CHAPTER I
ROCHE-DE-FRÊNEWithout
blazed autumn sunshine, strong as summer sunshine in northern lands.
Within the cathedral dusk ruled, rich and mysterious. The sanctuary
light burned, a star. The candles were yet smoking, the incense yet
clung, thick and pungent. Vanishing through the sacristy door went
the last flutter of acolyte or chorister. The throng that worshipped
dwindled to a few lingering shapes. The rest disappeared by the huge
portal, marvellously sculptured. It had been a great throng, for
Bishop Ugo had preached. Now the cathedral was almost empty, and more
rich, more mysterious because of that. The saints in their niches
could be seen the better, and the gold dust from the windows came in
unbroken shafts to the pavement. There they splintered and light lay
in fragments. One of these patches made a strange glory for the head
of Boniface of Beaucaire who was doing penance, stretched out on the
pavement like a cross. Lost in the shadows of nave, aisles, and
chapels were other penitents, on their knees, muttering prayers.
Hugues from up the river lay on his face, half in light, half in
shadow, before the shrine of Saint Martial. Hugues’s penance had
been heavy, for he was a captain of Free Lances and had beset and
robbed a travelling monk. But in Hugues’s cavern that night the
monk turned preacher and wrought so mightily that he brought
Hugues—who was a simple, emotional soul—to his knees, and the
next day, when they parted, sent him here for penance. He lay bare to
the waist, and his back was bloody from the scourging he had received
before the church doors.The
church was a marvel. It had been building for long, long while, and
it was not yet finished. It was begun by a grateful population, at
the instigation of the then bishop, in the year 1035. All Christendom
had set the year 1000 for the Second Coming and the Judgement Day,
and as the time approached had waited in deep gloom and with a
palsied will for those august arrivals. When the year passed, with
miseries enough, but with no rolling back of the firmament like a
scroll, it was concluded that what had been meant was the thousandth
from the Crucifixion. 1033 was now set for the Final Event, and the
neglect of each day, the torpor and terror of the mind, continued.
But 1033 passed, marked by nothing more dreadful than famine and
common wretchedness. Christendom woke from that particular trance,
sighed with relief, and began to grow—to grow with vigour and
rapidity, with luxuriance and flourishes.In
1035, then, the cathedral had been begun, and to-morrow morning, here
in the last quarter of the twelfth century, the stone masons would go
clinking, clinking up yonder, atop of the first of the two towers. No
man really knew when it would be finished. But for a century nave,
aisles, choir, and chapels had been completed. Under the wonderful
roof three generations of the people of Roche-de-Frêne had bowed
themselves when the bell rang and the Host was elevated. The
cathedral had the hallowing of time. It was an Inheritance as was the
Faith that bred it. The atmosphere of this place was the atmosphere
of emotion, and strong as were the pillars, they were no stronger
than was the Habit which brought the feet this way and bowed the
heads; and clinging and permeating as was the incense, it was no more
so than the sentiment that stretched yonder Boniface of Beaucaire and
here Hugues the Free Lance. Boniface of Beaucaire would cheat again
and Hugues the Free Lance rob and slay, but here they were, no
hypocrites, and cleaner in this moment than they had been.There
were two pillars, one twisted, one straight, that had been brought
from Palestine by Gaucelm the Crusader, father of Gaucelm the
Fortunate, the present Prince, and set on either side the shrine of
Our Lady of Roche-de-Frêne. A shaft of light from the great window
struck across the two, broke, and made the pavement sunny.Just
here knelt a youth, in a squire’s dress of green and brown. He had
no penance to perform. He was kneeling because he was in a kneeling
mood. The light showed a well-made, supple figure, with powerful
shoulders. The head and throat were good, the face rather long, with
strong features, the colouring blonde inclining to brown, the eyes
grey with blue glints. They were directed now to the image of the
Virgin, above him in her niche, the other side of the gold light. She
stood, incredibly slender, and taller than human, rose-cheeked,
dressed in azure samite sewn with gems, with a crown, and in her two
hands a crimson heart pierced by an iron arrow. A lamp burned before
her, and there were flowers around.The
youth knelt with a fixed gaze, asking for inspiration.... The Virgin
of Roche-de-Frêne seemed to move, to dilate, to breathe, to smile!
The young man sank his head, stretched forth his arms. “O Our Lady,
smile on me! O Our Lady, give me to-day a sign!”The
cathedral grew a place of mystery, of high, transcendent passion. The
lamp appeared to brighten, the heart in the two hands to glow.
“Is
it a sign that I am to serve Her in Holy Church?” thought Garin de
Castel-Noir, “or, may-hap, that I am to serve Her with lance and
shield? Is it a sign, or am I mistaken? If it were a sign, would I
ask if I were mistaken?” He sighed. “O High God, give me a sign!”He
had to decide no less a thing than his career. Until a little while
ago he had thought that matter settled. He was esquire to a poor
lord, a fierce and a stupid lord, and he had no hope but to remain
esquire for years perhaps to come. But, come soon or come late, one
day his lord would make him knight. That done, and his saint
favouring, he might somehow achieve honour. Three months ago his lot
had seemed as fixed as that of a fir tree growing below his lord
Raimbaut’s black keep. Then into the matter had stepped the Abbot
of Saint Pamphilius, that was kinsman of Garin and of his brother,
Foulque the Cripple, who bided at Castel-Noir.With
simplicity, the squire explained it to Our Lady of Roche-de-Frêne:
“He is our near kinsman, and he knows how poor are Foulque and I,
and he knows, too, Lord Raimbaut, and the little we may expect. And
now he says that if I will give up hope of chivalry and take the
tonsure, he will be my good patron. And if I work well with head and
pen and prove myself able, he will charge himself that I advance and
win great promotion. If I serve him well, so will he serve me well. O
Our Lady,” ended Garin, “he is a great man as you know, and close
friend to Bishop Ugo. Moreover, he and Foulque have made application
to my lord Raimbaut and won him to consent. And Foulque urges me
toward Holy Church. But O Blessed Lady,” cried Garin, and stretched
forth his arms, “do I wish to go? I know not—I know not!”The
Virgin of Roche-de-Frêne, crowned and dazzling, stood in blue samite
with her heart and arrow, but said no word and gave no sign....
Raimbaut and his knighthood—the Abbot and Holy Church—and Foulque
with his song, “Choose the Abbot! Work hard and be supple and
further the ends of Holy Church, twining your own ends with that
golden cord. No telling to what height you may rise! Great wealth and
power fall to them who serve her to her profit and liking. You crave
learning. On which road, I put it to you, will you gather most of
that?” So Foulque. And Bishop Ugo had preached, this morn, of the
glory and power of Holy Church and of the crowns laid up for them who
served her.The
squire sighed deeply. He must make decision. The Abbot would not
always keep that look of invitation. He had other young and needy
kinsmen. Worldly considerations enough flitted through Garin’s
head, but they found something there beside themselves. “In deep
truth, which is mine? To endure until I may ride as knight and find
or make some door in a high, thick wall? To take the tonsure—to
study, work and plan—to become, maybe, canon, and after long time,
larger things?... Which is mine? This—or that—or either? O
Blessed Lady, I would choose from within!”The
tall, jewelled Queen of Heaven looked serenely down upon him. She had
ceased to breathe. The sign seemed not to be coming. He had before
him a long ride, and he must go, with or without the token. He kept
his position yet another minute, then, with a deep sigh, relinquished
the quest. Rising, he stepped backward from the presence of the
Virgin of Roche-de-Frêne, out of the line of the Saracen pillars. As
he went, the climbing shaft of amber light caught his eye and
forthwith Jacob’s ladder came into his head, and he began to send
slim angels up and down it. He had a potent fancy.Leaving
the church, he passed Boniface of Beaucaire and Hugues the Free
Lance. His step made a ringing on the pavement beside their prone
heads. He felt for them no contempt. They were making, more or less,
an honourable amende. Everybody in their lives had done or would do
penance, and after life came purgatory. He passed them as he might
pass any other quite usual phenomenon, and so quitted the cathedral.Outside
was Roche-de-Frêne, grey, close-built, massed upon the long
hill-top, sending spurs of houses down the hillsides between olive
and cypress, almond and plane and pine—Roche-de-Frêne, so
well-walled, Roche-de-Frêne beat upon, laved, drowned by the
southern sun.Crown
of its wide-browed craggy hill rose another hill; crown of this, a
grey dream in the fiery day, sprang the castle of its prince, of that
Gaucelm the Fortunate whose father had brought the pillars. The
cathedral had its lesser rise of earth and faced the castle, and
beside the cathedral was the bishop’s palace, and between the
church and the castle, up and down and over the hillsides, spread the
town. The sky was as blue as the robe of the Virgin of
Roche-de-Frêne. The southern horizon showed a gleam of the
Mediterranean, and north and west had purple mountains. In the narrow
streets between the high houses, and in every little opening and
chance square the people of Roche-de-Frêne, men, women and children,
talked, laughed, and gestured. It was a feast day, holiday, merry in
the sun. Wine was being drunk, jongleurs were telling tales and
playing the mountebank.Garin
sought his inn and his horse. He was in Roche-de-Frêne upon
Raimbaut’s business, but that over, he had leave to ride to
Castel-Noir and spend three days with his brother. The merry-making
in the town tempted, but the way was long and he must go. A chain of
five girls crossed his path, brown, laughing, making dancing steps,
their robes kilted high, red and yellow flowers in their hair. “What
a beautiful young man!” said their eyes. “Stay—stay!” Garin
wanted to stay—but he was not without judgement and he went. At the
inn he had a spare dinner, the only kind for which he could pay. A
bit of meat, a piece of bread, a bunch of grapes, a cup of wine—then
his horse at the door.Half
a dozen men-at-arms from the castle passed this way. They stopped.
“That’s a good steed!”Garin
mounted. “None better,” he said briefly.The
grizzled chief of the six laid an approving touch upon the silken
flank. “Where did you get him?”Garin
took the reins. “At home.”
“Good
page, where is that?”
“I
am not page, I am esquire,” said Garin.
“Good
esquire, where is that?”
“‘That’
is Castel-Noir.”
“A
little black tower in a big black wood? I know the place,” said the
grizzled one. “Your lord is Raimbaut of the Six Fingers.”
“Just.”
“Whose
lord is the Count of Montmaure, whose lord is our Prince Gaucelm,
whose lord is the King at Paris, whose lord is the Pope in Rome,
whose lord is God on His Throne.—Do you wish to sell your horse?”
“I
do not.”
“I
have taken a fancy to him,” said the man-at-arms. “But there! the
land is at peace. Go your ways—go your ways! Are you for the
jousting in the castle lists?”
“No.
I would see it, but I have not time.”
“You
would see a pretty sight,” quoth the man-at-arms. “There is
Prince Gaucelm’s second princess, to wit Madame Alazais that is the
most beautiful woman in the world, and sitting beside her the
prince’s daughter, our princess Audiart, that is not so beautiful.”
“They
say,” spoke Garin, “that she is not beautiful at all.”
“That
same ‘They say’ is a shifty knave.—Better go, and I will go
with you,” said the man-at-arms, “for truly I have not been
lately to the lists.”But
Garin adhered to it that he could not. He made Paladin to curvet,
bound and caracole, then with a backward laugh and wave of his hand
went his way—but caused his way to lead him past the castle of
Roche-de-Frêne.So
riding by, he looked up wistfully to barbican and walls and towers.
The place was vast, a great example of what a castle might be. Enough
folk for a town housed within it. At one point tree tops, peering
over the walls, spoke of an included garden. Above the donjon just
stirred in the autumn air the great blue banner of Gaucelm the
Fortunate. The mighty gates were open, the drawbridge down, the water
in the moat smiled as if it had neither memory nor premonition of
dead men in its arms. People were crossing, gay of dress. The sunny
noon, the holiday time, softened all the hugeness, kept one from
seeing what a frown Roche-de-Frêne might wear. Garin heard trumpets.
The esquire of Raimbaut the Six-fingered, the brother of Foulque the
Cripple, the youth from the small black tower in the black wood,
gazed and listened with parted lips. Raimbaut held from Montmaure,
but for Raimbaut’s fief and other fiefs adjacent, Montmaure who
held mainly from the House of Aquitaine, owed Roche-de-Frêne fealty.
Being feudal lord of his lord, Gaucelm the Fortunate was lord of
Foulque the Cripple and Garin the Squire. The latter wondered if ever
he would enter there where the trumpets were blowing.The
great pile passed, the town itself passed, he found himself upon a
downward sweeping road and so, by zig-zags, left the hill of
Roche-de-Frêne and coming to the plain rode west by north between
shorn fields and vineyards. The way was fair but lonely, for the
country folk were gone to the town for this day of the patron saint
and were not yet returning. Before him lay woods—for much of the
country was wooded then—and craggy hills, and in the distance
purple mountains. He had some leagues to ride. Now and again he might
see, to this hand or to that, a castle upon a height, below it a
huddled brown hamlet. Late in the afternoon there would lie to his
right the Convent of Our Lady in Egypt. But his road was not one of
the great travelled ways. It traversed a sparsely populated region,
and it was going, presently, to be lonely enough.Garin
rode with sunken head, trying to settle matters before he should see
Foulque. If Raimbaut had been a liberal, noble, joyous lord! But he
was none such. It was little that page or esquire could learn in his
gloomy castle, and little chance might have knight of his. A gloomy
castle, and a lord of little worth, and a lady old and shrewish....
Every man must have a lord—or so was Garin’s world arranged. But
if only every man could choose one to his liking—The
road bent. Rounding a craggy corner, Paladin and he well-nigh trod
upon a sleeping man, propped at the road edge against a grey boulder.
Paladin curvetted aside, Garin swore by his favourite saint, the man
awoke and stretched his arms. He was young,—five or six years
older, perhaps, than Garin. His dress, when it came to hue and cut,
showed extravagant and gay, but the stuffs of which it was composed
were far from costly. Here showed a rent, rather neatly darned, and
here a soil rubbed away as thoroughly as might be. He was dark and
thin, with long, narrow eyes that gave him an Eastern look. Beside
him, slung from his neck by a ribbon, lay a lute, and he smiled with
professional brilliancy.
