my own brother on his deathbed with tenderness and generosity, and
the sister could be in no better care than in his;" and she raised
her veil, and with a look of rapture that was more than gratitude,
Fatima beamed her thanks to the lord general, to whom she bowed in
reverence, with lowered eyes and quickened breath.
"Withdraw with these ladies, my lord warden, and explain to them
freely in their own language what is the imperial purpose, and how
completely their comfort and their dignity will be considered in the
mission of which you have command."
Digenes, who foresaw all the difficulties and risks of the situation,
knew the general too well to dream of changing any set purpose he had
formed. His chivalry was deeply touched at being appointed guardian
of the woman to whom he owed his life, while his loyalty to the
imperial princess at home made him shrink from the society of the
beautiful Saracen with whom his lot seemed so strangely thrown. He
resolved to execute the commission with which he was intrusted with
all possible brevity and reserve.
"Surely," said he, in the tones of a judge rather than of a
lover--"surely, fair Lady Fatima, it can give to you and your
kinswomen and followers nothing but happiness to be restored to your
own people of the Arab blood and the faith of the Prophet; and it is
my charge to see that everything shall be done to bring you to them
in safety and in honor."
"The purpose of the lord general is most kind, and I know that these
ladies with me are full of gratitude and pleasure. But for me--I
have lost father, mother, brother, and have none to care for, or to
care for me. Cordova is not Chandax; nor is this caliph of Spain the
real commander of the faithful or the true successor of the Prophet.
Where to find that true successor I know not. Nor does any man know.
Islam seems passing away in rival sects and hostile parties. I have
heard the Christian women who have been in captivity with us solace
their afflictions and sufferings by calling on Mary, whom you hold to
sit beside your Allah in heaven. We Moslem women have no Mary to
invoke. Our Allah is the God of men--of soldiers--he is no God to us
poor maidens who sorrow and despair!"
"What!" said Digenes, in astonishment which he could not control, "do
you mean that you might learn in time to call on the Blessed Mary
yourself, and take comfort in the example of all the holy women who
have devoted themselves to the Mother of God?"
"Did the emir of Edessa forfeit his honor when he bowed the knee to
the crucified Redeemer?"
"God forbid! lady, my father was a noble chief and a true man; and if
he forsook the Prophet for the Immaculate One, it was a conversion
inspired with love of the best and purest maiden in the Roman Empire,
as all men called my sainted mother!"
"So it is the privilege of men to forsake the faith of their fathers
for the love of a woman. Such a one is not called a renegade, if his
conversion is the result of--of love!"
"Lady Fatima," said the lord warden with pride and almost with a
trace of warmth, "the followers of the Prophet did justice to my
father's honor as fully as did the followers of Christ, into whose
ranks he passed and among whom he lived and died. The dwellers of
the Cilician marches, where Christian and Moslem meet in perpetual
combat, have learned to value each other, and to know that the true
believers in Koran or Gospel have each much to be proud of, and each
have much to envy in the other. Your brother, whom I nursed on his
death-bed, and I had but one heart and one mind in many things. We
might have been sons of the same parents instead of being, as we
were, sons of a brother and a sister. Soldiers who have lived their
lives in doing battle for their own faith are of one creed and one
race in Asia as in Europe, in Syria as in Thrace!"
"And we poor women have no such privilege? It is not permitted to
women to change their faith out of gratitude, or sympathy--or love?"
she said, with a melting tone, as her eyes grew dim and her voice
died away in sighs.
"The women of Islam," he answered, with deference, "do not go forth
into the great world, we are assured, but live a life of retirement
in their homes and their harems. They accept the faith and the
worship of their fathers, their brothers, or their husbands. They do
not busy themselves with mysteries of religion or the sacred books of
saints and martyrs. They may change their creed when they change
their home, but they do not listen to controversies about sacred
things and holy persons."
"And Christian women do this, you mean to tell me, and busy
themselves with the things of heaven and the care of their souls?"
"It is natural that it should be so, my dear lady, when you come to
think that next to God the Almighty, and His Son, the Redeemer of
mankind, the first and holiest of beings is the Immaculate Virgin,
Mother of God, who ever sits enthroned in glory with holy
martyr-women and saints around her. In Christendom, in our churches,
in our worship, in our sacred books, there is quite as great a part
for women as for men--nay, a part greater and more beautiful!" And
the akritas now spoke with something of the fervor of a priest
pressing conversion on a willing penitent.
"Ah! how could a poor, captive girl of the Saracens come to hear
something of this blessed company of holy women? How could she learn
something of a truly religious life as open to an ignorant maiden who
had heard of little but the Prophet and his warriors? How could she
be brought to feel some touches of the trust and passion with which
Christian maidens I have seen in sorrow fling themselves on the mercy
of the Blessed Mary in heaven? Mary--Mother of God--it is a name of
exquisite beauty and tenderness! Could even I be taught ever to
utter it?"
"Nothing more easy, more natural, more truly blessed," said Digenes,
eagerly, quite carried away with the sudden hope that the princess
seriously contemplated her possible conversion, and at the time, in
the warmth of his hopes for such a result, quite unable to read the
girl's heart. "I could at once enable you to make the attempt.
Follow us with your sister and ladies to the capital. There you can
be placed in charge of my own sister, the Lady Theodosia Comnena, who
is now living at her husband's castle in the Propontis. Nothing
easier than that I should introduce you to her family, and place you
in her charge. We are cousins, are we not, even if of different
creeds?"
"Yes--we are cousins," she said, slowly, lingering on that word with
a sense of rapture and hope that she struggled to master and conceal.
"If we are cousins, your sister, the Lady Theodosia, is my cousin,
too!"
"Certainly! how came I not to see all this at first? And you would
be willing to renounce the caliph at Cordova, and forget the return
to your Saracen kindred and your Moslem life?"
"Utterly, joyfully, forever! To be taken to your sister, to my own
cousin, to be taken into her family! Oh yes! if heaven were offered
me as an alternative I would accept with joy! Let those who will go
to Cordova. I would see Rome, the Roman world, and Roman life!"
"Ah! if you could only see our city, our churches, our altars, and
the sublime mosaics of Christ, His Mother, archangels and apostles,
and our mothers and sisters before the ikons and holy figures of
Mary, you would know what it is to be a Christian believer," said
Digenes, quite carried away by the thought of a new and so
illustrious a convert.
"And are you sure that the Lady Theodosia and her family would
welcome me?" asked the Saracen princess somewhat archly, as if in
real doubt.
"She would rejoice to have you in her care, and would treat you as
her own sister, just as she has now in her safe charge the Princess
Agatha, who has escaped from a convent prison and is securely placed
with my sister."
"And who, then, is the Princess Agatha?" asked Fatima, abruptly.
"Who?" said Digenes, impetuously, "who but the sister of our
sovereign lord, Romanus, whom cruel counsellors caused him to drive
from his palace, and more cruel priests consigned to a living death
in a nunnery of women."
"And what is she like?"
"She is like the Blessed Mary herself in beauty, in purity, in mercy,
and every grace--the sweetest, best, and noblest woman in the empire
of Rome, whom the jealousy of palace counsellors seeks to snatch from
wedlock and motherhood and to consign to the solitary cell of a nun;
whom these hypocrites and bigots dare to call a bride of Christ.
Never shall these fanatics endow their convents with the noblest
bride that Rome has ever borne!" and the lord warden's look of heroic
passion flamed in his eyes and brought the blood into his olive
cheek. "Never, never, if I live!" he cried, hardly thinking to whom
he spoke, in his indignation and excitement.
"And whose bride is she destined to be, this peerless, this
incomparable star of Rome? Is she the promised bride of any of your
Roman heroes?" asked Fatima, looking keenly into the eyes of Digenes,
and eagerly awaiting his answer, as of a message of life or death.
The lord warden answered not a word. He tried to speak. He began
some broken words. His embarrassment could not be concealed. He now
saw all the false attitude into which his own want of discernment,
his impetuosity, his love, had betrayed him. He had nothing to
answer. He was dumb with confusion and humiliation.
Fatima watched him closely and in silence, and seemed to read his
heart. Her attitude of eagerness and of trust and hope passed away.
She fell back into her previous condition of abasement and silent
despair. The light passed from her eyes, and her voice resumed its
tone of piteous sorrow and hopeless humility.
"Cousin," she said, at last, in broken and low tones, "I am deeply
grateful. The sister of your sovereign lord is too great a person to
look on the poor captive whose people he has conquered, whose father
his commander has slain. She shall not look down on her in pity.
Rome and its court is no place for the daughter of Ben-Senoussi;
Fatima will abide with her own people. Leave her in Crete, or
conduct her to Spain. She will ask no charity of Christian maidens.
Farewell, kind helper of my brother, the preserver of Fatima's life
and honor! Forget her forever! Let us never meet again! Remember
only that she will never forget you!"
And so, drawing close round her the mourning robes, and the long veil
over her face, with slow and weary steps, without another word,
Fatima passed over to her own tent.
XIII
The Caliph of the West
The great embassy to the Spanish caliph arrived at Cordova under
command of Digenes Akritas, and was received with all the pomp and
dignity that the mighty sovereign of the peninsula could display in
his Andalusian capital. It was the policy both of the Roman and of
the Arab statesmen to seek to impress their rivals with a full sense
of their own high civilization, vast resources, and generous spirit.
The deadly feuds that raged between the Ommeyad caliphs of Spain and
the Abbassid caliphs of Bagdad, and also with the Fatimite dynasty of
Mauritania, inclined the politic Abd-er-Rahman, who, the first of his
house, had assumed the sacred and historic title of "Commander of the
Faithful," to cultivate a good understanding with the Roman emperor
at Byzantium. While Rome was carrying on the internecine warfare
with the Moslems of Asia against the redoubtable Seif Eddauleh, the
hero of the Hamdanide dynasty, the Basileus was a useful counterpoise
in the divided world of Islam, on the principle that "the enemy of my
enemy is my friend." The high intelligence of the great caliph and
the prosperity of his kingdom, based upon a vast Mediterranean
commerce, had made any fanatical hostility to Christians an obsolete
and discredited infatuation which the sagacious sultan of Spain
repudiated.
The mission which Nicephorus had despatched under orders from the
Sacred Palace, but which he neither advised nor approved, was
organized on a great scale. Many officers of rank and civil
officials were included, and among them Bardas Skleros, commander of
the Armenian guards, his young friend, the Varangian Eric, the poetic
deacon, always in search of epic "motives," and some of the
financiers and diplomatists, who were attached to every great
imperial expedition. The Princess Fatima, dejected and indifferent
for herself, had been induced to join the party for the sake of her
young sister and brother and the ladies of her race, whose obvious
interest it was to return to a Moslem court.
At Malaga, the seaport at which the embassy disembarked, it was met
by a splendid array of emirs, chamberlains, and officers deputed by
the caliph to conduct the Romans to the capital. Even to men
accustomed to the shipping of all kinds that filled the Golden Horn
and traversed the Hellespont, the fleet, docks, and warehouses of the
Arab realm were an impressive sight. The vizier Ahmed conducted the
lord warden and his staff by leisurely stages to Cordova. And he did
not fail to draw attention to the dense population along the rich
valley of the Guadalquivir (or, as they call it, al-Wad ul-Kebir),
the profusion of its products, and the active state of agriculture
and of manufactures. On the morning of the third day the cavalcade
were able, from an eminence, to descry the towers of Cordova itself,
as it lay washed by the noble river and surrounded by the spurs of
the Sierra Morena mountains: The vizier watched in dignified silence
the astonishment of the envoys, which they did not seek to conceal.
The royal city of the Ommeyad caliph appeared, indeed, vast and
magnificent even to the inhabitants of Byzantium itself. Far as the
eye could reach in that clear and sunny air, the towers, palaces, and
mosques of the capital continued in endless variety and picturesque
confusion.
"What may be the extent of your city?" asked Digenes of the vizier.
"One of our historians has calculated that it reaches twenty-four
miles one way and six on the other, and beyond the city walls are the
suburbs in twenty-seven quarters, each quarter having its mosques,
markets, and baths for the use of those who live in the district."
And here the poetic deacon, ever keen to get accurate information,
begged to be told the number of the inhabitants.
"I would rather not charge my own memory," said the vizier,
indifferently, "but my librarian here, Ibn Khaldun, can doubtless
give you the figures you seek."
"The inhabitants of the capital," said Ibn Khaldun, "are reckoned now
to exceed a thousand thousand. There are three thousand eight
hundred mosques, sixty thousand palaces and mansions, two hundred
thousand houses of the common people; and for their convenience the
city and its suburbs contain seven hundred baths and eighty thousand
shops, together with markets, hostelries and caravansaries for
merchants and their trains."
The poet, who was already resolved on a description of their visit,
in verse, transferred all this to his notebook, when he had been
assured by the librarian that it was not the exaggeration of Oriental
eulogy, but the sober calculation of economic and historical writers.
At last the entire embassy reached the city, where they were received
with interest and curiosity in the crowded streets. The Lady Fatima,
her kinswomen, attendants, and slaves, had been consigned to the
personal charge of the young Varangian, with a fitting retinue of
male and female servitors. Eric, who had received strict
instructions to see that the Cretan captives of all ranks were cared
for with every possible honor, gazed upon the Lady Fatima with mute
adoration; for he was unable to communicate with her in a single
word. If he had any instructions to give they were interpreted to
her by one of her attendants, who spoke the tongue of Rome, of which
Eric himself had but a smattering. The contrast between these two
young creatures, the finest types of Northern and Southern beauty, of
Scandinavian strength and of Arab fire, struck every eye that fell on
them, as they met and exchanged a dignified salute. The Cordovan
monarch, like the Byzantine, had long maintained a bodyguard of
Northern warriors, mainly Scandinavians, Alemans, or Slavonians, sold
as slaves in youth, like the famous Janissaries of modern Turkey.
The Spanish Saracens were familiar with the bone and sinew of these
fair-haired Norsemen and mountaineers, but they rarely met one of
such perfect symmetry and brilliant color as distinguished the young
viking in his superb mail of gold. Nor could all the houris of
Andalusia match the Lady Fatima in high-bred grace and the pensive
and searching power of her eyes.
On the appointed day the ambassador and his following were escorted
in state to the caliph's hall of audience. For Digenes himself, and
for some of the higher officers, such as Bardas Skleros, of the
Armenian guard, men who had seen the most renowned cities, both of
the Saracen and of the Roman empires, the magnificence and beauty of
the palace of Cordova was not so surprising. But the secretaries,
diplomatists, and, above all, the poetic deacon, could not restrain
their sense of awe and admiration. The patriotic heart of the poet
almost misgave him as he asked himself if the city on the Golden
Horn, "guarded of God," and the Sacred Palace of the Basileus itself,
really outshone the city and residence of Abd-er-Rahman III. He even
put the question in private to Michael, the protocolist, by his side,
one of the acutest intellects in the Byzantine chancery.
"Yes, the courts of the caliph have almost as much gold as that of
our Cæsar, and their fantastic richness of decoration may astonish
the vulgar. But it is the profusion and intricacy of embroidery and
lace. There is nothing here of the majesty of the massive colonnades
of Santa Sophia, nor of the Golden Gate on our outer walls."
"But what miracles of color and of filigree design do we not see in
those painted slabs and carved ceilings," said the poet; "it is like
a grove of roses and myrtles in stone and enamel."
"Too much like the silken robes of our parakeimomenos, which cover a
huge but emasculated frame," said Michael.
The poet laughed uneasily and looked round instinctively, for even in
Spain he felt the risk of a jest at the expense of Bringas.
"And then you will not find there those sublime images of our saints
and of Christ and His Mother, such as give so solemn a power to our
Christian temples. These Saracen figures, where any living thing is
shown, are conventional grotesques. There is neither statuary nor
painting of any kind--least of all of women and of the Mother of God.
These Hagarenes are worse than our rabid iconoclasts themselves."
The embassy passed on through a series of courts, surrounded by shady
cloisters and rich with flowers and blossoming shrubs, along
corridors and halls lined with troopers in coat-of-mail and with
chamberlains and ushers in embroidered robes, till at last they
reached the great hall, where the mighty caliph sat in audience. The
salutes and obeisances on both sides were duly performed with all the
stately ceremony of Constantinople itself, and with even more grace
and reserve of manner. And those who have seen a state durbar in
India may attain to some idea of the spectacle it afforded.
The great caliph, the Charlemagne of Saracen Spain, was now at the
close of his long rule of half a century. He was seventy-three years
of age, and a life of incessant toil and of continual warfare had
caused him to look at least ten years older than his actual years.
The reception of Digenes was almost the last act of his public life;
but, in spite of his infirmities, he insisted on taking his place and
doing honor to the lord warden, of whose family history and personal
prowess he was perfectly aware.
Abd-er-Rahman III. still looked what he was, the greatest ruler of
his age and the noblest type of the Saracen race. In fifty years he
had reduced the rebels and traitors within his own dominion, had made
vassals of the Christian princelets of north Spain, and had driven
back the Mauritanian invaders from Africa. He possessed a
magnificent fleet, a powerful army, and a treasury of twenty millions
of gold pieces. The police of his realm secured perfect order and
peace; the state of agriculture was in the highest degree thriving;
commerce and manufactures were equally advanced. Supported by his
son and successor, Hakim, and his able minister, Ghalib, the aged
monarch received the lord warden right royally, and motioned him to a
throne beside himself on the dais.
Then the credentials issued by Nicephorus were read by the chief of
the protocol service:
"Illustrious and renowned sovereign, commander of those faithful to
the Prophet, I am ordered by our Imperial Majesty, Romanus, to send
to your capital city a mission of the chief officers and
administrators from the army of Crete, to treat of urgent affairs
between our respective realms. I have placed at the head of this
embassy the chivalrous lord warden of the eastern marches, Basil
Digenes, the akritas, in whose veins are mingled the blood of Saracen
emirs and of Armenian princes. He and the noble and learned envoys
in this mission will fully explain the objects in view, which are to
secure amity and reciprocal concessions between your Majesty and our
own Sovereign Lord. We send to the court of your Majesty many
eminent persons of both sexes, whom the issues of war, which God
above us decrees, have placed in our hands. And we seek an exchange
of an equal number of those followers of Christ who are now detained
in your realm. Finally, we propose an agreement between our two
councils for the better disposal of those Moslems who remain under
our rule in Crete, and also of those Christians who abide under your
rule in Spain. The issues of the great struggle between the
followers of Christ and of the Prophet are in the hands of God, whom
we all alike worship and obey. We are His servants and His
creatures, and we can do nothing of ourselves save what He permits.
In this we can unite in one purpose. And it is our fervent hope that
He Who has given your Majesty power and authority so great may guide
your counsels to meet in a spirit of amity the proposals we are
ordered by our sovereign lord, the Basileus, to submit to your
wisdom. And may God the Merciful, the Just, bring this mission to a
right end!"
The aged and now infirm caliph bowed his head solemnly, and his white
beard flowed over his royal robes; but his eyes showed some of their
ancient fire as with a trembling voice he said: