Alazais de Montfaucon was to be married, and had chosen her dearest friend Philippa to be maid of honor. None of her friends except Philippa had seen the bridegroom; he was an English knight, Hugh l'Estrange. He had lands on the Welsh marches, and the charming Alazais was to be carried off by him, to live among savages. This, at least, was the impression of Beatriz d'Acunha and Catalina d'Anduze, who were also to be bridesmaids. Philippa, having lived in England, looked at the matter less dolefully. Still, when all was said, it was an immense change for Alazais, and she herself declared that if any one but Hugh had proposed it she would not think of such a thing.
“We must provide you with a flock of these voyageur pigeons,” said Savaric de Marsan. “Then, when you are shut up in your stronghold with the Welsh on one side and Saxon outlaws on the other, you can appeal to your friends for help.”
Alazais laughed her pretty rippling laugh.
“The fortress is not yet built,” she said with a toss of her golden head. “We are not going to live among the heathen.”
“You men!” pouted Beatriz. “You are always thinking of battles and sieges, wars and jousting. Perhaps you would like a tournament of pigeons!”
“Why not?” queried Savaric undisturbed. “It would be highly amusing.”
“I lay my wager on Blanchette here,” said Peire d'Acunha. “She is as graceful as a lady. She shows her breeding.”
“Endurance, my friend, is what counts in a carrier,” said Bertrand d'Aiguerra. “Pere Azuli yonder will forget the miles behind him—as you forget your debts.”
“You are both wrong,” said Savaric. “It is spirit that wins. Little Sieur Rien-du-Tout, the pigeon without a pedigree, will make fools of all of you.”
The pigeon-tournament was actually planned, with much laughter and light-hearted nonsense. It was to take place at Montfaucon during the week of the wedding. Each knight should adorn his bird with his lady's colors, and the little feathered messengers were to carry love-letters written in verse. Afterward, the pigeons were all to be presented to Lady Alazais for her dovecote in the barbarous land to which she was exiled.
Pigeons were very much the fashion for a time. Dainty demoiselles preened and paced on the short sweet turf, petting and feeding the birds, and looking rather like pigeons themselves. But no one became really intimate with the carriers except Ranulph the troubadour, Lady Philippa, and Sir Gualtier Giffard, who loved them for her sake.
The guests at the castle were all going to the wedding except Ranulph and the Norman knight. Ranulph expected to accompany King Henry to England, and Gualtier Giffard had to take a report from Count Thibaut to friends in Normandy, touching certain matters of state.
Then the Count was invited to a hastily arranged banquet in a town some leagues away, where various important persons were to be guests, among them Henry Plantagenet himself. The way to Montfaucon lying in the same direction, it was decided that Alazais and her bridesmaids should return to her home under escort of the Count and his friends. When the banquet was over and the conference between Henry and his vassals in Guienne was concluded, the wedding guests would assemble at Montfaucon.
Gossip about the banquet and the conference flew like tennis-balls among the guests. It was said that one of the matters discussed would be the claim of the deposed King of Leinster, Dermot MacMurragh, who was even now at the heels of the English King, trying to interest him in a possible Norman invasion of Ireland.
“I have seen this Dermot,” said de Marsan, “and a choice group of cut-throats he had collected about him. Garin de Biterres was one of them, by the way.”
“He was always over-fond of laying wagers,” yawned d'Acunha. “He is probably betting his head on this Irish wild-goose chase.”
“I will burn a candle,” said Bertrand d'Aiguerra, “to any god of luck who will send that caitiff where he gets himself killed. If he were not one of us he would not be such a nuisance. His mercenaries will be the ruin of us. The people were touchy enough before, but now they begin to think we are all birds of the same black feather.”
“He is only half Auvergnais,” objected Savaric. “The other half is Sicilian, I believe. A man cannot be half a gentleman, can he? I will admit that Biterres desires to live like a gentleman,—according to his own ideas of one. He has not been the same man since he was taken by the Moors. He was never honest, but that seemed to warp his nature as well as his body. He learned things that it does no man any good to know.”
“Let us hope that Saint Patrick will dispose of him for the good of his Irish,” remarked Enrique de Montfaucon. “They say that the Plantagenet will do no more than give letters patent to any Norman adventurer who takes up Dermot's cause. I think he has his hands full with his own sons.”
Ranulph listened to this conversation with interest. The ill-famed leader of mercenaries had aspired to the hand of Lady Philippa while she was yet a child—and had been brusquely dismissed by her father. He lived now by hiring himself and his troops to any ruler who had a war on hand and would pay his price. In peaceful intervals they lived as they could.
The Count was talking to Gualtier Giffard about the Irish venture.
“If the Normans rule Ireland,” he observed, “your fortunes may improve. A grant of land there might be worth your while.”
The young knight met the Count's searching glance fearlessly. “I would not take it,” he answered. “Dermot lost his realm by his own fault. There is no honor in serving him.”
“Ah,” said the Count with a quizzical lift of the eyebrow, “in that case you are very right.”
Ranulph often acted as an unofficial unrecognized envoy in state matters, and it did not surprise him when he received a message from King Henry to the effect that he was to meet the monarch at Montfaucon after the conference. Peirol, who knew every mile of the country, was to take the pigeons thither for the tournament and be Ranulph's guide. It was altogether a very pleasant prospect for perfect summer weather.
By brisk riding the troubadour and his little companion reached Montfaucon late in the afternoon of the day following the departure of the Count's guests. The porter, a surly looking fellow, hesitated about admitting them, and before opening the wicket gate consulted some one within. The castle seemed to be in a somewhat disorderly state. Soldiers were playing dice by the gateway, and horses were stamping and feeding in the outer bailey. Peirol was evidently taken for the troubadour's servant, and an unkempt lad ushered them into a small room with a barred window, in one of the older towers. Ranulph was not wont to think of his own dignity, but this lack of courtesy did a little surprise him. Almost at once the youth poked his head in, without knocking, to say that the lord of the castle would see him in the great hall.
More mystified than before, Ranulph obeyed the summons, for it amounted to that. In the master's chair sat a man of about thirty, dark-skinned, with dense black hair and eyes, one leg somewhat malformed, the knee being bowed and the foot turned slightly inward. He looked the troubadour over with a sarcastic smile. Ranulph was still in riding-dress, and might have been mistaken for a joglar or wandering minstrel, calling himself by the more dignified title of troubadour or trouvere.
“I think,” began the knight in a harsh drawl, “that one can often do no better than to tell the truth, is it not so? I am the lord of this castle—for the present. Of course I could not refuse you admittance, or you might go off and spread inconvenient rumors. I must ask you therefore to accept our hospitality unquestioning, like a courteous guest. We cannot allow you to depart until we ourselves are gone. You have your choice—to remain here quietly, alive, or to remain permanently, dead.
“Naturally you will not communicate with any ladies whom you may see, but if you can afford them some entertainment you shall be paid. They have had but a dull time thus far, I fear, and I would not have them think us barbarians, soldiers of fortune though we are. When I am through with this castle I shall leave it as I found it, except for the temporary detention of the inmates in various rooms, where I suppose they will stay until some one finds them. If anybody is found dead it will be his own fault. Now, which horn of the dilemma is your choice—troubadour?”
During this extraordinary speech Ranulph had done some rapid thinking. From the man's appearance he believed him to be Garin de Biterres. The castle had evidently been taken by surprise after the Count's party had escorted the maidens thither and ridden away. Perhaps the marauders had been lurking somewhere about awaiting the opportunity. They must know that they could not hold it after the friends of the rightful lord knew what had been done, and their leader was too cool-headed a man to have attempted so bold a raid without some important reason. The abduction of four young girls, two of whom at least were heiresses, might seem such a reason to such a man. Evidently he did not suspect Ranulph's character as a man of some reputation and the confidential messenger of the King of England. This was a piece of luck. The chance of his being useful to the captives was all the better.
With the elaborate meekness proper to his supposed low station he answered, “You leave me no choice, my lord. To resist your will would be suicide, and that is a mortal sin.”
The knight grinned like a sour-tempered dog. “Take care,” he said, “that you change not your very praise-worthy views. Have you any little diversion which may enliven a tedious hour at supper-time?”
Ranulph's quick mind had been turning over plans. He thanked a hard Fate that his early experience in camps, markets, inn-yards and fairs had been so thorough and so varied. In those days he had been what Biterres now supposed him—one of those vagabond singers who sang popular songs and often did tricks of jugglery, or danced, or gave acrobatic exhibitions, wherever they found an audience. The panier in which the pigeons drowsed was probably taken for a collection of costumes and properties.
The pigeons could not get through the barred window of his room. If they were let loose in the courtyard and recognized as carriers, a bowman could easily bring them down. But now he saw a way to elude suspicion.
“I have a trick,” he ventured humbly, “which is most amusing, but it requires a large shell or cofyn of pastry. When this pie is cut, live birds fly out. But perhaps it would not be convenient to have your lordship's cook troubled with this?”
Biterres made an impatient gesture. “Child's play—but it will serve. The cook shall come for your orders. Have it ready before the drinking begins or the men will not know whether you have larks or peacocks in the pie.”
Ranulph bowed very low and left the hall.
“Peirol,” he said when he re-entered the cell-like room, “we are prisoners to a caitiff knight who has taken this castle and undoubtedly holds your mistress and her friends also captive. I think he intends to carry off the ladies, and I am not sure what will happen to the rest of us. If we can get word to Count Thibaut's castle we may spoil the fellow's game. No one must suspect, of course, that we have carriers with us. He takes us for strolling mountebanks and desires us to amuse the company at supper. Now, I have a plan.”
He was already writing the letters to be sent by the winged couriers, putting all his hard-won skill with words into the task of getting all the information possible into a little space. If the rescuing party did not come before Biterres took his prisoners away—and it was hardly to be hoped that they could—at least they should have a fair start in pursuit of him and evidence enough to punish him, if they received even one of these missives.
Peirol heard the scheme with wide-eyed gravity. At the end he nodded.
“That fellow asked what we had here,” he said pointing to the panier, “and I told him when the pie was cut he would see.”
“Good!” laughed the troubadour. “That was a lucky answer, Peirol. And here comes the cook to make the pie.”
The cook, a stout beady-eyed little man, eyed the two somewhat sulkily, but went away grinning over Ranulph's jokes and fingering Ranulph's generous fee. Furthermore he vouchsafed the information that the leader of the mercenaries intended to leave the castle next day for the nearest seaport, where he and his men would take a ship for Ireland. Lady Philippa was destined to be the bride of Biterres himself; Alazais was to marry the second in command, Griffon de Malemort. The other two demoiselles were to be taken to Ireland, where the King would doubtless find them husbands. If they would not agree to this they were to be sold to a Moslem slave-dealer whose galley was somewhere about. The servants and defenders of the castle had been herded into various rooms and locked up. The cook himself did not mind a little recklessness on the part of military adventurers such as these routiers, but he felt that this sort of thing was perilous. He intended to give them the slip at the first opportunity, and they could cook their own soup if they liked.
The plot, infamous as it was, had unfortunately nothing impossible about it. Four unprotected girls could be taken in guarded litters to the sea-coast and shipped to Ireland or to Cadiz, Valencia, Alexandria or Morocco with no difficulty whatever unless some one got wind of the fact. As for the Irish King, a man who had the sort of record he had, was not likely to quibble over the means used by Biterres in getting himself a bride. And before the captives within the castle could reach even the nearest of their friends and bring help, the whole troop would have left the country.
Through the huge carved open-work screen at the end of the hall, after supper was served, Ranulph had a view of the scene within. Biterres, with the fantastic formality it pleased him to use, had insisted on the attendance of his prisoners at supper, and the meal was served with all due ceremony. Biterres and Malemort appeared to be acting with studied politeness. The maidens were behaving with the dignity and self-possession which became daughters of soldiers, although they were pale and woe-begone. The troopers at the lower table were noisy and rude enough, and Ranulph suspected that his entertainment had been ordered partly to keep them from getting out of hand with drinking and rioting. He had contrived a clown's costume from some of his belongings, aided by a little flour and paint, and a bauble made of a toasting fork stuck through an apple. When he pranced into the hall the soldiers yelled with surprise and delight. Behind him at a discreet distance came a small boy, also attired in antic fashion, carrying carefully in both hands a huge pie. The cook was peeping through the screen to see what was going to happen.
Neither Ranulph nor Peirol gave so much as a glance at the captives, who were too much amazed to say anything at first, and quickly saw the danger of any betraying comment. The troubadour marched up to Biterres, asked permission to sing, and began a doggerel ballad about one Sir Orpheus and his magic harp. The harp, as the song explained, had the power of luring pigeons, rabbits, wild geese, lambs, sucking-pigs and even fish from the stewponds, into its owner's dinner-pot, so that Orpheus never lacked for good living and became very fat. The bouillabaisse of Marseilles, the Norman ragout of eels, the roast goose of Arles, the pigs' feet of Spain, the partridge pasty of Periguex,—all the luscious dishes of a land of good eating were described in a way that made these old campaigners howl with reminiscent joy. The rollicking, impudent tune, the allusions to camp customs more notorious than honest, went straight to the heart of the blackguard audience, and half the voices in the room promptly joined the chorus. Eurydice, the singer went on, was an excellent cook, so renowned that the prince of the lower regions abducted her, and Orpheus was allowed to regain possession of her only on the solemn condition that she should make a pie for that sovereign every twelvemonth. This pie, according to the final verse of the song, would now be cut, so that the company could see exactly what a Plutonian banquet was like.
The troubadour borrowed a dagger from a man-at-arms, made one or two slashes at the ornate crust of the pie—and out flew four live pigeons.
Then Peirol gave his birdlike call, and eluding the hands raised to catch them the pigeons swooped down to him. Ranulph began to dance, playing his lute at the same time, and the boy followed, with the doves flying above him just out of reach. In saucy improvised couplets the troubadour called upon one and another to join the dancing, until before any one quite knew what was happening, the company in the lower hall was drawn into a winding lengthening line following the leaders in a sort of farandole. The hall was not large enough for this to go on indefinitely, and Ranulph suddenly bolted into the outer air, where the shouting, laughing crowd paused for breath—and the pigeons went soaring into the sky.
The party from the table on the dais came out to look on, and Garin de Biterres, as he saw the mounting birds, grew suspicious. “Here, Jean! Michaud!” he said sharply. “Loose the hunting hawks!”
Ranulph's heart missed a beat, but he dared not betray himself by a tremor. Hawks could be trained to pursue carriers, but the doves had a fair start and might be able to get away. The two birds of prey which the men brought were moreover not the type of hawk used especially to hunt pigeons, but young falcons or tercels. The men bungled in handling them; they evidently belonged to the castle, not to the troop. When they finally rose into the air, Pere Azuli, the veteran blue pigeon, and Rien-du-Tout, the little dun-colored stray Peirol had trained, were almost out of sight. The luckless Blanchette was lagging, and despite her frantic attempts to escape her enemy she was soon struggling in the falcon's grip. Clair de la Lune, the other white pigeon, seemed about to meet the same fate when something unexpected happened.
Two wild hawks, beating up from the south, spied the pigeons, and pounced one upon the tercel with the dove in his talons, the other upon Clair de la Lune. In the scrimmage which followed Blanchette's little body fell into the river, and the strange hawk gave chase to Pere Azuli, while her mate began to devour Clair de la Lune at his leisure. The ruffled and bewildered tercels were whistled back, and neither Garin de Biterres nor his prisoners could be certain in the gathering twilight whether any of the pigeons had escaped their pursuers.
The pigeon-chase had taken the attention of de Biterres and his men so completely for a few minutes that Ranulph, without seeming to do so, came near to Lady Philippa. A tiny roll of paper encased in a withered leaf dropped from his fingers on the furred edge of her mantle. She bent to shake off the leaf and her hand closed quietly over the letter. When Ranulph had gone to sing ballads of the camp among the troopers, and the young girls had been ceremoniously escorted to their guarded room, she unrolled and read the missive. It was not long. “Dear and Honored Lady—I pray you pardon the fooleries of the night, since in this way only could I hope to escape the surveillance of these miscreants and do you service. The pigeons we are loosing bear messages telling of your doleful plight, and I doubt not that when it becomes known, help will come to you. Sir Gualtier Giffard is, as you know, at your father's castle awaiting messages from him, and we have thus every reason to hope that there will be no mishap. For the rest, sweet lady, I rejoice that I am within these walls, because you are here, and yet would I gladly go to the ends of the earth if so I might hasten your deliverance.
“Ever your servant,
“RANULPH D'AVIGNON.”
The loyal and generous words were like balm upon wounds. The last speech that Garin de Biterres had made to her that night conveyed a terrifying possibility.
“Lady Philippa,” his cold harsh voice had fallen upon her ears like the grating of a key in a prison door, “your father once refused me your hand. I hope to find you more gracious, or at least more compliant. My captain, Malemort, stands ready to wed the Lady Alazais as I would wed you, at high noon to-morrow. The fate of the others depends upon you. As good Christian maidens ye should all prefer Christian marriage to slavery among the Moslems,—but gold in the purse is better than an unwilling bride.”
It was not long after sunset when old Grimaud, Count Thibaut's gooseherd, was aroused from a light sleep by a fluttering at his window. He found huddled on the sill a small dun pigeon under whose wing nestled a roll of writing. According to instructions, he took it at once to Sir Gualtier Giffard, who found therein Ranulph's statement of the tragedy impending at Montfaucon. It was like the crater of a volcano suddenly opened in what had seemed a bright and fertile valley. On the very borders of this paradise of luxury and delight lay a world where a thing like this was possible. He strode hastily into the hall, told the news to the old knight, a cousin of Count Thibaut's, who had charge of the castle for the time, and left him to order out the garrison. Five minutes later he was riding at a breakneck pace on his own fleet horse, to rouse the men who had so short a time since been guests of the Count, to the rescue of his daughter and her companions.
Thus it came to pass that early next morning a sentinel at Montfaucon hurried from his watch-tower to make report to Malemort, and Malemort lost no time in reporting to his chief. Peering from an upper window they could see a strong force under the banner of Count Thibaut, flanked by the devices of half Auvergne, coming at a sharp trot toward the castle. There was neither delay nor discussion. Garin de Biterres had not found life altogether pleasant, but he had no wish to end it with a rope around his neck. If some peasant had carried a report of his doings to Count Thibaut there was nothing to do but flee the vengeance now on the way, and that instantly. Without waiting even to close the gates the whole troop of mercenaries went galloping away. When the rescuers clattered into the courtyard they found no one stirring save a little stout man in a cook's apron, who was concocting something in a huge saucepan.
“I am Martin,” he said to Savaric de Marsan. “I cook. But I do not cook for cannibals, and my faith! I think that robber captain will end by devouring his fellow-men. I have no mind to poison the food of his enemies, either, so when they went away I hid in the great tun. I am at your service, master.”
Savaric was so much amused at the explanation that he then and there decided to rescue Martin from further evil company and place him in his own kitchen.
“There is some consolation for not catching Biterres,” he observed to Ranulph later, “in getting a cook like that little man. He deserves something, truly, for giving you the information he did. And then, we are rid of Garin for good now. He will never come back to Auvergne.
“You should have seen that Norman madman when your message came. He had us under arms and riding for dear life before we fairly understood what had happened. Yet from what Martin says, but for your daring and ready wit no message could have come. You will not allow me to say what I think of that, and therefore I suppose we must give all the credit to the victor in our tournament of the pigeons,—little Sieur Rien-du-Tout!”
THE JESTERS Where through the dapple of wood-shadows dreaming Faun-footsteps pattering run, Where the swift mountain-brooks silvery-gleaming Carol through rain and through sun, Thee do we follow, O Spirit of Gladness,— Thee to whom Laughter gave suck. We are thy people by night or by noontide,— We are thy loves, O Puck! Lips thou hast kissed have no pleasure in sadness, Bitterness, cant nor disdain. Hearts to thy piping beat bravely in gladness Through poverty, exile or pain. Gold is denied us—thine image we fashion Out of the slag or the muck. We are thy people in court or by campfire,— We are thy slaves, O Puck! We are the dancers whose morris-bells ringing Sound the death-knell of our years. We are the harpers who turn into singing Our hopes and our foves and our fears. Thine is the tribute wrung hard from our anguish After the death blows are struck. We are thy souls, O Puck!
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