CHAPTER XXIII
CAP-DU-LOUP
THE giant was a Saint Christopher to Jael and Elias. He was great ofheight and bulk, feared for his strength and liked because of a broadsimplicity and good-nature, apparent when he was not angry or hot inthe midst of allowed slaughter and rapine. For the saffron cross andthe jongleur he proved, this day, the right convoy.
Cap-du-Loup had two hundred knights and a thousand fighting men.The knights’ encampment they did not approach; it lay to the west,neighbouring the Lord of Chalus’s quarter. But they went by, they wentbetween, the tents and booths of the thousand men.
These shouted to them, these stopped them, these ran from farthertents. “Game! Game!” Cap-du-Loup’s men cried. “Leveret! leveret!leveret!”—then saw the cross that the woman wore. It was a weaponto halt snatching hands, a spell to wither the lust in men’s eyes.And when the heat turned to cold, and where, as twice again happened,another zeal sprang up and there threatened stoning, came in thegiant’s voice and arm, making room for the jongleur’s voice and handupon the strings.... Thrice-guarded, the two from Roche-de-Frênethreaded the camp of Cap-du-Loup. It was noon now, and autumn sunshinethick about them. In broad day they passed the folds of the dragon,and then by a ruined house, cold and vacant as clay, they met withsuddenness Cap-du-Loup.
The giant was afraid. “Little Mother of God, take care of us!” he saidand caught his breath.
Cap-du-Loup was neither tall nor stout of build; he was rusty-red andsmall, but he could fright the giant, hold him knock-kneed. “What areyou doing, Jean le Géant, wandering with hellfroth such as these?”
Jean le Géant answered like a child, telling all the why and wherefore.
“Begone where you kennel!” said Cap-du-Loup, when he had made an end.“You two, who came from Burgundy, what talk is made there of this war?”
He sat on a stone in the noon light, behind him a black and brokenwall, and questioned the jongleur. He had looked once at the figurewrapped in frieze whereon was sewed a saffron cross. The womanseemed young, but the mantle was hooded, and that and the black hairastream about her face—She appeared dark as a Saracen and withoutbeauty, and the cross did put a ring about her and a pale, cold light... Cap-du-Loup, who came from Burgundy,—though that had neverinterfered with the sale of his services to any high-bidding foe ofBurgundy,—turned to the jongleur. “What talk is there?”
“Lord, as you know, the barons there have wars of their own! But Iplayed upon a time in a hall where afterwards I listened to the talk ofknights. It seemed to me that they inclined to Roche-de-Frêne. But whatdo I know?”
“Did any speak of me?”
“Lord, one was talking with a great merchant of Italy who was present.He said, ‘There is a bold captain of Burgundy, Gaultier Cap-du-Loup,with Montmaure. He had been wiser, methinks, to have taken his sword toRoche-de-Frêne! If Aquitaine drops off—’”
“Wait there!” cried Cap-du-Loup. “What colour did they give forAquitaine ceasing from us?”
“None, lord, that I heard. I heard no more,” said Elias, “for I wentout in the night to give my sister bread.”
“Jean the foolish giant has said that you went first from Limousin toOur Lady of Roche-de-Frêne. When were you in Roche-de-Frêne?”
“Lord, at Pentecost, before the siege began.”
“What did you think, jongleur, of that town and castle?”
Cap-du-Loup looked at what he spoke of, lifted before them, shimmeringin the light. Montmaure was attacking at the eastern gate. A noise asof dull thunder rolled over the plain.
“Lord,” said the jongleur, “there are fellows of my art, who, toplease, would say ‘a poor town and a trembling castle!’ But I thinkthat you are not such an one, but a man who greets with valiancy baretruth! To my apprehension, lord, it seemed a great town and a strongcastle.”
“It is God’s truth!” said Cap-du-Loup, who for two months had receivedno pay for himself nor for his men. “At Pentecost the old prince yetlived. Saw you Audiart?”
“Lord, it was said that she was at mass one day when we stood withoutthe church. When ladies and knights came forth some one cried,‘Audiart!’ and I saw her, as it were among clouds.”
“They say that she pays well and steadily.—Holy Virgin!” saidCap-du-Loup, “I would that Count Jaufre, who is to be her lord andhusband, would take ensample!”
He spoke in a barking tone, and grew redder and fiercer. His small eyeswithout lashes looked at Elias of Montaudon as though he had suddenlyremembered to call one to break the lute of the _fainéant_ and cudgelhim deep into the camp to wait on men who fought! But perhaps thejongleur’s remembering the words “bold captain of Burgundy,” or hisknowing character and that Cap-du-Loup was not afraid of false or true,saved lute and shoulders. Perhaps it was something else, wolves beingsoftened long ago by Orpheus. Or the giant’s stammered explanationbefore, frightened, he went away, may have worked, or the pale, coldlight about the woman have touched, to Cap-du-Loup’s perception, herbrother also. Perhaps it was something of all of these. However thatmay be, Cap-du-Loup stared at Roche-de-Frêne against the sky, and, notfor the first time of late, thought to himself that, all things beingequal and Montmaure less strong by certain divisions than was the case,then a man would be a fool to come into his service rather than intothat of the banner yonder! Then he somewhat lost himself, listening toCount Jaufre’s battering the town’s eastern gate.
Jael and Elias, standing in the shadow of the ruined house, listened,too, and with the eye of the mind saw the attack and the defenders....
Cap-du-Loup rose from his stone, spoke to the jongleur. “If I havepassed you, all shall pass you. If they stop you, tell them to comespeak with Cap-du-Loup!” With that, and with a wolf-like suddenness,both fierce and stealthy, he was gone.
Jael and Elias, in the shadow of the black wall, saw him one moment,then a cairn-like heap of stones came between.... It was after the noonhour; though it was late autumn the southern land blazed light. Intotheir ears came the rhythmic dash and recoil of the distant conflict,came, too, the nearer buzz and hum, the sharp, discrete noises of theencampment whose edge they had gained. They saw that they were upon itsedge, and that before them lay a road less crowded. This they took. Atfirst men were about them, but these had seen them with Cap-du-Loup anddisturbed them not. A trumpet blew and a drum was beat, and the FreeCompanions hurried to the sound. The two quickened their steps; theytook advantage; before the diversion of vision and attention was ended,they were clear of the camp of Gaultier Cap-du-Loup.
Right and left lay the host of Montmaure, but ahead was rough, sharp,and broken ground, where horsemen might not manage their horses anddisliked by men without steeds. Here was a bend of the brook SaintLaurent, and ground stony and sterile or ashen and burned over. Thedragon possessed the wide plain; he drew water from the stream wherehe wished it, but for the rest left unoccupied this northward-drawnrough splinter of the world.... The two saw an outpost, a sentinelcamp, but it was intent upon the crescendo of battle-sound pouring fromRoche-de-Frêne, and upon what might be the meaning of Cap-du-Loup’scalling trumpets. Jael and Elias slipped by, in the dry sunshine,beneath the brow of a hill, like a brace of tinted, wind-blown leaves.
After this they came into a solitude. It had not been always so, forhere the rough ground fell away, Saint Laurent bent his stream likea sickle, and once had been bright fields and graceful vineyards.Here had stood many small houses of peasants who had tilled theirfields, tended their vineyards, brought the produce and sold it toRoche-de-Frêne, trudging through life, often in the shadow and often inthe sun. Now death only lived and abode and, black-winged, visited thefields. All things were cut down, charred, and withered. The peoplewere gone, and where had been houses stood ruins.
The herd-girl sighed as she walked. Once the jongleur saw her weeping.
It lasted a long way, this black swath beneath the sun. It led them outof the dragon’s immediate field, away from his mailed and glitteringcoils. The dragon
lay well behind them, his eyes upon Roche-de-Frêne.Roche-de-Frêne itself, now, was distant.
But the venom of the dragon had been spread wherever his length hadpassed. Not alone here, by the brook Saint Laurent, but all around now,as far as the eye could see, stretched blackening and desolation. Allwas overcovered with the writing of war. The princess of the land hadceased to weep. She viewed ruin with the face of a sibyl.
In the mid-afternoon they came upon knights resting by a great stone,in a ring of trees with russet leaves. These hailed the jongleur andthe woman with him—when they saw what manner of penitent was thelatter they crossed themselves and let her stay without the ring,seated among stones some distance from it. But they and their squireslistened to Garin’s singing.
He sang for them a many songs, for when one was done they clamouredfor another. Then they gave him largesse, and would have constrainedhim to turn and go with them to the host of Montmaure, where wouldbe employment enough, since Count Jaufre nor no one else had manyjongleurs of such voice and skill! Though they knew it not, voiceand skill served him again when he turned them from constraining toagreement to let him go his way, on pilgrimage with her who sat amongthe stones. They made him sing again, and then, as all rested, theyasked questions as to the host through which he had come. He knew, fromthis dropped word and that, that they were knights of Aquitaine, ridingto join that same Jaufre.
With their squires they numbered but twelve in all. Food and wine weretaken from the lading of a sumpter mule and placed upon the ground.They gave the jongleur a generous portion, consented to his bearing tothe penitent of the cross, the Unfortunate his sister, portion of hisportion. Returned, he asked of one of the squires with whom he ate,where was Duke Richard? He was at Excideuil.
“They say,” said the jongleur, “that he and Count Jaufre laugh and sighin the same moment.”
“It was once so,” answered the squire and drank wine.
“Is’t not so now?”
The other put down the wine cup. “Did you make poesy, jongleur, as wellas you sing it, I could give you subjects! Songs of Absence, now. Songsof a subtile vapour called Difference, that while you turn your headbecomes thick and hard!—Perhaps they think that they yet laugh andsigh in the same moment.”
“One must be near a man to see the colour of his soul.”
“Aye, so!—The knight I serve—him with the grey in his beard—is ofRichard’s household.”
“I have sung in this court and sung in that,” said Elias of Montaudon,“but chances it so that never I saw Duke Richard!”
“He paints leopards on his shield—they call him Lion-Heart—he is goodat loving, good at hating—he means to do well and highly—but thepassions of men are legion.”
“I stake all,” said the jongleur, “on his being a nobler knight than isCount Jaufre!”
“My gold with yours, brother,” answered the squire, and poured morewine.
“And he is at Excideuil?”
“At Excideuil. He builds a great castle there, but his heart builds atgoing overseas and saving again the Holy Sepulchre!”
There was a silence. “He can then,” said Elias of Montaudon, “be soughtthrough the imagination.”
“I know not wholly what you mean by that,” said the squire. “But whenhe was made knight and watched his armour, he watched, with othermatters, some sort of generosity.”
The sun poured slanting rays, making the world ruddy. The knights,having rested and refreshed themselves, would get to horse, press on soas to reach the host before curfew. The ring beneath the tinted treesbroke. The squires hastened, brought the horses from the deeper wood.All mounted, turned toward the south and Montmaure.
“Farewell, Master Jongleur, Golden-Voice!” cried the eldest knight.“Come one day to the castles of Aquitaine!” Another flung him silverfurther than had yet been given.—They were gone. Almost instantlythey must round a hill—the sight of them failed, the earth betweensmothered the sound of their horses’ going, and of their own voices.Ere the sun dipped the solitude was again solitude.
Garin joined the princess where she sat among the stones. She sat withher chin in her hands, watching the great orb and all the scape ofclouds. “Did they tell you where Richard is to be found?”
“He is to be found at Excideuil. I spoke with a seeing man, and this iswhat he said.”
He repeated what had been said.
“So!” said the princess. “Let us be going.”
They walked until the red dusk had given way to brown dusk and darknesswas close at hand. She spoke only once, and then she said, “You alsoare a seeing man, Elias the Jongleur!”
A ruined wayside shrine appeared before them, topping a hill, clearagainst the pale, cold, remote purples and greens of the west.Their path mounted to it; they found all about it quiet and lonely.They talked until the sky was filled with stars, then they wrappedthemselves in their mantles and slept, stretched upon the yet warmearth.