"He has not, Cid Richard, and with good reason. I met your messenger and killed him."
"Killed him!" the word went round the circle with a shiver, through braver hearts than those of the maids; for there was an uncanny light in the hunchback"s eye, that made the boldest chary.
"a.s.suredly," continued Zeyneb, holding up his hands. "I met him on the road, a simple fellow; it was dark; he could not recognize; the dagger pa.s.sed under the fifth rib; he gave one cry."
"_Maledicte!_" exclaimed Sebastian, crossing himself. "Have we here the very devil in human guise?"
"Be he man or devil," protested Hardouin, with a great oath, "he shall find the pit more joysome than the dungeons of La Haye."
"Pardon," replied Zeyneb, looking about unflinchingly, and speaking very good Languedoc. "You will find you have no power at all. You cannot slay me--"
"Cannot?" flew from Hardouin.
"Truly," was the calm answer. "All things are in the hand of G.o.d.
Without His will you can do nothing."
"Silence, blasphemer!" thundered Sebastian, smiting the dwarf on the mouth. "Who are you to utter G.o.d"s name?"
"I?" retorted Zeyneb, a little proudly, holding up his head. "I? Know, Christian, that we Ismaelians are chosen by G.o.d Himself to execute His will. Our sovereign here below says to us, "Do this," and we do it, knowing that no harm can befall, save as it is foreordained by the Most High."
"Away! Away to the dungeon!" raged Hardouin; "to-morrow you shall have cause to remember your sins!"
Strong hands were on Zeyneb"s shoulders, but he almost writhed out of them, and stood before Richard.
"_Ya!_ Cid Richard; thrice now have I sought your ending. Well--Allah preserves you! Sometimes death is sweeter than life. Would you have me tell of what befell at Cefalu? I saw your mother die, your brother, your father, your sister--"
"Away!" roared Longsword, "or I shall kill him, and he will escape too mercifully."
The men-at-arms tugged Zeyneb down the dark stairs. Herbert had him very tightly by the scruff.
"_Ai_, my dear fellow," the veteran was croaking, "tell me why you were at La Haye after your adventure at Clermont."
"Because I knew your master would come hither as sure as a dog sniffs out a bone. My lord Iftikhar had said to me, "See that Richard Longsword troubles no longer," and I had bowed and answered, "Yes, master, on my head." Therefore I came to Auvergne, and when Allah did not favor, to Provence."
"Where Allah has mightily favored!" chuckled the man-at-arms.
"_Heh_, fellow," grunted a second guard, "I have seen you before lurking about. By the Ma.s.s, I wish then I had slit your weasand." And the grasp on Zeyneb tightened.
"I owe you no grudge, gentle Franks," quoth the dwarf, as they pushed back the door of a cell that was all dust and murk. "Allah requite you! Greet Richard Longsword and the right n.o.ble Mary Kurkuas; I shall meet both, I trust, in Palestine, whither they wish to go."
"Ha!" growled Herbert, driving him in with a mighty kick. "To-morrow, to-morrow!--Double fetter! Remember your good deeds, if you have any."
And so they left him; yet Herbert, for all his jests, could not shake off the strange horror that smote him when he recalled the dwarf"s gleaming black eyes, and that direful laugh.
Richard had gone to Mary, who was lying in the ladies" bower, a long, brightly tapestried chamber, with here and there a tier of saints or knights in stiff, shadeless fresco. The couch lay by the grated window that commanded a broad sweep of the fair land. As he entered, one of the maids rose from beside her mistress, bearing away the silver bowl of lavender water. Mary"s long brown hair lay scattered over the silken pillows, the sun making dark gold of every tress. She was pale; but smiling, and very happy.
Richard knelt and spoke not a word, while he put the soft hair to his lips and kissed it. Then he said gently:--
"Ah! sweet life, I feel all unworthy of so great a mercy. And it was you that saved me!"
"I!" cried Mary, starting.
"By St. Michael, yes. For the dagger was aimed at my throat, where the mail did not guard. Had you not seized, I should long since have needed no physician. But it is not this which now gives me fear.
Zeyneb is a terrible dwarf. To-morrow he shall have cause to mourn his sins. But if you go with me to Palestine, you go to certain danger.
Iftikhar Eddauleh, I learn, is a great man in Syria. Of this Ismaelian brotherhood I know very little; but if their daggers can reach even to France, what is not their might in the East? I may see a day when no ring-shirt may save me. Yet their power I do not fear; for it is no great thing to die, were it I only, and absolved of soul. But think, if in the chance of war or of plotting, you should fall into the hands of Iftikhar! Death once past would be joy for a dear saint like you, whom Our Lord would stand ready to welcome; but a living death--captivity, life-long, to the emir--dear G.o.d, forbid the thought! Yet there is danger."
Mary had risen from the couch. She was still very pale; what with her flowing hair, and her bare white neck, Richard had never seen her more beautiful.
"Richard Longsword," said she, slowly, "I have said I wish to do something very great to show how much I love you. Well,--I am a soldier"s daughter. Manuel Kurkuas was no mean cavalier in his day, though you frown on us Greeks. My fathers and fathers" fathers have fought back Moslem, and Bulgar, and Persian, and Sclave. I am of their blood. And will you fright me with a "perhaps"? Let Iftikhar Eddauleh lay his snares, and whisper to his dagger-men; I think Trenchefer"--with a proud glance at the iron figure before her, and the great sword--"and he who wields it a sure bulwark."
"Sweetest of the sweet," said Richard, laying his great hands on her smooth shoulders, "something tells me there may be great sorrow in store. I know not why. G.o.d knows I have had grief and chastening enough. Yet I still have dread."
"And I," said Mary, gently, lifting her eyes, "know that so long as Richard Longsword keeps the pure and spotless knight of Holy Church, whatever may befall, I can have no great woe!"
"Ah!" cried the Norman, his eyes meeting hers, "you speak well, pure saint. For without you, the fiends will tear me unceasing, and with you beside I may indeed look to heaven. You shall go; without you I am very full of sin!"
He bent and kissed her. It was the pledge of love, more pure, more deep, than ever had thrilled in him before.
"_Ai_, dear heart," he said, holding her from him that he might see the evening light on her face, "in Sicily I loved you for your bright eyes; but now--I love that in you which is within,--so far within that no _jongleur_ may see, to sing its praise."
That night Baron Hardouin and Herbert slept on the gentle pleasures they had prepared for Zeyneb, the dwarf; but in the morning Aimer the seneschal came to his lord with a face long as a sculptured saint.
"The paynim dwarf!" was his trembling whisper; "he is gone!"
"Gone!" cried Hardouin, dropping the hawk"s hood in his hand.
"Truly, my Baron," continued the worthy, "this morning, as we went to the dungeon, behold! Girart, the guard, was stretched on the floor dead, as I am a sinful man!"
"Fellow--fellow--" broke out the n.o.bleman, beginning to quake.
"Art-magic, and direct presence of Satan, it must have been," moaned the seneschal, wringing his hands. "Girart was ever a sleepy knave; yet the infidel had slipped off his fetters. The lock was all pried asunder, and Girart"s head beaten in, as though by a bit of iron, while he snored."
"Mary, ever Virgin!" swore the Baron, crossing himself. "Shall the devil go up and down in my own castle? Out, men, boys, varlets, all!
scour the country! send riders to all the seigneurs about!"
And so they did, more thoroughly than ever in the camp at Clermont; but again the dwarf had melted out of human ken. True, when the messengers went as far as Ma.r.s.eilles, they heard a vague story that a dark-skinned hunchback had embarked on a merchantman of Cyprus; but even this tale lacked verification, and the simplest and most satisfactory account was that of old Nicole, the gate-keeper"s wife, who protested by St. Jude that she had seen two horrible red dogs creeping around the barriers just as she went to bed,--sure sign of the presence of the dreadful devil Cahu, who was on hand to rescue his votary.
Only some days after, a groom found scratched on the stones of the castle"s outer wall this inscription in Arabic: "To Cid Richard: three times are not four. There is a dagger that may pierce armor of Andalus. Remember." And below this, the rude sign of a poignard encircled by a noose.
"The token of the Ismaelians," commented Musa, when he read it. "Allah grant that the boast prove as vain as his earlier strokes! Yet I would you were going anywhere but to Syria."
Day sped into day. The great host of Raymond of Toulouse was preparing to set forth for Italy. The hours of dreaming in the orchard under the ivy-hung castle wall at last saw an end. Musa had received by the latest ship to Ma.r.s.eilles from the East, a long and flattering letter from Afdhal, the vizier of the Fatimite kalif himself. The offer was a notable one, a high emirate in the Egyptian service. There would be fighting in plenty in Tripoli and Ethiopia, not to mention Syria and beyond; for the Cairo government had on foot a great project to break the power of the Abbaside rivals at Bagdad and their Seljouk masters and guardians. Musa brought the letter to Richard and Mary, as the two sat beneath the great trees, each hearing no music save the other"s voice. And when he had finished, Richard said calmly: "Yes, brother mine, now at last you must leave us. Yet, please G.o.d, you shall see no service in Syria till we have sped our arrow at Jerusalem, for good or ill. Our hopes and hearts go with you; but you must go."
Musa bowed his head; then to Mary: "And you, Brightness of the Greeks, are you bound irrevocably to go to Palestine?"