THE VIEW FROM CARMEL
“On her who knew that love can conquer death;
Who, kneeling with one arm about her king,
Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath,
Sweet as new buds in spring.”—TENNYSON.
A YEAR had elapsed since the crusaders had landed in Palestine; Nazareth
had been taken, and the Christian host were encamped upon the plain
before Acre, according to their Prince’s constant habit of preferring to
keep his troops in the open field, rather than to expose them to the
temptations of the city—which was, alas! in a state most unworthy of the
last stronghold of Latin Christianity in the Holy Land.
It was on a scorching June day, Whitsun Tuesday, in the exquisite beauty
of an early summer in the mountains of the Levant—when “the flowers
appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the
voice of the turtle is heard in our land; the fig tree putteth forth her
green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell,”—that
Richard de Montfort was descending the wooded sides of Mount Carmel.
Anxious tidings had of late come from England respecting the health of
the little Prince John; and Princess Eleanor was desirous of offering
gifts and obtaining prayers on his behalf, on the part of the good
Fathers of the convent associated with the memory of the great Prophet
who had raised the dead child to life. She herself, however, was at the
time unfit for a mountain ride; and Prince Edward, who was a lay brother
of the Carmelite order, and had fully intended himself to go and offer
his devotions for his child, was so unwell on that day, from the feverish
heat of the summer, that he could not expose himself to the sun; and
Richard was therefore despatched on the part of the royal pair. He had
ascended in the cool of the morning, setting forth before sunrise, and
attending the regular Mass. The good Fathers would fain have detained
him till the heat of the day should be past; but his anxiety not to
overpass in the slightest degree the time fixed by the Prince, made him
resolved on setting out so soon as his errand was sped.
Unspeakably beautiful was his ride—through rocky dells filled with
copsewood, among which jessamine, lilies, and exquisite flowers were
peeping up, and the coney, the fawn, and other animals, made Leonillo
prick his ears and wistfully seek from his master’s eye permission to
dash off in pursuit. Or the “oaks of Carmel,” with many a dark-leaved
evergreen, towered in impenetrable thicket, and at an opening glade might
be beheld on the north-east, “that goodly mountain Lebanon” rising in a
thick clothing of wood; and beyond, in sharp cool softness, the white
cone of rain-distilling Hermon. Far to the west lay the glorious
glittering sheet of the Mediterranean; but nearer, almost beneath his
feet, was the curving bay and harbour of Ptolemais, filled with white
sails, the white city of Acre full of fortresses and towers; while on the
plain beside it, green with verdure as Richard’s own home greenwood of
Odiham, lay the white tents of the Christian army, in so clear an
atmosphere that he could see the flash of the weapons of the men on
guard, and almost distinguish the blazonry of the banners.
Richard dismounted to gather some roses and jessamine for the Princess,
and to collect some of the curious fossil echini, which he believed to be
olives turned to stone by the Prophet Elijah, as a punishment to a
churlish peasant who refused him a meal. He thought that such treasures
would be a welcome addition to the store he was accumulating for the good
old Grand Prior. He gave his horse to Hob Longbow, his only attendant
except a young Sicilian lad. This same Longbow had stuck to him with a
pertinacity that he could not shake off, and in truth had hitherto
justified the Prince’s prediction that he would be a brave and faithful
fellow when his allegiance was no further disturbed by the proximity of
the outlawed Montforts. There had been nothing to lead Richard to think
he ought to indicate either him or Nick Dustifoot to the Prince as the
persons who had been connected with Guy in Italy.
Presently Leonillo bounded forward, and Richard became aware of the
figure of a man in light armour standing partly hidden among the
brushwood, but looking down intently into the Christian camp. The dog
leapt up, fawning on the stranger with demonstrations of rapture; and he,
turning in haste, stood face to face with Richard.
“Here!” was his exclamation, and a grasp was instantly laid upon his
sword.
“Simon!” burst from Richard’s lips at the same moment, “dost not know
me?”
“Thou, boy?” and the hold was relaxed. “What lucky familiar sent thee
hither? What—thou art grown such a huge fellow that I had well-nigh
struck thee down for Longshanks himself, had it not been for thy voice.
Thou hast his very bearing.”
“Simon!” again repeated Richard, in his extremity of amazement. “What
dost thou? How camest thou here? Whence—?”
“That thou shalt soon see,” said Simon. “A right free and merry home and
company have we up yonder,”—and he pointed towards Mount Lebanon.
“Thou and Guy?”
“No, no; Guy turned craven. Could not endure our wanderings in the
marshes and hills, pined for his wife forsooth, fell sick, and must needs
go and give himself up to the Pope; so he sings the penitential psalms
night and day.”
“And we heard thou wast dead at Siena.”
“Thou hearest many a false tale,” said Simon. “Of my death thou shalt
judge, if thou wilt turn thy horse and ride with me to our hill-fort of
Ain Gebel, in Galilee. They say ’tis the very one which King David or
King Herod, whichever it was, could only take by letting down his
men-at-arms in boxes! I should like to see the boxes that we could not
send skimming down the abyss! And a wondrous place they have left
us—vaults as cool as a convent wine-cellar, fountains out of the rock,
marble columns.”
“But, brother, for whom do you hold it? For the King of Cyprus or—?”
“For myself, boy! For King Simon, an it like you better! None can touch
me or my merry band there, and a goodly company we are—pilgrims grown
wiser, and runaway captives, and Druses, and bold Arabs too: and the
choicest of many a heretic Armenian merchants’ caravan is ours, and of
many a Saracen village; corn and wine, fair dames, and Damascus blades,
and Arab steeds. Nothing has been wanting to me but thee and vengeance,
and both are, I hope, on the way!”
“Not I, certainly!” said Richard, shrinking back in horror: “I—a sworn
crusader!”
“Tush, what are we but crusaders too, boy? ’Tis all service against the
Moslem! Thy patron saint sent thee to me to-day from special care for
thy safety.”
“How so!” exclaimed Richard. “If peril threaten my Lord, I must be with
him at once.”
“Much hast thou gained by hanging on upon him,” said Simon scornfully,
glancing at Richard’s heels; “not so much as a pair of gilt spurs!
Creeping after him like a hound, thou hast not even the bones!”
“I have all I seek,” said Richard. “I have his brotherly kindness. I
have the opportunity of redeeming my name. Nay, I should even regret any
honour that took me from the services I now perform. Simon, didst thou
but know his love for our father!”
“Silence, base caitiff!” thundered Simon; “I know his deeds, and that is
enough for me! Look here, mean-spirited as thou wert to be taken with
his hypocrisy, I have pity on thee yet. I would spare thee what awaits
thee in the camp!”
“For heaven’s sake, Simon, dost know of any attack of the Emir? The
Princess must at once be conveyed into the town! As thou art a man, a
Christian, speak plainly!”
“Foolish lad, the infidels are quiet enough! No peril threatens the
camp! Only if thou wilt run thy head into it, thou art like to find it
too hot to hold thee!”
“I am afraid of no accusations,” said Richard; “my Lord knows and trusts
me.”
Simon laughed a loud ringing scornful laugh.
“Wilful will to water,” he said. “Well, thou besotted lad, if it be not
too late when thou getst into the hands of Crookbacked Edmund and Red
Gilbert, remember the way to Galilee, that is all!”
“I tell thee, Simon,” said Richard, turning round and fully facing him;
“I would rather perish an innocent man by the hands of the Provost
Marshal, than darken my soul with thy counsels of blood. O Simon! What
thy purpose may be I know not; but canst thou deem it faithfulness to our
father, saint as he was, to live this dark wild life, so utterly
abhorrent to him?”
“Let those look to that who slew him, and made me such as I am,” returned
Simon, turning from him, and gazing steadfastly down into the camp.
Suddenly a gleam of fierce exultation lighted up his face, and again
facing Richard he exclaimed, “Yes, go home, tame cringing spaniel, and
see whether a Montfort is still in favour below there! See if proud
Edward is still ready to meet thy fawning with his scornful patronage!
See if the honour of a murdered father has not been left in better hands
than thine! And when thou hast had thy lesson, find the way to Ain
Gebel, or ask Nick Dustifoot.”
Richard, with a startled exclamation, looked down, but could discern
nothing unusual in the camp. The royal banner hung in heavy folds over
the Prince’s pavilions, and all was evidently still in the same noontide
repose, or rather exhaustion, to which the Syrian sun reduced even the
hardy active Englishmen. “What mean you?” he began; but Simon was no
longer beside him. He called, but echo alone answered; and all he could
do was to throw himself on his horse, and hurry down the mountain side,
with a vague presentiment of evil, and a burning desire to warn his lord
or share his peril.
He understood Simon’s position. Many of the almost inaccessible rocks,
where the sons of Anak had built their Cyclopean fortresses, and which
had been abodes of almost fabulous beauty and strength in the Herodian
days, had been resorted to again by the crusaders, and had served as
isolated strongholds whence to annoy the enemy. Frightfully lawless had,
in too many instances, been the life there led, more especially by the
Levant-born sons of Europeans; and in the universal disorganization of
the Kingdom of Jerusalem, that took place in consequence of the disputed
rights of Cyprus and Hohenstaufen, most of them had become free from all
control. If the garrisons bore the Christian name at all, it chiefly was
as an excuse for preying on all around; but too often they were renegades
of every variety of nation, drawn together by the vilest passions,
commanded by some reckless adventurer, and paying a species of allegiance
to any power that either endangered them, or afforded them the hopes of
plunder. Bloodthirsty and voluptuous alike, they were viewed with equal
terror by the Frank pilgrim, the Syriac villager, the Armenian merchant,
and the Saracen hadji—whose ransom and whose spoil enriched their
chambers, with all that the licentious tastes of East and West united
could desire. There were comparatively few of these nests of iniquity in
these latter days of the Crusades, but some still survived; and Richard
had seen some of their captains with their followers at the siege of
Nazareth, where the atrocities they had committed had been such as to
make the English army stand aghast. As a member of such a crew, Simon
could hardly fail to find means of attempting that revenge on which it
was but too evident that he was still bent; and Richard, as every
possible risk rose before him, urged his horse to perilous speed down the
steep descent, and chid every obstacle, though in fact the descent which
ordinarily occupied two hours, for men who cared for their own necks, was
effected by him in a quarter of the time. He came to the entrenched
camp. The entrance, where the Prince made so strict a point of keeping a
sentinel, was completely unguarded. The foremost tents were empty, but
there was a sound as of the murmuring voices of numbers towards the
centre of the camp. The next moment he met Hamlyn de Valence riding
quickly, and followed by two attendants.
“Hamlyn! a moment!” he gasped. “Has aught befallen the Prince?”
“You were aware of it, then!” said Hamlyn, checking his horse, and
looking him full in the face.
“Answer me, for Heaven’s sake! Is all well with the Princes?”
“As well as your house desires—or it may be somewhat better,” said
Hamlyn; “but let me pass. I am on an errand of life or death.”
So saying, Hamlyn dashed forwards; and Richard, in double alarm, made his
way to the space in the centre of the camp, where he found himself on the
outskirts of a crowd, talking in the various tongues of English, French,
and Lingua Franca. “He lives—the good Princess—the dogs of
infidels—poison—” were the words he caught. He flung himself from his
horse, and was about to interrogate the nearest man, when John of Dunster
came hurrying towards him from the tents, and threw himself upon him,
sobbing with agitation and dismay.
“What is it? Speak, John! The Prince!”
“Oh, if you had but been there! It will not cease bleeding. O Richard,
he looks worse than my father when he came home!”
“Let me hear! Where? How is he hurt?”
“In the arm and brow,” said the boy.
“The arm!” said Richard, much relieved.
“Ah, but they say the dagger is poisoned! Stay, Richard, I’ll tell you
all. Dame Idonea turned me out of the tent, and she will not let any one
in. It was thus—even now the Prince was lying on the day-bed in his own
outer tent, no one else there save myself. I believe everybody was
asleep, I know I was—when Nick Dustifoot called me, and bade me tell the
Prince there was a messenger from the Emir of Joppa, asking to see him.
So the Prince roused himself up, and bade him come in. He was one of
those quick-eyed Moorish-looking infidels, in the big turbans and great
goat’s hair cloaks; and he went down on his knees, and hit the ground
with his forehead, and said Salam aleikum—traitor that he was—and gave
the Prince a letter. Well, the Prince muttered something about his head
aching so sorely that he could scarce see the writing, and had just put
up his hand to shade his eyes from the light, when the dog was out with a
dagger and fell on him! The Prince’s arm being raised, caught the
stroke, you see; and that moment his foot was up,” said John, acting the
kick, “and down went the rogue upon his back! And I—I threw myself right
down over him!”
“Did you, my brave little fellow? Well done of you!” cried Richard.
“And the Prince wrested the dagger out of the rogue’s hand, only he tore
his own forehead sorely, as the point flew up with the shock—and then
stabbed the villain to the heart—see how the blood rushed over me! Then
the Prince pulled me up, and called me a brave lad, and set me on my
feet, and asked me if I were sure I was not hurt. And by that time the
archers were coming in, when all was over; and Long Robin must needs
snatch up a joint stool and have a stroke at the Moor’s head. I trow the
Prince was wrath with the cowardly clown for striking a dead man. He
said I alone had been any aid!”
“‘Well?” anxiously asked Richard, gathering intense alarm as he saw that
the boy’s trouble still exceeded his elation, even at such commendation
as this.
“But then,” said John sadly, “even while he called it nothing, there came
a dizziness over him. And even then the Princess had heard the outcry,
and came in haste with Dame Idonea. And so soon as the Dame had picked
up the dagger and looked well at it, and smelt it, she said there was
poison on it. No sooner did the Princess hear that, than, without one
word, she put her lips to his arm to suck forth the venom. He was for
withholding her, but the Dame said that was the only safeguard for his
life; and she looked—oh, so imploring!”
“Blessings on the sweet Princess and true wife!” cried the men-at-arms,
great numbers of whom had gathered round the little eye-witness to hear
his account.
“And so is he saved?” said Richard, with a long breath.
“Ah! but,” said John, his eyes beginning to fill with tears, “there is
the Grand Master of the Templars come now, and he says that to suck the
poison is of no avail; and that nothing will save him but cutting away
the living flesh as I would carve the wing of a bustard; and Dame Idonea
says that is just the way King Cœur de Lion died, and the Princess is
weeping, and the wound will not stop bleeding; and Hamlyn is gone to Acre
for a surgeon, and they are all wrangling, and Dame Idonea boxed my ears
at last, and said I was gaping there.” The boy absolutely burst into
sobs and tears, and at the same moment a growl arose among the archers,
of “Curses on the Moslem hounds! Not one shall escape! Death to every
captive in our hands!”
“Nay, nay,” exclaimed Richard, looking up in horror; “the poor captives
are utterly guiltless! Far more justly make me suffer,” murmured he
sadly.
“All tarred with the same stick,” said the nearest; “serve them as they
deserve.”
“Think,” added Richard, “if the Prince would see no dishonour done to the
dead carcase of the murderer himself, would he be willing to have ill
worked on living men, sackless of the wrong? English turning
butchers—that were fit work for Paynims.”
“No, no, not one shall live to laugh at our Edward’s fall,” burst out the
men; and a voice among them added, “Sure the young squire seems to know a
vast deal about the guilty and the guiltless—the Montfort! Ay! Away
with all foes to our Edward—”
“Best withdraw yourself, Sir,” said Hob Longbow; “their blood is up.
Baulk them of their prey, and they will set on you next.”
Richard just then beheld a person from whose interposition he had much
greater hopes, namely the Earl of Gloucester, who, though still a young
man, was the chief English noble in the camp, and whose special charge
the Saracen captives were. He hurried towards him, and asked tidings of
the Prince.
“Ill tidings, I trow,” said the Earl, bitterly. “Ay, Richard de
Montfort, you had best take heed to yourself, he was your best friend;
and a sore lookout it is for us all. Between the old dotard his father
and the poor babes his children, England is in woeful plight. Would that
your father’s wits were among us still! There’s some curse on this
fools’ errand of a Crusade, for here is the sixth prince it hath slain,
and well if we lose not our Princess too. But what is all this uproar!”
“The men-at-arms, my Lord,” said Richard, “fierce to visit the crime on
the captives.”
“A good riddance!” said Earl Gilbert; “the miscreants eat as much as ten
score yeomen, and my knaves are weary with guarding them. If this matter
brings all the pagans in Palestine on our hands, we shall have enough to
do without looking after this nest of heathens.”
“But would the Prince have it so?”
“I fear me the Prince is like to have little will in the matter! No, no,
I’m not the man to order a butchery, but if the honest fellows must needs
shed blood for blood, I’m not going to meddle between them and the
heathen wolves.”
Assuredly nothing was to be done with the Red de Clare, and Richard
pushed on, with throbbing dismayed heart, to the tent, dreading to behold
the condition of him whom he best loved and honoured on earth. The tent
was crowded, but Richard’s unusual height enabled him to see, over the
heads of those nearest, that Edward was sitting on the edge of his couch,
his wife and Dame Idonea endeavouring to check the flow of blood from his
wound. The elbow of his other arm was on his knee, and his head on his
hand, but the opening of the curtain let in the light; he looked up, and
Richard saw how deathly white his face had become, and the streaks of
blood from the scratch upon his brow. He greeted Richard, however, with
the look of recognition to which his young squire had now become used—not
exactly a smile, but a well-satisfied welcome; and though he spoke low
and feebly to his brother who stood near him, Richard caught the words
with a thrill of emotion.
“Let him near me, Edmund. He hath a ready hand, and may aid thee, sweet
wife. Thou art wearying thyself.” Then, as Richard approached, “Thou
hast sped well! I looked not for thee so soon.”
“Alack, my Lord!” said Richard, “I hurried on to warn you. Ah! would I
had been in time!”
“Thy little pupil, John, did all man could do,” said Edward, languidly
smiling. “But what—hast aught in charge to say to me? Be brief, for I
am strangely dizzy.”
“My Lord,” said Richard, “the archers and men-at-arms are furiously wrath
with the Saracens. They would wreak their vengeance on the prisoners,
who at least are guiltless!”
“The knaves!” exclaimed Edward promptly. “Why looks not Gloucester to
this?”
“My Lord, the Earl saith that he would not command the slaughter, but
that he will not forbid it.”
“Saints and angels!” burst forth the Prince, and to the amazement of all,
he started at once on his feet, and striding through the bystanders to
the opening of the tent, he looked out on the crowd, who were already
rushing towards the inclosure where their victims were penned. Raising
his mighty voice as in a battle-day, he called aloud to them to halt,
turn back, and hear him. They turned, and beheld the lofty form in the
entrance of the tent, wrapped in a long loose robe, which, as well as his
hair, was profusely stained with blood, his wan face, however, making
that marble dignity and sternness of his even more awful and majestic as
he spoke aloud. “So, men, you would have me go down to my grave
blood-stained and accursed by the death of guiltless captives? And I
pray you, what is to be the lot of our countrymen, now on pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, if you thus deal with our prisoners, taken in war? Senseless
bloody-minded hounds that ye are, mark my words. The life of one of you
for the life of a Saracen captive; and should I die, I lay my curse on ye
all, if every man of them be not set free the hour my last breath is
drawn. Do you hear me, ye cravens?”
Unsparing, unconciliatory as ever, even when most merciful and generous,
Edward turned, but reeled as he re-entered the tent, and his dizziness
recurring, needed the support of both his brother and Richard to lay him
down on the couch.
The Grand Master of the Temple renewed his assurance that this was a
token of the poison, and Eleanor was unheeded when she declared that her
dear lord had been affected in the same manner before his wound, ever
since indeed the Whit Sunday when he had ridden home from the great
Church of St. John of Acre in the full heat of the sun.
Dame Idonea was muttering the mediæval equivalent for fiddlesticks, as
plain as her respect for the Temple would allow her.
At that moment the leech whom Hamlyn had been sent into the town to
summon, made his appearance, and fully confirmed the Templar’s opinion.
Neither the wizened Greek physician, nor the dignified Templar,
considered the soft but piteous assurance of the wife that the venom had
at once been removed by her own lips as more than mere feminine folly,
and Dame Idonea’s real experience of knights thus saved, and on the other
hand of the fatal consequences of rude surgery in such a climate, were
disregarded as an old woman’s babble. Her voice waxed shrill and angry,
and her antagonists’ replies in Lingua Franca, mixed with Arabic, Latin,
and Greek, rang through the tent, till the Prince could bear it no
longer.
“Peace,” he said, with an asperity unlike his usual stern patience, “I
had liefer brook your knives than your tongues! Without further
jangling, tell me clearly, learned physician, the peril of either
submitting or not submitting to your steel.”
The Greek told, with as little tergiversation as was in his nature, that
he viewed a refusal as certain death, but several times Dame Idonea was
bursting out upon him, and Edward had to hold up his finger to silence
her.
“Now, kind lady,” quoth he, “let me hear the worst you foretell for me
from your experience.”
Dame Idonea did not spare him either the fate of Cœur de Lion, the
dangers of fever and pain, and above all “of that strange enchantment
that binds the teeth together and forbids a man to swallow his food.”
Poor Eleanor looked at him imploringly all the time, but as none of them
had ever heard of the circulation of the blood, they could not tell that
her simple remedy had been truly efficacious, and that if it had been
otherwise the incisions would now come too late. Thus the balance of
prudence made itself appear to be on the side of the physician, and for
him the Prince decided. “Mi Doña,” he said, ever his most caressing term
for her, “it must be so! I think not lightly of what thou hast done for
me, but, as matters stand, too much hangs upon this life of mine for me
not to be bound to run no needless risk for fear of a little pain. If I
live and speak now, next to highest Heaven it is owing to thee; and when
we came on this holy war, sweet Eleanor, didst thou not promise to hinder
me from naught that a true warrior of the Cross ought to undergo? And is
this the land to shrink from the Cross?”
Alas! to Eleanor the pang was the belief in the uselessness of his
suffering and danger. She never withstood his will, but physically she
was weak, and her weeping was piteous in its silence. Edward bade his
brother lead her away; and Edmund, after the usual fashion, vented his
own perplexity and distress upon the most submissive person in his way.
He assumed more resistance on the part of his gentle sister-in-law than
she made, and carrying her from the tent, roughly told her, silent as she
was, that it was better that she should scream and cry than all England
wail and lament.
And so Eleanor’s devoted deed, the true saving of her husband, has lived
on as a mere delusive tradition, weakly credited by the romantic, while
the credit of his recovery has been retained by the Knight-Templars’
leech. Not a sound was uttered by the Prince while under those hands;
but when his wife was permitted to return to him, she found him in a dead
faint, and the silver reliquary she had left with him crushed flat and
limp between his fingers.
Richard had given his attendance all the time, and for several hours
afterwards, during which the Princess hung over her husband, endeavouring
to restore him from the state of exhaustion in which he scarcely seemed
conscious of anything but her presence. Late in the evening, some one
came to the entrance of the tent, and beckoned to the young squire; he
came out expecting to receive some message, but to his extreme surprise
found himself in the grasp of the Provost Marshal.
“On what charge?” he demanded, so soon as he was far enough beyond the
precincts of his tent not to risk a disturbance.
“By the command of the council. On the charge of being privy to the
attempt on the Prince’s life.”
“By whom preferred?” asked Richard.
“By the Lord Hamlyn de Valence.”
Richard attempted not another word. In effect the condition of the
Prince seemed to him so hopeless that his most acute suffering at the
moment was in the being prevented from ministering to him, or watching
for a last word or look of recognition. He had no heart for
self-vindication, even if he had not known its utter futility with men
who had been prejudiced against him from the outset. Nor had he the
opportunity, for the Provost Marshal conducted him at once to the tent
where he was to be in ward for the night, a heap of straw for him to lie
upon, and a guard of half a dozen archers outside; and there was he left
to his despairing prayers for the Prince’s life. He could dwell on
nothing else, there was no room in his mind for any thought but of that
glory of manhood thus laid low, and of the anguish of the sweet face of
the Princess.
“Sir—!” there was a low murmur near him—“now is the time. I have brought
an archer’s gown and barrett, and we may easily get past the yeomen.”
These last words were uttered, as on hands and knees a figure whose dark
outline could barely be discerned, crept under the border of the tent.
“Who art thou?” hastily inquired Richard.
“You should know me, Sir,—I have done you many a good turn, and served
your house truly.”
“Talk not of truth, thou traitor,” said Richard, recognizing Dustifoot’s
voice. “Knowst thou that but for the Prince’s clemency thou hadst a year
ago been out of the reach of the cruel evil thou hast now shared in.”
“Nay, now, Lord Richard,” returned the man, “you should not treat thus an
honest fellow that would fain do you service.”
“I need no service such as thine,” returned Richard. “Thy service has
made my brothers murderers, and brought ruin and woe unspeakable upon the
land.”
“Beshrew me,” muttered the man, “but one would have thought the young
damoiseau would have had more feeling about his father’s death! But I
swore to do Sir Simon’s bidding, so that is no concern of mine; and he
bade me, if any one strove to lay hands on you, Sir, to lead you down to
Kishon Brook, where he will meet us with a plump of spears.”
“Meet him then,” said Richard, “and say to him that if from his crag
above, on Carmel, he sees me hung on the gallows tree as a traitor, he
may count that I am willingly offered for our family sin! Ay, and that
if he thinks an old man’s hairs brought down to the grave, a
broken-hearted wife, helpless orphans, and a land without a head, to be a
grateful offering to my father, let him enjoy the thought of how the
righteous Earl would have viewed all the desolation that will fall on
England without the one—one scholar who knew how to value and honour his
lessons.”
“Hush! Sir,” hastily interposed Dustifoot; but it was too late, the
murmur of voices had already been caught by the guard, and quick as he
was to retreat, their torches discovered him as he was creeping out, and
he was dragged back by the feet, and the light held up to his face, while
many voices proclaimed him as the rogue who had been foremost in
admitting the assassin to the royal tent. It was from the tumult of
voices that Richard first understood that on examining the body of the
murderer, it had been ascertained that he was neither a Bedouin nor one
of the assassins belonging to the Old Man of the Mountain, but an
European, probably a Provençal; and this, added to Hamlyn’s
representation of Richard’s words, together with what the Earls of
Lancaster and Gloucester recollected, had directed the suspicion upon
himself. And here was, as it seemed, undeniable evidence of his
connection with the plot!
The miserable Dustifoot, vainly imploring his intercession, was tied hand
and foot, and the guard returned to the outside of the tent, except one
archer, who thought it needful to bring in his torch, and keep the
prisoners in sight.
The night passed wearily, and with morning Dustifoot was removed to a
place of captivity more befitting his degree; but of the Prince, Richard
only heard that he continued to be in great danger. No attempt on the
part of the council was made to examine their prisoner; and Richard
suspected, as time wore on, that no one chose to act in this time of
suspense for fear of incurring the lion-like wrath of Edward in the event
of his recovery, but that in case of his death, small would be his own
chances of life. Death had fewer horrors for the lonely boy than it
would have had for one with whom life had been brighter. In battle for
the Cross, or in shielding his Prince’s life, it would have been welcome,
but death, branded with vile ingratitude, as a traitor to that master,
was abhorrent. Shrunk up in the corner of the tent, half asleep after
the night’s vigil, yet too miserable for the entire oblivion of rest,
Richard spent the day in dull despair, listening for sounds without with
an intensity of attention that seemed to pervade every limb, and yet with
snatches of sleep that brought dreams more intolerable than the reality
which they yet seemed to enhance.
At last, however, the sultry closeness of the day subsided, the Angelus
bell sounded far off from the churches and convents of Acre, and near
from the chapel tent, and the devotions that it proclaimed were not ended
when Richard heard the cry of the crusading watch—“Remember the Holy
Sepulchre.”
Yes, the Holy Sepulchre might not be recovered and reached by the English
army, but it might still be remembered, and therein be laid down all
struggles of the will, all rebellious agony, at the being misunderstood,
misused, vituperated, all suffering might there be offered up; nor could
the most ignominious death stand between him and the thought of that Holy
Tomb, and of the joy beyond.—Son of a man who, sorely tried, had drawn
his sword against his king, brother of wilful murderers, perhaps to die
innocent was the best fate he could hope; and in accordance with the
doctrine of his time, he hoped that his death might serve as a part of a
sacrifice for the family guilt. Nay, the Prince gone, wherefore should
he wish to live?
“Don’t you see? The Prince’s signet! He said I should bring him! Clown
that thou art, hast no eyes nor ears? What, don’t you know me? I am the
young lord of Dunster, the Prince’s foot-page. It is his command.”
And amid some perplexed mutterings from the guard, little John of Dunster
burst into the tent. “Up, up,” he cried, “you are to come to the Prince
instantly.”
“How fares he?”—Richard’s one question of the day.
“Sorely ill at ease,” said the boy, “but he wants you, he calls for you,
and no one would tell him where you were, so I spoke out at last, and he
bade me take his ring and bring you, for ’tis his pleasure. Come now,
for the Earl of Lancaster and Hamlyn are gone to take the Princess to
Acre, and my Lord of Gloucester has taken his red head off to sleep, and
no one is there but old Raymond and some of the grooms.
“The Princess gone!”
“Ay, and Dame Idonea with her. So we shall hear no more of King Cœur de
Lion. Hamlyn swears she was on his crusade. Do you think she was,
Richard? nobody knows how old she is.”
Richard was a great deal too anxious to ask questions himself, to be able
to answer this query. And as the yeomen let him pass them, only begging
him to bear him out with the Princes, he hastily gathered from the boy
all that he could tell. The Prince had, it appeared, been in a most
suffering state from pain and fever all the night and the ensuing day,
and had hardly noticed any one but his devoted wife, who had attended him
unremittingly, until with the cooler air of evening she saw him slightly
revived, but was herself so completely spent, and so unwell, as to be
incapable of opposing his decision that she should at once be carried
into the city to receive the succours her state demanded. When she was
gone, Edward, who had perhaps sought to spare her the sight of his last
agony, had roused himself to make his will, and choose protectors for his
father and young children; and it was after this that his inquiries
became urgent for Richard de Montfort. He was at length answered by the
indignant little foot-page; and greatly resenting the action of the
council, he had, as John said, “frowned and spoken like himself,” and
sent the little fellow in quest of the young esquire.
The tent was nearly dark, and Richard could only see the outline of the
tall form laid prostrate, but the voice he had feared never to hear
again, spoke, though slowly and wearily, and a hand was held out.
“Welcome, cousin,” he said. “Poor boy, they must needs have at thee ere
the breath was out of my body; but for that, at least, they shall wait,
and longer if my word and will can avail after I am gone. What has given
them occasion against thee, Richard?”
“Alas! my Lord, you are too ill at ease to vex yourself with my matters.”
“Nay, but I must see thee righted, Richard; there are services for thee
to do to me. Hark thee! I have bequeathed thee thy mother’s lands at
Odiham, which my father gave to me. So mayest thou do for Henry whate’er
he will brook,” he added, with a languid smile, holding Richard’s hand in
such a manner as to impress that though his words came very tardily, he
did not mean to be interrupted. “Methinks Henry will not grudge a kindly
thought and a few prayers for his old comrade. And, Richard, strive to
be near my poor boys; strive that they be bred in strict self-rule, and
let them hear of the purposes thy father left to me: I think thou knowst
them or canst divine them better than any other near me. Thou _shall_ be
with them if—if Heaven and the blessed Saints bear my sweet wife through
this trouble. She will love and trust thee.”
Edward’s voice broke down in a half-strangled sob between grief and pain;
he could not contemplate the thought of his wife, and weakness had broken
down much of his power over himself. He did not speak at once, or invite
an answer; and when he did, his words were an exclamation of despairing
weariness at the trumpet of a gnat that hovered above him.
Richard presently understood that the thin goats’ hair curtains which
even the crusaders had learnt to adopt from their Oriental neighbours as
protections against these enemies, being continually disarranged to give
the Prince drink or to put cool applications to his wound, the winged
foes were sure to enter, and with their exasperating hum further destroy
all chance of rest. The Prince had not slept since he had been wounded,
and was well-nigh distraught with wakefulness, and with the continual
suffering, which was only diminished at the first moment that a cold
lotion touched his arm. The Hospitaliers had sent in some ice from Mount
Hermon, but no one knew how to apply it, and even Dame Idonea had
despised it.
Fortunately, however, Richard had spent a few weeks on his first arrival
in the infirmary of the Knights of St. John, and before his recovery had
become familiar with their treatment of both ice and mosquito curtains;
and when Edmund of Lancaster came into the tent cautiously in early dawn,
he could hardly credit his eyes, for the squire whom he believed to be in
close custody was beside his brother, holding the cold applications on
the arm, and it was impossible to utter inquiry or remonstrance, for the
Prince was in the profoundest, most tranquil slumber.
Nor did he awake till the camp was astir in the morning with the activity
that in this summer time could only be exerted before the sun had come to
his full strength. Then, when at length he opened his eyes, he
pronounced himself to be greatly refreshed; and the physician at the same
time found the state of the wound greatly improved. A cheerful answer
was returned by the patient to the message of anxious inquiry sent from
his Princess at Acre and then looking up kindly at Richard, he said,
“Boy, if my wife saved my life once, I think thou hast saved it a second
time.”
“Brother!” here broke in the Earl of Lancaster, “I would not grieve you,
but for your own safety you ought to know of the grave suspicion that has
fallen on this youth.”
“I know that you all have suspected him from the first, Edmund,” returned
the Prince coolly, “but I little expected that the first hour of my
sickness would be spent in slaking your hatred of him.”
“You do not know the reasons, brother,” said Edmund, confused; “nor are
you in a state to hear them.”
“Wherefore not?” said Edward. “Thanks to him, I have my wits clear and
cool, and ere the day is older his cause shall be heard. Fetch
Gloucester, fetch the rest of the council, and let me hear your witnesses
against him! What! do you think I could rest or amend while I know not
whether I have a traitor or not beside me?”
There could be no doubt that Edward was fully himself after his night’s
rest, determined and prompt as ever. No one durst withstand him, and
Edmund went to take measures for his being obeyed. Meantime, the Prince
grasped Richard by the wrist, and looking him through with the keen blue
eyes that seemed capable of piercing any disguise, he said, “Boy, hast
thou aught that thou wouldst tell to thy kinsman Edward in this strait,
that thou couldst not say to the Prince in council?”
“Sir,” said Richard, with choking voice, “I was on my way to give that
very warning, when I found that the blow had fallen. My Lord,” he added,
lowering his tone, as he knelt by the Prince’s couch, “Simon lives; I met
him on Mount Carmel.”
“I thought so,” muttered the Prince. “And this is his work?”
Richard hurriedly told the circumstances of the encounter, a matter on
which he had the less scruple as Simon was entirely out of reach. He had
hardly completed his narration when Prince Edmund returned, and with him
came others of the council. Edmund was followed by his squire, Hamlyn;
and some of the archers were left without. Richard had told his tale,
but had had no assurance of how the Prince would act upon it, nor how far
the brand of shame might be made to rest on him and his unhappy house.
He had avowed his brother’s guilt to the Prince; alas! must it again be
blazoned through the camp?
The greetings and inquiries of the new arrivals were hastily got over by
the Prince, who lay—holding truly a bed of justice—partly raised by his
cushions, with bloodless cheeks indeed, but with flashing eyes, and lips
set to all their wonted resoluteness.
“Let me hear, my Lords,” he said, “wherefore—so soon as I was
disabled—you thought it meet to put mine own body squire and kinsman in
ward?”
“Sir,” said the Provost Marshal, “these knaves of mine have let an
accomplice escape who peradventure might have been made to tell more.”
“An accomplice? Of whom?” demanded the Prince.
“Of the—the assassin, my Lord, on whom your own strong hand inflicted
chastisement. This Dustifoot, who was the yeoman on guard by your tent,
and introduced him to your presence, was seized by the villains at night,
endeavouring to hold converse with this gentleman, and was by them taken
into custody, whence, I grieve to say, he hath escaped.”
“Give his guard due punishment!” said Edward shortly. “But how concerns
this the Lord Richard de Montfort’s durance?”
“Sir,” added the Earl of Gloucester, “is it known to you that the dog of
a murderer was yet no Moslem?”
“What of that?” sharply demanded Edward.
“There can scarcely be a doubt,” continued the red-haired Earl, “that an
attempt on your life, my Lord, could only come from one quarter.”
“Oh,” dryly replied Edward, “good cause for you to be willing that the
Saracen captives should be massacred.”
“Sir, I did not then know that the miscreant was not of their faith,”
said Gloucester. “I now believe that the same revenge that caused the
death of Lord Henry of Almayne has now nearly quenched the hope of
England, that if you will not be warned, my Lord, worse evil may yet
betide.”
Gloucester spoke with much feeling, but Edward did not show himself
touched; he only said, “All this may be very well, but my question is not
answered—Why was my squire put in ward?”
“Speak, Hamlyn,” said Edmund of Lancaster; “say to the Prince what thou
didst tell me.”
Hamlyn stood forth, excusing himself for the painful task of accusing his
kinsman, but seeing the Prince’s impatient frown, he came to the point,
and declared that Richard de Montfort, on meeting him speeding to Acre,
had eagerly asked him if aught had befallen the Prince, and had looked
startled and confused on being taxed with being aware of what had taken
place.
“Well!” said Edward.
Gloucester next beckoned a yeoman forward, who, much confused under the
Prince’s keen eye, stammered out that he did not wish to harm the young
gentleman, but that he had seemed mighty anxious to spare the Pagan
hounds of prisoners, and had even been heard to say that their revenge
would better fall on himself.
“And is this all for which you had laid hands on him?” said the Prince,
looking from one to the other.
“Nay, brother,” said Edmund. “It might have been unmarked by thee, but
in the first hour myself and others heard him speak of having made speed
to warn thee, but finding it too late. Therefore did we conclude that it
were well to have him in ward, lest, as in the former unhappy matter, he
should have been conversant with traitors, and thus that we might obtain
intelligence from him. Remember likewise the fellow who was found in the
tent.”
“So!” said Edward, “an honourable youth hath been treated as a traitor,
because of another springald’s opinion of his looks, and because a few
yeomen thought he seemed over-anxious to save a few wretched captives,
whom they knew to be guiltless. Will there ever come a time when
Englishmen will learn what _is_ witness?”
“His name and lineage, brother,” began Edmund.
“That, gentles, is the witness upon which the wolf slew the lamb for
fouling the stream.”
“Then you will not examine him?” asked Gloucester.
“Not as a suspected felon,” said Edward. “One who by your own evidence
was heedless of himself in seeking to save the helpless—nay, who spake of
hasting to warn me—scarce merits such usage. What consorts with his
honour and my safety, I can trust to him to tell me as true friend and
liegeman!” and the confiding smile with which he looked at Richard was
like a sunbeam in a dark cloud.
“My Lord Prince,” objected Gloucester, “we cannot think that this is for
your safety.”
“See here, Gloucester,” said Edward. “Till my arm can keep my head
again, double the guards, and search all envoys, under whatever pretext
they may enter; but never for the rest of thy life brand a man with
imprisonment till you have reasonable proof against him. Thanks for your
care of me, my Lords, but I can scarce yet brook long converse. The
council is dismissed.”
Richard, infinitely relieved, could hardly wait till he could safely
speak to the Prince to express his gratitude and joy that he had been not
only defended, but freed from all examination, so as to have been spared
from denouncing his brother, and that the family had been spared from
this additional stigma. Edward, who like all reserved men could not
endure the expression of thanks, even while their utter omission would
have been wounding, cut him short.
“Tush, boy, Simon is as much my cousin as thy brother, and I would not
help to throw fresh stains on the name that, but for my father’s selfish
counsellors, would stand highest at home! Besides,” he added, as one
half ashamed of his generosity and willing to qualify it, “supposing it
got abroad that he had aimed this stroke at the heir of England—why, then
England’s honour would be concerned, and we should have stout Gilbert de
Clare and all the rest of them wild to storm Simon in his Galilean
fastness, without King Herod’s boxes, I trow. Then would all the Druses,
and the Maronites, and the Saracens, and the half-breeds, the worst of
the whole, come down on them in some impassable gorge, and the troops I
have taken such pains to keep in health and training would leave their
bones in those doleful passes; and not for the sake of the Holy
Sepulchre, but of my private quarrel. No, no, Richard, we will keep our
own counsel, and do our best that Simon may not get another chance,
before I can move within the walls of Acre; and then we will spread our
sails, and pray that the Holy Land may make a holier man of him.”