Lord Geoffrey's Fancy Read online

  "Thank you, my lord," I said with relief.

  "You must put up with cramped quarters," he went on. "Carytena Ms the summit of this rock, and I can't enlarge it. I can give you the top room in the north tower, which ought to be enough for any couple. But if little cousins of mine come along every year, as I hope they will, we shall have to make other arrangements; especially as by that time I hope the place will be overrun with little Bruyeres."

  "Now about money," he continued. "I can't increase your wages, I'm afraid. Of course madam Melisande will be paid so long as she waits on my lady. After that you must manage on your pay alone. Perhaps we shall have a good war soon, and you can pick up plunder or a ransom. The Esclavons round here have nothing worth taking. When do you want to be married? Advent is coming, and we shall keep Christmas at Estives with my lady's family. So the wedding must be soon unless you wait for the New Year. Which suits you best? I will warn the chaplain."

  "There's nothing to wait for, my lord," I said gratefully. "We will be married as soon as the chaplain can manage it. My kin would not come to the wedding if we gave them a year's warning, and though there are Melisseni all over Romanie none of them are close cousins of my lady. All our friends are already gathered under this roof."

  "And a cousin of yours, Sir William, don't forget that. We may or may not be connected in blood; but I feel like a cousin to you, and that's what matters, isn't it? I shall provide the wedding feast for my cousin who marries in a strange land. You may call it my wedding gift, if you like. Don't thank me. I enjoy parties, and this is an excuse for a really good one."

  My lord could be generous without being patronising, a difficult feat. He was not only the best knight in Romanie; he was the most courteous and honest gentleman.

  "There's one thing you should bear in mind, cousin, when you are married," he continued after I had expressed my gratitude. "They tell me that in the west courteous love and troubadours and wearing a lady's favour in the joust and that sort of thing are going out of fashion. In Lamorie we are always a bit behind the times, and there are not very many of us. All my household knights are sighing with hopeless love for the lady Melisande, as you know as well as I do. After the wedding they will go on sighing, and serve her with the usual declarations of devotion. I won't say it doesn't mean a thing; you never can tell. But remember that it may not mean a thing. Don't spoil the fun that your wife is used to, and don't go killing good Frankish knights because you see them wearing her favours. There's a point where honour demands that any husband must go out and slay. Don't take offence before that point is reached. I am sure you know what I mean."

  I did, and after I had taken my leave I was glad he had reminded me of it. I found Melisande playing cat's cradle with a handsome young Lombard. He gazed into her eyes with rapt devotion, taking every opportunity to touch her fingers. But tomorrow he would be off on his journey to Negripont. I felt that even the most handsome young stranger could not cut me out in less than two days.

  My lord practised what he preached. The lady Isabel, a happy bride, was the most beautiful young woman in Carytena, as many gallant knights told her to her face. She was delighted with everything she saw in the barony which would be her home, and went about telling everyone how pleasant it was. Carytena can be pleasant in autumn. There was plenty of fuel for the numerous fireplaces, the window-shutters fitted closely, and the overhanging mountains kept off the worst of the north wind. When snow drifts before a gale outside you feel very snug in a thick-walled tower. It is in summer, when you long to ride in open country and must struggle down that frightful path, that you feel imprisoned.

  Sir Geoffrey watched the lady Isabel play backgammon with gay young men, or dance in hall after supper; and smiled to see her happy, without any display of jealous ownership. He was courteous, and he trusted the vassals who loved him.

  Melisande and I were married in the castle chapel, in a ceremony which was sufficiently canonical though irregular from start to finish. It was irregular because the chapel was a private oratory and not a public church, because the chaplain had been suspended by his bishop, and because many of the congregation were excommunicate. There was nothing odd about that in the Romanie of those days. Ever since the conquest there had been a standing feud with the Archbishop of Patras, whose palace had been demolished to make a castle for Sir William Aleman; gradually the quarrel had grown, until all over the country bishops were at feud with barons. But the priest who married us was only suspended, not schismatic; Melisande and I have always been faithful children of the Roman pontiff, though from time to time we have been driven to disagree with some of his inferior ministers.

  The wedding feast was a very jolly affair. Melisande and I sat in the place of honour. Sir Geoffrey and the lady Isabel ceremonially handed us the first dish; after that they sat beside us. There was good food and plenty to drink, and I managed to dodge making a speech. Among the guests were several Grifons in long silk robes, their ladies with remarkably painted faces under fantastic head-dresses. Of course Melisande rebuked me for calling them Grifons, and I promised to say Roman in future if I could remember to do so. She explained that these Gri— Romans were gentry, holding land by knight service with all the privileges of their rank. The richer among them came to the muster on good horses, carrying an iron mace instead of a lance; the rest served as mounted sergeants. She told me that in general they were loyal to their Frankish lords, who took much less from them in taxes than they used to pay to their Emperor; and that the vassals of Sir Geoffrey were exceptionally faithful, because he was a good lord who understood their customs and gave them justice.

  In all the Frankish lands beyond sea you find a scattering of these Roman gentry. They can be trusted against Bulgars and Esclavons and other enemies of all civilised men; but when it is a question of making war on other Grifons you never know whether the bond of a common religion will prove stronger than the memory of rapacious Grifon tax-gatherers. In any case, their short weapons and timid tactics unfit them for a place in a squadron of real knights. It seemed to me a mistake to leave them in occupation of fertile land that might otherwise support proper warriors. But when Sir Geoffrey's father had conquered the land he had guaranteed their rights; and Sir Geoffrey, a gentleman of honour, held himself bound by his father's promise.

  Presently the hall was cleared for dancing. After a few bawdy jokes I was able to slip away with my bride. And so began the married life which still continues as I write, and which I have never regretted since first we met in that far-off enchanted land.

  At the beginning of Advent I rode in my first foray against the wild Esclavons. These miserable creatures wander on foot in twos and threes, with no weapons save axe and dagger. If you catch them you can kill them without trouble; but they are very hard to catch, since they skip over the crags like goats. Our aim was to prove that even in their mountains they were not safe from us. For lack of a worthier foe the knights displayed their prowess by riding over ground which seemed too steep for anything on four legs. But if a horse has been reared among the mountains it is astonishing what it can do. To begin with I was very frightened, but later I found I was reasonably safe if I left the reins alone and used my legs to keep the beast pointing more or less in the right direction. The Grifons who used to rule in these parts take no pride in risking their necks in bravado, and the Esclavons had thought themselves safe on any rocky spur. But a good knight, if other good knights are looking on, will try anything. We rode up to some Esclavon hamlets, chasing their women and children out into the weather; though the wretched huts had been built in places that a man on foot could reach only with difficulty.

  We did not kill any Esclavons; but we showed them that there was no peak within the barony of Escorta where they might store their plunder in safety. They must raid somewhere, since their steep mountains will not yield them a livelihood; this year they would raid northwards into Sir Geoffrey de Tournay's barony of La Grite, and leave the lands of Bruyere in peace.

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nbsp; Ten days before Christmas we all rode over the isthmus to keep the feast in the Megaskyr's hall at Estives. The lady Isabel brought all her train, so that my Melisande could come too. She had been looking forward to the visit to the gayest and most thriving town of Frankish Romanie, and after hearing her stories I also was anxious to see it.

  Estives is indeed a delightful town, inhabited by rich and contented Grifons who tend silkworms and weave silk and pay their taxes punctually. Italian merchants come every summer; there is even a prosperous community of unbelieving Jews, the ultimate proof of wealth in any market.

  There are Frankish burgesses also, and the town supports two noble families. The Megaskyr holds a castle on a flat-topped hill, not so beautiful as his other castle at Satines but more roomy and just as strong. Sir Bela de St. Omer, a Fleming in spite of the name given him by his Hungarian mother, holds half the town in fee from his brother-in-law the Megaskyr. He also has a castle within the walls, a strong tower such as you see in Italian cities; his young and handsome family gave parties as splendid as those of their overlord.

  In this gay round of visiting and dancing and music the lady Isabel flourished. I have never seen anyone so vital and energetic; her statuesque beauty as a great and remote lady had been changed into the prettiness of a merry young bride. She was always in a crowd of young men, naturally; but other girls, especially the St. Omers, were just as eager for her company. It was a kind of life that you see more often in Romanie than in the west—a group of young people, equal in social rank, chattering together and planning their own amusement; instead of a single family living iso-lated in a castle, and meeting other families three or four times a year at parliaments and tourneys.

  Sir Geoffrey threw himself into this new mode of life. He had always been popular with knights, and he could dance and gossip well enough to charm the young ladies. I suppose it was something like being at the court of a very great King, in France or England; but not at all the kind of thing you would find in an ordinary baronial castle of the west, or indeed in mountain-girt Carytena.

  My Melisande enjoyed herself, chattering French and Italian and Grifon all at once, while I stumbled behind in the old-fashioned north-French of the Welsh March. These Franks had picked up some of the volatile wit of their Grifon neighbours; naturally enough, since they had been reared by Grifon nurses and most of them had Grifon blood somewhere in their pedigrees.

  Best of all, we could enjoy ourselves out of doors even in midwinter. Estives lies in a fertile plain, though unfortunately during the anarchy of the conquest fifty years before the local peasants had exterminated all the deer. But the hawking was really very good, with wildfowl flighting from the marshes at dawn and sunset; and at that season you might ride after your hawk in any direction without damaging the crops. In Romanie the winter days are longer than in England, and though it can be cold the sun often shines. The St. Omers kept a very good mews, and I have never enjoyed better falconry.

  Too soon the time came to return to rocky Carytens, where ladies may not venture out alone for fear of the Esclavons and the hills are so steep that you cannot ride after a hawk. Though Melisande always tells me that I am slow in noticing these things, even I could see that the lady Isabel might be discontented in her new home.

  3. WAR IN NEGRIPONT

  Sir Geoffrey led his mesnie to the spring parliament of 1255 in La Cremonie. But this time we brought no ladies with us, for the lady Isabel was with child and the doctors would not let her ride, Lamorie is a bad country for babies, at least Frankish babies; many are still-born, and of the rest more die in infancy than grow up. I don't know why this should be, since the peasants have the usual large peasant families. Of course the food and the climate are not what we are used to.

  My Melisande was also expecting a baby, so I was glad of the excuse to leave her quietly at home. No harm would come to her while Carytena was commanded by Sir John de Catabas, who had been appointed castellan because his rheumatism made riding painful.

  But when we reached La Cremonie I regretted that Melisande had not come with us, in a litter if there was no other way for her to travel. For the parliament was faced with a complicated question of inheritance, which I am sure she would have made clear to me in a few words. Only a native of Romanie could understand the rights of it, since the roots of the quarrel lay deep in the past.

  On the face of it the question seemed simple enough. The Princess Carintana of Lamorie had died childless, and by the custom of the whole civilised world her husband should succeed to her possessions. At her death she had been seized of a barony in the island of Negripont, and Prince William now called on the other barons of the island to grant him peaceful seizin of his wife's fees. I was so astonished to hear that they were making difficulties about it that I went privately to my lord and asked him for an explanation.

  Sir Geoffrey was in the solar of his lodging, a comfortable little room with a balcony looking down the green valley. All the houses in Romanie are more comfortable, and divided into many more small rooms, than our halls in England; you must bear that in mind throughout this story. Sir Geoffrey smiled when he heard my question, and motioned me to sit on a stool beside his chair. He was always willing to talk with any household knight as though they were his equals.

  "Landholding in Romanie is more complicated than it seems, cousin William," he said with one of his charming grins. "It's the fault of our fathers, who divided the land so carelessly that they left two claimants to nearly every fee. You see, this country was really divided twice. After the Crusaders had won Constantinople they held a meeting to elect an Emperor, and at the same time allotted the unconquered provinces. But it so happened that the lords who at Constantinople were granted these provinces were -not the lords who later conquered them from the Grifons. So afterwards there were various compromises.. .."

  I began to see. This was more tangled even than questions of inheritance in Wales.

  "There has never been another claimant to Escorta," he went on, "which my father won from the Grifons with his own sword. But in Negripont the question of right is unusually difficult. At the conquest of Constantinople it was granted to the Venetians, who took no steps to occupy it. Then the dalle Carceri, nobles from Lombardy, invaded overland from Satines and divided the island into three baronies. By the way, we must call it an island; but it is so near the mainland that it is joined to it by a bridge. By treaty the Lombard conquerors gave Venice the town of Negripont itself, with the usual civic rights. Then these dalle Carceri began to quarrel among themselves, as Italians will if they have no foreign enemies to fight; until there were two claimants for each of the three baronies. So they asked the Venetian bailey to arbitrate, and he decided that each barony should be divided, making six fees in all. But that was to last only one lifetime. On the death of any baron the two halves of his barony should be reunited under the surviving claimant. The Princess Carintana, God rest her soul, held one-sixth of the island. Now do you see?"

  "Of course I see, my lord. That Venetian left the makings of a very pretty quarrel. But though the kinsman of the Princess may expect to inherit, our Prince has the right of it. A private arbitration before a foreigner cannot override the God-given right of hereditary succession, on which all Christendom rests. Prince William must hold the land of his late wife, or we might as well be savages living by stealing acorns from one another."

  "A sound view, cousin William, and cogently expressed. Say that again in parliament, if you can make yourself heard above the hubbub of those Lombards. But the latest news is that they may not come to the parliament at all. In that case the Prince intends to summon them to attend his court, the court he will hold as overlord of the whole island of Negripont. There he is on much more shaky ground. I doubt whether he is truly overlord of Negripont. I don't see how he can be overlord of the Venetian town by the bridge; when by a treaty with Venice his father, my grandfather, became a burgess of Venice and bought a house there. You can't be overlord of the town in wh
ich you are a burgess. But then uncle William is a little inclined to see himself as overlord of all the Franks in Romanie."

  "Is the Megaskyr also his vassal?" I asked in surprise. "They told me in Satines that these two lords are peers and equals."

  "They are, of course; with no superior except the King of Salonique, and there isn't one. But uncle William won't rest until he has made my father-in-law do homage for the lordship of Satines, as already he owes homage for Argues and Naples. By the same token, the Megaskyr won't like having uncle William on both sides of him, in Negripont as well as the isthmus. Tiresome, these jealousies among Franks, who should be united to oppose the Grifons. But you and I have no problem, my dear cousin. The Prince is our only lord, and if he leads us against the dalle Carceri our only duty is to follow him. No one else holds my homage."

  In the west a landless knight would not be allowed to attend parliament, but in Romanie the Frankish minority cling together. I had a chance to add my voice when the parliament of La Cremonie clamoured for war against the felons of Negripont who detained the rightful inheritance of our Prince.

  Prince William, however, was determined to proceed with all the formality of the law, since the law was on his side. When the parliament ended he allowed his vassals to go home while he himself, with only his own mesnie, rode to Rupo on the strait between Negripont and the mainland to summon once again the dalle Carceri.

  At Carytena we prepared for a brisk and pleasant war, a war against men of our own kind, who would take ransom from prisoners and grant mercy to the wounded. Nothing very much was at stake, only a small barony in a remote island. No one would be beggared, or driven from his home; unless you count the unlucky peasants, who must be getting used to that sort of thing after enduring it nearly every year since Adam left Eden. Although no one would be fighting very hard many great powers would be taking part in the war. Venice openly backed the dalle Carceri, her vassals; which meant that sooner or later Genoa would come in on our side. For fifty years there has not been a battle fought east of the Adriatic in which these two cities have not opposed one another, no matter what the ostensible cause of the conflict.