The ravaging of the dragon was becoming in Roche-de-Frêne an old thought. Throughout the winter the Princess of Roche-de-Frêne and the able people of her lands laboured to redeem well-being and the conditions of growth. Plan and better plan, faint success and greater success; and now when the spring was coming, good ground beneath the feet! The land began to smile. The town of Roche-de-Frêne, the cathedral and the castle felt the warmth. Bishop Ugo preached the Easter sermon, and he preached a mighty and an eloquent one. You felt lilies and roses come up through it.
Ugo had said at Christmas-tide that he had never doubted the triumph of the right. Questioned at Candlemas, though very gently, by one of the hyperbold, he had answered gravely that Father Eustace, in confession, had acknowledged that he was not certain as to whether Our Blessed Lady of Roche-de-Frêne had indeed spoken to him. Pride had been in his heart, and the demon himself might have taken dazzling form and spoken! Father Eustace for penance had been sent, barefoot and dumb, to a remote monastery where in his cell he might gain true vision. Easter-tide, Bishop Ugo flowered praise of Roche-de-Frêne’s princess. That great lady took it with her enigmatical smile.
In the castle-garden Alazais watched the crocus bloom, the hyacinth and the daffodil. Gilles de Valence sang to her, and sometimes Raimon de Saint-Rémy, or, when no troubadour was there, Elias of Montaudon was brought upon the greensward to sing other men’s verses. Knights came and went. Her ladies made a bright half-ring about her, and she and they and the knights and poets discussed the world under the star of Love.
Sometimes Audiart came into the garden, but not often. There was much that yet was to be done.... She was oftener in the town than in the castle, often away from both, riding far and near in her domain, to other towns and villages and towers. But as the spring increased and the green leaves came upon the trees, order was regained. The sap of life returned to the veins that had been drained, time and place knew again hope and power. The princess looked upon a birthland that had lifted from a pit, and now was sandalled and ready for further journeying. She came oftener now to the garden, and at night, from her chamber in the White Tower, she watched the stars.
In the town whose roofs lay below her, the craftsmen were back at their crafts. Again they were dyeing scarlet and weaving fine webs and working in leather and wax and metal and stone. Merchant and trader renewed their life. Roche-de-Frêne once more hummed as a hive that produced, not destroyed. It produced values dense and small, but so it learned of values beyond these. Presently the old talk of liberty would spring up, not feared by this princess. When, in late April, she held high court and a great council, Thibaut Canteleu—Master Mayor, clear-eyed and merry—sat, with two of the town’s magistrates, in the council chamber.
On the eve of that council Stephen the Marshal spent an hour with the princess. She made him sit beside her in the White Tower; she spoke to him at length, in a low voice telling a story. Stephen listened with his eyes held by hers, then, when she kept silence, bowed his face upon his hands and sat so for a time. At last he raised his head. “Mine is a plain mind, my Lady Audiart,—only a faithful one! There are many good words, and ‘friend’ is a right good word, a high knight among them, and ‘friendship’ is a noble fief. I take ‘friend’ and ‘friendship’ for my wearing and my estate, my Lady Audiart—aye, and I will wear them knightly, not cravenly, with a melancholy heart! Friend to you and friend to him, and Saint Michael my witness! loyal servant to you both.”
“Stephen, my friend,” answered the princess, “you say true that great liking is a great knight, and lasting friendship is a mighty realm! It plants its own happiness in its own fields.”
She rose, and standing with him at the window, spoke of old things, old long memories that they had in common, spoke of her father, Gaucelm the Fortunate.
The next day she held council, sitting on the dais robed in blue, a gold circlet upon her head, facing her barons and knights-banneret, churchmen who held lands from her, and leaders of the townsmen. That which she had to lay before them was the matter of her marriage....
At Castel-Noir the dark fir trees wore emeralds. The stream had its loud spring music. Nor Foulque nor Garin had been idle through the winter. Back to the black tower and the hamlet had come their men who had fought at Roche-de-Frêne—Foulque’s men and the men who had come with Garin from the land over the sea. Houses had to be built for these—more fields ploughed and planted. Stables had to be made larger. The road was bad that led from the black tower to the nearest highway; it was remade. When spring came Castel-Noir was in better estate than ever before. Garin spoke of what manner of priest they should bring in—and of some clerk who might be given a house and who could teach.