Part 22

XIII

THE KNIGHT OF ELEUSIS

"Open the gates," Count Ernault ordered, and the guardian giants obeyed. The great bolts were drawn, the great key turned in the lock, the great gates were flung apart. Every eye was turned towards the opening; every gazer expected to behold some splendid personage, some great prince in golden armor with his glittering retinue of men-at-arms. What the gazers saw was a tall, fair-haired youth with a shepherd's straw upon his head, with a shepherd's sheepskin bound about his body, with a shepherd's staff in his hand and a shepherd's pipe at his girdle. The knights stared in amazement as the shepherd advanced towards them confidently, with head held high and easy carriage. Behind the shepherd strode a burly, travel-stained soldier, with a huge sword at his thigh, a mighty cudgel in his fist, and a rusty lantern on his belt.

The first astonishment of the knights now translated itself into vehement laughter, which brought a faint flush to the shepherd's cheek and a deeper scarlet to the tanned face of the soldier. The amazement of the knights was as great as their entertainment, but both would have been a thousandfold greater if they could have guessed that the slender shepherd whose coming had so diverted them was in sooth a slender she-creature, a daughter of the forest. But the glamour of the woodland shone from Argathona's eyes, and the knights in the yard and the ladies on the gallery saw nothing but the simple shepherd. Argathona advanced towards Count Ernault where he stood resting on his white staff of office, and easily saluted him and his companions.

"Good-morrow, lords," she said, and the French lords marvelled, understanding her, and yet wondered vaguely how it came to pass that they did understand.

"A most sweet-voiced shepherd," Guy said to the knight Ambrose of Blois, who stood next to him.

Count Ernault answered the shepherd.

"Hail, young rustical; but we thought one of royal blood came to the tournament!"

"You thought rightly," Argathona answered. "I come to the tournament, and I am of royal blood."

Ernault looked earnestly into the beautiful face of the youth before him. Sir Jaufre de Brabant edged forward.

"Do you wrap your royal flesh in sheepskin?" he asked, with a ring of derision in his voice which did not escape Argathona.

"There be some lords," she answered, "whose best coat were the hide of a donkey; but for myself, though I walk in wool, I am of the ancientest, rarest race in Greece."

At this confident assertion, made with all the daring of youth, murmurs of surprise, amusement, and even of protest came from the listening knights. Sir Jaufre de Brabant shrugged his shoulders. Guy de Hainault moved a little nearer to the new-comer, studying the fair, unfamiliar face with whimsical good-humor. Andronicus Palæologus frowned, as it was his way to frown at any assertion of dignity which could by any means be twisted into a challenge of his supremacy. Fernand Ximenes narrowed his dark eyelids, scrutinizing the slender figure of the audacious youth, and estimating his possible value as a fighting-man to the Catalan Grand Company. The Prince of Epirus, whose vassaldom to Athens always galled him, gave something like a smile of greeting to the stranger who came at least unbidden to the court, and might in so far be taken as an enemy to Duke Baldwin. The French knights were, for the most part, frankly diverted by the defiance of a shepherd boy, but Count Ernault, always courteous and debonair in dealing with any man, king, captain, or shepherd boy who spoke him fair, addressed the youth with civility.

"Young sir," said Ernault, seriously, "that is a grave assertion. Within the walls of this palace are assembled all the high nobility of Greece. What claim have you to set your shield--if, indeed, you have a shield--among us?"

Argathona flung back her head, and her fair hair shone in the sunlight.

"You are great lords in a strange land," she said, proudly; "but my race have ruled in yonder woodland since the dawn of time, and Athens was built but yesterday in the history of our race. We keep apart, we princely foresters, but we are none the less proud. You may call me the Prince of Eleusis."

The courtly marshal was puzzled. Proud of his French descent, and indifferent to the ways of the people his master and his master's peers had come to govern, he knew nothing of the Grecian folk, and it very well might be that some lines lingered in those mountains which had, in their own estimation, the right to call themselves noble. Anyway, it mattered very little in so general a jousting, and there was no harm in flattering the vanities of a conquered people.

"The Prince of Eleusis? It is a sounding title. Do you come as a knight-challenger?" he questioned, urbanely.

Argathona nodded.

"Even so. I heard of your purposes from this valiant." She pointed to Simon, where he stood apart weighing with appreciative eyes the chivalry of France against the mercenaries of Spain, and appraising the giants at the gate. "Liking your purposes, I trudged to tussle."

Jaufre de Brabant pushed a little way ahead of the knight-marshal.

"Sans arms, sans armor," he drolled. "Will you batter us with your bare fists, shepherd?"

"Or conquer us with your pipe," Guy insinuated, "as Joshua's trumpets tumbled Jericho?"

The dryad smiled back into the smiling faces of the jesting knights, and held out her hands in an appeal of comradeship.

"I come unarmed, it is true, for my race have known no need of arms for ages, but I fling myself on your chivalry. Will you not make me up an equipment among you?"

It was a curious sight for the ladies on the balcony, this sight of the white shepherd standing thus alone and fearless in the midst of a ring of knights, while around them the capacity of the court-yard was filled by the curious of all kinds, free companions, pages, men-at-arms, all keenly interested in the audacious new-comer. The lord-marshal glanced with a smile round the circle of faces.

"Most magical modesty," he said, "that invites us to arm him against ourselves."

All who heard him laughed as at an exceeding good joke. It seemed prettily preposterous that this stripling from a Greek wood should come to Duke Baldwin's tournament and demand, not merely the privilege of tilting against glorious shields, but also an outfit of arms and armor. Argathona understood the laughter, and answered, swiftly: