The Fortunes of Garin

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER VIII

  TOURNAMENT

  THE next morning they heard mass in the castle chapel. The hour wasearly, the world all drenched with autumn dews. The prince and theduke and Alazais the Fair and Audiart, and behind them many knightsand ladies, kneeled on the stone flooring between the sparks of thealtar-lamps and the pink morning light. The chanted Latin rose andfell, the bell rang, all bent. In came a lance of sunlight and thevagrant morning breeze. Mass over, all flowed into the paved court. Forto-day there was arranged in the duke’s honour, a splendid tourney.Many a good knight would joust—the duke also, it was said. Two hours,and the trumpets would sound. The court was glad when the great folkturned away with their immediate people, and the rest of the worldcould begin to prepare.

  Prince Gaucelm did not tilt. When he was young he had proved himself_preux chevalier_. Now he was not so young, and his body weighed heavy,and all his striving was to be _prud’homme_. When he came to hischamber in the great donjon he dismissed from it all save a chamberlainand a page, and the latter he sent to the princess his daughter witha message that she might come to him now as she had asked. In as fewminutes as might be she came.

  There was a window looking to the east, over the castle wall and moatand forth upon the roofs of the town. The prince had here a great chairand a bench with cushions, and the princess was to sit upon the bench.Instead she came and stood beside him, and then slipped to her kneesand rested her head against the arm of the chair. “My good father,” shesaid, “my wise father, my dear father, do you love me?”

  “You know that I love you,” answered Gaucelm, and put his hand upon herhead.

  “If you do, then it is all safe.”

  Gaucelm slightly laughed. In the sound was both amusement and anger.“But my guest the duke,” he said, “does not love you.”

  “He loves me most vilely!” said the ugly princess with energy.

  Prince Gaucelm mused. “Shall I show offence or no? I have not decided.”

  “Why show offence?” said the ugly princess. “I am as I am, and he isas he is. Let him go, with smiles and a stirrup-cup, and a ‘Fair lord,well met and well parted!’”

  “He is a foolish man.”

  “There are many such—and women. Let him go. I grudge him no happiness,nor a fair wife.”

  The ugly princess rose from the floor and went and stood by the window.Doves that Gaucelm cherished flew from their cote in the court belowacross and across the opening. One came and sat upon the sill andpreened its feathers.

  “This question of fairness has many aspects,” said Gaucelm theFortunate. “The cover in which you are clad is not so bad!—Well, letus take it that this great baron is gone.”

  “I will make an offering to Our Lady of Roche-de-Frêne! But I willthank you, too,—and most, I think.”

  “It rests,” said Gaucelm, “that you must marry.”

  “Ah, must I so surely?”

  Prince Gaucelm regarded her ponderingly, with bent brows. “What isthere else for women? You will not be a nun?”

  “Not I!”

  “Fief by fief,” said Gaucelm, “Roche-de-Frêne was built, now byconquest and now by alliance. If I have no son, you are my heir. Thereis a bell that rings in all men’s ears. _Make for your heir betimes aprudent marriage, adding land to land, gold to gold!_”

  “Does it ring so joyously in your ears? It does not ring joyously inmine. No, nor with a goodly, solemn sound!”

  “It is the world’s way,” said the prince. “I do not know if it is theright way.”

  The Princess Audiart watched the dove, iris against the morning sky,then turned, full face, to her father. “I am not fair,” she said. “Menwho want just that will never want me. It seems to me also that I amnot loving. At times, when I listen to what they say, I want to laugh.I can see great love. But it seems to me that what they see is notgreat love.... Well, but we marry without love! Well, it seems to methat that is very irksome!—Well, but you may have a knight to love, sothat it be courtly love and your lord’s honour goes unhurt! Well, itseems to me that that is children’s love.—I wish not to marry, but tostay here and learn and learn and learn, and with you rule and serveRoche-de-Frêne!”

  In the distance a horn was winded. The mounting sun struck stronglyupon the roofs of Roche-de-Frêne. The dove spread its wings and flewdown to its cote. Voices and a sound of trampling hoofs came from thecourt, and a nearer trumpet blew.

  “Time and the mind have wings,” said Prince Gaucelm, “and it is notwell to look too far into the future!” He rose from his chair. “Loadnot the camel and the day too heavily! Let us go now and watch theknights joust.”

  The tournament was held without the walls, in a long meadow sunk likea floor between verdant slopes of earth. At either end were pavilions,pitched for those who jousted. Midway of the lists appeared a wreathedplatform, silken-canopied, built for the great. Right and left of thisspace of honour was found place for men-at-arms and castle retainers,and likewise for the magistrates of the town and the more importantburghers. But on the other side of the lists there were slopes ofturf with out-cropping stones and an occasional well-placed tree, andhere the town poured out its workers, men and women. The crowd wascheerful. There surged a loud, beating sea of talk. Up and down andacross sprang glitter and light, with sharp notes of colour. Squiresand men-at-arms, heralds and pages gave their quota. Nor did therelack priest and pilgrim,—and that though the Church thundered againsttournaments,—Jew, free-lance and travelling merchant, jongleur andstroller. All was gay beneath a bright blue sky, and esquires held theknights’ horses before the painted pavilions.

  The trumpets blew, and out of the castle gates and down the road cut inthe living rock came the great folk. When they reached the meadow andthe gallery built for them, and when presently all were seated, it waslike a long bank of flowers, coloured glories. At each end of the listswaited twenty knights in mail with painted surcoats. Between, over thegreen meadow, rode and staidly consulted the marshals. Horses neighed,metal jingled, the folk laughed, talked, gesticulated, now and thendisputed. Jongleurs picked at stringed instruments, trumpeters made agay shower of notes. Towers and battlements closed the scene, and thewalled town spread upon the hill-top.

  The prince did not tilt, but the duke had granted that during the dayhe would splinter one lance. His pavilion was therefore pitched, hisshield hung before it, and two esquires walked up and down with a greatblack stallion. Now, with Stephen the Marshal and with his own knights,he left the gallery of honour and went to arm himself. Edging the listsran a pathway, wide enough for two horsemen abreast. A railing dividedit from the throng. As the duke and his party passed along this road,the crowd, suddenly learning or conjecturing that here was the lordin whose honour was planned the tournament, craned, many-headed, thatway. It was very important to know if this lord were going to wed theprincess! There were townsmen who had caught the word and called herthe ugly princess. As yet they did not know much about her, though theysaw her ride through the streets with her father, and that she lookedat the people not with haughtiness but attentively. Of Alazais theywere proud. Merchants of Roche-de-Frêne, when they travelled far awayand there insinuated the praises of home, bragged of the beauty oftheir lord’s wife. Her name was known in Eastern bazaars.—But if therewas to be a marriage it was important, and important to know the looksof the bridegroom.

  Some crowding took place, some pressing against the wooden barrier.At one point a plane tree, old and gnarled, stretched a bough abovethe pathway. It made a superb tower of observation and as such hadbeen seized upon. The duke, walking with the marshal, and approachingthis tree, became aware of folk aloft, thick as fruit upon the bough,half-hidden by the bronzing leaves, and more vocal than elsewhere.Certain judgements floated down.

  Holiday and festival encouraged licence of speech. The time enforced areality of obedience from rank to rank, but that provided for, carednot to prevent mere wagging of tongues. The ruling castes never thoughtit out, but had they done
so they might have said that it was not amissthat the people should somewhere indemnify themselves. Let them laugh,exercise their wit, so that it grew not too caustic—be merry-hearted,bold, and familiar! Who held the land held them, but it was pleasanterfor the lord himself when the land knew jollity. Add that the courtsof the south were more democratic than those of the north, and thatGaucelm was a democratic prince.

  The duke was of another temper,—a martinet and a stickler for respecton the part of the vulgar. He caught the comment and flushed. “Anunmannerly people!” he said to Stephen the Marshal.

  That baron darted an experienced glance. “They are the younger,mechanical sort. Take no heed of them, fair lord.”

  The remark caught had not been ill-natured, was more jocose thanturbulent, might pass where any freedom of speech was accorded. Butsuddenly came clearly from the bough of the plane tree a genuinelyseditious utterance. Given forth in a round, naturally sonorous voice,it carried further than the speaker intended. “_One day a burgher willbe as good as a duke!_”

  The great folk were almost beneath that wide-spreading bough. Theylooked sharply up—the duke, Stephen the Marshal, all the knights. Thevoice said on, like an oracle aloft among the leaves: “The man in myskin isn’t any less than the man in his skin. I say that one day—”

  A branch that had served to steady the oracle suddenly broke, snappingshort. Amid ejaculations, oracle and branch came together to earth.Down they tumbled, on the inner side of the barrier, upon the grassypath before the duke and Stephen the Marshal.

  Laughter arose with, on the knights’ side, some angry exclamation. Thefallen man got hastily to his feet. “The branch was rotten—” He put ahand to either side his head, seemed to settle it upon his shouldersand recover his wits. “Give me pardon, good lords, for tumbling therelike a pippin—” He was a young man, square-shouldered and sturdy, withcrisply curling black hair, a determined mouth, and black, bold, andmerry eyes.

  Stephen the Marshal spoke sternly. “That bough brought you to earth,Thibaut Canteleu, but, an you rein it not, your tongue will bring youinto earth!”

  The offender turned his cap in his hand. “I spoke not to be heard bygreat lords,” he said. “I know not that I said harm. I said that,change my lord duke and me, and I might make a fair duke, and he afair master-saddler and worker in Cordovan! I think that he might, andI will tell you that it taketh skill—”

  The duke saw fit to laugh, though after an irritated and peevishfashion. “Roche-de-Frêne,” he said, “breeds fair princesses andtownsmen with limber tongues!—Well, my Lord Stephen, let us not tarryhere!”

  Lords and knights passed on toward the pavilions. Thibaut Canteleu,pressed aside, stood close to the barrier until they were gone, thenput his hands upon the rail and swung himself up and over. The folk,men and women, received him with laughter, and some admiration, and helaughed at himself. Being a holiday, that was the best thing to do.

  A jongleur, a dark Moorish-looking fellow in yellow and brown, accostedhim. “Thou poor mad-house citizen! Burgher and knight, lion and lamb,priest and heretic, pope and paynim, villein and lord, jongleur andtroubadour, Jean and Jeanne, let us all go to heaven together!”

  “We might,” answered Thibaut Canteleu sturdily. “That is a fine lute ofthine! Play us a tune while we wait.”

  “Not I!” said the jongleur coolly. “It would demean me. Last night Igave a turn of my art in the hall up yonder, before the prince and allhis court.—Who is this coming now, with a green-and-silver banner andfifty men behind him?”

  The meadow was pitched by the high road running from the north, andnow from this road there turned toward the lists, the holiday crowd,and the wreathed gallery, a troop of half a hundred mounted men, attheir head one who seemed of importance. Not only the rustling peopleon the green banks, but the lists now making final preparation, and thesilken-canopied gallery took cognizance of the approach. The troop camenearer. A tall man rode in front upon a bay mare. Behind him an esquireheld aloft a spear with a small green-and-silver banner attached. Apoursuivant, gorgeously clad, detached himself from the mass and criedout: “Montmaure!”

  “Ha!” exclaimed Gaucelm the Fortunate. “Here is Count Savaric!” Hespoke to the seneschal. “Take five or six of the best and go meet him.Bring him here with due honour.”

  “Perhaps,” said Alazais, “he will joust. He is a mighty man of his armsand bears down good knights.”

  The unlooked-for guests were now riding close at hand, coming upon theedge of the meadow, full before the platform of state. So important wasthis arrival, that for the moment it halted interest in the tourney.All turned to watch the troop with the green-and-silver banner.

  Montmaure was less powerful than Roche-de-Frêne, but not greatly less.Roche-de-Frêne held from the French King Philip. Montmaure did homagefor his lands to Richard, Duke of Aquitaine. But there was a certainfief, a small barony,—to wit, the one that included Castel-Noir andRaimbaut the Six-fingered’s keep,—for which Montmaure had put hishands between the hands of Gaucelm of Roche-de-Frêne. To the extent ofthree castles with their villages Gaucelm was his liege lord. Now, ashe came beneath the platform and immediately opposite that prince, hegave ceremonious recognition of the fact. Turning in his saddle, hedrew his sword an inch from its sheath, holding the pommel toward theprince, then let it slip home again. Gaucelm the Fortunate made a signof acceptance. The superb cavalcade passed on and in another moment wasmet by the welcoming seneschal.

  It seemed that Montmaure would not joust, though several of his knightswished no better hour’s play. It was explained that he was travellingto Montferrat, proceeding on a visit to the marquis his kinsman.Last night he had slept with such a baron. To-day, servitors andsumpter-mules had gone on, but the count with his immediate followingwould halt at Roche-de-Frêne to enquire after the health and well-beingof Prince Gaucelm.

  With ceremony Montmaure was marshalled to the gallery, and, mountingthe steps, came between the wreathed posts to the seats of state.The prince with Alazais rose to greet him. In Gaucelm of the Star’stime there had been trouble between Montmaure and Roche-de-Frêne.Some harrying had taken place, the blood of a number of knights andmen-at-arms been shed, a few hundred peasants slain. But this presentGaucelm was a man of peace, and had effected peace with Montmaure.But Roche-de-Frêne was sceptical of its lasting forever. Who knewMontmaure, knew an ambitious, grasping, warring lord—and a cruel andunscrupulous.

  He was a tall man, broad-shouldered, long-armed, with red-gold hair andbeard. When all courtesies of speech had been exchanged, when he hadsaluted in courtly fashion the most beautiful Alazais and the PrincessAudiart, he took the chair of worth that was placed for him, and madeenquiry for the duke. He had heard last night that he was a visitor atRoche-de-Frêne. Told that he would joust, and his pavilion pointed out.Montmaure gazed at it for half a minute, then, just turning his head,transferred his glance to the Princess Audiart. It was but an instantthat he looked, then came square again to the regard of the lists. Heturned a great emerald ring that he wore.

  “Fair lord,” said Alazais, “your son, Count Jaufre, is not with you?”

  Montmaure bent his red-gold head toward her. “Peerless lady, my son, inhunting, came upon a young wolf who tore his side. He cannot ride yetwith ease. I have left him at Montmaure. There he studies chivalry, andmakes, I doubt not, chansons for princesses.”

  “Travellers from Italy,” said Alazais, “have told us that he is anaccomplished knight.”

  “It becomes not his father to boast of him,” said Montmaure. “I willsay though that Italy is the poorer since his return home and his ownland is the richer. I would that he were tilting to-day in the light,princesses, of your four fair eyes!”

  Again he looked at the Princess Audiart, and at the duke’s pavilion,and turned his emerald ring.

  The jousting began. Trumpets blew—two knights advanced against eachother with levelled spears—round and round the green arena the eagerfolk craned necks. They had shows not a few
in their lives, but thiswas a show that never palled. Cockfights were good—baiting of bearswas good—a bull-fight passed the first two—but the tourney wasthe prime spectacle by just as much as knights in armour outvaluedbeasts of wood and field. The knights met with an iron clamour, eachbreaking his lance against the other’s shield. Another two wereencountering—one of these was unhorsed. Others rode forth, coming fromeither end of the lists....

  Encounter followed encounter as knight after knight took part. Nowthere were single combats and now mêlées. The dust rose in clouds, thetrumpets brayed, the sun climbed high. Knights were unhorsed; a numberhad hurts, two or three had been dragged senseless to the barrier.Stephen the Marshal was the champion; all who came against him broke atlast like waves against a rock.

  It was high noon and the duke had not yet jousted. The crowd wasexcited and began to murmur. It did not wish to be cheated—the greaterhe that jousted, the greater the show! Moreover it wished to be ableto tell the points of him who might be going to wed Roche-de-Frêne. Astatement had spread that the duke was a bold knight in a tourney—thathe had an enchanted lance, a thread from Saint Martha’s wimple beingtied around its head—that his black stallion had been brought fromthe land over the sea, and had been sired by a demon steed. The crowdwanted to see him joust against Stephen the Marshal. His honour wouldnot allow him to strike a lesser shield. But then the prince wouldnot wish Stephen to unhorse his guest. But perhaps Lord Stephen couldnot—the duke might be the bolder knight. But was the duke going totilt?

  He was going to tilt. He came forth from his orange silk pavilion, ina hauberk covered with rings of steel, and his esquires helped him tomount the black stallion. He took and shook his lance; the sun made thesheath of his sword to flash; they gave him a heart-shaped shield. Allaround the lists sprang a rustling, buzzing, and clamour. The galleryof state rustled, whispered.

  “He is not a large man,” quoth Montmaure.

  “I have heard that he jousts well,” Prince Gaucelm answered.

  “My Lord Stephen the Marshal outmatches him.”

  “The marshal is a passing good knight. But he is wearied.”

  “Ha!” thought Montmaure, “you are so courteous that you mean the duketo win the wreath. Crown your daughter Queen of Love and Beauty? God’steeth! I suppose he must do it if he wants Roche-de-Frêne—”

  The black stallion and his rider crossed to the marshal’s pavilion. Theduke touched the shield with his lance, then backed the stallion to hisown end of the meadow. Stephen the Marshal mounted his big grey andtook a lance from his esquire. The field was left clear for the two.

  They met midway, in dust-cloud and clangour. Whether the marshal wastired, or whether he was as courteous as his lord, or whether the dukewas truly great in the tourney, may be left to choice. Each lancesplintered, but Stephen the Marshal, as his horse came back upon itshaunches, lost his seat, recovered it only by clutching at the mane andswinging himself into the saddle. Every herald at once found voice—uphurried the marshals—silver trumpets told to the four quarters, nameand titles of the victor.

  Around and around rose applause, though indeed no immoderate storm ofsound. Stephen the Marshal was a valiant man. But there was enough tolet one say that nothing lacked. The duke turned his horse from side toside, just bowed his head in its pointed helmet. Then, as the customwas, a wreath of silken flowers and leaves was placed upon the pointof his spear. He made the stallion to curvet and caracole, and then topace slowly around the lists. A body of jongleurs began to play withenthusiasm as passionate a love-air as they knew. All Roche-de-Frêne,town and castle—all the barons and ladies from afar—all the knightswho jousted—all watched to see the duke lay the wreath at the feet ofthe young princess—watched to see if he would lay it there. If he didit might be said to announce that here, if he might, he would wed.

  The duke rode around the lists; then before the wide platform of stateand the centre of that platform, before the chairs set arow upon a richEastern rug and canopied with silk, he checked the black stallion, and,lowering his lance, let the wreath slip from it and rest at the feetof certainly the most beautiful woman there, Gaucelm’s princess, thedazzling Alazais.