PAGE 8
The Truce of God
by
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Having no seasonable merriment in himself, Charles surrounded himself that night with cheer. A band of wandering minstrels had arrived to sing, the great fire blazed, the dogs around it gnawed the bones of the Christmas feast. But when the troubadours would have sung of the Nativity, he bade them in a great voice to have done. So they sang of war, and, remembering his cousin Philip, his eyes blazed.
When Joan came he motioned her to a seat beside him, not on his right, but on his left, and there he let her sit without speech. But his mind was working busily. He would have a son and the King would legitimise him. Then let Philip go hang. These lands of his as far as the eye could reach and as far again would never go to him.
The minstrels sang of war, and of his own great deeds, but there was no one of them with so beautiful a voice as that of the Fool, who could sing only of peace. And the Fool was missing.
However, their songs soothed his hurt pride. This was he; these things he had done. If the Bishop had not turned sour and gone, he would have heard what they sang. He might have understood, too, the craving of a man’s warrior soul for a warrior son, for one to hold what he had gathered at such cost. Back always to this burning hope of his!
Joan sat on his left hand, and went hot and cold, hot with shame and cold with fear.
So now, his own glory as a warrior commencing to pall on him, Charles would have more tribute, this time as lord of peace. He would celebrate this day of days, and at the same time throw a sop to Providence.
He would release the Jew.
The troubadours sang louder; fresh liquor was passed about. Charles waited for the Jew to be brought.
He remembered Clotilde then. She should see him do this noble thing. Since her mother had gone she had shrunk from him. Now let her see how magnanimous he could be. He, the seigneur, who held life and death in his hands, would this day give, not death, but life.
Being not displeased with himself, he turned at last toward Joan and put a hand over hers.
“You see,” he said, “I am not so hard a man. By this Christian act shall I celebrate your arrival.”
But the Jew did not come. The singers learned the truth, and sang with watchful eyes. The seigneur’s anger was known to be mighty, and to strike close at hand.
Guillem, the gaoler, had been waiting for the summons.
News had come to him late in the afternoon that had made him indifferent to his fate. The girl Joan, whom he loved, had come up the hill at the overlord’s summons. So, instead of raising an alarm, Guillem had waited sullenly. Death, which yesterday he would have blenched to behold, now beckoned him. When he was brought in, he stood with folded arms and asked no mercy.
“He is gone, my lord,” said Guillem, and waited. He did not glance at the girl.
“Gone?” said Charles. Then he laughed, such laughter as turned the girl cold.
“Gone, earth-clod? How now? Perhaps you, too, wished to 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?”