Eleanore rose and gave him her hand to kiss. “Sieur Flammecœur, we render thee thanks for our pleasure, and give ye God’s sleep. Hither, Foulque! Light the Sieur Trouvère and his boy to thy room, and sleep thou this night with Robert Meloc.”
The young squire bowed and fetched a torch from the wall. Yvain came running to his master’s side; and presently, to the deep regret of all the demoiselles, the three disappeared into the “long room,” from which a hallway led to the squires’ rooms.
In spite of Bertrand’s words about his early departure on the following morning, he and Yvain did not go that day. Neither did they depart on the next, nor within that week. On the morning after his arrival the minstrel confessed, readily enough, though with seeming reluctance, that he had no particular objective point in his journeying; that he but travelled for adventure, for love of his lady, and that it was his mind to linger around St. Nazaire or the coast till spring should give an opening into Normandy. Madame Eleanore would not hear of it that he should seek lodgings in St. Nazaire. There was strong tradition of hospitality in Le Crépuscule,—ordinarily a lonely place enough; and its châtelaine eagerly besought the Flaming-heart to lodge with her till spring—and longer if he would. And after that she put him, forsooth, into the Bishop’s chamber on the ground-floor, gave Yvain an adjoining closet, and would take no refusal that he go hawking in the early afternoon with all the young squires of the Castle.
Bertrand took to his life at the Twilight Castle with a grace, an ease, and, withal, a tact that won him every heart within the first three days of his residence there. He was a man of the broad world, such an one as these simple Breton folk had not known before; for Seigneur Gerault did not travel like this fellow, and had none of his manner for setting forth tales. The young squires, the men-at-arms, the henchmen, the very cooks and scullions, listened open-mouthed and open-eyed at the stories he told of adventure and love, of distant countries, of kings and courts and mighty wars. Besides this, he could manage a horse or a sword like any warrior knight; he was deep learned in falconry; he could track a hare or a fox through the most impossible furze; and he could read like a monk and write like a scribe. As for his accomplishments with the other sex, they were too many to mention. Before evening of the second day every woman in the Castle from Madame Eleanore down, save, for some mysterious reason, Alixe, was at his feet, confessing her utter subjection. His soft Southern speech, the exquisite Langue d’Oc, used in Brittany as French was used in England; his clean, dark, fine-featured face; his glowing eyes; his love-laden manner, that ever dared and never presumed; finally, what, in all ages, has seemed to prove most attractive to women in men, a suggestion of past libertinism,—all these things combined to make him utterly irresistible to the feminine heart.
Such a life of never-ending adulation, of universal admiration, was a paradise to the troubadour, in whom inordinate vanity was the strongest and most carefully concealed characteristic. So long as he should be the centre of interest, he was never bored. But when he was not the central object, there were just two people in all the Castle that did not bore him unendurably. One of these was Madame Eleanore, in liking whom he betrayed exceptional taste; the other was Alixe, who had piqued him into attention. His admiration for madame was not wholly unnatural; for Bertrand Flammecœur, love-child as he was, and filled with unholy passions, was, nevertheless, as his singing showed, a man of refinement and gentle blood. His feeling for Alixe was keen, because it was unsatisfactory. She was at no pains to conceal her dislike for him, and it was her greatest pleasure to whip a pretty speech of his to rags with irony. He plied her with every art he knew, tried every mood upon her, and to Alixe’s glory be it said, she never betrayed, by look or word, that she had anything for him more than, at best, contemptuous indifference. And after a week of effort the minstrel was obliged to confess to himself that never before, in all his adventures, had he met with so complete a rebuff from any woman.
He did not, even then, entirely relax his efforts. One morning, ten days after his arrival, he was passing the chapel, a small octagonal room opening off the great hall just beside the stairs, when he perceived Alixe within. She was alone; and as he turned into the doorway she was just rising from her knees. Unconscious of his presence, she remained standing before the altar looking upon the crucifix, her hands fervently clasped before her. After watching her for a moment in silence, Flammecœur began to move noiselessly across the little room, and was at her very shoulder before he said softly,—
“A fair good morn to thee, my demoiselle.”
Alixe wheeled about. “A prayerful one to thee, Sir Minstrel!” she said sharply, and would have left him but that, smiling, he held her back.
“Nay, ma mie, nay, be pleased to remain for a moment’s love-look.” Alixe merely shrugged at his teasing mockery, whereupon he became serious. “Listen, mademoiselle, and explain this matter to me. Is all this Castle under a vow of unceasing prayer? Piety beseems a damsel well enow; yet never have I seen a household so devout. Madame Châtelaine repeats her prayers five times a day; and the step before the altar here is ever weighted by some ardent maid or squire. Ohé! Love in the south; prayer in the north. Rose of Langue d’Oc,—snows of Langue d’Oïl. Tell me, Dame Alixe, which likes thy heart the most, customs of my land or of thine?”
“This is all the land I know. And as for thee—well, if thou’rt a true man of the south, methinks I would remain here,” she retorted discourteously, giving him eye for eye.