The Truce of God | Page 3

so that I may see my mother again. But go quickly." Then she
remembered something the Bishop had said to her, and eyed him
thoughtfully as he stared at her.
"But you do not love our Lord!"
The Jew put out his foot quietly so that she could not close the grating
again. But he smiled into her eyes.
"Your Lord was a Jew," he said.
This reassured her. It seemed to double the quality of mercy. She threw
the door wide and the usurer went out cautiously, as if suspecting a trap.
But patches of sunlight, barred with black, showed the way clear. He
should have gone at once, but he waited to give her the blessing of his
people. Even then, having started, he went back to her. She looked so
small in that fearsome place.
"If there is something you wish, little maid, and I can secure it for
you--"
"I wish but two things," she said. "I wish to be a boy, only I fear it is
too late for that. The Bishop thinks so. And I wish to see my mother."
And these being beyond his gift, and not contained in the pack he had
fastened to his shoulders, he only shook his head and took his cautious
way toward freedom.

Having tried song and a good deed, Clotilde went back again to her
room, stepping over the page, who had curled himself up in a ball, like
a puppy, and still slept. She crossed her hands on her breast and raised
her eyes as she had been taught.
"Now, O Lord," she said, "I have tried song and I have tried a good
deed. I wish to see my mother."
Perhaps it was merely coincidence that the level rays of the morning
sun just then fell on the crucifix that hung on the wall, and that
although during all the year it seemed to be but of wood and with
closed eyes, now it flashed as with life and the eyes were open.
"He was one of Your people," she said to the crucifix, "and by now he
is down the hill."

[Illustration: Chapter Two]

II
Now it was the custom on the morning of the Holy day for the seigneur
to ride his finest stallion to the top of the hill, where led a steep road
down into the town. There he dismounted, surrounded by his people,
guests and soldiers, smaller visiting nobility, the household of the
Castle. And, the stage being set as it were, and the village waiting
below, it was his pleasure to give his charger a great cut with the whip
and send him galloping, unridden, down the hill. The horse was his
who caught it.
Below waited the villagers, divided between terror and cupidity. Above
waited the Castle folk. It was an amusing game for those who stood
safely along the parapet and watched, one that convulsed them with
merriment. Also, it improved the quality of those horses that grazed in
the plain below.

This year it was a great grey that carried Charles out to the road that
clung to the face of the cliff. Behind him on a donkey, reminder of the
humble beast that had borne the Christ into Jerusalem, rode the Bishop.
Saddled and bridled was the grey, with a fierce head and great
shoulders, a strong beast for strong days.
The men-at-arms were drawn up in a double line, weapons at rest.
From the place below rose a thin grey smoke where the fire kindled for
the steer. But the crowd had deserted and now stood, eyes upraised to
the Castle, and to the cliff road where waited boys and men ready for
their desperate emprise, clad in such protection of leather as they could
afford against the stallion's hoofs.
Two people only remained by the steer, an aged man, almost blind,
who tended the fire, and the girl Joan, whom Guillem slept to forget.
"The seigneur has ridden out of the gates, father," she said. The colour
mounted to her dark cheeks. She was tall and slender, unlike the
peasant girls of the town, almost noble in her bearing; a rare flower that
Charles, in his rage and disappointment, would pick for himself.
"And were you not undutiful," he mumbled, "you would be with him
now, and looking down on this rabble."
She did not reply at once. Her eyes were fixed on the frowning castle,
on the grim double line of men-at-arms, at the massive horse and its
massive rider.
"I, too, should be up there," whined the old man. "Today, instead of
delivering Christmas dues, I should be receiving them. But you--!" He
swung on her malevolently, "You must turn great ox-eyes toward
Guillem, whose most courageous work is to