God Wills It! Part 6

Caesar Manuel hobbled to his feet.

"I do not blame my Lord Richard," said he, curtly; "I only fear lest closer knowledge make him repent your friends.h.i.+p. Most gallant Baron, and you, n.o.ble lady," continued he, bowing in courtly fas.h.i.+on to both, "I am feeble, and my daughter has diverted you enough. With your pardon, let us go to our chambers."

The Baron muttered something to the effect that there was still much wine--a pity to miss it. Mary rose and deliberately allowed Richard to bend and kiss her hand, courtesied before the Baron and his lady, knelt while the half-tipsy bishop hiccoughed out a benediction.

Stately as a queen, she drew herself up, but her last shaft was darted at the Caesar. "Dear father, are you not sorry I am so little contrite?" then to Richard, "And you, my lord, do not forget we go to Palermo!" There was a rustle of her dress; Manuel limped after; three serving-varlets brought up the Greeks' rear. They were gone. Richard started again--looked about. His mother and sister had risen also. The Baron and the bishop had reached that stage of joviality where the holy man was commencing to sing and brandish his flagon. Richard tasted the wine--insipid; how unlike the sweet fire of the cups proffered by the lady! Musa had glided from his revery,--was casting about sharply.

"My head throbs, though I have drunk little," professed the Norman.

"Do you wish more?" Musa shook his head. "Then come upon the battlements; the bishop's bellowing makes one mad."

They mounted through darkened chambers, up dizzy ladders, to the summit of the donjon. It was a murky, cloudy night that greeted them as they emerged from the trap-door and stood alone on the stone-girt platform, with the land and the sea one vague black haze below. No moon, no stars; only a red flash on the ground where the light streamed from a loophole in the great hall. No sound save the faint shouts of the drinkers, echoing from far below, and their own measured footfalls. They paced the platform for a few moments in silence. Then the Norman broke forth in Arabic:--

"Musa, son of Abdallah, we have sworn brotherhood. Our friends.h.i.+p is young: may I put it to a test?"

"My hands, my wits, my head if need be, all yours, my brother,"

replied the Spaniard, never hesitating.

"Help me to gain the hand of this lady!"

Their hands rested on one another's shoulders. Richard felt--but perchance he was wrong--a quiver run through the Moslem; only for an instant, if at all. Very naturally Musa replied:--

"Had you said, 'Kill me this enemy,' how easy to aid you! But to win the lady, what may I do? I am no magician to mix you philters. In her eyes I am only Moslem, and Infidel. She has not learned, as have you Sicilian Normans, that Christian and Moslem may be friends. I would be a sorry pursuivant in your behalf."

Richard was silent; then cried out:--

"_Ai_, it is all madness! I have no need to be told. I set eyes on her first this morning. Holy Mother, what sin is mine that I should be afflicted thus! Never before have I loved a maid so much as my white falcon. Yet were I longing for a drop of water in Purgatory, I could not have greater desire. It is sin; it is madness; I must never see her again, or great sorrow will come of it!"

But Musa pressed his arm closer, and more kindly.

"No," said he, softly, in his rich Spanish accent; "if it is mere fleeting pa.s.sion, it will end; and the upright man is none the worse.

Is it a sin to take delight, when Allah reveals to us what seems a glimmer of Paradise? And as for the future, that lies in the hands of the Most High. Whatever is written in the books of our dooms--what power may withstand? To-day, call it madness, and speak not of it.

To-morrow, if it live, call it pa.s.sion--speak in whispers. A month, a year; call it love--it will speak for itself. It is a fire--all men see it. And who would then hide its brightness?"

"Ah," answered the Norman, "what day is this! How dare I stand and speak thus to you of what I ought to hide even from myself? How long have I known you?"

"How long?" replied the other, dreamily. "Friends.h.i.+ps are made in the heart of Allah. Before the earliest star was created, before He said to the earth, 'Be,' it was destined that friend should be joined to friend, and when two such souls in the body meet face to face, they are not strangers. In each other they see a fellow that they have loved, while they dwelt as thoughts in the bosom of the Eternal."

"Yes," said Richard, caught in the pensive mood of the other, "we are friends. Why? We know not. To what end? A mystery! It is well we both believe G.o.d is good."

"He is good," said Musa, reverently, and they descended.

CHAPTER IV

HOW RICHARD WENT TO PALERMO

The yawning servants had carried the bishop from under the table, long before Baron William that night found the bottom of his last flagon.

Yet early the next morning, none was more nimble and jovial than he.

The Greeks did not come down to the great hall; they were fatigued, said Sylvana the old servant who had adjured Richard to rescue them during the fight. The Caesar's wound was paining him, and he required the care of his daughter. So it was noon before Richard set eyes again on the princess, as she came into the bailey with her father on her arm, to help him into his litter. The bishop was impatient to be away.

What with the clamor of the foot-boys and grooms, and the neighing of impatient steeds, there was little chance for ceremonious leave-taking. The bishop had thanks and blessings for his rescuers and hosts. The Caesar gave a few courtly phrases of grat.i.tude; his daughter bestowed on Lady Margaret and Eleanor each a hearty kiss, and for Richard, one smile from her bright eyes, and the words, "Fail not to wait on us, if you come to Palermo." So the troop started, leaving Richard to stare after them until the cavalcade was a speck on the roadway, and for the rest of the day to resolve many times that to Palermo he would go ere many months be sped.

But in the days that followed he was not idle. First of all the bishop's gift, the great black horse, had to be wrestled into submission; no light task, for the mighty beast would rage like a bull; but in the end the brute was conquered, and "Rollo"--such was his christening--became Richard's boon comrade and second self; dear as those horses whereof the _jongleurs_ sang, that would s.n.a.t.c.h their masters from the midst of a host of foes, or recognize them returning home after seven years, when the riders' own wives had forgotten them.

But this was the least the raid of the Berbers had brought to Richard, for he and Musa became grappled to each other by bonds of friends.h.i.+p that tightened each day. The Spaniard had sealed his grat.i.tude by the gift of a Valencia hauberk, inwrought with gold wire, light almost as velvet, on whose links once the sword of Cid Campeador had turned. And Musa brought also a wonderful chessboard of rock crystal with men of silver, over whose magic squares the Norman was to puzzle many an hour; but beyond all else, Musa brought himself--more a marvel every hour to Richard Longsword. What had he not learned and done! A swordsman whose prowess in the fence tested Richard's utmost skill; a poet whose musical Arabic must have charmed many a fair brunette by the darkling Guadalquiver. He could talk of elixirs, alembics, and horoscopes. The learning of the University of Cordova was his; he could read Greek and Latin, and had a smattering of the Languedoc.

Only a consistent Moslem he was not,--neither going to the mosque on Fridays, nor abstaining from wine nor remembering the fasts; and when Richard asked, "Will you turn Christian?" Musa had replied, laughing, "I am of the rationalist school of the Kalif Mamun,--reason alone is the father of religion; even the commands of Al-Koran are not fetters to bind, when reason directs otherwise."

Richard could only shake his head. Moslems, he was very sure, were likely to scorch in eternal fire, but at least he conceived they ought to be consistent in supporting their superst.i.tion, if they held to it at all. As for himself, when he compared his life and acquirements to Musa's, he grew exceeding humble; born in a camp in Campania, his boyhood spent now in this, now in another Italian or Sicilian castle, from a lad he had learned to wield a sword as became the son of a doughty sire. But he had neither the gentle troubadour's art, as the knights of Provence, nor the deeper lore of the Spaniard. Reading, thanks to Sebastian's patience, he might make s.h.i.+ft with; he could barely scrawl an awkward fist. One accomplishment his south-Italian life gave him: he could speak Greek, Arabic, Latin, the Languedoc, and the Languedoil; but with these and some skill in hawking and jousting his learning ended, and it was small enough.

As day sped into day, Musa was ever at the castle of Cefalu. He had relatives in Palermo who desired him there, and declared the city safe against kidnapper or a.s.sa.s.sin; but he was not tempted to leave the country house of Hajib. The Baron smiled on the friends.h.i.+p; he had long since learned to love infidels, if they were only brave knights; Sebastian alone was all fears and frowns, and had many a wordy tilt with the Spaniard.

"Ah, Richard," cried the chaplain once, when the two friends sat at chess in the great hall, "know you not Holy Church condemns chess as no less perilous to the soul than very dicing?"

And when Richard, despite p.r.i.c.kings of conscience, would not leave the game, Sebastian admonished in private:--

"Remember the words of the Apostle: 'Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what concord hath Christ with Belial?' Be warned; bitter sorrow or perdition will come of this friends.h.i.+p; have you forgotten your vow to slay the unbelievers and free Jerusalem?"

"But we await the will of G.o.d, father," answered Richard, carelessly.

"And the will of G.o.d is that you first cast off these ties of Satan, and make ready for holy warfare, or a.s.suredly G.o.d will remember your sin and punish you." But Richard would not hear. Ever he drew closer to Musa; the reckless paladin Roland and his "sage" friend Oliver were no nearer comrades, and in the after days Longsword likened their love to nothing less than the bonds betwixt David and Jonathan.

Yet Sebastian never forbore his warnings. "Dear son," he said, when Musa was telling his wondering friend of the marvellous mountain of Kaf, which encircles the earth, and whither the Almighty had banished the rebellious genii, "be not seduced by the wisdom which cometh from the Father of Lies. Though Musa called himself Christian (and were not d.a.m.ned already), yet his soul would be lost because of his sinful learning. It was so with Gerbert, whom the Devil even aided to become Pope, yet in the end s.n.a.t.c.hed away his soul; in testimony whereof his bones rattle in their tomb, every time a pope lies nigh to death."

"_Wallah!_" cried the Spaniard, gently, "your mind, friend, is as wide as the bridge Es-Sirat, which bridges h.e.l.l on the road to Heaven,--finer than a hair, sharper than a sword-edge."

"Mock me not, Child of the Devil," retorted the unappeased churchman.

"Nay," was the mild answer, "I am not obstinate. Convince me, satisfy my reason; I will then turn Christian."

"Ah," replied Sebastian, sadly, "have you never heard the words of the holy Anselm of Canterbury, 'Let the intellect submit to authority, when it can no longer agree therewith'?"

Musa shook his head.

"Let us not wrangle to no purpose," said he, extending a frank hand; "our own Prophet commands us, 'Dispute not with those who have received the scriptures'--the Christians and Jews--'save in the mildest manner.' Think not we blaspheme the Son of Mary. No good Moslem speaks His name without adding 'on whom be peace.' We too hold He was born of a pure virgin, by a miracle of G.o.d, and Al-Koran says 'He is the word of G.o.d, and a spirit proceeding out of Him.'"

"Aye," made answer the priest, stripping his arm, and smiling grimly as he pointed to his scars, "and is this not a token of your tolerance and reverence?"

Musa shrugged his shoulders.

"_Mashallah!_ Those Seljouks at Jerusalem are but barbarians. We Arabs love them a little less than we do most Christians!"

"One fire awaits you all," muttered the obdurate priest, withdrawing.

So days sped, and a letter came to Musa from Palermo, from his uncle the great merchant Al-Bukri, the "general syndic" of the capital.

There was promise of patronage and high office with the Fatimite court at Cairo. Would the Spanish knight come down to Palermo for consultation? And Richard vowed loudly he would travel to the city too, only his heart grew sad when Musa spoke of parting and a career in Egypt. "Be not troubled, brother mine," quoth Musa, lightly; "what is fated, is fated; as for my fortune, so far as man may dispose, I say as did once an Egyptian kalif, 'I carry my kingdom here!'" and he slapped the hilt of his cimeter. And Richard, when he thought of what awaited in Palermo, went about with his head in the air. Night and day had the vision of the Greek been before his face. Would he not hew through hosts to possess her? Had he not already won a name and a fame--as a true sprig of the Longswords? Was not the lady in his debt, had she not shown all favor? What hindered him to recount his father's fiefs to Manuel, and say, "Sir, give me your daughter!"

"But the lady may be dowerless," objected old Herbert, who had been Richard's confidant since earliest boyhood; "I have little liking for cat-hearted Greeks who spit, not bite. And I fear the Emperor has snapped up all the exiled Caesar's estates."

"No," was his answer; "I hear that through Venetian merchants, Caesar Manuel saved much ready money. But"--and Richard's voice rose high--"were she mine with only our old Norman dower,--a chaplet of roses and a mother's kiss,--by St. Michael, I swear I would take her; for the tips of her fingers are dearer than red gold!"