God Wills It! Part 40

Rollo, great steed, endured the thirst with a quiet fort.i.tude that let him survive when half the cavaliers of the army were bestriding mules and oxen. Sebastian, too, bore up, shrewdly remarking, as was his way, that his life of fast and abstinence had advantages in this world as well as in the world to come. Herbert, too, seemed unconquerable; but what with the losses at Dorylaeum and the thirst, Richard saw his company thinned in a way to make his heart sick, even had this been all.

Finally, one day, when the last watercourse was dried up and death stared all in the face, certain knights saw their dogs slinking into camp, and behold, sand on their coats and mud on paws! Keen eyes tracked them; and, hid behind the bleak mountains, the searchers found a river, broad, still, stately, sweeping through its narrow gorge.

Hither rushed all the host, soldier and beast. Had the Seljouks been by then, they could have slain their foes to a man, for the Christians forgot all save water--water!--sweeter, more precious, than spiced wine. They drank till from very surfeit they fell down stricken; and three hundred died, slain by the element of life.

This was the end of the great horror. They found new streams; the parching valleys began to sprinkle with green; they saw once more fields and trees and vineyards. "I, the Lord, will open rivers in high places and fountains in the midst of valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water;" so repeated good Bishop Adhemar, the father of the army; and all who heard cried "Amen." And the cry was again, "G.o.d wills it! To Jerusalem!" not despairing now, but rejoicing, confident; for after so great a trial to their faith, need the Most High prove them more? Then the march quickened, the _jongleurs_ played merrily, there were jests and tales around the camp-fires; and they began to hope for one more pa.s.sage-at-arms with the infidel before taking the Holy City--as if Heaven had not saved them once already! Yet there was a tone of sadness in the host, for the line was much shorter now. Where was he who had left no friend on those burning sands or at Dorylaeum? Troopers were trudging on foot; extra arms and baggage had been thrown to the wolves long ago; not a man in the army that had not grown a dusty beard. Once when Richard polished his s.h.i.+eld so that it shone as a mirror, he saw his face upon it. He scarce knew himself, what with the stiff beard and the fresh scars of the battle, and those lines drawn above the eyes.

"_Heh_," cried he, forcing a jest to Theroulde, who sat by the tent mending a crossbow, "how would the fair ladies at Palermo who danced with me after the tourney regard me now?"

Theroulde tugged at the hairs on his own chin.

"If we see no razor ere long, fair lord, we may swear by our beards as did Charlemagne, were they but whiter, and, as the song has it, of two hundred years' growth."

"Verily," answered Richard, making s.h.i.+ft to keep a merry face, "I think I have lived two hundred years in the past month; and if troubles make white hairs, the saints know I am like to become most venerable."

Theroulde said no more, and Richard, looking into the s.h.i.+eld, thought in his heart, "Were Mary to see me now, would she still love me?"

But the answer came, "Though your face were changed black as an Ethiopian's, yet she would love you!" Then the further thought, at which Richard's soul grew black as night: "Should he never--never in this world--set eyes on Mary again? Why had G.o.d dealt with him thus?

Why should she suffer for his sin,--even if it had not been purged at Clermont?" Each day Richard's face grew more terrible; men feared him and praised his holy zeal against the infidels.

Thus the host came to the pleasant city of Antiochetta. Time would fail to tell of all their later troubles: how Tancred and Baldwin, brother of G.o.dfrey, took Tarsus and quarrelled over its mastery; how Baldwin seized Edessa and founded there a princ.i.p.ality; how the great army trudged its weary way across Lycaonia and mounted the rugged steeps of the "Mountain of the Devil." Many a stout man-at-arms died by the way, of sheer weariness; but the host pressed on. "G.o.d wills it! To Jerusalem!" was still the cry, and the ranks closed up.

Then leaving Marash and descending Taurus, they met new foes: no more Turks, but bronzed Arabs on roe-limbed steeds, men armed with cimeters of Damascus, and bright with the silks and cottons of Ispahan and Bussorah. Richard was a busy scout-master now, for he and the few other Christians who came from Sicily alone could speak the Arabic, and need not trust to uncertain interpreters. So he rode before the host with his forty knights, no spirit madder than he,--a very St.

George when he fell upon the Moslems.

When they were close to Artesia on their way to invest Antioch, several Arab riders fell into Richard's hands, and he put to them the inevitable question:--

"Dogs,--can you tell me if Iftikhar Eddauleh, one time emir in Sicily, is in Syria, and where did he part company with Kilidge Arslan?"

And the men answered, all trembling:--

"Mercy, O Cid! Your slaves only know that the Emir Iftikhar is great among the Ismaelians. Report has it that he has now gone to Alamont to see his lord Ha.s.san-Sabah."

"And you know nothing--nothing--" words spoken with awful intensity--"of a certain Christian lady, his captive?"

The men saw he had gladly paid them their weight in gold, if they could have told aught; but they dared not lie.

"Nothing, lord;--we are of the following of Yaghi-Sian of Antioch, and know of the Emir Iftikhar only by name."

"_Fiat voluntas Tua_," muttered Richard, and he sent the prisoners to the rear to be further questioned by Duke G.o.dfrey. But he was more reckless now in the forays and skirmishes than ever. All men said he was seeking death; and Sebastian gave him warning:--

"Son, you are a chosen warrior of Our Lord. His cause is not served by throwing your life away. Beware lest, in running into peril, you do great sin!"

"Ah, father!" was the response, "what have I left save to slay as many infidels as I can and die! Yet you are right; die I must not, until I have struck down Iftikhar Eddauleh and avenged--" but he did not speak the name.

The next day Richard led his men under the city of Aleppo, and scattered some of the best of the light horse of Redouan, the local emir. But the walls were high. Report had it there was plunder in the palaces without the walls; some of the knights wished to attack. "We fight for Christ, not for gold and jewels!" said Richard, sternly, and led away.

And now they were in Syria. Before them lay a rolling green country, fairer than Sicily even,--a deeper blue, a brighter sun, than in Provence. The warm wind bore to them the sniff of the sand-dunes, spiced groves, and genii's islands far to southward. They trod a strange soil, strange flowers underfoot, strange birds in the air, strange leaves on the trees. All the suns.h.i.+ne, however, did not brighten Richard Longsword. Gone! Parents, brother, sister,--ah, G.o.d!

wife also, and only knightly honor and revenge left. Let him slay Iftikhar and see the cross above Jerusalem, and then! but he fought back the black thoughts, as he had many a time before. Day and night he rode at the head of his men, who whispered his bones were steel, he was so tireless.

Then the host drew close to the great city of Antioch, the first Moslem stronghold to resist since the fall of Nicaea. And n.o.ble adventure awaited when the Norman Duke led the van to force the "Iron Bridge" which spanned the Orontes, key to the northern approach of the city. Long and stoutly did Yaghi-Sian's horse-archers and infantry dispute the pa.s.sage, but Robert's mad knights swept all before them.

"With an hundred and thirty knights Roger won all Sicily at Ceramis!"

cried the valorous Duke. "Shall we fail now with St. Michael and Our Lady to aid?"

So forward it was; and the Saracens heard the great "_G.o.d wills it!_"

rolling down the Christian line,--that battle-cry which made the fight blaze tenfold fiercer, and which infidels so learned to dread. A great victory, but something better for Richard. In the press he and De Valmont fought side by side; and when a sling-stone laid Louis p.r.o.ne, Longsword had stood above him, covering with his s.h.i.+eld, and saved the Auvergner from the tramplings of friend or foe. Then when they cried "Victory!" and the scared infidels raced for their lives to get behind the walls, Richard bore Louis to his own tent; for the Auvergner's was far to the rear.

"Ah, Richard," said De Valmont, when they had pitched after the battle, "you would not have stood above me thus in Sicily."

"No, fair knight," answered Richard, frankly; "but G.o.d has seen the sins of us both, and we are rewarded."

"Come," cried the Provencal, firing, for he had a good heart under a haughty sh.e.l.l; "we swore forgiveness at Clermont; let us swear brotherhood, for we know each other now. We both are valiant men; we two fought with honor at least, though to my cost,--shall we not be as strong in friends.h.i.+p as in hate?"

So Richard took the Auvergner's hand, and gave him the kiss, not of peace, but of brotherhood. And when Sebastian, coming by, saw them, he smiled:--

"You do well, dear sons, for two friends have the strength of four apart, and true affection is of G.o.d!"

As soon as Louis was well enough to ride once more, the twain were ever together. And the companions.h.i.+p of Louis was an unspeakable boon; for to one whom he held his equal, De Valmont was a frank, open-hearted, merry-tongued fellow, the very comrade to chase off the imps of gloom that had of late encamped round Longsword's soul. But as they scoured the country, bringing in forage and seeking news of the enemy, Richard always had the same question for any prisoners:--

"Do you know aught of the Emir Iftikhar Eddauleh?" And when they told him no, he was most likely to give a nod to Herbert, which meant that the captives' heads were forfeit. Louis pitied him from the bottom of his soul.

"Dear friend," said the Provencal once, when they waited without Duke G.o.dfrey's tent to report a skirmish, "you let this loss of Mary Kurkuas eat your heart away. Believe me, I loved her once as much as you, and yet--" here he laughed at memory of his own discomfiture--"I am still a very merry man. Are you angry?" Richard shook his head.

"Then hear me out. Your Greek beauty was a very _fee_, as Roland's Aude. But hers are not the only bright eyes and red cheeks in the world. Cannot the Lord of St. Julien have the best and the fairest?--in Sicily, in France, in Syria? Mark what I have done,--my heiress in Toulouse could hold her head beside the Greek, and no shame to either. Say to yourself, 'The saints are unkind; I will not let them make me pout forever. Another cast of the dice, and better fortune--'" But here he stopped, for on the face of Richard was, not indeed rage, but a darkening of pa.s.sion that Louis knew he had scarce dreamed of. And Richard answered very gently:--

"Sweet knight, we have sworn brotherhood; I know you speak out of the goodness of your heart. When you say, 'Once I loved Mary Kurkuas as much as you,' and then boast your happiness, and add that she is not alone fair, you show but this,--you loved her eyes and her hair, but not her true self, as do I. As for what more you say, I only answer thus: I have sworn that henceforth I will look in love on no woman, if not on her, but will fight as best I can for G.o.d and Holy Church, and trust that after the sacred city is taken Our Lord will admit me into His peace. Till then let me be a good friend, and as merry as I may."

While he spoke, the tent doors flapped aside, and Duke G.o.dfrey himself strode forth. There was strength and joy by merely glancing into the eyes of that n.o.ble man. He put his hand on the shoulder of Richard, and said as a father to his son: "Richard de St. Julien, fear not that G.o.d is unmindful of your sorrow and prayers. We all, who love and honor you, have shared your grief, and He who loves you more than we, must share the most. Be strong, and either He will give you the desire of your heart, or you shall enter into the peace no mortal man may know." There was a ring and sweetness in the words of the mighty Duke which no priest could fuse into his speech, for Richard knew that G.o.dfrey himself had walked through the moil and toil of life, and was crowned already victor.

"I will trust in G.o.d!" he said, when he left the Duke.

At his tent he sat a long time with Louis over some rare wine they had taken that day; called for a backgammon board, and played against Louis, winning seven games running. Herbert, who was standing by, was glad when he heard his lord give a hearty, unforced laugh--not of the fearful kind which had been his custom before. When Richard prayed that night, he put forth a new pet.i.tion: "Master, if I have been chastened sufficiently, and it is Thy will, grant that I may see Musa once more, for next to one whom clearly Thou willest I should not possess, I desire him beyond all the world."

And this prayer he repeated night after night. Louis de Valmont was grown a dear friend,--but the Spaniard! Richard never dreamed of making the Auvergner a rival. "Musa! Musa!" The longing to see him was too deep for words.

CHAPTER XXVIII

HOW RICHARD REGAINED HIS BROTHER

When the Christians sat down before Antioch in the autumn time, the delights of the country--the abundance of provisions and drink, the dark eyes of the sinful Syrian maids who swarmed to the camp--made the Franks intent on everything save warfare. The ma.s.sy walls mocked all storming; and though Bohemond blockaded from the east by the Gate of St. Paul, Count Hugh on the north, and G.o.dfrey and Raymond on the northeast, the south was open to every wind, and provisions entered the city freely. Much ado had Richard to keep discipline amongst his own men. "My merry masters," said he once, when even De Carnac clamored for a carouse over some skins of heady Laodicean, "whether we see the heavenly or the earthly Jerusalem, let us see it with pure hearts and pure bodies." And with Trenchefer he slit all the wine-skins. So that night, at least, the St. Julieners kept sober.

But the tide soon turned. A miserable winter it was; chill rains; the ill-placed camps swimming in water. Swords rusted in a night. There was hardly an hour when the heavens did not pour down their floods, until scarce a dry back was in the army. And as the floods continued, the provisions, once squandered so recklessly, began to fail.

Longsword rode forth with Bohemond and Robert the Norman to sweep the country, and too often met only roving Saracen horse, who gave them hard blows and little booty. Then at last came the inevitable pursuer,--pestilence! and men began to die by scores; their faith all gone, cursing G.o.d and the saints, and the folly that drove them from lovely France on a fool's own errand. Evil tidings came in daily.

Sweno the Dane, it was told, who was leading fifteen hundred hors.e.m.e.n across Cappadocia, had been overwhelmed by the Seljouks. And other ill news flowed fast as the rain torrents. Even the stoutest began to think more for their own lives than for ever seeing the Holy City.

Some fled to Baldwin at Edessa; others to Cilicia. Duke Robert went to Laodicea, and only returned when admonished thrice in the name of Our Lord. William de Melun, the mightiest battle-axe in the whole army, fled away,--the infidels he did not fear, but who was proof against famine?