God Wills It! Part 16

"Sir Richard Longsword," spoke the Count, "you have won after such sword-play as I have never seen before. De Valmont's life is yours, if still he lives. Yet if you will, kill not--though he promised you small mercy. For he is a gallant Cavalier, and proved to-day a mighty knight, though no victor."

"And I," returned Longsword, under his helm, "give him his life. Let him live--live to remember how Richard of Cefalu humbled him before the eyes of Mary Kurkuas!"

So he turned to walk to the end of the lists, but others swarmed about him; Musa foremost, who unlaced his casque in a trice, and kissed him heartily on one cheek, while Herbert croaked and shed great bull tears on the other. Prince Tancred ran down to him, and many n.o.bles more, while Baron William and his dame sat very stately in their lodge, their hearts full, but saying nothing--a thousand eyes upon them.

Count Roger had turned to Mary:--

"My princess, I too must speak with this new paladin; and you need have no shame to go with me."

The Greek's forehead was very red; but while her words were hanging on her tongue, a serving-lad from Monreale touched her mantle:--

"Gracious mistress--my lord, the Caesar Manuel, is newly stricken, and lies very low. He sends for you."

Mary bowed to the Count:--

"My lord, you see it is impossible for me to go to Sir Richard. Yet tell him I have prayed long he might have no hurt. And now I must go to my father."

So Roger went down alone, and led the great throng that swept around the victor as amid the din of harps, viols, and kettledrums uncounted they bore him to his tent. Few saw the squires that carried Louis de Valmont away. He still breathed. A Saracen physician said he was fearfully smitten, but that life was strong within him, and he would live. But who then cared for the fate of the vanquished?

They bore Richard back to Palermo in high procession. All the knights swore that he had outdone all the cavaliers of the tourney, and must receive the chief prize. A great banquet and dance was held at the castle; the halls rang with music and the clink of wine-cups; the floors shook beneath a thousand twinkling feet. The young knights to prove their hardihood danced in the armor worn all day,--chain mail jingling in time to the castanets. The _jongleurs_ sang new _chansons_; the ladies blazed in brighter silks and velvet; a myriad flambeaux flickered over all. Only Mary Kurkuas was not there, nor was Emir Iftikhar, delight of the ladies. To Richard and to Musa there were homage and flattery enough to addle wiser wits than theirs.

Richard danced till the morn was paling, despite two great welts on his forehead. Two young ladies--"flowers of beauty," the _jongleurs_ cried--brought to him the prize of honor, a s.h.i.+eld set with jewels and blazoned with four stripes of gold. Each added to her pleasant words a kiss. In truth, not a cavalier's daughter there that night would have said nay to Richard Longsword, had he prayed for anything. When at full dawn he fell asleep, it was to dream of gallant sword-play, throbbing music, and bright eyes, but the eyes were always those of Mary Kurkuas.

CHAPTER X

HOW IFTIKHAR SAID FAREWELL TO SICILY

Richard Longsword spent the winter in Palermo. There had come a letter oversea from his grandfather, old Baron Gaston of St. Julien in Auvergne, beseeching his daughter to send to France her son, who, fame had it, was a mighty cavalier. He was needed to set right his barony, for he himself grew weak and his va.s.sals quarrelsome. But though Richard's eyes danced when he thought of France, and he won from Musa a pledge to postpone any Egyptian service till the new adventure was well over, he lingered in Sicily. For the life of Caesar Manuel that winter ebbed fast. In early spring came a stately dromon streaming with purple flags, to bear him back to Constantinople, and a great letter in vermilion ink sealed with gold, pledging the favor of Alexius to his "dear cousin," and entreating his return to the palace by the Golden Gate. But on the day the imperial messenger landed, they were bearing Manuel Kurkuas to his last rest. The Greek Bishop of Palermo was there, also Count Roger, Tancred, and many seigneurs. Then when it was over, and Mary had seen all and done all, with the white face and dry eyes of those true women who can weep for little things but not for great, she found herself alone in the world and utterly desolate. The house of Kurkuas had been a decaying stock. Even at Constantinople her relatives were distant. Only in Provence, at La Haye, dwelt her uncle, whom she had never seen,--brother of her long-dead mother. Either she must go to him or return to Constantinople, where were many ministers and admirers, but only the Princess Anna to be her true friend. Yet Mary would not leave Monreale. The Palace of the Diadem was hers. All day long she would sit in its twilight courts beside the fountain, reading or trying to read, with only Sylvana for companion. When Richard or Musa went each day to ask for her, she would send kind greetings; but said she could not see them. Sylvana, however, was a wise woman as became her years; and one day, behold! Musa was led into the court of the fountain unheralded, and the princess must needs speak with him.

"Ah! Sir Spaniard," said she, with a wan smile, "for my father's memory I would have bidden you stay away. I am in no mood for your songs of the orange groves by the Darro. Yet"--and here flashed forth her old arch brightness--"now that Sylvana has circ.u.mvented me, I am very glad you are here!"

Musa smiled sweetly and gravely.

"Dear lady, would that all your sorrows were but monsters, that I might slay them. What may I proffer you,--music? But your heart is too heavy. Words? The lips are but unskilful revealers of the soul. And mine,"--he added with a sincere glance, "is very full for you."

"Do as you will!" cried the lady, suddenly; "say as you will. Look! My father is dead; at Constantinople I have few that love me. What matters it what befall me? I am alone--alone; and to whom am I a care?"

"Brightness of the Greeks," replied the Andalusian, "say not, you are alone; say not, you are a care to none. To me you are a friend, and"--he went on quite steadily--"much more than a friend to another."

And Mary looked at him very steadily also, when she replied: "It is true. When Richard Longsword comes to me, I will have something to say."

Musa rode from Monreale at a racing gallop that afternoon. All the staid Moslem burghers stared at him as he pounded up the city streets; and just as the sun was sinking Richard Longsword was leaping from the steaming Rollo without the gate at the Palace of the Diadem. When Bardas led him within, he heard the princess's little wind-organ throbbing and quavering. He stood in the court, and saw her bending over the keys, while all the silver pipes were ringing. The notes, marked red and green on the parchment, were spread before her. Sylvana had her hand on the bellows, as her mistress sang the mad old pagan chorus of Euripides:--

"O Eros, O Eros, how melts love's yearning From thine eyes when the sweet spell witcheth the heart Of them against whom thou hast marched in thy might!

Not me, not me, for mine hurt do thou smite, My life's heart-music to discord turning.

For never so hotly the flame-spears dart, Nor so fleet are the star-shot arrows of light, As the shaft from thy fingers that speedeth its flight, As the flame of the Love-queen's bolts fierce burning, O Eros, the child of Zeus who art!"

Richard stepped softly across the rugs. The bell-like voice died away, the organ notes wandered, were still. Mary rose from the music.

Flushed indeed was her face, but her voice was steady.

"I have sent for you, Sir Richard!" she said. "I am glad you have come."

But Richard, foolish fellow, had run to her, and crushed her to his breast in his giant arms, and was trying to say something with his lips very near to hers. And Mary felt his touch and kiss as blest as a heaven-sent fire.

"O sweetest of the sweet!" he was crying, "what have I done that I should have such joy? For one such touch from you, I would have beaten down a thousand De Valmonts."

"And do you think, Richard," said she, piteously, "that all I love in you is this?"--and she pressed her hand around the knotted muscles of his arm. Then she began to weep and laugh at once, and they both wept and laughed, like the children that they were; and Sylvana smiled softly to her sly old self, and bore away the organ.

"And what was in your heart, Mary," cried the Norman, when he found a steady tongue, "that night when you held the goblet to my lips at Cefalu?"

"And what was in yours when you drank? Oh, I was all madness that night. I said to myself, 'Here is the kind of man I would fain be born,--with a twinkling eye and an arm like iron.' Had not my father's gaze been on me, St. Theodore knows what I would have done! What with your head so close to mine, and the wild deeds of the day making us as friends for a thousand years! But now," and she began to laugh again softly, "you will have to tame me a great deal. I may look a wood-dove, but I have the heart of a hawk. It will be a long time before I can be content to obey any one;" then with a naughty toss of her pretty head,--"even you."

"Ah!" exclaimed Richard, "it is I that need the taming; I, whose wits are in my hands, who love the ring of good steel better than all Musa's roundelays."

"Let us not settle too much of the future," answered she, pertly; "we shall perhaps know each other better as time speeds." So they twittered and laughed, till long after the last bird-song had died into silence, the last bulbul had folded his weary head under a wing.

A full moon was overhead when Richard swung onto the back of Rollo.

His lips were still sweet with the nectar of a warm kiss; the wind was just creeping over the orange grove, which was whispering softly. Here and there the fireflies flashed out tiny beacons. Rollo threw up his great muzzle, and shook his raven mane, as if he knew, rascal that he was, of the joy in his master's heart. Then, swift as the north wind he flew toward Palermo, and for Richard, as he rode, the night shone as a summer's morn.

The gossips at Palermo bandied the tale about, almost before those concerned in it knew it themselves. No one marvelled; all said that Richard Longsword had fairly won his prize, and Mary Kurkuas would never have shame for her lord. Only the Emir Iftikhar communed darkly with his own heart, and with certain sworn followers of his in the Saracen guard. The good syndic Al-Bakri was a mighty newsmonger. A certain neighbor brought him a story; he in turn dealt it out to Musa; and the Spaniard gave Richard Longsword strong reasons for wearing his Valencia mail s.h.i.+rt under his bleaunt. Baron William had returned to Cefalu. But when a letter came from his son, the seigneur sent straightway, bidding Richard come home, and bring with him Mary Kurkuas, who it was not meet should remain alone, with only Sylvana and the serving-men and maids at Monreale. Richard, hasty mortal, would have had her to church before setting out. But Mary shook her head. The turf was not yet green over the grave of the Caesar, and she owed a duty to her mother's kinsfolk in Provence. If Richard was to go to Auvergne, she would go with him to La Haye, the barony of her uncle, and there might be the wedding. So with Sylvana as duenna, away they went to Cefalu. There dear Lady Margaret opened her heart wide to the motherless Greek; and they spent many a merry day, with guests and good company coming from far and near to drink at the Baron's board, and to pledge the health of "the peerless lady, Mary Kurkuas, the fairest of her age in all Sicily and France." Day after day Richard and Mary rode forth together; for the Greek was as mad a rider as though born on the saddle. The white falcon was on her wrist; they chased the luckless quarry over thicket and brake, while Longsword laughed as he saw how Mary dashed beside him. And there were long evenings, when in the soft gloaming, and no other was near, they could sit in Lady Margaret's bower outside the castle walls, with the sleeping flowers clinging all about, and a little stream tumbling gently in the ravine below. Here every breath was eloquence, every word a poem, and the voice of Mary sweeter than Musa's lute. Only Mary,--for Richard was all blind these days,--noticed that Musa and Herbert were ever watchful; that Musa always insisted that his friend wear the Valencia s.h.i.+rt; that even when the lovers rode off seemingly alone, there would be Musa or Herbert or Nasr riding within bowshot.

All the castle had opened its heart to Mary,--even Sebastian; though the churchman did not capitulate without a struggle.

"Lady," said he once to her, "you Greeks are in peril of your souls.

You communicate with leavened, not unleavened, bread, for which you may all go to perdition; and in your creed you do omit _Filioque_, in speaking of the Holy Ghost, which I do conceive is the sin whereof Our Lord speaks, saying, 'He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal d.a.m.nation.' And for this sin Pope Leo Third had your patriarch excommunicated, and delivered over to be buffeted by Satan."

But Mary only answered very gravely:--

"Are not men created in G.o.d's image?"

"Certainly, daughter," replied Sebastian, soberly.

"And is Nasr, the abominable devil-visaged Saracen here, a man?"

"A man," began poor Sebastian, wavering, "yet created for--"

"Surely," cried Mary, cutting him short, "G.o.d has a strange image, if it is like Nasr. Unless, indeed, he be of the race Vergilius the heretical philosopher describes: born in the Antipodes, not descended from Adam, and for whom no Redeemer died."

"Daughter, daughter," protested Sebastian.

"Do not be angry," came the reply, "only I will answer for my heresy when you explain concerning Nasr." And with this Sebastian was content to drop the encounter.

Then of a sudden came a day when the even flow of life at Cefalu was rudely shaken. Richard and Mary had ridden with some retinue to games which Baron William's neighbor, the Lord of Pollina, had been holding.