Читать книгу God Wills It! A Tale of the First Crusade - William Stearns Davis - Страница 6

A notable feast it was the good Lady Margaret set before her unexpected guests; for if the warning was short, the eager hands were many, and the day before there had been rare hunting. The worthy Baron, her lord, took pride in the goodly Norman habit of sitting long at table, and would have found eight hours none too many for meat and drink, had there been another to keep him company. And if this feast ended sooner, there was no lack of good food and better cheer. Hincmar, the stately chamberlain, marshalled his guests up to the fountain at the door of the great hall, where they washed their hands in punctilious order of precedence. The hall itself was hung with rare tapestries, the floor was strewn with fresh mint and cornflags; over the diners' benches were cast rich carpets of the East, and for the host and his immediate relatives and guests were gilt chairs of embossed leather. Then the serving-lads went in and out, bringing wine-soup in three kinds in remembrance of the Trinity, and flesh and fowl, from a stuffed cormorant to a haunch of bear's flesh. Last of all the great drinking-horns began to pass to and fro, and the skins of Cyprian wine from the cellars, to empty.

The Baron had placed the bishop at his right hand at the head of the long table, on his left the Greek Cæsar. But a little lower sat Richard, and beside him Musa and Mary Kurkuas; and while they were busy over the trenchers talk flew fast, and these in brief were the stories they told one another.

William Longsword, the present Baron of Cefalu, had been a Norman seigneur of noble lineage and slender estates near the ducal capital of Rouen. The Longswords were an ancient house. They boasted their descent from that notable William Longsword who had succeeded to the sovereignty of Rollo the Norman; yet, as too often, a great name did not mean great fiefs, and young William's best fortune was the weight of his battle-axe. But that battle-axe was very heavy. At Val-es-Dunes, when William the Bastard crushed his rebellious barons, Longsword had won the great Duke's highest favor. At Hastings none had struck doughtier blows than he. For a moment he had dreamt of a broad English barony and a Saxon heiress. But when the new king was at York there rose ill-blood and a hint to the monarch that the mutiny of certain Anjou mercenaries was due to his vassal.

One morning Longsword finding that fetters, not fiefs, waited him in England, fled just in time to Flanders, and went south to gaaignant, "to go a gaining," as the Normans put it, seeking fortune wherever the saints favored. In Auvergne he had married the daughter of a mountain baron, but had drifted on to Italy, had served with Counts Robert Guiscard and Roger, his brother, in Calabria, Epirus, and Sicily; and at last when Noto, the last Saracen stronghold in Sicily, fell, and Count Roger rewarded his faithful cavaliers, William Longsword had found himself Lord of Cefalu, with a stout castle and a barony of peaceful and industrious Moslems and Greeks for vassals; now for four years past he had ceased roving, and dreamed of handing down a goodly seigneury to his firstborn.

Thus Richard told his father's story, and Mary related more briefly how her father—and she proudly recounted his titles—was the "preëminently august" Cæsar Manuel Kurkuas; whose family was of the most noble and wealthy of the whole imperial city. He had been a great warrior in his day, until a crippling wound in the Patzinak war had forced the one-time "commander of the guards" to accept the peaceful office of "first prefect" of the capital. And in this position he might have died in honor and prosperity, had it not come to Emperor Alexius's ears that he had intrigued in favor of Constantine, the son of the dead sovereign Romanus, who was just raising the rebel standard. "And so," explained his daughter, quite simply, for she was bred at the Grecian court, "the Princess Anna Comnena, who is my kind friend, gave me to understand that all was not well with my father, and the Grand Chamberlain let fall that 'his eyes were in danger.' Therefore, with the aid of St. Basil and our cousin, the High Admiral, we made escape on a Venetian ship, and it was well we did; for Constantine, I hear, has been captured and blinded, and if we had been taken, the like would have befallen my father, and I would have been cast into the convent of Antiochus 'to live with the angels,' as they call taking the veil, at Constantinople."

"Allah forbid!" cried Musa, who had been following all her story, and Richard winced when he thought of those brown locks falling under the shears.

The Greek gave a little shrug and shiver. "Ah!" said she, "let us not speak of it. Yet I do not blame the Emperor. He has many enemies to guard against." And she paused.

"But you said you were half a Frank," said Richard, wishing to turn the conversation.

"Yes, truly, my father was envoy to the Duke of Aquitaine. In Provence he met my mother, daughter of the Baron of La Haye. She must have been a beautiful woman. They say all Constantinople was at her feet, when my father brought her there—his bride. But she died when I was a very little girl. I can only remember her bright eyes and sweet face." Another pause; and Richard did not try to break it. Was he not conscious in his innermost soul, that there were bright eyes and a sweet face very close to his own? That for an hour past, as the fashion was, he had been dipping his hand in the same bowl where also dipped another hand, soft, and white, and delicate? The evening was stealing on. Now the ruddy torches were sputtering in their cressets along the wall; and the glow fell softly over the feasters, seeming to hide witchery and sweet madness in every flickering shadow. For the first time in his life Richard Longsword felt a strange intoxication stealing over him. Not the wine—he had not drained a beaker. Up at the head of the table the Baron and the bishop were matching bumpers, and the former, between his draughts, was trying to tell Cæsar Manuel some tale of the Durazzo campaign in which they had both fought, though on opposing sides. At the foot of the table the Norman men-at-arms were splashing their liquor, and roaring broad jests at the Greek serving-maids. Musa, having satisfied hunger, sat with his long eyelashes cast down in dreamy Oriental revery. Only for one face and for one voice did Richard have sight or hearing. The princess held the Majolica cup to her lips, tasted, held it toward the Norman.

"See," said she, softly, "you have saved my father's liberty—perhaps his life—and me"—the color half left the wonderful face while she spoke—"from death or worse." The cup trembled as she shuddered at the thought. "When the Berbers seized me, I pleaded with all the saints to let me die,—better a thousand deaths than to breathe out one's life captive in an African harem!"

"By Our Lady, speak not of it," came from Richard,—he, too, trembling. But the brightness had darted again into the Greek's eyes while she continued: "And now attend—the reward! Know, brave Frank, that three months since a 'supremely august' prince, close to Alexius's self, would have given half his inheritance for gift like this!"

And with her own hands she held the cup to his lips. Richard drank. What else possible? He felt himself caught in a tide irresistible, too delicious in its caress to escape from if he might. Was the wine fire, that it burned through every vein? Yet the very flame bore a sweetness, a delight beyond all thought; the hot pain drowned in the ecstasy. He did not know what he replied, but the lady was answering.

"Eu! What joy I take in you Franks, whom I have never seen before to-day. When first did we meet? This morning beside the raging horse? I think I have known and admired you these score of years!"

"I?" quoth Richard, wool-gathering.

The lady laughed at her indiscretion.

"You do well to ask. At times my father rails at me; 'Daughter, you open your mind to strangers like a casket.' Again I am silent, hidden, locked fast, as my mood alters. Be it so, I am the open casket to-night. I will speak it all forth. The saints grant I may dwell amongst you Franks; how much better to crush down a raging horse with one touch, than to know all the wisdom of Plato!"

"Why better?" asked the Norman, never taking his gaze from that face all rosy in the flickering light.

"Why?" her voice rose a little, and the brightness of the torches was in her eyes. "Let others con the musty parchments,—a thousand times better are the men who do, as you of the West,—than the weaklings who only know. Plato babbled foolishness describing his 'perfect nation,' for when he strove to realize it—failure!"

"These are riddles, sweet lady!" cried Richard; "who was this Plato—some pagan long since in hell?"

Whereat the princess began to laugh afresh; not offensively, but sweetly as a running brook; so that the other would have said a hundred witless things to make her continue. Then she answered, her eyes dancing, and Richard thought he saw the lips of the dreamy Spaniard twitch: "Yes, for all his mist-hung cobwebs, he must have broiled in no common fire. But I love better to talk of coursing and falconry; that science better befits a Christian!"

"St. Stephen!" blurted out the Norman, pricking his ears, "can you ride and hawk?"

"Do you think I sat smelling inkhorns and tangling silk yarn all day in our palace by the Golden Gate? I had my own Arabian palfrey, my own dear goshawks: not four months have flown since I hunted with the Princess Anna over the lovely hills of the Emperor's preserves beyond the Sweet Waters of Europe. O"—and Richard almost thought her about to weep—"St. Irene, pity my horse and the birds, their mistress so far away!"

"By the Mass," began Richard, more flighty than ever, "you shall find our Sicilian birds put the best of Constantinople to shame. But the saints are very kind not to let you grow more sad over your loss; next to losing one's kinsfolk, what worse than to lose horse or falcon!" The lady had kissed a second cup, and pressed it to his lips. "Drink, then, in token of the merry rides we shall have side by side, if you come to wait on us at Palermo!"

And Richard drank, while all the time he felt the tide of intoxication sweeping him onward. Glancing into the Greek's eyes, he knew in a half-conscious way that a like spirit possessed her too. Had they been alone, only the saints know what might have befallen. Richard's voice was very loud when he answered, "No, by the Splendor of God, you must stay at Cefalu,—you shall ride my best palfrey; fly the white falcon!" The lady cut him short with another laugh, her face still very merry: "St. Basil, make them deaf; they all look at us! What have we been doing!"

Richard started, as from a dream: father, mother, bishop, the Cæsar, were all looking upon them. The Lady Margaret was turning a warning face upon Richard, but the Cæsar addressed his daughter austerely. "My child, these noble Franks and your valiant rescuer will take away strange tales of your conduct at this feast. Believe me, kind lords, my daughter is commonly less bold and unmaidenly than to-night. This has been a strange day for us, and we must pardon her much."

"You forget the princess is not your sister," added Lady Margaret, severely, her eyes on Richard; and the Baron was ready with his own word, but the younger Greek cut all short.

"Yes, by St. Theodore," was her saucy cry, "this has been a strange day for us all. And if you, my father, think my saving is over-dear at two cups of wine, let the Berbers snatch me off again! But give no blame to my Lord Richard, for it was I that began, led on, and made the fire tenfold hotter."

Cæsar Manuel hobbled to his feet.

"I do not blame my Lord Richard," said he, curtly; "I only fear lest closer knowledge make him repent your friendship. Most gallant Baron, and you, noble lady," continued he, bowing in courtly fashion to both, "I am feeble, and my daughter has diverted you enough. With your pardon, let us go to our chambers."

The Baron muttered something to the effect that there was still much wine—a pity to miss it. Mary rose and deliberately allowed Richard to bend and kiss her hand, courtesied before the Baron and his lady, knelt while the half-tipsy bishop hiccoughed out a benediction. Stately as a queen, she drew herself up, but her last shaft was darted at the Cæsar. "Dear father, are you not sorry I am so little contrite?" then to Richard, "And you, my lord, do not forget we go to Palermo!" There was a rustle of her dress; Manuel limped after; three serving-varlets brought up the Greeks' rear. They were gone. Richard started again—looked about. His mother and sister had risen also. The Baron and the bishop had reached that stage of joviality where the holy man was commencing to sing and brandish his flagon. Richard tasted the wine—insipid; how unlike the sweet fire of the cups proffered by the lady! Musa had glided from his revery,—was casting about sharply.

"My head throbs, though I have drunk little," professed the Norman. "Do you wish more?" Musa shook his head. "Then come upon the battlements; the bishop's bellowing makes one mad."

They mounted through darkened chambers, up dizzy ladders, to the summit of the donjon. It was a murky, cloudy night that greeted them as they emerged from the trap-door and stood alone on the stone-girt platform, with the land and the sea one vague black haze below. No moon, no stars; only a red flash on the ground where the light streamed from a loophole in the great hall. No sound save the faint shouts of the drinkers, echoing from far below, and their own measured footfalls. They paced the platform for a few moments in silence. Then the Norman broke forth in Arabic:—

"Musa, son of Abdallah, we have sworn brotherhood. Our friendship is young: may I put it to a test?"

"My hands, my wits, my head if need be, all yours, my brother," replied the Spaniard, never hesitating.

"Help me to gain the hand of this lady!"

Their hands rested on one another's shoulders. Richard felt—but perchance he was wrong—a quiver run through the Moslem; only for an instant, if at all. Very naturally Musa replied:—

"Had you said, 'Kill me this enemy,' how easy to aid you! But to win the lady, what may I do? I am no magician to mix you philters. In her eyes I am only Moslem, and Infidel. She has not learned, as have you Sicilian Normans, that Christian and Moslem may be friends. I would be a sorry pursuivant in your behalf."

Richard was silent; then cried out:—

"Ai, it is all madness! I have no need to be told. I set eyes on her first this morning. Holy Mother, what sin is mine that I should be afflicted thus! Never before have I loved a maid so much as my white falcon. Yet were I longing for a drop of water in Purgatory, I could not have greater desire. It is sin; it is madness; I must never see her again, or great sorrow will come of it!"

But Musa pressed his arm closer, and more kindly.

"No," said he, softly, in his rich Spanish accent; "if it is mere fleeting passion, it will end; and the upright man is none the worse. Is it a sin to take delight, when Allah reveals to us what seems a glimmer of Paradise? And as for the future, that lies in the hands of the Most High. Whatever is written in the books of our dooms—what power may withstand? To-day, call it madness, and speak not of it. To-morrow, if it live, call it passion—speak in whispers. A month, a year; call it love—it will speak for itself. It is a fire—all men see it. And who would then hide its brightness?"

"Ah," answered the Norman, "what day is this! How dare I stand and speak thus to you of what I ought to hide even from myself? How long have I known you?"

"How long?" replied the other, dreamily. "Friendships are made in the heart of Allah. Before the earliest star was created, before He said to the earth, 'Be,' it was destined that friend should be joined to friend, and when two such souls in the body meet face to face, they are not strangers. In each other they see a fellow that they have loved, while they dwelt as thoughts in the bosom of the Eternal."

"Yes," said Richard, caught in the pensive mood of the other, "we are friends. Why? We know not. To what end? A mystery! It is well we both believe God is good."

"He is good," said Musa, reverently, and they descended.