Jaufre was adept, when he so chose, in _courtoisie_. He had learned the value and the practice of it in Italy, and learned, in his fellowship with Richard Lion-Heart, to temper it with the cool snow of exaltation and poetry—or to seem to temper it. Richard truly did so. To-day this one acre of earth was a court, and he was prepared to behave to the ruler of Roche-de-Frêne as to a fair woman who chanced to be high-born. All the past fighting should be treated with disdain as a lovers’ quarrel! Count Jaufre had chosen a rôle, and practised it in his mind, with a smile upon his lips. He did not forget, nor did he wish the princess to forget, how much stronger was the host of Montmaure, and that the siege must end in humbling for Roche-de-Frêne and victory for Montmaure. Male strength—male strength was his! He was prepared to show his consciousness of that. He had had lovers’ quarrels before—he could not remember how many. He remembered with complacence that—usually—the other side had come to its knees. If the other side had given him much trouble, made him angry, he then repaid it. That was what was going to happen here. But, to-day, joy and courtesies and the _gai science_! Show this Audiart the Wise the lord she thought she could refuse! So he met the princess, curled, pressed, and panoplied with courtliness. He out-poetized the poets, beggared the goddesses of attributes. He strewed painted flowers before the Princess of Roche-de-Frêne, then, his count’s cap again upon his head, led her over the battle-cleansed space to the three pavilions. Her ladies followed her. The hundred knights, dismounting, fraternized. The air was sweet; over high-built town and castle, sweep of martial plain, cloud-like blue mountains, sprang a serenest roof of heaven. The knights gave mutual enmity a day’s holiday, and, having done a good deed, gained thereupon a line in stature. Many of them knew one another, name and appearance and fame. They had encountered in tourney, in hall and bower, and in battle. Fortune had at times ranged them on the same side. A fair number wore the sign of the crusader. Under either banner were famous knights. The time craved fame and worshipped it. War, love, song, and—the counter-pole—asceticism were your trodden roads to fame. Now and then one reached it by a path just perceptible in the wilderness; but more fell in striving to make such a path. There were famous knights among the hundred, and by this time none more famed than Garin of Castel-Noir, Garin of the Golden Island. Sir Aimar de Panemonde was as brave, but Garin was troubadour no less than knight, and about what he did, in either way, dwelt a haunting magic.