THE WHITE TOWER
UPON the wide steps that led to the door he found Pierol, who, turning,
went before him through a hall or general room to a flight of stone
steps winding upward. From this he was brought into a small room where
were ladies and pages. Pierol, motioning to him to wait, vanished
through an opposite door, then in a moment reappeared. Garin, answering
his sign, went forward and, passing beneath the lintel, found himself
in the princess’s chamber.
She sat beside a table placed for the better light before the southern
window. She had been writing; as she looked up, the light behind her
made a kind of aureole for her head and long throat and slender,
energetic form. “Give you good day, Sir Garin de Castel-Noir!” She
nodded to Pierol and the girl Maeut, who left the room. Near her stood
a middle-aged, thin, scholarly-appearing man in a plain dress—her
secretary, Master Bernard. She spoke to him, giving directions. He
answered, gathered up papers from the table, and bowing low, followed
Pierol and Maeut. The princess sat on for a few moments in silence, her
forehead resting upon her hand. To Garin, standing between table and
door, the whole fair, large room, the figured hangings, the beamed
ceiling, the deep-set windows, the floor where were strewn autumn buds
and shoots from the garden, seemed a rich casket filled with a playing
light. The light had a source. Garin felt a madness, a desire to sink
wholly into the light, a wish to unclasp once and forever the hold of
the past, accompanied by a dizzying sense that in no wise might it be
done. The inner man put steadying hands upon himself, forced himself to
look into the eye of the day and of duty.
The princess let fall her hand, turned slightly in her chair, and faced
him. Her look was still and intent; behind it stood a strong will,
an intelligence of wide scope. There might seem, besides, a glow,
a tension, an urging as of something that would bloom but was held
back, postponed, dominated. She spoke and her voice had a golden and
throbbing quality. “I have sent for you, Sir Knight, because I wish to
ask of some one great service, and it has seemed to me that you would
answer to my asking”—
Garin came nearer to her. “I answer, my lady.”
“You will be, and that for long days, in great peril. Peril will
begin this very eve. I do not wish now to tell you the nature of your
adventure—or to tell you more than that it is honourable.”
“Tell me what you will, and no more than that.”
“Then listen, and keep each step in mind—and first of all, that the
matter is secret.”
“First, it is secret.”
“At dusk a jongleur will come to your lodging, bringing with him a
dress like his own, his lute and other matters. Clothe yourself like
him, cut your hair closer, somewhat darken your face. Let him aid you;
he is faithful. Wear a dagger, but no other arms nor armour. You will
go, too, afoot. Knightly courage you will need, but keen wit must do
for hauberk and destrier, sword and lance. When you are dressed you are
henceforth, for I know not how many days or weeks, the jongleur Elias
of Montaudon.”
“Thus far, I have it in mind.—_Elias of Montaudon._”
“You know the postern called the rock-gate, on the northern face,
between Black Tower and Eagle Tower?”
“Yes.”
“When the bells are ringing complin you will go there alone. You will
wait, saying naught to any who may come or go. If you are challenged
you will say that you are there upon the princess’s errand, and you
will give the word of the night. It is _Two Falcons_.”
“At complin. _Two Falcons._”
“You will wait until there comes to you one mantled. That one will give
you a purse, and will say to you, ‘Saint Martin’s summer.’ You will
answer ‘Dreams may come true.’”
“‘_Saint Martin’s summer._’—‘_Dreams may come true._’”
“The purse you will take and keep—keep hidden. It will be for need.
That mantled one you are to follow, and, without question, obey.—Now
tell over each direction.”
Garin told, memory making no slip. He ended, “I am to follow that one
who, giving me a purse, says _Saint Martin’s summer_. He commands and I
obey—”
“As you would myself,” said the princess.
She turned in her chair, looked beyond him out of the window upon
tower and roof and wall and the November sky of a southern land. “I
hold you true knight, true poet, true man,” she said. “Else never
should I give you this charge! Keep that likewise in memory, Sir
Garin de Castel-Noir, Sir Garin de l’Isle d’Or!—And now you will go.
Tell Sir Aimar de Panemonde that you have been set a task and given
an errand full of danger, but that, living, he may see you again by
Christmas-tide. Tell no one else anything.”
“Going on such an errand and so long,” said Garin, “and one from which
there may be no returning, I would kiss your hands, my liege—”
She gave her hand to him. He knelt and kissed the slender, long,
embrowned fingers. As they rested, that moment, upon his own hand,
there came into his mind some association. It came and was gone like
distant lightning, and he could not then give it name or habitation.
He rose and stepped backward to the door. “God be with you, my Lady
Audiart—”
“And with you,” the princess answered gravely.
Outside the White Tower he paused a moment and looked about him, his
eyes saying farewell to a place that in actuality he might not see
again. It was the same with the garden through which he presently
passed. Now it was sunshine, but he thought of it in dusk, the eve when
he had been there with the princess. Later in the day he found Aimar,
and told him as much as he had been told to tell and no more. The two
brothers-in-arms spent an hour together, then they embraced and Aimar
went to the men of both, defending the city wall. When the sun hung low
in the west, Garin sent there also his squire Rainier. The sun sank and
he stood at his window watching.
Around the corner came a man in brown and yellow like autumn leaves.
Slung from his neck by a red ribbon he had a lute, and under his arm a
bundle wrapped in cloth. He reached the entrance below, spoke to the
porter and vanished within. Garin, turning from the window, answered
presently to a knock at the door. “Enter!” There came in, the room
being yet lit by the glow from the western sky, the brown and yellow
man. He proved to be a slender, swarthy person, with long, narrow eyes
and a Moorish look. “I speak,” he asked, “to the right noble knight
and famed troubadour Sir Garin of the Black Castle—also called of the
Golden Island?”
“I am Sir Garin. I know you for the jongleur, Elias of Montaudon.”
“That poor same, fair sir!—Moreover I have here that which will make
in the castle of Roche-de-Frêne two of me!” He laid the bundle on a
bench, and slipping the ribbon from his neck placed there the lute as
well. “When I think that from so famous a troubadour I am set to make a
poor jongleur, I know not how to take my task! But princesses are to be
obeyed, and truly I would do much for this one! And for your comfort,
lord,—only for that and never for vain-glory,—I would have you to wit
that Elias of Montaudon hath a kind of fame of his own!” As he spoke he
untied the bundle. “It is an honour that you should deign to wear me,
so to speak, in whatever world you are repairing to—and Saint Orpheus
my witness, I know not where that world may be! So, noble sir, here is,
at your pleasure, a holiday suit—only a little worn—and a name no
more frayed than is reasonably to be expected!”
“Gramercy for both,” answered Garin. “How have you fared between the
days of Guy of Perpignan and now?”
He took the lute from the bench, swept the strings, and sang, though
not loudly:—
“In the spring all hidden close,
Lives many a bud will be a rose!
In the spring ’tis crescent morn,
But then, ah then, the man is born!
In the spring ’tis yea or nay,
Then cometh Love makes gold of clay!
Love is the rose and truest gold,
Love is the day and soldan bold—”
He owned a golden voice. The notes throbbed through the room. The last
died and he laughed. “That song of Guy of Perpignan!—I heard it first
from you.”
The jongleur stood staring. “I have been in many a castle hall and
bower, at an infinity of tournaments, and two or three times where
baron and knight were warring in earnest. Up and down and to and fro
in the world I practice my art, riding when I can and walking when I
must! But when I had the honour of striking viol, lute or harp before
you, sir, I do not recall. Being so famous a knight and poet, I should
remember—. And then men say that you have been long years in the land
over the sea!”
“It was before I went to the land over the sea.—But come! the sky is
fading, it is growing dusk. Light the candles there, and begin to turn
me into your other self!”
The candles lighted, the jongleur shook out the clothing he had
brought. “Earth-brown and leaf-green,” he said, “with a hooded mantle
half the one and half the other.—Now, noble sir, I can play the squire
as well as the squire himself!”
He took from Garin the garments which the latter put off, gave him
piece by piece those that were to transform. The two, jongleur and
knight and troubadour, were much of a height. Garin was the more
strongly built, but the garb of the time had amplitude of line and fold
and Elias of Montaudon’s holiday dress fitted him well enough. “Of
deliberation and answering to command,” said the jongleur, “it has been
slightly rent and patched here and discoloured there. If the Blessed
Virgin herself asked me why, I could not tell her! I have also a phial
of a brown stain which, lightly used, makes for a darker complexion
than the sun has painted you with.... Sir Garin of the Golden Island,
in hall and bower and wherever chivalry gathers, I have sung songs of
your making. But when and where have I sung _to_ you? I have curiosity,
without which life would be a dull dream! Give largesse, sir, in the
coin of a wiser world—that is to say, give knowledge!”
Garin smiled. “I was esquire then, and you sat by a boulder in the
forest, not so many miles from Roche-de-Frêne and discoursed of
jongleur merits and of an ingrate master, to wit, Guy of Perpignan!
Also you sang certain lines of his, and spoke sapiently of Lord Love.
That, too, was an autumn day, and when I was a squire I wore brown and
green.”
The jongleur lifted both hands and beat a measure upon his brow. “Ha!
and by Saint Arion and his dolphin you did! A proper squire, singing
a hunting stave—Ha!” cried Elias of Montaudon, “I have heard sing a
master-poet before he was poet!
“‘In the spring ’tis crescent morn,
But then, ah then, the man is born!’
though, certainly, it was autumn!... I remember as clear as crystal! I
was asleep, and you waked me, coming up on a great horse—”
“Just so. I left the saddle and let Paladin graze, and we talked.”
“Clearer than Saint Martha’s well!... The talk was of love, and that
you had not yet a lady—By all the saints!” said Elias, “how soon must
that have been remedied!”
Garin laughed, but there was rue in his laughter. He suddenly grew
grave, the rock-gate before his mind’s eye. “Come! let us have this
stain. Shorten, too, my hair.” He took up Elias’s lute and tried its
strings. “Play the jongleur—play the jongleur. Every man has in his
_garde-robe_ every dress! The king can play the beggar, and the beggar
play the king. Be quick, courageous, and certain in the change—so is
the trumpet answered!” He put the lute’s ribbon over his head. “It
falls night. Hasten, Elias of Montaudon, and while you work tell me
your own life these six years! If I make another of you, I will make it
like!”
The man in brown and yellow worked.... At last there stood in the
lighted room, not a knight and crusader and troubadour, but a jongleur
with a brown face, with a somewhat tarnished brown and green attire,
with a lute slung by a red ribbon, on his head a cap with a black
cock’s feather, at his belt a dagger and sheath of the best Italian
make. Dagger and sheath the knight had supplied. It was now full
night, and not so long before, from every house of the religious in
Roche-de-Frêne, complin would ring. The jongleur in brown and yellow
took his leave. He had his fee, he said; likewise a command as to a
bridled tongue. The jongleur in brown and green saw him go, then put
out the candles, pushed a bench to the window, and sitting down waited
for the signal next in order.... At last the bells spoke.
Garin, rising, left the room and descended the stair. The passage below
was in darkness, at the exit but one smoky torch. He drew the wide
mantle closely about him, pulling the hood over head and face. His step
said to the man at the door, “Sir Garin.” He passed, an unquestioned
inmate, not clearly seen in the light blown by the autumn wind.