CHAPTER XV
SAINT MARTHA’S WELL
THE Princess Audiart crossed the river that made a crescent southand east of the town,—her errand, to see how went the defences onthat side. Two stout towers reared themselves there, commanding theriver-bank, guarding the bridge-head. Beyond the towers workmen ingreat numbers deepened a fosse, heaped ramparts, strengthened walls,and in the earth over which Montmaure must advance planted sharpenedstakes and all gins and snares that the inventive mind might devise. Tohold this bridge was of an importance!—South and east stretched theyet unharried lands and the roads by which must come in food for thetown, the roads by which it might keep in touch with the world without,the roads by which might travel succour!
The day was a blaze of light, a dry and parching heat. The river ranwith a glitter of diamonds. The stone of the many-arched bridge threwback light. The hill of Roche-de-Frêne, the strong walls, the townwithin them, the towered, huge church, the castle lifted higher yet,swam in radiance. They lost precision of outline, they seemed lot andpart of the daystar’s self.
With the princess there rode three or four of her captains. Clearingthe river they must turn their horses aside, out of the way of amultitudinous, approaching traffic that presently, embouching upon thebridge, covered it from parapet to parapet. Noise abounded. A herdof cattle came first, destined, these, for the slope of field andmeadow between the stream and the town walls. Wagons followed—manywagons—heaped with provision and drawn by oxen. They held grain inquantity, fodder, cured meat, jars of oil, dried fruit, pease andbeans, whatever might be gathered near and far through the land. Theycame, a long line of them, creaking slow, at the head of the oxensometimes a man walking, oftener a lad or a woman. They kept theprincess and those with her in the glare of the sun. A knight spokeimpatiently. “They creep!”
“They creep because they are heavily laden,” said the princess. “Let usthank our Lady Fortune that they creep!”
The wagons gave way to a flock of sheep, bleating and jostling each theother. Followed swine with their herd, goats, asses bearing panniersfrom which fowls looked unhappily forth, carts with bags of meal,a wide miscellany of matters most useful to a town that Montmaureproposed to besiege—with Aquitaine behind him! The princess noted all.The stream flowed by her orders, and her mind appraised the store thatwas adding itself this morning to the store already gathered in townand castle. She turned her horse a little and gazed afar over thegreen and tawny country.
Out of the sheen of the day came from another direction a stragglingcrowd. Nearer at hand it resolved itself into a peasant horde—afew men neither strong nor weak, but more very aged men, or sick orcrippled, many women from young to old, many children. They also hadcarts, four or five, heaped with strange bits of clothing and householdgear. Lying upon these were helpless folk—an old, palsied man, a womanand her day-old babe. They came on with a kind of deep, plaintivemurmur, like a wood in a winter blast.
“Ah, Jesu!” said the princess. “More driven folk!”
As they came near she pushed her horse toward them, bent from hersaddle, questioned them. They had come from a region where Montmaurewas harrying—they had a tale to tell of an attack in the night and aburned village. Unlike many others, these had had time to flee. Whenthey found themselves upon the road, they had said that they would goto Roche-de-Frêne and tell the princess, the prince being dead.
“Aye, aye!” said the princess. “Poor folk—poor orphans!”
She gave them cheering words, then sat as in a dream and watched themfaring on across the bridge and up the climbing road to the town gate.
There spoke to her one of her captains, a grey, redoubtable fighter.“My lady, you are not wise to let them enter! In the old siege yourgreat-grandfather let not in one useless mouth!”
“Aye!” said the princess. “When I was little I heard stories from mynurse of that siege. A great number died without the walls. Men, women,and children died, kneeling and stretching their arms to the shutgates!—That was my great-grandfather. But I will not have my harriedfolk wailing, kneeling to deaf stone!—Now let us ride to see thesebarriers.”
The day was at the crest of light and heat when with her followingshe recrossed the bridge, rode up the slope of summer hill, and in atthe gate of the town called the river-gate. Everywhere was a movementof people, a buzzing sound of work. The walls of Roche-de-Frêne werestrong—but nothing is so strong that it cannot be strengthened!Likewise there were many devices, modern to the age or of an advancedefficiency. The princess had sent for a master-engineer, drawing himwith rich gifts to Roche-de-Frêne. The town hummed like a giant hive,forewarned of the strong invader. Prince Gaucelm lay in the crypt underthe cathedral. At night the horizon, north and west, burned red to showthe steps of Montmaure. Over there, too, was Stephen the Marshal with ahost—though with never so great a host as had Montmaure whom Aquitaineaided. In the high white light and dry heat Roche-de-Frêne, town andcastle, toiled busily. The castle looked to the town, the town lookedto the castle. In the town, by the walls, were gathered master-workmanand apprentice, not labouring to-day at dyeing and weaving andsaddlery, at building higher the church-tower; labouring to-day atthickest shield-making; studying to keep out sack and fire, death andpillage, rape and ruin, studying to keep out Montmaure.
Thibaut Canteleu was mayor, chosen by the town last spring. He made theround of the walls with the princess. “By all showing,” said Thibaut,“the walls are greater and stronger than in the old siege.”
“Not alone the walls,” the princess answered.
“You are right there, my Lady Audiart! We are more folk and stronger.We begin this time,” said Thibaut, “well-nourished, and, after a mannerof speaking, free. Also, which is a very big thing, liked and liking.”
“I would, Thibaut Canteleu, that my father were here!”
“Well, and my lady,” said Canteleu, “I think that he is. My father,rest his soul! was a good and a bold man, and, by the rood, I thinkthat he is here—only younger and something added!”
The princess stayed an hour and more by the walls, moving from pointto point with the captains and directors of the work. At one place acompany of men and women were seated, resting, eating bread, salad, andcheese, drinking a little red wine. She asked for a bit of bread andate and drank with them.
A child clung to its mother’s skirt, hiding its face. “It’s theprincess—it’s the princess—and I have not on my lace cap, mother!”
Audiart smiled down on her. “I like you just as well without!” Shetalked with the workers, then nodded her head and rode on.
“Aye,” said Canteleu beside her. “This is such a tempered town asJulius Cæsar or King Alexander might have been blithe to have aboutthem!”
The princess studied him, walking by the bridle of her white Arabian.“What would you do, Thibaut Canteleu, if I gave you Montmaure for lord?”
Thibaut looked at Roche-de-Frêne spread around them, and then looked atthe sky, and then met, frank and full, the princess’s eyes with his ownblack ones.
“What could we do, my Lady Audiart? Begin again, perchance, where webegan in your great-grandfather’s time. Give us warning ere it happen!So all who love freedom may hang themselves, saving Count Jaufre thetrouble!”
“It will not happen,” said Audiart. She, too, looked at Roche-de-Frêne,and looked at the sky. When she had made the round of the walls, sherode through the street where the armourers and weapon-makers workedat their trade more busily than in the days of peace, and to thequarter where the fletchers worked, and to the storehouses where wasbeing heaped the incoming grain and other victual. Everywhere reignedactivity. Roche-de-Frêne contained not alone its own citizens,together with the castle retainers, the poor knights, the squires, thepeople of vague feudal standing and their followers whom ordinarily itlodged, but in at the gates now, day by day, rode or walked fightingmen. There mustered to the town and the crowning great pile of thecastle lords and knights, esquires and mounted men and footmen. Men wh
oowed service came, and in lesser numbers free lances came. And all thegreat vassals that entered had kneeled in the castle hall, before thePrincess Audiart, and putting their hands between hers, had taken herfor their liege lady. Where had reigned Gaucelm reigned Audiart.
Each day, before she recrossed the castle moat and went in at the greatgate between Red Tower and Lion Tower, she would go for a little timeto the cathedral. She rode there now, knights about her. The whiteArabian stopped where he was wont to stop. Dismounting, she passed thetremendous, sculptured portal and entered the place.
Within abode a solemn and echoing dimness pointed with light. Therewere a score of shadowy, kneeling folk, and the lights of the shrinesburned. The pillars stood like reeds in a giant elder world. Thinladders of gold light came down between them. Obeying the princess’sgesture, the two or three with her stayed their steps. She went aloneto the chapel of Our Lady of Roche-de-Frêne. Here, between the Saracenpillars, before the tall, jewelled Queen of Heaven, before the lampsfed with perfumed oil, lay a great slab of black stone. The PrincessAudiart knelt beside it, bowed herself until her forehead felt thecoldness....
She bent no long while over Gaucelm the Fortunate, lying still in thecrypt below. Sorrow must serve, not rule, in Roche-de-Frêne! Before sherose from her knees and went, she lifted her eyes to the image in bluesamite, with the pierced heart and the starry crown. But her own heartand mind spoke to something somewhat larger, more nearly the whole....She quitted the cathedral, and mounting her Arabian, turned with herfollowing toward the castle heaped against the sapphire sky.
Riding that way, she rode by the bishop’s palace, and in the flaggedplace, beside the dolphin fountain, she met Bishop Ugo. He checkedhis mule by the spraying water, those with him attending at a littledistance.
“Well met, my Lord Bishop!” said Audiart. “I have wished to takecounsel with you as to these stones. Here are five hundred fit forcasting upon Montmaure.”
Ugo regarded the fair space between fountain and palace. “Then havethem taken up, princess, and borne to the walls.” He left the subject.“Has there come any messenger from the host to-day?”
“No. None.”
“If there is battle,” said Ugo, “I pray the Blessed Mother of God thatthe right may win!”
He spoke with attempted unction. What was gained was more acid thanbalm.
The princess had a strange, hovering smile. “How may a man be assuredin this world,” she asked, “which of two shields is the right knight’s?”
Ugo darted a look. “How may a man?—May a woman, then?”
“As much, and as little, as a man,” answered the Princess Audiart. “MyLord Bishop, if Count Jaufre strikes down Roche-de-Frêne, will you wedhim and me?”
Ugo kept a mask-like face. “I am a man of peace, my Lady Audiart! Itbecomes such an one to wish that foes were friends, and hands werejoined.”
With this to think of, the princess rode through the chief street ofRoche-de-Frêne, the castle looming nearer and more huge with eachpace of the Arabian. Here was the deep moat and the bridge soundinghollowly; here the barbican, Lion Tower and Red Tower. She rode beneaththe portcullis, through the resounding, vaulted passage, and in thecourt the noblest knight helped her from her horse. She was dressed ina dull green stuff, fine and thin, with a blue mantle for need, andabout her dark hair a veil twisted turban-wise. Her ladies came to meether, silken pages and chamberlains stepped backward before her. Sheasked for Madame Alazais, and learning that she was in the garden, wentthat way.
Cushions had been piled upon a bank of turf in the shadow of a fruittree. Here reclined Alazais, beautiful as Eve or Helen, her ladiesabout her and Gilles de Valence singing a new-old song. Alazais’s facewas pensive, down-bent, her cheek against her hand—but here in theshade the day was desirable, with air enough to lift away the heat—andGilles’s singing pleased her—and the world and life must be supported!In her fashion she had felt fondness for the dead prince,—feltit now and still,—but yonder was death and here was life.... Asfor war in the land and impending fearful siege, Alazais held thatmatters might yet be compounded. Until this garden wall were batteredin, her imagination would not serve to show her this great castledeath-wounded. At the worst, thought Alazais, Audiart might wed CountJaufre. Men were not so hugely different....
The reigning princess came and sat beside her step-dame. “It is singingand beauty just to be here for a moment under this tree!” She shuther eyes. “To cease from striving and going on! To rest the wholeat one point of achieved sweetness, even if it were not very highsweetness—just there—for aye! It would tempt a god....”
The next day she rode westward from the town. Again the day was dry,with an intense and arrowy light. She rode with a small train somedistance into the tawny land, to a strong castle that, strongly held,might give Montmaure a check. She rode here to give wise praise,to speak to those who garrisoned it words of the most courageousexpectation. She ate with her train in hall, rested in the cool ofthe thick-walled room for the hour of extremest heat, spoke againwith feeling, wit, and fire to the knights and men-at-arms who mustdesperately hold the place; then, with her following, said farewell andgood-speed. She turned back toward Roche-de-Frêne, through the burned,high summer country.
The sun was in the western heaven. Tall cypresses by the road castshadows of immense length. There lay ahead a grove of pine and oak, acertain famous cold and bubbling spring, and a meeting with a lesser,winding road. “I am thirsty,” said the princess. “Let us draw rein atSaint Martha’s Well.”
Entering the grove, they found another there before them, athirst anddrinking of the well. A knight in a blue surcoat knelt upon the grassbeside the water and drank. His shield rested against a tree, he hadtaken off his helmet and placed it on the grass beside him, a squireheld his horse. As the princess and her train came to the well-side herose, stepped back with a gesture of courtesy. He had in his hand a cupof horn set in silver.
Several of those with the princess dismounted—one spoke to thestranger knight. “Fair sir, we have no cup! If you will be frank withyours—”
Garin stooped again to the water, rinsed and filled the cup, andcarried it to the side of the white Arabian. The princess took it,thanked him, and drank. Her eyes noted, over the rim of the cup, thecross, proclaiming that he had fought in Palestine. Below it, on thebreast of his blue surcoat, was embroidered a bird with outstretchedwings. She drank, returned the cup and thanked the knight. He wasdeeply bronzed, taller, wider of shoulder, changed here and changedthere from Garin the Squire. In his face sat powers of thought andwill that had hardly dwelled there so plainly years ago. She was notaware that she had seen him before. She saw only a goodly knight, andpossessing, as she did, wide knowledge of the chivalry within herprincedom, wondered whence he had come. She had viewed famed knightsfrom many a land, but she could not recall this traveller with hisembroidered bird.
She spoke to him with her forthright graciousness. “Fair sir, are youfor Roche-de-Frêne?”
“Aye,” said Garin. “I come from the host, bearer of a letter to theprincess from my lord Stephen the Marshal. If, lady, you are she—”
“I am Audiart,” said the princess, and held out her hand for the letter.
Garin bent his knee, took from his breast the letter wrapped in silk,and gave it. The princess drew off her glove, broke the seal andread, sitting the white Arabian by the murmuring spring. Those withher waited without movement that might disturb. Trees of the grovewhispered in the evening air, splashed gold from the sun lay here andthere like fairy wealth. The marshal wrote of ambushments, attacks,repulses, conflicts where Roche-de-Frêne had been victorious. But thetwo counts were together now, and the odds were great. New men had cometo them from Aquitaine. The host was great of spirit, and he, Stephenthe Marshal, would do his best. But let none be dismayed if there camesome falling back toward the town. So the frank marshal, a good generaland truth-teller.
The princess read, sat for a moment with her eyes upon the lightf
alling through the trees, then spoke, giving to her knights thesubstance of the letter. “So it runs, sirs! So the wheel turns andturns, and no mind can tell—But the mind may be courageous, though itknows not the body’s fortunes.”
She folded the marshal’s letter, put it within her silken purse, anddrew on her glove. She spoke to Garin. “How do they call you, sir? Areyou man of ours?”
“I am your man, lady. I am Garin, younger brother of Foulque ofCastel-Noir, and I am likewise called Garin of the Golden Island.”
“Ride beside us to the town,” said the princess, “and give tidings ofthe host.”
Garin mounted Noureddin. Rainier bore his helmet and shield. Thecompany left the grove for the open road. The road and all the earthlay in the gold of evening, and in the distance, lifted against theclear sapphire of the east, was Roche-de-Frêne. Garin rode besidethe princess and gave the news of the host. She questioned with keenintelligence, and he answered, it seemed, to her liking.
When she had gained what she wished, she rode for a time in silence,then, “I knew not that Foulque of Castel-Noir had a brother.”
“Years ago,” said Garin, “I took the cross and went to Palestine. Thissummer I came home and found the land afire. With two score men I leftCastel-Noir, and with them joined the marshal and the host.”
“He speaks of you in his letter and gives you high praise. It is LordStephen’s way to praise justly.”
“I would do my devoir,” said Garin.
Roche-de-Frêne lay before them. Castle and town and all the countryroundabout were bathed by a light golden and intense. “_Garin de l’Isled’Or_,” said the princess. “There is a troubadour named so—and hesang, too, in the land beyond the sea. Are you he?”
“Yes.”
“You sing of one whom you name the _Fair Goal_?”
“Aye, princess,” said Garin. “She is my lady.”
“Lives she in this land?”
“I know not. I have been in her presence but once—and that was longago. I think that she lives afar.”
“Ah,” thought the princess, “behold your poet-lover, straining andlonging toward he knows not what nor whom—save that it is afar!” Aloudshe said, “If we are besieged in Roche-de-Frêne brave songs, as wellas brave deeds, will have room.”
Turning to the south and then to the east they rode by the river and socame to the fosse, ramparts, and towers, guardians of the bridge-head,and then upon the bridge itself. Right and left they saw the gildedwater, in front the hill of Roche-de-Frêne, with, for diadem, thestrong town walled and towered, and high and higher yet, the mightycastle. The horses’ hoofs made a deep sound, then they were away fromthe bridge and climbing the road to the river-gate. A horn was winded,clear and silver. Now they were riding through the streets, filledwith folk. Garin thought of an autumn day, and looked at the tower ofthe cathedral, higher now than then.... The street climbed upward, thecastle loomed, vast as a dream in the violet light.
“The castle will give you lodging, sir knight,” said the princess.
Here was the moat, across it Red Tower and Lion Tower. Garin lookedup at the great blue banner, and then along the battlements to wherewaved the green of the garden trees. Again there flashed into mind thatautumn day, and that he had wondered if ever he would enter here, aknight, and serve his suzerain.