Things seem to be ending neatly with Ganelon's drawn-out trial and gruesome sentencing, Spain safely conquered, and the rest of those pesky pagans converted. But there are rumblings of discontent in this pretty picture.
First, there are the deep divisions on display at Ganelon's trial. Pinabel thinks the Franks should cut their losses, call it good, and pardon Ganelon in the name of family honor. A lot of the Franks agree, either because they actually agree or because Pinabel has threatened them. Thierry, on the other hand, just as passionately believes that justice—the bloodier the better—needs to be done. Perhaps all is not so well. How will the Franks negotiate this major rift between honor/appeasement and justice/violence if it persists after Ganelon's execution? Will it hamper further warfare?
Then we get to the actual last two stanzas and all neatness is exploded into bitty pieces. Gabriel the angel is back again, but this time he's not here to deflect spears or give advice or carry good souls away to heaven. He's got some news. Christians are under pagan attack in the city of Imphe and Charlemagne needs to invade with his Franks. Charlemagne answers not as a fiery soldier or an imperial emperor or as an avenging leader of the Christian world, but as a very tired, sad, old man. "The Emperor would rather not go there," the poet tells us and then Charlemagne himself voices his sadness:
"God!" said the King, "my life is so full of suffering!"
He weeps and twists his beard. (291.3999-4000)
What?! Isn't this Charlemagne, the King of the Franks, the fighting emperor? The guy who just spent seven years doing exactly what Gabriel's talking about in Spain? Well, yes and no.
At the beginning of the poem Charlemagne would never have gotten his beard in a twist over a new war to fight. But a lot has happened since that peaceful stanza 8 when a "jubilant" Charlemagne was hanging out, ready to fight more or go home (8.96). With Roland and some of his best men dead, Charlemagne has started thinking a little more deeply about death and destruction, about the fragility of his own empire (209), and the possibility of losing more in war than he gains.
He didn't act his age when the poem started (most 200-year-olds are dead), but by the end the years have caught up with him. We are introduced to a king but we say goodbye to a very tired old man, aged by grief and despair.