The Truce of God | Page 4

levy tribute of a dungeon!"
She flushed.
"I am afraid, father. He is a hard man."
"He is gentle with women."

"Gentle!" Her eyes were still upraised. "He knows not the word. When
he looks at me there is no liking in his eyes. I am--frightened."
The overlord sat his great horse and surveyed the plain below. As far as
he could see, and as far again in every direction, was his domain,
paying him tithe of fat cattle and heaping granaries. As far as he could
see and as far again was the domain that, lacking a man-child, would go
to Philip, his cousin.
The Bishop, who rode his donkey without a saddle, slipped off and
stood beside the little beast on the road. His finger absently traced the
dark cross on its back.
"Idiots!" snarled the overlord out of his distemper, as he looked down
into the faces of his faithful ones below. "Fools and sons of fools! Thy
beast would suit them better, Bishop, than mine."
Then he flung himself insolently out of the saddle. There was little of
Christmas in his heart, God knows; only hate and disappointment and
thwarted pride.
"A great day, my lord," said the Bishop. "Peace over the land. The end
of a plentiful year--"
"Bah!"
"The end of a plentiful year," repeated the Bishop tranquilly, "this day
of His birth, a day for thanksgiving and for--good-will."
"Bah!" said the overlord again, and struck the grey a heavy blow. So
massive was the beast, so terrific the pace at which it charged down the
hill that the villagers scattered. He watched them with his lip curling.
"See," he said, "brave men and true! Watch, father, how they rally to
the charge!" And when the creature was caught, and a swaying figure
clung to the bridle:
"By the cross, the Fool has him! A fine heritage for my cousin Philip, a

village with its bravest man a simpleton!"
The Fool held on swinging. His arms were very strong, and as is the
way with fools and those that drown, many things went through his
mind. The horse was his. He would go adventuring along the winter
roads, adventuring and singing. The townspeople gathered about him
with sheepish praise. From a dolt he had become a hero. Many have
taken the same step in the same space of moments, the line being but a
line and easy to cross.
The denouement suited the grim mood of the overlord. It pleased him
to see the smug villagers stand by while the Fool mounted his steed.
Side by side from the parapet he and the Bishop looked down into the
town.
"The birthday of our Lord, Bishop," he said, "with fools on blooded
horses and the courage of the townspeople in their stomachs."
"The birthday of our Lord," said the Bishop tranquilly, "with a lad
mounted who has heretofore trudged afoot, and with the hungry fed in
the market place."
Now it had been in the mind of the Bishop that the day would soften
Charles' grim humour and that he might speak to him as man to man.
But Charles was not softened.
So the Bishop gathered up his courage. His hand was still on the cross
on the donkey's back.
"You are young, my son, and have been grievously disappointed. I,
who am old, have seen many things, and this I have learned. Two
things there are that, next to the love of God, must be greatest in a
man's life--not war nor slothful peace, nor pride, nor yet a will that
would bend all things to its end."
The overlord scowled. He had found the girl Joan in the Market Square,
and his eyes were on her.

"One," said the Bishop, "is the love of a woman. The other is--a child."
The donkey stood meekly, with hanging head.
"A woman," repeated the Bishop. "You grow rough up here on your
hillside. Only a few months since the lady your wife went away, and
already order has forsaken you. The child, your daughter, runs like a
wild thing, without control. Our Holy Church deplores these things."
"Will Holy Church grant me another wife?"
"Holy Church," replied the Bishop gravely, "would have you take back,
my lord, the wife whom your hardness drove away."
The seigneur's gaze turned to the east, where lay the Castle of Philip,
his cousin. Then he dropped brooding eyes to the Square below, where
the girl Joan assisted her father by the fire, and moved like a mother of
kings.
"You wish a woman for the castle, father," he said. "Then a woman we
shall have. Holy Church may not give me another wife, but I shall take
one. And I shall have a son."
* * * * *
The child Clotilde