A Tale of Languedoc

HE drove at me again with a clumsy courage ; but I was over my surprise by now, — he had no chance. That sidewise blow of mine ended the affair ; after the whir and clash of it the silence fell again. The two who had attacked us a moment before in such a gust of fury lay quiet enough, with the blood making little rivers under them, and the wide plain around.

Gilles the Black held up his sword with that swagger he had, and peered at its edge against the light. “Now that was a curious thing, ” mused he. For all around us, as I say, lay the lonely plain, the wide, strange land of Languedoc. We were on a main highway, but at this place there met it a kind of byroad, which ran off to the left into rough, barren ground. Out of this road — which nobody would have thought of taking — those two had rushed so desperately, to make assault on Gilles and myself, the chosen pair who rode in front of Guiard of Châlons’ men.

While we sat our saddles there and meditated, the count himself came up. “ Fighting ? ” he asked, and got off to look at the bodies. “House servants, by the look of them,” said he. “But why should they fight instead of fly ? ” He stood and peered up the byroad with a puzzlement like ours. For in that level country the people who yet had life in them had learned to fly instead of fight. To right and left and behind was silence on the face of the land. That was no milk-and-water business, saints of God! that in Languedoc, when we carried down war against the cursed Albigenses. The songs of their minstrels, their Provençal troubadours, might better have been dirges. You have heard men tell, here in the north, of the fairness of that land : I think of it as splashed all over with blood, and red with stormy sunsets.

Such a sunset hung now in the sky above the moor into which that road led. On the horizon was a dark mass which might prove to be a place where men dwelt. “These two who were frightened into fighting, ” Count Guiard said, “may have thought that we would take this road. If they were trying to defend it, there must have been something to defend. Well, we must find a lodging for to-night, and I am minded to seek it here.” A word of command ran down along the troop, and we turned off to the left.

“It is a place for witchcraft and for sorcery! ” said Gilles, and crossed himself as he looked around. And this seemed to me very probable. The whole plain looked as though it had been scorched by fire or harried by Guy of Lusignan ; the night was closing down ; evil seemed in the air. It was an awesome place which could make Gilles the Black devout. Myself, I was once, as they will tell you, intended for holy orders, — think ! — but chose the other trade. And I followed like a good retainer, as I trust, Count Guiard of Châlons, who had come down from his castle in the north for this crusade. Up yonder he had left broad lands and a slip of a girl, betrothed to him for years, whose wide, clear eyes, as clear as northern lakes, could never see anything but Guiard. I should have been a troubadour, forsooth ; no churchly life for me!

In front of us we saw in no great time a pile of buildings looming, with a tower above. The place was half in ruins, yet, strangely, not deserted. We surprised a scared half dozen of servingmen, like those whom Gilles and I had met, and from the stables horses neighed to our horses. “What devil’s tangle is this?” Count Guiard said. “Look through the grove for their masters,” and went himself into the great echoing hall.

Presently there arose a cry from the horseboys, and they came toward Gilles and me, bringing two prisoners whom they had taken. These were no servants : they seemed like people of place and consequence, and they wore heavy cloaks of black and hoods to shade their faces. The foremost did the talking, readily and boldly, as might a man from the lawyer class of the cities ; the other hung back somewhat. A big fire crackled away behind them and lighted up the two, and behind that again our men came crowding to stare.

“ Well taken, ha! ” quoth Gilles, and put on the swelling air he loved. “Heretics, beyond a doubt! Hellhounds of Thoulouse who worship Mahound, by the rood! ”

The other waved all that aside, and went to the gist of the matter. “In this purse,” said he, “are some six hundred crowns ; in the stables horses. All that we ask, my companion here and I, is to mount and ride northward in peace.”

A roar of jests went up at that from the gaping crowd behind him. Northward in peace, where at that moment, as we knew, Guy of Lusignan and his gentle lambs were working their own will! But all the land, indeed, was full of the moving bands, Germans, French, Burgundians, all bearing down toward Lunas, where the next task lay to do. Whoever fell in with them, as a general thing, died : it did not matter so much what the religion was. As Arnold Amalric said to us : “Kill them all. God will know his own.”

“Hist there,” warned Gilles as the laughter swelled, “or our little count will come out and break our necks.” But I, glancing around, saw that he stood there already in the shadow, and that he looked for a long time at those two strangers. He was quiet, Count Guiard, almost like a boy, with steady blue eyes which saw everything. He stood a half head over either Gilles or me, and could have killed us both with his naked hands, although he hated brawls. The axe and long sword were the weapons that he favored, but the only man who ever held him even with the lance was William of Barres, the match of Cœur de Lion. Mercy of God, but that was a pretty company of ours, and a leader fit to follow, when we carried down the holy war on the heretics of the south!

“Your name?” asked Guiard then of the foremost stranger.

“Is Thiebault. I am, or was, a lawyer and a magistrate of Thoulouse. This, my younger brother John. We ask fair quarter and leave to ride down into Lunas, if there be no other way.”

“If you will go into the hall,” said Guiard courteously enough, “you shall have, at least to-night, what we have.” He turned ; for there arose a sound of horses’ hoofs, and a swarm of riders came crowding to the place, as though the world were coming. “Guy of Lusignan ! ” some one bawled out in the darkness. At that name, as I thought, the foremost stranger suddenly went pale, and the second one yet paler, and they hurried into the hall.

Guy of Lusignan slid from his saddle with a great clattering of mail. He never took the trouble to seem anything but the big brute he was. “My greeting,” grunted he. “I seek two runaways who have but now escaped me.”

“Two gentlemen of Thoulouse?” quoth our count.

“ Gentlemen or not, ” said Guy of Lusignan, “I claim them as mine own. They must be here.”

“Come inside the hall, then,” our count replied, and led the way. Great torches flared from the walls ; and he stopped still in the light of them, amazed. “St. Mary !” he said. “What witchcraft have we here ? ”

For Thiebault of Thoulouse came toward him, and led by the hand a girl. She had donned in that brief interval a woman’s garments, and stood before us, tall as myself, but with a woman’s gentle grace. Her hair was dark as midnight, and her eyes, her face as pale almost as northern snows, but on her lips, even in that dire stress, there lingered yet a little of the laughter of the south. A moment she and Count Guiard stood and stared at each other, while on the faces of them both a kind of wonder came.

“My lord,” said Thiebault then, “I lied to you, but, as I thought, of necessity. The disguise was because of that man, ” and he nodded toward Guy of Lusignan. “This lady is my ward and my affianced wife ; and her name, not John, but Johan.” He waited like a law pleader for Lusignan’s side of the case.

“By right of sword I claim them,” said the other, and swaggered one step toward her.

“It appears to me,” quoth our count, “that to find might be to hold, in this case. Well, I have promised these two protection for to - night : to - morrow I will see them safe to Lunas, if that may be. After that, I suppose, my gentle lord, they must be the prize of battle for whoever can take.”

That gentle lord went red up to his temples and chewed upon his mustache, in two minds for a moment. He was ever a brawler and a ruffler, Guy of Lusignan, quick to scent insults from everybody : William of Barres and this cool young count of ours were the two who did not insult him. With a sulky curse or so he presently got to saddle again, and went clattering with his rakehells from the place.

The night passed quietly enough, with Thiebault asleep in the hall, the lady in a chamber near by. Count Guiard slept not much ; he prowled the place, while Gilles and I, resting beside the fire, watched him out of the corners of our eyes.

“A place for magic arts is this,” I said to Gilles, — “spells made by the fiend : I like it not.”

“ It may be so, ” quoth he and laughed. “The magic and the sorceries of Mother Eve! ”

But when the morning dawned and the horses were saddled, we forgot the qualms of night. Down to the great highway we rode again, and the very land seemed changed, — a meadow sprinkled with dew and flowers. For the gladness of morning was on it, the freshness of spring. Count Guiard rode behind the two Thoulousians. Once or twice he put his horse alongside, and spoke with them a little. For the rest he rode in silence and deep thought ; only I who watched him always saw how his glance, as though compelled, kept going to the maiden’s face again, and met her glance returning. I should have been a troubadour, a juggler of songs.

Meanwhile we were getting down toward Lunas, that stronghold of the unfaithful. In front were fugitives, seeking to win the town in those last hours ; on either side the companies all hurrying that way. At noon we fell in with one of these, and the captains spoke with each other. There may have been some laxity. Our count, returning, ran his eye over us and sharply cried, “Where are the two, my prisoners? ” He might ask it : they were gone as though in smoke. We scattered and searched for them. We found them not, save that one man declared that he had seen, away in the direction of Lunas, two riders pricking fast. By the bones of St. Bartholomew, that was a bad half hour! Any one who had seen and heard our lord would not have called him cool.

“But forward, then,” said Gilles the Black at last. “St. Mars instead of St. Cupid! ” And we rode down in front of Lunas to join the holy army. My faith, but that was a sight for a man to remember long. French and Italians, Normans, Belgians, and Burgundians, — they were swarming there in packs, like wolf packs for a feast. And before us, insolent, offering celestial honor for the soul and somewhat for the hands, lay Lunas, a great red castle on a hill, and the town behind its walls.

You know how that business went. Three days of skirmishing in the breaches, and then no water, and despair for them. Down they came and sallied out into the plain, — fighting men, women, all of them ; their van a bristling front, but with wailing in the rear. The cries of battle began to swell up faster and faster ; there was soon stubborn fighting everywhere. That front of theirs reeled to and fro, and men were trampled under, women were trampled : still their front held, until a cry began to pass along for Guiard of Châlons then. “Let him break this line, if he can, for the Lord and us ! ” Since that escape three days ago our count had fallen to a wicked quiet ; now he merely nodded and swung himself to the saddle. One could tell by the way he did it, by the way he shifted himself in his seat, the quick power that he had. And braggart Gascons, envious knights of Poitou, drew up with the plunder under their horses’ noses, and watched through half-shut eyes to see our champion of Châlons, our strong lad of the north, make good the fame he carried. He rode back a little way behind us and wheeled his great roan around ; the men at arms in front of him drew off to give him room. A dreary clamor of shouts and curses arose from their ranks at the sight of him launching against them. And then we saw a strange thing. For as the man and horse struck and went ploughing through, Count Guiard seemed to slip from his saddle and bent him down, scarce level with the horse’s back. He hung there in the press, striking no strokes, and accepted without reply the curses and the blows.

A sudden, taunting cry went up from among Guy of Lusignan’s men, a kind of scornful cackle, answered by a big laugh from our own ; for Count Guiard had lunged forward a little way, and from that mêlée, that ruck of blood and mud, had clutched his prize out, — a girl like a great white lily, the flower of Provence. He tossed her lightly to the saddlebow and steadied her there with one hand, killed Godfrey of Menerbe with the other, and waited for us to come in.

Their line was crumbling away, say like a flock of frightened sheep which scatters far and wide : you should have seen the wolves! Some men I know, who are not squeamish, cannot be coaxed to talk of the taking of Lunas. For their insolence and riches, their damnable heresies and black art, learned from the Saracen, no doubt they deserved to pay, and they paid. You know what Arnold Amalric said : that was our motto there.

Afterward a kind of silence fell, but the plundering went on. Count Guiard was not the man to call off his faithful followers from that. But out beyond the edge of the hurly-burly, where the led horses waited and tossed their heads to be gone, a girl as white as a great white lily sat on a palfrey and waited, still as death. She was bent down until her face almost rested against the black mane, lest some last arrows might be flying. And on that face, chasing like lights and shadows over water, were fear, surprise, despair, deligh— By Holy Mary, I do not know!

One old acquaintance she had near her ; for Thiebault was not, at least, a coward. When the rout began, he walked out past the flicking swords and came to where Count Guiard sat on his horse, directing matters. The Thoulousian looked toward the rear where the girl was, as one who should say, “Kill me or let me go to her.” The other man nodded his head, — it was not a place for much talking, — and so Thiebault went out through the running blood, and sullenly stood beside her. He could understand there, my faith, how well the gauntlet of steel had crushed his clever wiles. All around him men were shouting and passing jokes of a kind, and looking across toward Count Guiard, who had taken the fairest booty. He sat on the roan, Guiard, making plans with the other leaders, and never glanced behind, but a slight smile lurked around his lips. I who knew him so well could guess with what a pleasant madness the blood was dancing through his heart.

After a while, when there was no more to do in Lunas, the bands began to separate. Our troop closed up together, finished with putting the packs on the led horses. There was a word from the van, and we went eastward. Stretched out in a long line we jogged across the plain. In our rear the horseboys still chattered over victory ; in the centre those two prisoners — we had no others — sat silently and let their horses carry them forward toward what might be ; we were almost as silent, we in the advance. Count Guiard rode along for hours without speaking to Gilles or me, who followed him. And there, as it seems to me, if ever in this world a man had chance to choose his road, the one before us had it. For a man like that might take or might put aside, but he could not blink the question. In all that plain, in all the wide Provençal land, was naught to balk his will, any more than Guy of Lusignan could, raving away in the rear. He had the game in his own hands.

Far to the northward a chain of mountains stole along the sky, faint blue they were so far. And one road lay toward these. The other road led toward the south, through that great smiling plain which stretched away, away, till no eyes could see the end. Down on the horizon you might catch a glimpse now and then of a patch of blue sea. In that direction the whole land smiled with flowers, while fragrant breezes blew across to us, and voices seemed to whisper : “ Here is the land for a man to come and take his heart’s desire. One day of me is worth all other days.”

The Count Guiard drew rein at last, and turned upon us suddenly. “There are two roads that I can take, ” he said, “and how am I to know the better? ”

Then spoke out Gilles, like the roistering knave he was. “Why, throw a main for it, ” he said.

“Yes,” replied our count, “one might do that. You love the games of hazard, Gilles ; but you would not throw for stakes which were all in your own hands, or I to choose a road when the road is already chosen. ” And we took the way toward the south.

So in the course of time we came down to Narbonne, a port upon the sea. Around it were silent, fragrant gardens, but the town itself was full of riot and uproar. There had been no defense here ; the bands that came in helped themselves as they pleased, the people glad to escape on any terms. Down on the quays a throng of fugitives were trying to get on board the shipping and sail away to Marseilles. Near by these quays was a great looming pile of a building, into which our Câalons men swarmed for a lodging. Outside in the streets, as it grew later, the rioting increased, but here in the great court, lit up by flaming torches, were quiet and repose. And here Count Guiard, after a while, ordered the two prisoners to be brought before him.

They came, and waited silently : the man white, desperate ; the girl white, radiant. I said that she was like a lily, a great flower : in these last hours she had revived like one. She stood there, so slender-tall, and left the matter in his keeping, waited for him to say. Count Guiard looked at her once, and passed his hand across his brow ; and then he spoke to Thiebault.

“You have forfeited life and goods and this lady,” he said harshly. “In the name of all the saints, man, take your life and a thousand crowns, and go! ”

But the sullen Thoulousian answered : “Not by my own will do I leave her. I stay by her while life remains. You know the remedy for that.”

“By the faith,” Count Guiard answered, “I think I do!” and signed to some of us. We went out into the streets with those two prisoners and the torches, and so down to the water’s edge. Along the quays, where the crowd was gathered, a tumult and a clamoring arose ; sometimes a yell of despair as a ship threw off the ropes and lurched toward the open water. Beside one ship we paused, and our count turned upon Thiebault.

“St. Mary,” said he, with a sudden heat, “but I should like to kill you! To Marseilles must you go.” He spoke a word with some men upon the deck, and in a moment they had drawn Thiebault over upon it, and held him struggling there. As the ship veered out a little way, a kind of frenzy seized on the Thoulousian. Across those few feet of water the two men stared at each other,—he who was to have and he who must go forlorn. Thiebault was gasping, foaming ; but the count smiled slightly again. And he turned to look at Johan.

Awhile he stood and gazed at her, with the strangest contorted face that ever a man wore. “Johan ! Johan ! ” he said ; and in his throat was a noise betwixt a laugh and groan. He stretched out his long arms, for the second time in life laid hands upon her, and raised and dashed her from him across that strip of water fair into Thiebault’s arms. So rapidly he did it, so lightly she flew and fell, that she came down all unharmed against the startled Thoulousian, who staggered, but held that burden. There are men who say that such a thing could not be possible; but they never saw Guiard of Châlons.

I do not know what she thought of it, — the lady. Our man turned without ever looking at her more, and we went back into the city. There were mirth and carousing everywhere, but he went along like a man dazed by a sword-stroke. When we had reached our lodging, he said to Gilles and me : “I would be alone awhile. Do not, especially, let Guy of Lusignan come where I am.” Some people say that he spent that night in feasting, like the other captains ; but Gilles and I, who guarded the door for him, we knew the truth of it. So we watched Guiard of Châlons, sitting there through the long hours, in his eyes a kind of desperation, a kind of rueful amusement at himself, and a wonder at the fortune which could send upon a man such puzzling things as that.

Mortimer O. Wilcox.