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Updated: May 6, 2025
Therefore, from this hour I hold you quit of your promise and pray you to undertake this mission and set forth for Broye." But the Sieur Rudel would hearken to nothing of what she said. "No foul disgrace can come to me," he cried, "but only if I prove false to you and lose your love. My promise I will keep, and all the more for that I see the Princess Joceliande hath set you on to this."
Now leave we the Princess Joceliande, and hie before her messenger to the chamber of Solita. No pearls or purple robes had she to clad her beauty in, but a simple gown of white wool fastened with a silver girdle about the waist, and her hair she loosed so that it rippled down her shoulders and nestled round her ears and face. Thither the Sieur Rudel came straight from the sea, and
To him she said: "To-night at the high feast you shall make your prayer to the Lord Rudel, and I myself will join with you, so that he shall become your leader and rule over you as king."
For there were none that could compare with her in daintiness and fair looks ever came to the castle of the Princess Joceliande. But of the Sieur Rudel, though oft she thought, she never spake, biding his good time, and the princess questioned her in vain.
Therefore am I sent by many, and those our chiefest gentlemen, to ask you to send us Sieur Rudel, that he may quell these conflicts and rule over us as our king." So Sir Broyance spake and was silent, and a great murmur and acclamation rose about the hall for that the Sieur Rudel was held in such honour and worship even beyond his own country.
Now, while they were yet debating each with other, came Sir Broyance into the hall, and straightway the princess called to him and begged him to add his prayers to Solita's. But he answered: "That, madame, I will not do, for, indeed, the esteem I have for the Sieur Rudel is much increased, and I hold it no cowardice that he should refuse a kingdom for his wife's sake, but the sweetest bravery.
But to none of them would she hearken, and the fair gentle ladies of the Court greatly applauded her for her persistence and especially those who had erstwhile dropped their gauntlets that Rudel might bend and pick them up. And many pleasant jests they passed upon the Sieur Rudel, bidding him dance with them, since he was loth to fight.
So she spake with much spirit, upholding Sieur Rudel; but Joceliande was sorely grieved for that Solita would not trust her with her lover's name, and answered bitterly: "And his soul which you did see was doubtless your own image. And thus it will be with the next maiden who looks into his eyes.
But at the last, for the Sieur Rudel's sake, he consented, and married them privily in the hall as the grey dawn was breaking across the sea. Now, in the morning, the princess bid Solita be brought to her, and when they were alone, gently and cunningly she spake: "Child," she said, "I doubt not thy heart is hot against me for that I will not enlarge the Sieur Rudel.
Solita for that her modesty withheld her, and she feared even to hope that so great a lord should give his heart to her keeping; Rudel because he had not achieved enough to merit she should love him. "In a little," he would mutter, "in a little! One more thing must I do, and then will I claim my guerdon of the Princess Joceliande."
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