“Eight years.—Eye of God! they have been full years!”
“Yes. Each has been an ocean. I remember, it was near this season.”
Jaufre’s brows bore a marking of surprise. “Tell me why you hold that year in memory—”
The princess sat with a faint smile upon her face, her eyes upon the world beyond the canopy. The latter stretched but overhead; the hillside, the town, the tented plain were visible, and in the foreground the company of knights where they were gathered beneath olive and almond trees.
“That year, my lord count, I first saw your father, the ‘great count.’ The prince my father made a tourney in honour of a guest who, like you, my lord, sought a bride. And by chance there came riding by Roche-de-Frêne—that you must know, my lord, gave always frank welcome to neighbours—Count Savaric of Montmaure. My father gave him good welcome, and also my step-dame, Madame Alazais, and myself, and he sat with us and watched the knights joust.... There is where you come in, my lord! One asked why you were not with Count Savaric, for it was known that you had lately come back to Montmaure from Italy.” She turned her eyes upon him and smiled again. “I remember almost Count Savaric’s words! ‘My son,’ he said, ‘would go a-hunting! Giving chase to a doe, he outstripped his men. Then burst from a thicket a young wolf which attacked him and tore his side. He cannot yet sit his horse. I have left him at Montmaure where he studies chivalry, and makes, I doubt not, chansons for princesses.’”
The blood flooded Montmaure’s brow and cheek. He stared, not at the Princess of Roche-de-Frêne, but forth upon the train of knights. “Eye of God!” he breathed. “That wolf—! Eye of God!”
“My lord count,” said the princess, “did you afterwards hunt down and kill the wolf? I never heard—and I have always wished to hear.”
“No! He ran free! Heart of Mahound—!”
Light played over the princess’s face, but Jaufre, choking down the thought of the wolf, did not note it. He opened his lips to speak further of that eight-years-past autumn, thus brought up by chance, and of the wolf; then thought better of it. As for Audiart, she thought, “Vengeful so toward a poor squire who but once, and long ago, crossed his evil will! Then what might Roche-de-Frêne hope for?”
Jaufre, regaining command of himself, signalled for wine. A page brought rich flagons upon a rich salver. Jaufre filled a cup, touched it with his lips, offered it to the princess. He was growing cool again, assured as before. There was flattery, in her recalling the moment of his return from Italy, in her remembering, across the years, each word that had been spoken of him!