[CHAPTER XXV]
RICHARD LION-HEART
The sun came up and lighted Angoulême, town and castle, hill and valley. Light and warmth increased. The town began to murmur like a hive, clack like a mill, clang and sound as though armourers were working. Angoulême had breakfast and turned with vigour the wheel of the day. The Count of Beauvoisin rode with a small following to the Abbey of the Fountain, to see his kinswoman the Abbess Madeleine. Duke Richard Lion-Heart did what he did, and felt what he felt, and believed what he believed, with intensity. He was as religious as an acquiescent thunderbolt in Jehovah’s hand. Where-ever he came, a kind of jewelled sunshine played about the branches, in that place, of the Vine the Church. It might shine with fitfulness, but the fitfulness was less than the shining. His vassals knew his quality; when they were with him or where his eye oversaw their conduct, the ritual of a religious life received sharpened attention.
The Abbey of the Fountain was a noble House of Nuns, known afar for its piety, scholarship, and good works. Richard, coming to Angoulême, had sent a gift and asked for the prayers of the Abbess Madeleine, whom the region held for nigh a saint. Offering and request had been borne by the Count of Beauvoisin, who was the Abbess’s kinsman. It was not strange in the eyes of any that he should ride again to the Abbey of the Fountain, this time, perhaps, with his own soul’s good in mind.
With him rode the knight who had come to the count’s house in Angoulême in the guise of a jongleur. That was not strange, either—if the knight were acquaintance or friend, and if some wolfish danger had forced him to become a fugitive from his own proper setting, or if romance and whim were responsible, or if he had taken a vow. Yesterday he had been a jongleur with a very golden voice. To-day he appeared a belted knight, dressed by the count, given a horse and a place in his train. He was called the “Knight of the Wood.” Probably it was not his true name. Chivalry knew these transformations, and upheld them as an integer in its own sum of rights. The knight would have a reason, be it as solid as the ground, or be it formed of rose-hued mist, solid only to his own imagination! For the rest, he seemed a noble knight. The count showed him favour, but not enough to awaken criticism, making others fear displacement.
All rode through the streets of Angoulême, in the bright keen day. Robert of Mercœur was neighbour of the Knight of the Wood, and looked aslant at him with an intuitive eye. They passed out by the west gate and wound down to the valley floor. It was no distance from the town to the Abbey of the Fountain; the latter’s great leafless trees were presently about them. The count with a word drew Garin to ride at his bridle-hand. The two or three following fell a little back. Beauvoisin spoke. “Richard says that he will be a week in Angoulême. But he knows not when his mood may change, and in all save three or four things he follows his mood.”
The Knight of the Wood looked east and south. “I will answer for there being a vision of many in extremity, and a wild heartbeat to win and begone!”
“‘Win.’—I know not, nor can you know as to that.”
“The schools would say ‘True, lord count!’ But there is learning beyond learning.”
They rode in silence, each pursuing his own thought. Beauvoisin rode with lifted head, gazing before him down the vista of trees, to where the grey wall closed it. Presently he spoke, but spoke as though he did not know that he was speaking. “We were within the prohibited degrees of kin.”