“Ha, my Princess Audiart, that men call the Wise! I will tell you that your wisdom will not save you—nor Roche-de-Frêne—nor yonder knight, my foe, that I hold in loathing and will yet break upon a wheel!” He laughed, sitting his great bay horse, and with a gesture shook forth vengeance. “To-morrow morn, look to yourselves!”
“My Lord of Montmaure, we shall!” The princess gave command, the train from Roche-de-Frêne drew away from the pavilions, the knights of Montmaure and Count Jaufre. “Farewell, my lord!” cried Audiart the Wise, “and for hospitality and frank speech much thanks! I love not war, but, if you will have it so, I will war!”
The trumpets sounded. They who watched from the walls saw the two trains draw apart and their own come in order up the winding road that climbed to the town. Their own reached the gates and entered.... In the market-place, the bell having drawn the people together, the princess spoke to them, her voice, clear, firm, and with hint of depth beyond depth, reaching the outermost fringing sort. She spoke at no great length but to the purpose, then asked their mind and waited to hear it.
Raimon, Lord of Les Arbres, a great baron, the greatest vassal of Roche-de-Frêne there present, spoke from the train of fifty, speaking for those lords and knights and for all chivalry in Roche-de-Frêne. “My Lady Audiart, we are your men! Hold your courage and we shall hold ours! There is not here lord nor belted knight nor esquire who wishes for suzerain the Counts of Montmaure! We will keep Roche-de-Frêne until we know victory or perish!”
The captain of the crossbowmen, a giant of a man, spoke with a booming voice. “The sergeants, the bowmen, the workers of the machines and the foot-soldiers sing Amen! The princess is a good princess and a noble and a wise, and no man here fails of his pay! Montmaure is a niggard and a hard lord. We are yours to the end, my Lady Audiart!”
Thibaut Canteleu spoke for the town. “Since the world will have it that we must have lords, give us your like for lord, my Lady Audiart! We know what a taken and sacked town is when Montmaure takes and sacks it! But open our gates to him at his call, and what better would we get? Long slavery and slow pain, and our children to begin again at the foot of the stair! So we propose to hold this town, how hard it is to hold soever!”
A clerk, standing upon the steps that led to a house door, sent his voice across the crowded place. “I will speak though I be excommunicate for it! We hear of the miracle of Father Eustace, and one tells us that God and His Mother would have our princess marry Montmaure! I do not believe that Father Eustace knows the will of God!”
From the throng came a deep, answering note, a multitudinous humming doubt if Our Lady of Roche-de-Frêne had been truly understood. The people looked at the cathedral tower, and they looked at the castle and around at their town, their houses, shops, market, and guild-halls, at the blue sky above and at their princess. The note sustained itself, broadened and deepened, became like the sound of the sea, and said forthright that whatever had been meant by Our Lady of Roche-de-Frêne, it was not alliance with Montmaure!
The Princess of Roche-de-Frêne and her train of knights rode through the town and mounted to the castle. Some change in the order of those about her brought Garin for a moment beside the white Arabian. The princess turned her head, spoke to him. “Count Jaufre holds you in some especial hatred. Why is that?”
“I crossed him in his will one day, long ago. He would have done an evil thing, and I, chancing by, came between him and his prey. He it was who caused me to flee the land.—But not alone for that day is there enmity between us!”