of the strangers the two huge soldiers who stood at guard inside the
great gates of the court-yard. They were veritable giants, chosen by
Baldwin--feeding his greed for the monstrous and excessive in all--for
their extraordinary size and strength. They leaned upon such mighty
battle-axes as were the familiar weapons of the Varangian Guard at
Constantinople, and their duties were to open the great gates to every
summons. Outside the gate a huge horn hung for any comer to wind who
desired admittance. An ordinary knight was to sound the horn once;
a baron was to wind it twice; a triple summons was the privilege of
princes. Such was Duke Baldwin's etiquette, familiar to all his world.
So the ladies laughed and chattered, eying the bright throng through
which every now and then little shimmering pages or servants in
heraldic colors picked their way, carrying hawks on wrist or hounds in
leash, or bearing some message from lady to lord or from lord to lady.
It was all as pleasant to witness as a pageant or a play in the bright,
idle morning, and the babble of women's voices floated through the
pellucid air like the chatter of starlings.
In the quietest corner of the court-yard, and in that court-yard quiet
was indeed only a relative term, Sir Jaufre de Brabant, whose brown
curls the ladies had praised, sat apart picking at the strings of a
lute and humming to himself. Sir Jaufre considered himself, and was
considered by many, to be the handsomest man in the service of Duke
Baldwin. It was his wish, further, to be considered the gallantest,
a wish fulfilled in the consideration and complaisance of many, and
one of the jewels of his gallantry was his gift of song. He had been
turning words this way and that way in his brain for some time on that
spring morning, and at last it seemed from the smile on his face that
he had turned them to some purpose that pleased him. Now he began
to sing softly to himself, accompanying his song with little gentle
touches on the lutestrings that wakened a plaintive melody. As he sang
Sir Ambrose of Blois and Sir Raymond of Provence first paused in their
walk and talk, then came near and listened, and in a little while Sir
Guy de Hainault left his place and joined them. And this is what Sir
Jaufre sang:
"He is the wisest in the world
Who rides his road with flag unfurled,
With heart unfetter'd from the care
That love of ladies places there;
With sword that knows no master's laws,
But shines and strikes for any cause,
To highest bidder blithely sold;
Glory is good, but better gold,
And as for ladies, fair or brown
He finds who sacks a captured town."
As Sir Jaufre finished, Ambrose and Raymond beamed approval, but Guy
of Hainault, the young, fair-haired knight with a face that was partly
girlish and partly angelic, pierced the approbation with a sneer.
"I do not like your song, Jaufre," he said, and said it with as much
sweetness as if he had been crowning Sir Jaufre with a wreath of
golden laurel in the heart of hot Provence.
Sir Jaufre flushed and looked up angrily.
"That makes me no bad minstrel," he retorted, "but it argues you a
fool."
Sir Guy de Hainault's face was imperturbable, his voice was placid as
he answered, smoothly:
"Your music and your manners would mend with your health if I let you
some fretful blood."
Sir Jaufre shrugged his shoulders.
"You talk like a barber," he said--"white and red nonsense."
Guy smiled on a gradually increasing audience, for Demetrius of Epirus
and Andronicus Palæologus had quitted their dice to hear the argument.
"You sing like a screech-owl," commented Sir Guy. Stooping swiftly, he
caught the lute from Sir Jaufre's hands, ran his fingers skilfully over
the strings, and awakened a tender tune. Fernand Ximenes, stately as
a cat in his Spanish gravity, leisurely added himself to the circle,
watching the rivals sardonically. His coming seemed to stimulate Sir
Guy's ambition to sing.
"Listen to me, friends," he challenged, and began:
"All lovely ladies everywhere,
Whose eyes are blue or brown or gray,
Whose manes of black or yellow hair
Lead your poor lovers' hearts astray,
Here on this mirthful morn of May,
I turn to ye and make salute;
And I would kiss you all to-day,
Were all your lips one crimson fruit."
Every man of the little group applauded except Sir Jaufre, who yawned
affectedly behind a languidly lifted hand.
"You mew too lewdly to be true," he asserted, contemptuously. "Your
sincere kiss-winner has no leisure to sing of it."
Sir Guy made him an extravagant bow.
"Suave Sir Jaufre," he said; "smooth Sir Jaufre, by that count you
should write red ballads of battles."
There came a faint laugh from some of the hearers, others raised their
eyebrows and drew nearer. The war of wits promised to quicken. Count
Ernault, coming from the palace and conference with Duke Baldwin, spied
the excited group and drew nigh. As he came near he heard Sir Jaufre
interrogate his critic.
"Your meaning?"
Sir Guy, still with the same air of extravagant respect, explained,
syllabling, with laborious slowness:
"I mean that if I am no lucky lover you are no famous fighter."
Sir Jaufre propped his hand on his chin for a moment as one drowned in
deep thought. Then his eyes travelled slowly along the little line of
listeners.
"Who can tell me the Latin for 'braggart'?" he asked, meditatively.
There was a little silence. Scholarship was not a strong point of
Duke Baldwin's companions. Then Fernand Ximenes, to end or extend the
embarrassment, asked:
"Why the Latin?"
Sir Jaufre made a deprecating gesture.
"That it may serve for Guy's epitaph to-night," he interpreted.
Sir Guy laughed again very softly, swaying a little backward and
forward, as one exceedingly amused.
"Do you think," he asked, "that any one will kill me to-night for
killing you this morning?"
Sir Jaufre spoke again, not to Guy, but still to the constrained,
attentive circle:
"I do not know the Latin for 'braggart,'" he said, thoughtfully, "but I
know the French for 'fool.'"
"Why, so do I," Sir Guy agreed, instantly; "it is Jaufre de Brabant."
Every one of the hearers laughed at this, coming so crisp and pat, but
Sir Jaufre sprang to his feet.
"Up sword, and out!" he cried, and drew his weapon.
Sir Guy as swiftly bared his blade, and it seemed for a moment as if
to the many images of life the court-yard presented that of a battle
to the death was to be added. Only for a moment, for instantly Count
Ernault thrust his white staff of marshalship between the combatants.
"House your swords, gentlemen," he insisted, peremptorily. "Do you
not know the day's law? There shall be no challenge taken, no quarrel
honored in arms, save in the tourney and under the eye of Duke Baldwin.
For to-day the duke's son marries the Duchess Esclaramonde of Thebes,
and on such a day there may be no brawling; wherefore, close hands in
amity."
Sir Jaufre sulkily calm, Sir Guy seraphically affable, extended each a
hand, and clasped in sign of formal peace. The somewhat awkward silence
that followed on this stifled brawl and seeming reconciliation was
strangely interrupted. Outside the great gate came the clear sound of
the note of a horn, which immediately attracted the attention of every
man in the court-yard and every woman at the palace windows.
"What belated knight is this?" cried Ambrose of Blois, pleased at the
interruption, for he liked both the disputants.
The lord-marshal shook his head.
"I thought that every expected knight was in the castle," he answered,
and had hardly finished speaking when the horn was wound a second time.
"It is a baron's summons," Ximenes exclaimed, pleased to air his
intimacy with Frankish etiquette, and on the heels of his exclamation
came a third time, louder and clearer, the note of the great horn.
"By the Lord!" cried Count Ernault, "this is a prince's parley," and he
turned to the giants at the gate.
XIII
THE KNIGHT OF ELEUSIS
"Open the gates," Count Ernault ordered, and the guardian giants
obeyed. The great bolts were drawn, the great key turned in the lock,
the great gates were flung apart. Every eye was turned towards the
opening; every gazer expected to behold some splendid personage,
some great prince in golden armor with his glittering retinue of
men-at-arms. What the gazers saw was a tall, fair-haired youth with a
shepherd's straw upon his head, with a shepherd's sheepskin bound about
his body, with a shepherd's staff in his hand and a shepherd's pipe at
his girdle. The knights stared in amazement as the shepherd advanced
towards them confidently, with head held high and easy carriage. Behind
the shepherd strode a burly, travel-stained soldier, with a huge sword
at his thigh, a mighty cudgel in his fist, and a rusty lantern on his
belt.
The first astonishment of the knights now translated itself into
vehement laughter, which brought a faint flush to the shepherd's cheek
and a deeper scarlet to the tanned face of the soldier. The amazement
of the knights was as great as their entertainment, but both would
have been a thousandfold greater if they could have guessed that the
slender shepherd whose coming had so diverted them was in sooth a
slender she-creature, a daughter of the forest. But the glamour of
the woodland shone from Argathona's eyes, and the knights in the yard
and the ladies on the gallery saw nothing but the simple shepherd.
Argathona advanced towards Count Ernault where he stood resting on his
white staff of office, and easily saluted him and his companions.
"Good-morrow, lords," she said, and the French lords marvelled,
understanding her, and yet wondered vaguely how it came to pass that
they did understand.
"A most sweet-voiced shepherd," Guy said to the knight Ambrose of
Blois, who stood next to him.
Count Ernault answered the shepherd.
"Hail, young rustical; but we thought one of royal blood came to the
tournament!"
"You thought rightly," Argathona answered. "I come to the tournament,
and I am of royal blood."
Ernault looked earnestly into the beautiful face of the youth before
him. Sir Jaufre de Brabant edged forward.
"Do you wrap your royal flesh in sheepskin?" he asked, with a ring of
derision in his voice which did not escape Argathona.
"There be some lords," she answered, "whose best coat were the hide
of a donkey; but for myself, though I walk in wool, I am of the
ancientest, rarest race in Greece."
At this confident assertion, made with all the daring of youth, murmurs
of surprise, amusement, and even of protest came from the listening
knights. Sir Jaufre de Brabant shrugged his shoulders. Guy de Hainault
moved a little nearer to the new-comer, studying the fair, unfamiliar
face with whimsical good-humor. Andronicus Palæologus frowned, as it
was his way to frown at any assertion of dignity which could by any
means be twisted into a challenge of his supremacy. Fernand Ximenes
narrowed his dark eyelids, scrutinizing the slender figure of the
audacious youth, and estimating his possible value as a fighting-man
to the Catalan Grand Company. The Prince of Epirus, whose vassaldom to
Athens always galled him, gave something like a smile of greeting to
the stranger who came at least unbidden to the court, and might in so
far be taken as an enemy to Duke Baldwin. The French knights were, for
the most part, frankly diverted by the defiance of a shepherd boy, but
Count Ernault, always courteous and debonair in dealing with any man,
king, captain, or shepherd boy who spoke him fair, addressed the youth
with civility.
"Young sir," said Ernault, seriously, "that is a grave assertion.
Within the walls of this palace are assembled all the high nobility of
Greece. What claim have you to set your shield--if, indeed, you have a
shield--among us?"
Argathona flung back her head, and her fair hair shone in the sunlight.
"You are great lords in a strange land," she said, proudly; "but my
race have ruled in yonder woodland since the dawn of time, and Athens
was built but yesterday in the history of our race. We keep apart, we
princely foresters, but we are none the less proud. You may call me the
Prince of Eleusis."
The courtly marshal was puzzled. Proud of his French descent, and
indifferent to the ways of the people his master and his master's peers
had come to govern, he knew nothing of the Grecian folk, and it very
well might be that some lines lingered in those mountains which had, in
their own estimation, the right to call themselves noble. Anyway, it
mattered very little in so general a jousting, and there was no harm in
flattering the vanities of a conquered people.
"The Prince of Eleusis? It is a sounding title. Do you come as a
knight-challenger?" he questioned, urbanely.
Argathona nodded.
"Even so. I heard of your purposes from this valiant." She pointed
to Simon, where he stood apart weighing with appreciative eyes the
chivalry of France against the mercenaries of Spain, and appraising the
giants at the gate. "Liking your purposes, I trudged to tussle."
Jaufre de Brabant pushed a little way ahead of the knight-marshal.
"Sans arms, sans armor," he drolled. "Will you batter us with your bare
fists, shepherd?"
"Or conquer us with your pipe," Guy insinuated, "as Joshua's trumpets
tumbled Jericho?"
The dryad smiled back into the smiling faces of the jesting knights,
and held out her hands in an appeal of comradeship.
"I come unarmed, it is true, for my race have known no need of arms for
ages, but I fling myself on your chivalry. Will you not make me up an
equipment among you?"
It was a curious sight for the ladies on the balcony, this sight of the
white shepherd standing thus alone and fearless in the midst of a ring
of knights, while around them the capacity of the court-yard was filled
by the curious of all kinds, free companions, pages, men-at-arms, all
keenly interested in the audacious new-comer. The lord-marshal glanced
with a smile round the circle of faces.
"Most magical modesty," he said, "that invites us to arm him against
ourselves."
All who heard him laughed as at an exceeding good joke. It seemed
prettily preposterous that this stripling from a Greek wood should come
to Duke Baldwin's tournament and demand, not merely the privilege of
tilting against glorious shields, but also an outfit of arms and armor.
Argathona understood the laughter, and answered, swiftly:
"Nay, I ask nothing for nothing. I know it is the world's way to
bargain in this iron age, and that none will give save for value.
But I am wise in the earliest wisdom--I can tell you tales, sing you
songs, read the secrets of the stars, the signs in your hands. I will
tell any man here his fortune if he will pay for fate with a part of my
armament."
A buzz of interest hummed among her hearers, and Jaufre de Brabant
sprang eagerly forward.
"Can you do this?" he asked. "What are the signs in my palms?" and he
thrust his strong hands out to the shepherd.
The dryad turned to the lord-marshal.
"Lord," she said, "I pray you to beg of these gentlemen that they give
me a little space. A man's fortune is for his own ears."
"The lad is right," said Ernault. "Room, friends, room," and with a
sweep of his marshal's wand he widened the circle about him to the
evident discomfort of the crowd outside, who were thus forced rudely
against the wall or uncomfortably out of ear-shot and eye-witness.
Argathona, thus left in a sense alone with Jaufre, though many eyes
were curiously fixed upon the pair, took the hands of the knight in
hers and peered into his palms.
"Glory," she began, "glory, glory; a lifetime shining like a star."
"I will give you a sword for this glory," he said, and paused; then he
asked again, quickly, "And what of my death-time?"
Argathona looked no more into his hands; she looked steadfastly into
his wild eyes.
"I think you will sink like a star in the peace of old age."
The face of Jaufre clouded.
"I would have picked a fiercer finish," he sighed; "but you shall have
the sword."
"I thank your valiancy," Argathona said; and Jaufre, turning from her,
rejoined his companions. Before Count Ernault could signify which
knight should next have speech with the shepherd, Sir Guy de Hainault
had sprung from the marshal's side and approached her.
"Read the page of my palm," he cried, pushing out his fine, white hands
impatiently.
Argathona held them for a moment, glanced at their smooth surface, and
let them fall with a sigh, looking gravely at the girlish face of the
knight.
"Speak!" cried Sir Guy. "Why do you hesitate?"
Argathona spoke in a low voice.
"Death is near at hand," she said.
No change came over the delicate face of the knight.
"How?" he asked, as quietly as he might have asked the hour for supper.
"Bravely--in battle," Argathona answered.
Sir Guy struck his hands together exultingly.
"You merit a princely gift for that promise. What will you have of me?"
"Will you give me a helmet?" asked the shepherd.
"You shall have a golden helmet," Sir Guy promised. "What is your
crest?"
And the shepherd answered, remembering with a smile the heraldic wisdom
of Simon:
"An oak-tree with acorns."
Sir Guy saluted Eleusis and turned and joined his fellows.
Others were eager to take his place, but this time the staff of the
lord-marshal restrained impetuosity.
"My turn, I pray you," Count Ernault said, and, advancing, faced the
seeming shepherd with extended hands.
"Don't tell me of battles," he said, "or how I shall come to my death;
death is the handman of Heaven. To-day I live, and to live is to love.
Read my love-riddle."
Argathona looked steadfastly at the hands that many women had held with
passion, for Count Ernault was the well-beloved in every land where he
had wandered.
"Many women will love you," she said, slowly, and Ernault gave a sigh
of joy, for he was no longer in the hot of his youth and he dreaded
love's twilight. She went on--"but never the one woman."
Ernault's passionate eyes clouded for an instant, for all the world
knew of his passion for the lovely Duchess of Corinth and the
implacable chastity of the lady. Wherefore she and her husband came
not as guests to Athens. Then his eyes widened again and he smiled.
"Well," he said, half sadly and half laughing, "I must make the best of
the many, if I show the worst with the one. I will give you a blank
shield, brother-in-arms. Tell me your device for my squire to paint."
"A golden acorn on a green field," Argathona answered, again profiting
shrewdly by the lessons in heraldry that Simon had given her during the
long day in the forest.
"A golden acorn on a green field," Count Ernault repeated, committing
the new device to his courtly memory. He turned away from the shepherd
and addressed the expectant knights.
"Come, friends," he said, "our knight-challenger has now sword, helmet,
and shield; he still needs body armor and battle-axe, horse and lance.
Who is for having his fortune told that will pay this price for the
tale?"
A multitude of hands were lifted, and Count Ernault contemplated with
assumed dismay a forest of waving fingers. Then he shook his head in
depreciation.
"There is no time for all," he said. "The sun climbs high, and our
guest needs no more than a single equipment, wherefore I will trust to
the ordeal by chance."
He lowered his lids till his eyes seemed closed, and then struck
lightly, and apparently at random, with his white staff among
the knights nearest to him three times in succession. But it was
characteristic of the courtly and politic marshal that the touch of
his white wand fell on the shoulders of those whom, for one reason
or another, it was expedient to please. Fernand Ximenes, maleficent
captain of free companions; the vassal Prince of Epirus, always a
thorn in the Baldwin flesh; and Andronicus Palæologus, eminent, pompous
exile with an eye to a great succession, were the chosen three. Fernand
Ximenes, on whom the first lot fell, advanced to the shepherd and
tendered his steady, lean, brown hand. Argathona regarded it for a
breathing space in silence, then she said:
"You dream strange dreams suspected of none. It is well for you that
none suspect. Your dreams will come true."
No change stirred the impassive face of the Spaniard as he listened to
what seemed, indeed, the speech of a seer. With untroubled voice he
spoke.
"I had a suit of armor wrought in Toledo, steel and gold; it were a
privilege for any prince to wear it. I have it no longer; it is yours."
He saluted the prophetic shepherd with the dignity inherent in his
race, and rejoined the circle of knights. His place was promptly taken
by Demetrius of Epirus, the prince with the furtive eyes and the fine,
false voice. Argathona looked at his hand and whispered:
"Faith and treason quarrel in the cup of your fingers. If faith win,
faith must fall soon in honor; if treason triumph, treason will
flourish long in dishonor to end on a high place."
The pale lips of the Prince of Epirus twitched.
"I will give you a battle-axe," he said, thickly, for he knew what path
he would choose when the chance came, and he had grace enough to feel
some shame at his knowledge. He turned and pushed his way through the
circle of knights into the crowd beyond, as a man might who wished to
hide his face from keen eyes.
Andronicus Palæologus moved forward, ostentatious of port, gorgeous of
apparel, and extended his beringed hand in arrogant condescension to
the stranger. Argathona gave a quick glance at the plump, sensual palm.
"You will wear the crown of Cæsar," she promised.
Andronicus flushed the imperial red in spite of himself, then he said,
urbanely, for, indeed, he was very pleased with the oracle:
"I will give you a horse as white as the moon and as fleet as the wind.
I will give you a spear as sharp as desire and as tough as hope," and
so he turned and joined his brother knights. Even as he did so the
air was stirred by the sweet sound of a silver trumpet, and there was
immediately a sign of great bustle and commotion among the ladies who
thronged the gallery. The lord-marshal lifted his hand.
"Friends all," he said, "the sun of beauty shines upon us in the pride
of noontime, for her grace the Duchess of Thebes is coming on the great
gallery to take the air. Let those that are her slaves attend upon her."
Immediately the fixed circle of knights dissolved into its units,
and the crowd around them parted to give passage as the cavaliers
made eagerly for the stately stairway that led to the great gallery.
Argathona caught Count Ernault by the arm as he turned away with the
others.
"Pray you, tell me the laws of this day's tourney?" she said.
Count Ernault, looking with much approbation at the shepherd knight,
answered:
"To-day our lord's son, Sir Rainouart of Athens, will proclaim to all
and sundry that the Lady Esclaramonde of Thebes is the fairest she in
Christendom. Those that challenge him set the fame of their lovers in
jeopardy, for Duke Baldwin's son is an unconquerable jouster."
"What would happen," Argathona asked, "if he were to be overthrown?"
Count Ernault laughed gently.
"It could scarcely happen," he asserted.
"But if it did happen?" the shepherd persisted.
Count Ernault looked about him and saw that he and the shepherd stood
alone, for the press of knights was thronging the great stairway.
"I think," he said, softly, "that the lady of Thebes would never
forgive him."
"Is she so imperious a queen of beauty?" the shepherd questioned.
Count Ernault laughed compassionately, as the well-informed laugh that
instruct a stranger in a strange land.
"She will suffer no man to wilt from allegiance to her will. She is the
most insatiable fair, and would have all men for her lovers."
The shepherd looked at the courtly marshal with a strange smile.
"Would she condescend to a shepherd?" Argathona asked.
Count Ernault distorted his smooth face with a grimace.
"'Tis very likely," he answered, "none better being by; but when you
ride radiant in coat-armor in the lists we shall see if she will pick
you out. Till then, farewell, Knight of Eleusis."
He turned from the shepherd and joined the mounting crowd to pay his
respects to the Lady Esclaramonde where she stood patent in beauty upon
the gallery. Argathona looked about her for a place where she might see
unseen. In the court-yard stood an ancient image of a god, headless
and armless, which had been set up there in indifference, if not in
derision, by those who had dug it up when the court-yard was a-making.
Behind this image Argathona stationed herself, and Simon, who had kept
apart in the crowd outside the knights, now came to her side. Argathona
looked up at the gallery, where, above the bowed heads of obsequious
lords, she could distinguish the dark, imperious loveliness of the
Duchess Esclaramonde. Simon whispered confidentially in her ear, behind
his big hand:
"There stands your fair foewoman."
Argathona still looked at the duchess with unchanged face.
"If I were a man," she said, slowly, "I would not be her lover."
Simon grunted.