II

Now it was the custom on the morning of the Holy day for the _seigneur_

to ride his finest stallion to the top of the hill, where led a steep

road down into the town. There he dismounted, surrounded by his people,

guests and soldiers, smaller visiting nobility, the household of the

Castle. And, the stage being set as it were, and the village waiting

below, it was his pleasure to give his charger a great cut with the

whip and send him galloping, unridden, down the hill. The horse was his

who caught it.

Below waited the villagers, divided between terror and cupidity. Above

waited the Castle folk. It was an amusing game for those who stood

safely along the parapet and watched, one that convulsed them with

merriment. Also, it improved the quality of those horses that grazed in

the plain below.

This year it was a great grey that carried Charles out to the road that

clung to the face of the cliff. Behind him on a donkey, reminder of the

humble beast that had borne the Christ into Jerusalem, rode the Bishop.

Saddled and bridled was the grey, with a fierce head and great

shoulders, a strong beast for strong days.

The men-at-arms were drawn up in a double line, weapons at rest. From

the place below rose a thin grey smoke where the fire kindled for the

steer. But the crowd had deserted and now stood, eyes upraised to the

Castle, and to the cliff road where waited boys and men ready for their

desperate emprise, clad in such protection of leather as they could

afford against the stallion's hoofs.

Two people only remained by the steer, an aged man, almost blind, who

tended the fire, and the girl Joan, whom Guillem slept to forget.

"The _seigneur_ has ridden out of the gates, father," she said. The

colour mounted to her dark cheeks. She was tall and slender, unlike the

peasant girls of the town, almost noble in her bearing; a rare flower

that Charles, in his rage and disappointment, would pick for himself.

"And were you not undutiful," he mumbled, "you would be with him now,

and looking down on this rabble."

She did not reply at once. Her eyes were fixed on the frowning castle,

on the grim double line of men-at-arms, at the massive horse and its

massive rider.

"I, too, should be up there," whined the old man. "Today, instead of

delivering Christmas dues, I should be receiving them. But you--!" He

swung on her malevolently, "You must turn great ox-eyes toward Guillem,

whose most courageous work is to levy tribute of a dungeon!"

She flushed.

"I am afraid, father. He is a hard man."

"He is gentle with women."

"Gentle!" Her eyes were still upraised. "He knows not the word. When he

looks at me there is no liking in his eyes. I am--frightened."

The overlord sat his great horse and surveyed the plain below. As far as

he could see, and as far again in every direction, was his domain,

paying him tithe of fat cattle and heaping granaries. As far as he could

see and as far again was the domain that, lacking a man-child, would go

to Philip, his cousin.

The Bishop, who rode his donkey without a saddle, slipped off and stood

beside the little beast on the road. His finger absently traced the dark

cross on its back.

"Idiots!" snarled the overlord out of his distemper, as he looked down

into the faces of his faithful ones below. "Fools and sons of fools! Thy

beast would suit them better, Bishop, than mine."

Then he flung himself insolently out of the saddle. There was little of

Christmas in his heart, God knows; only hate and disappointment and

thwarted pride.

"A great day, my lord," said the Bishop. "Peace over the land. The end

of a plentiful year--"

"Bah!"

"The end of a plentiful year," repeated the Bishop tranquilly, "this day

of His birth, a day for thanksgiving and for--good-will."

"Bah!" said the overlord again, and struck the grey a heavy blow. So

massive was the beast, so terrific the pace at which it charged down the

hill that the villagers scattered. He watched them with his lip curling.

"See," he said, "brave men and true! Watch, father, how they rally to

the charge!" And when the creature was caught, and a swaying figure

clung to the bridle:

"By the cross, the Fool has him! A fine heritage for my cousin Philip, a

village with its bravest man a simpleton!"

The Fool held on swinging. His arms were very strong, and as is the way

with fools and those that drown, many things went through his mind. The

horse was his. He would go adventuring along the winter roads,

adventuring and singing. The townspeople gathered about him with

sheepish praise. From a dolt he had become a hero. Many have taken the

same step in the same space of moments, the line being but a line and

easy to cross.

The _denouement_ suited the grim mood of the overlord. It pleased him to

see the smug villagers stand by while the Fool mounted his steed. Side

by side from the parapet he and the Bishop looked down into the town.

"The birthday of our Lord, Bishop," he said, "with fools on blooded

horses and the courage of the townspeople in their stomachs."

"The birthday of our Lord," said the Bishop tranquilly, "with a lad

mounted who has heretofore trudged afoot, and with the hungry fed in the

market place."

Now it had been in the mind of the Bishop that the day would soften

Charles' grim humour and that he might speak to him as man to man. But

Charles was not softened.

So the Bishop gathered up his courage. His hand was still on the cross

on the donkey's back.

"You are young, my son, and have been grievously disappointed. I, who am

old, have seen many things, and this I have learned. Two things there

are that, next to the love of God, must be greatest in a man's life--not

war nor slothful peace, nor pride, nor yet a will that would bend all

things to its end."

The overlord scowled. He had found the girl Joan in the Market Square,

and his eyes were on her.

"One," said the Bishop, "is the love of a woman. The other is--a child."

The donkey stood meekly, with hanging head.

"A woman," repeated the Bishop. "You grow rough up here on your

hillside. Only a few months since the lady your wife went away, and

already order has forsaken you. The child, your daughter, runs like a

wild thing, without control. Our Holy Church deplores these things."

"Will Holy Church grant me another wife?"

"Holy Church," replied the Bishop gravely, "would have you take back, my

lord, the wife whom your hardness drove away."

The _seigneur's_ gaze turned to the east, where lay the Castle of

Philip, his cousin. Then he dropped brooding eyes to the Square below,

where the girl Joan assisted her father by the fire, and moved like a

mother of kings.

"You wish a woman for the castle, father," he said. "Then a woman we

shall have. Holy Church may not give me another wife, but I shall take

one. And I shall have a son."

* * * * *

The child Clotilde had watched it all from a window. Because she was

very high the thing she saw most plainly was the cross on the donkey's

back. Far out over the plain was a moving figure which might or might

not have been the Jew. She chose to think it was.

"One of Your people," she said toward the crucifix. "I have done the

good deed."

She was a little frightened, for all her high head.

Other Christmases she and the lady her mother had sat hand in hand, and

listened to the roystering.

"They are drunk," Clotilde would say.

But her mother would stroke her hand and reply:

"They but rejoice that our Lord is born."

So the child Clotilde stood at her window and gazed to where the plain

stretched as far as she could see and as far again. And there was her

mother. She would go to her and bring her back, or perhaps failing that,

she might be allowed to stay.

Here no one would miss her. The odour of cooking food filled the great

house, loud laughter, the clatter of mug on board. Her old nurse was

below, decorating a boar's head with berries and a crown.

Because it was the Truce of God and a festival, the gates stood open.

She reached the foot of the hill safely. Stragglers going up and down

the steep way regarded her without suspicion. So she went through the

Square past the roasting steer, and by a twisting street into the open

country.

When she stopped to rest it was to look back with wistful eyes toward

the frowning castle on the cliff. For a divided allegiance was hers.

Passionately as she loved her mother, her indomitable spirit was her

father's heritage, his fierceness was her courage, and she loved him as

the small may love the great.

The Fool found her at the edge of the river. She had forgotten that

there was a river. He was on his great horse, and he rode up by the

child and looked down at her.

"It was I who captured him," he boasted. "The others ran, but I caught

him, so." He dismounted to illustrate.

"It is not because you were brave that you captured him."

"Then why?" He stood with his feet wide apart, looking down at her.

"It is because you have slept in a manger on a Holy Eve."

"Aye," he responded, "but that was a matter of courage, too. There were

many strange noises. Also, in the middle of the night came Our Lady

herself and said to me: 'Hereafter thou shalt sing with the voice of an

angel.'"

"I should like to see Our Lady," said the child wistfully.

"Also," pursued the Fool, "She gave me power over great beasts. See! He

fears me, while he loves me."

And indeed there seemed some curious kinship between the horse and the

lad, perhaps because the barrier of keen human mind was not between

them.

"Think you," said the little maid, "if I slept where you did She would

appear to me? I would not ask much, only to be made a lad like you, and,

perhaps, to sing."

"But I am a simpleton. Instead of wit I have but a voice and now--a

horse."

"A lad like you," she persisted, "so that my father would love me and my

mother might come back again?"

"Better stay as you are," said the Fool. "Also, there will be no Holy

Eve again for a long time. It comes but once a year. Also it is hard

times for men who must either fight or work in the fields. I--" He

struck his chest. "I shall do neither. And I shall cut no more wood. I

go adventuring."

Clotilde rose and drew her grey cloak around her.

"I am adventuring, too," she said. "Only I have no voice and no horse.

May I go with you?"

The boy was doubtful. He had that innate love and tenderness that is

given to his kind instead of other things. But a child!

"I will take you," he said at last, rather heavily. "But where, little

lady?"

"To my mother at the castle of Black Philip." And when his face

fell--for Philip was not named The Black only for his beard--

"She loves singing. I will ask you to sing before her."

That decided him. He took her before him on the grey horse and they set

off, two valiant adventurers, a troubadour and a lady, without food or

sufficient clothing, but with high courage and a song.

And because it was the Truce of God the children went unharmed,

encountering no greater adventure than hunger and cold and aching

muscles. Robbers sulked in their fastnesses, and their horses pawed the

ground. Murder, rapine and pillage slept that Christmas day, under the

shelter of the cross.

The Fool, who ached for adventure, rather resented the peace.

"Wait until Monday," he said from behind her on the horse. "I shall show

you great things."

But the little maid was cold by that time and beginning to be

frightened. "Monday you may fight," she said. "Now I wish you would

sing."

So he sang until his voice cracked in his throat. Because it was

Christmas, and because it was freshest in his heart, he sang mostly

what he and the blacksmith and the crockery-seller had sung in the

castle yard:

"The Light of Light Divine,

True Brightness undefiled,

He bears for us the shame of sin,

A holy, spotless Child."

They lay that night in a ruined barn with a roof of earth and stones.

Clotilde eyed the manger wistfully, but the Holy Eve was past, and the

day of miracles would not come for a year.

Toward morning, however, she roused the boy with a touch.

"She may have forgotten me," she said. "She has been gone since the

spring. She may not love me now."

"She will love you. It is the way of a mother to keep on loving."

"I am still a girl."

"You are still her child."

But seeing that she trembled, he put his ragged cloak about her and

talked to comfort her, although his muscles ached for sleep.

He told her a fable of the countryside, of that Abbot who, having duly

served his God, died and appeared at the heavenly gates for admission.

"A slave of the Lord," he replied, when asked his name. But he was

refused. So he went away and laboured seven years again at good deeds

and returned. "A servant of the Lord," he called himself, and again he

was refused. Yet another seven years he laboured and came in all

humility to the gate. "A child of the Lord," said the Abbot, who had

gained both wisdom and humility. And the gates opened.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: Chapter Three]