[CHAPTER XVIII]
COUNT JAUFRE
The day was soft and bright, neither hot nor cold, and at the mid-morning. Half-way between the walls of Roche-de-Frêne and the host of Montmaure, in a space clear of any cover that might be used for ambushes, rose a blue pavilion, a green and silver pavilion, and one between that carried these colours blended. Before the blue pavilion hung a banner with a blue field and the arms of Roche-de-Frêne, before the green and silver Montmaure’s banner; before the third pavilion the two ensigns were fixed side by side. Those who had pitched the pavilions and made lavish preparation were servants of Montmaure. Montmaure was the host this day. Led blindfold into Roche-de-Frêne, through the streets and in at the castle gate, had gone four great barons, hostages for the green and silver’s faith.
A trumpet sounded from the town. A trumpet answered for Montmaure. The Princess of Roche-de-Frêne rode through the gates upon her white Arabian. Behind her came two ladies, Guida and Maeut, and after these rode fifty knights. All wound down the hillside that was pitted and scarred and strewn with many a battle token. To meet them, started from the tented plain fifty knights of Montmaure, and at their head Count Jaufre. Count Savaric, it was known, suffered yet at times with the wound he had got in the spring from Stephen the Marshal. It seemed that it was so in the week of this meeting. He was laid in his tent in the hands of his leech. But by cry of herald he had made known that his son’s voice and presence were his own. The Princess of Roche-de-Frêne would meet in Count Jaufre no less a figure than the reigning count. Thus Jaufre rode alone at the head of the fifty knights.
He rode a great steed caparisoned as for a royal tourney. He himself wore mail beneath a surcoat of the richest samite, but he had embroidered gloves, not battle gauntlets, and in place of helmet a cap sewn with gems and carrying an eagle feather. The one train came down the hill, the other crossed the level, overburned, and trodden earth. The two met with fanfare of trumpets and caracoling of steeds and chivalrous parade, close at hand the coloured pavilions, overhead the sapphire sky, around the breath of autumn.
Jaufre sprang from his courser, hastened to the Arabian and would aid the princess to dismount. He swept his cap from his head. Red-gold locks and hawk nose, and on the right cheek a long scar, curiously shaped.... The Princess Audiart sat very still upon her white Arabian. Then she smiled, dismounted, and gave Jaufre de Montmaure her gloved hand.
Jaufre was adept, when he so chose, in courtoisie. He had learned the value and the practice of it in Italy, and learned, in his fellowship with Richard Lion-Heart, to temper it with the cool snow of exaltation and poetry—or to seem to temper it. Richard truly did so. To-day this one acre of earth was a court, and he was prepared to behave to the ruler of Roche-de-Frêne as to a fair woman who chanced to be high-born. All the past fighting should be treated with disdain as a lovers’ quarrel! Count Jaufre had chosen a rôle, and practised it in his mind, with a smile upon his lips. He did not forget, nor did he wish the princess to forget, how much stronger was the host of Montmaure, and that the siege must end in humbling for Roche-de-Frêne and victory for Montmaure. Male strength—male strength was his! He was prepared to show his consciousness of that. He had had lovers’ quarrels before—he could not remember how many. He remembered with complacence that—usually—the other side had come to its knees. If the other side had given him much trouble, made him angry, he then repaid it. That was what was going to happen here. But, to-day, joy and courtesies and the gai science! Show this Audiart the Wise the lord she thought she could refuse! So he met the princess, curled, pressed, and panoplied with courtliness. He out-poetized the poets, beggared the goddesses of attributes. He strewed painted flowers before the Princess of Roche-de-Frêne, then, his count’s cap again upon his head, led her over the battle-cleansed space to the three pavilions.
Her ladies followed her. The hundred knights, dismounting, fraternized. The air was sweet; over high-built town and castle, sweep of martial plain, cloud-like blue mountains, sprang a serenest roof of heaven. The knights gave mutual enmity a day’s holiday, and, having done a good deed, gained thereupon a line in stature. Many of them knew one another, name and appearance and fame. They had encountered in tourney, in hall and bower, and in battle. Fortune had at times ranged them on the same side. A fair number wore the sign of the crusader. Under either banner were famous knights. The time craved fame and worshipped it. War, love, song, and—the counter-pole—asceticism were your trodden roads to fame. Now and then one reached it by a path just perceptible in the wilderness; but more fell in striving to make such a path. There were famous knights among the hundred, and by this time none more famed than Garin of Castel-Noir, Garin of the Golden Island. Sir Aimar de Panemonde was as brave, but Garin was troubadour no less than knight, and about what he did, in either way, dwelt a haunting magic.
Montmaure led the princess to the blue pavilion. It was hers, with her ladies, to refresh herself therein. He himself crossed to the green and silver, drank wine, and looked forth upon the mingling of knights. “Let us see,” ran his thought, “the jade’s choice!” He saw valiant men, known afar, or come in this siege to their kind’s admiration. “Ha!” he said to Guiraut of the Vale who stood beside him. “She knows how to cull her garden!”.