Romance of Roman Villas (The Renaissance)

by Elizabeth W. Champney

"And had you kept them there throughout the game you would have seen much to admire," continued Aldobrandino. "Ah! the pretty little feet, the shapely ankles! But marked you those of her sisters? Cranes and ostriches! storks and sandpipers! And they call themselves not water-fowl but women!"

"Swine!" said Richard to himself, "hog, not another word or I shall burst. And what unspeakable villainy is this that I should have taken service to deliver so pure and precious a maiden into the power of such a beast!"

This feeling grew upon him in the short space of time before the tournament, for he met her daily, and as he marked her,—the flicker of her eyelashes upon her cheeks and the quick in-drawing of breath through her sensitive nostrils when the tales of the trouvères and jests of the jongleurs offended her exquisite modesty—his heart swelled with pain intolerable that so pure a flower should be set up as a prize for the hardest fighter to snuff at. Not so, he made bold to express his mind to Aldobrandino, should such a maid be won.

"How then," snorted the other in astonishment. "What method were fairer, I ask you?"

"What than to appeal to her own heart," Richard made answer, "and that by gentle observance, delicate attentions, and such refinements of self-sacrifice as in their practice might elevate a lover to some worthiness of the honour he courts?"

Aldobrandino sniffed his scorn. "Appeal to her heart in the last resort I grant you, but only thus: Lady, will you have me? An she will not, what would your servility gain? An she will, it is needless. In either case it is ridiculous. Trust me, a woman sets more store by the man who compels her admiration than by him who sues for it. If he breaks the bones of other men to win her, that is compliment enough and mark you well, Ricciardo, it is all that I demand of you in my service."

So the week sped before the tournament; and Richard loved Sancie more and more, and ever Aldobrandino was at his side taunting him until he burst forth into many a torrent of indignation, whereat the other but laughed and leered, so that Richard loathed and hated him to the death.

At last came the great day, and among the pennons of the challenging knights, which made gay the ancient amphitheatre of Arles where the lists were staked, there fluttered one bearing the device of a golden cup from which ran a stream of silver water. Also when Richard, with visor drawn and all in mail of shining steel, caracoled in the field, he was hailed Knight of the Spilling Cup, and Sancie's hand at that sign trembled so that had it held a beaker her robe would have been well besprinkled.

As the prize of this joust was a peculiar one, so was the manner of its contention. King René had not then formulated his rules for the conduct of a tourney, and the public tournaments at this time were of so savage a character that King Louis held them in reprehension and was determined that this trial of arms, which was but a friendly joust, should be a model of chivalric self-restraint and courtesy. There was much grumbling when the rules were published by the heralds that there was to be no fighting to the death with weapons of war, no sharp steel points to the lances, nor hacking with battle-axes, and though the mace was allowed this bludgeon was shorn of its iron knobs and points.

But when it was known that the King had stricken out the mêlée, or pitched battle of the second day, when all comers gentle and simple were by ancient custom allowed to range themselves in two parties under the banners of the victorious knight and him who stood second, all were of one opinion, namely that Louis had so emasculated the sport of all its zest that now was neither opportunity for young and unknown knights to distinguish themselves or a spectacle sufficiently diverting to keep the ladies from yawning.