France -- History -- Capetians, 987-1328 -- Fiction; Knights and knighthood -- Fiction
She signed to her train that was watching. The squires brought before
the pavilion her white Arabian and the palfreys of Guida and Maeut. The
movement spread to the knights beneath the trees.... Jaufre, rising
also, inwardly turned over the matter of how soon she had willed to
depart, to bring short this splendidly-prepared-for visit. That she
would be gone from him and any further entertainment displeased, but
was salved by the thought that she was in flight to conceal her lowered
and broken pride. He was conscious that he had not maintained his
intention of suavity, _courtoisie_. When Richard was not there, he did
not well keep down the pure savage. That talk of hers of the “wolf”
had poured oil on the red embers of a score unpaid. That the wolf was
there in presence—that he, Jaufre, did not wish to tell as much to
the world and Audiart the Wise, letting them see what score had gone
unpaid—increased the heat. It burned within Jaufre with a smouldering
that threatened flame. On the other hand, the person of this princess
pleased him more than he had looked for. And it was delightsome to
him, the taste of having made her taste him, his power, purpose, and
mode of dealing! He felt that longer stay would accomplish no more; he
was not without a dash of the artist. He, too, signed for his great
bay—for his knights to prepare to follow him from these gay pavilions.
To-morrow morn this truce would shut—unless, ere that, she sent a
herald with her plain surrender!
She was speaking, in the same crystal, uncoloured voice. “Are you so
sure, my lord, that you win? Do you always win? What were we talking
of at first? A doe that escaped from under your hand, and a wolf that
laid you low in a forest glade and went his way in safety?—My Lord of
Montmaure, I defy you! and sooner than wed with you I with this dagger
will marry Death!” She touched it where it hung at her belt, moved to
her Arabian, and sprang to the saddle.
Her following, though but a few had heard what passed between her
and Montmaure, saw that there was white wrath, and that the meeting
was shortened beyond expectation. Montmaure’s knights marked him no
less—that suddenly his mood was black. All of either banner got to
horse.
The veins of Jaufre’s brow were swollen. The company of knights forming
about the Princess of Roche-de-Frêne, the “wolf” came suddenly into his
field of vision.... The “singing knight” placed in her chosen band by
Roche-de-Frêne’s princess—the “wolf” protected by her and favoured!
Till that instant he had not thought of them together—but now with
lightning swiftness his fury forged a red link between them. He did
not reason—certainly he gave her no place in the forest, eight years
agone—but he desired, he lusted to slay the one before the eyes of the
other! He thrust out a clenched hand, he spoke with a thickened voice.
Whatever in him had note of a saving quality was passed by the stride
of its opposite.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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