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They left their seats and flung themselves on his neck, and William's brother also ran to greet him. The Count told them how he had been vanquished at the Aliscans, how Vivian had been killed, and he himself had fled to Orange, and of the distress in which he had left Gibourc.
Enter the city they could not, for Gibourc and her ladies held it firm, and, armed with helmets and breastplates, flung stones upon the head of any Saracen who appeared on the walls. So the Unbelievers fell back and took the way to the Aliscans, there to build as quickly as they might an engine to bring up against the tower and overthrow it.
Struck dumb with terror at the sight of their comrades falling rapidly round them they had no mind to go on, and cried with one voice, 'Sir Rainouart, we will return and fight with you in the Aliscans; you shall lead us whither you will. So they turned their horses' heads and rode the way they had come, and Rainouart followed, keeping guard over them with his staff.
But Bertrand did not fly, though every instant made the danger more deadly. 'If I forsake you, if I take flight, he said, 'I shall bring eternal shame upon myself. 'No, no, cried Vivian, 'seek my uncle down there in the Aliscans, and bring him to my aid. 'Never till my sword breaks, answered Bertrand, and laid about him harder than ever.
I will help you and my brothers also, and between us twenty thousand men shall march to the Aliscans, and deal death to any Infidels we shall find there. 'You speak weak words, cried Aimeri; 'he is Seneschal of France, and also her Standard Bearer; he has a right to our help, and if that fails a right to vengeance. And Alix approved of his saying, and the Queen likewise.
It was at the Aliscans that he met them, and a great host they were, spreading over the country till whichever way you looked you saw men flocking round the Golden Dragon, which was the banner of the Saracens. But it was not Count William's way to think about numbers, and he ordered his trumpeters to sound the charge.
William entered into his Palace, where a great feast was spread for the visitors, but one man only remained outside the walls, and that was Rainouart, of whom no one thought in the hour of triumph. His heart swelled with bitterness as he thought of the blows he had given, and the captives he had set free, and, weeping with anger, he turned his face towards the Aliscans.
And William would have been encircled by minstrels singing the great deeds he had done. 'Ah, noble Countess, you speak truth, answered he. 'Henceforth my life will be spent in mourning, for my friends and comrades who went to war with me are lying dead at the Aliscans. Vivian is dead also, but Bertrand and Guy, Guichard the bold, and Gerard the brave, are captives in the Saracen camp.
The epics of France of the eleventh and twelfth centuries dwell, not on the real victories of the remote Charlemagne so much as on the disasters of Aliscans and Roncesvaux defeats at Saracen hands, Saracens being the enemies of the twelfth-century poets. The human figure is designed as in Tommy Traddles's skeletons; there is, however, some crude but promising idea of composition.
But now they were rich and he was poor, so they mocked at him. 'My lords, said William, 'you do ill to treat me so. I have loved you all, and you bear the tokens of my love about you at this moment. If I can give you no more gifts, it is because I have lost all I have in the world at the Aliscans. My men are dead, and my nephews are prisoners in the hands of the Saracens.
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