After the visit of the Mongol emissaries, the king of France took the cross, pledging to fight the infidel in Palestine. While the king’s company took three years to prepare for their departure, the king was unaware of changes in Montsalvat. Thierry had decided that the keep was too high and too isolated to serve as an abode, so had invited a local company of holy men to make it their own. The windows in the chapel were removed and stored in the cellar beneath the hall, and women in the village made robes for the holy men. Thierry established his home in the village, keeping an arrangement with the men in the fortress that all could retreat there in time of need. The village at the foot of the road that wound to Montsalvat prospered beneath Thierry’s hand, becoming known as a place to trad
