He spoke with a deep, growling voice, as of an angered mastiff, and as he spoke turned like one upon Garin. “Why, by every fiend in hell, did you fight a Tuesday, with his son?” Garin stared. He heard Foulque’s distressed exclamation, saw the abbot purse his lips, but beyond all that he had a vision of a forest glade and heard a clash of steel. He drew breath. “Was he that knight in crimson? Was that Jaufre de Montmaure?” Raimbaut doubled his fist and advanced it. Before this Garin had come to earth beneath his lord’s buffet. He awaited it now, standing as squarely as he might. He was aware that Raimbaut had for him a kind of thwart liking—a liking that made, in Raimbaut’s mind, no reason why he should not strike when angry. It was not the expected blow that set Garin’s mind whirling. But Jaufre de Montmaure! To his knowledge he had never, until that Tuesday, seen that same Jaufre. But he knew of him, oh, knew of him! Montmaure was a great count, overlord of towns and many castles. In Garin’s world Savaric of Montmaure was only less than Gaucelm of Roche-de-Frêne—Gaucelm the Fortunate from whom Savaric held certain fiefs. Immediately, Montmaure loomed larger than Roche-de-Frêne, for Raimbaut the Six-fingered owed direct fealty to Montmaure and in war must furnish a hundred men-at-arms. Garin knew of the young count, Sir Jaufre. He knew that Jaufre had been long time in Italy, at the court where his mother was born, but that now he was looked for home again. He knew that he had fought boldly in sieges of cities, and in tournaments was acclaimed brave and fortunate. Perhaps Garin had dreamed of his own chance coming to him by way of Montmaure—perhaps he had dreamed of somehow recommending himself to this same Jaufre. That gibe of the abbot’s about the signet ring had struck from the squire an answering thought, “Some day I may—” Now came the reversal, now Garin felt a faintness, an icy fall. He was young and in a thousand ways, unfree. For a day and a night his conscious being had strained high. Now there came a dull subsidence, a slipping toward the abyss. “Jaufre de Montmaure!” Raimbaut did not deliver the meditated blow—too angered and concerned was Raimbaut to dispense slight tokens. He let his hand drop, but ground beneath his heavy foot the rushes on the floor. “I would I had had you chained in the pit below the dungeon before I let you go to Roche-de-Frêne!” He turned on Foulque who stood, grey-faced and dry-lipped. “Knew you what this fool did?” Foulque struck his hands together. “He told me that eve. He did not know and I did not know—He thought it might be some wandering knight—Ah, my Lord Raimbaut, as we owe you service, so do you owe us protection!”