The Truce of God | Page 5

had watched it all from a window. Because she was
very high the thing she saw most plainly was the cross on the donkey's
back. Far out over the plain was a moving figure which might or might
not have been the Jew. She chose to think it was.
"One of Your people," she said toward the crucifix. "I have done the
good deed."
She was a little frightened, for all her high head.
Other Christmases she and the lady her mother had sat hand in hand,
and listened to the roystering.
"They are drunk," Clotilde would say.

But her mother would stroke her hand and reply:
"They but rejoice that our Lord is born."
So the child Clotilde stood at her window and gazed to where the plain
stretched as far as she could see and as far again. And there was her
mother. She would go to her and bring her back, or perhaps failing that,
she might be allowed to stay.
Here no one would miss her. The odour of cooking food filled the great
house, loud laughter, the clatter of mug on board. Her old nurse was
below, decorating a boar's head with berries and a crown.
Because it was the Truce of God and a festival, the gates stood open.
She reached the foot of the hill safely. Stragglers going up and down
the steep way regarded her without suspicion. So she went through the
Square past the roasting steer, and by a twisting street into the open
country.
When she stopped to rest it was to look back with wistful eyes toward
the frowning castle on the cliff. For a divided allegiance was hers.
Passionately as she loved her mother, her indomitable spirit was her
father's heritage, his fierceness was her courage, and she loved him as
the small may love the great.
The Fool found her at the edge of the river. She had forgotten that there
was a river. He was on his great horse, and he rode up by the child and
looked down at her.
"It was I who captured him," he boasted. "The others ran, but I caught
him, so." He dismounted to illustrate.
"It is not because you were brave that you captured him."
"Then why?" He stood with his feet wide apart, looking down at her.
"It is because you have slept in a manger on a Holy Eve."
"Aye," he responded, "but that was a matter of courage, too. There

were many strange noises. Also, in the middle of the night came Our
Lady herself and said to me: 'Hereafter thou shalt sing with the voice of
an angel.'"
"I should like to see Our Lady," said the child wistfully.
"Also," pursued the Fool, "She gave me power over great beasts. See!
He fears me, while he loves me."
And indeed there seemed some curious kinship between the horse and
the lad, perhaps because the barrier of keen human mind was not
between them.
"Think you," said the little maid, "if I slept where you did She would
appear to me? I would not ask much, only to be made a lad like you,
and, perhaps, to sing."
"But I am a simpleton. Instead of wit I have but a voice and now--a
horse."
"A lad like you," she persisted, "so that my father would love me and
my mother might come back again?"
"Better stay as you are," said the Fool. "Also, there will be no Holy Eve
again for a long time. It comes but once a year. Also it is hard times for
men who must either fight or work in the fields. I--" He struck his chest.
"I shall do neither. And I shall cut no more wood. I go adventuring."
Clotilde rose and drew her grey cloak around her.
"I am adventuring, too," she said. "Only I have no voice and no horse.
May I go with you?"
The boy was doubtful. He had that innate love and tenderness that is
given to his kind instead of other things. But a child!
"I will take you," he said at last, rather heavily. "But where, little lady?"
"To my mother at the castle of Black Philip." And when his face

fell--for Philip was not named The Black only for his beard--
"She loves singing. I will ask you to sing before her."
That decided him. He took her before him on the grey horse and they
set off, two valiant adventurers, a troubadour and a lady, without food
or sufficient clothing, but with high courage and a song.
And because it was the Truce of God the children went unharmed,
encountering no greater adventure than hunger and cold and aching
muscles. Robbers sulked in their fastnesses, and their horses pawed the
ground. Murder, rapine and