THE VENETIAN
THAT year Saladin was victor in Syria and the Kingdom of Jerusalem
fell. Many a baron, knight, and footman was slain that year in the land
over the sea! Those who could escape left that place of burning heat
and Paynim victory. Another crusade they might go, but here and now was
downfall! A part survived and reached their homes, and a part perished
at sea, or in shipwreck on strange shores.
Sir Eudes de Panemonde, an old man now and bent, came home to his
castle and fief. With him came his son, Sir Aimar, a beautiful and
brave knight, all bronzed with the sun, with fame on his shield and
crest. With them came a third knight, bronzed too by the sun, with
fame on his shield and crest. He had been Garin de Castel-Noir, and
then Garin Rogier, and now, for five years, Sir Garin of the Golden
Island,—Garin de l’lsle d’Or,—known in the land over the sea for
exploits of an extreme, an imaginative daring, and also for the songs
he made and sang in Frank and English fortress halls. He was knight and
famed knight, and three emirs’ ransoms stood between him and the chill
of poverty. Two esquires served him. He had horses,—better could not
be bought in Syria! He had brought off in safety men-at-arms in his
pay. He was known for wearing over his mail a surcoat of deep blue, and
on the breast embroidered a bird with outstretched wings. He was all
bronzed and rightly lean of face and frame, strongly-knit, adventurous,
courteous, could be gay and could be melancholy, showed not his entire
depth, but let the inner fountain, darkly pure, still send up jets and
hues of being. He and Sir Aimar were brothers-in-arms, were Damon and
Pythias. He was, also, true poet. Many a song had he made since that
first song, made where he lay upon a boundary stone, by the stream that
flowed past Castel-Noir and on to Our Lady in Egypt. And always he sang
of one whom he named the Fair Goal. That name was known in Crusaders’
cities, in tents that were pitched upon desert sands. He himself was
known and welcomed. Comrade-Frank or Englishman or German cried with
pleasure, “Here comes the singer!”—or “the lover!” as might be.
In the castle of Panemonde there was welcome and feasting. The strong
kinsman had not proved weak in fidelity, but had held afar from the
fief eagle and kite, while at home the Lady of Panemonde, a small,
fair, determined woman, had administered with great ability castle,
village, and the fields that fed both. Here were Crusaders who, unlike
enough to many, had not come home impoverished, or to lands ravaged and
debt-ridden. And Sir Eudes’s old sin was now wiped out of the memory of
God, and he could sit in the sun and wait death with a peaceful mind.
And Sir Aimar was so beautiful and strong a knight that his suzerain,
the Count of Toulouse, would be sure to give him opportunity by which
he might win fame for Panemonde beyond that which he had brought from
across the sea. Garin de l’Isle d’Or, too, looked for service that
should win him land and castle.
Toulouse! No sooner had their ship come to port than they learned that
Aquitaine warred against Toulouse, Duke Richard claiming the latter
through his mother, Duchess Eleanor. But hardly had they taken the road
to Panemonde before they heard the news that Richard and Count Raymond
had made in some sort peace, due, perhaps, to hold, and perhaps due
not to hold. Coming to Panemonde they found that the lady there had
furnished Count Raymond the spears that the fief owed, and that, the
fighting over, some of these had returned. Some would never return.
They feasted and rejoiced at Panemonde, giving and hearing news.
Kindred and friends came about the restored from over the sea. There
were feasts in the hall, exercises in the tilting yard, hunting and
singing. They carried in procession to the monastery church a vial
of water from the Jordan, a hands-breadth of silk from the bliaut of
Joseph of Arimathea. They gave holiday to the serfs and remitted a tax.
The early summer days went highly and well.
Sir Aimar had a sister, Aigletta, a fair, rose-cheeked, dark-eyed
lady. She was fain to hear stories of Saladin from her brother, and
she liked to listen to the lute and the deep, rich and sweet voice
of Garin of the Golden Island. He sang when she asked it, seated in
hall or in garden, or perhaps resting by the little stream without the
castle wall, where you looked across the bridge of one arch to the
eastward-stretching highway. Oftenest Garin sang other men’s songs, but
when she asked it, he sang his own. Aigletta listened with a pensive
look. Her brother found her alone one day in the garden, a white rose
by her knee, her smooth cheek resting upon her hand. He sat beside her.
“Sister, ladies more than two or three have wished that Sir Garin would
sing not so much for them as of them! And still he sings only of the
Fair Goal.”
“Who is she?” asked Aigletta.
“Who knows? He knows not himself. But she is as a hedge of white roses
to keep him from other loves. So I would not have you, sister, scorch
the finger-tip of your heart!”
“I? Not I!” said Aigletta. “I dip my finger-tips in cool, running
water!—But, truly, to sing for years of a lady whom he knows not by
sight—!”
“A poet can do even that,” said Aimar. “And it is not true that he hath
never seen her. He saw her once, where she rested at an abbey, though I
am not sure that he saw her face. But now for years he hath made her
famous—loving her, or loving the love of her.”
“By my faith!” said Aigletta. “Truly a poet finds roses where others
feel snow!—Well, I am no thief to take away a lady’s knight! And,
perhaps, as you say, fair brother, I could not do it.”
“I think that you could not, fair sister. His Fair Goal has become to
him as air and light, streaming through the house of being.”
They had not been long at Panemonde when they had news that eastward of
Toulouse the Count of Montmaure made bitter war against Roche-de-Frêne,
and that Aquitaine greatly helped Montmaure, while King Philip,
distracted by quarrels nearer home, sent to the aid of Roche-de-Frêne
but a single company of spears. Now, traditionally, Toulouse was
friendly to Roche-de-Frêne, but Toulouse was weary of war, and had made
pact with Duke Richard. Moreover Toulouse had present trouble with a
spreading heresy and Holy Church’s disfavour. Panemonde heard that
Montmaure made very grim war.
For Sir Garin and Sir Aimar the future pushed its head above the
present’s rich repose. When war swung his iron bell knights must
hearken—not the old knight, ready now for rest from war, for
contemplation of a Heaven where that bell lay broken—but the young
men, the inheritors of wrath. Aimar wished to ride to Toulouse, to
Count Raymond. Garin of the Golden Island would not show restlessness
in the house of his benefactor, but those who were awake saw him pacing
at dawn the castle wall, or leaning against the battlement, watching
the rose in the east.
Once he had assured Sir Eudes and his son that he was of Limousin. But
ere he received knighthood he had told plainly his birthplace and home,
name, and fealty, and that anger of Montmaure against him. In the land
beyond the sea much of the past had drifted toward remoteness, many
degrees of experience coming between it and him. But now, early and
late, he began to think of Castel-Noir and of Foulque—Foulque who had
heard naught of him since that night in which they had parted, beneath
the old cypress. The cypress itself rose before him, and the thought
of Sicart and Jean. Paladin might be living. Tower and crag and wood,
the stream that slipped through the wood—he wished to see them. Not
only Castel-Noir—even Raimbaut’s half-ruinous hold—even Raimbaut
the Six-fingered himself. Garin half laughed at the thought of the
giant. And he wished to follow down that stream again—to see again the
boundary stone of Our Lady of Egypt—to find again that little lawn
with the cedar, plane, and poplar—to touch again that carved seat, so
near the laurels....
He rose from his bed and, while the morning star was still shining,
went down the stair and crossing the court mounted the castle wall.
Here he rested arms against the stone and gazed at the east where was
now a little colour.
Montmaure warred against Roche-de-Frêne. Raimbaut held from Montmaure,
but Montmaure, for that fief, was vassal to Roche-de-Frêne. They said
that the war was bitter and far-flung. Garin knew not if Raimbaut,
carrying with him Castel-Noir, clave to Montmaure, or to the overlord
that was Roche-de-Frêne. There sprang within him wish and belief
that it was to Roche-de-Frêne. Montmaure! His lips moved, his brow
darkened. In imagination he wrestled again with Jaufre de Montmaure.
Then, athwart that mood, came again, and stronger than before, a great
longing to follow once more that southward-slipping stream, and to hear
the nightingale in the covert, and to come again through the laurels to
the lawn, the cedar, and the chair of stone. The east was like a rose.
“I will tarry no longer!” said Garin.
Five days later he and Aimar rode away toward Toulouse. Behind them,
well mounted, rode their esquires, bearing lance and shield; behind
these, threescore mounted men. The two knights kneeled for Sir Eudes’s
blessing, they kissed the cheek of the Lady of Panemonde and of the
dark-eyed Aigletta; they went away like a piece of the summer, and all
the castle out to see them go. Here was the bridge, here the road,
here a lime tree that Garin remembered, but in an autumn dress. Now it
was green and palest gold, fragrant, murmurous with bees. Farther,
and here was the calvary, and the way that branched to church and
monastery. Wherever there were people, they stopped in their tracks
upon the road, or in the fields dropped their work and stood to see the
knights go by, with the goodly men behind them. The sky was dazzling
blue, the world drenched with light and heat.
They meant to lodge that night in the town to which Garin had come with
the scholar, and where first he had seen the cross taken. Reaching it
before sunset, they looked up at its castle. But said Garin, “Let us
find some hostel! It is not in my mind to-night to be questioned of the
Holy Land, made to talk and sing.”
Aimar agreed; could tell, too, that anciently there was here a famous
inn. Passing through the town gate, they came into streets where
the folk abroad and at door and window turned at the sound of the
clattering hoofs, gazed at the well-appointed troop, and made free
comment. All the place was bathed in a red light.
“There are many heretics in this town,” said Aimar. “Catharists or
_bons hommes_—men of Albi, as they are now called. The strange thing
is that they seem very gentle, good people! I remember one who came
to Panemonde the year before we took the cross. He sat beneath the
great oak and talked to any who would listen as sweetly as if Our Lady
had sent him down from Heaven! I wondered—Some of the people took up
stones to stone him, but I would not let him be hurt, and he went
away. I wondered—”
Garin’s squire, Rainier, had been sent ahead to the inn, and now
rode back to meet them. “Sirs, a Venetian merchant-lord and his
people possess the house! But I have caught one fair chamber from the
Italian’s clutch and the hostess promises good supper and soon. For the
men, the next street hath the Olive Tree and the Sheaf and Sickle.”
They came to the great inn, a low, capacious building with a courtyard,
and in a corner of this a spacious arbour overrun by a grape-vine. It
was sunset. The knights and their squires dismounted, and a sumpter
mule with its load was brought from the rear. Men came from the inn
stable and took away the horses. Orders as to the morning start having
been given, the troop from Panemonde trotted off, down an unpaved lane,
to the lesser hostels. The hostess appeared, a woman of great size with
a face as genial as the sun. She poured forth words as to preëmpted
quarters, regrets, admirations, welcomes, hints that they were as well
off here as at the castle where the lord was healing him of a grisly
wound, and the lady had yesterday been brought to bed of a woman-child.
Then she herself marshalled the knights, the squire Rainier following,
to a chamber reasonably large and clean. Maids brought basins and ewers
of water. Rainier busied himself with squire’s duties. He, too, looked
to knighthood, somewhere in the future. The bright evening light came
through the window. Below, under the grape-arbour, serving-men placed
boards on trestles, and furnished forth a table.
The inn followed a good fashion, and on these warm and long days
spread supper in the largest, most open hall that might be. When they
descended to the court it was to find the Venetian great merchant
already at table, sitting with two others above the salt. He was a
lordly person, dressed in prune-coloured cendal, breathing potencies of
travel and trade. In his air were Venice and her doges, the equal sea
and the flavour of gold.
He greeted the two knights courteously, and they returned his greeting.
They took their places, the squire below them. Supper went well, with
the hum of life around the arbour, and the sky’s warm tint showing
between twisted branches of the vine. When hunger was satisfied, they
talked. They who spent years in the East came back to Europe with
certain Saracenic touches of conduct and manner that to such as the
Venetian told at least part of their history. He began at once to speak
of cities beyond the sea—of Jaffa, Tripoli, Edessa, Aleppo, Damascus.
In turn Garin and Aimar questioned him of Venice, paved with the sea.
When they had eaten, they washed and dried their hands. Serving-men
took away the dishes, the boards and trestles. The arbour was left,
a cool and pleasant place, with a table whereon was set wine of the
country, with the summer stars brightening overhead, and a vagrant
wind lifting the vine leaves. They tarried under the arbour, drinking
the red wine and talking now of matters nearer at hand than was Venice
or Damascus. Around was the hum of the town, of the long, warm evening
settling into night. Out from the inn door came voices of the inn
people. The hostess was rating some idle man or maid. “May Aquitaine
take you—!”
The Venetian, it seemed, was on his way to Barcelona, had travelled
yesterday from the city of Toulouse. He had left Venice the past
winter, and in the interest of that sea-queen and her trade had been
in many towns and a guest of many courts. Of late, war, blazing forth,
had disarranged his plans, preoccupied his hosts. He was in a most ill
humour with this warring.
“Fair sirs, I look not that you should believe me, but one day it will
be found that war is the name of the general foe! For what, say I, is
the mind given to you?” He drank his wine. “Now the Count of Montmaure
wars against the Prince of Roche-de-Frêne! In Montmaure trade is broken
on the wheel. In Roche-de-Frêne she is burned at the stake.” He tapped
the wine-cup with his fingers. “Trade is the true ship—War is the
pirate!”
Garin spoke. “I have hours in which I should believe that you were
right. Love, too, and the finer thought are broken on the wheel! But it
is the way of the world, and we are knights who go to war.”
“My lord of Montmaure fights,” said the chant, “like a fiend! Or so
the Count of Toulouse told me. The country of Roche-de-Frêne is harried
and wasted. Now he goes about to besiege the town and the castle.”
“We have been home no great while,” said Aimar, “and our castle is in a
corner of the land and away from hearing how the wind blows elsewhere.”
The Venetian sipped his wine, then set down the cup. “I spent a week,
before this war broke forth, in the castle of Roche-de-Frêne. I found
the prince a wise man, with for wife the most beauteous lady my eyes
have gazed upon!”
“Aye!” said Garin. “Alazais the Fair, men called her.”
“Just. Alazais the Fair.—While I was in the castle came the Count
of Montmaure’s demand for the prince’s daughter for wife to his son.
Certes, I think,” said the merchant, “that he knew she would be refused
him! Cause of war, or mask-reason for a meant war—now they war.”
“We heard something of all this,” said Aimar.
Garin spoke again. He was back in mind at Castel-Noir. “That is the
Princess Audiart. I remember their saying that she was ugly and unlike
others—like a changeling. They were praying for a son to Prince
Gaucelm.”
“She is not a changeling,” answered the Venetian. “She is a very wise
lady, though she is not fair as is her step-dame. I saw her sit beside
the Prince in council and the people love her. Now, they say, she is
as brave as a lion. Pardieu! If I were knight, or knight-errant—”
“Are they hard pressed?” Garin spoke, his hands before him on the table.
“So ’tis said. Montmaure has gathered a host and Richard of Aquitaine
gives to Count Jaufre another as great. At Toulouse there was much talk
of the matter.”
The Venetian emptied his glass, looked up at the stars, and, the day’s
travel having been wearying, thought of his bed. Presently he rose, his
people with him, said a courteous good night and quitted the arbour.
The two knights waited a little longer, sitting in silence. Then they,
too, left the arbour, and, Rainier attending, went to the chamber that
had been given. Here sleep came soon. But in the first light of morning
Sir Aimar, waking, saw Garin standing, half-clothed, at the window.
“Aimar,” said Garin, “you must to Toulouse, for Count Raymond is your
suzerain and Sir Eudes hath your promise that you follow no adventure
until you have received lord’s leave. But for me that makes too long
delay. I will ride on to Roche-de-Frêne.”
Sir Aimar sat upon the side of the bed. “I thought last eve that I saw
the knight-errant look forth from your eye! Will you rescue this ugly
princess?”
“Ugly or fair, she is a lady in distress—and Jaufre de Montmaure does
her wrong.... Her father is my liege lord. I have had a vision too,
of my brother Foulque, hard bestead. I cannot tarry to go about by
Toulouse.”
Aimar agreed to that. “My father hath my promise.—But I will follow
you as soon as I may. Pardieu! If what the Venetian said be true, every
knight will be welcome!”
“I think that it was true.—Ha!” said Garin to himself, “I see again
the autumn wood, and Jaufre de Montmaure who beats to her knees that
herd-girl!”
The two knights, Garin and Aimar, left the town together, in the
brightness of the morning. But a mile or two beyond the walls their
ways parted. Their followers were divided between them—each had now
two esquires and more than a score of men-at-arms. Each small troop
came in line behind its leader. Then the two knights, dismounting,
embraced. Each commended the other to the care of the Mother of God.
They made a rendezvous; they would meet again, brothers-in-arms, as
soon as might be. They remounted—each troop cried farewell to the
other—Sir Aimar and those with him turned aside into the way to
Toulouse.
Sir Garin waited without movement until a great screen of poplars came
between him and his brother knight. Then he spoke to his courser,
and with his men behind him, began to pursue the road to the country
of his birth. As he travelled he saw in fancy, coming toward him on
this road, Garin de Castel-Noir clad in a serf’s dress, fleeing from
Montmaure, in his heart and brain hopes and fears, a welling-up of
poesy, and the image of his lady whom he named the Fair Goal. Garin of
the Golden Island, older by nigh eight years of time and a world of
experience, rich, massy, and intricate, smiled on that other Garin and
saw how far he had to travel—but without finding as yet the Fair Goal!