Part 8

Duke Baldwin's palace, look at it one way, hummed like a human hive. It was full of sounds from dawn till night--servants going and coming, minstrels bowing and thrumming, the rustle of women's dresses, the flutter of women's fans, the patter of pages' footsteps running on delectable errands, merry messengers of love, the ring of noble voices, the clink of noble swords. Here, there, and everywhere Duke Baldwin's presence loomed, jovial, ferocious, vehemently alive and blithe, making love to a dozen ladies with a whole heart, drinking a dozen wines with a clear head, voluble, jocular, a brawny image of the lusts of the flesh. He was very well content with the world, and would not have it other than it was. To indulge all appetites furiously without hurt or satiety, to play the prodigal host and to read the reward of his opulence in the admiring eyes of easy women, this was Duke Baldwin's simple ideal of existence. It was the ideal of many others, but few attained it as completely as the genial, truculent duke, for few had his length of purse and fewer his strength of body.

But just now Duke Baldwin had other causes for complacency and content than gluttonizing in all the passions. The presence of the Duchess of Thebes in his palace he had at first looked forward to as an experiment in the affections, and it had never occurred to him that he might have his own son as a rival. But now this was so, as it seemed, and yet Duke Baldwin was plainly satisfied and limber of spirit over the business. For when the Duchess Esclaramonde came riding up to his gates on that memorable evening and told him her strange tale, Baldwin was well content with the way of affairs. Here was his son's life saved by this great lady and neighbor, and here was his son's heart given to, and taken by, this same great lady, which meant the welding of Thebes and Athens in a common strength and a common splendor. Baldwin thought better of his son for a sensible choice, and was quite willing to forego dalliance with the duchess in consequence, the more readily, indeed, that a number of lovely, affable ladies had newly landed from Byzantium.

The duchess was all for a speedy wedding. Her brief term of widowhood was expired; she needed, she said, the prop of a man's arm, and the duke, grinning in his sleeve, was delighted to meet her wishes. As for Rainouart, he took his good-fortune with a curious apathy, which might have puzzled his parent if that parent ever troubled his mind about people's motives so long as their actions conformed to his idea of the precisely right. Whatever the duchess said Rainouart echoed. Recovered from his hurt, thanks to the deep sleep and easeful rest on the duchess's litter, he squired her pertinaciously, patently in love to all beholders, patently under the spell of her beauty: under the spell also of her ministrations, for she must needs continue to be his leech who had begun by being his rescuer, and she slyly plied him with philtres in his drink. So it was settled out of hand that the heir to the Duchy of Athens and the dame of the Duchy of Thebes should be married on the second day following the evening of their arrival in the city, and that all the pomp and ceremony of the joustings should be regarded as incidental and obsequious to the hurried nuptials.

Fernand Ximenes was sorely displeased at the news, but he protested pleasure with the best, persistently patient. Everybody else was hugely delighted, for this sudden marriage put the perfect top to all the jollity--it was the cream on the milk of mirth, the finest feather in the cap of happiness. Of course the opinions of the gentlefolk were the only opinions that counted, but in their obscurity the citizens of Athens made merry with the rest, for the waves of great folk's pleasure always carried some flotsam and jetsam to their humble thresholds. As for those dark subalterns of St. Nicholas, Captain Fox and Captain Gander, Captain Bat and Captain Chanticleer, Captain Rat and Captain Badger, they were neck-high in delights, and drank of the best daily and nightly in popular taverns, toasting bride and groom mellifluously, and thanking their saint and their stars that they by a storm and a strange voice were stayed from slitting the weasand of the son of Duke Baldwin the Beneficent.

On the morning of the marriage-day the great court-yard of Duke Baldwin's palace was a little world of many types and many nationalities. From the gallery of the palace the loveliest ladies of the court looked down upon the flower of the French chivalry below and named their names to new-arrived beauties, and told tales of them, not always without malice. The slender fellow with the yellow hair was Sir Guy de Hainault. The gallant with the brown curls who sat apart and nursed a lute upon his knee was Sir Jaufre de Brabant. That lean, dark, strenuous figure, his visage bronzed by Spanish suns, the man with something Moorish in his garb and accoutrements, was Fernand Ximenes, chief among the leaders of the Catalan Grand Company. The portly, florid man, no longer young but comely in his prime, who carried a white staff in his hand and moved hither and thither among the knights with cheerful greeting for each, was Count Ernault of Toulouse, Duke Baldwin's right-hand man and lord-marshal of the lists. The two who walked and talked together in the shade, talking very surely of women and deeds of war, were Sir Ambrose of Blois and Sir Raymond of Provence. The two who sat and diced upon a drum-head, with faces as grave as if every cast gave or took great slices of empire, were Demetrius, the vassal prince of Epirus, and Andronicus Palæologus, the great noble from Constantinople.

So the fair told their tale to the fair, and pointed out for admiration of the strangers the two huge soldiers who stood at guard inside the great gates of the court-yard. They were veritable giants, chosen by Baldwin--feeding his greed for the monstrous and excessive in all--for their extraordinary size and strength. They leaned upon such mighty battle-axes as were the familiar weapons of the Varangian Guard at Constantinople, and their duties were to open the great gates to every summons. Outside the gate a huge horn hung for any comer to wind who desired admittance. An ordinary knight was to sound the horn once; a baron was to wind it twice; a triple summons was the privilege of princes. Such was Duke Baldwin's etiquette, familiar to all his world. So the ladies laughed and chattered, eying the bright throng through which every now and then little shimmering pages or servants in heraldic colors picked their way, carrying hawks on wrist or hounds in leash, or bearing some message from lady to lord or from lord to lady. It was all as pleasant to witness as a pageant or a play in the bright, idle morning, and the babble of women's voices floated through the pellucid air like the chatter of starlings.

In the quietest corner of the court-yard, and in that court-yard quiet was indeed only a relative term, Sir Jaufre de Brabant, whose brown curls the ladies had praised, sat apart picking at the strings of a lute and humming to himself. Sir Jaufre considered himself, and was considered by many, to be the handsomest man in the service of Duke Baldwin. It was his wish, further, to be considered the gallantest, a wish fulfilled in the consideration and complaisance of many, and one of the jewels of his gallantry was his gift of song. He had been turning words this way and that way in his brain for some time on that spring morning, and at last it seemed from the smile on his face that he had turned them to some purpose that pleased him. Now he began to sing softly to himself, accompanying his song with little gentle touches on the lutestrings that wakened a plaintive melody. As he sang Sir Ambrose of Blois and Sir Raymond of Provence first paused in their walk and talk, then came near and listened, and in a little while Sir Guy de Hainault left his place and joined them. And this is what Sir Jaufre sang:

"He is the wisest in the world Who rides his road with flag unfurled, With heart unfetter'd from the care That love of ladies places there; With sword that knows no master's laws, But shines and strikes for any cause, To highest bidder blithely sold; Glory is good, but better gold, And as for ladies, fair or brown He finds who sacks a captured town."

As Sir Jaufre finished, Ambrose and Raymond beamed approval, but Guy of Hainault, the young, fair-haired knight with a face that was partly girlish and partly angelic, pierced the approbation with a sneer.

"I do not like your song, Jaufre," he said, and said it with as much sweetness as if he had been crowning Sir Jaufre with a wreath of golden laurel in the heart of hot Provence.

Sir Jaufre flushed and looked up angrily.

"That makes me no bad minstrel," he retorted, "but it argues you a fool."

Sir Guy de Hainault's face was imperturbable, his voice was placid as he answered, smoothly:

"Your music and your manners would mend with your health if I let you some fretful blood."

Sir Jaufre shrugged his shoulders.

"You talk like a barber," he said--"white and red nonsense."

Guy smiled on a gradually increasing audience, for Demetrius of Epirus and Andronicus Palæologus had quitted their dice to hear the argument.

"You sing like a screech-owl," commented Sir Guy. Stooping swiftly, he caught the lute from Sir Jaufre's hands, ran his fingers skilfully over the strings, and awakened a tender tune. Fernand Ximenes, stately as a cat in his Spanish gravity, leisurely added himself to the circle, watching the rivals sardonically. His coming seemed to stimulate Sir Guy's ambition to sing.

"Listen to me, friends," he challenged, and began:

"All lovely ladies everywhere, Whose eyes are blue or brown or gray, Whose manes of black or yellow hair Lead your poor lovers' hearts astray, Here on this mirthful morn of May, I turn to ye and make salute; And I would kiss you all to-day, Were all your lips one crimson fruit."

Every man of the little group applauded except Sir Jaufre, who yawned affectedly behind a languidly lifted hand.

"You mew too lewdly to be true," he asserted, contemptuously. "Your sincere kiss-winner has no leisure to sing of it."

Sir Guy made him an extravagant bow.

"Suave Sir Jaufre," he said; "smooth Sir Jaufre, by that count you should write red ballads of battles."

There came a faint laugh from some of the hearers, others raised their eyebrows and drew nearer. The war of wits promised to quicken. Count Ernault, coming from the palace and conference with Duke Baldwin, spied the excited group and drew nigh. As he came near he heard Sir Jaufre interrogate his critic.

"Your meaning?"

Sir Guy, still with the same air of extravagant respect, explained, syllabling, with laborious slowness:

"I mean that if I am no lucky lover you are no famous fighter."

Sir Jaufre propped his hand on his chin for a moment as one drowned in deep thought. Then his eyes travelled slowly along the little line of listeners.

"Who can tell me the Latin for 'braggart'?" he asked, meditatively.

There was a little silence. Scholarship was not a strong point of Duke Baldwin's companions. Then Fernand Ximenes, to end or extend the embarrassment, asked:

"Why the Latin?"

Sir Jaufre made a deprecating gesture.

"That it may serve for Guy's epitaph to-night," he interpreted.

Sir Guy laughed again very softly, swaying a little backward and forward, as one exceedingly amused.

"Do you think," he asked, "that any one will kill me to-night for killing you this morning?"

Sir Jaufre spoke again, not to Guy, but still to the constrained, attentive circle:

"I do not know the Latin for 'braggart,'" he said, thoughtfully, "but I know the French for 'fool.'"

"Why, so do I," Sir Guy agreed, instantly; "it is Jaufre de Brabant."

Every one of the hearers laughed at this, coming so crisp and pat, but Sir Jaufre sprang to his feet.

"Up sword, and out!" he cried, and drew his weapon.

Sir Guy as swiftly bared his blade, and it seemed for a moment as if to the many images of life the court-yard presented that of a battle to the death was to be added. Only for a moment, for instantly Count Ernault thrust his white staff of marshalship between the combatants.

"House your swords, gentlemen," he insisted, peremptorily. "Do you not know the day's law? There shall be no challenge taken, no quarrel honored in arms, save in the tourney and under the eye of Duke Baldwin. For to-day the duke's son marries the Duchess Esclaramonde of Thebes, and on such a day there may be no brawling; wherefore, close hands in amity."

Sir Jaufre sulkily calm, Sir Guy seraphically affable, extended each a hand, and clasped in sign of formal peace. The somewhat awkward silence that followed on this stifled brawl and seeming reconciliation was strangely interrupted. Outside the great gate came the clear sound of the note of a horn, which immediately attracted the attention of every man in the court-yard and every woman at the palace windows.

"What belated knight is this?" cried Ambrose of Blois, pleased at the interruption, for he liked both the disputants.

The lord-marshal shook his head.

"I thought that every expected knight was in the castle," he answered, and had hardly finished speaking when the horn was wound a second time.

"It is a baron's summons," Ximenes exclaimed, pleased to air his intimacy with Frankish etiquette, and on the heels of his exclamation came a third time, louder and clearer, the note of the great horn.

"By the Lord!" cried Count Ernault, "this is a prince's parley," and he turned to the giants at the gate.

XIII

THE KNIGHT OF ELEUSIS

"Open the gates," Count Ernault ordered, and the guardian giants obeyed. The great bolts were drawn, the great key turned in the lock, the great gates were flung apart. Every eye was turned towards the opening; every gazer expected to behold some splendid personage, some great prince in golden armor with his glittering retinue of men-at-arms. What the gazers saw was a tall, fair-haired youth with a shepherd's straw upon his head, with a shepherd's sheepskin bound about his body, with a shepherd's staff in his hand and a shepherd's pipe at his girdle. The knights stared in amazement as the shepherd advanced towards them confidently, with head held high and easy carriage. Behind the shepherd strode a burly, travel-stained soldier, with a huge sword at his thigh, a mighty cudgel in his fist, and a rusty lantern on his belt.

The first astonishment of the knights now translated itself into vehement laughter, which brought a faint flush to the shepherd's cheek and a deeper scarlet to the tanned face of the soldier. The amazement of the knights was as great as their entertainment, but both would have been a thousandfold greater if they could have guessed that the slender shepherd whose coming had so diverted them was in sooth a slender she-creature, a daughter of the forest. But the glamour of the woodland shone from Argathona's eyes, and the knights in the yard and the ladies on the gallery saw nothing but the simple shepherd. Argathona advanced towards Count Ernault where he stood resting on his white staff of office, and easily saluted him and his companions.

"Good-morrow, lords," she said, and the French lords marvelled, understanding her, and yet wondered vaguely how it came to pass that they did understand.

"A most sweet-voiced shepherd," Guy said to the knight Ambrose of Blois, who stood next to him.

Count Ernault answered the shepherd.

"Hail, young rustical; but we thought one of royal blood came to the tournament!"

"You thought rightly," Argathona answered. "I come to the tournament, and I am of royal blood."

Ernault looked earnestly into the beautiful face of the youth before him. Sir Jaufre de Brabant edged forward.

"Do you wrap your royal flesh in sheepskin?" he asked, with a ring of derision in his voice which did not escape Argathona.

"There be some lords," she answered, "whose best coat were the hide of a donkey; but for myself, though I walk in wool, I am of the ancientest, rarest race in Greece."

At this confident assertion, made with all the daring of youth, murmurs of surprise, amusement, and even of protest came from the listening knights. Sir Jaufre de Brabant shrugged his shoulders. Guy de Hainault moved a little nearer to the new-comer, studying the fair, unfamiliar face with whimsical good-humor. Andronicus Palæologus frowned, as it was his way to frown at any assertion of dignity which could by any means be twisted into a challenge of his supremacy. Fernand Ximenes narrowed his dark eyelids, scrutinizing the slender figure of the audacious youth, and estimating his possible value as a fighting-man to the Catalan Grand Company. The Prince of Epirus, whose vassaldom to Athens always galled him, gave something like a smile of greeting to the stranger who came at least unbidden to the court, and might in so far be taken as an enemy to Duke Baldwin. The French knights were, for the most part, frankly diverted by the defiance of a shepherd boy, but Count Ernault, always courteous and debonair in dealing with any man, king, captain, or shepherd boy who spoke him fair, addressed the youth with civility.

"Young sir," said Ernault, seriously, "that is a grave assertion. Within the walls of this palace are assembled all the high nobility of Greece. What claim have you to set your shield--if, indeed, you have a shield--among us?"

Argathona flung back her head, and her fair hair shone in the sunlight.

"You are great lords in a strange land," she said, proudly; "but my race have ruled in yonder woodland since the dawn of time, and Athens was built but yesterday in the history of our race. We keep apart, we princely foresters, but we are none the less proud. You may call me the Prince of Eleusis."

The courtly marshal was puzzled. Proud of his French descent, and indifferent to the ways of the people his master and his master's peers had come to govern, he knew nothing of the Grecian folk, and it very well might be that some lines lingered in those mountains which had, in their own estimation, the right to call themselves noble. Anyway, it mattered very little in so general a jousting, and there was no harm in flattering the vanities of a conquered people.

"The Prince of Eleusis? It is a sounding title. Do you come as a knight-challenger?" he questioned, urbanely.

Argathona nodded.

"Even so. I heard of your purposes from this valiant." She pointed to Simon, where he stood apart weighing with appreciative eyes the chivalry of France against the mercenaries of Spain, and appraising the giants at the gate. "Liking your purposes, I trudged to tussle."

Jaufre de Brabant pushed a little way ahead of the knight-marshal.

"Sans arms, sans armor," he drolled. "Will you batter us with your bare fists, shepherd?"

"Or conquer us with your pipe," Guy insinuated, "as Joshua's trumpets tumbled Jericho?"

The dryad smiled back into the smiling faces of the jesting knights, and held out her hands in an appeal of comradeship.

"I come unarmed, it is true, for my race have known no need of arms for ages, but I fling myself on your chivalry. Will you not make me up an equipment among you?"

It was a curious sight for the ladies on the balcony, this sight of the white shepherd standing thus alone and fearless in the midst of a ring of knights, while around them the capacity of the court-yard was filled by the curious of all kinds, free companions, pages, men-at-arms, all keenly interested in the audacious new-comer. The lord-marshal glanced with a smile round the circle of faces.

"Most magical modesty," he said, "that invites us to arm him against ourselves."

All who heard him laughed as at an exceeding good joke. It seemed prettily preposterous that this stripling from a Greek wood should come to Duke Baldwin's tournament and demand, not merely the privilege of tilting against glorious shields, but also an outfit of arms and armor. Argathona understood the laughter, and answered, swiftly:

"Nay, I ask nothing for nothing. I know it is the world's way to bargain in this iron age, and that none will give save for value. But I am wise in the earliest wisdom--I can tell you tales, sing you songs, read the secrets of the stars, the signs in your hands. I will tell any man here his fortune if he will pay for fate with a part of my armament."

A buzz of interest hummed among her hearers, and Jaufre de Brabant sprang eagerly forward.

"Can you do this?" he asked. "What are the signs in my palms?" and he thrust his strong hands out to the shepherd.

The dryad turned to the lord-marshal.

"Lord," she said, "I pray you to beg of these gentlemen that they give me a little space. A man's fortune is for his own ears."

"The lad is right," said Ernault. "Room, friends, room," and with a sweep of his marshal's wand he widened the circle about him to the evident discomfort of the crowd outside, who were thus forced rudely against the wall or uncomfortably out of ear-shot and eye-witness. Argathona, thus left in a sense alone with Jaufre, though many eyes were curiously fixed upon the pair, took the hands of the knight in hers and peered into his palms.

"Glory," she began, "glory, glory; a lifetime shining like a star."

"I will give you a sword for this glory," he said, and paused; then he asked again, quickly, "And what of my death-time?"

Argathona looked no more into his hands; she looked steadfastly into his wild eyes.

"I think you will sink like a star in the peace of old age."

The face of Jaufre clouded.

"I would have picked a fiercer finish," he sighed; "but you shall have the sword."

"I thank your valiancy," Argathona said; and Jaufre, turning from her, rejoined his companions. Before Count Ernault could signify which knight should next have speech with the shepherd, Sir Guy de Hainault had sprung from the marshal's side and approached her.

"Read the page of my palm," he cried, pushing out his fine, white hands impatiently.

Argathona held them for a moment, glanced at their smooth surface, and let them fall with a sigh, looking gravely at the girlish face of the knight.

"Speak!" cried Sir Guy. "Why do you hesitate?"

Argathona spoke in a low voice.

"Death is near at hand," she said.

No change came over the delicate face of the knight.

"How?" he asked, as quietly as he might have asked the hour for supper.

"Bravely--in battle," Argathona answered.

Sir Guy struck his hands together exultingly.

"You merit a princely gift for that promise. What will you have of me?"

"Will you give me a helmet?" asked the shepherd.

"You shall have a golden helmet," Sir Guy promised. "What is your crest?"

And the shepherd answered, remembering with a smile the heraldic wisdom of Simon:

"An oak-tree with acorns."

Sir Guy saluted Eleusis and turned and joined his fellows.

Others were eager to take his place, but this time the staff of the lord-marshal restrained impetuosity.

"My turn, I pray you," Count Ernault said, and, advancing, faced the seeming shepherd with extended hands.

"Don't tell me of battles," he said, "or how I shall come to my death; death is the handman of Heaven. To-day I live, and to live is to love. Read my love-riddle."

Argathona looked steadfastly at the hands that many women had held with passion, for Count Ernault was the well-beloved in every land where he had wandered.

"Many women will love you," she said, slowly, and Ernault gave a sigh of joy, for he was no longer in the hot of his youth and he dreaded love's twilight. She went on--"but never the one woman."