The Truce of God | Page 8

give a
hostage to fortune, to forestall me in mercy?"
He turned to the girl beside him.
"You see," he said, "to what lengths this spirit of the Holy Day extends
itself. Our friend here--" Then he saw her face and knew the truth.
The smile set a little on his lips.
"Why, then," he said to the gaoler, "such mercy should have its
reward." He turned to Joan. "What say you? Shall I station him at your
door, sweet lady, as a guard of honour?"

Things went merrily after that, for Guillem drew a knife and made, not
for the seigneur, but for Joan. The troubadours feared to stop singing
without a signal, so they sang through white lips. The dogs gnawed at
their bones and the seigneur sat and smiled, showing his teeth.
Guillem, finally unhanded, stood with folded arms and waited for
death.
"It is the time of the Truce of God," said the seigneur softly, and,
knowing that death would be a boon, sent him off unhurt.
* * * * *
The village, which had eaten full, slept early that night. Down the hill
at nine o'clock came half a dozen men-at-arms on horseback and
clattered through the streets. Word went about quickly. Great oaken
doors were unbarred to the news:
"The child Clotilde is gone!" they cried through the streets. "Up and
arm. The child Clotilde is gone."
Joan, deserted, sat alone in the great hall. For the seigneur was off,
riding like a madman. Flying through the Market Square, he took the
remains of the great fire at a leap. He had but one thought. The Jew had
stolen the child; therefore, to find the Jew.
In the blackest of the night he found him, sitting by the road, bent over
his staff. The eyes he raised to Charles were haggard and weary.
Charles reined his horse back on his haunches, his men-at-arms behind
him.
"What have you done with the child?"
"The child?"
"Out with it," cried Charles and flung himself from his horse. If the Jew
were haggard, Charles was more so, hard bitten of terror, pallid to the
lips.

"I have seen no child. That is--" He hastened to correct himself, seeing
Charles' face in the light of a torch. "I was released by a child, a girl. I
have not seen her since."
He spoke with the simplicity of truth. In the light of the torches Charles'
face went white.
"She released you?" he repeated slowly. "What did she say?"
"She said: 'It is the birthday of our Lord,'" repeated the Jew, slowly, out
of his weary brain. "'And I am doing a good deed.'"
"Is that all?" The Jew hesitated.
"Also she said: 'But you do not love our Lord.'"
Charles swore under his breath. "And you?"
"I said but little. I--"
"What did you say?"
"I said that her Lord was also a Jew." He was fearful of giving offence,
so he hastened to add: "It was by way of comforting the child. Only
that, my lord."
"She said nothing else?" The seigneur's voice was dangerously calm.
The Jew faltered. He knew the gossip of the town.
"She said--she said she wished two things, my lord. To become a boy
and--to see her mother."
Then Charles lifted his face to where the stars were growing dim before
the uprising of the dawn, and where, as far away as the eye could reach
and as far again, lay the castle of his cousin Philip of the Black Beard.
And the rage was gone out of his eyes. For suddenly he knew that, on
that feast of mother and child, Clotilde had gone to her mother, as
unerringly as an arrow to its mark.

And with the rage died all the passion and pride. In the eyes that had
gazed at Joan over the parapet, and that now turned to the east, there
was reflected the dawning of a new day.
* * * * *
The castle of Philip the Black lay in a plain. For as much as a mile in
every direction the forest had been sacrificed against the loving
advances of his cousin Charles. Also about the castle was a moat in
which swam noisy geese and much litter.
When, shortly after dawn, the sentry at the drawbridge saw a great
horse with a double burden crossing the open space he was but faintly
interested. A belated peasant with his Christmas dues, perhaps. But
when, on the lifting of the morning haze, he saw that the horse bore two
children and one a girl, he called another man to look.
"Troubadours, by the sound," said the newcomer. For the Fool was
singing to cheer his lack of breakfast. "Coming empty of belly, as come
all troubadours."
But the