crossed to the southward-giving window. She looked forth and
down upon wall and moat, and beyond upon the roofs of Roche-de-Frêne.
A warder pacing the walk below, passed with a gleam of steel from
her sight. A convent bell rang midnight. There was no moon, but the
night burned with stars. One shot above the town, leaving a swiftly
fading line of light. She saw all the roofs that lay this way and
knew them. Castle and town, river and bridge, and the country beyond,
felt not seen to-night—they were home, bathed, suffused, coloured by
the profound, the inmost self, part of the self, dissolving into it.
She stood before the window, a hand upon either wall, and her heart
yearned over Roche-de-Frêne. Again a star shot, below her the warder
passed again. Suddenly she thought of Jaufre de Montmaure, and much
disliked the thought. She spoke to the stars. “Ah,” she said, “it is
much misery at times to be a woman!”
A week from that day, in the castle hall, crowded from end to
end,—Bishop Ugo here to-day with churchmen behind him, ranks of
knights, Gaucelm’s great banner spread behind the dais, and against it
his shield blazoned with the orbs and wheat-sheafs of Roche-de-Frêne
and the motto _I build_; everywhere a richness of spectacle, an
evidenced power, a high vitality, a tension as of the bow string
before the skilled arrow flies,—Thibaut Canteleu received the answer
for the town, and Guiraut of the Vale the answer for Count Savaric of
Montmaure. Behind Thibaut was the deputation that had attended before,
the same blues and greens and reds, bright as stained glass, the same
faces swarthy, or lacking blood, or pink and white of hue. Thibaut
knelt in his blue tunic and grey hosen, his cap beside him on the
pavement.
Henceforth the town of Roche-de-Frêne should choose its own
officers—mayor, council and others. Likewise it should give judgement
through judges of its election upon its own offenders—always excepting
those cases that came truly before its lord’s bailiff-court. Prince
Gaucelm gave decision gravely, without haughtiness, or warning against
abuse of kindness, or claim upon increased loyalty, and without
many words. Roche-de-Frêne took it, first, in a silence complete and
striking, then with a long breath and fervent exclamation.
Thibaut Canteleu lifted his cap and stood up. He faced the dais
squarely. “My lord the prince and my Lady Audiart, give you thanks! As
you deal justly, so may this town deal justly! As you fight for us so
may we fight for you! As you give us loving-kindness, so may we give
you loving-kindness! As you measure to us, so may we measure to you!
May you live long, lord, and be prince of us and of our children! And
you, my Lady Audiart, may you stay with us, here in Roche-de-Frêne!”
Whereby it might be guessed that Thibaut and Roche-de-Frêne knew well
enough of Guiraut of the Vale’s errand. Probably they did. The time was
electric, and Montmaure had been seen for some time, looming upon the
horizon. Roche-de-Frêne, nor no town striving for liberties, cared for
Montmaure. He was of those who would strangle in its cradle the infant
named Middle Class.
Gaucelm thanked the burghers of Roche-de-Frêne, and the Princess
Audiart said, “I thank you, Thibaut Canteleu, and all these with you.”
The fifty were marshalled aside. They did not leave the hall; it
behooved them to stay and hear the answer to Montmaure.
All the gleaming and coloured particles slightly changed place, the
bowstring tension grew higher. Here was now Guiraut of the Vale, the
accompanying knights behind him, standing to hear what answer he should
take to the Count of Montmaure. The answer given him to take was brief,
clothed in courtesy, and without a hint in its voice or eye of the
possibility of untoward consequences. Roche-de-Frêne thanked Montmaure
for the honour meant, but the Princess Audiart was resolved not to wed.
Guiraut of the Vale, magnificent in dress and air, heard, and towered
a moment in silence, then flung out his hands, took a tone, harsh and
imperious. “You give me, Prince of Roche-de-Frêne, an ill answer with
which to return to the great count, my master! You set a bale-fire and
a threat upon the one road of peace between your land and Montmaure!
And for that my master was foretold by a sorceress that so would you
answer him, I am here not unprovided with an answer to your answer!”
With that he made a stride forward and flung down a glove upon the
dais, at Gaucelm’s feet. “Gaucelm the Fortunate, Montmaure will war
upon you until he and his son shall sit where now you and your daughter
are seated! Montmaure will war upon you until men know you as Gaucelm
the Unhappy! Montmaure will war upon you until the Princess Audiart
shall kneel for mercy to Count Jaufre—”
The hall shouted with anger. The ranks of knights slanted toward the
envoy. Gaucelm’s voice at last brought quiet. “The man is a herald and
sacred!—My lord Stephen the Marshal, take up the Count of Montmaure’s
glove!”
So began the war between Roche-de-Frêne and Montmaure.