“Hath he so?” exclaimed Raimbaut. “He is the more to my liking!—So the abbot will let Count Savaric take him?”
The abbot put his fingers together. “I will do nothing,” he said, “that will imperil the least interest of Holy Mother Church. I will never act to the endangering of one small ornament upon her robe.”
Raimbaut made a sound like the grunt of a boar. Foulque covered his face with his hands.
“But,” pursued the abbot, “kin is kin, and in the little, narrow lane that is left me I will do what I can!” He spoke to Raimbaut. “Has Count Savaric bands out in search of him?”
“Aye. They will look here as elsewhere.”
Garin stood forth. Above his eye was a darkening mark, sign of Raimbaut’s buffet. It was there, but it did not depreciate something else which was likewise there and which, for the moment, made of his whole body a symbol, enduing it to an extent with visible bloom, apparent power. For many hours there had been an inward glowing. But heretofore to-day, what with Foulque and Abbot Arnaut and disputes, anxieties, and preoccupation, it had been somewhat pushed away, stifled under. Now it burst forth, to be seen and felt by others, though not understood. Anger and outrage at that knight’s false accusation helped it forth. And—though Garin himself did not understand this—that glade in the forest toward Roche-de-Frêne, and that lawn of the poplar, the plane, and the cedar by the Convent of Our Lady in Egypt, that Tuesday and that Thursday, came somehow into contact, embraced, reinforced each the other. Aware, or unaware, in his conscious or in his unconscious experience, there was present a deep and harmonious vibration, an expansion and intensification of being. Something of this came outward and crossed space, to the others’ apprehension. They felt bloom and they felt beauty, and they stared at him strangely, as though he were palely demigod.
He spoke. “Brother Foulque and Lord Raimbaut and Reverend Father, let me cut this knot! I must leave Castel-Noir and leave my Lord Raimbaut’s castle, and I must take my leave without delay. That is plain. Plain, too, that I must not go in this green and brown that I wore when I fought him! Sicart can find me serf’s clothing. When it is night, I will quit Castel-Noir, and I will lie in the fir wood, near the little shrine, five miles west of here. In the morning you, Reverend Father, pass with your train. The help that Foulque and I ask is that you will let me join the Abbey people. They have scarcely seen me—Sicart shall cut my hair and darken my face—they will not know me. But do you, of your charity, bid one of the brothers take me up behind him. Let me overtravel in safe company sufficient leagues to put me out of instant clutch of Count Savaric and that noble knight, Sir Jaufre! I will leave you short of the Abbey of Saint Pamphilius.”
“And where then, Garin, where then?” cried Foulque.
“I will go,” said Garin, “toward Toulouse and Foix and Spain. Give me, Foulque, what money you can. I will go in churl’s guise until I am out and away from Montmaure’s reach. Then in some town I will get me a fit squire’s dress. If you can give me enough to buy a horse—very good will that be!” He lifted and stretched his arms—a gesture that ordinarily he would not have used in the presence of elder brother, lord, or churchman. “Ah!” cried Garin, “then will I truly begin life—how, I know not now, but I will begin it! Moreover, I will live it, in some fashion, well!”
The three elder men still stared at him. Mature years, advantageous place, bulked large indeed in their day. A young Daniel might be very wise, but was he not young? A squire might propose the solution of a riddle, but it were unmannerly for the squire to take credit; a mouse might gnaw the lion’s net, but the mouse remained mouse, and the lion lion. The Abbot of Saint Pamphilius, and Raimbaut the Six-fingered, and Foulque the elder brother looked doubtfully at Garin. But the air of bloom and light and power held long enough. They devised no better plan, and, for the time at least, their minds subdued themselves and put away anger and ceased to consider rebuke.