[CHAPTER VIII]
TOURNAMENT
The next morning they heard mass in the castle chapel. The hour was early, the world all drenched with autumn dews. The prince and the duke and Alazais the Fair and Audiart, and behind them many knights and ladies, kneeled on the stone flooring between the sparks of the altar-lamps and the pink morning light. The chanted Latin rose and fell, the bell rang, all bent. In came a lance of sunlight and the vagrant morning breeze. Mass over, all flowed into the paved court. For to-day there was arranged in the duke’s honour, a splendid tourney. Many a good knight would joust—the duke also, it was said. Two hours, and the trumpets would sound. The court was glad when the great folk turned away with their immediate people, and the rest of the world could begin to prepare.
Prince Gaucelm did not tilt. When he was young he had proved himself preux chevalier. Now he was not so young, and his body weighed heavy, and all his striving was to be prud’homme. When he came to his chamber in the great donjon he dismissed from it all save a chamberlain and a page, and the latter he sent to the princess his daughter with a message that she might come to him now as she had asked. In as few minutes as might be she came.
There was a window looking to the east, over the castle wall and moat and forth upon the roofs of the town. The prince had here a great chair and a bench with cushions, and the princess was to sit upon the bench. Instead she came and stood beside him, and then slipped to her knees and rested her head against the arm of the chair. “My good father,” she said, “my wise father, my dear father, do you love me?”
“You know that I love you,” answered Gaucelm, and put his hand upon her head.
“If you do, then it is all safe.”
Gaucelm slightly laughed. In the sound was both amusement and anger. “But my guest the duke,” he said, “does not love you.”
“He loves me most vilely!” said the ugly princess with energy.