Elias of Montaudon brought that news to Jael the herd. She listened with a steady face. “Very well! In ways, that suits me better. There are those at Angoulême whom I know.” The jongleur sang in the market-place of Excideuil. “Ah, ah!” cried many, “you should have been here when our duke was here! He had a day when there sang six troubadours, and the prize was a cup of gold! And yet no troubadour sang so well as you sing, jongleur!” A week later, crown of a hill before them, they saw Angoulême. The morning light had shown frost over the fields, but now the sun melted that silver film and the day was a sapphire. Wall and battlement, churches, castle, brilliant and spear-like, stood out from the blue dome: beneath spread a clear valley and clear streams. Other heights had lesser castles, and the valley had houses of the poor. Travel upon the road thickened, grew more various, spiced with every class and occupation. The day carried sound easily, and there was more sound to carry. Contacts became frequent, and these were now with people affected, in greater or less degree, by the sojourn in Angoulême of Duke Richard. The air knew his presence; where he came was tension, energy held in a circumference. From the two that entered Angoulême spread another circle. Garin felt power and will in her whom he walked beside, felt attention. The force within him rose to meet hers and they made one. The town grew larger before them, walls and towers against the sky. “Ask some one,” said Audiart, “where is the Abbey of the Fountain?” He asked. “The Abbey of the Fountain?” answered the man whom he addressed. “It lies the other side of the hill. Go through the town and out at the west gate, and you will see it below you, among trees.” They climbed the hill and entered Angoulême, thronged with life. To the two who kept the picture of Roche-de-Frêne, wrapped in clouds of storm and disaster, Angoulême might appear clad like a peacock, untroubled as a holiday child. Yet was there here—and they divined that, too—grumbling and soreness, just anger against Richard the proud, coupled with half-bitter admiration. Here was wide conflict of opinion and mood. Life pulsed strongly in Angoulême. Jongleur and herd-girl threaded the town, where were many jongleurs, and many women with them lacking church’s link. They regarded the castle, and the Leopard banner above it. “Richard, Richard!” said the herd-girl, “I hope that a manner of things are true that I have heard of you!” They came to the west gate and left the town by it. Immediately, when they were without the walls, they saw in the vale beneath groves of now leafless trees and, surrounded by these, the Abbey of the Fountain. Jael the herd stood still, gazing upon it. “I had a friend—one whom I liked well, and who liked me. Now she is abbess here—the Abbess Madeleine! Let us go down to the Abbey of the Fountain, and see what we shall see.”