As for Conon's family, his good mother, Lady Odelina, is now resting under the stones of the abbey church; but she lived to see her first-born wedded to Adela, the daughter of a rich Picard sire, a dame of many virtues. The marriage has been blessed with two healthy sons, François and Anseau--the pampered tyrants of all the castle folk. The baron's household also includes his younger brother Aimery, who has just reached the age for knighthood, and his marriageable sister Alienor. So far the family had been marvelously harmonious. There has been none of those passages at arms between elder and younger brothers which often make a castle the antechamber to hell. Adela is "the very _gentle_ dame"--beloved of husband and revered by vassals and villeins, but whose "gentleness," like her husband's, by no means keeps her from flogging her maids when their sins deserve it. Alienor is already going to tourneys and has presented at least three young knights with her stockings to tie to their lances; but she knows that it is a brother's duty to find a husband for one's sister, and Conon has promised that whoever he selects will be young, brave, and kindly. Therefore Alienor is not borrowing trouble. As for Aimery, he is proud of being almost as good a hawker and jouster as his brother. He will soon be knighted and rule over Petitmur, but his head is full of a visit to the king's court, of winning vast favor, and finally of being given the only daughter and heiress of a great count--in short, of possessing a fief bigger than St. Aliquis. There, then, is the little world, ruled by persons perhaps a little more honorable and kindly than the run of North French barons, but by no means of impossible virtue. It is June, A.D. 1220. The sun is just rising. Let us enter St. Aliquis as the warders unbar the gates; for the castle is the heart of the feudal civilization. FOOTNOTES: [1] Long before the assigned date of this narrative, some king or other potentate had assuredly given the lords of St. Aliquis _immunity_--_i.e._, exemption from ordinary jurisdiction, taxation, etc., by outside powers, with corresponding privileges for the local seigneurs themselves. [2] On some fiefs, as on the royal domain at this time, there would be a higher seigneurial officer, the _bailli_, set over the provosts. [3] The Baron of St. Aliquis was fortunate if his feudal relationships, conflicting overlords, etc., were not even more complicated than here indicated. There was nothing "simple" about the composition of a feudal barony! Chapter II: The Castle of St. Aliquis.