RICHARD LION-HEART
THE sun came up and lighted Angoulême, town and castle, hill and
valley. Light and warmth increased. The town began to murmur like a
hive, clack like a mill, clang and sound as though armourers were
working. Angoulême had breakfast and turned with vigour the wheel of
the day. The Count of Beauvoisin rode with a small following to the
Abbey of the Fountain, to see his kinswoman the Abbess Madeleine. Duke
Richard Lion-Heart did what he did, and felt what he felt, and believed
what he believed, with intensity. He was as religious as an acquiescent
thunderbolt in Jehovah’s hand. Where-ever he came, a kind of jewelled
sunshine played about the branches, in that place, of the Vine the
Church. It might shine with fitfulness, but the fitfulness was less
than the shining. His vassals knew his quality; when they were with him
or where his eye oversaw their conduct, the ritual of a religious life
received sharpened attention.
The Abbey of the Fountain was a noble House of Nuns, known afar for its
piety, scholarship, and good works. Richard, coming to Angoulême, had
sent a gift and asked for the prayers of the Abbess Madeleine, whom
the region held for nigh a saint. Offering and request had been borne
by the Count of Beauvoisin, who was the Abbess’s kinsman. It was not
strange in the eyes of any that he should ride again to the Abbey of
the Fountain, this time, perhaps, with his own soul’s good in mind.
With him rode the knight who had come to the count’s house in Angoulême
in the guise of a jongleur. That was not strange, either—if the knight
were acquaintance or friend, and if some wolfish danger had forced
him to become a fugitive from his own proper setting, or if romance
and whim were responsible, or if he had taken a vow. Yesterday he had
been a jongleur with a very golden voice. To-day he appeared a belted
knight, dressed by the count, given a horse and a place in his train.
He was called the “Knight of the Wood.” Probably it was not his true
name. Chivalry knew these transformations, and upheld them as an
integer in its own sum of rights. The knight would have a reason, be
it as solid as the ground, or be it formed of rose-hued mist, solid
only to his own imagination! For the rest, he seemed a noble knight.
The count showed him favour, but not enough to awaken criticism, making
others fear displacement.
All rode through the streets of Angoulême, in the bright keen day.
Robert of Mercœur was neighbour of the Knight of the Wood, and looked
aslant at him with an intuitive eye. They passed out by the west gate
and wound down to the valley floor. It was no distance from the town
to the Abbey of the Fountain; the latter’s great leafless trees were
presently about them. The count with a word drew Garin to ride at his
bridle-hand. The two or three following fell a little back. Beauvoisin
spoke. “Richard says that he will be a week in Angoulême. But he knows
not when his mood may change, and in all save three or four things he
follows his mood.”
The Knight of the Wood looked east and south. “I will answer for there
being a vision of many in extremity, and a wild heartbeat to win and
begone!”
“‘Win.’—I know not, nor can you know as to that.”
“The schools would say ‘True, lord count!’ But there is learning beyond
learning.”
They rode in silence, each pursuing his own thought. Beauvoisin rode
with lifted head, gazing before him down the vista of trees, to where
the grey wall closed it. Presently he spoke, but spoke as though he did
not know that he was speaking. “We were within the prohibited degrees
of kin.”
The great trees stood widely apart, gave way to the grassy space before
the Abbey.
The Count of Beauvoisin, his cap in his hand, was granted admittance
at the Abbey portal; might, in the abbess’s room, grey nuns attending
her, speak with the veiled abbess. But they who were with him waited
without, quietly, as the place demanded, in the grassy space. The
Knight of the Wood waited.
The minutes passed. When an hour had gone by, Beauvoisin came from the
grey building. He mounted his horse, looked steadfastly at the place,
then, with the air of a man in a dream, turned toward Angoulême. The
knights followed him, riding between huge boles of trees that towered.
Robert of Mercœur was again at Garin’s side.
“Do you mark that look of exaltation? One man has one heaven and
another, another—or that is the case while they are men. Count Rainier
has seen his heaven—felt the waving of its hands over his head!”
In Angoulême, in its widest street, they saw approaching a cavalcade
from the castle, a brilliant troop, glittering steel, shimmering
fine apparel, pushing with gaiety through the town upon some short
journey, half errand of state, half of pleasure. At its head rode
one who had the noblest steed, the richest dress. He was a man very
fair, long-armed, sinewy, of medium height. There was great vigour of
bearing, warmth from within out, an apparent quality that drew, save
when from another quarter of the nature came, scudding, wrath and
tempest. The mien of command was not lacking, nor, to a given point,
of self-command. He drew rein to speak to the Count of Beauvoisin;
who with his following had given room, backing their horses into the
opening of a narrower street.
“Ha, Beauvoisin, we sent for you but found you not!—Come to supper,
man, with me to-night!” His roving blue eye found out Robert of
Mercœur. “Do you come with him, Robert—and we will talk of how the
world will seem when all are poets!”
“Beausire,” said the count, “at your will! Now I turn beggar and beg
for you for guest in my house to-morrow.”
“I will come—I will come!” said Richard.
He nodded to Beauvoisin, put his horse into motion, clattered down the
ill-paved street. His train followed, lords and knights speaking to the
count as they passed. When all were gone in noise and colour, those who
had ridden to the Abbey of the Fountain reëntered the wider street and
so came to the house whence they had started. Dismounting in the court
where Garin had sung, they went, one to this business or pleasure,
one to that. But the count, entering, mounted a great echoing flight
of stairs to his chamber, and here, obeying his signal, came also the
Knight of the Wood. Beauvoisin dismissed all attendants, and the two
were alone.
“I have seen your princess,” said Beauvoisin. “She is a gallant lady,
though not fair.”
“Ah, what is ‘fair’? The time tells the eyes that such and such is
beauty. Then comes another time with its reversal! But all the time, if
the soul is ‘fair’? The princess is ‘fair’ to me.”
Beauvoisin looked at him steadily. “I see,” he said “that we have a
like fate—God He knoweth all, and what the great cup of life holds,
holds, holds!... Well, that princess has courage and is wise! I had
heard as much of her, and I see that it is so. In her first womanhood
the Abbess Madeleine was a long while at the court of Roche-de-Frêne.
Your princess is her friend.” He paced the room, then, coming to the
fire, bent over the flame.
“I see, my lord count,” said Garin, “devotion and generousness!”
Beauvoisin was silent, warming himself at the flame. Garin of the
Golden Island, standing at the window, looked toward Roche-de-Frêne.
His mind’s eye saw assault and repulse and again assault, the push
against walls and gates, the men upon the walls, at the gates, the
engines of war, the reeking fury of fight. The keener ear heard the
war-cries, the clangour and the shouting, and underneath, the groan. He
saw the banner that attacked, and above the castle, above Red Tower and
Lion Tower, the banner that defended. He turned toward the room again.
The count spoke, “_Jaufre de Montmaure!_ I have no love for Count
Jaufre, nor friendship with him. I was of those who, an they could,
would have kept Richard from this huge support he has given. My party
would still see it withdrawn.—But Richard treads a road of his own....
Were Jaufre Richard, your princess, being here, would be in the lion’s
den! But just her coming—the first outbursting of his anger over—will
put her person safe with Richard.”
“That has been felt—knowing by old rumour certain qualities in him.”
“It was truly felt. But as to the gain for which all was
risked!—Jaufre has been to him an evil companion, but a companion.
But,” said the Count of Beauvoisin, “even at my proper danger, I will
get for her who, by Saint Michael! with courage has come here, the
meeting she asks!”
* * * * *
The castle of Angoulême was not so huge and strong a place as the
castle of Roche-de-Frêne, but still was it great and strong enough. The
high of rank among its usual population remained within its walls, but
the lesser sort were crowded out and flowed into the town, so making
room for Duke Richard’s great train. Martialness was the tone where he
went, with traceable threads of song, threads of religiousness. Colours
had violence, and yet with suddenness and for short whiles might
soften to tenderness. There was brazen clangour, rattle as of armour,
dominance of trumpets, yet flute notes might come in the interstices,
and lute and harp had their recognized times. And all and whatever was
in presence showed with him intense and glowing. Idea clothed itself
promptly in emotion, emotion ran hotfoot into action, but none of the
three were film-like, momentary. Impetuous, they owned a solidity. He
could do, he had done, many an evil thing, but there was room for a
sense of realms that were not evil.
It was afternoon, and the red sun reddened the castle hall. There
had been planned some manner of indoor festivity, pageantry. The
world of chivalry, men and women, gathered in Angoulême about Richard
Lion-Heart, was there to see and be seen. But after the first half-hour
Richard rose and went away. His immediate court was used to that, too.
His mood had countered the agreed-upon mood for the hour: naught was to
do but to watch him depart. Music that was playing played more loudly;
a miracle-story in pantomime was urged to more passionate action; as
best might be, the chasm was covered. “It is the Duke’s way—applaud
the entertainers or the thing will drag!”
The duke went away to a great room in another part of the castle. With
him he drew two or three of his intimates; in the room itself attended
the Count of Beauvoisin and several knights of fame and worthiness.
Among these stood that newcomer to Angoulême, the Knight of the
Wood. The room was richly furnished, lit by the red light of the sun
streaming through three deep windows. A door in the opposite wall gave
into a smaller room.
Richard, entering, flung himself into the chair set for him in the
middle of a great square of cloth worked with gold. His brow was dark;
when he spoke, his voice had the ominous, lion note.
“My lord of Beauvoisin!”
Beauvoisin came near. “Lord, all is arranged—”
The duke made a violent movement of impatience, of anger beginning to
work.
“This is a madness that leads to naught! Does this princess think I am
so fickle—?”
His blue eye, roving the room, came to the group of knights at the far
end. “Yonder knight—is he Garin of the Golden Island?”
“Yes, lord.”
Duke Richard gazed at Garin of the Golden Island. “By the rood, he
looks a man!” He turned to his anger again. “But now this woman—this
Princess of Roche-de-Frêne—” His impatient foot wrinkled the silken
carpet. “She may count it for happiness if I do not hold her here
while I send messengers to Count Jaufre, ‘Lo, I have caged your bride
for you!’” He nursed his anger. Beauvoisin saw with apprehension how
he fanned it. “What woman comprehends man’s loyalty to man? I said to
Montmaure I would aid him—”
“My lord, the princess is here—within yonder room.”
“Ha!” cried Richard; and that in his nature that gave back, touch
for touch, Jaufre de Montmaure, came through the doors his anger had
opened. “Let her then come to me here as would the smallest petitioner!
God’s blood! Montmaure has her land. I hold her not as reigning
princess and my peer!”
Beauvoisin stepped to the door of the lesser room, opened it, and
having spoken to one within, stood aside. Duke Richard turned in his
seat, looked at the red sun out of window. He showed a tension: the
movement of his foot upon the floor-cloth might have stood for the
lion’s pacing to and fro, lashing himself to fury. At a sign from
Beauvoisin the knights had drawn farther into the shadow at the end of
the room. Garin watched from this dusk.
The Princess of Roche-de-Frêne came with simplicity and quietness
from the lesser room. She was not dressed now as a herd-girl, but as
a princess. There followed her two grey nuns who, taking their stand
by the door, remained there with lowered eyes and fingers upon their
rosaries. The princess came to the edge of the gold-wrought square. “My
lord duke,” she said; and when Garin heard her voice he knew that power
was in her.
When Richard turned from the window she kneeled and that without
outward or inner cavilling.
“Ha, madame!” said Richard. “Blood of God! did you think to gain aught
by coming here?”
She answered him; then, after a moment’s silence which he did not
break, began again to speak. The tones of her voice, now sustained, now
changing, came to those afar in the room, but not all the words she
said. Without words, they gave to those by the wall a tingling of the
nerves, a feeling of wave on wave of force—not hostile, uniting with
something in themselves, giving to that something volume and momentum,
wealth.... There were slight movements, then stillness answering the
still, intense burning, the burning white, of her passion, will, and
power.
She rested from speech. Richard left his chair, came to her and giving
her his hand, aided her to rise. He sent his voice down the room to
Beauvoisin. “My lord count, bring yonder chair for the princess.” He
had moved and spoken as one not in a dream, but among visions. When the
chair was brought and placed upon the golden cloth and she had seated
herself in it, he retook his own. “Jaufre de Montmaure,” he said, “was
my friend, and he wanted you for bride—”
She began again to speak, and the immortal power and desire of her
nature, burning deep and high and rapidly, coloured and shook the room.
“Lord, lord,” she said. “The right of it—” Sentence by sentence, wave
on wave, the right of it made way, seeing that deep within Duke Richard
there was one of its own household who must answer.
That meeting lasted an hour. The Princess of Roche-de-Frêne, rising
from her chair, stretched out her hands to Richard Lion-Heart. “I would
rest all now, my lord duke. The sun is sinking, but for all that we yet
will live by its light. In the morning it comes again.”
“I will ride to-morrow to the Abbey of the Fountain. We will speak
further together. I have promised naught.”
“No. But give room and maintenance to-night, my Lord Richard, to all
that I have said that is verity. Let all that is not verity go by
you—go by you!”
Beauvoisin and his men gave her and the nuns with her escort back
to the Abbey of the Fountain. Going, she put upon her head and drew
forward so that it shadowed her face, a long veil of eastern make,
threaded with gold and silver. Her robe was blue, a strange, soft, deep
colour.
The next morning, Duke Richard rode to the Abbey. He went again the day
after, and this day the sheaf was made. The Princess of Roche-de-Frêne
and Jaufre de Montmaure appealed each to a man in Duke Richard, a
higher man and a lower man. In these winter days, but sun-lighted, the
higher man won.