Books: The Prince and the Page
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Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Prince and the Page
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"Though," he said, "I could not doubt of it when that fair and lovely
Princess had taken your matters in hand. Tell me, Richard, have you
secular men many such dames as that abroad in the world?"
"Not many such as she," said Richard, smiling.
"Well, I have not spoken to a female thing, save perhaps pretty
Bessee, since I went into the Spital, ten years ago; and verily the
sound of the lady's voice was to me as if St. Margaret had begun
talking to me! And so wise and clear of wit too. I thought women
were feather-pated wilful beings, from whom there was no choice but
to shut oneself up! I trow, that now all is well with thee, thou
wilt scarce turn a thought again towards our brotherhood, where to
glance at such a being becomes a sin." And Raynald crossed himself,
with an effort to recall his wonted asceticism.
"Ladies' love is not like to be mine," said Richard, laughing, as one
not yet awake to the force of the motive. "No! Gladly would I be
one of your noble brotherhood, where alone have I met with kindness--
but, Sir Raynald, my first duty under Heaven must be to redeem my
father's name, by my service to the Prince. My brothers think they
uphold it by deadly revenge. I want to show what a true Montfort can
be with such a master as my father never had! And, Raynald, I cannot
but fear that further schemes of vengeance may be afloat. The Prince
is too fearless to take heed to himself, and who is so bound to watch
for him as I?"
CHAPTER XI--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 Coeur 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 mediaeval 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."
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