"You think much of this man?"
"I do indeed, my Lord."
"Then I will give him a commission, but it shall not be the building of a Cathedral. I have made compact with my brother of Treves, Arnold von Isenberg, too long estranged from me. We are more like to find ourselves engaged in tearing down than in building up. Let your architect then design for me a large tent, one that will hold a hundred men while seated at dinner, or five hundred, with tables removed, to hear Mass. Let the tent be well proportioned, for in that lies architectural skill. Its ornamentation will give little scope to a dull man and much to one who is ingenious. Draw what money is needed from the Treasury for its construction, and see that the sum be ample, so that your architect may have fair recompense, and that I may not be ashamed of my tent, for within it shall the Archbishop of Treves meet me in conference. Have the tent made ready as soon as possible, for I know not the day I may need it, and in the building of it let your fellow remember that the beauty of a tent is that it bears transportation well, being not over bulky, and that it is erected quickly and stands firmly in a storm."
Thus came the large tent, made in Cologne, to be placed on the heights of Bieldenburg over the Moselle, with Meister Gerard himself superintending its erection.
The floor had been constructed of flattened timber, bedded in the cement used for the building of castles, which when hardened was more difficult to break than the stones it bound together. Over this was laid Eastern cloths, soft in touch to the foot, and pleasing in colour to the eye. When the tent was erected, Meister Gerard waited eagerly until the sun rose next morning, so that he might persuade Ambrose to ask the Archbishop's criticism of the work now completed that he might thus obtain an opportunity to speak with the great ecclesiastic, on whom the architect felt his future depended. Gerard saw the envoys depart on their mission to the castle, and, early as it was, he also saw Konrad von Hochstaden, the monk Ambrose by his side, walking to and fro before the Archbishop's residential tent. The great audience pavilion stood alone, one end facing the east, as any erection intended for the use of two Princes of the Church should stand. To the north of it was the cluster of tents occupied by Konrad and the numerous attendants who waited upon him. To the south was a similar village belonging to the Archbishop of Treves, each village being at the point nearest the city from which its master took his title. The trumpets were blaring before Castle Thuron when Ambrose induced the Archbishop to inspect the new tent. He stood within it and gazed about him, while the architect, near by, waited for a word of approval or condemnation.
"You have given us no ornamentation," said Konrad at last.
"The ornamentation, my Lord, is largely in its correct proportion; nevertheless, I have ventured on a touch of colour which may be seen, or not, at your Lordship's pleasure."
"Let us behold it, then."
The architect gave a signal to two workmen who waited at the western end of the tent, and they, by the pulling of cords, rolled up an inner screen. There was disclosed a picture wrought in many coloured silks, deftly sewn together, representing the arms of Cologne and Treves in juxtaposition. The light shone through the scheme of colour from the outside, and the richness of the painting stood out with the more distinctness that the whole interior of the tent was of one subdued hue of white.
"That is most ingenious," the Archbishop was pleased to say, to the architect's gratification. "We will have it remain so."