THE ROYAL HOUSE OF FRANCE - outriders poetry project

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© 2009 Max Wickert
Richier of Reggio, who counted twenty-two years at his death. He died in the year of Our Lord
Jesus Christ 783, on the fifteenth of March. 51
With Richier dead, there was no more help for the people of the city. The traitor ran to the
courtyard. They found that Galiziella had shut herself into the palace and was defending herself
with the aid of certain others. She incessantly prayed to God to save her Richier from death. It was
already day when Bertram arrived in the courtyard, and those inside the palace called out to him: “O
you traitor, who have done treason to your country and to yourself!” Almont arrived in the
courtyard, with twenty-two crowned kings, and had proclaimed that none should set fire to any
houses in any part of the city on pain of hanging. Then he commanded those in the palace to yield.
But Galaziella would not surrender the palace. The parricide traitor piled evil upon evil, for he had
them carry the bodies of Richier and Miles into the courtyard below the palace, and said: “Hear,
Galiziella, now I am indeed revenged on him who deprived me of your beautiful body.” When
Galiziella saw Richier dead, she cried out: “Aye me! Now I no longer want to live. Go take the
palace now and everything in it.” And she descended, opened the palace gate, and fell in a faint
upon Richier’s body. When she could rise again, she looked at Bertram and said to him, crying out:
“O you traitor, what have you done? How could the devil has so much power to bring to pass so
much evil in you? You have killed yourself, and your father, and your brothers, and your city, and
your countrymen and your homeland, which was expecting your rule. O you traitor, you were a
lord, and now you are a slave. Do you think that my father, King Anglant, will ever trust you, who
have betrayed your country and destroyed all your blood? Is there anyone who will trust you now,
traitor that you are?” Then Bertram realized that she was speaking the truth, and because of the
shame that he felt, withdrew. Galiziella asked the Saracens who had killed her lord; she was
51 To provide an exact date, as here, is unusual, if not unprecedented, in medieval romance. See also note 18, above.