“Not I!”
“Fief by fief,” said Gaucelm, “Roche-de-Frêne was built, now by conquest and now by alliance. If I have no son, you are my heir. There is a bell that rings in all men’s ears. Make for your heir betimes a prudent marriage, adding land to land, gold to gold!”
“Does it ring so joyously in your ears? It does not ring joyously in mine. No, nor with a goodly, solemn sound!”
“It is the world’s way,” said the prince. “I do not know if it is the right way.”
The Princess Audiart watched the dove, iris against the morning sky, then turned, full face, to her father. “I am not fair,” she said. “Men who want just that will never want me. It seems to me also that I am not loving. At times, when I listen to what they say, I want to laugh. I can see great love. But it seems to me that what they see is not great love.... Well, but we marry without love! Well, it seems to me that that is very irksome!—Well, but you may have a knight to love, so that it be courtly love and your lord’s honour goes unhurt! Well, it seems to me that that is children’s love.—I wish not to marry, but to stay here and learn and learn and learn, and with you rule and serve Roche-de-Frêne!”
In the distance a horn was winded. The mounting sun struck strongly upon the roofs of Roche-de-Frêne. The dove spread its wings and flew down to its cote. Voices and a sound of trampling hoofs came from the court, and a nearer trumpet blew.
“Time and the mind have wings,” said Prince Gaucelm, “and it is not well to look too far into the future!” He rose from his chair. “Load not the camel and the day too heavily! Let us go now and watch the knights joust.”
The tournament was held without the walls, in a long meadow sunk like a floor between verdant slopes of earth. At either end were pavilions, pitched for those who jousted. Midway of the lists appeared a wreathed platform, silken-canopied, built for the great. Right and left of this space of honour was found place for men-at-arms and castle retainers, and likewise for the magistrates of the town and the more important burghers. But on the other side of the lists there were slopes of turf with out-cropping stones and an occasional well-placed tree, and here the town poured out its workers, men and women. The crowd was cheerful. There surged a loud, beating sea of talk. Up and down and across sprang glitter and light, with sharp notes of colour. Squires and men-at-arms, heralds and pages gave their quota. Nor did there lack priest and pilgrim,—and that though the Church thundered against tournaments,—Jew, free-lance and travelling merchant, jongleur and stroller. All was gay beneath a bright blue sky, and esquires held the knights’ horses before the painted pavilions.
The trumpets blew, and out of the castle gates and down the road cut in the living rock came the great folk. When they reached the meadow and the gallery built for them, and when presently all were seated, it was like a long bank of flowers, coloured glories. At each end of the lists waited twenty knights in mail with painted surcoats. Between, over the green meadow, rode and staidly consulted the marshals. Horses neighed, metal jingled, the folk laughed, talked, gesticulated, now and then disputed. Jongleurs picked at stringed instruments, trumpeters made a gay shower of notes. Towers and battlements closed the scene, and the walled town spread upon the hill-top.
The prince did not tilt, but the duke had granted that during the day he would splinter one lance. His pavilion was therefore pitched, his shield hung before it, and two esquires walked up and down with a great black stallion. Now, with Stephen the Marshal and with his own knights, he left the gallery of honour and went to arm himself. Edging the lists ran a pathway, wide enough for two horsemen abreast. A railing divided it from the throng. As the duke and his party passed along this road, the crowd, suddenly learning or conjecturing that here was the lord in whose honour was planned the tournament, craned, many-headed, that way. It was very important to know if this lord were going to wed the princess! There were townsmen who had caught the word and called her the ugly princess. As yet they did not know much about her, though they saw her ride through the streets with her father, and that she looked at the people not with haughtiness but attentively. Of Alazais they were proud. Merchants of Roche-de-Frêne, when they travelled far away and there insinuated the praises of home, bragged of the beauty of their lord’s wife. Her name was known in Eastern bazaars.—But if there was to be a marriage it was important, and important to know the looks of the bridegroom.