Riding that way, she rode by the bishop’s palace, and in the flagged place, beside the dolphin fountain, she met Bishop Ugo. He checked his mule by the spraying water, those with him attending at a little distance. “Well met, my Lord Bishop!” said Audiart. “I have wished to take counsel with you as to these stones. Here are five hundred fit for casting upon Montmaure.” Ugo regarded the fair space between fountain and palace. “Then have them taken up, princess, and borne to the walls.” He left the subject. “Has there come any messenger from the host to-day?” “No. None.” “If there is battle,” said Ugo, “I pray the Blessed Mother of God that the right may win!” He spoke with attempted unction. What was gained was more acid than balm. The princess had a strange, hovering smile. “How may a man be assured in this world,” she asked, “which of two shields is the right knight’s?” Ugo darted a look. “How may a man?—May a woman, then?” “As much, and as little, as a man,” answered the Princess Audiart. “My Lord Bishop, if Count Jaufre strikes down Roche-de-Frêne, will you wed him and me?” Ugo kept a mask-like face. “I am a man of peace, my Lady Audiart! It becomes such an one to wish that foes were friends, and hands were joined.” With this to think of, the princess rode through the chief street of Roche-de-Frêne, the castle looming nearer and more huge with each pace of the Arabian. Here was the deep moat and the bridge sounding hollowly; here the barbican, Lion Tower and Red Tower. She rode beneath the portcullis, through the resounding, vaulted passage, and in the court the noblest knight helped her from her horse. She was dressed in a dull green stuff, fine and thin, with a blue mantle for need, and about her dark hair a veil twisted turban-wise. Her ladies came to meet her, silken pages and chamberlains stepped backward before her. She asked for Madame Alazais, and learning that she was in the garden, went that way. Cushions had been piled upon a bank of turf in the shadow of a fruit tree. Here reclined Alazais, beautiful as Eve or Helen, her ladies about her and Gilles de Valence singing a new-old song. Alazais’s face was pensive, down-bent, her cheek against her hand—but here in the shade the day was desirable, with air enough to lift away the heat—and Gilles’s singing pleased her—and the world and life must be supported! In her fashion she had felt fondness for the dead prince,—felt it now and still,—but yonder was death and here was life.... As for war in the land and impending fearful siege, Alazais held that matters might yet be compounded. Until this garden wall were battered in, her imagination would not serve to show her this great castle death-wounded. At the worst, thought Alazais, Audiart might wed Count Jaufre. Men were not so hugely different....