Page:The red true story book.djvu/122

 have news; for never did the land of Béarn lose so much in one day— no, not these hundred years—as it has lost this time in Portugal."

'Many knights and squires standing round who heard the Count noted these words, and in ten days learned the truth from them who had been in the tight, and who brought tidings, first to the Count, and afterwards to all who would hear them, of what befell at Juberot. Thereby was the Count's grief renewed, and that of all in the country w ho had lost brothers and fathers, sons and friends, in the fray.'

'Marry!' said I to the Squire, who was telling me his tale, 'and how could the Count know or guess what befell? Gladly would I learn this.'

'By my faith,' said the Squire, 'he knew it well, as appeared.'

'Is he a prophet, or has he messengers who ride at night with the wind? Some art he must have.'

Then the Squire began to laugh.

'Truly he must learn by some way of necromancy; we know not here truly how he does it, save by phantasies.'

'Ah, good sir, of these fancies prithee tell me, and I will be grateful. If it is a matter to keep silent, silent will I keep it, and never, while I am in this country, will I open my mouth thereon.'

'I pray you do not, for I would not that any should know I had spoken. Yet others talk of it quietly when they are among their friends.'

Thereon he drew me apart into a corner of the castle chapel, and then began his tale, and spoke thus:

'It may be twenty years since there reigned here a baron named Raymond, lord of Corasse, a town and castle seven leagues from Orthez. Now, the lord of Corasse, at the time of which I speak, held a plea at Avignon before the Pope against a clerk of Catalonia who laid claim to the tithes of his town, the said clerk belonging to a powerful order, and claiming the right of the tithes of Corasse, which, indeed, amounted to a yearly sum of one hundred florins. This right he set forth and proved before all men, for in his judgment, given in the Consistory General, Pope Urban V. declared that the clerk had won his case, and that the Chevalier had no ground for his claim. The sentence once delivered, letters were given to the clerk enabling him to take possession, and he rode so hard that in a very short time he reached Béarn, and by virtue of the papal bull appropriated the tithes. The Sieur de