it is a tale which they narrate in poictesme, telling how love began between perion of the forest, who was a captain of mercenaries, and young melicent, who was daughter to the great dom manuel, and sister to count emmerick of poictesme. they tell also how melicent and perion were parted, because there was no remedy, and policy demanded she should wed king theodoret.
and the tale tells how perion sailed with his retainers to seek desperate service under the harried kaiser of the greeks.
this venture was ill-fated, since, as the free companions were passing not far from masillia, their vessel being at the time becalmed, they were attacked by three pagan galleys under the admiralty of the proconsul demetrios. perion's men, who fought so hardily on land, were novices at sea. they were powerless against an adversary who, from a great distance, showered liquid fire upon their vessel.
then demetrios sent little boats and took some thirty prisoners from the blazing ship, and made slaves of all save ahasuerus the jew, whom he released on being informed of the lean man's religion. it was a customary boast of this demetrios that he made war on christians only.
and presently, as perion had commanded, ahasuerus came to melicent.
the princess sat in a high chair, the back of which was capped with a big lion's head in brass. it gleamed above her head, but was less glorious than her bright hair.
ahasuerus made dispassionate report. "thus painfully i have delivered, as my task was, these fine messages concerning faith and love and death and so on. touching their rationality i may reserve my own opinion. i am merely perion's echo. do i echo madness? this madman was my loved and honoured master once, a lord without any peer in the fields where men contend in battle. to-day those sinews which preserved a throne are dedicated to the transportation of luggage. grant it is laughable. i do not laugh."
"and i lack time to weep," said melicent.
so, when the jew had told his tale and gone, young melicent arose and went into a chamber painted with the histories of jason and medea, where her brother count emmerick hid such jewels as had not many equals in christendom.
she did not hesitate. she took no thought for her brother, she did not remember her loved sisters: ettarre and dorothy were their names, and they also suffered for their beauty, and for the desire it quickened in the hearts of men. melicent knew only that perion was in captivity and might not look for aid from any person living save herself.
she gathered in a blue napkin such emeralds as would ransom a pope. she cut short her marvellous hair and disguised herself in all things as a man, and under cover of the ensuing night slipped from the castle. at manneville she found a venetian ship bound homeward with a cargo of swords and armour.
she hired herself to the captain of this vessel as a servant, calling herself jocelin gaignars. she found no time—wherein to be afraid or to grieve for the estate she was relinquishing, so long as perion lay in danger.
thus the young jocelin, though not without hardship and odd by-ends of adventure here irrelevant, came with time's course into a land of sunlight and much wickedness where perion was.
there the boy found in what fashion perion was living and won the dearly purchased misery of seeing him, from afar, in his deplorable condition, as perion went through the outer yard of nacumera laden with chains and carrying great logs toward the kitchen. this befell when jocelin had come into the hill country, where the eyrie of demetrios blocked a crag-hung valley as snugly as a stone chokes a gutter-pipe.
young jocelin had begged an audience of this heathen lord and had obtained it—though jocelin did not know as much—with ominous facility.
