Three weeks the French armies lay encamped without the walls of
Constantinople, while the Emperor of the Greeks used every art and
every means to rid himself of the unwelcome host, without giving
overmuch offence to his royal guests. The army of Conrad, he said, had
gained a great victory in Asia Minor. Travel-stained messengers arrived
in Chrysopolis, and were brought across the Bosphorus to appear before
the King and Queen of France, with tales of great and marvellous deeds
of arms against the infidels. Fifty thousand Seljuks had been drowned
in their own blood; three times that number had fled from the field,
and were scattered fainting and wounded in the Eastern hills; vast
spoils of gold and silver had fallen to the Christians, and if the
Frenchmen craved a share in the victories of the Cross, or hoped for
some part or parcel of the splendid booty, it was high time that they
should be marching to join the Germans in the field.
Yet Louis would have tarried longer to complete the full month of
devotions and thanksgiving for the march accomplished, and many of his
followers would cheerfully have spent the remainder of their days on
the pleasant shores of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn; but the Queen
was weary of the long preface to her unwritten history of arms, and
grew impatient, and took the Greek Emperor's side, believing all the
messages which he provided for her imagination. And so at last the
great multitude was brought over to Asia by boat, and marched by quick
stages to the plain of Nicaea. There they pitched their camp by the
Lake of Ascanius, and waited for news of the Germans; for the
messengers had brought information that the German Emperor desired to
make Nicaea the trysting-place. But the messengers had all been Greeks,
and the French waited many days in vain, spoiling the country of all
they could take, though it was in the dominion of Christians, and no
man dared raise a hand to defend his own against the Crusaders.
Among the French, there were many, both of the great lords and of the
simple knights, and of poor men-at-arms, who would have counted it
mortal sin to take anything from a stranger without payment, who had
come for faith's sake, to fight for faith, and who looked for faith's
reward. Yet as there can be in logic nothing good excepting by its own
comparison with things evil, so in that great pilgrimage of arms the
worst followed the best in a greedy throng, as the jackal and the raven
cross the desert in the lion's track. And the roads by which they had
marched, and the lands wherein they had camped, lay waste as lie the
wheat-fields of Palestine in June, when the plague of locusts has eaten
its way from east to west.
When they came to a resting-place after many days' march, mud-stained
or white with dust, weary and footsore, their horses lame, their mules
overladen with the burdens of those that had died by the way, beards
half grown, hair unkempt, faces grimy, clothes worn shapeless, they
were more like a multitude of barbarians wandering upon the plains of
Asia than like nobles of France and high-born Crusaders. At first, when
they reached the halting-place by stream or river or lake, there was a
struggle for drinking and a strife for the watering of horses and
beasts of burden, so that sometimes men and mules were trampled down
and hurt, and some were killed; but it mattered little in so great a
host, and a spade's depth of earth was ample burial for a man, and if a
priest could be found to bless his body on the spot where he lay it was
enough, since he had died on the road to Jerusalem; but the jackals and
wild dogs followed the march and lay in wait for dead beasts. Then when
the first confusion was over, when hunger and thirst were satisfied,
the tents were unpacked with their poles, and the sound of the great
wooden mallets striking upon the tent-pegs was like the irregular
pounding stroke of the fullers' hammers as the water-wheel makes them
rise and fall; and though the army had crossed Europe and had encamped
in many places, the colours of the tents were bright still, and the
pennants floated in streaks of vivid colour against the sky. Soon, when
the first work was over and the little villages of red and green and
purple and white canvas were built up in their long irregular lines,
the smoke of camp-fires rose in curling wreaths, and bag and baggage,
pack and parcel, were opened and the contents spread out. As if for
some great festival, men and women chose their gayest clothes and
richest ornaments, so that when they met again before the open tents
which were set up for chapels, one for each little band of
fellow-townsmen and neighbours at home, and afterwards when they ate
and drank together according to their rank, under wide awnings at
noontide, or beneath the clear sky in the cool of the evening, it was a
goodly sight, and every man's heart was lightened and his courage
returned as he felt that he himself had his share and part of the
glorious whole. For it was as it always is and always must be, where
power and wealth are masters of the scene, and there is no acting room
for misery or sorrow or such poor strolling players as sickness and
death. The things which please not the eye are quick to offend souls
nursed in a faultless taste, and the charnel-house of failure receives
whatsoever things have not the power of pleasing.
Now when they came to Nicaea, hope was high, and the light of victory
to come seemed to be shining in every man's eyes. There for the first
time Queen Eleanor led out her three hundred ladies in battle array,
clad in bright mail, with skirts of silk and cloth of gold, and long
white mantles, each with the scarlet cross upon the shoulder; and on
their heads they wore light caps of steel ornamented with chiselled
gold and silver, and here and there with a metal crest or a bird's
wing, beaten out of thin silver plate.
It was at noonday under the fair autumn sun. A broad meadow, green
still in patches, where the grass had not been burned brown by the
early summer heat, stretched toward the Lake of Ascanius, where the
ground rose in hillocks, to end abruptly in a sheer fall of thirty or
forty feet to the water's edge. There were places where there was no
grass at all, and where the dry gravel lay bare and dusty, yet on the
whole it was a fair field for a great assembly of men on horseback and
on foot. To southward the meadow rose, rolling away to the distant
hills, whither the German host was already gone. The great lords, with
their men-at-arms and squires, riding each in the midst of his vassal
knights, went out thither to see such a sight as none had seen before,
and ranged themselves by ranks around the field, so that there was room
for all. And thither Gilbert went also with his man Dunstan, in the
King's train, for he owed no service nor allegiance to any man there.
But they waited long for the Queen.
She came at last, leading her company and mounted on a beautiful white
Arab mare, the gift of the Greek Emperor, as gentle a creature as ever
obeyed voice and hand, and as swift as the swiftest of the breed of
Nejd. She rode alone, ten lengths before the rest, tall and straight in
the saddle as any man, a lance in her right hand, while her left held
the bridle low and lightly; and at the very first glance every soldier
in that great field knew that there was none like her in the troop. Yet
her fair ladies made a good showing and rode not badly as they cantered
by, brilliant and changing as a shower of blossoms, with black eyes,
and blue, and brown, fair cheeks and dark, and laughing lips not made
to talk of rough deeds save to praise them in husband or lover.
Next to the Queen and before the following ranks rode one who bore the
standard of Eleanor's ancient house, Saint George and the Dragon,
displayed on a white ground and now for the first time quartered in a
cross. The Lady Anne of Auch was very dark, and her black hair streamed
like a shadow in the air behind her, while her dark eyes looked upward
and onward. Splendidly handsome she was, and doubtless Eleanor had
chosen her for her beauty to be standard bearer of the troop, well
knowing that no living face could be compared with her own, and willing
to outshine a rival whose features and form were the honour and boast
of the South.
They rode in a sort of order, in squadrons of fifty each, but not in
serried ranks, for they had not the skill to keep in line, though they
rode well and boldly. And before each squadron rode a lady who for her
beauty or her rank, or for both, was captain, and wore upon her steel
cap a gilded crest. Each squadron had a colour of its own, scarlet and
green and violet, and the tender shade of anemones in spring, and their
mantles had been dyed with each hue in the dyeing-vats of Venice, and
were lined with delicately tinted silks from the East, brought to the
harbours of France by Italian traders. For the merchants of Amalfi
filled the Mediterranean with their busy commerce and had quarters of
their own in every Eastern city, and had then but lately founded the
saintly order of the Knights Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem,
whence grew the noble community of the Knights of Malta, which was to
live through many centuries even to our day.
Nor could the Queen's ladies have worn mail and steel and wielded sword
and lance, so that at a long stone's throw they might almost have
passed for men, but that cunning jewellers and artificers of Italy, and
Moorish smiths from Spain, had been brought at great pains and cost to
France to make such armour and weapons as had never been wrought
before. The mail was of finest rings of steel sewn upon soft doeskin,
fitted so closely that there was no room for gambison or jerkin; and
though it might have stopped a broad arrow or turned the edge of a
blade, a sharp dagger could have made a wound beneath it, and against a
blow it afforded less protection than a woollen cloak. Many had little
rings of gold sewn regularly in the rows of steel ones, that caught the
light with a warmer sparkle, and the clasps of their mantles were of
chiselled gold and silver. The trappings of each horse were matched in
colour with the ladies' mantles, and the captains of the squadrons wore
golden spurs.
They dropped the points of their lances as they passed the King where
he sat on his horse, a stone's throw from the high shore of the lake,
in the midst of his chief barons, his pale face expressing neither
interest nor pleasure in what he saw, and his eyes distrustful, as
always, of his Queen and her many caprices. She, when she had saluted
him with a smile that was almost a laugh, rode on a little way, and
then, with a sharply uttered word of command, she wheeled by the left,
crossed half the broad field, and led her ladies back straight toward
the King. Within five lengths of him she halted suddenly, almost
bringing her horse's haunches to the ground, and keeping her seat in a
way that would have done credit to a man brought up in the saddle. To
tell the truth, very few of her ladies were able to perform such a feat
with any ease or assurance, and in the sudden halt there was more than
a little disorder, accompanied by all sorts of exclamations of
annoyance and ejaculations of surprise; yet, in spite of difficulty,
the whole troop came to a standstill; moreover, a hundred thousand or
more of knights and soldiers on horseback and on foot were so much more
interested in the looks of the riders than in their horsemanship, and
the whole effect of the gay confusion, with its many colours, its
gleams of gold and glint of silver, was so pretty and altogether novel,
that a great cry of enthusiasm and delight rang in the sunny air. A
faint flush of pleasure rose in the Queen's cheeks, and her eyes
sparkled with triumph at the long applause which was on her side
against the King's disapproval. She dropped the point of her lance
until it almost touched the ground, and spoke to her husband in a high
clear voice that was heard by many.
"I present to your Grace this troop of brave knights," she said. "In
strength the advantage is yours, in numbers, you far outdo us, in age
you are older, in experience there are those with you who have lived a
lifetime in arms. Yet we have some skill also, and those who are old in
battles know that the victory belongs to the spirit and the heart,
before it is the work of the hand; and in these my knights are not
behind yours."
The men who heard her words and saw the lovely light in her wondrous
face threw up their right hands and shouted great cheers for her and
her three hundred riders, but the King spoke no word of praise, and his
face was still and sour. Again the Queen's cheek flushed.
"Your Grace leads the army of France," she said, "an army of brave men.
My knights are many, and brave too, the troops of Guienne and of Poitou
and of Gascony and of more than half of all the duchies that speak our
tongue and owe me allegiance. But of them all, and before them all, to
ride in van of this Holy War, I choose these three hundred ladies. My
Lord King, and you, lords, barons, knights, and men, who have taken
upon you the sign of the Cross, you, the flower of French chivalry and
manhood, your comrades in arms are these, the flowers of France! Long
live the King!"
She threw up her lance and caught it easily in her right hand as she
uttered the cry, laughing in the King's face, and well knowing her
power compared with his; and as the high young voices behind her took
up the shout, the great multitude that bordered the meadow took it up
also; but one word was changed, and a hundred thousand throats shouted,
"Long live the Queen!"
When there was silence at last, the King looked awkwardly to his right
and left as if seeking advice; but the nobles about him were watching
the fair ladies, and had perhaps no counsel to offer. In the great
stillness the Queen waited, still smiling triumphantly, and still he
could find nothing to say, so that a soft titter ran through the
ladies' ranks, whereat the King looked more sour than ever.
"Madam," he began at last. And after that he seemed to be speaking, but
no one heard what he said.
Apparently with the intention of showing that he had nothing more to
say,--and indeed it was of very little importance whether he had or
not,--he waved his hand with a rather awkward gesture and slightly
bowed his head.
"Long live the monk!" said Eleanor, audibly, as she wheeled to the
right to lead her troop away.
Gilbert Warde sat on his horse in the front line of the spectators,
some fifty yards from the King, and near the edge of the lake. As the
Queen cantered along the line, gathering her harvest of admiration in
men's faces, her eyes met the young Englishman's and recognized him. On
his great Norman horse he sat half a head taller than the men on each
side of him, motionless as a statue. Yet his look expressed something
which she had never seen in his face till then; for, being freed from
her immediate influence and at liberty to look on her merely as the
loveliest sight in the world, more strangely beautiful than ever in her
gleaming armour, he had not thought of concealing the pleasure he felt
in watching her.
Not all the cheering of the great army, not all the light in the
thousands of eyes that followed her, could have done more than bring a
faint colour to her face, nor could any man in all that host have found
a word to make her heart beat faster. But when she saw Gilbert the
blood sank suddenly and her eyes grew darker. They lingered on him as
she rode by, and turned back to him a little with drooping lids, and a
slight bend of the head that had in it a grace beyond her own knowledge
or intention. He, like those beside him, threw up his hand and cheered
again, arid she did not see that almost before she had passed him he
was looking along the ranks for another face.
The three hundred cantered slowly round half the meadow, and the cheer
followed them as they went, like the moving cry of birds on the wing;
and first they rode along the line of the King's men, but presently
they came to the knights and soldiers of Eleanor's great vassalage, and
all at once there were flowers in the air, wild flowers from the fields
and autumn roses from the gardens of Nicaea, plucked early by young
squires and boys, and tied into nosegays and carefully shielded from
the sun, that they might be still fresh when the time came to throw
them. The light blossoms scattered in the air, and the leaves were
blown into the faces of the fair women as they passed. Moreover, some
of the knights had silken scarfs of red and white, and waved them above
their heads while they cheered and shouted. And so the troop rode round
three sides of the great meadow.
But at the last side there was a change that fell like a chill upon the
whole multitude of men and women, and a cry came ringing down the air
that struck a discord through the triumphant notes, long, harsh, bad to
hear as the howl of wild beasts when the fire licks up the grass of the
wilderness behind them. At the sound, men turned their heads and looked
in the direction whence it came, and many, by old instinct, slipped
their left hands to the hilts of sword and dagger, and felt that each
blade was loose in its sheath. As she galloped along, Queen Eleanor's
white mare threw up her head sideways with a snort and swerved, almost
wrenching the bridle from the Queen's hold, and at the same moment the
lusty cheering broke high in the air and died fitfully away. The
instinct of fear and the foreknowledge of great evil were present,
unseen and terrible, and of the three hundred ladies who reined in
their horses as the Queen halted, nine out of ten felt that they
changed colour, scarcely knowing why. With one common impulse all
turned their eyes towards the rising ground to southward.
There were strange figures upon the low hillocks, riding out of the
woods at furious speed towards the meadow, and already the deep lines
began to open and part to make way for the rush. There were men
bareheaded, with rags of mantles streaming on the wind, spurring lame
and jaded horses to the speed of a charge, and crying out strange words
in tones of terror. But only one word was understood by some of those
who heard.
"The Seljuks! The Seljuks!"
Down the gentle slope they came spurring like madmen. As they drew
nearer, one could see that there was blood on their armour, blood on
the rags of their cloaks, blood on their faces and on their hands; some
were wounded in the head, and the clotted gore made streaks upon their
necks; some had bandages upon them made of strips of torn-up
clothes--and one man who rode in the front, when his horse sprang a
ditch at the foot of the hill, threw up an arm that was without a hand.
No man of all the throng who had ever seen war doubted the truth for
one moment after the first of the wild riders was in sight, and the
older and more experienced men instinctively looked into each other's
faces and came forward together. But even had they been warned in time,
they could have done nothing against the fright that seized the younger
men and the women at the throat like a bodily enemy, choking out hope
and strength and youth in the dreadful premonition of untimely death.
The squires pressed upon the knights, the boys and young men-at-arms
and the followers of the camp forced their weight inward next, and the
inner circle yielded and allowed itself to be crushed in upon the troop
of ladies, whose horses began to plunge and rear with their riders'
fright; and still, on one side, the crowd tried to part before the
coming fugitives. The first came tearing down, his horse's nostrils
streaming with blood, himself wild-eyed, with foam-flecked lips that
howled the words of terror. "The Seljuks! The Seljuks!"
A dozen lengths before the terror-stricken wall of human beings that
could not make way to let him in, without warning, without a
death-gasp, the horse doubled his head under himself as he galloped his
last stride, and falling in a round heap rolled over and over forwards
with frightful violence, till he suddenly lay stiff and stark with
twisted neck and outstretched heels, within a yard of the shrinking
crowd, his rider crushed to death on the grass behind him. And still
the others came tearing down the hill, more and more, faster and
faster, as if no earthly power could stop their rush. First a score and
then a hundred, and then the torn remnants of a vanquished host, blown,
as it were like fallen leaves by the whirlwind of the death they had
but just escaped. Many of them, not knowing and not caring what they
did, and remembering only the wrath from which they fled, did not even
try to rein in their horses, and the beasts themselves, mad with fright
and pain, charged right at the ranks of people on foot and reared their
full height at the last bound rather than override a living man; and
many were crushed in the press, and many fell from their jaded mounts,
too weary to rise and too much exhausted to utter any words save a cry
for water.
Nevertheless, two or three who had more life in them than the rest were
able to stand, and were presently led round the close-packed crowd to
the edge of the lake, where the King was quietly waiting with his
courtiers until the confusion should end itself, saying a prayer or two
for the welfare of every one concerned, but making not the slightest
attempt to restrain the panic nor to restore order. But the Queen and
her ladies were in danger of being crushed to death in the very midst
of the seething, bruising, stifling mass of humanity.
Gilbert was near the King, and sitting high on his great horse he saw
farther than most men above the wild confusion. It was as if some
frightful, unseen monster were gathering a hundred thousand men in iron
coils, always inward, as great snakes crush their prey, thousands upon
thousands, the bodies of horses and men upon men and horses, with
resistless force, till the human beings could struggle no longer, and
the beasts themselves could neither kick nor plunge, but only trample
all that was near them, while they moved slowly towards the centre. In
thousands and thousands again, on an almost even level, the small round
caps of many colours were pressed together, till it seemed impossible
that there could be room for the bodies that belonged to them. As when,
in vintage time, the gathered fruit is brought home to the vats in the
sweating panniers of wood, pressed down and level to the brim, and the
red and white and blue and green grapes lie closely touching each other
almost floating in the juice, rocking and bobbing all at once with
every step of the laden mule--so, as Gilbert looked out before him, the
bright-hued, close-fitting caps moved restlessly and without ceasing
all round a central turmoil of splendid colour, shaded by tender tones
of violet and olive, and shot by the glare of sunlit gold, and the
sheen of silver, and the cold light of polished steel.
But there in the heart of the press there was danger, and from far away
Gilbert saw clearly enough, through the cloud of light and colour, the
lifeless tones that are like nothing else of nature, the deadly
unreflecting paleness of frightened faces, and the cries of women hurt
and in terror came rising over the heads of the multitude. He sat still
and looked before him as if his sight could distinguish the features of
one or another at that distance, and he felt icy cold when he thought
of what might happen, and that all those fair young girls and women, in
their beauty and in their youth, in their fanciful dresses, might be
crushed and trampled and kicked to death before thousands who would
have died to save them. His first instinct was to charge the crowd
before him, to force the way, even by the sword, and to bring the Queen
and her ladies safely back; but a moment's thought showed him how
utterly futile any such attempt must be, and that even if the whole
throng had felt as he felt himself, and had wished to make way for any
one, it would have had no power to do so. There was but one chance of
saving the women, and that evidently lay in leading off the crowd by
some excitement counter to its present fear.
The instant the difficulty and the danger flashed upon him Gilbert
began to look about him for some means of safety for those in peril,
and in his distress of mind every lost minute was monstrously
lengthened as it passed. Beside him, his man Dunstan stood in silence,
apparently indifferent to all that was taking place, his quiet dark
face a trifle more drawn and keen than usual; and though a very slight
contraction of the curved nostrils expressed some inward excitement, it
was scarcely perceptible. Gilbert knew that his own face showed his
extreme anxiety, and as he in vain attempted to find some expedient,
the man's excessive coolness began to irritate him.
"You stand there," said Gilbert, rather coldly, "as if you did not care
that three hundred ladies of France are being crushed to death and that
we Englishmen can do nothing to help them."
Dunstan raised his lids and looked up at his master without lifting his
head.
"I am not so indifferent as the King, sir," he answered, barely raising
a finger in the direction of the knot of courtiers, in the midst of
whom, some fifty yards away, the cold, pale face of the King was just
then distinctly visible. "France might be burned before his eyes, yet
he would pray for his own soul rather than lift a hand for the lives of
others."
"We are as bad as he," retorted Gilbert, almost angrily, and moving
uneasily in his saddle as he felt himself powerless.
Dunstan did not answer at once, and he bit one side of his lower lip
nervously with his pointed teeth. Suddenly he stooped down and picked
up something against which his foot had struck as he moved. Gilbert
paid no attention to what he did.
"Do you wish to draw away the crowd so as to make room for the Queen?"
he asked.
"Of course I do!" Gilbert looked at his man inquiringly, though his
tone was harsh and almost angry. "We cannot cut a way for them through
the crowd," he added, looking before him again.
Dunstan laughed quietly.
"I will lay my life against a new tunic that I can make this multitude
spin on itself like a whipped top," he said. "But I admit that you
could not, sir."
"Why not?" asked Gilbert, instantly bending down in order to hear
better. "What can you do that I cannot?"
"What gentle blood could never do," replied the man, with a shade of
bitterness. "Shall I have the new tunic if I save the Lady Beatrix--and
the Queen of France?"
"Twenty! Anything you ask for! But be quick--"
Dunstan stooped again, and again picked up something from under his
foot.
"I am only a churl," he said as he stood upright again, "but I can risk
my life like you for a lady, and if I win, I would rather win a sword
than a bit of finery."
"You shall win more than that," Gilbert answered, his tone changing.
"But if you know of anything to do, in the name of God do it quickly,
for it is time."
"Good-by, sir."
Gilbert heard the two words, and while they were still in his ears,
half understood, Dunstan had slipped away among the squires and knights
around them, and was lost to sight.
One minute had not passed when a wild yell rent the air, with fierce
words, high and clear, which thousands must have heard at the very
first, even had they not been repeated again and again.
"The King has betrayed us! The King is a traitor to the Cross!"
At the very instant a stone flew straight from Dunstan's unerring hand,
and struck the King's horse fairly between the eyes, upon the rich
frontlet, heavy with gold embroidery. The charger reared up violently
to his height, and before he had got his head down to plunge, Dunstan's
furious scream split the air again, and the second stone struck the
King himself full on the breast, and rolled to the saddle and then to
the ground.
"The King has betrayed us all! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!"
There never yet was a feverish, terror-struck throng of men, suddenly
disheartened by the unanswerable evidence of a great defeat by which
they themselves might be lost, that would not take up the cry of
"Traitor!" against their leaders. Before he raised his voice, Dunstan
had got among men who knew him neither by sight nor by name, and the
second stone had not sped home before he was gone again in a new
direction, silent now, with compressed lips, his inscrutable dark eyes
looking sharply about him. He had done his work, and he knew what might
happen to him if he were afterwards recognized. But none heeded him.
The uproar went surging towards the King with a rising fury, like the
turn of the tide in a winter storm, roaring up to the breaking pitch,
and many would have stoned him and torn him to pieces; but there were
many also, older and cooler men, who pressed round him, shoulder to
shoulder, with swords drawn and flashing in the sunlight, and faces set
to defend their liege lord and sovereign. In an instant the flying
Germans were forgotten; and the Emperor and his army, and the meaning
of the Holy War and of the Cross itself, were gone from men's minds in
the fury of riot on the one side, in the stern determination of defence
on the other. The vast weight of men rolled forward, pushed by those
behind, forcing the King and those who stood by him to higher ground.
In dire distress, and almost hopeless of extricating her gentle troop
from destruction, the Queen heard the new tumult far away, and felt the
close press yielding on one side. The word 'traitor' ran along like a
quick echo from mouth to mouth, repeated again and again, sometimes
angrily, sometimes in tones of unbelief, but always repeated, until
there was scarcely one man in a hundred thousand whose lips had not
formed the syllables. Eleanor saw her husband and his companions with
their drawn swords moving in the air, on the knoll; she heard the
stinging word, and a hard and scornful look lingered in her face a
moment. She knew that the accusation was false, that it was too utterly
empty to have meaning for honest men; yet she despised her husband
merely because a madman could cast such a word at him; and in the
security of power and dominions far greater than his, as well as of a
popularity to which he could never attain, she looked upon him in her
heart as a contemptible kinglet, to marry whom had been her most
foolish mistake. And it had become the object of her life to put him
away if she could.
For a few moments she looked on across the sea of heads that had
already begun to move away. Her mare was quieter now in the larger
space, being a docile creature, but many of the other ladies' horses
were still plunging and kicking, though so crowded that they could do
each other little hurt. She saw how the knights were forcing their way
to the King's side, and how the great herd of footmen resisted them,
while the word of shame rose louder in their yells; and though she
despised the King, the fierce instinct of the great noble against the
rabble ran through her like a painful shock, and her face turned pale
as she felt her anger in her throat.
There was room now, for the great throng was rushing from her,
spreading like a river, and dividing at the hillock where it met the
knights' swords, and flowing to right and left along the edge of the
lake. The Queen looked behind her, to see what ladies were nearest to
her, and she saw her standard bearer, Anne of Auch, fighting her
rearing charger; and next to her, quiet and pale, on a vicious
Hungarian gelding a great deal too big for her, but which she seemed to
manage with extraordinary ease, sat Beatrix de Curboil, a small, slim
figure in a delicate mail that looked no stronger than a silver
fishing-net, her shape half hidden by her flowing mantle of soft
olive-green with its scarlet cross on the shoulder, and wearing a
silver dove's wing on her light steel cap.
Her eyes met Eleanor's and lightened in sympathy of thought, so that
the other understood in a flash. The Queen's right hand went up,
lifting the lance high in air; half wheeling to the left, and turning
her head still farther, she called out to those behind her:--
"Ladies of France! The rabble is at the King--Forward!"
An instant later, the fleet Arab mare was galloping straight for the
crowd, and Eleanor did not look behind her again, but held her lance
before her and a little raised, so that it was just ready to fall into
rest. Directly behind her rode the Lady Anne, the shaft of the standard
in the socket of her stirrup, her arm run through the thong, so that
she had both hands free; she sat erect in the saddle, her horse already
at a racing gallop, neck out, eyes up, red nostrils wide, delighting in
being free from restraint; and Beatrix was there, too, like a feather
on her big brown Hungarian, that thundered along like a storm, his
wicked ears laid straight back, and his yellowish young teeth showing
under his quivering lip. But of all the three hundred ladies none
followed them. The others had not understood the Queen's command, or
had not heard, or could not manage their horses, or were afraid. And
the three women rode at the mob, that was now four hundred yards away.
Straight they rode, heedless and unaware that they were alone, nor
counting how little three women could do against thousands. But the
people heard the hammering hoofs of the two big horses, and the Arab's
light footfall resounded quickly and steadily, as the fingers of a
dancer striking the tambourine. Hundreds glanced back to see who rode
so fast, and thousands turned their heads to know why the others
looked; and all, seeing the Queen, pressed back to right and left,
making way, partly in respect for her and much in fear for themselves.
Far up the rising ground, the riot ceased as suddenly as it had begun;
the men-at-arms drew back in shame, and many tried to hide their faces,
lest they should be known again. The tide of human beings divided
before the swiftly riding women, as the cloud-bank splits before the
northwest wind in winter, and the white mare sped like a ray of light
between long wavering lines of rough faces and gleaming arms.
The Queen glanced scornfully to each side as she passed in a gale, and
the dear sense of power soothed her stirred pride. Still the line
opened, and still she rode on, scarcely rising and sinking with the
mare's wonderful stride. But the way that was made for her was not
straight to the King now; the throng was more dense there, and the
people parted as they could, so that the three ladies had to follow the
only open passage. Suddenly, before them, there was an end, where the
rolling ground broke away sharply in a fall of forty feet to the edge
of the lake below. The heads of the last of the crowd who stood at the
brink were clear and distinct against the pale sky. The Queen could not
see the water, but she felt that there was death in the leap. Her two
companions looked beyond her and saw also.
Eleanor dropped her lance quietly to the right, so that it should not
make her followers fall, and with hands low and weight thrown back in
the deep saddle she pulled with all her might. Her favourite black
horse, broken to her own hand, would have obeyed her; she might have
been able to stop Beatrix's great Hungarian, for her white hands were
as strong as a man's; but the Arab mare was trained only to the touch
of an Arab halter and the deep caress of an Arab voice, and at the
first strain of the cruel French bit she threw up her head, swerved,
caught the steel in her teeth, and shot forward again at twice her
speed. Eleanor tried in vain to wrench the mare's head to one side,
into the shrinking crowd.
The Queen's face turned grey, but her lips were set and her eyes
steady, as she looked death in the face. Behind her, Beatrix's little
gloved hands were like white moths on her steadily jerking bridle, the
Hungarian's terrific stride threw up the sods behind her, and there was
a hopeless, far-away look in her face, almost like a death-smile. Only
the strong dark woman of the South seemed still to have control over
her horse, and he slowly slackened his speed, and fell a little behind
the other two.
In the fearful danger the crowd was silent and breathless, and many men
turned pale as they saw. But none moved.
One second, two seconds, three seconds, and to every second two
strides; the end of three women's lives was counted by the wild
hoof-strokes. The race might last while one could count ten more.
Gilbert Warde had at first tried to press nearer to the King, but he
saw that it was useless, because the latter was already shoulder to
shoulder with the nobles and knights. So he had turned back to face the
crowd with those about him, and with the flat of his blade he had
beaten down some few swords which men had dared to draw; but he had
wounded no one, for he knew that it was a madness which must pass and
must be forgiven.
Then he found himself with his horse on the very edge of the open track
made by the dividing people, and he looked and saw the Queen, and
Beatrix three or four lengths behind her, as the matchless Arab gained
ground in the race. He had been above the deep fall and understood.
Instantly he was on his feet on the turf, a step out in the perilous
way; and he wished that he had the strength of Lancelot in his hands,
with the leap of a wild beast in his feet, but his heart did not fail
him.
In one second he lived an hour. His life was nothing, but he could only
give it once, to save one woman, and she must be Beatrix, let such
chance befall Eleanor as might. Yet Eleanor was the Queen, and she had
been kind to him, and in the fateful instant of doom his eyes were on
her face; he would try to save the other, but unconsciously he made one
step forward again and stood waiting in midway. One second for a
lifetime's thought, one for the step he made, and the next was the
last. He could hear the rush of the wind, and Eleanor was looking at
him.
In that supreme moment her face changed, and the desperate calm in her
eyes became desperate fear for him she loved even better than she knew.
"Back!" she cried, and the cry was a woman's agonized scream, not for
herself.
With all her might, but utterly in vain, she wrenched sideways at the
mare's mouth and she closed her eyes lest she should see the man die.
He had meant to let her pass to her death, for the girl was dearer to
him, and he had gathered his strength like a bent spring to serve him.
But he saw her eyes and heard her cry, and in the flash of instinct he
knew she loved him, and that she wished him to save himself rather than
her; and thereby is real love proved on the touchstone of fear.
[Illustration: "HE... HELD, WHILE EARTH AND SKY WHIRLED WITH HIM."]
As he sprang, he knew that he had no choice, though he did not love
her. The fall of her mare, if his grip held, might stop the rest. He
sprang; he saw only the Arab's bony head and the gold on the bridle, as
both his hands grasped it. Then he saw nothing, but yet he held, and,
dead, he would have held still, as the steel jaws of the hunter's trap
hold upon the wolf's leg-bone. He knew that he was thrown down,
dragged, pounded, bruised, twisted like a rope till his joints cracked.
But he held, and felt no pain, while earth and sky whirled with him. It
was not a second; it was an hour, a year, a lifetime; yet he could not
have loosed his hands, had he wished to let go, for there were in him
the blood and the soul of the race that never yielded its grip on
whatsoever it held.
It lasted a breathing-space, while the mare plunged wildly and
staggered, and her head almost touched the ground and dragged the man's
hands on the turf; then as his weight wrenched her neck back, her
violent speed threw her hind quarters round, as a vane is blown from
the gale. At the same instant the great Hungarian horse was upon her,
tried to leap her in his stride, struck her empty saddle with his brown
chest, and fell against her and upon her with all his enormous weight,
and the two rolled over each other, frantically kicking. The standard
bearer's horse, less mad than the others and some lengths behind,
checked himself cleverly, and after two or three short, violent
strides, that almost unseated his rider, planted his fore feet in the
turf and stood stock-still, heaving and trembling. The race was over.
With the strength and instinct of the born rider, Eleanor had slipped
her feet from the stirrups and had let herself be thrown, lifting
herself with her hands on the high pommel and vaulting clear away. She
fell, but was on her feet before any man of the dazed throng could help
her. She saw Gilbert lying his full length on his side, his body
passive, but his arms stretched beyond his head, while his gloved hands
still clenched upon the bridle and were pulled from side to side by the
mare's faintly struggling head. His eyes were half open toward the
Queen, but they were pale and saw nothing. The Hungarian had rolled
half upon his back, little hurt, and the pommels of the saddle under
him kept him from turning completely over.
Beatrix lay like one dead. She had been thrown over the Arab's back,
striking her head on the turf, and the mare in her final struggle had
rolled upon her feet. The light steel cap had been forced down over her
forehead in spite of its cushioned lining, and the chiselled rim had
cut into the flesh so that a little line of dark blood was slowly
running across the white skin; and her white gloved hands were lying
palm upward, half open and motionless. The Queen scarcely glanced at
her.
Many men sprang forward when the danger was past, and they dragged
Beatrix out and began to get her horse upon his feet. Eleanor knelt by
Gilbert and tried to take his fingers from the bridle, but could not,
so that she had to loose the buckle from the long bars of the bit. Her
hands chafed his temples softly, and she bent lower and blew upon his
face, that her cool breath might wake him. There were drops of blood on
his forehead and on his chin, his cloth tunic was torn in many places,
and the white linen showed at the rents; but Eleanor saw only the look
in his face, serene and strong even in his unconsciousness, while in
the dream of his swoon he saved her life again.
In that moment, knowing that he could not see her, she thought not of
her own face as she gazed upon his, nor of hiding what she felt; and
the thing she felt was evil, and it was sweet. But suddenly there was
life in his look, with a gentle smile, and the strained fingers were
loosed with a sigh, and a long-unused word came from his lips.
"Mother!"
Eleanor shook her beautiful head slowly. Then Gilbert's face darkened
with understanding and the old pain clutched at his heart sharply, even
before the keen bodily hurt awoke in his wrung limbs. All at once
thought came, and he knew how, in a quick fall of his heart, he had
forgotten Beatrix and had almost given his life to save the Queen. As
if he had been stung, he started and raised himself on one hand, though
it was as if he forced his body among hot knives.
"She is dead!" he cried, with twisting lips.
"No--you saved us both."
The words came soft and clear, as Eleanor laid her hand upon his
shoulder to quiet him, and watched the change as the agony in his eyes
faded to relief and brightened to peace.
"Thank God!"
He sank upon her arm, for he was much bruised. But her face changed,
too, and she suffered new things, because in her there was good as well
as evil; for as she loved him more than before he had saved her, so she
would give him more, if she might, even to forgetting herself.
And so, for a few moments, she knelt and watched him, heedless of the
people about her, and scarcely seeing a dark man whom she had never
noticed before, and who bent so low that she could not see his face,
quietly loosening his master's collar and then feeling along his arms
and legs for any bone hurt there might be.
"Who are you?" asked the Queen, at last, gently, as to one who was
helping him she loved.
"His man," answered Dunstan, laconically, without looking up.
"Take care of him and bring me word of him," she answered, and from a
wallet she gave him gold, which he took, silently bending his head
still lower in thanks.
He, too, had saved her that day, and knew it, though she did not.
She stood up at last, gathering her mantle round her. Less than ten
minutes had passed since she had thrown up her hand and called to her
ladies to follow her. Since then the world had been in herself and on
fire, leaving no room for other thoughts; but now the crowd had parted
wide, and the King was coming towards her, slow and late, to know
whether she were hurt, for he had seen her ride.
"Madam," he said, when he had dismounted, "I thank the mercy of Heaven,
which deigned to hear the prayers I was continually offering up for
your safety while your life was threatened by that dangerous animal. We
will render thanks in divine services during ten days before proceeding
farther, or during a fortnight if you prefer it."
"Your Grace," said Eleanor, coldly, "is at liberty to praise Heaven by
the month if it seems good to you. But for that poor Englishman, who
lies there in a swoon, and who caught my horse's bridle at the risk of
his life, you might have been ordering masses for my soul instead of
for my bodily preservation. They would have been much needed had I been
killed just then."
The King crossed himself devoutly, half closed his eyes, bent himself a
little, and whispered a short prayer.
"It would be better," observed the Queen, "to move on at once and
support the Emperor."
"It has pleased God that the army of the Emperor should be totally
destroyed," answered the King, calmly. "The Emperor himself will be
here in a few hours, unless he has perished with the rest of his
knights, slain by the Seljuk horsemen who are pursuing the fugitives."
"The more reason why we should save those who are still alive. My army
shall march to-morrow at daybreak--your Grace may stay behind and pray
for us."
She turned from him scornfully. Dunstan and some foot-soldiers had made
stretchers with lances and pikes and were just beginning to carry
Beatrix and Gilbert away, northward, in the direction of the camp.