The Brethren Part 41

"I should have said," answered Saladin, "'Whom you will see no more if I am able to keep you apart.' Can you complain who, both of you, have refused to take her as a wife?"

Here Rosamund looked up wondering, and Wulf broke in:

"Tell her the price. Tell her that she was asked to wed either of us who would bow the knee to Mahomet, and to be the head of his harem, and I think that she will not blame us."

"Never would I have spoken again to him who answered otherwise,"

exclaimed Rosamund, and Saladin frowned at the words. "Oh! my uncle," she went on, "you have been kind to me and raised me high, but I do not seek this greatness, nor are your ways my ways, who am of a faith that you call accursed. Let me go, I beseech you, in care of these my kinsmen."

"And your lovers," said Saladin bitterly. "Niece, it cannot be. I love you well, but did I know even that your life must pay the price of your sojourn here, here you still should stay, since, as my dream told me, on you hang the lives of thousands, and I believe that dream. What, then, is your life, or the lives of these knights, or even my life, that any or all of them should turn the scale against those of thousands. Oh! everything that my empire can give is at your feet, but here you stay until the dream be accomplished, and," he added, looking at the brethren, "death shall be the portion of any who would steal you from my hand."

"Until the dream be accomplished?" said Rosamund catching at the words. "Then, when it is accomplished, shall I be free?"

"Ay," answered the Sultan; "free to come or to go, unless you attempt escape, for then you know your certain doom."

"It is a decree. Take note, my cousins, it is a decree. And you, prince Ha.s.san, remember it also. Oh! I pray with all my soul I pray, that it was no lying spirit who brought you that dream, my uncle, though how I shall bring peace, who hitherto have brought nothing except war and bloodshed, I know not. Now go, my cousins but, if you will, leave me Masouda, who has no other friends. Go, and take my love and blessing with you, ay, and the blessing of Jesu and His saints which shall protect you in the hour of battle, and bring us together again."

So spoke Rosamund and threw her veil before her face that she might hide her tears.

Then G.o.dwin and Wulf stepped to where she stood by the throne of Saladin, bent the knee before her, and, taking her hand, kissed it in farewell, nor did the Sultan say them nay. But when she was gone and the brethren were gone, he turned to the emir Ha.s.san and to the great imaum who had sat silent all this while, and said:

"Now tell me, you who are old and wise, which of those men does the lady love? Speak, Ha.s.san, you who know her well."

But Ha.s.san shook his head. "One or the other. Both or neither--I know not," he answered. "Her counsel is too close for me."

Then Saladin turned to the imaum--a cunning, silent man.

"When both the infidels are about to die before her face, as I still hope to see them do, we may learn the answer. But unless she wills it, never before," he replied, and the Sultan noted his saying.

Next morning, having been warned that they would pa.s.s there by Masouda, Rosamund, watching through the lattice of one of her palace windows, saw the brethren go by. They were fully armed and, mounted on their splendid chargers Flame and Smoke, looked glorious men as, followed by their escort of swarthy, turbaned Mameluks, they rode proudly side by side, the sunlight glinting on their mail. Opposite to her house they halted awhile, and, knowing that Rosamund watched, although they could not see her, drew their swords and lifted them in salute. Then sheathing them again, they rode forward in silence, and soon were lost to sight.

Little did Rosamund guess how different they would appear when they three met again. Indeed, she scarcely dared to hope that they would ever meet, for she knew well that even if the war went in favour of the Christians she would be hurried away to some place where they would never find her. She knew well also that from Damascus her rescue was impossible, and that although Saladin loved them, as he loved all who were honest and brave, he would receive them no more as friends, for fear lest they should rob him of her, whom he hoped in some way unforeseen would enable him to end his days in peace. Moreover, the struggle between Cross and Crescent would be fierce and to the death, and she was sure that where was the closest fighting there in the midst of it would be found G.o.dwin and Wulf. Well might it chance, therefore, that her eyes had looked their last upon them.

Oh! she was great. Gold was hers, with gems more than she could count, and few were the weeks that did not bring her added wealth or gifts. She had palaces to dwell in--alone; gardens to wander in--alone; eunuchs and slaves to rule over--alone. But never a friend had she, save the woman of the a.s.sa.s.sins, to whom she clung because she, Masouda, had saved her from Sinan, and who clung to her, why, Rosamund could not be sure, for there was a veil between their spirits.

They were gone--they were gone! Even the sound of their horses'

hoofs had died away, and she was desolate as a child lost in a city full of folk. Oh! and her heart was filled with fears for them, and most of all for one of them. If he should not come back into it, what would her life be?

Rosamund bowed her head and wept; then, hearing a sound behind her, turned to see that Masouda was weeping also.

"Why do you weep?" she asked.

"The maid should copy her mistress," answered Masouda with a hard laugh; "but, lady, why do you weep? At least you are beloved, and, come what may, nothing can take that from you. You are not of less value than the good horse between the rider's knees, or the faithful hound that runs at his side."

A thought rose in Rosamund's mind--a new and terrible thought.

The eyes of the two women met, and those of Rosamund asked, "Which?" anxiously as once in the moonlight she had asked it with her voice from the gate above the Narrow Way. Between them stood a table inlaid with ivory and pearl, whereon the dust from the street had gathered through the open lattice. Masouda leaned over, and with her forefinger wrote a single Arabic letter in the dust upon the table, then pa.s.sed her hand across it.

Rosamund's breast heaved twice or thrice and was still. Then she asked:

"Why did not you who are free go with him?"

"Because he prayed me to bide here and watch over the lady whom he loved. So to the death--I watch."

Slowly Masouda spoke, and the heavy words seemed like blood dropping from a death wound. Then she sank forward into the arms of Rosamund.

Chapter Eighteen: Wulf Pays for the Drugged Wine

Many a day had gone by since the brethren bade farewell to Rosamund at Damascus. Now, one burning July night, they sat upon their horses, the moonlight gleaming on their mail. Still as statues they sat, looking out from a rocky mountain top across that grey and arid plain which stretches from near Nazareth to the lip of the hills at whose foot lies Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. Beneath them, camped around the fountain of Seffurieh, were spread the hosts of the Franks to which they did sentinel; thirteen hundred knights, twenty thousand foot, and hordes of Turcopoles--that is, natives of the country, armed after the fas.h.i.+on of the Saracens. Two miles away to the southeast glimmered the white houses of Nazareth, set in the lap of the mountains. Nazareth, the holy city, where for thirty years lived and toiled the Saviour of the world. Doubtless, thought G.o.dwin, His feet had often trod that mountain whereon they stood, and in the watered vales below His hands had sped the plow or reaped the corn. Long, long had His voice been silent, yet to G.o.dwin's ears it still seemed to speak in the murmur of the vast camp, and to echo from the slopes of the Galilean hills, and the words it said were: "I bring not peace, but a sword."

To-morrow they were to advance, so rumour said, across yonder desert plain and give battle to Saladin, who lay with all his power by Hattin, above Tiberias.

G.o.dwin and his brother thought that it was a madness; for they had seen the might of the Saracens and ridden across that thirsty plain beneath the summer sun. But who were they, two wandering, unattended knights, that they should dare to lift up their voices against those of the lords of the land, skilled from their birth in desert warfare? Yet G.o.dwin's heart was troubled and fear took hold of him, not for himself, but for all the countless army that lay asleep yonder, and for the cause of Christendom, which staked its last throw upon this battle.

"I go to watch yonder; bide you here," he said to Wulf, and, turning the head of Flame, rode some sixty yards over a shoulder of the rock to the further edge of the mountain which looked towards the north. Here he could see neither the camp, nor Wulf, nor any living thing, but indeed was utterly alone. Dismounting, and bidding the horse stand, which it would do like a dog, he walked forward a few steps to where there was a rock, and, kneeling down, began to pray with all the strength of his pure, warrior heart.

"O Lord," he prayed, "Who once wast man and a dweller in these mountains, and knowest what is in man, hear me. I am afraid for all the thousands who sleep round Nazareth; not for myself, who care nothing for my life, but for all those, Thy servants and my brethren. Yes, and for the Cross upon which Thou didst hang, and for the faith itself throughout the East. Oh! give me light! Oh!

let me hear and see, that I may warn them, unless my fears are vain!"

So he murmured to Heaven above and beat his hands against his brow, praying, ever praying, as he had never prayed before, that wisdom and vision might be given to his soul.

It seemed to G.o.dwin that a sleep fell on him--at least, his mind grew clouded and confused. Then it cleared again, slowly, as stirred water clears, till it was bright and still; yet another mind to that which was his servant day by day which never could see or hear those things he saw and heard in that strange hour.

Lo! he heard the spirits pa.s.s, whispering as they went; whispering, and, as it seemed to him, weeping also for some great woe which was to be; weeping yonder over Nazareth. Then like curtains the veils were lifted from his eyes, and as they swung aside he saw further, and yet further.

He saw the king of the Franks in his tent beneath, and about him the council of his captains, among them the fierce-eyed master of the Templars, and a man whom he had seen in Jerusalem where they had been dwelling, and knew for Count Raymond of Tripoli, the lord of Tiberias. They were reasoning together, till, presently, in a rage, the Master of the Templars drew his sword and dashed it down upon the table.

Another veil was lifted, and lo! he saw the camp of Saladin, the mighty, endless camp, with its ten thousand tents, amongst which the Saracens cried to Allah through all the watches of the night.

He saw the royal pavilion, and in it the Sultan walked to and fro alone--none of his emirs, not even his son, were with him. He was lost in thought, and G.o.dwin read his thought.

It was: "Behind me the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee, into which, if my flanks were turned, I should be driven, I and all my host.

In front the territories of the Franks, where I have no friend; and by Nazareth their great army. Allah alone can help me. If they sit still and force me to advance across the desert and attack them before my army melts away, then I am lost. If they advance upon me round the Mountain Tabor and by the watered land, I may be lost. But if--oh! if Allah should make them mad, and they should strike straight across the desert--then, then they are lost, and the reign of the Cross in Syria is forever at an end. I will wait here. I will wait here. . ."

Look! near to the pavilion of Saladin stood another tent, closely guarded, and in it on a cus.h.i.+oned bed lay two women. One was Rosamund, but she slept sound; and the other was Masouda, and she was waking, for her eyes met his in the darkness.

The last veil was withdrawn, and now G.o.dwin saw a sight at which his soul s.h.i.+vered. A fire-blackened plain, and above it a frowning mountain, and that mountain thick, thick with dead, thousands and thousands and thousands of dead, among which the hyenas wandered and the night-birds screamed. He could see their faces, many of them he knew again as those of living men whom he had met in Jerusalem and elsewhere, or had noted with the army.

He could hear also the moanings of the few who were yet alive.

About that field--yes, and in the camp of Saladin, where lay more dead--his body seemed to wander searching for something, he knew not what, till it came to him that it was the corpse of Wulf for which he sought and found it not--nay, nor his own either. Then once more he heard the spirits pa.s.s--a very great company, for to them were gathered all those dead--heard them pa.s.s away, wailing, ever more faintly wailing for the lost cause of Christ, wailing over Nazareth.

G.o.dwin awoke from his dream trembling, mounted his horse, and rode back to Wulf. Beneath, as before, lay the sleeping camp, yonder stretched the brown desert, and there sat Wulf watching both.

"Tell me," asked G.o.dwin, "how long is it since I left you?"

"Some few minutes--ten perhaps," answered his brother.

"A short while to have seen so much," replied G.o.dwin. Then Wulf looked at him curiously and asked:

"What have you seen?"