Pierre got up from his uncomfortable seat in the embrasure and stretched himself to his full height. “Has he forgotten all you have done to serve him? Does he not know it is to you, no less than to Thomas Becket, that he owes his strength in England? Have you not risked your life for him a thousand times, ay, and saved his?” “Bah! He is a petulant boy, this duke!” Cercamon was angry, his blue-green eyes blazing in his hot, handsome face. “Why? Why?” he cried for the fiftieth time. Pierre took it well, which but made Cercamon the bitterer. Cercamon himself still kept his place of honor at Henry's table, received generous largesse whenever it pleased him to lift his perfect voice in song and was courted by all who desired the ducal smile but all this was less than nothing beside the injustice that had been done his friend. Pierre, his dearest friend, his brother-in-arms, had lost the duke's favor. The ladies were discontent, for their lovers deserted them to mutter together in corners, or to grind their swords.Īll this was bad enough, but to Cercamon the troubadour it was not the worst. By the time the beeches had opened their vivid leaves the soft April air was sultry with conspiracy. So Geoffrey went about, very softly, making friends of dangerous men. Only Henry had brought three times as many men as Geoffrey could muster. But he, too, was a Plantagenet, ready to take what was re- fused him.
Now Henry was his guest in Chinon, and Geoffrey found himself unable to give commands even in his own house. He had asked Henry for Touraine and Anjou, and had received only three castles, including the double stronghold of Chinon. His brother Geoffrey-a precocious, handsome lad, whom men liked as much as he liked women-was by turns sullen and feverishly excited, ripe for rebellion. For all his youth, his wild Plantagenet temper and his boisterous ways, Henry kept his plans close in his own red head, letting the world whisper itself hoarse. Every man who boasted noble blood and had swords to fight for him waited on events to fling himself into the mad scramble for lands and power every prince watched his barons, fearing to read the treachery he suspected in their hearts.īut though some guessed why Henry left the coast across from England just when all was ripe for a second conquest of the island, few were right. For not only princes, but barons, had their spies out, knowing that this year was big with the fate of Europe. In Henry's own court there were those who guessed much, and shrewdly, concerning this journey to Chinon. It was the full knowledge of these things that made King Stephen bless the Saints when Henry's spears were removed far south of the Channel-and the same knowledge made Louis VII curse the day he had wasted the strength of France in a futile crusade. Being well served, and possessed of the huge frame and dominating temper of his race, he stood every chance of getting what he wanted.
Stephen of England, whose crown Henry claimed, was surprized and joyous at the tidings, having expected his foe to use the fine spring weather for a swift stroke at the Channel ports but Louis of France ceased to sleep of nights.Ĭount of Anjou and lord of Maine, Duke of Normandy and Brittany, master of Touraine, Henry Plantagenet coveted a yet wider realm. No sooner were his orders given than messengers-swift, secret messengers-stole off by night to take the news where it would be most valued: to London and to Paris. It was 1152, in an early, lush spring and Henry Plantagenet had moved his court from Caen in the north to Chinon in mellow Touraine. For some time neither spoke again, their thoughts grappling with the strange things that had happened this fortnight past. Pierre shrugged, and was silent, chewing his bitter thoughts. “It is a graceless thing,” Cercamon cried, “with no good in it!” Through the one embrasure the April light filtered scantily in past his broad shoulders, and struck fire from the angry eyes of the troubadour. Pierre gazed moodily down upon the steep red roofs of the town and the sun-washed plain beyond, through which the broad Vienne wound in gracious contours. The two comrades sat in Pierre's chamber, high in the keep of Chinon West Castle, just under the fat bulge of the battlements.
But how the thing came about makes a better tale, in which Cercamon the troubadour and Pierre Faidit, his friend, played perilous parts. IT HAS been told how Henry Plantagenet, lord of northern France from Seine of the sea, wedded Aliénor of Aquitaine, and with her won the better part of the south, with its fine towns and fiery fighting men. Author of “Vengeance,” “The Black Thief,” etc.
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