field proclaims the Prince of Epirus. The red bend on the gold enriched
with three laurel wreaths on the field is the bearing of Andronicus
Palæologus, who longs to wear the imperial laurels of Constantinople.
The six gold lozenges on purple are the arms of Sir Jaufre de Brabant.
The three boars' heads of silver on the black field assert Sir Ambrose
of Blois. The golden stag at gaze on a green field stands for Sir
Raymond of Provence. The golden dolphin on the orange field represents
Sir Guy de Hainault. The shield divided per pale green and silver
and charged with a scarlet castle, from whose summit emerges a black
dragon, belongs to Fernand Ximenes, the aspiring Spaniard." Only one
cognizance baffled the garrulity of Captain Fox that day. There was a
shield bearing a golden acorn on a green field that was as unfamiliar
to him as to his hearers. So he looked mighty wise, gabbled some patter
about mysteries that might not be revealed, and went on to explain,
what every one of course knew, that Prince Rainouart carried a golden
shield with no charge upon it, and that the lord-marshal, Count
Ernault, carried potent blue and silver. Of many another knight that
day, of many more armorial bearings, Captain Fox discoursed learnedly
enough to such as would listen to him, and generally succeeded while
his tongue wagged in impoverishing his hearers of some jewel, purse,
or button, dexterously nipped by his thievish fingers. But at least
the plundered person, when he discovered his loss and Captain Fox had
vanished into the sea of human beings, might console himself with the
reflection that he had moved, as it were, for a season in a kind of
intimacy with the great, and that this pleasure, like all others, had
to be paid for.
The place which Duke Baldwin had appointed for the holding of the
tournament was excellently well chosen. One of the greenest meadows
of the Athenian plain facing the sea, with the Acropolis for a
background, had been enclosed with great hoardings of painted wood, red
and white, the duke's own colors. Under the shadow of the Acropolis a
great gallery had been erected, glittering with gilding and brilliant
with silk, to form a bower from which the Duchess of Thebes and the
fair ladies of Baldwin's court might witness the encounters. Behind
these, still within the enclosures, were two pavilions set apart, one
for the use of the Duchess of Thebes and the other for Duke Baldwin,
who took no part in that day's sport save as on-looker and arbiter.
The pavilions of the knights were ranged inside the lists, and at the
door of each a page in some fantastic habit stood holding his master's
shield. Here and there in the wooden barrier encircling the lists were
apertures guarded by mighty men-at-arms, brothers in size and strength
to those that wardered the door of the ducal court-yard. At each of
these doorways a herald was stationed to make sure that none entered
the lists unprivileged.
The Duke Baldwin was a great stickler for custom, past-master of
punctilio. He knew all that there was to know of the laws that had
hitherto governed the gentle art of tourney, and thinking that nothing
in the world exists so good that it could not be bettered, especially
by Duke Baldwin of Athens, he had devised many novel regulations in
gracious methods for mimic combat, which pleased him highly the more
they rendered complicated and intricate the laws of the royal sport.
He rejoiced to invent some new rule for the disqualification of a
combatant who might to the unconcerned eye of the actual spectator
appear to be the victor. His opponent might, indeed, lie sprawling on
the grass, fairly pushed from his horse by the heavy impact of the
blunt-headed spear, but if that spear had not struck in precisely the
right place permissible at that very moment of the play, according to
the laws of Duke Baldwin, or had struck in some place not permissible,
again according to the laws of Duke Baldwin, it was the sprawler on
the ground who received the laurel and not he who rode his horse
victoriously amid the cheers of the multitude. It followed, naturally
enough, that Duke Baldwin's regulations were not always and altogether
popular with the knights who encountered under his eyes. But the duke
was so deeply versed in the whole history of his sport, and always so
readily recited precedents from this great tournament here and that
noble jousting there, that it would have been difficult, even had it
been profitable or even advisable, to argue a point with him, and as he
was autocrat of Athens, strong of hand and choleric of nature, few ever
did venture to argue with him.
On this occasion Duke Baldwin had taken special pains over the whole
paraphernalia of the tournament. He had examined with his own hands and
eyes the great barrier that ran down the middle of the lists to divide
the encountering knights and prevent their horses from colliding. He
had made sure by personal interrogation that each of the heralds was
well acquainted with the arms, titles, lineage, and deeds of each of
the nobles who offered themselves to take part in the combat. He saw
to the pitching of the pavilions, the comfort of their furniture, the
lodgings of the squires. He visited the stables where the horses were
to dwell, the stithies where swarthy smiths were to wait ready with
bellows working and fires burning for the mending of shattered mail,
and he was at pains to see that the pavilion of the Duchess of Thebes
was adorned with all the luxury that even a lovely woman could desire.
Duke Baldwin was so well satisfied with himself and with the world
in general that he allowed himself the relaxation of idleness in one
particular. He left to his lord-marshal, Count Ernault, all that
belonged to the personal arrangement of the tourney, to the order of
the encounters, and to the degree of those who might be permitted to
take part in them. Thus it came about that when the hour struck, and
the trumpets sounded for the beginning of battle, he knew nothing of
the existence of a Prince of Eleusis to whom Count Ernault had given
promise to ride in the fight.
All the meadow-land round the lists was thronged with a fantastic
congregation of folk. Every square inch of standing room a-nigh the
red and white palings was occupied by eager spectators hotly arguing
the merits of their favorites, and when they could afford it going so
far as to stake silver piece against silver piece on the issue of the
conflicts. On the fringe of this multitude the speculative had erected
a veritable village of wooden booths, wherein all kinds of foods and
drinks, gross and dainty, were to be had for the asking and the paying
by those whom the thoughts of martial prowess made hungry and the
spring sunlight stung to thirst. Travelling glee-men, penniless enough,
pushed their bold, sunburned faces hither and thither, ready at any
moment for coin or cup to sing to the interested some song of the deeds
of heroes--Charlemagne and his twelve peers, Arthur of Brittany and
his knights of the Table Round, or the fortunes of the lord of Orange.
Every tree in the meadow bore its load of human fruit; scarce any bough
seemed too high or too slender for some adventurous spirit to assail,
obtaining thereby a view of the tournament at greater peril to life and
limb than any run by the knightly combatants.
In the delicate air of Athens, where sound travels far, the chattering
of all this swarm of human beings came to the ears of those in the
pavilions like the humming of a hive of monstrous bees, or the
chattering of an incredible army of starlings, or the slappings of an
angry sea. Inside the sacred enclosure the scene was less crowded, but
more brilliant and many-colored. On the silk-swathed galleries which
had been set up for the benefit of non-combatant courtiers and the
ladies of the palace, the gallantest gentlemen vied with the loveliest
women in the magnificence of their apparel. Cloth of gold and cloth of
silver, all the dyes and jewels of the East, all the plumage of the
brightest-hued birds, glittered and twinkled in the strong sunlight
in a manner dazzling to the eye. Outside the lists the common folk
chattered and gabbled. Inside the lists the noble lords and ladies
chattered and gabbled, too, until, as Simon said to himself, it seemed
as if the world might very well fear to be talked out of existence. But
when the great trumpets sounded which told to every eager ear of all
those thousands that the time had come and that the game was afoot,
there fell upon the plain a silence as deep and still as the clamor had
before been plangent. In that awful silence Duke Baldwin lifted his
mighty bulk in the golden throne which groaned under his weight, and,
raising his sceptre in his right hand, gave order, in a voice which
would have honored a bull, to the lord-marshal that the sport might
now begin. The lord-marshal in his turn spoke to the heralds. Again
there came a blare of trumpets, and then again a silence pierced by the
voices of the heralds calling upon the earliest combatants to begin the
fray.
The first part of the tournament consisted of a series of single
combats on horse between the allotted pairs of knights. Sir Jaufre de
Brabant and Sir Raymond of Provence were the first to ride, and the
episode was brief, for in the first encounter Sir Jaufre unhorsed his
adversary and cantered to the end of the lists triumphant, while Sir
Raymond of Provence scrambled to his feet and regained his tent with
as much dignity as he could master under the pitying eyes of the
ladies who liked him, the smiles of such lords as misliked him, and the
grinning faces of the diverted multitude. Sir Guy de Hainault rode next
against Sir Ambrose of Blois, and though Sir Guy looked as slender as
a girl in armor and Sir Ambrose a thing of bulk, Sir Ambrose went down
at the first push before the well-planted thrust of his adversary's
lance. Fernand Ximenes rode against Demetrius of Epirus and overcame
him. Andronicus Palæologus overcame Sir Gaston of Nîmes. Many knights
rode, gaining good fortune or bad, and the praise or pity of ladies.
The inquisitive may seek for their names and their bearings, and their
share of that day's fame and shame, in the painted chronicle made later
at Count Ernault's cost, from Count Ernault's memory, and now preserved
in the University of Madrid, to which Fernand Ximenes presented it.
Those who beheld the jousting averred loudly that it was the best and
bravest that had ever been seen. In their hearts they were well aware
that it was patently like all other tournaments that had ever been
held under the laws of honor, and that all the tourneys that would
follow through the years would be of like pattern for chance and valor,
strength and skill, success or failure--ay, and would be witnessed by
eyes as lovely, whether shining with the pride of triumph or shining
through the mist of tears.
When a certain number of these courses had been run, then came the
great business of the day, the general challenge of the Prince of
Athens to all and sundry that were true knights to contend in arms
against his declaration that his lady, the Duchess Esclaramonde of
Thebes, was the rose of the world. As the prize of this contest he
offered a wreath of golden violets, a glory of the goldsmith's art,
which the victor was to offer to his queen of beauty, and which
Esclaramonde was very confident to receive from the hands of her
betrothed.
XVII
THE ROSE OF THE WORLD
A tumult of applause went up as Rainouart entered the lists, riding a
black charger given him by Esclaramonde, and glittering in arms, while
his handsome head, still unhelmeted, inclined to right and left in
recognition of his greeting. For though Rainouart was too newly come to
Athens to be very generally known of the populace, and though report,
ever busy with tale-bearing from great places, had whispered something
sneering of his bookish ways and his distaste for light ladies, he
had endeared himself with the fickle Athenian public by his deeds on
the preceding day of the tourney, when he had ridden from victory to
victory. At the close of the first day there had been a general assault
or mêlée between five-and-twenty Frankish knights, champions chosen
by Duke Baldwin, and five-and-twenty of the picked chieftains of the
Catalan Grand Company. The struggle was as fierce as brief. It seemed
at first as if the Moorish-looking warriors from Spain were destined
to gain the day under the angry eyes of Duke Baldwin, but Rainouart's
individual deeds of prowess and the gallant manner in which he rallied
the French force at the last redeemed the honor of Athens, and forced
the Catalans from the field. Duke Baldwin's joy had been unbounded, and
he had expressed it as exuberantly as he could to the young man who
always listened so gravely when he spoke, and while he listened thought
upon his mother's wrongs.
Now the heralds cried the challenge of the Prince of Athens, and as
they did so, Rainouart, gripping his horse with limbs of steel, felt
as if the brisk wind of battle blowing in his face drove from his
senses something of that lethargy under which they had lain supine. His
tormenting, denying, mysterious memories troubled him for the moment
no more; he was just for that moment a good knight on a good horse,
with a good lance in hand ready to do battle with all the world for
the sake of a woman. Scarcely did he recall the familiar features of
Esclaramonde; in his mind, as in his challenge, he was fighting for the
rose of the world, but the rose was the rose of the lovely legend, the
unfound flower.
Now knight after knight came forth from his pavilion and mounted his
horse to do battle, and knight after knight went down before the
conquering lance of young Athens. Guy de Hainault, Jaufre de Brabant,
Ambrose of Blois, Gaston of Nîmes, Raymond of Provence, Demetrius
of Epirus, and Andronicus Palæologus, each had his own fair lady,
star of his life or star of the hour, to tilt for, and each in turn
sustained defeat, and Rainouart remained invincible. The populace
huzzaed, courtiers applauded demonstratively, Duke Baldwin grinned
like a pleased hyena, the ladies of the discomfited tried to smile
through tears, and the face of Esclaramonde shone with pride, for she
had snared a rare mate. As for Rainouart, he thought not of her; his
thoughts were only of the joy of strife and the delight of victory. He
was fighting for an ideal; he could not give it name, but it seemed to
fill the air with the scent and the color of roses.
Brimmed with the wine of exultation, he waited at his end of the lists
after the overthrow of Andronicus Palæologus to see if any other
champion would stand against his challenge. There was only one knight
left of all the chivalry then in Athens who could hope to contend
against him. That knight was Fernand Ximenes, and Rainouart hoped to
see him advance. But Fernand Ximenes kept his tent, for he had his
own thoughts and purposes concerning the Duchess of Thebes, and he
wished to whisper later in her ear that he could not for the life of
him challenge her supremacy. So Rainouart waited for a little in his
place, a splendid image of steel upon a splendid horse, unquestioned
master of the lists. All the spectators, gentle and simple, believed
that the day was over, the field fought and won. Rainouart, thinking
as they thought, was about to ride forward to receive the wreath of
golden violets from the hand of Duke Baldwin when a great shout from
the crowd without the barriers, and a murmur that ran along the
galleries, stayed his purpose. Then he, with all the rest, became aware
of the presence of a new challenger in the lists. A knight in gilded
armor, with an acorn for his device, had emerged from a pavilion at the
farthest end of the field, and after mounting a white horse which was
held in waiting by a burly squire, had ridden slowly to the challenging
station. The new-comer's visor was raised, and the spectators beheld
a little of a young and beautiful face, very noble in an unfamiliar
fairness of feature, of a pale favor delicately colored. But what most
won all were the stranger's eyes of lively blue, which made many a
woman wish to see her own countenance mirrored in them.
Duke Baldwin leaned forward on his throne in some surprise at the
sudden presence; his rugged, bull face flushed with wonder. Count
Ernault, after reading the new-comer's shield, whispered to a herald,
and the herald proclaimed that the Prince of Eleusis desired to break
a lance with the Prince of Athens on the question of his challenge. At
this unexpected announcement Esclaramonde, who had bent forward to look
at the new-comer and noted how slight he seemed, and youthful, leaned
back again with a disdainful smile, though her ready senses quickened
at the sight of the youth's beauty. Sympathetic smiles rippled all
along the galleries, and many in the crowd beyond laughed derisively,
though none that could see the stranger's face denied its marvellous
grace. Duke Baldwin called to Count Ernault, who approached his throne.
"Who is this strange knight?" he said. "I have not heard of any Prince
of Eleusis."
"Sire," the lord-marshal answered, "this is a young stripling of Greece
who claims descent from an ancient Grecian line. For my own part, I
know little or nothing of the race which it pleases your grace to rule,
yet because he seemed of gentle blood and carried himself so fairly, I
saw no reason to deny him a presence in the lists. Your grace, however,
who, knowing all things, doubtless knows intimately the genealogy of
every Greek his vassal, will be able to set me right if I have erred in
this instance, but for myself I thought it better to stretch a point
rather than perchance in denying to attain undoubted gentility."
Duke Baldwin frowned. His son was thus far the victor; the Lady
Esclaramonde thus far proclaimed peerless. One never could tell what
might come of an unexpected challenge. Yet Duke Baldwin, who, in spite
of the omniscience attributed to him by his flattering marshal, was
well aware in his heart that he knew nothing whatever about the people
whom he held subject by an iron hand, was very unwilling to infringe
courteous chivalry in the case of one who might be a gentleman of old
descent. So with the ferocious distortion of countenance which was Duke
Baldwin's conception of a smile, he approved the lord-marshal's action.
"It were shame," he declared, "if ever noble gentleman were denied to
ride in lists opened by me. But here I think decision must rest with
our son. If he elect to meet this stranger knight, your Prince of
Eleusis has our willing leave to joust in this tourney. But tell our
son that as he has fought to-day only with knights of known lineage
and bearings, he is free if it please him to deny this Grecian, and to
remain the unquestioned victor of the day."
The lord-marshal hastened to where Rainouart waited, and made him aware
of the conditions under which a new player had come into the game, and
of Duke Baldwin's decision in the matter. Rainouart answered instantly
that he was in no way breathed or weakened by what had gone, that it
would be strange, indeed, for him to deny any challenger, and that he
would take the stranger's word for his gentility. Straightway Count
Ernault sped to where Argathona waited, mounted on her white horse,
and, after acquainting her with the cause of the delay, made her free
of the duke's permission to tilt.
Nobody in all that vast concourse had watched these parleyings with
more interest than the Duchess Esclaramonde of Thebes. Her heart had
been dancing all manner of joyous measures at the success of her
betrothed. As knight after knight went down before Rainouart, her eyes
brightened and her spirits sang, for all was in her honor, and she
knew, rejoicing in her knowledge, that every woman present envied her.
The sudden apparition of an unexpected challenger could not affect her
triumph. The cavalier who had so triumphantly overcome seven of the
gallantest knights in Duke Baldwin's gallant court was scarcely like
to have his supremacy menaced by a stripling of Greece. Yet in spite
of herself, this apparition of this unexpected challenger, unknown to
her, unknown to Athens, unknown to Athens's duke, seemed mysteriously
to threaten her confidence, and her cheek burned with anger against the
fair-faced stranger as she watched the preliminaries of the combat.
The trumpets sounded, and instantly the opposing knights rushed one
against the other, swift as warring winds. In full centre of the
tilt-yard the white horse and the black horse came wellnigh head to
head. Rainouart's spear was aimed a thought too high as it seemed,
and slid over the shoulder of his opponent while the lance of Eleusis
struck fair and square at the breast-plate of the Athenian prince, and
the next moment the black horse was sweeping riderless down the lists,
and Duke Baldwin's son was lying on the grass. While a great groan came
from all beholders at this fall, the Knight of Eleusis, galloping to
the end of the lists, turned at the barrier and rode back again to draw
rein with visor exalted in front of the royal pavilion.
When Duke Baldwin saw his son fall, he gripped his sceptre in both
hands so fiercely that it bent in his fingers as if it had been a waxen
candle, and his whole soul groaned in travail because he could think
of no oath horrible enough with which to express his mortification.
Esclaramonde for her part hid her burning face behind her fan and
dreamed incredible tortures for the victor. However, there was nothing
for it but acceptance of the result of the combat, and, while assiduous
squires helped the fallen prince to his feet, Duke Baldwin took from
the cushion held by a page at his side the golden wreath, and extended
it to the Knight of Eleusis, who received it on the point of the lance.
Hardly articulate, Duke Baldwin gasped out that the wreath was the
victor's, and that his was the privilege to crown whom so he pleased in
that presence queen of the day. Immediately the stranger, shifting a
little in the saddle, extended the lance dexterously poised so that the
golden wreath swung just in front of the face of Esclaramonde. A little
sob of joy came from the duchess's lips.
"Why, this is better than best," she murmured, and with something
almost too eager in her action she caught at the golden wreath and
placed it on her head, while the whole arena now rang with applause
at the chivalrous act of the victor. The moment the duchess had taken
the wreath, Argathona turned her horse's head in the direction of her
pavilion. Duke Baldwin rose in a towering fury from his throne. "This
comes of the reading of books," he muttered to himself, and, quitting
the gallery, he entered the lists to make inquiry as to the condition
of his fallen son.
Argathona, slowly riding down the field on her white horse, was yet
some distance from her pavilion, when a page, running breathlessly to
her side, informed her that the lord-marshal desired speech with her.
Immediately reining her horse, Argathona turned round and advanced
to meet Count Ernault, who told her that the Duchess Esclaramonde
earnestly entreated the favor of some speech with the victor who had
crowned her queen of beauty.
XVIII
AN APPLE OF GOLD
Following the lord-marshal, Argathona came to the silken tent which
sheltered the Lady Esclaramonde. At a sign from Count Ernault the pages
in attendance drew back the curtains, and Argathona entering found
herself in the presence of the Duchess of Thebes. The Lady Esclaramonde
was reclining upon a pile of many-colored cushions, playing with a
mirror and talking to her women. She propped herself on one elbow and
smiled first at Sir Ernault and then at the fair face of the victor.
"I thank you," she said, and there was that in the tone of her voice,
and that in the look of her eyes, and that in the deep of his own
memory which made it plain to him that the duchess desired to be left
alone with the young knight.
Gravity reigning in his face, irony rising in his mind, Count Ernault
bowed and left the presence. At a sign from Esclaramonde the duchess's
women withdrew into a further apartment of the pavilion, curtained off
from the place where Esclaramonde now lay, who looked up alluringly
into the impassive face of the youth. For to her, as to the others,
with the glamour of the woodland will upon her, Argathona seemed no
more than a handsome lad.
"You joust well, youth," she said. "Who is your true-love?"
"I played for a lady's sake," Argathona answered, "whom I maintain very
fair."
Esclaramonde leaned forward a little on her silken couch, resting
herself on both hands, like some beautiful wild beast about to spring.
"Who is this lady?" she asked, steel in her voice and steel in her
eyes, for she could not bear to think that any man could find any woman
fair while she was by.
A smile rippled over the dryad's face.
"I dare not say her name," she said, "yet, if you choose, you may see
her."
Esclaramonde's dark brows met in a frown.
"Is she one of my women?" she asked, suddenly, and the sound of her
voice boded ill for that one of her women whom the champion might name.
Argathona shook her head.
"Indeed no. She is not an inch below you in rank nor an inch above you
in stature. Her eyes shine with no less than your brightness; her lips
smile with your lively red. Here, if you please, is her image."
Stooping a little, Argathona caught up the mirror with which the
duchess had been playing and held it deftly in front of the beautiful,
cruel face. The red blood raced into Esclaramonde's cheeks and ebbed
again, leaving her strangely pale.
"Am I your lady-love?" she cried, with that joy in her voice which
conquest always brought her.
"You are she I rode to see," Argathona answered, enigmatically.