STRANGERS AT BLANCHERIVE
The courtyard at Blancherive was thronged and noisy, as Hugh and
Edith rode across the drawbridge and through the passage under the
gate-tower. Men-at-arms, grooms and servants swarmed about a group
of swarthy, bright-garbed men, who lounged by the Castle stables.
Voices clacked high in speculation over these mysterious persons who
could not understand either of the tongues known to the Castle's
company--that is, Norman French and the Saxon dialect. So great was
the turmoil that Hugh must needs force a path for Edith to the steps
that led up to the entrance to the Great Hall in the Keep.
There they dismounted, and leaving their horses with Ralph, who
awaited them, Hugh and Edith entered the rush-strewn Hall. It
stretched before them, high-ceiled, gloomy, its bareness scarce
concealed by flapping tapestries and the long tables that reached
from the door to the platform reserved for the Lord of the Manor and
his family and guests. In one corner a fire blazed dimly in a huge,
open hearth. Otherwise the only illumination was the scant sunlight
that crept through loopholes in the massy walls.
On the dais sat Sir Godwin and the man they had met that morning on
the London Road. The Lord of Blancherive sprang to his feet as they
entered. He was a small man, very wiry, with immensely broad
shoulders; but he carried himself with a dignity that enhanced his
stature.
"What ado we have had!" he called in a deep, brazen voice--the voice
of a warrior. "Could you not have done your hunting some other time,
my children? But no--I am unfair. You could have done it no other
time. You did right to pleasure yourselves, whilst you could."
"Why, Uncle Godwin, what do you mean?" cried Edith.
"Anon, anon," he answered, and turned to Hugh. "I have had great
need of you, Hugh," he went on. "You are our clerk, and without you
I have been helpless."
He held up several rolls of parchment, tied with parti-coloured silk
and decorated with elaborate pendant seals.
"Is it from father?" exclaimed Edith.
"It is. Sore news, my maid. Nay, do not weep. 'Tis fine news for
you. For me it spells loneliness, an Hugh makes good his threat and
leaves me, too."
Both Hugh and Edith regarded him in bewilderment. Hugh shifted his
gaze suddenly to the stranger, and met a stare focussed on his own
face. But the man from Outremer looked quickly away.
"But I do not understand," said Hugh.
"'Tis simply that my brother hath sent for Edith, as we knew he must
when it seemed him best," answered Sir Godwin. "He hath sent word by
the Most Noble Messer Andrea Mocenigo, Special Ambassador to King
John, who, he hath been telling me, journeyed hither in one of the
dromons of the Emperor of Constantinople, all the way by the Inner
Sea, past the country of the Soldan of Babylon, the country of the
man-eating people and around the land of the Moors through the Great
Ocean. Truly a marvellous venture!"
The stranger bowed.
"You exalt me unduly, my lord," he said.
"And Edith must go by the same way?" asked Hugh, turning the
parchments in his hands.
Sir Godwin looked to his guest.
"'Tis so," replied Mocenigo. "But fear not, Sir Englishman. My ship
is large, my crew brave and well-armed. I have done the journey
before this."
"I like it not," said Hugh stubbornly.
"Indeed, lordling, you concern yourself over nothing," the stranger
insisted suavely. "The Most Noble Grand Acolyth, Commander of the
Varangian Guard of his Most Eminent, Holy and Christian Majesty, the
Emperor of Constantinople, deigned to commission me especially for
this task, under the Emperor's sanction, and all arrangements have
been made to insure the protection of the young maid. Off Sicily we
shall pick up a squadron of escort galleys, but without help we can
easily beat off the corsairs of the Narrow Seas."
From the rear of the platform came the sound of weeping. Hugh turned
and strove to peer through the shadows.
"'Tis Dame Alicia," said Sir Godwin. "She goes with the maid."
Hugh fumbled with the seals of the parchments.
"When?" he asked.
"So soon as may be," returned the Ambassador. "I must make haste.
'Tis many months since I left my master, the Emperor. I have
fulfilled my mission at London, and I must lose no time in carrying
back the message of your King. We should ride hence to-morrow."
"But I could never make ready in that short time," protested Edith.
"All is ready for you, lady," answered Mocenigo. "Your father, the
Grand Acolyth, requested that you bring with you your old nurse, but
he was at pains to provide me with several dames to keep you company
on the voyage. They have brought with them dress-stuffs, everything
needful."
Edith stood staring into the depths of the hall for a moment. Then
she made a little gesture of assent.
"'Tis right I should go, is it not, Uncle Godwin?" she questioned.
"Yes, my maid--but first I would have Hugh read us these letters. It
may be they contain further instructions."
Hugh broke the seals and unrolled the first parchment. It was writ
fairly in Latin, a tongue the monks had taught him, and dated at
Constantinople four months before. It began:
"Sir Cedric Halcroft, known as the Grand Acolyth of the Empire,
Commander of the Varangian Guard, from the Palace of the Bucoleon in
Constantinople to his brother Godwin, Lord of Blancherive, a Castle
which is in England beyond the Great Sea and the Land of the French:
"Brother Godwin, I write this by the pen of one Dominick, a holy monk
sojourning at the Hospice of the Knights of St. John, to say to you
that I have grown lonely for the maid, my daughter, and it is my
desire that you send her, with Dame Alicia, her nurse, in the custody
of the bearer of this, one Messer Andrea Mocenigo, Ambassador of my
master, the Emperor, and a man learned in travel and the ways of the
sea, who hath been commissioned particularly for this task. He is to
be trusted. Accept my thanks for the care you have taken of the
maid. All goes well with me, and I pray God and His Blessed Saints
daily that your lot may be happy."
The other was the most beautiful parchment Hugh had ever seen. It
was inscribed in vermillion ink, bedight with gilding and the
capitals of the Latin letters all enscrolled with gold.
"To all strangers in all lands," it read. "Be it known that the Most
Sacred, Holy and Christian Sovereign, Alexius, Emperor of Rome, Lord
of Constantinople, Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, Scythia, Hungary,
Bithynia, Armenia, Anatolia, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Mesopotamia,
the Islands of the Sea, Jerusalem and the lands beyond, Augustus,
hath commissioned his trusty servant, Andrea Mocenigo, to fare forth
from the harbour of the Golden Horn in the Imperial dromon Kyrie
Eleison and to sail the seas to the realm of England, there to
deliver the Emperor's message to the King who hath succeeded him men
called Lion-Heart and to bring back with him the daughter of the
Emperor's right trusty servant, the Grand Acolyth of the Empire, Sir
Cedric Halcroft, in such state as would be accorded a daughter of the
Imperial Court. Christ save us all!"
"Well-spoken, well-spoken," cried Sir Godwin warmly. "His Majesty
doth my brother great honour."
"None stands higher in the confidence of the Augustus than the Grand
Acolyth," replied Mocenigo, with a low bow to Edith. "And all the
Court await with expectation the coming of Sir Cedric's daughter."
Hugh glared at the Emperor's Ambassador, wroth at the flush that
tinted Edith's cheek.
"After all, 'tis no more than is fitting for her," he said haughtily.
"I have heard you say often, Sir Godwin, that she hath in her veins
the blood of King Harold and the Sainted Edmund."
Sir Godwin laughed.
"True, lad, but it ill becomes your Norman blood to prate of our
Saxon lineage."
It was Hugh's turn to flush.
"Good blood is good blood," he muttered. "No Norman denies it. How
many lords of my race have wooed your womankind?"
"Nay, now, that issue is buried, Hugh." Sir Godwin banished the
argument with a wave of the hand. "In the haste of our greetings I
have forgotten to present you to my guest. Messer Mocenigo, I make
known to you my neighbour, the Lord Hugh de Chesby. His lands march
with mine."
"Young sir, I am honoured." Mocenigo bowed from his supple hips, his
cap sweeping the rushes. To Hugh it seemed there was a touch of
irony in the exaggerated courtesy. But his resentment was forgotten
in the man's next words. "De Chesby? Surely, that is a name
familiar to the folk of Outremer!"
"You know my father, Messer Mocenigo?" asked Hugh eagerly.
"Not the great Sir James?"
"Yes, Sir James de Chesby--'the Knight of the Holy Sepulchre' he was
called in the Holy Land."
The Italian gave Hugh a sidelong look out of his heavy-lidded eyes.
"It was never my fortune to know your father," he answered. "But he
was indicated to me once in the streets of Tripoli. A stout knight
and of matchless fame! The jongleurs still sing of his deeds. 'Tis
a vast pity, young sir, he is not with us to-day to fend off the
Paynims."
Hugh stepped closer on the dais.
"Do you think him dead?" he asked tensely.
Mocenigo made a gesture of surprise.
"But is not that accepted?" he returned. "It is a part of the story,
a legend of itself. I, myself, the time I speak of, saw Sir James de
Chesby going down to his galley to start upon his last voyage from
Tripoli."
"He is not dead," declared Hugh.
The Italian laughed uneasily.
"Not dead? But----"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Of course, the jongleurs have that tale, too," he went on. "The
heroes of Outremer never die, you know. They say that even
Barbarossa, the German Emperor, who perished in the last Crusade, is
not dead, but sleeps in a cavern in the mountains of his own land,
and that some day he and all his knights will wake up again."
"But none saw my father die," insisted Hugh. "He sailed away from
Tripoli. His galley reached Constantinople. Some say he was then on
board of her; some say he was not. But nobody saw him die. He
disappeared."
Mocenigo raised his eyebrows.
"There is the Grand Acolyth," he suggested. "Has he not----"
"Sir Cedric made inquiries," interposed the Lord of Blancherive. "He
could learn nothing. The galley Sir James sailed upon had
disappeared from those seas. There was no trace of him in
Constantinople, nor was he ever seen or heard of in any other part of
the Empire or in the Holy Land."
"He might have been taken by the Saracens," said Mocenigo.
"Think you they would have let pass the chance to boast of such a
prisoner?" retorted Hugh. "Or the ransom he would have brought?"
"Lion-heart, himself, bade the Templars and Hospitallers make
inquiries of the Emirs of his fate," added Sir Godwin. "King Richard
loved Sir James, and would have given much to ransom him, had it been
possible."
The Italian shrugged his shoulders again.
"Sirs, you baffle me," he said. "I can make no suggestions in face
of what you say. In Outremer Sir James has become a memory, a
stirring echo from the past, a shadowy figure in a tale men gather to
hear. I have not thought of him as living this many a year."
"He lives," said Hugh stoutly. "And I shall find him--or make
certain of his fate."
A startled look came into Mocenigo's face.
"You would seek him out?" he questioned.
"Yes," answered Hugh shortly.
"'Tis a far journey from England to Outremer."
"Yet you have made it."
"True, lordling. But the way was smoothed for me." The Italian
wetted his lips nervously. "There are many dangers in Outremer,
dangers on sea and dangers on land. The Saracens pin the Franks
closer and closer to their few castles on the seaboard of the Holy
Land. The Old Man of the Mountains sends his Assassins to slay whom
he pleases. Corsairs ravage the shipping. Men slay the stranger
first, and empty his wallet and strip off his armour, afterward.
When the Franks are not fighting one another or the Emirs, they are
quarrelling with my master. Few men live long in Outremer."
A slight smile twisted Hugh's mouth.
"What you say hath interested me still more in my purposed venture,
Sir Ambassador," he said quietly. "And if I find only peril and no
aid in the Holy Land, I may come to Constantinople, where all is
peace and order."
"To Constantinople?" Mocenigo leaned forward, sweat beading out on
his face. "But why Constantinople, young sir?"
"Did not my father's galley sail for Constantinople from Tripoli?"
"Ay, but if there was trace of him in the realms of the Augustus, the
Grand Acolyth would have found it by this."
Mocenigo settled back in his seat as he spoke, and smiled palely.
"I must go everywhere," answered Hugh steadily. "I may leave no spot
untouched in my quest. I have sworn it."
"If my advice had weight with you, lordling, you would abandon your
venture. 'Tis more promising of danger than glory."
Hugh looked at him, but said nothing, and after the silence had grown
embarrassing, Mocenigo turned to Edith, who stood quietly by her
uncle's chair.
"Perchance, you would care to hear of the life at my master's
court--the centre of the world, it hath been called," he proposed.
"With your leave, Messer Mocenigo, she must put off that pleasure to
relieve the tedium of the voyage," interrupted Sir Godwin. "Dame
Alicia hath need of her to settle many matters ere morning."
The Italian bowed his assent.
"Rest assured, lady, no step has been left untaken to secure your
comfort," he said.
Hugh felt the hot blood surge through his veins at the hint of
devotion in Mocenigo's voice. But to his surprise Edith accepted it
with queenly indifference. An hour before she would have blushed and
known not what to do. Now, already, she had learned her first lesson
in the higher school of life, had leaped at a single bound from the
hoyden to the threshold of womanhood.
"I must ride back to Chesby," he said, fighting down the
heart-soreness that was growing within him. "Give you god-den,
Messer Mocenigo. Sir Godwin, I shall come to bid you god-speed
to-morrow, and you ride hence with Edith."
"Do so, lad, do so," boomed Sir Godwin. "St. Edmund willing, I ride
with our maid to Hastings port, where the dromon awaits her."
Mocenigo gave Hugh a sinister look from the corner of his eye.
"Forget not my advice, young sir," he said. "Toward Outremer lies
danger. Here in England is all that man may desire."
"I know my path," answered Hugh coldly. "I must journey it."
He held back the curtain over the door to the living quarters of the
Keep, so that Edith might pass out, then followed her. As the arras
fell into place, Mocenigo leaned toward Sir Godwin, his fingers
gripping tight hold of the arms of his chair.
"A sturdy youth and a bold," he remarked with studied calm. "How is
it he hath not yet set forth upon this quest he speaks of?"
"No fault of his," laughed Sir Godwin. "By the terms of his father's
charter, left with the monks of Crowden, Hugh must bide by his lands
under tutelage of the Prior until he is one-and-twenty. Then he is
his own master. He hath a year to wait."
"I knew not Sir James de Chesby had a son---or if I did, it slipped
my mind," replied Mocenigo.
"He was married but a year. His wife died at the birth of Hugh. Sir
James conceived the idea that he could help to win her eternal joy in
Paradise by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He set forth ere Hugh was
a year old."
"On his way he stopped at Constantinople, I believe?"
"Ay, he was much thought of by the Emperor Andronicus. But he went
on to the Holy Land. He fought at Hattin, when King Guy and the Holy
Cross were taken. He was of those few who escaped, and he reached
the Holy City with Balian d'Ibelin and helped in its last defence.
Saladin so admired him, as you must know, that he granted him freedom
and presented him with a purse of gold. When our King Lion-heart
crossed to Outremer on crusade, Sir James joined him and fought at
Acre and Arsouf. When Lion-heart left and the Crusade broke up, Sir
James stayed on and fought as chance allowed. He was the best knight
ever I knew. We were lads together. Many a spear I have shivered
with him."
Mocenigo listened to this with an air of interest that masked his
burning desire to get away. He was on his feet so soon as Sir Godwin
had spoken the last word.
"If it pleases you, my lord," he said, "I must instruct my men for
the night."
"Ay, do so," agreed Sir Godwin. "Whatever they require they shall
have. My household are at your disposal, Sir Ambassador."