France -- History -- Capetians, 987-1328 -- Fiction; Knights and knighthood -- Fiction
Thibaut looked at Roche-de-Frêne spread around them, and then looked at
the sky, and then met, frank and full, the princess’s eyes with his own
black ones.
“What could we do, my Lady Audiart? Begin again, perchance, where we
began in your great-grandfather’s time. Give us warning ere it happen!
So all who love freedom may hang themselves, saving Count Jaufre the
trouble!”
“It will not happen,” said Audiart. She, too, looked at Roche-de-Frêne,
and looked at the sky. When she had made the round of the walls, she
rode through the street where the armourers and weapon-makers worked
at their trade more busily than in the days of peace, and to the
quarter where the fletchers worked, and to the storehouses where was
being heaped the incoming grain and other victual. Everywhere reigned
activity. Roche-de-Frêne contained not alone its own citizens,
together with the castle retainers, the poor knights, the squires, the
people of vague feudal standing and their followers whom ordinarily it
lodged, but in at the gates now, day by day, rode or walked fighting
men. There mustered to the town and the crowning great pile of the
castle lords and knights, esquires and mounted men and footmen. Men who
owed service came, and in lesser numbers free lances came. And all the
great vassals that entered had kneeled in the castle hall, before the
Princess Audiart, and putting their hands between hers, had taken her
for their liege lady. Where had reigned Gaucelm reigned Audiart.
Each day, before she recrossed the castle moat and went in at the great
gate between Red Tower and Lion Tower, she would go for a little time
to the cathedral. She rode there now, knights about her. The white
Arabian stopped where he was wont to stop. Dismounting, she passed the
tremendous, sculptured portal and entered the place.
Within abode a solemn and echoing dimness pointed with light. There
were a score of shadowy, kneeling folk, and the lights of the shrines
burned. The pillars stood like reeds in a giant elder world. Thin
ladders of gold light came down between them. Obeying the princess’s
gesture, the two or three with her stayed their steps. She went alone
to the chapel of Our Lady of Roche-de-Frêne. Here, between the Saracen
pillars, before the tall, jewelled Queen of Heaven, before the lamps
fed with perfumed oil, lay a great slab of black stone. The Princess
Audiart knelt beside it, bowed herself until her forehead felt the
coldness....
She bent no long while over Gaucelm the Fortunate, lying still in the
crypt below. Sorrow must serve, not rule, in Roche-de-Frêne! Before she
rose from her knees and went, she lifted her eyes to the image in blue
samite, with the pierced heart and the starry crown. But her own heart
and mind spoke to something somewhat larger, more nearly the whole....
She quitted the cathedral, and mounting her Arabian, turned with her
following toward the castle heaped against the sapphire sky.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account