The two knights waited a little longer, sitting in silence. Then they, too, left the arbour, and, Rainier attending, went to the chamber that had been given. Here sleep came soon. But in the first light of morning Sir Aimar, waking, saw Garin standing, half-clothed, at the window.
“Aimar,” said Garin, “you must to Toulouse, for Count Raymond is your suzerain and Sir Eudes hath your promise that you follow no adventure until you have received lord’s leave. But for me that makes too long delay. I will ride on to Roche-de-Frêne.”
Sir Aimar sat upon the side of the bed. “I thought last eve that I saw the knight-errant look forth from your eye! Will you rescue this ugly princess?”
“Ugly or fair, she is a lady in distress—and Jaufre de Montmaure does her wrong.... Her father is my liege lord. I have had a vision too, of my brother Foulque, hard bestead. I cannot tarry to go about by Toulouse.”
Aimar agreed to that. “My father hath my promise.—But I will follow you as soon as I may. Pardieu! If what the Venetian said be true, every knight will be welcome!”
“I think that it was true.—Ha!” said Garin to himself, “I see again the autumn wood, and Jaufre de Montmaure who beats to her knees that herd-girl!”
The two knights, Garin and Aimar, left the town together, in the brightness of the morning. But a mile or two beyond the walls their ways parted. Their followers were divided between them—each had now two esquires and more than a score of men-at-arms. Each small troop came in line behind its leader. Then the two knights, dismounting, embraced. Each commended the other to the care of the Mother of God. They made a rendezvous; they would meet again, brothers-in-arms, as soon as might be. They remounted—each troop cried farewell to the other—Sir Aimar and those with him turned aside into the way to Toulouse.
Sir Garin waited without movement until a great screen of poplars came between him and his brother knight. Then he spoke to his courser, and with his men behind him, began to pursue the road to the country of his birth. As he travelled he saw in fancy, coming toward him on this road, Garin de Castel-Noir clad in a serf’s dress, fleeing from Montmaure, in his heart and brain hopes and fears, a welling-up of poesy, and the image of his lady whom he named the Fair Goal. Garin of the Golden Island, older by nigh eight years of time and a world of experience, rich, massy, and intricate, smiled on that other Garin and saw how far he had to travel—but without finding as yet the Fair Goal!