11. A PILGRIMAGE TO ROME
Before the twelve days of Christmas were ended we had heard grave news of approaching war. As we had expected from the moment the treaty was sealed, the Grifon Emperor planned to violate his oath of perpetual peace. The pretext he chose was absurd. Prince William had bought his freedom by yielding up four strong castles, but no one had bothered to delimit the open country that went with them, In particular no mention had been made of La Cremonie, the undefended town which the Prince had greatly embellished. Prince William kept Christmas there, as had been his custom for many years. La Cremonie lies almost at the foot of the great new castle of Mistra, which the Prince had lately handed over to a Grifon garrison; but the Prince put his trust in the treaty of peace and rode there without an army; though of course his knights rode with him to keep Christmas at the table of their lord according to the usual custom of the west.
You might suppose that the Emperor Michael would appreciate the compliment. Franks trusted his honour, and rode unarmed to feast below his strong castle. But the Grifon commander at Mistra chose to call it an armed invasion of his territory.. He sent a messenger, a Gasmule of low birth, to complain that hundreds of Frankish knights were frightening his peaceful peasantry; he added, for good measure, that the town of La Cremonie lay in the banlieu of Mistra, and that the Prince of Lamorie had no business there even if he should visit it without an army.
Prince William, of course, refused to leave the hall which he had built at his own cost for his own feasting. There were high words on both sides before the messenger withdrew in anger. There had been no formal defiance, no open declaration of war; but it was known that the commander of Mistra had written to Constantinople for reinforcements, and that in the summer a great army would invade Lamorie.
In Carytena we saw news of war as good news. On campaign Sir Geoffrey might forget his infatuation; and anyway a brisk war ought to get us back the four castles we had yielded to the Grifons.
But in the meantime we had our worries. In January 1263 the lady Isabel was summoned once more to Satines, where her father was gravely ill. Melisande was sorry to see her go. Sir Geoffrey, still passing most of his leisure with madam Jeanne, might forget that he was a married man unless he saw his wife constantly.
The other worry ought to have been more serious, but in fact we surmounted it without trouble. Now that they had abandoned the pretence of honest friendship the Grifon authorities in the south began to intrigue with our peasants.
All Grifons are intriguing with somebody all the time; it comes to them as naturally as breathing. Even if they had been willing to observe the terms of the treaty it was hard for them to leave our peasants undisturbed because of the way their tyrannous state is intertwined with their schismatic church. All Grifons everywhere obey the Patriarch of Constantinople, even those Grifons who are subject in temporal affairs to an infidel or Frankish master. But the Patriarch is not the direct vassal of God; he also has a temporal master, the Emperor, who has appointed him and may dismiss him. So that our Grifon peasants, in so far as they were subject to their clergy, were also subject to the Patriarch, who is subject to the Emperor. They must serve two masters, and two lay masters. The Emperor's commander in Mistra could give orders to Grifon priests, even if he were not intriguing with the laity.
It has been pointed out to me that the relationship between Emperor and Patriarch is very like the relationship Ghibellines advocate between Emperor and Pope; a straight condition of master and servant. Therefore we, Ghibelline allies of King Manfred, had no grounds for complaint. But the Franks of Romanie were not Ghibelline by conviction; on the contrary, we saw ourselves as Crusaders and devout servants of the See of St. Peter. It was just that we had to maintain our communications with Italy and the west; and if that entailed making war on the Pope and suffering his excommunication it was a great pity but better than being driven from Lamorie.
Grifons endure excommunication with as much fortitude as Franks; but ultimate loyalty to their schismatic church takes precedence of any duty they owe to their temporal lords. Agents from Mistra moved about among our peasants, preaching that it was their duty to aid the Emperor Michael in his holy war against the Latins; by the way, this Emperor has never fought a holy war against the infidel, nor indeed has any other Grifon. There was a rumour that these agents had made contact with the Esclavons of the mountains, who adhere to the schismatic church in so far as they are Christians at all. I did not credit the rumour. It was impossible to believe that civilised men would call in Esclavon allies; on the other hand, in matters of state Grifons are capable of any wickedness.
Whatever may have been their evil designs, I am glad to say that in Escorta the Grifons of Mistra failed completely. Sir Geoffrey had proved himself a very good lord to all his dependants, courteous and just and merciful, understanding the customs of the people and generous to relieve distress. He kept his petty officials under stern control, so that maidens went unravished and orphans received their inheritance in full.
With the result that one day in February a group of shock-headed peasants appeared at the lower bailey, bringing with them two seedy Grifon agents, their hands bound behind them. In the great hall, before all the homage, a spokesman declared that these agents had promised that in the spring a great army would appear to free the Grifons from slavery; in the meantime they were to take note of the defences of Carytena and the numbers of the garrison, and to murder any stray Franks whom they might find alone. The peasants had consulted their elders, who could remember the tyranny and high taxation of imperial rule. After long discussion they had decided that they preferred Sir Geoffrey, his foreign knights and his foreign church, to the expensive glories of their native Empire.
It was a most amazing expression of confidence, unparalleled in any other province of Frankish Romanie. As a rule Grifons will desert any lord to advance the interests of their church, which to them is the badge of their race. In their eyes any spiritual subject of the Patriarch of Constantinople is a Grifon and a brother, even if he happens to speak Esclavon and run naked on the mountains.
The agents were hanged, of course; but mercifully, without torture, because Sir Geoffrey pointed out that they had been serving their lord at the risk of their lives. To encourage our peasants we all went out on a foray against the Esclavons, but the weather was so bad that we did not catch any.
Then we settled down to prepare for the approaching war. I got our armourer to make me two small steel plates to protect my knees. They were smooth rounded metal caps with a strap behind the knee, such as every knight wears nowadays; but in 1263 they were a novelty, and I was the first household knight of Escorta to wear them. I would have liked to buy a new destrier, but prices were very high. So I made do with the local-bred mare I had already. A mare won't use her forefeet in battle like a stallion, and some say that it is unfitting for a knight to ride a female animal; but in Romanie some of the greatest lords ride mares, as do the infidel Saracens. Sylvia was a very handsome little chestnut, swift and gallant and a comfortable ride; I had bought her cheap because she was past her prime, and not really up to the weight of a mailed knight. But her gallant heart made up for her small size.
About this time Prince William wound up the War of Negripont by a final concord with Venice. The war had ended in a draw, and the treaty recognised facts. Venice acknowledged the Prince as suzerain over the whole island, and agreed not to support rebels against his authority; but the Prince did not get the fees which had been held by the late Princess Carintana, and must be content with suzerainty only. It was a comfort to know that the Venetian fleet would not join our enemies, but so long as Palaeologue held Constantinople the Venetians would not help us either. Those merchants are careful to keep on good terms with whoever controls the eastern trade, whether schismatic or infidel.
At the beginning of Lent there died, after a long illness, Guy de la Roche, Megaskyr and first Duke of Satines. All the great lords of Frankish Romanie attended his fune
ral. But Sir Geoffrey could not take the whole of his mesnie, for fear of the Grifons in Mistra; I was one of those who stayed behind, and madam Jeanne was another. Luckily, in those troubled times, there was no dispute about the succession; Guy's elder son, John de la Roche, was universally acknowledged as the second Duke of Satines. He willingly did homage to the Prince of Lamorie, so that the Franks seemed stronger and more united than before. Duke John was a good knight, well able to defend his people, though troubled by gout in the feet which hampered him as a horseman.
But for the time being the Franks were weakened by the death of a veteran ruler. Duke John must receive the oaths of his vassals, and go round his Duchy claiming his rights, before he could bring his mesnie to join his overlord. We would have to begin the war with the knights of Lamorie only, though there was no doubt that Duke John would come when he was free to do so.
While Sir Geoffrey was at the funeral Sir John de Catabas, his constable, commanded in Carytena; which made little madam Jeanne the chatelaine. They had been married for only a year, and above the salt she was still the most recent bride. But she kept the servants in order, and took the chief seat at the high table, without a trace of discomposure. She might have been born to rule a great castle, instead of being the child of unimportant hangers-on at the tottering court of the Latin Emperor.
Nothing could discompose little Jeanne, neither the gossip of other ladies nor the occasional surliness of the cooks, who resented the rule of such a young and inexperienced mistress. She always took it for granted that everyone would be anxious to help; and her smiling self-confident approach made it almost impossible to snub her. When you consider that the world at large took her to be Sir Geoffrey's leman, the placid way in which she greeted censorious visitors was amazing. Some stranger knights thought that a lady who had once broken her vows must be fair game for every pursuer, and chased her very openly; until a frown from old Sir John frightened them into more courteous behaviour.
Melisande and I, and the other permanent residents of the castle, were certain that she had not yielded to Sir Geoffrey; in fact that he had not yet summoned her to yield. She seemed to take her position as a matter of course: that she should spend all day in company with the knight who served her in courtesy (and who was also her lord), and at night retire to the bed of her elderly husband. It was even stranger that she did not seem to mind the absence of Sir Geoffrey. At the high table she sat smiling, serene and self-possessed and as pleased with the luxury that surrounded her as a cat lying on a warm hearth.
"She would still sit there smiling if the Grifons were breaking in at the far door," I said angrily to Melisande as we prepared for bed one night. "She doesn't mind the prospect of a bitter wan she doesn't mind the absence of Sir Geoffrey, she doesn't mind the presence of her husband. Could any disaster bring a furrow to that placid brow? Do you think she cares a pin for either of her good knights?"
"She cares for no one outside herself," Melisande answered calmly, "and so far that has been the salvation of Carytena. She doesn't mind if Sir Geoffrey is unhappy, she doesn't mind if Sir John is unhappy. The present state of affairs suits her very well, and she will make no move to change it. She has all the luxury of a leman, and none of the guilt. I suppose it's like that for someone who has been born really beautiful. She takes it for granted that any knight will lay down his life for her, and will also take No for an answer when she wants to be rid of him. I wonder if she felt frightened when Constantinople fell? That's the only time in her life when she has been in danger. Now she is safe, and she will stay safe. She knows that if only one knight was left alive of all the Franks, that one would look after her. No wonder she is serene."
"Will she be so serene when the lady Isabel has returned ? Now that the old Duke is dead there is nothing to keep her in Satines, and she ought to be here to take charge of the castle when the mesnie rides out to war."
"That won't worry little Jeanne," said Melisande with a smile. "Sir Geoffrey with his lady beside him will be easier to control than Sir Geoffrey alone. She will keep out of trouble, she would have kept her feet dry in Noah's flood. She is completely selfish; and a good thing too, when you consider the havoc she could wreak if she were to fall in love. She likes Carytena as it is. She doesn't want anything altered."
I thought of this conversation when Sir Geoffrey returned, bringing three gowns of the heavy silk of Estives as a present for his constable's lady. The lady Isabel, who returned with her lord, had evidently decided her future tactics. She brought a belt of enamelled gold as a present for the lady who had assumed the heavy responsibility of chatelaine during her absence. Once more the four of them were inseparable; though there was no more hawking, as the knights of Escorta prepared for war.
It would be a dangerous campaign. Of course we had agents in Constantinople; you can buy agents wherever Grifons are gathered together. These warned us that the Emperor Michael had taken into his service a powerful band of Turkish mercenaries; these would be shipped to Malvoisie, under the command of the Sebastocrator Constantine Palaeologue. Another army would march into Wallachia, so that we could not expect help from the dubious allies who had left us in the lurch at Pelagonie. The Grifon fleet would menace the islands, to occupy the Orsini and the other Frankish vassals. This was not a mere border-foray, to win a castle and a few valleys; it would be a serious attempt to add the whole of Lamorie to the Grifon Empire.
Prince William called his knights to a muster at Andreville, since Nicies was now too near the enemy border. But Duke John of Satines explained that he could not come until after he had visited his outlying fees; so the place of muster was changed to Chorinte, where we would wait for the arrival of the mesnie of Estives. That left undefended the south of Lamorie, but there was no help for it; our strong castles must hold by their own strength until the knights rode down from the north to relieve them.
The only good news was that the Pope was on our side, in spite of our alliance with King Manfred. Pope Urban, a Frenchman, was the friend of all Franks who tried to spread true religion in the east. He sent money to Prince William, and an absolution from the oath of perpetual peace he had sworn to the faithless Grifon Emperor. I take it that he also lifted our excommunication, if indeed we had been excommunicated as Ghibellines. But in those days no one knew whether he was really excommunicate or not, and the only thing was to hope for the best.
In three days we were due to leave for the muster at Chorinte; all over the castle they were packing biscuit and shoeing mules. With the enemy so near we must leave a garrison in Carytena; a few invalid knights had been chosen to stay behind with a force of Grifon sergeants. Sir John de Catabas would be castellan; his right hand was now so crippled with rheumatism that he could not hold a sword, though the gallant old boy insisted that he could still manage a horse with the reins held in his left. While he was in command the castle would be safe, though perhaps the Grifons of Mistra would ravage the open country.
It seemed that the queer scandalous Carytena way of life would jog along without disaster for another year. Sir Geoffrey would be removed from all feminine society, Jeanne would be left to share the castle with her husband, the lady Isabel would visit her old home in Satines. By next winter Sir Geoffrey might have grown tired of Jeanne, or, better still, he might pick up on campaign some vulgar concubine who would console him in bed without taking place beside him on formal occasions.
Then, one evening, when I came to our tower room after checking the loading of supplies, Melisande was waiting for me in a great state of agitation.
"Little Jeanne wants to run away to Italy," she burst out before I had time to sit down. "Something has shaken her at last, and it's fear, fear for her precious skin. This afternoon she came to me privately and asked my help as one Poulaine to another. Those were her exact words. I don't know where she picks up her horrible language. If a man were to call me a Poulaine I would expect you to cut off his head."
I should explain that Poulaine, chicken, is an oppr
obrious name given to Franks born in the east. Sometimes you hear it from the lips of supercilious Crusaders fresh from France, the kind of man who denounces all truce with the infidel and can't understand why the knights of Acre don't march straight against Damascus. In Lamorie no decent man would use it, since it could be applied to Prince William and indeed to most of his baronage.
"I suppose she didn't know any other way of describing a Frank born in Constantinople," I replied soothingly. "She is still very young. Since she called herself one she didn't mean it as an insult. You ought to make allowances for her ignorance."
"You mean I ought to make allowances for a pretty girl," my wife answered. "Jeanne has only got to flash her eyes at you and she will be forgiven anything. If an ugly old woman called your wife a Poulaine you would challenge her husband."
"Well, she is a pretty girl, as well as a silly one. But go on. What help did she want from a lady born in the same city? You see? There isn't a graceful way of putting it."
"Money, of course," snapped Melisande. "She must have asked every other lady in the castle before she came to me. Do I look as though I had money to lend, in this disgraceful old gown and tattered coif?"
"Money? How curious. I've been poor all my life, and I don't think I have ever asked anyone for money. One doesn't often need it. I have asked for a destrier, and for mail, and for a place in the mesnie. I want land as badly as you do, but it's no use asking for it. But money, no. What will she do with this money? Buy herself a fee, as Palaeologue suggested we should do after Pelagonie?"
"Don't tease, William. This is serious. Jeanne wants money to buy a passage to Italy, and she wants to go to Italy because otherwise when the Grifons capture Carytena they will rape her and cut her throat."
Lord Geoffrey's Fancy Page 20
