France -- History -- Capetians, 987-1328 -- Fiction; Knights and knighthood -- Fiction
Fir wood, crag, and black castle travelled from the sun, faced the
unlighted deeps. But an inner sun shone and warmed. The squires,
the troop, had welcome and welcome again. Nothing there was that
Sicart and Jean and Pol and Arnaut and all the others would not
do for them! Comforts and treasures were scant, but the whole was
theirs. The saints seemed benignant, so smoothly and fragrantly did
matters go! Pierre found savoury food for all. And there was forage
for the horses. And the courtyard on a summer night, with straw
spread down, was good sleeping. But before there was sleeping, came
tale-telling—a great ring gathered, with the round moon looking down,
and Castel-Noir men and boys and women and girls from the huts below,
listening—listening—gaping and exultant! Sir Garin of the Golden
Island—and how he had taken the cross—and what he had done in the
land over the sea, and the tale-tellers with him!
Fairyland had somehow come to Castel-Noir—a warm Paradise of pride in
the native-born, relish for brave deeds, forward felt glow from perhaps
vastly better days! Through all ran a filtering of Eastern wonder.
There was, too, simple veneration for the slayers of paynims, for
beings who had travelled in the especial country of God! The pride in
Garin was strong. They had thought him dead, though some had insisted
that, maybe, one day he would come back, a knight. These now basked in
their own wisdom. But even they had not dreamed the whole fairy tale
out! Sir Garin of the Golden Island—and how he got that name—and
how he fought and how he sang and how lords and kings were fain of
his company—and his brother-in-arms, Sir Aimar—and the three emirs’
ransoms! The people of Castel-Noir forgot Montmaure and danger, and
were blissful that night beneath the round and golden moon.
Garin and Foulque bided within the hall, talked there, Garin pacing
up and down while Foulque the Cripple gloated on him from his chair.
They had torchlight, but the moonlight, too, streamed in. Garin charted
for his brother the unknown sea of the years he had been away. Foulque
followed him to Panemonde, to the port, to Syria—and then all the
events and fortune there!
“Ha, ha!” laughed Foulque. “Ha ha! ha ha! Who knows anything in this
world? Oh, dire misfortune that it seemed to have fought with Jaufre
de Montmaure! And here he has given you knighthood and fame and
ransom-wealth! Ha, ha, ha! Let me laugh! Yesterday I was weeping.”
“If you push things in that direction,” said Garin, “before it was
Jaufre it was that herd-girl with the torn dress and streaming hair!
There is a path from all things to all things else.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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