They sat once more in the darkness, on the dusty straw which was the only comfort of the cell. Outside, the streets were silent now, save for the occasional shuffling of sandalled feet and the distant lowing of cattle.
And as Geoffrey and Brother Gerard sat, their minds whirling with the decision they must make, a woman’s voice rose in song, from one of the tall houses across the square outside the prison cell. It was a sweetly plaintive voice, accompanied by some twanging stringed instrument. With a thrill, Geoffrey recognized that this was not an Arab voice, nor were the words Arabic. The woman sang in French, in the dialect of Southern France, of Provence itself, and the words she sang were as familiar to him as bread, baked in the great stone ovens of Beauregard.
‘On the hills the red deer run;
The cattle graze across the lea;
The rider canters in the sun
Without a thought for me!’
The song went on to tell how a princess was locked up in a high tower, by a cruel step-mother, and like so many of the ballads sung by wandering minstrels, it had a sad ending. In this song, the girl’s father was killed while hunting, and the step-mother went away with an officer of the guard, leaving the girl a solitary prisoner. The verses ended:
‘In this room my spirit weeps,
Gazes on the moonlit town;
While below the song-bird sleeps;
Never more shall I come down!’
In the darkness, Brother Gerard whispered, ‘That is a girl of our own country, a prisoner like ourselves, perhaps one who once marched with Stephen of Cloyes.’
Geoffrey shook his head. ‘No, not a prisoner like us. Observe, her song is accompanied by the lute. That means that she has certain privileges, perhaps that she is employed as an entertainer in the house of some important slave-owner.’
Brother Gerard nodded, ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘then she is a caged song-bird, imprisoned for ever like the maiden in her song.’
Suddenly Geoffrey said, out of the darkness, ‘I have no intention of becoming a song-bird, imprisoned for ever, Brother Gerard.’
The priest did not answer for a while. Then at length he said, ‘You will refuse the man in the yellow gown, when he comes later for our answer?’
Geoffrey replied, in a strange whisper, ‘I shall not refuse him, because I shall not even speak to him. But God willing, I shall use him!’
For a moment, the priest was afraid that the boy had taken leave of his senses, but at last he dared to ask, ‘What do you mean, Geoffrey?’
The boy answered slowly and confidently.
‘Desperate cures are needed for desperate diseases, Brother Gerard,’ he said, ‘and, by all the saints, our disease is desperate enough! If you were willing to play the man of violence tonight, I think we might stand some chance of relieving our situation.’
The priest whispered calmly, ‘Tell me what is in your mind, my son.’
Geoffrey answered as calmly. ‘You will have noticed that the man in the yellow gown is a person of some importance, but, in spite of his arrogance, he is not a man of great strength or prowess, I would guess. You will have noticed also that, when he enters or departs through this door, that fool of a gaoler makes an obeisance, bowing his head before him, like the subservient dog he is.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Brother Gerard, ‘but what are you leading up to?’
‘Simply this,’ answered the boy, ‘that at the moment the man in the yellow gown enters, if one of us struck down the gaoler, while the other tackled the old man, we might bind and gag them with strips torn from our clothes and then make our way out of this place, dressed in their apparel.’
For a while there was silence. Then the priest spoke, almost jestingly. ‘For a moment,’ he said, ‘I feared you intended to shed blood. That would not have been my wish—no, not even the blood of the Infidel. But what you suggest is something different. I see no reason why we should not try your plan—even though I do not think it will succeed, for we may be stopped by guards outside, and, in any case, we do not know our way to the coast. Nevertheless, I think it is the duty of every Christian to defend his own life against the heathen. I am with you, Gerard, and may God bless our efforts.’
‘Amen,’ said Geoffrey.
Then they sat back against the wall, to wait.