Lord Geoffrey's Fancy Page 9

  "You won't judge him, eh, though he has pleaded guilty to felony?" the Prince spluttered as soon as his emotions were under control. "Then I myself must judge him. Shall flagrant treason go unpunished, just because my barons stand in awe of the great name of la Roche?"

  "I beg your pardon, my lord, but that's just what you can't do," broke in the Archbishop of Satines, who sat a tall white mule in the front rank of the la Roche mesnie. "I made the peace at Estives, and its terms are fresh in my memory. The Megaskyr is to be judged by the parliament of Lamorie, not by the Prince alone. On that understanding he surrendered his strong castle of Estives. You must observe the terms of your own treaty, or send Sir Guy back to his castle and begin the war again. Otherwise you will incur the ban of the Church."

  In his exasperation the Prince squeezed his horse, so that for a minute he was too busy controlling it to address his loyal barons. Then he snarled at them: "You see? I can't judge him and you won't. Yet he admits felony, the disgraceful crime of making war on his lord. Must this traitor go free, so that your own vassals are encouraged to rebel against their rightful lords?"

  That is an argument any baron understands. The nine whispered together, their horses shuffling and passaging as groups formed and dissolved. (These mounted parliaments can be a severe test of horsemanship. Our English custom of meeting indoors, on our feet, is less chivalrous but more practical.) At last they agreed, and moved their horses back into line. Once more the marshal of Lamorie was their spokesman.

  "My lord," he said formally, "here is the advice of your parliament. We cannot judge the Great Lord of Satines, since we are not his peers. You may not judge him, for it is forbidden by the oath you swore to the Archbishop. Nevertheless the Great Lord is a felon, and should suffer judgement. Therefore he must seek judgement from some prince greater than himself, a true knight, a brave warrior, a just judge. Let him go in person, not by deputy, to lay his case before the King of France, binding himself by oath to pay the penalty demanded of him. King Louis will do right; and we, the barons of the conquest, agree in advance to enforce whatever judgement he may lay down."

  "And who will hold the lordship of Satines while its lord is oversea?" asked Prince William, at once putting his finger on the really important question. All Villehardouins are at home in the law.

  "The Megaskyr may appoint a deputy, who will take oath to serve him loyally," the marshal answered. So this was not a plot to cheat de la Roche of his fee, as one might have supposed.

  The Prince frowned in disappointment, scanning the faces of his barons. He saw they were in earnest; and made up his mind to give way gracefully, since give way he must.

  "I accept the advice of my parliament," he said with a formal smile. "Let the Megaskyr take oath to abide by the judgement of King Louis; and let him set off as soon as may be for Paris, at his own charges. He may appoint a deputy to rule in his absence. That is the judgement of the Prince and High Court of Lamorie."

  There followed a few minutes of bustling about, as the Archbishop dismounted with his reliquary and the Megaskyr dismounted to take oath on it. He announced that his brother Sir Othon de la Roche would be his deputy in Satines until his return, and to this the parliament gave formal agreement. I wondered what would befall his other brother, Sir William of Veligoute, who had been as flagrant in rebellion as my own lord. But it so happened that he was lucky, as you will hear.

  The mesnie of Satines were already preparing to depart. I noted with satisfaction that the Archbishop remained to hear the next case, that of Sir Geoffrey. An Archbishop does not as a rule plead for heavier punishment, unless the culprit owes him money; and my lord had not taken more of the old endowments of the Church than was customary among the Franks of Romanie.

  Sir Geoffrey had been well advised, for he had friends in high places. He would never have humbled himself before his uncle if he had not been persuaded that it was his only chance to save himself. Now he appeared dramatically, the only man on foot in that crowded parliament. His legs were bare, his sole garment a linen shirt; round his neck was a short length of rope. Bareheaded he strode forward, to kneel before the hoofs of his lord's destrier.

  Still kneeling, he spoke in a loud voice. His words were as humble as any wronged lord could desire. But for all his efforts he could not keep out of his voice a ringing note of challenge, the tone of a knight who risks his life and glories in the risking of it.

  "My lord, I am guilty of felony. I betrayed my homage, and bore arms against you in the field. I deserve your justice. Nevertheless I beg the good knights here assembled to show mercy."

  The whole parliament craned forward to hear his words above the stamping of restless horses; but he had no more to say. It must have been one of the shortest speeches ever uttered in a court of law.

  The Prince looked across at Sir John the marshal, who urged his horse over so that he might confer with his lord. The eight remaining barons stared into the sky, their faces expressionless; they knew that to smile at the prisoner would be to increase the anger of the Prince, but they could not bring themselves to frown on the gallant and charming Sir Geoffrey.

  The marshal returned to his place among the barons of the conquest, and Prince William addressed them formally.

  "My lords, I may not judge this cause, because of the oath I swore at Estives. It is for you to pronounce the penalty. I must remind you of the gravity of the offence admitted by the prisoner, and of the extreme penalty you have the right to inflict. In all civilised lands the punishment of felons is death and confiscation of goods. But no matter what you decree I, your lord, have the right of pardon, and I declare that my nephew shall not suffer in life or limb. Therefore I ask you to declare the escheat of the barony of Escorta, and of any other fees now held by Sir Geoffrey de Bruyere. Let him be stripped of all his goods and sent into exile. If he will go to Acre, to fight for the recovery of Jerusalem, I will give him horse and arms such as a knight should have."

  I had been waiting for what happened next, surprised that it was so long in coming. The dowager of Escorta, the Prince's sister, rode up to him on a little hackney to plead for her son. I suppose she knew her brother's character, and that it would be useless to ask for mercy until he had enjoyed himself by denouncing the wickedness of Sir Geoffrey in open court. The nine barons came too; until there was such a crowd that they dismounted to get nearer the Prince, a breach of the normal etiquette of parliament which showed they were deeply in earnest.

  Meanwhile Sir Geoffrey stood on his bare feet, with the tail of his shirt fluttering against his knees. Luckily in that climate he did not shiver with cold; in fact he looked debonair and at his ease. Presently he caught sight of the mesnie of Escorta, and waved his hand cheerfully. Then he winked at the Archbishop of Satines, and ogled a pretty girl at the back of the crowd. He was safe from hanging or mutilation; he did not care whether when the court rose he would be a penniless knight errant or a great baron.

  The Prince was arguing excitedly, and getting the worst of it. So much I could see from the set of his shoulders, as he leaned down from his horse to talk with the barons and clerks crowding round him. Presently he straightened himself with an angry shrug; his advisers hurried back to their horses. Something had been decided, something Prince William did not like; that promised well for my lord.

  When everyone was ranged in due order Sir John de Neuilly spoke: "Geoffrey de Bruyere," he said sternly, "by felony you have forfeited life, lands, even your knighthood. If you were hanged here and now there would be no injustice. But by the mercy of your uncle the Prince, and by the advice of the barons of the conquest who remember your former prowess, life and knighthood will not be taken from you. Your barony of Escorta escheats to the Prince, with any other fees you may hold in Lamorie. Sir Geoffrey, approach your lord and receive the Kiss of Peace, in token that you leave this parliament absolved of your crimes."

  Sir Geoffrey hesitated. Perhaps he wanted to jump on a horse and gallop away, a free man and a landless foe
to all Lamorie; perhaps he just disliked the idea of kissing his uncle's bristly beard. But the marshal and the Archbishop signalled to him to come nearer. Suddenly he grinned as though he understood, and walked briskly forward.

  A groom handed the Prince a clod of dry earth, so I also understood, and knew that the affair would have a happy ending after all.

  The Prince leaned forward in the formal embrace, then held aloft the clod of earth. Sir Geoffrey waited with hands outstretched to receive it. The Prince spoke in a loud voice.

  "Sir Geoffrey de Bruyere, take seizin of my barony of Escorta, with its castles of Carytena and Bucelet and all that belongs to it. You will hold it by knight-service, and the heirs of your body after you.... Now do homage for it, nephew, and in future remember that you are my knight and my vassal." He ended with quite a pleasant smile. Prince William could make friends with an air, if he knew that he had to make friends.

  The parliament dispersed in a chatter of congratulations. Everyone was pleased. The best knight in Romanie was back under the Villehardouin banner, and all was as it had been before the civil war. The herald who proclaimed a great joust for next day could hardly make himself heard above the uproar. In this transport of universal good feeling no one remembered Sir William de la Roche of Veligoute, whose treason had been just as flagrant as Sir Geoffrey's. He went quietly back to his barony just south of us, and continued to enjoy all his rights and privileges. As I said earlier, he was a lucky man; though perhaps it was rather shameful to be forgotten because all minds were fixed on the fate of Sir Geoffrey de Bruyere, the best knight in all Romanie.

  The tournament continued for three days, and was the gayest ever held at Nicies. In a fit of prudence Sir Geoffrey declined to ride in the mellay, where enemies can easily work off a secret grudge; but in the single jousting of the Round Table he overthrew several good knights, and increased his popularity by letting them keep horse and arms. His mother was proud of him, and they appeared to be excellent friends; but when the tournament was ended she rode back to Andreville and I think never saw her son again. Isabel was not the only lady who could not abide mountain-shadowed Carytena, though my Melisande never let it bother her.

  We all rode back in high spirits to the mountains of Escorta. It seemed to me remarkable that a bitter war could end with nothing changed. I said as much as we rode along; but Sir John de Catabas overheard and corrected me.

  "Sir William," he said gruffly, "I thought you understood the customs of chivalry, though perhaps they are different in your remote island. Sir Geoffrey has been punished heavily; punished in his dignity, which to a true knight is more painful than bloody wounds. He put a brave face on it, for he knew he was in the wrong and deserved what came to him; but every suitor at the parliament saw what had been done. Sir Geoffrey has been deprived of the barony his father conquered from the Grifons. It's true that the Prince gave back to him the land and castles, but not on the same terms. He is no longer a Baron of the Conquest, one of the twelve peers of Lamorie. You heard the Prince enfeoff him, and the heirs of his body. A Baron of the Conquest may dispose of his fee by will; if Sir Geoffrey dies childless Escorta escheats to the Prince. A Baron of the Conquest has High Justice; a vassal of the Prince must send his thieves to be hanged in Andreville. A tenant of Villehardouin is a very different man from a Baron of the Conquest."

  "But since Sir Geoffrey does not mind we need not mind either," put in another knight. "I shall be merry keeping Christmas in Carytena. A month ago it seemed that we would pass the winter starving on the walls of Estives. Sir Geoffrey has made a very good peace."

  "Sir Geoffrey has been lucky. Let us hope his luck holds," said the constable, whose rheumatism inclined him to take a gloomy view of the future.

  That Christmas of 1258 was indeed very merry; though the lady Isabel was absent. She had gone to a great gathering in Satines, where her uncle the regent feasted her sister who had come on a visit from Acre. But then the lady Isabel never pretended to like the mountains of Escorta.

  6. THE GRIFONS OF WALLACHIA

  In the spring the family of Bruyere was once again united, though the lady Isabel still avoided Carytena. She met her lord at Andreville, where all the nobility of Lamorie was gathered to feast at the third wedding of Prince William. Melisande and I were there also, in the suite of Sir Geoffrey.

  In 1259 Andreville was not much of a place, a half-empty town with more clerks than merchants to be seen in its streets. But the archives of Lamorie were kept there, and in the big collegiate church of St. James lay the two previous Frankish rulers, Geoffrey I and Geoffrey II, father and elder brother of our Prince William. As the family church of the Villehardouins it was the natural place for the Prince's wedding.

  Fifty years earlier Andreville had been the centre of the new Frankish colony. Just inland from the west coast, it faces Italy and the seas dominated by Venetian and Genoese galleys. But for half a century the colony had been expanding, until the whole of Lamorie was in western hands. Prince William now looked eastward. The Grifon lords were at loggerheads and new opportunities opened for our swords. La Cremonie in the south-east faces towards Asia.

  After burying two wives Prince William was still childless; so it was natural that he should marry again. But in fact this third marriage, which took his vassals by surprise, marked a daring change of outlook. As soon as Melisande heard of the alliance she began to talk foreign policy. As we rode down the gorge from Carytena she chattered incessantly, trying to "put me in the picture" as she called it: a metaphor frequently used in the Grifon language.

  "Quite soon there may be a fee for us," she said hopefully. "This is the wisest thing Prince William has ever done. An alliance with one Roman against the other Romans is much more sensible than trying to overcome all the natives of these parts with our own swords alone."

  "Is it?" I answered. "There seem to be two grave objections. In the first place, Grifons won't honestly help us against fellow-Grifons. And if they did help us, so that we defeated our enemies, our allies would be certain to cheat us of the reward of victory. Whenever you do business with a Grifon you get the worst of it."

  "William, you're hopeless. I tell you again and again that the only polite name for these people is 'Romans', but even when our Prince is about to marry one of their princesses you continue to call them Grifons. Why can't you remember to be courteous?"

  "I'm sorry, my dear. It slips out. Everyone else calls them Grifons, even Sir Geoffrey the most courteous knight in these parts. Perhaps there is a limit to the improvements that can be effected in any husband, even though his wife works hard."

  "Oh, very well. I think in Greek, the language of the Gospels and of the wise men of old. I shall speak of Romans, which is correct. But I shall understand you when you call them Grifons, because you are only a poor ignorant Frank."

  "I admit my grave faults. But you were saying that there might be a fee for us, so perhaps I shan't be poor for ever; though of course I shall remain an ignorant barbarian. You must explain what you think our Prince is after. I know he is going to marry a lady from beyond our frontier, if that description is colourless enough to satisfy you. Can any lady from over the frontier bring us a valuable alliance?"

  "This one can. She is Anna Angelina of Wallachia. Her father is a very great lord, who may one day become Emperor of the Romans."

  "Anyone might become Emperor of the Romans. They say that poor Baldwin is in a very bad way, and would abdicate if he could find another prince to take on his responsibilities. The Grifons have an Emperor already, I understand. Isn't that the title of the schismatic rebel who rules from Nice in Asia?"

  "Let me explain. The Romans have always been ruled by an Emperor, and they can't be happy without one. But for the last fifty years there has been no recognised leader of all the Romans. After the capture of Constantinople the free Romans served any petty lord who would fight the Franks. Now only two of these lords are left, and one of them will soon be father-in-law to our Prince. That gives
promise of a fee for little Geoffrey Briwerr."

  Melisande went on to explain at length the tangled history of the free Grifons after the Latin capture of Constantinople. Her father had been on the skirts of it, for all that he adhered to the Franks; among the Grifons the Melisseni are a great house. To her it was all vivid and important and breathlessly exciting; but I had never heard of any of these people and did not know where their castles lay, so that I found it hard to remember. When she came down to the present day, and said that the sister of this lady Anna had left home at the same time to marry King Manfred of Sicily, I realised that she was describing something important. In the end I had a coherent view of the Grifon world as it was in the year 1259; though I have never been able to remember the chain of treasons, Windings, poisonings, and other betrayals which got it into that condition. This is more or less how things were at that time.

  Only two Grifon rulers mattered, the Emperor in Nice and the Despot of Wallachia. The Emperor's title had come to him more or less by accident, though it was recognised by every Grifon free to express his own opinion. When Constantinople fell the schismatic Patriarch got away to Nice, a city of Asia; in Nice there was now a schismatic Patriarch-in-exile, whose coronation of the lord who ruled him conferred, in Grifon eyes, the title of Emperor. But at this moment the lordship of Nice was in very low water. A child sat on the throne; an ambitious soldier, one Michael Palaeologue, had proclaimed himself colleague and guardian. It was unlikely that their joint rule would endure, but which faction would come out on top was still uncertain.

  Wallachia, Melisande told me, was a very different matter. There they had solved the problem of succession in a typically Grifon manner. The lordship had been founded by a bastard of the great Angelus house, the family which had ruled in Constantinople before the Franks; and bastardy had become the distinguishing mark of his dynasty. That is to say, the lord of Wallachia married, but he kept concubines as well; and he chose as his successor the most promising of his sons, who so far had never been a son of his wife. The present lord, Michael Angelus, had married a Grifon lady of high birth and virtuous life, and it was with her daughters as brides that he was now seeking allies; but his favourite son and probable successor was as usual a bastard, one John Ducas.