"Ritual? This is no church." She laughs. "You want me to have it, and now I do. Be happy for both of us! Now let's see." She opens it, her fingers running over the bands of stones.

"It...is really lovely, Giles. I hardly know what to say."

"I think perhaps a trip to your chambers might be a little too quick on the draw, Mr. de Braose, but I appreciate your gift. It is most thoughtful." She takes the package. "Would it be gauche to open it here?"

"Yes, I think so. She helped to bring the tradition into France from Spain, where these people were quite popular a few decades before she dwelt there. I just hope that my newfound fame doesn't make it more difficult to travel to the out-of-the-way places in the Isles. There are always more stories ...

"The young seem to care for my stories a great deal." She smiles. "And they seem to be catching on among the higher nobility, now. I think I remind Eleanor of the trobaritz in Languedoc when she was a girl."

"How kind, Mr. de Braose," she says, taking a seat. "Is your brother well? I saw that terrible blow that he took off the Earl of Chester."

You hear Bertha's happy greeting before you see her, Marie, framed by sunlight in the open doorway. Her hair is done up nicely, and as she steps into the dark of the inn you can tell that she is smiling.

"Giles!" She exclaims quietly. "It is lovely to see you!"

Marie raised an eyebrow. "A noble offer, Giles de Braose. And a rare one." She paused. "Give me leave to consider, for a time. I hardly expected this when I came down this evening."

Marie de France considers this for a moment. "I wonder if the noble scholar will be so kind as to delineate for the court what distinguishes an example of love that instructs us in the way to go from an example meant only to show us an incorrect path? "By their works shall ye know them," I have hear...

Marie de France cuts in. "Sir, your point is well taken. Love is an appropriate pastime for one's leisure hours. I wonder, though, now that we have given it its proper place--a sunday kind of love, if you will--if we might now seek to find some sort of definition. What precisely is this thing called...

"I suppose we'll find out," Marie replies. "These things are often out of the hands of those involved. I hope that, should circumstance keep us apart, you will not suffer as Tristan."

She looked up at him with a new understanding. "I am under Her Majesty's protection, Giles de Braose. Requests and intimations must and ought to be made through her, as you well know."

"So the self is the font of value, but it can only be recognized from the outside? That is quite a conundrum we have devised for our selves. I hardly know you at all, for instance, save as a disputer, a conversationalist, a storyteller, and an admirer of my work. To be sure, these are all valuable t...

"And what is valuable in you, Giles de Braose?"

The circle orbiting Eleanor of Aquitaine has been matched today by that of a new sun--a dark-haired woman of middling years surrounded by a gaggle of young knights, including Saer de Quincy, each hanging on her every word as she tells some tale.

"Or to what is required of us in the present at the very least." She smiles. "Not everything of value is found in the self, after all."

"That is a curious question. His devotion led to self improvement, which made him at the same time a more effective knight. When we are looking at the early part of the story, therefore, it is difficult to see the danger in his love, because its effects in his actions dovetail with his duty. And yet...

"There are some who say is an indulgence, and inimical to duty. Surely it was a distraction that Frederick had to overcome."

"I pray that my lord not misunderstand me. No, it is the tension between code and goodness that gives the story its meat. To resolve it neatly would be to erase part of its value, which is, of course, to invite men to think carefully, and to discuss, what it is to be good. Rather than, for instance,...

"It is interesting, then, that failure as the one can lead him to be great as the other. There is no question to my mind that a blow struck in treachery is rather against chivalry, but it does have a positive outcome. It is a troubled ending, but an illuminating one because of that." Her hand moves ...

+3 Glory for daring to (and successfully!) tell(ing) a story to Marie de France. Marie listens intently, a small smile playing on her lips. "Interesting, that the blow of fate should come from behind. There is honor in the sacrifice of self, but his lack of honor in striking his lord and his rival ...

She inclines her head. "Tell me a story, Giles de Braose."

"They would say that I am foolish to put so much trust in the goodness of a man...any man." She smiled a little sadly. "And they may be right, but when one is vain and enjoys hearing how one has inspired a man, one is willing to extend a little courtesy of one's own."

"Three days have passed since I read a lovely letter from a young man I had never met." She smiled. "And I was told by a monk here that three days have seen you return to the same spot at the same time. That sort of dedication is rare, these days, so I thought I might see who had the fortitude of sp...

The hush continues for some time as you stare at the image of the dead king. Until, finally, you hear the door open behind you and the tread of quiet feet.

To Gilles de Braose, a man of discerning taste, I was touched to receive your letter, with its fine turns of phrase, and am pleased that the Welsh borderlands still produce young men who recognize a good tale when they hear one. I am likewise pleased that we shall soon have the opportunity to meet,...

This Breton poet and troubadour has popularized Breton lais as a literary form, and has been keen to adapt Celtic stories and legends into French poetry, preserving the tales of one culture and promoting the vernacular language of another. Her contributions to letters are magnificent, and the woman ...