Heroines of the French Epic
Page 24
Fair Aye knew nothing of it – dear God – until they reached her
1180 The very morning after she’d sent away her liegemen.
Inside her palace chambers the fair duchess was sleeping,
And had a dream that filled her with awful dread to feel it.
She dreamt that Charlemagne had freed his levied legions,
And Garnier her husband had hurried home to see her.
She dreamt that she was holding a rose with which to greet him,
But he refused to take it, and in a rage was seizing
The ring upon her finger and ruff upon her bliaut
To strike her with a weapon whose angry edge was gleaming.
A terror stabbed her sharply and, waking from her dreaming,
1190 She heard at once a yammer of shouting and of screaming,
And the almighty clamour of trumpet-calls repeating.
With every step she stammered: “St Mary, save and keep us!”
AS SOON AS DAWN had broken Count Bérenger attacked them.
His forces, armed and ready, were full of fearless valour.
With lances sharp and steady, and heavy iron mallets,
They rushed the walls and scurried up swiftly lifted ladders,
While Haguenon below them attacked the gate with axes.
The goal of their invasion was Aye’s majestic palace.
Dear God! The people in it were driven wild with panic:
1200 The maidens fled, escaping to churches and to chapels,
The mothers wept to madness as children sank in sadness.
The citizens and soldiers ran off like startled rabbits.
When panic seizes power, at any hour, this happens.
FAIR AYE WAS IN her chambers, with no one by her side,
Save one or two retainers and one domestic knight.
Her chamber-door was battered, and when it clattered wide,
Count Bérenger ran forward and seized her like a vice.
Said Haguenon the hoary: “Got rot the arm that’s shy,
For fear of any monarch or any man alive,
1210 To do with you whatever his lusty strength desires!”
“There’s no fool like an old fool!” the duchess Aye replied.
“In truth, whatever happens, you’ve spoken like a child!”
SAID BERENGER: “Fair Aye, now I have reached my goal,
I’ll tell you what a road you’ve made me tread alone:
Through many sleepless nights my eyes have never closed.
My armour, never shed, has bruised me to the bone.
But now I’ve trapped the hind my heart has longed to own!
As soon as I release Sanson and Aumagon
So many knights of theirs they’ll muster to my host,
1220 With gonfalons of silk on lances gripped with gold,
That Garnier will rue the day he heads for home!”
“Count Bérenger,” said Aye, “you’ll harvest what you sow!
The King of France will lay your wild pretensions low,
As with Guimar, who lost Marteuil, his hearth and home.”
4. How Aye was abducted
COUNT BERENGER despoiled the town of all its wealth,
But fearing Charles’s rage, he very quickly left.
He freed both Aumagon and Sanson from their cell,
Then took the booty gained at Avignon’s expense.
His henchmen seized on Aye and took the fair duchess
1230 To cells at Graillemont, where Bérenger had fled.
In truth, he would have liked to bed her there and then,
But both his nephews cried: “For Heaven’s sake, relent!
If you persist in this, we’ll fight you to the death!
Secure her well and serve the lady with respect,
Until the plan begun is carried to its end:
If you slay Garnier, the son of Doon, then
You openly can sue the King with your request
To give you Aye his niece and Avignon as well.”
The nephews, what is more, obtained their uncle’s pledge
1240 To speak no more, alone, with Duchess Aye till then.
He swore, for he was sure that he’d achieve his quest:
He had the Lady now, imprisoned and bereft,
And Garnier, he thought, would very soon be dead.
But, oh, there’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip, my friends!
Already, messengers from Avignon had left
To tell King Charlemagne, whose siege had met success
At Tarragone in Spain, of Bérenger’s intent.
THE SARACENS were beaten. Besieged at Tarragona,
Some fifty thousand Pagans had perished there in total,
1250 And Charlemagne’s forces at last were heading homeward.
In Cordova he’d handed the Count of Barcelona
The royal crown he’d taken from the emir enthroned there.
Before he’d passed Narbonne, returning with his soldiers,
The messengers arrived there and straightaway they told him
About his niece’s sorrow, and him to whom she owed it.
Sir Garnier was frantic: he groaned in high emotion,
He tore his hair in anguish and wrung his hands, bemoaning:
“Dear God in Heaven, help me, by all that’s good and holy!”
King Charlemagne summoned his royal lords and rode them
1260 Together down a valley to talk the matter over
With Burgundy’s commanders and every German noble.
To foreign lords and Frenchmen he laid his anger open:
“I swear to you, my barons, by St Peter the Roman,
If you are loath to punish the great dishonour shown me
By Ganelon’s two puppies, who’ve bitten me, their owner,
I shall not wear in Paris my crown or royal clothing
Until I’ve healed the scarring their scorn of me has opened!
I gave to them a city! What gratitude they’ve shown me!”
ON HEARING THE distress in Charlemagne’s mind,
1270 Ripaut, the lord of Rennes and Nantes, was first to cry:
“My lord, we’ll follow you wherever you decide!
What land on earth can stand against your fierce desire?
What town can face you down? What fortress can survive?
Avenge your liegeman’s pain and that of Aye his wife.”
“What welcome words, by God!” the Emperor replied,
As twenty thousand horns confirmed their will to ride.
Count Bérenger, I’d say, had Aye on borrowed time,
Unless his skill to fight outweighed his fear to die!
TO LANDESMORE they galloped and gathered in the open.
1280 They severed orchard-saplings as bivouacs for soldiers,
While golden-pommelled shelters were raised for every noble.
Charles looked upon the castle of Graillemont, enfolded
By rivers to the inland, and also by the ocean
Which carried boats from Sicily, Calabria and Puglia,
From Babylon, from Syria and from Constantinople.
He saw the sturdy ramparts below the tawny stonework
Of soaring towers erected in olden times and golden.
IN LANDESMORE they gathered and settled all their forces.
They hacked apart the gardens and saplings in the orchards
1290 As bivouacs for soldiers who had no other quarters.
Count Bérenger was ready: he stormed across his drawbridge
With Aumagon and Sanson and Haguenon the hoary,
And some three thousand others, who drove their eager horses
&n
bsp; Towards the royal campsite with swiftly swinging sword-blades.
Four hundred knights of Charles’s immediately were slaughtered.
My lords, you can imagine, the sudden noise was awful:
It seemed to all who heard it as if the sky were falling!
The tents of Charles erupted with thirty thousand voices,
The first of all, believe me, Duke Garnier’s, the dauntless.
1300 How splendidly he faced them, upon his charger Fauvel!
His shield aloft, and lifting his bannered spear towards them,
He moved to strike Anseis, the first of them he saw there,
A youth who was the son of Duke Haguenon the hoary.
He split aside his buckler, from golden boss to border,
Then ripped apart the meshes upon his hardy hauberk.
From front to rear he twisted his weapon ever forward
And flung the wretched youngster one lance-length from his courser.
“For Avignon, good barons!” Duke Bérenger exhorted:
“My lady Aye has suffered, and they must pay the forfeit!”
1310 OLD HAGUENON observed his slaughtered son below,
And, truly, he saw red, so dreadful was his woe:
“Such blood of mine you’ve shed, benighted son of Do!
The sons of Aymon slew my kinsman Amanfro,
And slaughtered in cold blood Girart of Valcorot.
Your clan has done so much to devastate my own
That now, I hope to God, you’ll harvest what you’ve sown!”
The destrier was black that Haguenon bestrode,
And Garnier’s was beige – but how they galloped both
To strike and strip the paint upon their shields of gold!
1320 The lance of neither man survived the buffet whole.
With neither man unhorsed, they fell at once to blows!
THEIR GOLDEN shields were shattered as soon as they were struck.
The press of men was heavy, and needing room to thrust,
Sir Garnier turned Fauvel to give them both enough.
Upon its golden saddle he fiercely straightened up,
And, spurring it so hotly he drew the courser’s blood,
Flew forward like a falcon released upon the hunt.
Sir Garnier’s sharp weapon struck hoary Haguenon
High up, upon a helmet that couldn’t bear the brunt,
1330 And shattered all beneath it, from forehead through to tongue.
The spirit left his body, the lifeless body slumped.
With dragging reins his war-horse abandoned him at once.
What happened then was something that doesn’t happen much:
The father’s body landed directly by his son’s!
WHEN HAGUENON was slaughtered it turned the tide of battle.
Count Bérenger was robbed of his best and wisest clansman,
And Graillemont fell silent, in shock at what had happened.
The raiding-party halted and, faltering, were harried
Right back to where they started, with saddened hearts and angry.
1340 His surge was so successful that Charlemagne’s campsite
Moved closer to the fortress, one arrow’s range exactly.
The Emperor commanded his foragers to gather
Whatever food around them the land could give his barons.
And then, collecting branches, on any cart or wagon,
Of pine and oak and laurel, he made his soldiers fashion
Large catapults and slingers and mangonels that battered
The castle walls with boulders and did them awful damage.
How many bricks were broken! How many homes were damaged!
Among the walls and walkways the duchess Aye was standing,
1350 And when she saw her husband, she called upon him gladly:
“Keep going, noble baron! Our foe will soon be vanquished!”
WHEN BERENGER could see the sum of Charles’s force,
And felt the boulders fall against his castle-walls,
He quickly sued for peace with this condition sworn:
He’d render Aye, he said, if Charles forgave his fault
And let him come to terms with Garnier henceforth.
But Charlemagne swore, by St Gilles of Provence,
That all of them would hang as soon as they were caught,
And that would be at once, so help him God the Lord!
1360 COUNT BERENGER was fearful of Charlemagne’s rage
And of his solemn promise to hang him straightaway.
And so he called his nephews, with one or two more knaves,
Inside a vaulted chamber to seek their counsel’s aid.
[The few that he had chosen he knew were very brave,
But all agreed that staying would only seal their fate:
“To linger is to perish! To live we must escape!]
Down there, upon the harbour, we’ve seen a ship of sail,
A sturdy one, well able to take and keep us safe
Through reef and roughest water in strongest wind or rain.
1370 Last evening it anchored with riches overlain –
St Basil’s nephew owns it – at least, that’s what they say.
My lord, we mustn’t dally, but buy it straightaway
And sail away to Persia or Africa’s domains,
For Babylon the distant or Barbary’s terrains,
Or Spain, beside the sons of Marsilion the slain,
Where you can have possession in peace of Lady Aye:
In Christendom you’ll never achieve your wishes’ aim.”
With this their counsel finished –for all believed the same –
So Bérenger stood waiting until the evening came
1380 Then summoned forth the nephew of Basilis the saint
And bought the vessel from him, with all that it contained,
Including all the sailors to work it on the waves,
Then stocked it with provisions to last a year of days.
He took on board the duchess, distraught in her dismay,
And sat her on a fold-stool of ivory, then draped
A curtained lodge around her to hide her well away.
Fierce Aumagon swore grimly to the unhappy Aye
That if she wept or whispered or dared to show her face,
He’d cut her pretty head off with his well-sharpened blade:
1390 [“You have no other safeguard! Beware, and so be safe!”]
It hardly was a wonder if Aye was sore afraid!
So Bérenger departed, and, under fullest sail,
By dawn the coming morning the ship was well away
From Charlemagne’s anger and all his army’s rage –
They wouldn’t learn till morning of what had taken place!
However much they fretted, they’d lost the lovely Aye.
Duke Bérenger had bartered his honour for her sake.
THE TOWNSFOLK were astonished, on waking in the morning.
They opened every gateway, and, bidding Charles come forward,
1400 They offered him the keys of the city and the fortress.
Duke Garnier received them and those of La Roche also.
Then, packing up their lodges and pulling down the awnings,
They loaded up their sumpters and sadly turned their horses.
Fair Aye was on the ocean, confined to covered quarters:
“Ah, wretched me,” she sorrowed, “my life again is forfeit!
Sir Garnier, fine scion, each ocean wave withdraws me,
But know, whatever happens, that one day I’ll rejoin you!”
She had with her a minstrel called Garnion the courtly,<
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And on his lyre he played her a lay to ease her torment.
1410 On lanyards strong and lengthy enormous sails were hoisted
To chase the ocean breezes and race the vessel forward.
I don’t know if their journey was fifteen days or fourteen:
I do know that they landed directly on the foreshores
Of Aigremore, a town in the isles of the Majorcas.
My lords, this is a region that tiny folk and tawny
Called pygmies still inhabit, with heads that are enormous!
The Pagans and the pygmies, they say, are always warring.
5. How Aye was purchased by a Pagan King
MY LORDS, they’d reached a kingdom composed of many islands
That held imposing cities of wondrous wealth, comprising
1420 Of shining gold and silver and silks of bold designing,
And further wealth in cattle and many types of livestock.
King Ganor ruled the country and port of their arrival,
A bachelor who yearned for a royal wife beside him.
Below his ancient city a lovely grove was sited,
Wherein the king was sitting with all his barons by him.
His eyes were on two Frenchmen he’d captured, who were plying
Their weapons in a duel for his and their delighting.
Hernaut, Count of Gironde, was one he had his eye on,
The other was his brother, Garin of rich Ansyon.
1430 Both Frenchmen had been captured by Ganor in the fighting
That killed their brother Aymer ‘The Captive’ at its climax.
King Ganor had detained them in long and strong confinement,
And yet he’d not discovered in all that time how mighty
Their fame was in the country that they had left behind them.
He watched their sparring daily, and this is how a rider
Who hurried to the garden knew where and when to find him:
“In Mahom’s name, your Highness, I come with merry tidings:
Below us, in your harbour, a splendid ship’s arriving!
It may be an Almanzor’s or someone like your Highness –
1440 Whoever it belongs to was rich enough to buy it
And stock it with a lady of beauty and refinement!
I don’t know what her rank is – her beauty though is priceless!”
On hearing this, King Ganor could not refrain from smiling: