“No words, base Moor!” replied Roland. “This hour shall be thy last,” and, so saying, he charged his enemy at full speed. Down crashed the haughty infidel, and Roland, leaping from the saddle, stood over him, drawn sword in hand.
“Thy name, paynim,” he demanded; “speak or die.”
“Sir,” replied Calaynos, “I serve a haughty maiden of Spain, who would have no gift of me but the heads of certain peers of Charlemagne.”
“So!” laughed Roland. “Fool that thou art, she could not have loved thee when she bade thee beard our fellowship. Thou hast come here to thy death,” and with these words he smote off Calaynos’ head, and spurned his crescent crest in twain. “No more shall this moon rise above the meads of Seine,” he cried, as he sheathed his falchion.
Thus was Calaynos fooled by a maiden’s pride and by his own. The story is, of course, wildly improbable, and that a Moorish knight could have reached Paris on such a quest is unthinkable. But the tale has a very human accent, and is not without its moral.
Gayferos
Gayferos was a figure dear to Spanish romance. His story was connected with the Charlemagne cycle, and was included in the pseudo-chronicle of Archbishop Turpin, but, though a knight of France, he appears to have possessed a special attraction for the Castilian mind, owing, probably, to the circumstance of his seven years’ search for his wife in Spanish territory.
Gayferos of Bordeaux was a kinsman of Roland, the invincible hero of the chansons de gestes, and husband of Charlemagne’s daughter Melisenda. Shortly after their marriage the lady was kidnapped by the Saracens and confined in a strong tower at Saragossa. Determined to rescue her from pagan custody, Gayferos set out in search of his wife, but after spending seven long years in diligent inquiry failed to locate the place where she was imprisoned. From province to province, from castle to castle of sunny Spain he journeyed, until at length, disconsolate and dejected, he returned to Paris.
In the hope of drowning the remembrance of his loss, Gayferos plunged into the recreations of the Court. One day as he played dice with the Emperor’s admiral, Charlemagne, seeing him thus employed, said to him: “How is it, Gayferos, that you waste your time on a paltry game, while your wife, my daughter, languishes in a Moorish prison? Were you as ready to handle arms as to throw dice, you would hasten to the rescue of your lady.” The Emperor’s speech was unmerited, for he had only just learned of the place in which Melisenda was held in durance, whereas the faithful Gayferos was not yet aware of it. But gathering from Charlemagne the name of the castle in which she was confined, he made speed to his uncle Roland, and begged him for armour and a horse.