Prince Gaucelm rose, the Venetian with him, and crossed to Alazais’s side. The girl of the silken cushion had ended her story. The jongleurs distant in the hall began to play viol, lute and harp. “Let us go hearken,” said the princess; and, quitting the chess-table, went to sit beside her step-dame. She had affection for Alazais, and Alazais for Audiart. Stephen the Marshal followed. All drew together to listen to sung poesy.
A favourite jongleur had come forward, harp in hand. He was a dark, wiry, eastern-appearing man, fantastically dressed in brown dashed and streaked with orange. When he had played a dreamy, rich, and murmuring air, he began to sing. He sang well, a fair song and one that was new to a court that was gracious and hospitable to songs.
“Ah, that goes,” said the Princess Audiart, “like the sea in June!”
“It is like a chanson of Bernart de Ventadorn’s,” said Alazais, “and yet it is not like him either. Who made it, Elias?”
“It may have a sound of the sea,” answered Elias, “for it came over the sea. I got it from a palmer. He had learned it at Acre, and he said that, words and music, the troubadour, Garin de l’Isle d’Or, made it there.”
“Oh, we have heard of him! Knights coming back have told us—But never did we hear his singing before! Again, Elias!”
Elias sang. “It is sweet.—The Fair Goal!”
A day or two later, in this hall, the Princess Audiart sat beside her father upon the dais, the occasion a hearing given to the town of Roche-de-Frêne. There was another than Roche-de-Frêne to be received and hearkened to, namely an envoy, arrived the evening before, from Savaric, Count of Montmaure. But the town came first, at the hour that had been set.
The hall presented a different scene from that of the other night. Here now were ranged the prince’s officers of state, the bailiff-in-chief, executives of kinds. At the doors were ushers and likewise men-at-arms. Men of feudal rank stood starkly, right and left of the dais. Others of the castle population, men and women, who found an interest in this happening, watched from the sides of the hall or from the musicians’ gallery. Below the dais sat two clerks with pens, ink, sandbox, and parchment. Before it, in the middle portion of the hall, were massed fifty of the citizens of Roche-de-Frêne.
The Princess Audiart sat in a deep chair, her arms upon its arms. She was dressed in the colour of wine, and the long plain folds of her robe and mantle rested the eye. Her throat was bare, around it a thin chain of gold and a pear-shaped ruby. The thick braids of her hair came over her gown to her knee. Between the dark waves, below a circlet of gold, showed her intent and brooding face.