he Church of the Duke. I serve with a hundred spears where I may, a
_routier_ if nothing better offer.'

'If I give you Jehane, what do you give me?'

'Thanks, my good lord, and faith, and long service.'

'Get up, Gilles,' said Richard.

Gilles kissed his knee, and rose. Richard put Jehane's hand into his and
held the two together.

'God serve me as I shall serve you, Gilles, if any harm come of this,'
he said shrewdly, with words that whistled in the air; and as Gilles
looked him squarely in the face, Richard ran an eye over him. Gilles was
found honest. Richard kissed Jehane on the forehead, and went out
without a look back. At the edge of the wood he found Gaston of Bearn
sucking his fingers.

'There went by here,' said the gay youth, 'a black knight with a face of
a raw meat colour, and the most villainous scowl ever you saw. I
consider him to be dead already.'

'I have given him something which should cure him of the scowl and
justify his colour,' answered him the Count. 'Moreover, I have given him
the chance of eternal life.' Then with a cry--'Oh, Gaston, let us get
to the South, see the sun fleck the roads, smell the oranges! Let us get
to the South, man! It seems I have entertained an angel. And now that I
have given her wings, and now that she is gone, I know how much I love
her. Speed, Gaston! We will go to the South, see Bertran, and make some
songs of good women and men in want!'

'Pardieu,' said Gaston. 'I am with you, Richard, for I am in want. I
have eaten nothing for two days.'

So they rode out of the woods of Saint-Pol-la-Marche, and Richard began
to sing songs of Jehane the Fair-Girdled; never truly her lover until he
might love her no more.

CHAPTER V

HOW BERTRAN DE BORN AND COUNT RICHARD STROVE IN A _TENZON_

Day-long and night-long he sang of her, being now in the poetic mood,
highly exalted, out of himself. The country took tints of Jehane, her
shape, her fine nobility. The thrust hills of the Vexin were her
breasts; the woods, being hot gold, her russet hair; in still green
water he read the secrets of her eyes; in the milk of October dawns her
calm brows had been dipped. The level light of the Beauce, so beneficent
yet so austere, figured her soul. Fair-girdled was Touraine by Vienne
and Loire; fair-girdled Jehane, who wore virgin candour about her loins
and over her heart a shield of blue ice. As far southwards as Tours the
dithyrambic prevailed; Richard was untiring in