The Fortunes of Garin

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XVI

  GARIN AND JAUFRE

  WITH a great host Montmaure encamped before Roche-de-Frêne and overranthe champaign half way around. Of the remainder, one fourth was, soto speak, debatable ground,—now the field of the blue banner and nowthat of the green and silver. The final fourth was stubbornly held byStephen the Marshal and the host. This gave to the east and includedthe curve of the river, the bridge and its towers, and the road bywhich still travelled, from unharried lands, food for the beleagueredtown.

  Montmaure’s tents covered the plain. Off into the deep summer woodsfringed the myriad of camp-followers, sutlers, women, thieves, outlawedpersons. But the fighting mass showed from the besieged town like amagic and menacing carpet spread half around it, creeping and growingto complete the ring. What was for the time a great army besiegedRoche-de-Frêne.

  The barons, vassals or allies of Montmaure, had each his quarter wherehe planted his standard, and whence he led in assault the men whocalled him lord. The Free Companies pitched among vineyards or wherehad been vineyards. The spears from Aquitaine and a huge number ofbowmen covered thickly old wheat-fields, pastures, and orchards. Nearas might safely be to the walls of Roche-de-Frêne,—so near that thedin of the town might be heard, that the alarum bell, when it rang,rocked loud in their ears,—were raised, in the fore-front of tents asnumerous as autumn sheaves, the pavilions of Count Savaric and of hisson, Count Jaufre. It was August weather, hot and thunderous.

  Jaufre de Montmaure came to the door of his pavilion and looked at thehill, the town and castle of Roche-de-Frêne. Behind the three werestorm clouds, over them storm light. The banner of the Princess Audiartflew high. Against the grey, heaped vapour it showed like an openinginto blue sky.

  Each day and every day assaults were made. One was now in progress,directed against the bridge-head, very visible from Jaufre’s tent.Aimeric the Bastard led it, and Aimeric was a fierce warrior, followedby men whose only trade was fighting. The atmosphere was still, hushed,grey, and sultry, dulling the noise that was made. The mass of theforce was not concerned.

  Jaufre stood, tall and red-gold, hawk-nosed, and with a scar acrosshis cheek. He was without armour and lightly clothed, to meet thestill heat. Upon the ground without the tent had been spread skins ofwild beasts. He spoke over his shoulder, then, moving to these skins,threw himself down upon them. Unconquered town and castle, the presentattack upon the bridge, the slow coming of the storm, the blue,undaunted banner could best be noted just from here. A squire brought aflagon of wine from the tent and set it beside him.

  Out of a pavilion fifty yards away came Count Savaric, and crossedthe space to his son. With an inner tardiness Jaufre rose from theskins and stood. “I have sent word to Gaultier Cap-du-Loup to take hisCompany to Aimeric’s help,” said Count Savaric. He took a seat thatthey brought him.

  Count Jaufre lay down again upon the skins. There held the greybreathlessness and light of the slow-travelling storm.

  Count Savaric watched the dust-cloud that hid the bridge-head,obscuring the strong tower and the supporting works that Roche-de-Frênehad built and, with the aid of its encamped host, yet held against allassault.

  But Jaufre regarded moodily the walled town and the castle. He spoke.“This tent has stood here a month to-day, and we have buried manyknights.”

  “Just,” answered Count Savaric. “Barons and knights and a host of thecommon people. A great jewel is a costly thing!”

  “I miss my comrade, Hugues le Gai. And Richard will not lightly takethe loss of Guy of Perpignan.”

  “Duke Richard knows how jewels cost.”

  Jaufre waved a sinewy hand toward Roche-de-Frêne. The half-light andthe storm in the air edged his mood. “Well, they will pay!” he said.He lay silent for a minute, then spoke again, but more to himself thanto Count Savaric. “Until lately I took that woman yonder—” he jerkeda thumb toward the high, distant, blue banner,—”for the mere earth Imust take in hand to get the diamond of Roche-de-Frêne! So I had thediamond, the bride that came with it was no great matter. She had nobeauty, they said. But, Eye of God! there were other women on earth!They are plentiful. Take this one that went with the diamond, get sonsupon her, and let her be silent.... Now, I care less for the diamond, Ithink, than to humble the Princess Audiart!”

  Count Savaric, leaning forward, regarded the bridge-end. “GaultierCap-du-Loup is there.... Ha, they send men to meet him! That maydevelop—”

  The castle loomed against the grey curtain of cloud. The minutiæ ofthe place appeared to enlarge, intensify. Each detail grew individual,stubborn, a fortress in itself. The whole mocked like the heapedclouds. “Ha, my Lady Audiart!” said Jaufre, “who will not have me forlord—who takes a sword in her hand and fights me—”

  He sat up upon the skins, poured himself a cup of wine, and drank.

  His father, looking still at the bridge-tower, rose with suddennessto his feet. “The lord of Chalus and his men are going in! There mustbe yonder half Stephen the Marshal’s force! The plain stirs. Ha! bestarm—”

  Jaufre rose now also. There was a gleam in his eye. “Breath of God!” hesaid. “I feel to-day like battle!”

  His squires armed him. While they worked the trumpets blew, rousingevery segment of the camp. Trumpets answered from beyond the bridge. Inthe town the alarum bell began its deep ringing. The day turned soundand motion. Count Savaric left his tent, mounted a charger that wasbrought, and spurred to the head of a press of knights. The colours ofthe plain shifted to the eye; dust hung above the head of the bridgeand all the earth thereabouts; out of it came a heavy sound withshouting. The area affected increased; it was evident that there mightensue a considerable, perhaps a general, battle. It was as though asmall stir in the air had unexpectedly spread to whirlwind dimensions.And all the time the sky hung moveless, with an iron tint.

  They armed Jaufre in chain-mail, put over this a green surcoat workedwith black, attached his spurs, laced his helmet, gave him knightlybelt and two-edged sword, held the stirrup while he mounted the warhorse, gave him shield and spear. He looked a red-gold giant, and hewas a bold fighter, and many a man followed him willingly. He shook hisspear at the castle, and at the banner waving above the huge donjon.“Ha, Audiart the Wise! Watch now your lord do battle!”

  Around the bridge-head, where Stephen the Marshal had his host,the battle sprang into being with an unexpectedness. There had beenmeant but a heavier than ordinary support to the endangered barriers,a stronger outward push against Aimeric the Bastard and GaultierCap-du-Loup. But the tension of the atmosphere, the menace and urge,the storm-light affected alike Roche-de-Frêne and Montmaure. Each sidethrew forward more men and more. From the bridge-head the shock andclamour ate into the plain. The mêlée deepened and spread. Suddenly,with a trampling and shouting, a lifting of dust to the skies, thewhole garment was rent. There arrived, though none had looked for iton this day, general battle.... The leaders appeared, barons and famedknights. Here was the marshal, valiant and cool, bestriding a greatsteed, cheering on his people, wielding himself a strong sword. Thebattle was over open earth, and among the tents and quarters of thesoldiery, and against and from the cover of the works that guarded thebridge. Now it shrieked and thundered in the space between the opposingcamps, now among the tents of Roche-de-Frêne and now among those ofMontmaure. Banners dipped and fell and rose again, were advancedor withdrawn. There were a huge number of banners, bright-hued,parti-coloured. They showed amid the dust like giant flowers torn froma giant garden and tossed in air. It became a fell struggle, whereriderless war horses galloped hither and yon, and the footmen foughthard with pike and sword, and the crossbowmen sent their bolts, andthe archers sent whistling flights of arrows. And still the clouds hunggrey, and the town and castle drawn against them watched breathlessly.

  Aimar de Panemonde had joined his brother-in-arms. A brave andbeautiful knight, he rode in the onset beside Garin of the GoldenIsland. The two lowered lances and came against two knights ofMontmaure. The knights w
ere good knights, but the men from Palestinedefeated and unhorsed them. One was hurt to death, the other his peoplerescued. Garin and Aimar, sweeping forward, met, by a bit of wall,mounted men of a Free Company.... The din had grown as frightful asif the world was crashing down. Always Montmaure might remember thatMontmaure had in field twice as many as Roche-de-Frêne. Garin and Aimarthrust through the press by the wall, rode with other knights wherethe fight was fiercest. Garin wished to encounter Jaufre de Montmaure;he searched for the green and silver banner. But there was a wildtoss of colours, shifting and indeterminate. Moreover the day, darkbefore, darkened yet further; it was not possible to see clearly to anydistance.

  And then, suddenly, a knight was before him, on a great bay horsecaparisoned with green picked out with black, the knight himself ina green surcoat. The helmet masked the face, all save the eyes. Eachcombatant shook a spear and drove against the other, but a wave ofbattle surging by made the course not true. The green knight’s spearstruck the edge of Garin’s shield. But the latter’s lance, encounteringthe other’s casque, burst the fastening, unhelmed him. Red-gold hairshowed, hawk nose, scar across the cheek.

  “Ha!” cried Garin. “I know you! Do you, perchance, know me?”

  But the battle drove them apart. Here in the press was no longer aknight in green. Garin, looking around, saw only dim struggling forms,knights and footmen. Aimar had been with him, but the waves had borneAimar, too, to a distance. He lost Rainier also, and his men. Here wasthe grey, resounding plain beneath the livid sky, and the battle, that,as a whole, went against Roche-de-Frêne. His horse sank under him, cutdown by Cap-du-Loup’s men. Garin drew his sword, fought afoot. He sawa tossed banner, heard a long trumpet-call, hewed his way where thepress was thickest. A riderless horse coming by him, trampling thedead and the hurt that lay thickly, he caught it by the bridle andbrought it in time to Stephen the Marshal full in the midst of thatseething war. “Gramercy!” cried Stephen, and swung himself into saddle.Roche-de-Frêne rallied, swept toward Montmaure’s coloured tents.Overhead the thunder was rolling.

  Garin, his back to a heap of stones, fought as he had fought in theland over the sea. A bay horse came his way again. Jaufre de Montmaure,unhelmed, towered above him, sword in hand. Garin’s casque was withoutvisor; his features showed, and in the pallid light his blue surcoatwith the bird upon the breast. “Will you leave your horse?” quothGarin. “It were better chivalry so.”

  “I meet you the second time to-day. Moreover we encountered a fortnightago, in the fight by the river. Beside that,” said Jaufre, “there issomething that comes back to me—but I cannot seize it! Before I slayyou, tell me your name.”

  “Garin of the Golden Island.”

  Jaufre made a pause. “You are the troubadour?”

  “Just.”

  “So that Richard knows not that I cut you down!” said Jaufre, andstruck with his sword.

  But not for nothing had Garin trained in the East. The blade thatshould have bitten deep met an upward glancing blade. The stroke wasturned aside. Jaufre made a second and fiercer essay—the sword lefthis hand, came leaping and clattering upon the heap of stones. “Eye ofGod!” swore Jaufre and hurled himself from his war horse.

  “Take your sword!” said Garin. “And yet once, where I was concerned,you lied, making oath that I struck you from behind and unawares—”

  “Who are you with your paynim play? Who are you that I seem to know?”

  “I was not knight, but squire—when I tied your hands with your horse’sreins!”

  A deeper red came to Montmaure’s face, the veins stood out upon hisbrow, his frame trembled. “Now I remember—! Flame of Hell! You arethat insolent whom I sought—”

  “I flew from your grasp, and I wintered well in Palestine.—And stillyou injure women!”

  Jaufre lunged with the recovered sword. “I will kill you now—”

  “That is as may be,” said Garin, and began again the paynim play.

  But he was not destined to have to-day Jaufre’s death upon him, nor tospill his own life. With shouting and din, through the blackening air,Count Savaric swept this way, a thousand with him. The mêlée becamewild, confused and dream-like. Jaufre sprang backward from the sword,like a serpent’s darting tongue, of Garin of the Golden Island. TheLord of Chalus pushed a black steed between and with a mace struckGarin down. He sank beside the heap of stones, and for a time lostknowledge of the clanging fight. It went this way and it went that. Butthe host of Roche-de-Frêne had great odds against it, and faster andfaster it lost....

  Garin came back to consciousness. Storm-light and failing day, soundas of world ruin, odour of blood, oppression of many bodies in narrowspace, faintness of heat—Garin looked upward and saw through a cleftin the battle Roche-de-Frêne upon its hill-top, and the castle greyagainst the grey heaven, a looming grey dream. He sank again into thesea and night, but when he lifted again, lifted clear. He opened hiseyes and found Aimar beside him, and Rainier.

  Aimar bent to him. “What, Garin, Garin! All saints be praised! Ithought you dead—”

  “I live,” said Garin. “But the day is going against us.”

  He spoke dreamily, and rose to his feet. Before and above him he stillsaw the grey castle. It lightened, and in a wide picture showed thebroken host and the faces of fleeing men. One came by with outspreadarms. “Lord Stephen is down—sore hurt or dead! Lord Stephen is down—”

  Thunder crashed. Beneath its long reverberations sounded a wailingof trumpets. This died, and there arose a savage shouting, noise ofMontmaure’s triumph. It lightened and thundered again. Other and manytrumpets sounded, not at hand but somewhat distantly, not mournfully,but with voices high and resolved and jubilant. Garin thought that theycame from the castle, then that they were blowing in the streets of thetown, then that they sounded without the walls, from the downward slopeof the great road. Rose came into the grey of the world, salt into itsflatness.

  “Blessed Mother of God!” cried Aimar. “See yonder, rescue streamingfrom the gates—”

  Forth from Roche-de-Frêne poured the castle garrison, poured theburghers. They came, each man armed as he would run, at the alarumbell, to the walls. Knight and sergeant rode; the many hasted afoot.All the old warriors and the young warriors, whose post of duty hadbeen within the place, sprang forth, and followed them the host ofthe townsmen, at their head Thibaut Canteleu. But at the head ofall, chivalry, foot-soldiers and townsmen, rode the Princess ofRoche-de-Frêne. Down came the torrent, in the light of the storm, downthe hill of Roche-de-Frêne, over the bridge, then widened itself andcame impetuous, with a kind of singing will, freshness, and power uponthe plain, to the battle that the one side had thought won and theother lost.

  All lethargy passed from Garin’s senses. He beheld the rallying of thehost, beheld Stephen the Marshal, sore wounded but not to death, liftedand borne to the great tower, beheld the princess, wearing mail likea man, a helmet upon her head, in her hand a sword. She rode a greydestrier, and where her banner came, came courage, hope, and victory.The battle turned. Montmaure was thrust back upon his tents. When thetempest broke, with a great rain and whistling wind, with lightningthat blinded and pealing thunder, when the twilight came down and thebattle rested, it was Montmaure that had lost the day.