The Crusade became a fact on that day when the sovereigns of France and
Guienne together took the scarlet cross from Bernard's hand. But all
was not ready yet. Men were roused, and the times were ripe, but not
until the Abbot of Clairvaux had given Europe the final impulse could
the armies of the King and of the Queen, and of Conrad, who was never
to be crowned Emperor in Rome, begin the march of desperate toil and
weariness that lay between their homes and their death. From Vezelay
the master preacher and inspirer of mankind went straight to Conrad's
court, doing the will of others in faith and without misgiving of
conscience, to the greater glory of God, yet haunted in sleep and
waking by the dim ghosts of ruin and defeat. He prophesied not, and he
saw no visions, but he who was almost the world's physician in his day
felt fever in its pulse and heard distraction in the piercing note of
its rallying-cry.
There were multitudes without order, there were kings without
authority, there were leaders more fit to follow than to head the van.
And always, when he had preached and breathed fire through the dry
stubble of men's parched hopes, till the flame was broad and high and
resistless, there came to him, in the solitude wherein he found no
rest, the deadly memory of the Hermit's blasted host, overtaken,
overcome, crushed to a heap of bones in one wild battle with the Seljuk
horde.
Many a time he told himself that Peter had been no soldier, that
stronger and wiser men had won what he had failed even to see, and that
the memories of Godfrey's fearful wrath, of Raymond's brave wisdom, and
of Tancred's knightly deeds were more than half another victory gained.
Yet always, too, in his deep intuition of men's limits, he felt that
the soldiers of his day were not those great knights who had humbled
the Emperor of the East and taught a lesson of fear to Kilidj Arslan,
and who had grasped the flowers of Syria and Palestine with iron hands.
It was indeed God's will that a great host should go forth again, but
neither Bernard nor any other man could surely tell that in the will of
Heaven there was victory too. The first to win or die must always and
ever be the first alone; those who come after them imitate them, profit
by them, or find ruin sown in the ravaged track of conquest; do what
they may, believe as they can, be their faith ever so high and pure,
they can never feel the splendid exultation of the soul that has found
out some godlike and untried deed to do.
The times had changed in forty years. The modern world is turned by the
interests of the many, but the world of old revolved about the
ambitions of the few, and the transition began in Bernard's day after
the furnace of the eleventh century had poured its molten material out
upon the world to settle and cool again in the castings of nations,
separate and individual. There was less impulse, more rigidity; here
and there, there was more strength, but everywhere there was less fire;
and as interests grew in opposite directions and solidified apart, the
chances of any universal rising or joint battle for belief grew less.
Mankind moves westward with the sun; men's thoughts turn back to the
bright East, the source of every faith that moves humanity; at first,
for faith's sake, men may retrace their migration to its source and
give their own blood for their holy places; and after them a generation
will give its money for the honour of its God; but at the last, and
surely, comes the time of memory's fading, the winter of belief, the
night of faith's day, wherein a delicately nurtured and greedy race
will give neither gold nor blood, but only a prayer or a smile for the
hope of a life to come.
Gilbert Warde began the great march, as some others did, in earnest
trust and belief. He had struck blows in self-defence, and for
vengeance; he had fought once in Italy for sheer love of fighting and
the animal joy of the strong northerner in cut and thrust, and lately,
at Vezelay, he had fought a herd of drunken brutes for a woman's
safety; but he had not known the false and fierce delight of killing
men to please God. That was still before him, and he looked forward to
it with that half-deadly, half-voluptuous longing for bloodshed
sanctioned and sanctified by justice or religion, which is at the main
root of every soldier's nature, let men say what they will.
When the Crusade began its pilgrimage of arms, Gilbert had not yet seen
Beatrix, nor had he any distinct proof, even by the Queen's word, that
she was really in France. Eleanor herself had kept him at a distance
during the months that elapsed between Bernard's preaching at Vezelay
and the departure of the host; and he had been much alone, being more
knight than squire, and yet not having knighthood, because he would not
ask it of the Queen, since that would have seemed like begging for a
reward, and she did not offer it freely, while the King, of course,
knew nothing of what had taken place. One night, as he sat alone in his
chamber, a man entered, cloaked and hooded, and laid before him
something heavy wrapped in a silk kerchief that might have been a
woman's; and the man went out quickly before Gilbert had thought of
asking a question. In the kerchief there was a purse of gold, which
indeed he sorely needed, and yet after the man was gone he sat stupidly
staring at the contents for a long time. At first it seemed to him
almost certain that the money came from the Queen; but as he remembered
her coldness ever since the riot at Vezelay, and recollected how many
times he had of late tried to attract her attention without success,
the conviction lost ground, and he began to believe it possible, if not
certain, that the gift had proceeded from another source. As men did in
those days, and as many would do now, he might have taken thankfully
such fortune as he found in his path, not inquiring too closely whether
he had deserved it or not. But yet he hesitated, and then, turning the
thing over, he saw on the seal the device of the Abbot of Sheering, and
he thanked Heaven for such a friend. And again, as living much alone
made him more prone to self-questioning, he asked himself whether he
had ever loved Beatrix at all. He heard men talk of love, he heard men
sing the love-songs of a passionate and earnest age, and it seemed to
him that he could nowhere find in his heart or soul the chords that
should answer directly to that music. In him the memory was a treasure
rather than a power; and while he loved to dream himself again through
the pleasant passages of youth, calling up the kind and girlish face
that was always near him in shadow-land, and although the image came,
and he heard the voice and could almost fancy that he touched the
little hand, yet it was all soft rather than vivid, it was full of
tenderness rather than of a cruel and insatiate longing, it was a
satisfaction rather than a desire. And therefore, though the mere name
of Beatrix had been enough to bring him back from Rome, and though he
had asked many questions in the hope of seeing her, he attempted
nothing daring in order to be assured of the truth.
Then came the final preparations, the testing of armour, the providing
of small things necessary on the march, the renewal of saddle and
bridle, and all the hundred details which every knight and soldier in
those days understood and cared for himself. Then the first march
eastward through a changing country which Gilbert had not yet seen, the
encampment upon the heights about Metz, the days spent in roaming over
the old city, long ago a fortress of the Romans--and during all that
time Gilbert scarcely caught a glimpse of the Queen, though he saw the
King often at religious functions in the lately built church of Saint
Vincent; for as yet the great cathedral was not even begun. Last of
all, on the morning of the final departure the royal armies assembled
before dawn at the church, the court and the greater knights within,
the vast concourse of men-at-arms and footmen and followers in the open
air outside. But Gilbert passed boldly in among the high nobles of
France and Guienne, and knelt with them in the dim nave, where little
oil-lamps hung under the high vaults, and many candles burned upon the
altars in the side-chapels, shedding a soft light on dark faces and
mailed breasts and rich mantles. Out of the dusky choir rang the high
plain-chant of monks and singing-boys, from the altar the bishop's
voice alone intoned the Preface of the Holy Cross, and presently, in
the deep silence, the Sacred Host was lifted high, and then the golden
chalice.
The King and Queen knelt side by side to receive the holy bread, and
after them the nobles and the knights in turn went up to communicate,
in long procession, while the day dawned through the clerestory windows
high overhead, and the King and Queen knelt all the time with folded
hands till the mass was over. Then at last the standard of the cross
was brought forth, with the great standards of France and of
Guienne--the banner of Saint George and the Dragon, which Eleanor was
to hand down to her sons and sons' sons, kings of England, for
generations; and the choir began to sing "Vexilla regis prodeunt" ("The
standards of the king go forth"). So all that great and noble host went
out in state, chanting the lofty hymn that rang with tones of victory,
while among cypress groves on far Asian hillsides the ravens waited for
the coming feast of Christian flesh, and the circling kite scanned the
broad earth and dancing water for the living things that were to feed
him full of death.
At last the worst of the fearful march was over, and the Crusaders lay
before Constantinople, travel-stained, half-starved and wan, but at
rest. The great open space of undulating ground before the wall that
joined the Golden Horn with the Sea of Marmara was their
camping-ground, and countless tents were pitched in uneven lines as far
as one could see. The King, and Queen Eleanor, and a few of the greater
nobles had entered the city and were lodged in its palaces about the
Emperor's gardens, but all the rest remained without. For the German
hosts had been first to reach the Bosphorus, and where they had passed
they had left a broad track of dust and ashes and a great terror upon
all living things. Even in Constantinople itself, where the Emperor had
received them as guests, they had robbed and ravaged and burned as if
they had been in an enemy's country; and when at last he had persuaded
them to cross over to Asia, they had left the great city half sacked
behind them, so that the Emperor's heart was resentfully hardened
against every man who bore the cross.
And indeed he had been long-suffering, for many in his place would have
borne less; and if he persuaded the Crusaders on false pretences to
leave his capital and push on into Asia, he did so as the only means of
saving his own people from robbery and violence.
Though the King and the court only were lodged within the walls, while
the main force of fighting men was encamped without, yet the guard at
the gates was not over-strictly kept, and many knights went in with
their squires to see the great sights and, if possible, to get a
glimpse of the Emperor himself. Gilbert did like the rest and gave the
captain of the Second Military Gate a piece of silver to go in.
At the first glance he saw that there was little safety for any
stranger who should chance to wander from the chief streets.
Safe-conduct and security had been proclaimed for every soldier who
wore a cross, and the fear of a cruel death was enough to enforce the
imperial edict wherever watchmen or soldiers were present to remind men
of it; but there was no rigorous counter-rule on the Crusaders' side,
and if the rough Burgundian men-at-arms and the wild riders of Gascony
who were in Eleanor's train had been admitted in numbers, they would
hardly have withheld their hands from such desirable things as they
chanced to find in their way. The Greeks stood watching in their
doorways and their women sat huddled together in the small low
balconies above, or at narrow windows whence they could see the street.
Whenever a party of knights appeared, the men withdrew within their
houses, the women were out of sight in a moment, and within the windows
the curtains were closely drawn. Looking to right and left for the sign
of a friendly tavern or the more desirable attraction of henna-dyed
hair and painted cheeks and darkened eyes, the strangers saw nothing on
each side of the street but blank houses and closed doors. But when
they had passed, the curtains were parted, the doors were ajar again,
and curious eyes looked after the big mailed figures, the gaudy cloaks,
and the enormous cross-hilted swords of the Frenchmen. Of the poorer
people in the streets and those whose business kept them abroad on that
day, the men scowled resentfully at the intruders and the women drew
their veils closely across their faces. For although the French were
gentler and less uncouth to see than the rough Germans who had wrecked
the city a few weeks earlier, the Greeks were past trusting any one,
and looked upon all strangers with like fear and ever-increasing
distrust.
When he was within the gate, Gilbert saw three broad roads before him,
stretching downward from the higher land on which the city wall was
built. Vast and magnificent, Constantinople lay at his feet, a rich
disorder of palaces and churches and towers. On the left, the quiet
waters of the Golden Horn made a broad, blue path to meet the Bosphorus
in the hazy distance before him; on the right, the Sea of Marmara was
dazzling white under the morning sun, where its mirror-like reflections
could be seen between the towers of the sea-wall. The air was full of
light and colour, and the smell of late roses and autumn fruits and the
enchantment of sights altogether new took hold of the young man's
senses. Far before him and, as it seemed, near the end of the central
street, a dome rose above the level of the surrounding city, raising
its golden cross to the deep sky. Without hesitation Gilbert chose that
road and followed it nearly a full hour before he stood at the gate of
Saint Sophia's church.
He stood still and looked up, he had heard much of the great cathedral
and had wished to see it and the treasures it contained; but now, by an
impulse which he followed without attempting to understand it, instead
of going in he turned on his heel and went away. He said to himself
that there would be plenty of time for visiting the church, and
possibly the idea of leaving the beautiful daylight for the dark aisles
and chapels of an ancient cathedral was distasteful. In his change of
intention there seemed not to be that little element of chance that
makes a man turn to the right rather than to the left when there is no
choice of ways. He went on skirting the buttresses and outbuildings and
following the steep descent by the northwest side of the cathedral.
Here, to his surprise, he found the life of the city going on as usual,
and as yet none of the Crusaders had found their way thither. The tide
of business at that hour set toward the great markets and warehouses,
to the north of which one of the Emperor's smaller palaces was built
amid shady gardens that ran down to the water's edge. Gilbert was
carried along by the stream of hurrying men, who, seeing that he was a
stranger and alone, jostled him with little ceremony. He had too much
wit and perhaps too much self-respect, to rouse a street brawl on his
own behalf, and when any one ran against him with unnecessary roughness
he contented himself with stiffening his back and holding his own in
passive resistance. He had reached his full strength and was a match
for many little Greeks, yet the annoyance was distasteful to him, and
he was glad to find himself pushed into a narrow lane between high
walls and crossed by a low covered bridge; and at the end, under
overhanging branches, he saw the blue light of the sea. He followed the
byway down to the water, supposing that there must be some beach or
open space there, where he might be alone. But, to his surprise, both
walls were built out on little piers into the sea, shutting off the
view on each side. Looking straight before him, he saw the trees and
white houses of distant Chalcedon, within the Sea of Marmara, but
Chrysopolis was hidden on the left. The lane ended in a little beach,
some six feet wide, and a skiff lay there with a pair of oars, half out
of water, and made fast by a chain to a ring in the masonry. A cool
breeze drew in through the narrow entrance, and the clear salt water
lapped the clean sand softly, and splashed under the stern and along
the wales of the half-beached boat.
Gilbert rested one hand against the wall and looked out, breathing the
bright sea air with a sort of voluptuous enjoyment, and letting his
thoughts wander as they would. The march had been long and full of
hardships, mingled often with real bodily suffering, and those who had
escaped without disease were reckoned fortunate. The war was still
before them, but no imaginable combat with men could be compared with
the long struggle for existence through which the Crusaders had won
their way to Constantinople. It seemed as if the worst were altogether
past and as if rest-time had come already.
In the cool and shady retreat from the crowd to which Gilbert's
footsteps had led him, an Italian might have lain dreaming half the
day, and an Oriental would have sat down to withdraw himself from the
material tedium of life in the superior atmosphere of kef. But Gilbert
was chilled to a different temper by the colder and harder life of the
North, and the springs of his nature could not be so easily and wholly
relaxed. In a few moments he grew restless, stood upright and began to
look about him, letting his hand fall by his side from its hold on the
wall. The walls were solid from end to end of the narrow lane, and not
less than three times a man's height. The stones of the masonry were
damp for six or seven feet above the ground, showing that the earth was
at a higher level behind them than in the lane, and the trees of which
the branches overhung the way were of the sort found in Eastern
gardens, a cedar of Lebanon on the one side, a sycamore on the other;
and with the light breeze there came to Gilbert's nostrils the aromatic
scent of young oranges still green on the trees. It flashed upon him
that the lane divided the imperial gardens and that the walls were
built out into the water in order to prevent intrusion. One end of the
boat's chain was shackled to a ring-bolt in the bows, and the other was
made fast to the ring in the wall by one of those rude iron padlocks
which had been used in Asia since the times of Alexander. Gilbert had
heard wonderful tales of the gardens at Constantinople, and he resented
the idea of being so near them and yet so effectually excluded. He
tried to wrench the boat's chain from the bows, and, failing, he tried
to force the lock, but the iron was solid and the lock was good;
moreover, the chain was too short to allow the skiff to float to the
end of the wall, if he had launched it. The idea of seeing into the
garden became a determination as soon as he found that there were
serious obstacles in the way, and by the time he had persuaded himself
that the boat could not help him he would have readily risked life and
limb for his fancy. A few moments' reflection showed him, however, that
there need be no great danger in the undertaking, for the defence had a
weak point. The foundations on which the walls stood were above water
by several inches and were wide enough to give him a foothold if he
could only keep himself upright against the flat surface. The latter
difficulty could easily be overcome by using one of the oars from the
boat, and he began to attempt the passage at once, cautiously putting
one foot before the other and steadying himself with the oar against
the opposite wall. It did not occur to him that to get into the
Emperor's gardens by stealth might be looked upon as a serious matter.
In a few moments he had reached the end and was getting back to the
land on the other side.
From the water's edge three little terraces led up like steps to the
level of the garden, where the trees grew thick and dark; and, although
it was early autumn, each terrace was covered with flowers of a
different hue--pink and soft yellow and pale blue. Gilbert had never
seen anything made to grow in such orderly profusion, and when he
reached the top by narrow steps built against the wall, he found
himself treading on a fine white gravel surface on which not even a
single dead leaf had been allowed to lie, and which extended some
thirty yards inwards under the trees to a straight bank of moss that
had a sheen like green velvet where the sun fell upon it through the
parted leaves overhead. Very far away between the trunks of the trees
there was the gleam of white marble walls.
Gilbert hesitated a little, and then walked slowly forward toward the
bank. As yet he had seen no trace of any living thing in the garden,
but as he advanced and changed his position, he noticed a small dash of
colour, like the corner of a dark blue cloak, beside the trunk of one
of the larger trees. Some one was sitting on the other side, and he
moved cautiously and almost noiselessly till he saw that the person was
a lady, seated on the ground and absorbed in a book. He did not
remember to have seen more than two or three women reading in all his
life, and one of them was Queen Eleanor; another was Beatrix, who, as a
lonely child in the solitude of her father's castle, had acquired some
learning from the chaplain, and delighted in spelling out the few
manuscripts in her father's possession.
Gilbert Warde was as much a born sportsman as he was a fighter, and he
had stalked the fallow-deer in Stortford woods since he had been old
enough to draw an arrow's head to his finger.
Step by step, from tree to tree, with cat-like tread, he came nearer,
amused by an almost boyish pleasure in his own skill. Once the lady
moved, but she looked in the opposite direction, and then at last, when
he was within a dozen yards of her, half-sheltered by a slender stem,
she looked straight across toward him, and the light fell upon her
face. He knew that she saw him, but he could not have moved from the
spot if it had been to save his life, for the lady was Beatrix herself.
In spite of a separation that had lasted two years, in spite of her
final growth out of early girlhood, he knew that he was not mistaken,
and her dark eyes were looking straight into his, telling him that she
knew him, too. There was no fear in them, and she showed no surprise,
but as she looked, a very lovely smile came into her sad face. He was
so glad to see her that he thought little or not at all of her looks.
But she was not beautiful in any common sense, and, saving the
expression in her face, she could hardly have passed for pretty in the
presence of Queen Eleanor and of most of her three hundred ladies. Her
forehead was round and full rather than classic, and the thick dark
eyebrows were somewhat rough and irregular, turning slightly upwards as
they approached each other, a peculiarity which gave an almost pathetic
expression to the eyes themselves; the small and by no means perfectly
shaped nose was sensitively drawn at the nostrils, but had also an odd
look of independence and inquiry; and the wide and shapely lips were
more apt to smile with a half-humorous sadness than to part with
laughter. Small and well-modelled ears were half covered by dark brown
hair that had been almost black in childhood, and which fell to her
shoulders in broad waves, in the fashion used by the Queen. While
Gilbert looked and remained motionless, the girl rose lightly to her
feet, and he saw that she was shorter than he had expected, but slight
and delicately made. With one hand he could have lifted her from the
ground, with two he could have held her in the air like a child. She
was not the Beatrix he remembered, though he had known her instantly;
she was not the solemn, black-eyed maiden of whom he sometimes dreamed;
she was a being full of individual life and thought, quick, sensitive,
perhaps capricious, and charming, if she could charm at all, by a spell
that was quite her own.
Half-frightened at last by his motionless attitude and his silence, she
called him by name.
"Gilbert! What is the matter?"
He shook his broad shoulders as if waking to consciousness, and the
smile in her face was reflected in his own.
The voice, at least, had not changed, and the first tones called up the
long-cherished record of childish years; for scent and sound can span
the wastes of years and the deserts of separation, when sight is dull
and even touch is unresponsive.
Gilbert came forward, holding out both hands; and Beatrix took them
when he was close to her, and held them in hers. The little tears had
started in her eyes, that were glad as flowers at dewfall, and in her
very clear, pale cheeks the colour lightened like the dawn.
The man's face was quiet, and his heart was in no haste, though he was
so glad. He drew her toward him, as he had often done, and she seemed
light and little in his hands. But when he would have kissed her cheek
as in other times, she turned in his hold like a bow that is bent but
not strung, and straightened herself again quickly; and something
tingled in him suddenly, and he tried hard to kiss her; yet when he saw
that he must hurt her, he let her go, and laughed oddly. Her blush
deepened to red and then faded all at once, and she turned her face
away.
"How is it that I have never found you before now?" Gilbert asked
softly. "Were you with the Queen at Vezelay? Have you been with her on
all the march?"
"Yes."
"And did you not know that I was with the army?"
"Yes; but I could not send you any word. She would not let me." The
girl looked round quickly in sudden apprehension. "If she should find
you here, it would be ill for you," she added, with a gesture of
pushing him away.
But he showed that he would not go away.
"The Queen has always been kind to me," he said. "I am not afraid."
Beatrix would not turn to him, and was silent. He was not timid, but
words did not come easily just then; therefore, manlike, he tried to
draw her to him again. But she put away his hand somewhat impatiently
and shook her head, whereat he felt the tingling warmth in his blood
again. Then he remembered how he had felt the same thing on that night
in Vezelay, when the Queen had pressed his arm unexpectedly, and once
before, when she had kissed him in the tennis-court, and he was angry
with himself.
"Come," she said, "let us sit down and talk. There are two years
between us."
She led the way back in the direction whence he had come, and when they
had reached the bank of moss she seated herself and looked out under
the trees, at the blue water. He stood still a moment as though
hesitating, and then sat down beside her, but not quite close to her,
as he would have done in earlier years.
"Yes," he said thoughtfully, "there are two years between us. We must
bridge them."
"And between what we were and what we are there is something more than
time," she answered, still looking far away.
"Yes."
He was silent, and he thought of his mother, and he knew that Beatrix
was thinking of her too, and of her own father. It had not occurred to
him that Beatrix could resent the marriage as bitterly as he, nor that
she could in any way be as great a loser by it as he was.
"Tell me why you left England," he said at last.
"And you? Why did you leave your home?"
She turned to him, and the little melancholy smile that was
characteristic of her was in her face.
"I had no home left," he answered gravely.
"And had I? How could I live with them? No--how could I have lived with
them, knowing what I did, even had they been ever so kind?"
"Were they unkind to you?"
Gilbert's deep eyes grew suddenly pale as they turned to hers, and his
words came slowly and distinctly, like the first drops of a thunder
shower.
"Not at first. They came to the castle where I had been left all alone
after they were married, and my father told me that I must call the
Lady Goda my mother. She kissed me as if she were fond of me for his
sake."
Gilbert started a little, and his teeth set together, while he clasped
his hands over one knee and waited to hear more. Beatrix understood his
look, and knew that she had unintentionally hurt him. She laid her hand
softly upon his arm.
"Forgive me," she said. "I should not talk about it."
"No," he said harshly, "go on! I feel nothing; I am past feeling there.
They were kind to you at first, you said."
"Yes," she continued, looking at him sideways. "They were kind when
they remembered to be, but they often forgot. And then, it was hard to
treat her with respect when I came to know how she had got your
inheritance for my father, and how she had let you leave England to
wander about the world. And then, last year, it seemed to me all at
once that I was a woman and could not bear it any longer, for I saw
that she hated me. And when a son was born to them, my father turned
against me and threatened that he would send me to a nunnery. So I
fled, one day when my father had ridden to Stoke and the Lady Goda was
sleeping in her chamber. A groom and my handmaid helped me and went
with me, for my father would have hanged them if they had stayed
behind; so I took refuge with the Empress Maud at Oxford, and soon
there came a letter from the Queen of France to the Empress, asking
that I might be sent to the French court if I would. And something of
the reason for the Queen's wish I can guess. But not all."
She ceased, and for some moments Gilbert sat silent beside her, but not
as if he had nothing to say. He seemed rather to be checking himself
lest he should say too much.
"So you were at Vezelay," he said at last; "yet I sought your face
everywhere, and I could not see you."
"How did you know?" asked Beatrix.
"The Queen had written to me," he answered; "so I came back from Rome."
"I understand," said the young girl, quietly.
"What is it that you understand?"
"I understand why she has prevented me from seeing you, when you have
been near me for almost a year."
She checked a little sigh, and then looked out at the water again.
"I wish I did," Gilbert answered, with a short laugh.
Beatrix laughed too, but in a different tone.
"How dull you are!" she cried. Gilbert looked at her quickly, for no
man likes to be told that he is dull, by any woman, old or young.
"Am I? It seems to me that you do not put things very clearly."
Beatrix was evidently not persuaded that he was in earnest, for she
looked at him long and gravely.
"We have not met for so long," she said, "that I am not quite sure of
you."
She threw her head back and scrutinized his face with half-closed lids;
and about her lips there was an attempt to smile, that came and went
fitfully.
"Besides," she added, as she turned away at last, "you could not
possibly be so simple as that."
"By 'simple,' do you mean foolish, or do you mean plain?"
"Neither," she answered without looking at him. "I mean innocent."
"Oh!"
Gilbert uttered the ejaculation in a tone expressive rather of
bewilderment than of surprise. He did not in the least understand what
she meant. Seeing that she did not enlighten him, and feeling
uncomfortable, it was quite natural that he should attack her on
different ground.
"You have changed," he said coldly. "I suppose you have grown up, as
you call it."
For a moment Beatrix said nothing, but her lips trembled as if she were
trying not to smile at what he said; and suddenly she could resist no
longer, and laughed at him outright.
"I cannot say the same for you," she retorted presently; "you are
certainly not grown up yet!"
This pleased Gilbert even less than what she had said before, for he
was still young enough to wish himself older. He therefore answered her
laughter with a look of grave contempt. She was woman enough to see
that the time had come to take him by surprise, with a view of
ascertaining the truth.
"How long has the Queen loved you?" she asked suddenly; and while she
seemed not to be looking at him, she was watching every line in his
face, and would have noticed the movement of an eyelash if there had
been nothing else to note. But Gilbert was really surprised.
"The Queen! The Queen love me! Are you beside yourself?"
"Not at all," answered the young girl, quietly; "it is the talk of the
court. They say that the King is jealous of you."
She laughed--gayly, this time, for she saw that he really had had no
idea of the truth. Then she grew grave all at once, for it occurred to
her that she had perhaps made a mistake in putting the idea into his
head.
"At least," she said, as if correcting herself, "that is what they used
to say last year."
"You are quite mad," he said, without a smile. "I cannot imagine how
such an absurd idea could have suggested itself to you. In the first
place, the Queen would never look at a poor Englishman like me--"
"I defy any woman not to look at you," said Beatrix.
"Why?" he asked, with, curiosity.
"Is this more simplicity, or is it more dulness?"
"Both, I suppose," answered Gilbert, in a hurt tone. "You are very
witty."
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "Wit is quite another thing."
Then her tone changed and her face softened wonderfully as she took his
hand.
"I am glad that you do not believe it," she said; "and I am glad that
you do not care to be thought handsome. But I think it is true that the
Queen loves you, and if she sent to England for me, that was merely in
order to bring you back to France. Of course she could not know--"
She checked herself, and he, of course, asked what she had meant to
say, and insisted upon knowing.
"The Queen could not know," she said at last, "that we should seem so
strange to each other when we met."
"Do I seem so strange to you?" he asked, in a sorrowful tone.
"No," she answered, "it is the other way. I can see that you expected
me to be very different."
"Indeed, I did not," answered Gilbert, with some indignation. "At
least," he added hastily, "if I thought anything about it, I did not
expect that you would be half so pretty, or half--"
"If you thought anything about it," laughed Beatrix, interrupting him.
"You know what I mean," he said, justly annoyed by his own lack of tact.
"Oh, yes; of course I do--that is the trouble."
"If we are going to do nothing but quarrel," he said, "I am almost
sorry that I came here."
Again her tone changed, but this time she did not touch his hand.
Hearing her voice, he expected that she would, and he was oddly
disappointed that she did not.
"Nothing could make me sorry that you found me," she answered. "You do
not know how hard I have tried to see you all through this last year!"
Her tone was tender and earnest, and though they had been long parted,
she was nearer to him than he knew. His hand closed upon hers, and in
the little thrill that he felt he forgot his disappointment.
"Could you not send me any word?" he asked.
"I am a prisoner," she answered, more than half in earnest. "It would
be ill for you if the Queen found you here; but there is no danger, for
they are all gone to the high mass in the cathedral."
"And why are you left behind?" he asked.
"They always say that I am not strong," she replied, "especially when
there might be a possibility of your seeing me. She has never allowed
me to be with all the others when the court is together, since I was
brought over from England."
"That is why I did not see you at Vezelay," he said, suddenly
understanding.
And with him to understand was to act. He might have had some
difficulty in persuading himself at leisure that he was seriously in
love with Beatrix, but being taken suddenly and unawares, he had not
the slightest doubt as to what he ought to do. Before she could answer
his last words, he had risen to his feet and was drawing her by the
hand.
"Come," he cried. "I can easily take you by the way I came. It is only
a step, and in five minutes you shall be as free as I am!"
But, to his great surprise, Beatrix seemed inclined to laugh at him.
"Where should we go?" she asked, refusing to leave her seat. "We should
be caught before we reached the city gates, and it would be the worse
for us."
"And who should dare touch us?" asked Gilbert, indignantly. "Who should
dare to lay a hand on you?"
"You are strong and brave," answered Beatrix, "but you are not an army,
and the Queen--but you will not believe what I say."
"If the Queen even cared to see my face, she could send for me. It is
three weeks since I caught a glimpse of her, five hundred yards away."
"She is angry with you," answered the young girl, "and she thinks that
you will wish to be with her, and will find some way of seeing her."
"But," argued Gilbert, "if she only meant to use your name in order to
bring me from Rome, it would have been quite enough to have written
that letter without having brought you at all."
"And how could she tell that I did not know where you were, or that I
could not send you a message which might contradict hers?"
"That is true," Gilbert admitted. "But what does it matter, after all,
since we have met at last?"
"Yes; what does it matter?"
They asked the answerless question of each other almost unconsciously,
for they were finding each other again. There are plants which may be
plucked up half-grown, before their roots have spread in the earth or
their buds ripened to blossoming, and they may lie long in dry places
till they seem withered and dead; but there is life in their fibres
still, and the power to grow is in the shrivelled stem and in the dusty
leaf, so that if they be planted again and tended they come at last to
their due maturity. Gilbert and Beatrix might have lived out their
lives apart, and in the course of years they would have been the merest
memories to each other; but having met in the slow weaving of fate's
threads, they became destined to win or lose together.
Their conversation needed but the slightest direction to take them back
to the recollections of other times, and one of the first elements of
lasting love is a common past, though that past may have covered but a
few days. To that memory lovers go back as to the starting-point of
life's journey, and though they may not speak of it often, yet its
existence is the narrow ledge on which they have reared their
stronghold in the perilous pass. And the English boy and girl had
really lived a joint life, in their sympathies and surroundings, for
years before a joint misfortune had overtaken them. In their meeting
after a long separation they felt at the same time the rare delight of
friendship renewed, and the still rarer charm of finding new
acquaintances in old friends; but besides the well-remembered bond of
habit, and the strong attraction of newly awakened interest, there was
the masterful, nameless something upon which man's world has spun for
all ages, as the material earth turns on its poles toward the
sun--always to hope beyond failure, always to life beyond death, always
and forever to love beyond life. It is the spark from heaven, the
stolen fire, the mask of divinity with which the poorest of mankind may
play himself a god. It has all powers, and it brings all gifts--the
gift of tongues, for it is above words; the gift of prophecy, for it
has foreknowledge of its own sadness; the gift of life, for it is
itself that elixir in which mankind boasts of eternal youth.
The two sat side by side and talked, and were silent, and talked again,
understanding each other and happy in finding more to understand. The
sun rose high and fell through the rustling leaves in fanciful warm
tracery of light; down from the Bosphorus the sweet northerly breeze
came over the rippling water, laden with the scent of orange-blossoms
from the Asian shore and with the perfume of late roses from far
Therapia. Between the trees they could see the white sails of little
vessels beating to windward up the narrow channel, and now and then the
dyed canvas of a fisherman's craft set a strangely disquieting note of
colour upon the sea. There seemed to be no time, for all life was
theirs, and it was all before them; an hour had passed, and they had
not told each other half; another came and went, and what there was to
tell still gained upon them.
[Illustration: BEATRIX AND GILBERT]
They talked of the Crusade, and of how the Queen had given her ladies
no choice, commanding them to follow her, as a noble would order his
vassals to rise with him to the king's war. Three hundred ladies were
to wear mail and lead the van of battle, the fairest ladies of France
and Aquitaine, of Gascony, of Burgundy, and of Provence. So far, a few
had ridden, and many had been carried in closed litters slung between
mules or borne on the broad shoulders of Swiss porters; and each lady
had her serving-maid, and her servants and mules heavy laden with the
furniture of beauty, with laces and silks and velvets, jewellery and
scented waters, and salves for the face, of great virtue against cold
and heat. It was a little army in itself, recruited of the women, and
in which beauty was rank, and rank was power; and in order that the
three hundred might ride with Queen Eleanor in the most marvellous
masquerade of all time, a host of some two thousand servants and
porters crossed Europe on foot and on horseback from the Rhine to the
Bosphorus. The mere idea was so vastly absurd that Gilbert had laughed
at it many a time by himself; and yet there was at the root of it an
impulse which was rather sublime than ridiculous. Between its
conception and its execution the time was too long, and the hot blood
of daring romance already felt the fatal chill of coming failure.
Gilbert looked at the delicate features and the slight figure beside
him, and he resented the mere thought that Beatrix should ever be
exposed to weariness and hardship. But she laughed.
"I am always left behind on great occasions," she said. "You need not
fear for me, for I shall certainly not be seen on the Queen's left hand
when she overcomes the Seljuks without your help. I shall be told to
wait quietly in my tent until it is all over. What can I do?"
"You can at least let me know where you are," answered Gilbert.
"What satisfaction shall you get from that? You cannot see me; you
cannot come to me in the ladies' camp."
"Indeed I can, and will," answered Gilbert, without the least
hesitation.
"At the risk of the Queen's displeasure?"
"At any risk."
"How strange it is!" exclaimed Beatrix, raising her eyebrows a little,
but smiling happily. "This morning you would not have risked anything
especial for the sake of finding me, but now that we have met by chance
you are ready to do anything and everything to see me again."
"Of some things," answered her companion, "one does not know how much
one wants them till they are within reach."
"And there are others which one longs for till one has them, and which
one despises as soon as they are one's own."
"What things may those be?" asked Gilbert.
"I have heard Queen Eleanor say that a husband is one of them,"
answered Beatrix, demurely, "but I dare say that she is not always
right."
Side by side the two sat in the autumn noonday, each forgetful of all
but the other, in the perfect unconsciousness of the difference their
meeting was to make in their lives from that day onward. Yet after the
first few words they did not speak again of Beatrix's father nor of
Gilbert's mother. By a common instinct they tried to lose both, in the
happiness of again finding one another.
Then, at last, a cloud passed over the sun, and Beatrix felt a little
chill that was like the breath of a coming evil while Gilbert became
suddenly very grave and thoughtful.
Beatrix looked round, more in fear than in suspicion, as a child does
at night, when it has been frightened by a tale of goblins; and,
turning, she caught sight of something and turned farther, and then
started with a scared cry and half rose, with her hand on Gilbert's
arm. Anxious for her, he sprang up to his height at the sound of her
voice, and at the same moment he saw what she saw, and uttered an
exclamation of surprise. It was not a cloud that had passed between
them and the sun. The Queen stood there, as she had come from the
Office in the church, a veil embroidered with gold pinned upon her head
in a fashion altogether her own. Her clear eyes were very bright and
hard, and her beautiful lips had a frozen look.
"It is very long since I have seen you," she said to Gilbert, "and I
had not thought to see you here--of all places--unbidden."
"Nor I to be here, Madam," answered the Englishman.
"Did you come here in your sleep?" asked the Queen, coldly.
"For aught that I can tell how I got here, it may be as your Grace
says. I came by such a way as I may not find again."
"I care not how soon you find another, sir, so that it be a way out."
Gilbert had never seen the Queen gravely displeased, and as yet she had
been very kind to him when he had been in her presence. Against her
anger he drew himself up, for he neither loved her nor feared her, and
as he looked at her now he saw in her eyes that haunting memory of his
own mother which had disturbed him more than once.
"I ask your Grace's pardon," he said slowly, "for having entered
uninvited. Yet I am glad that I did, since I have found what was kept
from me so long."
"I fancied your idol so changed that you might not care to find it
after all!"
Beatrix hardly understood what the words meant, but she knew that they
were intended to hurt both her and Gilbert, and she saw by his face
what he felt. Knowing as she did that the Queen was very strongly
attracted by him, she would not have been human if she had not felt in
her throat the pulse of triumph, as she stood beside the most beautiful
woman in the world, pale, slight, sad-eyed, but preferred before the
other's supreme beauty by the one man whose preference meant anything
at all. But a moment later she forgot herself and feared for him.
"Madam," he said very slowly and distinctly, "I trust that I may not
fail in courtesy, either toward your Grace, or toward any other woman,
high or low; and none but the blind man would deny that, of all women,
you are fairest, wherefore you may cast it in the face of other ladies
of your court that you are fairer than they. But since your Grace would
wear a man's armour and draw a knight's sword, and ride for the Cross,
shoulder to shoulder with the gentlemen of Normandy and Gascony and
France, I shall tell you without fear of discourtesy, as one man would
tell another, that your words and your deeds are less gentle than your
royal blood."
He finished speaking and looked her quietly in the face, his arms
folded, his brow calm, his eyes still and clear. Beatrix fell back a
step and drew anxious breath, for it was no small thing to cross words
boldly with the sovereign next in power to the Emperor himself. And at
the first, the seething blood hissed in the Queen's ears, and her
lovely face grew ashy pale, and her wrath rose in her eyes with the red
shadow of coming revenge. But no manlike impulse moved her hand nor her
foot, and she stood motionless, with half her mantle gathered round
her. In the fierce silence, the two faced each other, while Beatrix
looked on, half sick with fear. Neither moved an eyelash, nor did the
glance of either flinch, till it seemed as if a spell had bound them
there forever, motionless, under the changing shadows of the leaves,
only their hair stirring in the cool wind. Eleanor knew that no man had
ever thus faced her before. For a few moments she felt the absolute
confidence in herself which had never failed her yet; the certainty of
strength which drove the King to take refuge from her behind a barrier
of devotion and prayer; the insolence of wit and force against which
the holy man of Clairvaux had never found a weapon of thought or
speech. And still the hard Norman eyes were colder and angrier than her
own, and still the man's head was high, and his face like a mask. At
last she felt her lids tremble, and her lips quiver; his face moved
strangely in her sight, his cold resistance hurt her as if she were
thrusting herself uselessly against a rock; she knew that he was
stronger than she, and that she loved him. The struggle was over; her
face softened, and her eyes looked down. Beatrix could not understand,
for she had expected that the Queen would command Gilbert to leave
them, and that before long her vengeance would most certainly overtake
him. But instead, it was the young soldier without fame or fortune, the
boy with whom she had many a time played children's games, before whom
Eleanor, Duchess of Guienne and Queen of France, lost courage and
confidence.
A moment later she looked up again, and not a trace of her anger was
left to see. Simply and quietly she came to Gilbert's side and laid her
hand upon his sleeve.
"You make me say things I do not mean," she said.
If she had actually asked his forgiveness in words, she could not have
expressed a real regret more plainly, nor perhaps could she have done
anything so sure to produce a strong impression upon the two who heard
her. Gilbert's face relaxed instantly, and Beatrix forgot to be afraid.
"I crave your Grace's pardon," said the young man. "If I spoke rudely
let my excuse be that it was not for myself. We were children
together," he added, looking at Beatrix, "we grew up together, and
after long parting we have met by chance. There is much left of what
there was. I pray that without concealment I may see the Lady Beatrix
again."
The Queen turned slowly from them and stood for a few moments looking
toward the sea. Then she turned again and smiled at Gilbert, not
unkindly; but she said no word, and presently, as they stood there, she
left them, and walked slowly away with bent head, toward the palace.