I
Now the day of the birth of our Lord dawned that year grey and dreary,
and a Saturday. But, despite the weather, in the town at the foot of the
hill there was rejoicing, as befitted so great a festival. The day
before a fat steer had been driven to the public square and there
dressed and trussed for the roasting. The light of morning falling on
his carcass revealed around it great heaps of fruits and vegetables. For
the year had been prosperous.
But the young overlord sulked in his castle at the cliff top, and bit
his nails. From Thursday evening of each week to the morning of Monday,
Mother Church had decreed peace, a Truce of God. Three full days out of
each week his men-at-arms polished their weapons and grew fat. Three
full days out of each week his grudge against his cousin, Philip of the
Black Beard, must feed on itself.
His dark mood irritated the Bishop of Tours, who had come to speak of
certain scandalous things which had come to his ears. Charles heard him
through.
"She took refuge with him," he said violently, when the Bishop had
finished. "She knew what hate there was between us, yet she took refuge
with him."
"The question is," said the Bishop mildly, "why she should have been
driven to refuge. A gentle lady, a faithful wife--"
"Deus!" The young _seigneur_ clapped a fist on the table. "You know well
the reason. A barren woman!"
"She had borne you a daughter."
But Charles was far gone in rage and out of hand. The Bishop took his
offended ears to bed, and left him to sit alone by the dying fire, with
bitterness for company.
Came into the courtyard at midnight the Christmas singers from the town;
the blacksmith rolling a great bass, the crockery-seller who sang
falsetto, and a fool of the village who had slept overnight in a manger
on the holy eve a year before and had brought from it, not wit, but a
voice from Heaven. A miracle of miracles.
The men-at-arms in the courtyard stood back to give them space. They
sang with eyes upturned, with full-throated vigour, albeit a bit
warily, with an anxious glance now and then toward those windows beyond
which the young lord sulked by the fire.
"The Light of Light Divine,
True Brightness undefiled.
He bears for us the shame of sin,
A holy, spotless Child."
They sang to the frosty air.
When neither money nor burning fagot was flung from the window they
watched, they took their departure, relieved if unrewarded.
In former years the lady of the Castle had thrown them alms. But times
had changed. Now the gentle lady was gone, and the _seigneur_ sulked in
the hall.
With the dawn Charles the Fair took himself to bed. And to him,
pattering barefoot along stone floors, came Clotilde, the child of his
disappointment.
"Are you asleep?"
One arm under his head, he looked at her without answer.
"It is the anniversary of the birth of our Lord," she ventured. "Today
He is born. I thought--" She put out a small, very cold hand. But he
turned his head away.
"Back to your bed," he said shortly. "Where is your nurse, to permit
this?"
The child's face fell. Something she had expected, some miracle,
perhaps, a softening of the lord her father, so that she might ask of
him a Christmas boon.
The Bishop had said that Christmas miracles were often wrought, and she
herself knew that this was true. Had not the Fool secured his voice, so
that he who had been but lightly held became the village troubadour, and
slept warm and full at night?
She had gone to the Bishop with this the night before.
"If I should lie in a manger all night," she said, standing with her
feet well apart and looking up at him, "would I become a boy?"
The Bishop tugged at his beard. "A boy, little maid! Would you give up
your blue eyes and your soft skin to be a roystering lad?"
"My father wishes for a son," she had replied and the cloud that was
over the Castle shadowed the Bishop's eyes.
"It would not be well," he replied, "to tamper with the works of the
Almighty. Pray rather for this miracle, that your father's heart be
turned toward you and toward the lady, your mother."
So during much of the night she had asked this boon steadfastly. But
clearly she had not been heard.
"Back to your bed!" said her father, and turned his face away.
So she went as far as the leather curtain which hung in the doorway and
there she turned.
"Why do they sing?" she had asked the Bishop, of the blacksmith and the
others, and he had replied into his beard, "To soften the hard of
heart."
So she turned in the doorway and sang in her reedy little voice, much
thinned by the cold, sang to soften her young father's heart.
"The Light of Light Divine,
True Brightness undefined.
He bears for us the shame of sin,
A holy, spotless Child."
But the song failed. Perhaps it was the wrong hour, or perhaps it was
because she had not slept in the manger and brought forth the gift of
voice.
"Blood of the martyrs!" shouted her father, and raised himself on his
elbow. "Are you mad? Get back to your bed. I shall have a word with
someone for this."
Whether it had softened him or not it had stirred him, so she made her
plea.
"It is His birthday. I want to see my mother."
Then she ducked under the curtain and ran as fast as she could back to
where she belonged. Terror winged her feet. She had spoken a forbidden
word.
All sleep was gone from Charles the Fair. He lay on his elbow in his bed
and thought of things that he wished to forget: of the wife he had put
away because in eight years she had borne him no son; of his great lands
that would go to his cousin, Philip of the Black Beard, whom he hated;
of girls in the plain who wooed him with soft eyes and whom he passed
by; of a Jew who lay in a dungeon beneath the Castle because of usury
and other things.
After a time he slept again, but lightly, for the sun came in through
the deep, unshaded window and fell on his face and on the rushes that
covered the floor. And in his sleep the grimness was gone, and the
pride. And his mouth, which was sad, contended with the firmness of his
chin.
Clotilde went back to her bed and tucked her feet under her to warm
them. In the next room her nurse lay on a bed asleep, with her mouth
open; outside in the stone corridor a page slept on a skin, with a
corner over him against the draught.
She thought things over while she warmed her feet. It was clear that
singing did not soften all hearts. Perhaps she did not sing very well.
But the Bishop had said that after one had done a good act one might
pray with hope. She decided to do a good act and then to pray to see her
mother; she would pray also to become a boy so that her father might
care for her. But the Bishop considered it a little late for such a
prayer.
She made terms with the Almighty, sitting on her bed.
"I shall do a good act," she said, "on this the birthday of Thy Son, and
after that I shall ask for the thing Thou knowest of."
After much thinking, she decided to free the Jew. And being, after all,
her father's own child, she acted at once.
It was a matter of many cold stone steps and much fumbling with bars.
But Guillem the gaoler had crept up to the hall and lay sleeping by the
fire, with a dozen dogs about him. It was the time of the Truce of God,
and vigilance was relaxed. Also Guillem was in love with a girl of the
village and there was talk that the _seigneur_, in his loneliness, had
seen that she was beautiful. So Guillem slept to forget, and the Jew
lay awake because of rats and anxiety.
The Jew rose from the floor when Clotilde threw the grating open, and
blinked at her with weary and gentle eyes.
"It is the birthday of our Lord," said Clotilde, "and I am doing a good
deed so that I may see my mother again. But go quickly." Then she
remembered something the Bishop had said to her, and eyed him
thoughtfully as he stared at her.
"But you do not love our Lord!"
The Jew put out his foot quietly so that she could not close the
grating again. But he smiled into her eyes.
"Your Lord was a Jew," he said.
This reassured her. It seemed to double the quality of mercy. She threw
the door wide and the usurer went out cautiously, as if suspecting a
trap. But patches of sunlight, barred with black, showed the way clear.
He should have gone at once, but he waited to give her the blessing of
his people. Even then, having started, he went back to her. She looked
so small in that fearsome place.
"If there is something you wish, little maid, and I can secure it for
you--"
"I wish but two things," she said. "I wish to be a boy, only I fear it
is too late for that. The Bishop thinks so. And I wish to see my
mother."
And these being beyond his gift, and not contained in the pack he had
fastened to his shoulders, he only shook his head and took his cautious
way toward freedom.
Having tried song and a good deed, Clotilde went back again to her room,
stepping over the page, who had curled himself up in a ball, like a
puppy, and still slept. She crossed her hands on her breast and raised
her eyes as she had been taught.
"Now, O Lord," she said, "I have tried song and I have tried a good
deed. I wish to see my mother."
Perhaps it was merely coincidence that the level rays of the morning sun
just then fell on the crucifix that hung on the wall, and that although
during all the year it seemed to be but of wood and with closed eyes,
now it flashed as with life and the eyes were open.
"He was one of Your people," she said to the crucifix, "and by now he is
down the hill."
[Illustration: Chapter Two]