e Square below,
where the girl Joan assisted her father by the fire, and moved like a
mother of kings.

"You wish a woman for the castle, father," he said. "Then a woman we
shall have. Holy Church may not give me another wife, but I shall take
one. And I shall have a son."

* * * * *

The child Clotilde had watched it all from a window. Because she was
very high the thing she saw most plainly was the cross on the donkey's
back. Far out over the plain was a moving figure which might or might
not have been the Jew. She chose to think it was.

"One of Your people," she said toward the crucifix. "I have done the
good deed."

She was a little frightened, for all her high head.

Other Christmases she and the lady her mother had sat hand in hand, and
listened to the roystering.

"They are drunk," Clotilde would say.

But her mother would stroke her hand and reply:

"They but rejoice that our Lord is born."

So the child Clotilde stood at her window and gazed to where the plain
stretched as far as she could see and as far again. And there was her
mother. She would go to her and bring her back, or perhaps failing that,
she might be allowed to stay.

Here no one would miss her. The odour of cooking food filled the great
house, loud laughter, the clatter of mug on board. Her old nurse was
below, decorating a boar's head with berries and a crown.

Because it was the Truce of God and a festival, the gates stood open.
She reached the foot of the hill safely. Stragglers going up and down
the steep way regarded her without suspicion. So she went through the
Square past the roasting steer, and by a twisting street into the open
country.

When she stopped to rest it was to look back with wistful eyes toward
the frowning castle on the cliff. For a divided allegiance was hers.
Passionately as she loved her mother, her indomitable spirit was her
father's heritage, his fierceness was her courage, and she loved him as
the small may love the great.

The Fool found her at the edge of the river. She had forgotten that
there was a river. He was on his great horse, and he rode up by the
child and looked down at her.

"It was I who captured him," he boasted. "The others ran, but I caught
him, so." He dismounted to illustrate.

"It is not because you were brave that you captured him."

"Then why?" He stood with his feet wide apart, looking down at her.

"It is because you have slept in a manger