The Prince and the Page Part 17

A wonderful place was that Hospital-infirmary, monastery, and castle, all in one, and with a certain Eastern grace and beauty of its own. The deep ma.s.sive walls, heavy towers, and portcullised gateway, were in the most elaborate and majestic style of defensive architecture; and the main building rose to a great height, filled with galleries of small, bare, rigid-looking cells, just large enough for a knight, his pallet, and his armour. Below was a n.o.ble vaulted hall, the walls hung with well-tried hawberks, and s.h.i.+elds and helmets which had stood many a dint; captured crescents and green banners waved as trophies over crooked scymetars and Damascus blades inlaid with sentences from the Koran in gold, and twisted cuira.s.ses rich with barbaric gold and gems; the blazoned arms of the n.o.blest families of France, Spain, England, Germany, and Italy, decked the panels and brightened the windows; while the stone pulpit for the reader showed that it was still a convent refectory.

The chapel was grave and ma.s.sive, but at the same time gorgeous with colouring suited to eyes accustomed to Oriental brightness of hue; the chancel walls were inlaid with the porphyry, jasper, and marble, of exquisite tints, that came from the mountains around; the shrines were touched with gold, and the roofs and vaultings painted with fretwork of unapproachable brilliance and purity of tints; yet all harmonizing together, as only Eastern colouring can harmonize, and giving a sense of rest and coolness.

Within those huge thick walls, whose windows, sunk deep into their solid ma.s.s, only let in threads of jewelled light, under their solemn circular richly carved brows, between those marble pillars; the elder ones, round and solid, with Romanesque mighty strength; the new graceful cl.u.s.ters of s.h.i.+ning blood-red marble shafts, surrounding a slender white one, all banded together with gold, under the vaults of the stone roof, upon the mosaic floor-there was always a still refres.h.i.+ng coolness, like the "shadow of a great rock in a weary land." One transept had a window communicating with the upper room of the Infirmary, so that the sick who there lay in their beds might take part in the services in the chapel.

The outer court, with the great fortified gateway towards the street, was a tilt-yard, where martial exercises took place as in any other castle; but pa.s.s through the great hall to the inner court, of which the chapel formed one side, and where could such cloisters have been found in the West? Their heavy columns and deep-browed arches clinging against the thick walls, afforded unfailing shelter from the sun, and their coolness was increased by the marble of the pavement, inlaid in rich intricate mosaics.

Extending around the interior of the external wall, they enclosed an exquisite Eastern garden, perfumed with flowering shrubs, shady with trees, and lovely with tall white lilies, hollyhocks, purple irises, stars of Bethlehem, and many another Eastern flower, which would send forth seeds or roots for the supply of the trim gardens of Western convents. The soft bubbling of fountains gave a sense of delicious freshness; doves flew hither and thither, and their soft murmuring was heard in the branches; and at certain openings in their foliage might be seen the azure of the Mediterranean, which little John of Dunster persisted in calling too blue-why could it not be a sober proper-coloured sea like his own Bristol Channel?

Richard was very happy here. There was something of the same charm as in modern days is experienced in staying at a college. The brethren were thorough monks in religious observance, but they were also high-bred n.o.bles, and had seen many wild adventures, and hard- fought battles, and moreover, had entertained in turn almost every variety of pilgrim who had visited the Holy Land; so that none could have been found who had more of interest to tell, or more friendly hospitable kindness towards their guests. Richard was a favourite there, not only as a friend of Reginald Ferrers, but as acquainted with the Grand Prior, Sir Robert Darcy, whose memory was still green in Palestine. Tales of his feats of mighty strength still lingered at Acre; how he had held together, by his single arm, the gates of a house in the retreat from Damietta, against a whole troop of Mamelukes, until every Christian had left it on the other side, and then had slowly followed them, not a Moslem daring to attack him; how he had borne off wounded knights on his back, and on sultry marches would load himself with the armour of any one who was exhausted, and never fail to declare it was exactly what he liked best! More than once it had been intimated that Richard de Montfort would be gladly accepted as a brother of the Order; and he often thought over the offer, but not only was he unwilling to separate himself from the Prince, but he felt it needful at any rate to return to England to judge of the condition of his brother Henry, ere becoming one of an Order where he could no longer dispose of himself.

He was resolved never to quit the Prince till he had seen him beyond the reach of any machination of his brother's, nor indeed was it easy to think of parting at all, for Edward, who had relaxed all coldness of manner towards him ever since the affair at Trapani, had now become warmly affectionate and confidential. The Prince was still far from having regained his usual health, his arm was still in a scarf, and was often painful, and the least exposure to the sun brought on violent headache, which some attributed to the poison in the scratch on his forehead, but the Hospitaliers, more reasonably, ascribed to a slight sun-stroke. Their character of infirmarers rendered them especially considerate hosts, and they never overwhelmed their guest with the stiff formalities of courtesy for his rank's sake, but allowed him to follow his inclination, and this led him to spend great part of his time in a pavilion, a thoroughly Eastern erection, which stood in the garden, at the top of the white marble steps leading to a fountain of delicious sparkling water, and sheltered from the sun by the dark solid horizontal branches of a n.o.ble Cedar of Lebanon, which tradition connected with the visit of the Empress Helena. Here, lying upon mats placed on the steps, the convalescent Prince would rest for hours, sometimes holding converse with the Grand Master, or counsel with his visitors from the camp; but more often in the dreamy repose of recovery, silent or talking to Richard of matters that lay deep within his heart; but which, perhaps, nothing but this softening species of waking dream would have drawn from him. He would dwell on those two hero models of his boyhood, so diverse, yet so closely connected together by their influence upon his character, Louis of France, and Simon of Leicester; and of the impression both had left, that judgment, mercy, faith, and the subject's welfare, were the primary duties of a sovereign-an idea only now and then glimpsed by the feudal sovereigns, who thought that the people lived for them rather than they for the people. And when, as in England, the King's good-nature had been abused by swarms of foreign-born relations, who had not even his claims on the people, no wonder the yoke had been galling beyond endurance. Of the end Edward could not bear to think-of the broken friends.h.i.+ps-the enmity of kindred-the faults on either side that had embittered the strife, till he had been forced to become the sword in the hands of the royal party to liberate his father-and with consequences that had so far out-run his powers of controlling them. To make England the land of law, peace, and order, that Simon de Montfort would fain have seen it, was his present aspiration; and then, he said, when all was purified at home, it might yet be permitted to him to return and win back the Holy City, Jerusalem, to the Christian world. In the meantime, as a memorial of this, his earnest longing, he was causing, at great expense and labour, one of the huge stones of the Temple to be transported over the hills, and embarked on board a s.h.i.+p, to carry home with him. Richard, meantime, learnt to know and love his Prince with a more devoted love, if that were possible, and to grieve the more at the persistent hatred of his brothers, who, utterly uncomprehending their father's high purposes themselves, sought blindly to slake their vengeance for the ruin they had themselves provoked, and upon one who mourned him far more truly than they could ever do.

A few days had thus pa.s.sed, when Richard was one day called by his friend, Sir Raynald, into the Infirmary, to speak a few kind words to a dying English pilgrim, who had come from his native country, and confided to him his dearly-purchased palm and scallop sh.e.l.l, to be conveyed to his aged mother.

As Richard was pa.s.sing along the great lofty chamber, two rows of beds were arranged; one of the patients rather hastily, as it seemed to him, enveloped himself in his coverlet, leaving nothing visible but a great black patch which seemed to cover the whole side of his face.

"That is a strange varlet," said Raynald, as they pa.s.sed him; "it is an old wound that the patch covers, not what has brought him here; and what the nature of his ailment may be, not one of our infirmarers can make out; his tongue is purple, and he hath such strange s.h.i.+verings and contortions in all his limbs, that they are at their wits' end, and some hold that he must have undergone some sorcery in his pa.s.sage through the Infidel domains."

"He came from the East, then?" asked Richard.

"Yea, verily. We have many more sick among the returning than the out-going pilgrims."

"And what is his nation?"

"Nay; all the scanty words he hath spoken have been in Lingua Franca, and he hath been in such trances and trembling fits that it hath not been easy to question him. Nor is it our custom to trouble a pilgrim with inquiries."

"How did he enter?" said Richard.

"Brother Antonio found him yester-eve cast down, gasping for breath, by the gate of the Hospital, just able to entreat for the love of St. John to be admitted. He had all the tokens of a pilgrim about him, and seemed better at first, walked l.u.s.tily to bath and bed, and did not show himself helpless; but I much suspect his disease is the work of the Arch Enemy, for he is always at his worst if one of our Brethren in full orders comes near him. You saw how he cowered and hid himself when I did but pa.s.s through the hall. I shall speak to the Preceptor, and see if it were not best to try what exorcism will do."

There was something in all this that made Richard vaguely uneasy. After the recent attack upon the Prince, he suspected all that he did not fully understand; and though in the guarded precincts of the Hospital he had once dismissed his anxiety, it returned upon him in redoubled force. He thought of Nick Dustifoot, but that worthy was of a uniform tint of whitey brown, skin, hair and all; and Richard had a.s.sured himself that the strange patient had black hair and a brown skin, but that was all that he could guess at. The exorcism would, however, be an effectual means of disclosing the "myster wight's" person, and it sometimes included measures so strong, that few pretences could hold out against them. But it was too serious and complicated a ceremony to be got up at short notice; and when they met in the Refectory for supper, Raynald told Richard that the Grand Master intended to make a personal inspection next day, before deciding on using his spiritual weapons.

"And then!" cried John of Dunster, dancing round, "you will let me be there! Pray, good Father, let me be there! Oh, I hope there will be a rare smell of brimstone, and the foul fiend will come out with huge claws, and a forked tail. I don't care to see him if he only comes out like a black crow; I can see crows enough in the trees at Dunster."

"Peace, John; this is no place for idle talk," said Richard gravely.

"Stand aside, here comes the Prince."

The Prince had spent a fatiguing day over the terms of the ten years, ten months, ten weeks, ten days, ten hours, and ten minutes' truce with the Emir of Joppa; he ate little, and after the meal, took Richard's arm, and craved leave from the Grand Master to seek the fresh air beneath the cedar tree. And when there, he could not endure the return to the closeness of his own apartment, but declared his intention of sleeping in the pavilion. He dismissed his attendants, saying he needed no one but Richard, who, since his illness, had always slept upon cus.h.i.+ons at his feet.

Where was Richard?

He presently appeared, carrying on one arm a mantle, and over the other shoulder the Prince's immense two-handled sword; while his own sword was in his belt. Leonillo followed him.

"How now!" said Edward, "are we to have a joust? Dost look for phantom Saracens out of yonder fountain, such as my Dona tells me rise out of the fair wells in Castille, wring their hands and pray for baptism?"

"You said your hand should keep your head, my Lord," said Richard; "this is but a lone place."

"What! amid all the guards of the good Fathers! Well, old comrade," as he took his sword in his right hand; "I am glad to handle thee once more, and I hope soon to grasp thee as I am wont, with both hands. Lay it down, Richard. There-thanks-that is well. I wonder what my father would have thought if one of his many crusading vows had led him hither. Should we ever have had him back again? How well this dreamy leisure would have suited him! It would almost make a troubadour of a rough warrior like me. See the towers and pinnacles against the sky, and the lights within the windows-and the stars above like lamps of gold, and the moons.h.i.+ne sparkling on the bubbles of the water, ever floating off, yet ever in the same place. Were the good old man here, how peacefully would he sing, and pray, and dream, free from debts, parliament and barons. Ah! had his kinsmen let him keep his vow, it had been happier for us all."

So mused the Prince, and with a weary smile resigned himself to rest.

But Richard was too full of vague uneasiness to sleep. He could not dismiss from his mind the thought of the unknown pilgrim, and was resolved to relax no point of vigilance until the full investigation should have satisfied him that his fears were unfounded. He had been accustomed to watching and broken rest during the Prince's illness, and though he durst not pace up and down for fear of disturbing the sleeper-nay, could hardly venture a movement-he strained his eyes into the twilight, and told his beads fervently; but sleep hung on him like a spell, and even while sitting upright there were strange dreams before him, and one that he had had before, though with a variation. It was the field of Evesham once more; but this time the strange pilgrim rose in his dark wrappings before him, and suddenly developed into that same shadowy form of his father, who again struck him on the shoulder with his sword, and dubbed him again "The Knight of Death."

Hark! there was a growl from Leonillo; a footstep, a dark figure-the pilgrim himself! Richard shouted aloud, grasped at his sword, and flung himself forward.

"Montfort's vengeance!" The sound rang in his ears as a sharp pang thrilled through his side; the hot blood welled up, and he was dashed to the ground; but even in falling he heard the Prince's "What treason is this?" and felt the rising of the mighty form. At the same moment the murderer was in the grasp of that strong right hand, and was dragged forward into the full light of the lamp that hung from the roof of the pavilion.

"Thou!" he gasped. "Who-what?"

"Richard!" exclaimed the Prince, and relaxing his hold, "Simon de Montfort, thou hast slain thy brother!"

The sudden shock and awe had overwhelmed Simon, who was indeed weaponless, since his dagger remained in Richard's wound. He silently a.s.sisted the Prince in lifting Richard to the cus.h.i.+ons of the couch, and the low groan convinced them that he lived: looked anxiously for the wound. The dagger had gone deep between the ribs, and little but the haft could be seen.

"Poisoned?" Edward asked, looking up at Simon.

"No. It failed once. He may live," said Simon, with bent brows and folded arms.

"No, no. My death-blow!" gasped Richard, with sobbing breath. "Best so, if-Oh, could I but speak!"

The Prince raised him, supporting his head on his own broad breast and shoulder, and signed to Simon to hold to his lips the cup of water that stood near. Richard slightly revived, and in this posture breathed more easily.

"He might yet live. Call speedy aid!" said the Prince, who seemed to have utterly forgotten that he was practically alone with his persevering and desperate enemy.

"Wait! Oh, wait!" cried Richard, holding out his hand; "it would be vain; but it will be all joy did I but know that there will be no more of this. Simon, he loved my father-he has spared thee again and again."

"Simon," said the Prince, "for this dear youth's sake and thy father's, I raise no hand against thee. Bitter wrong has been done to thy house, by what persons, and how provoked, it skills not now to ask. Twice thy fury has fallen on the guiltless. Enough blood has been shed. Let there be peace henceforth."

Simon stood moody, with folded arms, and Richard groaned, and essayed to speak.

"Peace, boy," tenderly said Edward; "and thou, Simon, hear me. I loved thy father, and knew the upright n.o.ble spirit that arrayed him against us. Heaven is my witness that I would have given my life to have been able to save him on yon wretched battle-field. But he fell in fair fight, in helm and corselet, like a good knight. Peace be with him! Surely in this land of pardon and redemption his son and nephew may cease to seek one another's blood for his sake! Cheer thy brother by letting him feel his brave deed hath not been fruitless. Free thou shalt go-do what thou wilt; no word of mine shall betray that this deed is thine."

"Lay aside thy purpose," entreated Richard. "Bind him by oath, my Lord."

"Nay," said the Prince. "Here, on foreign soil, the strife lies between the cousins, the sons of Henry and of Eleanor; and if Simon must needs still slake his revenge in my blood, he may have better success another time. Or, so soon as I can wear my armour again, I offer him a fair combat in the lists, man to man; better so than staining his soul with privy murder-but I had far rather that it should be peace between us-and that thou shouldst see it." And Edward, still supporting Richard on his breast, held out his right hand to Simon, adding, "Let not thy brother's blood be shed in vain."

Richard made a gesture of agonized entreaty.

"My father-my father!" he said. "He forgave-he hated blood; Simon, didst but know-"

"I see," said Simon impatiently, "that Heaven and earth alike are set against my purpose. Fear not for his days, Richard, they are safe from me, and here is my hand upon it."

The tone was sullen and grudging, and Richard looked scarcely comforted; but the Prince was in haste that he should be succoured at once, and even while receiving Simon's unwilling hand, said, "We lose time. Speed near enough to the Spital to be heard, and shout for aid. Then seek thine own safety. I will say no more of thy share in this matter."

Simon lingered one moment. "Boy," he said, "I told thee thou wast over like him. Live, live if thou canst! Alas! I had thought to make surer work this time; but thou dost pardon me the mischance?"

"More than pardon-thank thee-since he is safe," whispered Richard, and as Simon bent over him the boy crossed his brow, and returned a look of absolute joy.

Simon sped away; and the Prince, when left alone with Richard, put no restraint upon the warmth of his feelings, and his tears fell fast and freely.

"Boy, boy," he said; "I little thought thou wast to bear what was meant for me!" And then, with tenderness that would have seemed foreign to his nature, he inquired into the pain that Richard was suffering, tried to make his position more easy, and lamented that he could not venture to draw out the weapon until the leeches should come.