So presently, when all the people made a noisy procession to see the bridegroom and the bride to their high chamber, I did not go among them, but stole apart in the shadow and tarried there until the serving-folk had ceased their scurrying about and the house had grown quiet in its besotted sleep. Then I crept back to a dark corner by the great hearth where the stone was warm to the touch and whence I might see if any passed along the hall. I was all alone there with the drained goblets, the withering garlands, and the gutted torches, not a soul abroad, and not a sound save the breathing of the dormant stag-hounds by the hearth, or the faint disputes of the rats over the pasty fragments on the table.
Sitting thus, I would go hot of a flash and then cold just as sudden. Fear? No, by Our Lady, but this was the first time I had ever had a finger in such a pie as this now baking, and the strangeness of it made me tremble. But fear, pah! Besides I was in the right, and does that not make the just hand steady and the pious eye true? I took up my lute and touching the strings so gently that I myself could scarce hear, I sang, soft as summer wind at even, so softly that none, not even the great hounds heard.
Sang I:
The vision tender
Which thy love giveth me,
Still bids me render
My vows in song to thee;
Gracious and slender,
Thine image I can see,
Wherever I wend, or
What eyes do look on me.
Yea, in the frowning face
Of uttermost disgrace
Proud would I take my place
Before thy feet,
Lady whose aspect sweet
Doth my poor soul efface
Leaving but joy and grace
In me to meet.
Who shall deny me
The memory of thine eyes?
Evermore by me
Thy lithe white form doth rise,
If God were nigh me
Still, in so sure a wise
Quick might I hie me
Into His paradise.
Thus I sang to the memory of my true lady, for it was the last song our brave Renaud had made for her before he rode away to Terre Sainte. So when the song was finished I sat a long time still, taking counsel with my sad heart over the black past: how, four May-times ago, I had ridden blithely forth as singing page in my lady's train, when she left her own fair land of Aragon to be wedded to this grim Count Fael of the North; how from that time forth I had dwelt here in his castle, vassal to him only because he was lord to my liege lady, but fearing alway his stern face, that froze the laugh on the lips and made joyousness die, stillborn; how my sole happiness had been to serve my lady and sing her such songs as I made, and my grief to see her fair face fade and her grey eyes grow less laughing day by day. Then one morning had come this brave Renaud, Chatelain of far-off Coucy, seeming to bring in his eyes, his voice, his lute, all the merry Spring times we had missed. So he came often and often, teaching me the great art of song he knew so well; and we were all very happy. But bye-and-bye he came only when my lord was out a-hawking or to tourney, and then very quietly, but always with his lute and with song to my lady. I guessed well which way the wind was blowing, but surely the pitiful Virgin granted my lady, and justly, this one little hour of happiness. So it went on and on for a long time and it seemed that my lord was always away to hunt or to battle, and that when he came back the songs of Renaud of Coucy never ceased, but only changed their place, coming now by night under my lady's casement.
Then there was spread abroad through the land this great fire in all hearts to go to Terre Sainte and to deliver the holy Jerusalem of Our Lord from the curse of the Saracen hand, and our poor Renaud must feel himself among the first to go. So one sad morning at early dawn he had come under my lady's window and sung her that farewell which so filled my heart, and I had heard from my post in my lady's antechamber. But oh, Mother of God! so had my lord, who, being at home and sleepless, had risen betimes and was walking in the cool of the morning on a little pleasaunce next my lady's tower, and hearing the song, had looked unseen at the singer, had guessed the bitter truth, but had held his peace till a riper time.
From then we went on much as before Renaud had come to us, except that I sang his songs to my lady with all the art he had taught me, while she sat pale and fair, her hands idle on the tambour frame and her eyes looking on something far, far off. So for a long time there was no ill-hap, only my lady's eyes grew dreamier and dreamier and her thoughts dwelt less and less in this dark Castle of Fael, and she cared no longer to go a-maying in the pleasant meadows with her women. Then, one twilight, when my lord had been back from the hunt three days, and when there had been deep wassailing in the hall, and my lady had kept to her chamber the whole time—one twilight I stumbled over a dead man at the foot of the little-used stair to my lady's tower and, dragging the body to the light, found it to be Jaufré that had been aforetime esquire to Renaud. But why he should be lying here scarce an hour dead, here in fair France in this Castle of Fael under my lady's tower, when he might have been serving his master in all the blithe fighting in Terre Sainte,—I could not guess. But I raised not hue nor cry for, certes, there was some black mystery here; only wept silently and prayed mercy on his soul that had been so brave and so merry a fellow. After a while, when my eyes were less red, I went and mingled among the folk in the hall, where there was talk of how my lord had passed through to his chamber an hour ago, very pale and with the wine-fumes all cleared away, it would seem, and had let call the cook, who came back with something under his apron and looking as if he had seen a spirit, but dumb as a stone. Also, said they, my lord had commanded that he and my lady would sup alone in her great chamber, and that I only should serve them.
So presently I went up and served my lord and my lady where they sat at a little table alight with many tapers, like the shrine in the great church at Soissons, with the goblets and the silver dishes making a brave show among them. There was a strange air over it all, like the breathless moment in a tourney when the tucket has blown and the knights pause before giving spur. My lady, when she spoke at all, spoke in a voice as of some one stifling, but my lord said never a word and ate and drank but little, his eyes always on my lady's face. Bye-and-bye up came two little meat pasties, borne by the fat cook himself, who charged me with a certain one for my lady and another for my lord. I thought nothing whatever on this, for often there was special pasty made for my lady without hare's meat, which she disliked. So I served the pasties, and I remember the faint sweetness of her garments, like wind from apple-blossoms, and how yellow was her hair and how clear her face in the light of the many tapers. That course, too, they ate in silence, but before I could take away the dishes, my lord broke the stillness.