THIBAUT CANTELEU
“Who would risk never, risks ever,” said the Princess Audiart, and moving her rook, checked the marshal’s king.
Her cousin Guida, a blonde of much beauty, sitting watching the game, made a sound of demurral. The marshal’s hand hovered over a piece.
“Do not play courtly, Lord Stephen,” said the princess. “Play fairly!”
Whereupon Stephen pushed forward a different piece and, releasing his own king, put hers in jeopardy.
“Now what will you do, Audiart?” cried Guida. “You were too daring!”
“That is as may be,” answered the princess, and studied the board.
In the great fireplace of the hall beechwood blazed and helped the many candles to give light. It was Lenten tide and cold enough to make the huge fire a need and a pleasure. In the summer the floor had been strewn with buds and leaves, but now there lay upon it eastern cloths with bear-skins brought from the North. There were seats of various kinds,—settles or benches, divan-like arrangements of cushions. Knights and ladies occupied these, or stood, or moved about at will. So spacious was the hall that these and other folk of the court—pages, jongleurs, a jester with cap-and-bells, dogs, a parrot on a swinging perch, two chaplains in a corner, various clerkly and scholarly persons such as never lacked in Gaucelm’s court, two or three magnificently dressed people in the train of a Venetian, half merchant, half noble, and rich as a soldan, whom Gaucelm at the moment entertained—gave no feeling of a throng. The raised or princely part of the hall, in itself a goodly space, had quiet enough for rational converse, even for sitting withdrawn into one’s self, studying with eyes upon the fire matters beyond the beechwood flame.
Gaucelm the Fortunate, seated in his great, richly carved chair, talked with the Venetian. Some paces away, but yet upon the dais, Alazais held court. Between, the Princess Audiart played chess with Stephen the Marshal. The castle and town and princedom of Roche-de-Frêne and all that they held were seven years and some months older than upon that autumn day when the squire Garin had knelt in the cathedral, and ridden through the forest, and fought for a shepherdess.
The years had not made Alazais less beauteous. She sat in a low chair, robed in buttercup yellow richly embroidered and edged with fur. She held a silver ball pierced and filled with Arabian perfumes. The Venetian had given it to her, and now she raised it to her nostrils, and now she played with it with an indolent, slow, graceful movement of her white hands. About her were knights and ladies, and in front, upon a great silken cushion placed upon the floor, sat a slender, brilliant girl with a voice of beauty and flexibility and a genius for poetic narration. The court took toll of such a talent, was taking toll now. The damosel, in a low and thrilling voice and with appropriate gesture, told a lay of Arthur’s knights. Those around listened; firelight and candle-light made play; at the lower end of the hall a jongleur, trying his viol, came in at the pauses with this or that sweet strain.