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THE TRUCE OF GOD

MARY ROBERTS RINEHART

Decorations by Harold Sichel

New York George H. Doran Company

The Truce of God

Now the day of the birth of our Lord dawned that year grey and dreary, and a Saturday. But, despite the weather, in the town at the foot of the hill there was rejoicing, as befitted so great a festival. The day before a fat steer had been driven to the public square and there dressed and trussed for the roasting. The light of morning falling on his carcass revealed around it great heaps of fruits and vegetables. For the year had been prosperous.

But the young overlord sulked in his castle at the cliff top, and bit his nails. From Thursday evening of each week to the morning of Monday, Mother Church had decreed peace, a Truce of God. Three full days out of each week his men-at-arms polished their weapons and grew fat. Three full days out of each week his grudge against his cousin, Philip of the Black Beard, must feed on itself.

His dark mood irritated the Bishop of Tours, who had come to speak of certain scandalous things which had come to his ears. Charles heard him through.

"She took refuge with him," he said violently, when the Bishop had finished. "She knew what hate there was between us, yet she took refuge with him."

"The question is," said the Bishop mildly, "why she should have been driven to refuge. A gentle lady, a faithful wife--"

"She had borne you a daughter."

But Charles was far gone in rage and out of hand. The Bishop took his offended ears to bed, and left him to sit alone by the dying fire, with bitterness for company.

Came into the courtyard at midnight the Christmas singers from the town; the blacksmith rolling a great bass, the crockery-seller who sang falsetto, and a fool of the village who had slept overnight in a manger on the holy eve a year before and had brought from it, not wit, but a voice from Heaven. A miracle of miracles.

The men-at-arms in the courtyard stood back to give them space. They sang with eyes upturned, with full-throated vigour, albeit a bit warily, with an anxious glance now and then toward those windows beyond which the young lord sulked by the fire.

"The Light of Light Divine, True Brightness undefiled. He bears for us the shame of sin, A holy, spotless Child."

They sang to the frosty air.

When neither money nor burning fagot was flung from the window they watched, they took their departure, relieved if unrewarded.

With the dawn Charles the Fair took himself to bed. And to him, pattering barefoot along stone floors, came Clotilde, the child of his disappointment.

"Are you asleep?"

One arm under his head, he looked at her without answer.

"It is the anniversary of the birth of our Lord," she ventured. "Today He is born. I thought--" She put out a small, very cold hand. But he turned his head away.

"Back to your bed," he said shortly. "Where is your nurse, to permit this?"

The child's face fell. Something she had expected, some miracle, perhaps, a softening of the lord her father, so that she might ask of him a Christmas boon.

The Bishop had said that Christmas miracles were often wrought, and she herself knew that this was true. Had not the Fool secured his voice, so that he who had been but lightly held became the village troubadour, and slept warm and full at night?

She had gone to the Bishop with this the night before.

"If I should lie in a manger all night," she said, standing with her feet well apart and looking up at him, "would I become a boy?"

The Bishop tugged at his beard. "A boy, little maid! Would you give up your blue eyes and your soft skin to be a roystering lad?"

"My father wishes for a son," she had replied and the cloud that was over the Castle shadowed the Bishop's eyes.

"It would not be well," he replied, "to tamper with the works of the Almighty. Pray rather for this miracle, that your father's heart be turned toward you and toward the lady, your mother."

So during much of the night she had asked this boon steadfastly. But clearly she had not been heard.

"Back to your bed!" said her father, and turned his face away.

So she went as far as the leather curtain which hung in the doorway and there she turned.

"Why do they sing?" she had asked the Bishop, of the blacksmith and the others, and he had replied into his beard, "To soften the hard of heart."

So she turned in the doorway and sang in her reedy little voice, much thinned by the cold, sang to soften her young father's heart.

"The Light of Light Divine, True Brightness undefined. He bears for us the shame of sin, A holy, spotless Child."

But the song failed. Perhaps it was the wrong hour, or perhaps it was because she had not slept in the manger and brought forth the gift of voice.

"Blood of the martyrs!" shouted her father, and raised himself on his elbow. "Are you mad? Get back to your bed. I shall have a word with someone for this."

Whether it had softened him or not it had stirred him, so she made her plea.

"It is His birthday. I want to see my mother."

Then she ducked under the curtain and ran as fast as she could back to where she belonged. Terror winged her feet. She had spoken a forbidden word.

All sleep was gone from Charles the Fair. He lay on his elbow in his bed and thought of things that he wished to forget: of the wife he had put away because in eight years she had borne him no son; of his great lands that would go to his cousin, Philip of the Black Beard, whom he hated; of girls in the plain who wooed him with soft eyes and whom he passed by; of a Jew who lay in a dungeon beneath the Castle because of usury and other things.

After a time he slept again, but lightly, for the sun came in through the deep, unshaded window and fell on his face and on the rushes that covered the floor. And in his sleep the grimness was gone, and the pride. And his mouth, which was sad, contended with the firmness of his chin.

Clotilde went back to her bed and tucked her feet under her to warm them. In the next room her nurse lay on a bed asleep, with her mouth open; outside in the stone corridor a page slept on a skin, with a corner over him against the draught.

She thought things over while she warmed her feet. It was clear that singing did not soften all hearts. Perhaps she did not sing very well. But the Bishop had said that after one had done a good act one might pray with hope. She decided to do a good act and then to pray to see her mother; she would pray also to become a boy so that her father might care for her. But the Bishop considered it a little late for such a prayer.

She made terms with the Almighty, sitting on her bed.

"I shall do a good act," she said, "on this the birthday of Thy Son, and after that I shall ask for the thing Thou knowest of."

After much thinking, she decided to free the Jew. And being, after all, her father's own child, she acted at once.

The Jew rose from the floor when Clotilde threw the grating open, and blinked at her with weary and gentle eyes.

"It is the birthday of our Lord," said Clotilde, "and I am doing a good deed so that I may see my mother again. But go quickly." Then she remembered something the Bishop had said to her, and eyed him thoughtfully as he stared at her.

"But you do not love our Lord!"

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