lords of Donnaz, and Odo heard again and again how they had fought the
savage Switzers north of the Alps and the Dauphin's men in the west; how
they had marched with Savoy against Montferrat and with France against
the Republic of Genoa. Better still he liked to hear of the Marquess
Gualberto, who had been the Duke of Milan's ally and had brought home
the great Milanese painter to adorn his banqueting-room at Donnaz. The
lords of Donnaz had never been noted for learning, and Odo's grandfather
was fond of declaring that a nobleman need not be a scholar; but the
great Marquess Gualberto, if himself unlettered, had been the patron of
poets and painters and had kept learned clerks to write down the annals
of his house on parchment painted by the monks. These annals were locked
in the archives, under Don Gervaso's care; but Odo learned from the old
servant that some of the great Marquess's books had lain for years on an
upper shelf in the vestry off the chapel; and here one day, with Bruno's
aid, the little boy dislodged from a corner behind the missals and
altar-books certain sheepskin volumes clasped in blackened silver. The
comeliest of these, which bore on their title-page a dolphin curled
about an anchor, were printed in unknown characters; but on opening the
smaller volumes Odo felt the same joyous catching of the breath as when
he had stepped out on the garden-terrace at Pianura. For here indeed
were gates leading to a land of delectation: the country of the giant
Morgante, the enchanted island of Avillion, the court of the Soldan and
the King's palace at Camelot.

In this region Odo spent many blissful hours. His fancy ranged in the
wake of heroes and adventurers who, for all he knew, might still be
feasting and fighting north of the Alps, or might any day with a blast
of their magic horns summon the porter to the gates of Donnaz. Foremost
among them, a figure towering above even Rinaldo, Arthur and the Emperor
Frederic, was that Conrad, father of Conradin, whose sayings are set