The Fortunes of Garin by Mary Johnston (finding audrey .TXT) đź“•
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- Author: Mary Johnston
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“Fair lord,” said Alazais, “your son, Count Jaufre, is not with you?”
Montmaure bent his red-gold head toward her. “Peerless lady, my son, in hunting, came upon a young wolf who tore his side. He cannot ride yet with ease. I have left him at Montmaure. There he studies chivalry, and makes, I doubt not, chansons for princesses.”
[111]
“Travellers from Italy,” said Alazais, “have told us that he is an accomplished knight.”
“It becomes not his father to boast of him,” said Montmaure. “I will say though that Italy is the poorer since his return home and his own land 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 each other with levelled spears—round and round the green arena the eager folk craned necks. They had shows not a few in their lives, but this was a show that never palled. Cockfights were good—baiting of bears was good—a bull-fight passed the first two—but the tourney was the prime spectacle by just as much as knights in armour outvalued beasts of wood and field. The knights met with an iron clamour, each breaking his lance against the other’s shield. Another two were encountering—one of these was unhorsed. Others rode forth, coming from either end of the lists....
Encounter followed encounter as knight after knight took part. Now there were single combats and now mêlées. The dust rose in clouds, the trumpets brayed, the sun climbed high. Knights were unhorsed; a number had hurts, two or three had been dragged senseless to the barrier. Stephen the Marshal was the champion; all who came against him broke at last like waves against a rock.
[112]
It was high noon and the duke had not yet jousted. The crowd was excited and began to murmur. It did not wish to be cheated—the greater he that jousted, the greater the show! Moreover it wished to be able to tell the points of him who might be going to wed Roche-de-Frêne. A statement had spread that the duke was a bold knight in a tourney—that he had an enchanted lance, a thread from Saint Martha’s wimple being tied around its head—that his black stallion had been brought from the land over the sea, and had been sired by a demon steed. The crowd wanted to see him joust against Stephen the Marshal. His honour would not allow him to strike a lesser shield. But then the prince would not wish Stephen to unhorse his guest. But perhaps Lord Stephen could not—the duke might be the bolder knight. But was the duke going to tilt?
He was going to tilt. He came forth from his orange silk pavilion, in a hauberk covered with rings of steel, and his esquires helped him to mount the black stallion. He took and shook his lance; the sun made the sheath of his sword to flash; they gave him a heart-shaped shield. All around the lists sprang a rustling, buzzing, and clamour. The gallery of 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.”
[113]
“The marshal is a passing good knight. But he is wearied.”
“Ha!” thought Montmaure, “you are so courteous that you mean the duke to win the wreath. Crown your daughter Queen of Love and Beauty? God’s teeth! I suppose he must do it if he wants Roche-de-Frêne—”
The black stallion and his rider crossed to the marshal’s pavilion. The duke touched the shield with his lance, then backed the stallion to his own end of the meadow. Stephen the Marshal mounted his big grey and took a lance from his esquire. The field was left clear for the two.
They met midway, in dust-cloud and clangour. Whether the marshal was tired, or whether he was as courteous as his lord, or whether the duke was truly great in the tourney, may be left to choice. Each lance splintered, but Stephen the Marshal, as his horse came back upon its haunches, lost his seat, recovered it only by clutching at the mane and swinging himself into the saddle. Every herald at once found voice—up hurried the marshals—silver trumpets told to the four quarters, name and titles of the victor.
Around and around rose applause, though indeed no immoderate storm of sound. Stephen the Marshal was a valiant man. But there was enough to let one say that nothing lacked. The duke turned his horse from side to side, just bowed his head in its pointed helmet. Then, as the custom was, a wreath[114] of silken flowers and leaves was placed upon the point of his spear. He made the stallion to curvet and caracole, and then to pace slowly around the lists. A body of jongleurs began to play with enthusiasm as passionate a love-air as they knew. All Roche-de-Frêne, town and castle—all the barons and ladies from afar—all the knights who jousted—all watched to see the duke lay the wreath at the feet of the young princess—watched to see if he would lay it there. If he did it 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 state and the centre of that platform, before the chairs set arow upon a rich Eastern rug and canopied with silk, he checked the black stallion, and, lowering his lance, let the wreath slip from it and rest at the feet of certainly the most beautiful woman there, Gaucelm’s princess, the dazzling Alazais.
[115]
GARIN SEEKS HIS FORTUNE
One day, from sunrise to sunset, Garin kept company with the train of the Abbot of Saint Pamphilius. As the day dropped toward eve the road touched a stream that, reflecting the western sky, blushed like a piece of coral. It was the monks’ home stream. The ford passed, their abbey would ere long rise before them. Some were tired of travel and had been homesick for garden and refectory, cell and chapel—homesick as a dog for its master, a child for its mother, a plant for its sunshine. Some were not tired of travel and were not homesick. So there were both glad and sorry in the fellowship that, midway of the ford, checked the fat abbey mules and horses to let them drink. The beasts stooped their necks to the pink water; monks and lay brothers and abbey knaves looked at the opposite slope. When they reached its crest they would see before them Saint Pamphilius, grey and rich. The abbot’s mule drank first as was proper, raised its head first, and with a breath of satisfaction splashed forward. The two monks immediately attendant upon the Reverend Father must pull up their horses’ heads before they had half drunken and follow their superior.
[116]
The abbot, mounting the gently shelving bank, looked at his sons in God, yet dotting the small bright river. He just checked his mule. “That limping youth is no longer in our company.”
The monk nearest him spoke. “Reverend Father, as we came through the wood a mile back, he gave Brother Anselm thanks, then slipped from behind him. Brother Bartholomew called to him, but he went away among the trees.”
“Ah!” said the abbot; “in which direction?”
“Reverend Father, southwardly.”
Abbot Arnaut sat silent a moment, then shook the reins and his mule climbed on toward the hill-top. “Ah,” he said to himself, and he said it piously. “He is young, and when you are young perils do not imperil! When you are young, you are an eel to slip through—I have done what I could! Doubtless he will escape.”
That night there rose a great round moon. It lighted Garin through the wood until he was ready to sleep,—it showed him where he could find the thickest bed and covering of leaves,—and when he waked in the night he saw it like a shield overhead. All day, riding behind Brother Anselm, the monks about him, black as crows, he had felt dull and dead. Waking now in the night, forest around him and moon above, sheer unfamiliarity and wonder at his plight made him shiver and start like a lost child. All that he had lost passed before him. Foulque passed, transfigured in his eyes, he was so lonely[117] and sick for home. Raimbaut the Six-fingered passed, transfigured. The rude hall in Raimbaut’s keep, the smoky fire and the lounging men—they were desirable to him; he felt a cold pang when it crossed him that he would never win back. He strove to plunge, head to heel, into the rich depths of the feeling before this feeling, to recall the glow out of which he had spoken at Castel-Noir, to go back to the nightingale’s singing. It was there, that feeling; he knew that it had been born and was living. But to-night half a chill and empty world was between him and it. There in the forest, beneath the round moon, he had a bewildered brain and an aching heart. Then at last he crossed the half-world to some faint sweetness, and so slept.
With the dawn he was afoot. He had a piece of bread in his pouch, and as he walked he ate this, and a streamlet gave him drink. The wood thinned. In the first brightness of the day he came upon a road of so fair a width and goodness that he saw it must be a highway and beaded with towns. Apparently it ran northeast and southwest, though so broken was the country that at short range it rounded almost any corner you might choose. Where he was going he did not know, but he took the trend that led him south by west. Dimly he thought of making his way into Spain. Barcelona—there was a great town—and King Alfonso of Aragon was known for a gallant king, rich, liberal and courtly. Garin looked down at his serf’s tunic and torn shoon—but[118] then he felt within his breast. Foulque’s purse was there.
When he waked, it had been first to bewilderment and then to mere relief in warmth and sunlight. Now as he walked courage returned, the new energy and glow. Early as it was, the road had its travel which increased with the strengthening day. It was a country rich in beauty. He had never been so far from home. The people upon the road were like people he had seen before. Yet there existed small, regional differences, and his eye was quick at noting these. They pleased him; imagination played. The morning was fair without and within.
A driver of mules—twenty with twenty loads of sawn wood and sacks of salt and other matters—caught up with him. Garin and he walked side by side and the former learned whence the road came and where it went. As for the world hereabouts, it belonged to Count Raymond of Toulouse. Garin, walking, began to sing.
“You sing well, brother,” said the muleteer. “If you dwelt with animals as I do, your voice would crack! They do not understand me when I sing. They think that I mean that they may stand still and admire.—Ha! May God forget and the devil remember you there! Get up!”
They travelled with pauses, jerks, and starts, so at last Garin said, “Farewell, brother!” and swung on alone. Half an hour later he, in turn, came up with a pedlar, a great pack wrapt in cloth on his[119] back, sitting resting by the wayside. “Who’ll buy?” called the pedlar. “Here’s your fine pennyworths!”
Garin stopped beside him and considered the pack. Travelling merchants of a different grade, going with laden horses from fair to fair, might have with them, cut, fashioned and sewed, a dress that would do for an esquire. But not a poor pack-aback like this. He shook his head.
“No money?” asked the pedlar. “Thumb of Lazarus! how this sickness spreads!”
Other wayfarers came in sight. “Who’ll buy?” called the pedlar. “Here’s your fine pennyworths!”
Garin left him chaffering with a rich villein, and went his own way along the sunny road.
Toward noon, rounding a hill, he came upon a little village. He bought from the nearest house bread and cheese and a cup of goat’s milk, and sat down under a mulberry tree to eat and drink. As he made an end of the feast, two girls came and stood in the house door. They studied his appearance, and it seemed to find favour. He smiled back at them.
“Where do you live?” asked one.
“In the moon.”
“Ha!” said the girl. “It was as round as an egg last night. You must have dropped out. And where are you going?”
“To the sun.”
“Hè! You will be sunburned. Whose man are you?”
[120]
“Lord
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