God Wills It! Part 36

"Even so, Cid," replied the Arab, whose hands Richard had set at liberty, but who made no effort to fly. "Put to torture this Turk, my companion; he will confess all that I have told."

"You are a stout-limbed varlet," commented Bohemond, the sly-eyed Prince of Tarentum; "you shall serve with me in my suite as guide and interpreter, for language and country you must know well." But the Arab only bowed, and answered:--

"My lord is a fountain of generosity, yet it is my desire to seek service with the husband of that very n.o.ble lady the Princess Mary Kurkuas, who it is told is the great emir, Richard Longsword."

"St. Michael," burst out Richard, "I am he! Yet why do you call my wife by name?"

The stranger salaamed almost to the dust.

"G.o.d is gracious beyond my sins in granting so n.o.ble a lord as husband of the daughter of my dear master. Know that fifteen years past, before the Moslems took Antioch, I was house-servant to Manuel Kurkuas, 'domestic' of Syria. Oftentimes have I held the very august princess on my knee, and even in her childhood all declared she was of beauty pa.s.sing St. Thecla."

Richard had only to hear one praise Mary Kurkuas to become that man's friend straightway. And he put his hand on the hilt of Trenchefer, taking oath upon the relics that if the stranger, who called himself Hossein, told an honest tale, he should never lack a patron. Only Tancred, viewing the Arab with his sea-green eyes, was heard to remark, "This fellow invokes the saints glibly, but his faith has more profession in it than is to my liking."

However, when they brought the two before Duke G.o.dfrey and threatened the Turk with torture, he broke down and told the interpreter a tale exactly like Hossein's--that Kilidge Arslan waited in the mountains with a great host and would fall on the besiegers the next day. So the Arab's credit was high when Richard brought him to the tent of his wife. Hossein cast one glance upon her, and fell upon his knees, kissing her robe and crying:--

"Praises, praises to St. John of Damascus! I behold the daughter of my beloved lord Manuel, and G.o.d has verily clothed her as an angel of light!"

"Good man," said the Greek, a little confused, "I know you not. When have you served my father?"

"O preeminently august lady!" broke forth the Arab again. "Do you not remember Hossein, who was in the Caesar Manuel's palace at Antioch? How he told you the tales of his people and sang you the wondrous song of Antar, and the stories of the jinns and the spirits of the air?"

"I was indeed in Antioch when my father ruled the city, but I was very young. I recall nothing," replied Mary.

"Alas! I had hopes your memory had not failed," declared Hossein, still kneeling; "yet it is true, O n.o.blest of the Greeks, you were very young. Enough; my devotion can repay the daughter what I owe to the father. For the most excellent Caesar saved me from cruel death at the hands of the infidels, my fellow-countrymen."

"You are an honorable man," said the lady, touched at his demonstration, "to discharge a debt incurred so long ago.

Perhaps"--and she ran over all her early girlhood in her memory--"I recall something of you, yet my father had many servants. I crave pardon if I forget. And how have you fared all this while among the Turks?"

Whereupon Hossein flew into the most pitiful tale as to his life of captivity and persecution, so that the lady's eyes grew wet, and her heart right sore.

"Good Christian," said she, at last, "surely you have endured much for your faith. G.o.d grant that under like persecution I do not apostatize more deeply. And what may I do for you? Have you home, friends, kin?"

"Alas! most august princess, Heaven has taken all away. Let me be your slave, your bodyguard, and sleep without your tent by night with a naked sword. Perilous times await, and"--here he choked in his speech--"the foe shall only touch you by stepping across my poor body!"

"You are a n.o.ble and pious man," said Mary, smiling. "It shall be as you say. I will ask the Baron to make you my guardsman." Whereupon Hossein invoked all the saints of the calendar to witness his delight; and the princess had her varlets and maids clothe and feed him. When Herbert and Theroulde came to look at him, however, they wagged their heads; and Sylvana, the nurse, who went wherever her mistress went, came boldly to Mary, saying:--

"Save for his pious talk, we all swear this man is infidel. I knew all your father's servants at Antioch, and he was not of them."

But Mary answered her sharply:--

"Must one have a white skin to love Our Lord? No man could come before me with such a lie. Your memory fails you. The Caesar had a great household. Besides, this Hossein has just revealed all the plots of Kilidge Arslan, and my husband says he is to be trusted." The word of Richard Longsword was not to be contradicted before his wife, as Sylvana knew well; so she held her peace. Only Theroulde arranged with Herbert that one of them should always watch their lady's tent along with the suspected Hossein.

But the Arab's revelations proved true to the letter. On the next day, while Raymond of Toulouse with the rear of the Provencals was making his way to camp, three huge bands of Seljouk cavalry swooped down on them and on the forces of Duke G.o.dfrey. Then followed a battle of the true knightly sort, the Turks trying what they became too wise to attempt again,--to ride down the Franks in fair onset, with sheer weight of numbers. Long and fierce the struggle; every Christian chief proved a paladin. Generals.h.i.+p there was not; every baron and his knights fought his own little battle with the hordesmen confronting.

Then in the end the surviving Seljouks were driven from the field like smoke; the heads of their fallen comrades slung into Nicaea by the engines, forewarning of what awaited the garrison. There were ma.s.ses for the Christian dead, the first martyrs; _Te Deums_ for the victory.

Richard Longsword, men cried, had slain as many infidels as Duke G.o.dfrey's self. When he stood in his b.l.o.o.d.y hauberk before Mary that night, she cast her arms about him and kissed him, saying: "O sweet lord, how beautiful you must be in battle! How G.o.d must rejoice in your holy service!"

"Dear life," answered Longsword, pressing her to his mailed breast, "it is when I think of the pure saint on earth who is praying for me that my arm grows strong."

"Then it must be very strong, Richard," said she, with half a laugh, half a sob, "for I love you more than words may tell; and my prayers are many and all for you."

So they were glad that evening,--at least all who had not lost a friend. But when Mary had gone to rest, Herbert talked gravely with Richard.

"Little lord," said he, affectionately, "put no trust in this Hossein.

The saints are on his tongue, yet he stumbled when Sebastian tried to make him say the Creed, even in his own Arabic; and Theroulde swears that to-night when he thought none watched, he knelt toward Mecca in Moslem fas.h.i.+on, as if to pray, and muttered the incantations of their Al-Koran."

Richard laughed. "Theroulde smells danger at all times; and Sebastian thinks, to speak Arabic is to squint toward perdition. Hossein has revealed a secret which has given the infidels the mightiest stroke that was theirs since Charlemagne marched to Spain. And yet you accuse him of being one of them? Have shame for your suspicions on a persecuted fellow-Christian! Treat him as a brother, and pray that your own souls be in no greater peril than his."

"Nevertheless--" began Herbert.

"I hear no more," replied his master, abruptly; "I must go to rest. A cursed story told by Count Renard's _jongleur_ runs in my head;--how Robert the Norman and his father, King William, once fought hand to hand, helmets closed, and Robert nigh killed his father ere they knew one another. St. Michael, what if Musa and I should meet thus! But I must sleep."

Herbert grumbled long to himself, and Theroulde and he renewed their vow never to leave Hossein a moment alone to work his own devices.

CHAPTER XXV

HOW DUKE G.o.dFREY SAVED THE DAY

The host lay before Nicaea many a weary day before the starved and despairing garrison declared for Emperor Alexius and the Franks saw the Greek standards floating from the battlements. Loud was the rage against this trick that robbed them of the plunder of so fair a city.

"Back to Constantinople!" howled the men-at-arms and petty n.o.bles.

"The Greeks are schismatics and scarce better than Moslem!" But the judicious presents of Alexius silenced the cries of the chiefs, and they in turn controlled their people, though from that hour little love was wasted on the Emperor. On the twenty-fifth day of June the Army of the Cross struck its tents about Nicaea, and set out for the march across Phrygia, through the heart of the dominions of Kilidge Arslan.

Soon after starting the host divided; for water and forage would be none too plentiful, the guides said, in the plains and mountains before, and to keep together might mean ruin. So Duke G.o.dfrey led away the larger half of the army with Raymond, Adhemar, and Hugh the Great; while the second corps followed Bohemond, Tancred, and Robert of Normandy. Being himself Norman, Longsword went with this last division, although he would gladly have kept company with the Duke of Bouillon. He was ill pleased to see with how little order each host marched, and how scant was the effort to keep close enough each to the other for help in case of need. Still, for a day or two, all went well. They pa.s.sed through a pleasant rolling country, with abundant gra.s.s and water. All the villages, to be sure, had been burned by the Turks, and scarce a peasant met them. But around them like an invisible net the Sultan's light-hors.e.m.e.n hovered, and now and then the long line of baggage mules and plodding infantry would be attacked, a few beasts hamstrung, a few footmen wounded, before the knights could charge out and chase the Seljouks over the hills. On the third day, however, the attacks grew more violent. Longsword had been sent back by Bohemond to cover the trailing rear-guard, where were the staggering sick, the defenceless _jongleurs_, and the women in heavy carriages. As the afternoon advanced, he sent a message to the Count of Chartres that unless he had speedy succor his St. Julien men could not hold back the thickening squadrons; and quick as the reenforcements came, there was a st.u.r.dy _melee_--lance to lance, sword to cimeter--before the Turks broke. When at last they were flying, Richard pushed the sure-footed Rollo up a hill where any horse saving he would have stumbled; and behold, from the hilltop Longsword could see a score of heavy dust clouds rising, north, south, east, west,--cavalry galloping. When he rode down he met Tancred himself.

"Fair lord," was his report, "the infidels surely plan to attack us in force to-morrow. If my eyes are good, there are thousands of Turkish horse around us. Kilidge Arslan must have called round him all his easternmost hordes, and intends battle. I advise that before nightfall a strong escort be sent to Duke G.o.dfrey, bidding him hasten to our relief."

"By the Ma.s.s!" swore Tancred, his knightly honor touched. "Of all men, you, De St. Julien, should be the last to cry 'Rescue!' We are well able to scatter Kilidge Arslan's thousands, and G.o.dfrey shall rob us of no glory."

So Richard held his peace, though for some strange reason his heart was not as gay as it should have been when about to engage in glorious battle with the infidel. He accompanied the rear as it toiled into the encampment, already plotted by the van. Longsword saw with anxiety that, though the camp was protected in the rear by a reedy marsh, and on one side by a shallow stream, no palisades were being raised, nor any other defences. The weary men set their tents as they might, lighted fires, feasted, and were asleep, heavy with the toilsome march. Mary Kurkuas stood at the tent door as was her wont, and greeted her husband.

"You ran more than your share of peril to-day. The fighting was hard.

Ah! I was frightened."

"_Ai!_" cried Richard, taking off his heavy helm, "if I never come nearer death than to-day, like a stork I shall live to be a thousand.

But there is a bandage on your wrist--what? blood?" and his face grew troubled.

"Yes," answered Mary, smiling now, and holding up the wrist. "While you were so valiantly guarding the rear, a squadron of Turks flew out of a defile just before us, and ere Prince Bohemond could ride up with his knights, had charged very close, shooting arrows."

"Mother of Mercies, you were in danger! But were you frightened?"

"Not till it was all past. For Hossein sprang in front of me, at his own peril, and covered me with his target, catching three shafts upon it otherwise meant for me. Then the Prince flew up with his band and chased the Turks away; and I found that my wrist was bleeding where a barb had scratched."

"Ha, Herbert!" cried his master, "will not my lady make a n.o.ble cavalier? She wins honorable wounds; she shall have lance and hauberk, and ride beside me. As for Hossein, what do you say? Be he Moslem or Christian, he has s.h.i.+elded your mistress at risk of life." The man-at-arms scratched the thin hairs on his crown.

"True; perchance I have wronged him. Yet yesterday we could not persuade him to taste a bit of pork, and he has that cast of eye which 'wise women' call malignant."