He asked.
“The Abbey of the Fountain?” answered the man whom he addressed. “It lies the other side of the hill. Go through the town and out at the west gate, and you will see it below you, among trees.”
They climbed the hill and entered Angoulême, thronged with life. To the two who kept the picture of Roche-de-Frêne, wrapped in clouds of storm and disaster, Angoulême might appear clad like a peacock, untroubled as a holiday child. Yet was there here—and they divined that, too—grumbling and soreness, just anger against Richard the proud, coupled with half-bitter admiration. Here was wide conflict of opinion and mood. Life pulsed strongly in Angoulême.
Jongleur and herd-girl threaded the town, where were many jongleurs, and many women with them lacking church’s link. They regarded the castle, and the Leopard banner above it. “Richard, Richard!” said the herd-girl, “I hope that a manner of things are true that I have heard of you!”
They came to the west gate and left the town by it. Immediately, when they were without the walls, they saw in the vale beneath groves of now leafless trees and, surrounded by these, the Abbey of the Fountain. Jael the herd stood still, gazing upon it. “I had a friend—one whom I liked well, and who liked me. Now she is abbess here—the Abbess Madeleine! Let us go down to the Abbey of the Fountain, and see what we shall see.”
They went down to the vale. Great trees stretched their arms above them. A stream ran diamonds and made music as it went. Now there came to Garin the deep sense of having done this thing before—of having gone with the Princess Audiart to a great house of nuns—though surely she was not then the Princess Audiart.... He ceased to struggle; earthly impossibilities seemed to dissolve in a deeper knowledge. He laid down bewilderment and the beating to and fro of thought; in a larger world thus and so must be true.
Passing through a gate in a wall, they were on Abbey land, nor was it long before they were at the Abbey portal. Beggars and piteous folk were there before them, and a nun giving bread to these through the square in the door. Garin and Audiart stood aside, waiting their turn. She gazed upon him, he upon her.
“Came you ever to a place like this,” she breathed, “in green and brown before?”
“I think that it is so, Jael the herd.”
“A squire in brown and green?”