"Holy Spirit of God, Most High, Creator, Comforter, let Thy pure gifts descend upon this clean-hearted man, that his courage fail not in life, nor in the hour of death. Hear me, a sinful woman, Thou who, with the Father and the Son, livest and reignest in glory forever!"
When she had prayed, she knelt a little while longer, with bowed head pressing against her clasped hands on the praying-stool till they hurt her. And that was the hardest, for it had been her meaning to make a solemn promise, and she saw between her and her love the barrier of her faith to be kept to God, and of her respect of her own plighted honour.
Rising at last, she took the shield again, and kissed it once between the arms of the cross; and her lips made a small mark on the fresh gold-leaf.
"He will never know what it is," she said to herself, as she looked at the place, "but I think that no arrow shall strike through it there, nor any lance."
Suddenly she longed to kiss the shield again, and many times, to thousands, as if her lips could give it tenfold virtue to defend. But she thought of her prayer and would not, and she brought the shield back into the tent, out of the oratory, and set it upright against the table.
Then, after a time, Anne of Auch lifted the curtain to let Gilbert in, standing by the entrance when he had passed her.
He bent his head courteously but not humbly, and then stood upright, pale from what he had suffered, his eyes fixed as if he were making an inward effort. The Queen spoke, coldly and clearly.
"Gilbert Warde, you saved my life, and you have sent back a gift from me. I have called you to give you two things. You may scorn the one, but the other you cannot refuse."
[Illustration: THE KNIGHTING OF GILBERT.]
He looked at her, and within her outward coldness he saw something he had never seen before—something divinely womanly, unguessed in his life, which touched him more than her own touch had ever done. He felt that she drew him to her, though it were now against her better will. Therefore he was afraid, and angry with himself.
"Madam," he said, with a sort of fierce coldness, "I need no gifts to poison your good thanks."
"Sir," answered Eleanor, "there is no venom in the honour I mean for you. I borrowed your shield,—your father's honourable shield,—and I give it back to you with a device that was never shamed, that you and yours may bear my cross of Aquitaine in memory of what you did."
She took the shield and held it out to him with a look almost stern, and as her eyes fell upon it they dwelt on the spot she had kissed. Gilbert's face changed, for he was moved. He knelt on one knee to receive the shield, and his voice shook.
"Madam, I will bear this device ever for your Grace's sake and memory, and I pray that I may bear it honourably, and my sons' sons after me."
Eleanor waited a breathing-space before she spoke again.
"You may not bear it long, sir," she said, and her voice was less hard and clear, "for I desire of you a great service, which is also an honour before other men."
"What I may do, I will do."
"Take, then, at your choice two or three score lances, gentlemen and men-at-arms who are well mounted, and ride ever a day's march before the army, spying out the enemy and sending messengers constantly to us, as we shall send to you; for I trust not the Greek guides we have. So you shall save us all from the destruction that overtook the German Emperor in the mountains. Will you do this?"
Again Gilbert's face lightened, for he knew the danger and the honour.
"I will do it faithfully, so help me God."
Then he would have risen, but the Queen spoke again.
"Lady Anne," she said, "give me the sword of Aquitaine."
Anne of Auch brought the great blade, in its velvet scabbard, with its cross-hilt bound with twisted wire of gold for the old Duke's grip. The Queen drew it slowly and gave back the sheath.
"Sir," she said, "I will give you knighthood, that you may have authority among men."
Gilbert was taken unawares. He bowed his head in silence, and knelt upon both knees instead of on one only, placing his open hands together. The Queen stood with her left hand on the hilt of the great sword, and she made the sign of the cross with her right. Gilbert also crossed himself, and so did the Lady Anne, and she knelt at the Queen's left, for it was a very solemn rite. Then Eleanor spoke.
"Gilbert Warde, inasmuch as you are about to receive the holy order of knighthood at my hands without preparation, consider first whether you are in any mortal sin, lest that be an impediment."
"On the honour of my word, I have no mortal sin upon my soul," answeredGilbert.
"Make, then, the promises of knighthood. Promise before Almighty God that you will lead an honest and a clean life."
"I will so live, God helping me."
"Promise that to the best of your strength you will defend the Christian faith against unbelievers, and that you will suffer death, and a cruel death, but not deny the Lord Jesus Christ."
"I will be faithful to death, so God help me."
"Promise that you will honour women, and protect them, and shield the weak, and at all times be merciful to the poor, preferring before yourself all those who are in trouble and need."
"I will, by God's grace."
"Promise that you will be true and allegiant to your liege sovereign."
"I promise that I will be true and allegiant to my liege Queen and Lady, Maud of England, and to her son and Prince, Henry Plantagenet, and thereof your Grace is witness."
"And between my hands, as your liege sovereign's proxy, lay your hands."
Gilbert held out his joined hands to the Queen, and she took them between her palms, while Anne of Auch held the great sword, still kneeling.
"I put my hands between the hands of my Lady, Queen Maud of England, and I am her man," said Gilbert Warde.
But Eleanor's touch was like ice, and she trembled a little.
Then she took the sword of Aquitaine and held it up in her right hand, though it was heavy, and she spoke holy words.
"Gilbert Warde, be a true knight in life and death! 'Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things'—and do them, and for them live and die."
When she had spoken, she laid the sword flat upon his left shoulder, and let it linger a moment, and then lifted it and touched him twice again, and sheathed the long blade.
"Sir Gilbert, rise!"
He stood before her, and he knew what remained to be done, according to the rite, and it was not fire that ran through him, but a chill of fear. The Queen's face was marble pale and as beautiful as death. One step toward him she made with outstretched arms, her right above his left, her left under his right as he met her. Then she coldly kissed the man she loved on the cheek, once only, in the royal fashion, and he kissed her.
She drew back, and their eyes met. Remembering many things, he thought that he should see in her face the evil shadow of his mother, as he had seen it before; but he saw a face he did not know, for it was that of a suffering woman, coldly brave to the best of her strength.
"Go, Sir Gilbert!" she said. "Go out and fight, and die if need be, that others may live to win battles for the Cross of Christ."
He was gone, and Anne of Auch stood beside her.
"Lady Anne," said the Queen, "I thank you. I would be alone."
She turned and went into the little oratory, and knelt down before the altar, looking at the place where the shield had stood.
So Gilbert Warde was made a knight, and to this day the Wards bear the cross flory in their shield, which was given to their forefathers by Eleanor of Aquitaine before she was English Queen. And so, also, Sir Gilbert promised to ride a day's march before the rest, with a handful of men whom he chose among his acquaintance; and many envied him his honour, but there were more who warmed themselves by the camp-fire at night most comfortably, and were glad that they had not been chosen to live hardly, half starving on their half-starved horses, with a cloak and a blanket on the ground for a bed, watching in turns by night, and waking each morning to wonder whether they should live till sunset.
In truth there was less of danger than of hardship at first, and more trouble than either; for though Gilbert was sent on with the best of the Greek guides to choose the way, and had full power of life and death over them, so that they feared him more than Satan and dared not hide the truth from him, yet when he had chosen the line of the march and had sent word by a messenger to the army, the answer often came back that the King and the Emperor were of another mind, because they had listened to some lying Greek; and since the Emperor and the King and Queen had agreed that any one of them must always yield to the opinion of the other two, Eleanor's advice, which was Gilbert's and founded on real knowledge, was often overridden by the others, and she was forced to give way or make an open breach. Then Gilbert ground his teeth silently and did the best he could, retracing his steps over many miles, exploring a new road, and choking down the humiliation bravely, because he had given his word.
But little by little that humiliation turned to honour, even among the men who were with him; for most of them were taken from the Queen's army, and besides, they saw every day that Gilbert was right, so that they trusted him and would have followed him through storm and fire. Also in the Queen's army it began to be known, and it spread to the other French, and to the Germans, and to the Poles and the Bohemians, that when the troops followed the march chosen by Gilbert, all went well, and they found water and forage for their horses, and food and a good camping-ground; but often, when the King and the Emperor had their way, there was hunger and cold and lack of water.
The men began to say to each other, when they knew, "This is Sir Gilbert's road, and to-day is a feast-day;" and then, "This is the King's road, and to-day is Friday." And on Gilbert's days they sang as they marched, and trudged along cheerfully, and his name ran like a sound of gladness along the endless lines. He grew, therefore, to be beloved by many who had never seen him in the great host, and at last even by the most of the soldiers.
So they came to Ephesus at last, very weary, and with some sick persons among them. Conrad the Emperor was in ill case, though he was of the strongest, and at Ephesus messengers met him who had come by sea from the Emperor of the Greeks, begging that he and all his men would sail back to Constantinople and spend the rest of the winter there, and afterwards go by sea again to Syria. And they did so, for the brave Germans were much broken and worn because of their marches and defeats before they had gone back to Nicaea, and the armies of the King and Queen went on without them, to a great meadow by the Maeander, where they encamped to keep the Christmas feast with great thanksgiving for their preservation thus far.
On Christmas eve Gilbert came into camp with his companions, and when they were seen, a great cry arose throughout the army, and men left their fires and their mending of arms and clothes, and ran out to meet him, a gaunt man in rusty armour, on a gaunt horse, followed by others in no better plight. His mantle was all stained with rain and mud, and was rent in many places, and his mail was brown, save where it had been chafed bright by his moving; his great Norman horse was rough with his winter coat and seemed all joints and bones, and Dunstan and Alric rode in rags with the men-at-arms. His face was haggard with weariness and lack of food, but stern and high, and the first who saw him ceased shouting and looked up at him with awe; but then he smiled so gently and kindly that the cheer broke out again and rang across the camp, far and wide.
Presently those who cheered began to follow the little train of horsemen, first by twos and tens and twenties, till thousands were drawn into the stream and pressed round him, so that he was obliged to move slowly. For many weeks they had heard his name, knowing that it meant safety for them, and wonderful tales had been told over the camp-fires of his endurance and courage. So his coming back was his first triumph, and the day was memorable in his life. While the army rested there was no work for him, and he had returned in order to rest himself; but he had nothing of immediate importance to report to the leaders, and he bade his men find out his baggage among the heaps of packs that had been unloaded from the general train of mules, and to pitch his tent near those of his old comrades on the march.
While Dunstan and Alric were obeying his orders, he sat on his saddle on the ground, with his weary horse standing beside him, his nose plunged into a canvas bag half full of oats. Gilbert looked on in a sort of mournfully indifferent silence. Everything he saw was familiar, and yet it all seemed very far away and divided from him by weeks of danger and hard riding. The vast crowd that had followed him had begun to disperse as soon as it was known that he was not going before the King, and only three or four hundred of the more curious stood and moved in groups around the open space where the tent was being pitched. Many of his acquaintance came and spoke to him, and he rose and shook their hands and spoke a few words to each; but none of the greater nobles who had sought him out after he had saved the Queen took any pains to find him now, though they and their followers owed him much. The praise of the multitude and their ringing cheers had been pleasant enough to hear, but he had expected something else, and a cold disappointment took possession of his heart as he sat in his tent some hours later, considering, with Dunstan, the miserable condition and poor appearance of his arms and the impossibility of procuring anything better. He was as lonely and unnoticed as if he had not been devoting every energy he possessed to the safe guidance of a great army during the past two months.
"There is nothing to complain of, sir," said Dunstan, in answer to a disconsolate ejaculation of Gilbert's. "Your body is whole, you have received back your belongings with nothing stolen, which is more than I expected of the Greek muleteers, you have a new tunic and hose to wear, and bean soup for supper. The world is not so bad as it looks."
"On the other hand," answered Gilbert, with a sour smile, "my bones ache, my armour is rusty, and my purse is empty. Make what good cheer you can of that."
He rose, and leaving Dunstan to set to work upon the injured coat of mail, he took his cap and strolled out alone to breathe the afternoon air. It was Christmas-time, and the day had been bright and clear; but he wore no mantle, for the overwhelmingly good reason that he possessed only one, which was in rags; and, indeed, he had been so much exposed to bad weather of late that he was hardened to every sort of discomfort—a little more or less was not worth counting.
Dunstan was quite right of course, and Gilbert had no reasonable cause for complaint. The Queen would doubtless send for him on the morrow, and had he chosen to present himself before her at once he would have been received with honour. But he was in an ill humour with himself and the world, and being still very young, it seemed quite natural to yield to it rather than to reason himself into a better temper. He got out of the camp as soon as he could, and walked by the green banks of the still Maeander. It was winter, but the grass was as fresh as it might have been in spring, and a salt breeze floated up from the not distant sea. He knew the country, for he himself had chosen the spot as a camping-place for the army, and had advanced still farther when messengers had brought him word to come back. To northward rolled away the gentle hills beyond Ephesus, while to the south and east the mountains of the Cadmus and Taurns rose rugged and sharp against the pale sky—the range through which the army must next make its way to Attalia. The time lacked an hour of sunset, and the clear air had taken the first tinge of evening. Here and there in the plain the evergreen ilex trees grew in little clumps, black against the sunlight, but dark green, with glistening points among their shadows, where the afternoon sun struck full upon them.
Gilbert had hoped to be alone, but there were parties of idlers along the river-bank as far as he could see, and among them were many who bore evergreen boughs and young cypress shoots of three and four years' growth, which they were carrying back to the camp for the Christmas festival. For there were many Normans in the army, and Franks from Lorraine, and Northern men from Poland and Bohemia, and all the men of the North would have their Yule trees before their tents, as their heathen forefathers had done before them in the days of the old faith.
There were ladies of Eleanor's troop also, riding for pleasure, in rich gowns and flowing mantles, and knights with them, all unarmed save for a sword or dagger; and there were many dark-eyed Greeks, too, both men and women, who had come out from Ephesus in holiday clothes to see the great camp. It was all calm, and bright, and good to see, but out of harmony with Gilbert's gloomy thoughts. At the bend of the stream the ground rose a little, somewhat away from the bank, and the rocks stuck up rough and jagged out of the green grass, a sort of little wilderness in the midst of the fertile plain. Almost instinctively, Gilbert turned aside and climbed in and out among the stones until he reached the highest ledge, on which he seated himself in profound satisfaction at having got away from his fellow-creatures. The place where he had perched was about sixty feet above the river-bank, and though he could not distinctly hear the conversation of the passing groups he could see the expression of every face clearly, and he found himself wondering how often the look of each matched the words and the unspoken thoughts.
The sun sank lower, and he had no idea how long he had sat still, when he became conscious that he was intently watching a party of riders who were coming toward him. They were still half a mile away, but he saw a white horse in the front rank, and even at that distance something in the easy pace of the creature made him feel sure that it was the Queen's Arab mare. They came on at a canter, and in two or three minutes he could make out the figures of those best known to him—Eleanor herself, Anne of Auch, Castignac, and the other two attendant knights who were always in the Queen's train, and a score of others riding behind by twos and threes. Gilbert sat motionless and watched them, nor did it occur to him that he himself, sitting on the highest boulder and dressed in a tunic of dark red, was a striking object in the glow of the setting sun. But before she was near enough to recognize him, Eleanor had seen him, and her curiosity was roused; a few minutes more, and she knew his face. Then their eyes met.
She drew rein and walked her horse, still looking up, and wondering why he gazed at her so fixedly, without so much as lifting his cap from his head; and then, to her infinite surprise, she saw him spring to his feet and disappear from view among the rocks. She was so much astonished that she stopped her horse altogether and sat several seconds staring at the ledge on which he had sat, while all her attendants looked in the same direction, expecting Gilbert to appear again; for several of them had recognized him, and supposed that he would hasten down to salute the Queen.
But when he did not come, she moved on, and though her face did not change, she did not speak again till the camp was reached, nor did any of her party dare to break the silence.
Had she looked back, she might have caught sight of Gilbert's figure walking steadily with bent head across the plain, away from the river and from the camp, out to the broad solitude beyond. He had acted under an impulse, foolishly, almost unconsciously, being guided by something he did not attempt to understand.
Two months had passed, and more, since he had seen her, and in his life of excitement and anxiety her face had disappeared from his dreams. While he had been away from her, she had not existed for him, save as the only leader of the three to whom he looked for approbation and support; the woman had been lost in the person of the sovereign, and had ceased to torment him by the perpetual opposition of that which all men coveted to that which he truly loved. But now, at the very first sight of her face, it seemed as if the Queen were gone again, leaving only the woman to his sight, and at the instant in which he realized it he had turned and fled, hardly knowing what he did.
He walked steadily on, more than two miles, and all at once he cast no shadow, for the sun had gone down, and the pale east before him turned to a cool purple in the reflection. The air was very chilly, for the night wind came down suddenly from the mountains as the sea breeze died away, and the solitary man felt cold; for he had no cloak, and exposure and fighting had used his blood, while within him there was nothing to cheer his heart.
It had seemed to him for two years that he was always just about to do the high deed, to make the great decision of life, to find out his destiny, and he had done bravely and well all that he had found in his way. The chance came, he seized it, he did his best, and the cheers of the soldiers had told him a few hours ago that he was no longer the obscure English wanderer who had met Geoffrey Plantagenet on the road to Paris. Thousands repeated his name in honour and looked to him for their safety on the march, cursing those who led them astray against his warning. In his place on that day, most men would have gone to the Queen, expecting a great reward, if not claiming it outright. But he was wandering alone at nightfall in the great plain, discontented with all things, and most of all with himself. Everything he had done rose up against him and accused him, instead of praising him and flattering his vanity; every good deed had a base motive in his eyes, or was poisoned by the thought that it had not been done for itself, but for an uncertain something which came over him when the Queen spoke to him or touched his hand. It is not only inactive men who grow morbid and fault-finding with themselves; for the wide breach between the ideal good and the poor accomplishment holds as much that can disappoint the heart as the mean little ditch between thought and deed, wherein so many weak good men lie stuck in the mud of self-examination. He who stands at the edge of the limit, with a lifetime of good struggles behind him, may be as sad and hopeless as he who sits down and weeps before the mountain of untried beginnings. The joy of the earthly future is for the very great and the very little. For as charity leads mankind by faith to the hope of the life to come, so, on the mind's side, by faith in its own strength, the work of genius in the past is its own surety for like work to come.
Gilbert Warde was not of that great mould, but more human and less sure of himself; and suddenly, as the sun went down, a strong desire of death came upon him, and he wished that he were dead and buried under the grass whereon he stood, for very discontent with himself. It would be so simple, and none would mourn him much, except his men, perhaps, and they would part his few possessions and serve another. He was a burden to the earth, since he could do nothing well; he was a coward, because he was afraid of a woman's eyes and had fled from their gaze like a boy; he was a sinner deserving eternal fire since a touch of a fair woman's hand could make him unfaithful for an instant to the one woman he loved best. He had meant to tread the way of the Cross in true faith, with unswerving feet, and his heart was the toy of women; he had sworn the promises of knighthood, and he was already breaking them in his thoughts; he was his evil mother's son, and he had not the strength to be unlike her.
It was folly and madness, and Castignac, the Gascon knight, would have laughed at him, or else would have believed that he was demented. But to the Englishman it was real, for he was under that strange melancholy which only Northmen know, and which is the most real suffering in all the world. It is a dim sadness that gathers like a cloud about strong men's souls, and they fear it, and sometimes kill themselves to escape from it into the outer darkness beyond; but sometimes it drives them to bad deeds and the shedding of innocent blood, and now and then the better sort of such men turn from the world and hide themselves in the abodes of sorrow and pain and prayer. The signs of it are that when it has no cause it seizes upon trifles to make them its reasons, and more often it torments young men than the old; and no woman nor southern person has ever known it, nor can even understand it. But it follows the northern blood from generation to generation, like retribution for an evil without a name done long ago by the northern race.
It was dark night when Gilbert found his way back to his tent, more by the instinct of one used to living in camps among soldiers than by any precise recollection of the way, and he sat down to warm himself before the brazier of red coals which Alric shovelled out of the camp-fire that burned outside. His men gave him a pottage of beans, with bread and wine, as it was Christmas Eve and a fast-day, and there was nothing else, for all the fish brought up from the sea had been bought early in the day for the great nobles, long before Gilbert had come into the lines. But he neither knew nor cared, and he ate mechanically what they gave him, being in a black humour. Then he sat a long time by the light of the earthenware lamp which Dunstan occasionally tended with an iron pin, lest the charring wick should slip into the half-melted fat and go out altogether. When he was not watching the wick, the man's eyes fixed themselves upon his master's grave face.
"Sir," he said at last, "you are sad. This is the Holy Eve, and all the army will watch till midnight, when the first masses begin. If it please you, let us walk through the camp and see what we may. The tents of the great lords are all lighted up by this time and the soldiers are singing the Christmas hymns."
Gilbert shook his head indifferently, but said nothing.
"Sir," insisted the man, "I pray you, let us go, for you shall be cheered, and there are good sights. Before midnight the King and Queen and all the court go in procession to the great chapel tent, and it is meet that you should be there with them."
Dunstan brought a garment and gently urged him to rise. Gilbert stood up, not looking.
"Why should I go?" he asked. "I am better alone, for I am in a sad humour. And, besides, it is very cold."
"Your cloak shall keep you warm, sir."
"I cannot walk among the court people in rags," answered Gilbert, "andI have nothing that is whole but this one thin tunic."
But even as he spoke, Dunstan held up the surcoat for him to put on over his head, the skirts caught up in his hands, which also held the collar open.
"What is this?" asked Gilbert, in surprise.
"It is a knight's surcoat, sir," answered the man. "It is of very good stuff, and is wadded with down. I pray you, put it on."
"This is a gift," said Gilbert, suspiciously, and drawing back. "Who sends me such presents?"
"The King of France, sir."
"You mean the Queen." He frowned and would not touch the coat.
"The things were brought by the King's men, and one of the King's knights came also with them, and delivered a very courteous message, and a purse of Greek bezants, very heavy."
Gilbert began to walk up and down, in hesitation. He was very poor, but if the gifts were from the Queen, he was resolved not to keep them.
"Sir," said Dunstan, "the knight said most expressly that the King sent you these poor presents as a token that he desires to see you to-morrow and to thank you for all you have done. I thought to please you by bringing them out suddenly."
Then Gilbert smiled kindly, for the man loved him, and he put his head and arms into the knightly garment with its wide sleeves, and Dunstan laced it up the back, so that it fitted closely to the body, while the skirt hung down below the knees. It was of a rich dark silk, woven in the East, and much like the velvet of later days. Then Dunstan girded his master with a new sword-belt made of heavy silver plates, finely chased and sewn on leather, and he thrust the great old sword with its sheath through the flattened ring that hung to the belt by short silver chains. Lastly he put upon Gilbert's shoulders a mantle of very dark red cloth, lined with fine fur and clasped at the neck with silver; for it was not seemly to wear a surcoat without a cloak.
"It is very noble," said Dunstan, moving back a step or two to see the effect.
Indeed, the young English knight looked well in the dress of his station, which he wore for the first time; for he was very tall and broad of shoulder, and a lean man, well-bred; his face was clear and pale, and his fair hair fell thick and long behind his cap.
"But you, Dunstan, you cannot be seen—"
Gilbert stopped, for he noticed suddenly that both his men were clad in new clothes of good cloth and leather.
"The servants are honoured with their lord," said Dunstan. "The King sent gifts for us, too."
"That was a man's thought, not a woman's," said Gilbert, almost to himself.
He went out, and Dunstan walked by his left, but half a step behind his stride, as was proper.
The camp was lit up with fires and torches as far as one could see, and all men were out of doors, either walking up and down, arm in arm, or sitting before their tents on folding-stools, or on their saddles, or on packs of baggage. The hundreds and thousands of little Christmas trees, stuck into the earth amid circles of torches before the newly whitened tents, made a great garden of boughs and evergreens, and the yellow glare shone everywhere through lacing branches, and fell on rich colours and gleaming arms, well polished for the holiday, and lost itself suddenly in the cold starlight overhead. The air smelt of evergreen and the aromatic smoke of burning resin.
The night rang with song also, and in some places as many as a hundred had gathered in company to sing the long Christmas hymns they had learned as little children far away at home—endless canticles with endless repetitions, telling the story of the Christ-Child's birth at Bethlehem, of the adoration of the shepherds, and of the coming of the Eastern kings.
In one part of the camp the rough Burgundians were drinking the strong Asian wine in deep draughts, roaring their great choruses between, with more energy than unction. But for the most part the northern men were sober and in earnest, praying as they sang and looking upward as if the Star of the East were presently to shed its soft light in the sky; and they tended the torches and lights around the trees devoutly, not guessing that their fathers had done the same long ago, in bleak Denmark and snowy Norway, in worship of Odin and in honour of Yggdrasil, the tree of life.
The Gascons and all the men of the South, on their side, had made little altars between two trees, decked with white cloths and adorned with tinsel ornaments and little crosses and small carved images carefully brought, like household gods, from the far home, and treasured only next to their arms. The thin, dark faces of the men were fervent with southern faith, and their wild black eyes were deep and still.
There were also Alsatians and Lorrainers in lines by themselves, quiet, fair-haired men. They had little German dolls of wood, and toys brightly painted, and by their trees they set out the scene of Bethlehem, with the manger and the Christ-Child, and the oxen crouching down, and the Blessed Mary and Saint Joseph, and also the shepherds and the wise kings; and the men sat down before these things with happy faces and sang their songs. So it was through the whole camp, the soldiers doing everywhere according to their customs.
As for the nobles and knights, Gilbert saw some of them walking about like himself, and some were sitting before their tents. Here and there, as he passed, when a tent was open, he saw knights kneeling in prayer, and could hear them reciting the litanies. But it was not always so, for some were spending the night in feasting, their tents being closed, though one could hear plainly the revelry. There was more than one great tent in the French lines, of which the curtain was raised a little, and there Gilbert saw men and women drinking together, under bright lights, and he saw that the women were Greeks and that their cheeks were painted and their eyelids blackened; and he turned away from the sight, in disgust that such things should be done on the Holy Eve of Christmas.
Further on, some very poor soldiers, in sheepskin doublets and leathern hose, were kneeling together before a sort of rough screen, on which were hung images painted in the manner of Greek eikons. These men had long and silky beards, and their smooth brown hair hung out over their shoulders in well-combed waves, and some of them had beautiful faces. One, who was a priest of their own, stood upright and recited prayers in a low chant, and from time to time, at the refrain, the soldiers all bowed themselves till their foreheads touched the ground.
"The Lord Jesus Christ be praised," sang the priest.
"To all ages. Amen," responded the soldiers.
Though they sang in the Bohemian language, and Gilbert could not understand, he saw that they believed and were of an earnest mind.
So he walked about for more than an hour, looking and listening, and his own sad humour was lightened a little as he forgot to think of himself only. For it seemed a great thing to have been chosen to lead so many through a wilderness full of danger, and to know that more than a hundred thousand lives had been in his keeping, as it were, for two months, and were to be in his hand again, till he should lead them safely into Syria, or perish himself and leave his task to another. It was a task worth accomplishing and a trust worth his life.
Then, at midnight, he was walking in a great procession after the King and Queen. Modestly he joined the ranks, and his man walked beside him carrying a torch, so that the light fell full upon his face. Some one knew him, and spoke to his neighbour.
"That is Sir Gilbert Warde, who is our guide," he said.
In an instant word ran along the line that he was there; and in a few minutes a messenger came breathless, asking for him, and then the herald of France, Montjoye Saint Denis, came after, bidding him to a foremost place, in the name of the King and Queen. So he followed the herald, whose runner walked before him, as had been bidden by Eleanor herself.
"Make way for the Guide of Aquitaine!" cried the squire, in a loud voice.
Knights and men-at-arms stood aside to let him pass, and the tall Englishman went between them, courteously bending his head to thank those who moved out of his way, and deprecating the high honour that was done him. He heard his name repeated, both by men whose faces he could see in the light around him, when the torches blazed and flamed, and also from the darkness beyond.
"Well done, Sir Gilbert!" cried some. "God bless the Guide of Aquitaine!" cried many others. And all the voices praised him, so that his heart warmed.
Following the herald, he came to his place in the procession, in the front rank of the great vassals of the two kingdoms, and just after the sovereign lords; and as he was somewhat taller than other men, he could look over their heads, and he saw the King and Queen in their furs, walking together, and before them the bishops and priests. At the stir made by his coming Eleanor turned and looked back, and her eyes met Gilbert's through the smoky glare, gazing at him sadly, as if she would have made him understand something she could not say.
But he would not have spoken if he could, for his thoughts were on other things. The procession went on toward the royal altar, set up under an open tent in a wide space, so that the multitude could kneel on the grass and both see and hear the celebration. So they all knelt down, the great barons and chief vassals having small hassocks for their knees, while the King and Queen and the sovereign lords of Savoy and Alsatia and Lorraine, and of Bohemia and of Poland, had rich praying-stools set out for them in a row, next to the King and Queen.
The torches were stuck into the ground to burn down as they might, and the great wax candles shone quietly on the white altar, for the night was now very still and clear. There all the great nobles and many thousands of other men heard the Christmas mass, just after midnight, knowing that many of them should never hear it again on earth. There they all sang together, in a mighty melody of older times, the 'Glory to God in the highest,' which was first sung on the Holy Eve; and there, when the Bishop of Metz was about to lift up the consecrated bread, the royal trumpets rang out a great call to the multitude, so that all men might bow themselves together. Then the silence was very deep, while the Lord passed by; nor ever again in his life did Sir Gilbert Warde know such a stillness as that was, save once, and it seemed to him that in the Way of the Cross he had reached a place of refreshment and rest.
Gilbert rose from his knees with the rest, and then he saw that the King and Queen placed themselves side by side and standing, and the nobles began to go up to them according to their rank, to kiss their hands. As Gilbert stood still, not knowing what to do, he watched the procession of the barons from a distance. Suddenly he felt that his eyes were wide open, and that he was gazing at a face which he knew, hardly believing that he saw it in the flesh; and his back stiffened, and his teeth ground on one another.
Ten paces from him, waiting and looking on, like himself, stood a graceful man of middle height, of a clear olive complexion, with a well-clipped beard of somewhat pointed cut, grey at the sides, as was also the smooth, dark hair. Years had passed, and the last time he had seen that face had been in the changing light of the greenwood, where the sunshine played among the leaves; and as he had seen it last, he had felt steel in his side and had fallen asleep, and after that his life had changed. For Arnold de Curboil was before him, looking at him, but not recognizing him. Still Gilbert stood rooted to the spot, trying not to believe his senses, for he could not understand how his stepfather could suddenly be among the Crusaders; but the divine peace that had descended upon him that night was shivered as a mirror by a stone, and his heart grew cold and hard.
The man also was changed since Gilbert had seen him. The face was handsome still, but it was thin and sharp, and the eyes were haggard and weary, as if they had seen a great evil long and had sickened of it at last, and were haunted by it. Gilbert looked at him who had murdered his father and had brought shame to his mother, and who had robbed him of his fair birthright, and he saw that something of the score had been paid. Gradually, too, as Sir Arnold gazed, a look of something like despair settled in his face, a sort of horror that was not fear,—for he was no coward,—but was rather a dread of himself. He made a step forward, and Gilbert waited, and heard how Dunstan, who stood behind him, loosened his dagger in its brass sheath.
At that moment came the King's herald again as before, bidding him go up to the presence of the King and Queen.
"Room for the Guide of Aquitaine!"
The cry rang loud and clear, and Gilbert saw Sir Arnold start in surprise at the high-sounding title. Then he followed the herald; but in his heart there was already a triumph that the man who had left him for dead in the English woods should find him again thus preferred before other men.
The Queen's face grew paler as he came toward her and knelt down on one knee, and through her embroidered glove of state his own hand, that was cold, felt that hers was colder. But it did not tremble, and her voice was steady and clear, so that all could hear it.
"Sir Gilbert Warde," she said, "you have done well. Guienne thanks you, and France also—" She paused and looked toward the King, who was watching her closely.
Louis bent his great pale face solemnly toward the Englishman.
"We thank you, Sir Gilbert," he said, with cold condescension.
"A hundred thousand men thank you," added Eleanor, in a ringing voice that was to make up for her husband's ungrateful indifference.
There was a moment's silence, and then the voice of Gaston de Castignac, high and full, sent up a cheer that was heard far out in the clear night.
"God bless the Guide of Aquitaine!"
The cheer was taken up in the deep shout of strong men in earnest; for it was known how Gilbert cared not for himself, nor for rewards, but only for honour; and the thirty men who had been with him had told far and wide how often he had watched that they might sleep, and how he would always give the best to others, and how gently and courteously he treated those he commanded.
But in the loud cheering, Eleanor took his hand in both hers and bent down to speak to him, unheard by the rest; and her voice was low and trembled a little.
"God bless you!" she said fervently. "God bless you and keep you, for as I am a living woman, you are dearer to me than the whole world."
Gilbert understood how she loved him, as he had not understood before. And yet her touch had no evil power to move him now, and the shadow of his mother no longer haunted him in her eyes as he looked up. There, beside the Christmas altar, in the Holy Night, she was trying to complete the sacrifice of herself and her love. Gilbert answered her earnestly.
"Madam," he said, "I shall try to do your will with all my heart, even to death."
Thereafter he kept his word. But now he rose to his feet, and after bending his knee again, he looked into the Queen's sad eyes, and passed on to make way for the others, while the cheers that were for him still rang in the air.
Then he began to walk to his tent. Dunstan had lighted a fresh torch and was waiting for him. But the great barons, who had gone up to the King and Queen before him, pressed round him and shook his hand, one after another, and bade him to their feasting on the morrow; nor was there jealousy of him, as there had been when he had saved the Queen's life at Nicaea, for now that they saw him they felt that he was no courtier, and desired only the safety of the army, with his own honour.
As they thronged about him, there came Sir Arnold de Curboil, pressing his way among them, and when he was before Gilbert he also held out his hand.
"Gilbert Warde," he asked, "do you not know me?"
"I know you, sir," answered the young knight, in a clear voice that all could hear, "but I will not take your hand."
There was silence, and the great nobles looked on, not understanding, while Dunstan held his torch so that the light fell full upon Sir Arnold's pale features.
"Then take my glove!"
He plucked off his loose leathern gauntlet and tossed it lightly at Gilbert's face. But Dunstan's quick left hand caught it in the air, while the torch scarcely wavered in his right.
Gilbert was paler than his enemy, but he would not let his hand go to his sword, and he folded his arms under his mantle, lest they should move against his will.
"Sir," he said, "I will not fight you again at this time, though you killed my father treacherously. Though you have stolen my birthright, I will not fight you now, for I have taken the Cross, and I will keep the vow of the Cross, come what may."
"Coward!" cried Sir Arnold, contemptuously, and he would have turned on his heel.
But Gilbert stepped forward and caught him by his arms and held him quietly, without hurting him, but so that he could not easily move and must hear.
"You have called me a coward, Sir Arnold de Curboil. How should I fear you, since I can wring you to death in my hands if I will? But I will let you go, and these good lords here shall judge whether I am a coward or not because I will not fight you until I have fulfilled my vows."
"Well said," cried the old Count of Bourbon.
"Well said, well done," cried many others.
Moreover, the Count of Savoy, of whose race none was ever born that knew fear, even to this day, spoke to his younger brother of Montferrat.
"I have not seen a braver man than this English knight, nor a better man of his hands, nor one more gentle, and he has the face of a leader."
Then Gilbert loosed his hold and Sir Arnold looked angrily to the right and left, and passed out of the crowd, all men making way for him as if they would not touch him. Some of them turned to Gilbert again, and asked him questions about the strange knight.
"My lords," he answered, "he is Sir Arnold de Curboil, my stepfather; for when he had killed my father, he married my mother and stole my lands. I fought him when I was but a boy, and he left me for dead in the forest; and now I think that he is come from England to seek occasion against me; but if I live I shall get back my inheritance. And now, if I seem to you to have dealt justly by him, I crave my leave of you, and thank your lordships for your good will and courtesy."
So they bade him good-night, and he went away, leaving many who felt that he had done well, but that, in his place, they could not have done as much. They did not know how dear it cost him, but dimly they guessed that he was braver than they, though they were of the bravest.
He was very tired, and had not slept in a good bed under his own tent for two months; yet he was sleepless, and awoke after two hours, and could not sleep again till within an hour of the winter dawn; for he feared some evil for Beatrix if her father should claim her of the Queen and take her back from Ephesus by sea, as he must have come.
At daylight, warming themselves at a fire, Dunstan told Alric all that happened in the night. The Saxon's stolid face did not change, but he was thoughtful and silent for some time, remembering how the Lady Goda had once had him beaten, long ago, because he had not held Sir Arnold's horse in the right way when the knight was mounting.
Presently Beatrix's Norman tirewoman came to the two men, wrapped in a brown cloak with a hood that covered half her face. She told them that her lady knew of Sir Arnold's coming, and begged of Sir Gilbert that for her sake he would walk by the river at noon, when every one would be at dinner in the camp, and she would try and meet him there.
Gilbert waited long, for he went down early to the river, and he sat on a big stone sunning himself, for the air was keen, and there was a north wind. At last he saw two veiled women coming along the bank. The shorter one was a little lame and leaned upon the other's arm, and the wind blew their cloaks before them as they came. When he saw that Beatrix limped, knowing that she had not quite recovered from her fall, and remembering that she might have been killed, his heart sank with a sickening faintness.
He took her by the hand very gently, for she looked so slight and ill that he almost feared to touch her, and yet he did not wish to let her fingers go, nor she to take them away. The tirewoman went down to the river-bank, at some distance, and they sat upon the big stone, hand in hand like two children, and looked at each other. Suddenly the girl's face lightened, as if she had just found out that she was glad; her eyes laughed, and her voice was as happy as a bird's at sunrise.
Gilbert had not seen her for a long time. To such a man, all women, and even one chosen woman, might easily become an ideal, too far from the material to have a real hold upon his manhood, and so high above earth as to have no spiritual realization. Even in that age many a knight made a divinity of his lady and a religion of his devotion to her, so that the very meaning of love was forgotten in the ascetic impulse to seek the soul's salvation in all things, even in the contempt of all earthly longings; and those men demanded as much in return, expecting it even after their own death. There were also women, like Anne of Auch, who gave such devotion freely. Nevertheless, it was not altogether in this way between Beatrix and Gilbert, and if it might have been, so far as he was concerned, she would not have had it so, and her words proved it.
"I am so proud of you!" she cried. "And I am so very glad to see you."
"Proud of me?" he asked, smiling sadly. "I am not proud of myself. For all I have done, you might be dead at Nicaea."
"But I am alive," she answered happily, "and by your doing, though I cannot yet walk quite well."
"I ought to have let the Queen pass on. I ought to have thought only of you."
He found a satisfaction in saying aloud at last what had been so long in his heart against himself, and in saying it to Beatrix herself. But she would not hear it.
"That would have been very unknightly and disloyal," she said. "I would not have had you do it, for you would have been blamed by men. And then I should never have heard what I heard yesterday and last night, the very best words I ever heard in all my life—the cry of a great army blessing one man for a good work well done."
"I have done nothing," answered Gilbert, stolidly determined to depreciate himself in her eyes.
But she smiled and laid her gloved hand quickly upon his lips.
"I would not have another laugh at you, as I do!" she cried.
He looked at her, and the mask of grave melancholy which was fast becoming his natural expression began to soften, as if it could not last forever.
"I have often thought of you and wondered whether you would think well of my deeds," he said.
"You see!" she laughed. "And now because I am proud of you, you pretend that you have done nothing! That is poor praise of my good sight and judgment."
He laughed, too. Since the dawn of time, women have retorted thus upon brave men too modest of their doings; and since the first woman found the trick, it has never failed to please man. But love needs not novelty, for he himself is always young; the stars of night are not less fair in our eyes because men knew the 'sweet influence of the Pleiades' in Job's day, nor is the scent of new-mown hay less delicate because all men love it. The old is the best, even in love, which is young.
"Say what you will," answered Gilbert, presently, "we are together to-day."
"And nothing else matters," said Beatrix. "Not even that it is two months since I have seen you, and that I have been ill, or, at least, half crippled, by that fall. It is all forgotten."
He looked at her, not quite understanding, for as she spoke her eyebrows were raised a little, with her own expression, half sad, half laughing at herself.
"I wish I could see you more often," answered Gilbert.
Her little birdlike laugh disconcerted him.
"Indeed, I am in earnest," he said.
"And yet when you are in earnest, you do much harder things," answered Beatrix, and at once the sadness had the better of the laughter in her face. "Oh, Gilbert, I wish we were back in England in the old days."
"So do I!"
"Oh, no! You do not. You say so to please me, but you cannot make it sound true. You are a great man now. You are Sir Gilbert Warde, the Guide of Aquitaine. It is you, and you only, who are leading the army, and you will have all the honour of it. Would you go back to the old times when we were boy and girl? Would you, if you could?"
"I would if I could."
He spoke so gravely that she understood where his thoughts were, and that they were not all for her. For a few moments she looked down in silence, pulling at the fingers of her glove, and once she sighed; then, without looking up, she spoke, in her sweet, low voice.
"Gilbert, what are we to each other? Brother and sister?"
He started, again not understanding, and fancying that she was setting up the Church's canon between them, which he now knew to be no unremovable impediment.
"You are no more my sister than your tirewoman there can be," he answered, more warmly than he had spoken yet.
"I did not mean that," she said sadly.
"I do not understand, then."
"If you do not, how can I tell you what I mean?" She glanced at him and then looked away quickly, for she was blushing, and was ashamed of her boldness.
"Do you mean that I love you as I might a sister?" asked Gilbert, with the grave tactlessness of a thoroughly honest man.
The blush deepened in her cheek, and she nodded slowly, still looking away.
"Beatrix!"
"Well?" She would not turn to him.
"What have I done that you should say such a thing?"
"That is it!" she answered regretfully. "You have done great things, but they were not for me."
"Have I not told you how I have thought of you day after day, hoping that you might think well of my deeds?"
"Yes. But you might have done one thing more. That would have made all the difference."
"What?" He bent anxiously towards her for the answer.
"You might have tried to see me."
"But I was never in the camp. I was always a day's march in the lead of the army."
"But not always fighting. There were days, or nights, when you could have ridden back. I would have met you anywhere—I would have ridden hours to see you. But you never tried. And at last it is I who send for you and beg you to come and talk with me here. And you do not even seem glad to be with me."
"I did not think that I had a right to leave my post and come back, even for you."
"You could not have helped it—if you had cared." She spoke very low.
Gilbert looked at her long, and the lines deepened in his face, for he was hurt.
"Do you really believe that I do not love you?" he asked, but his voice was cold because he tried to control it, and succeeded too well.
"You have never told me so," Beatrix answered. "You have done little to make me think so, since we were children together. You have never tried to see me when it would have cost you anything. You are not glad to see me now."
Her voice could be cold, too; but there was a tremor in some of the syllables. He was utterly surprised and taken unawares, and he slowly repeated the substance of what she said.
"I never told you so? Never made you think so? Oh, Beatrix!"
He remembered the sleepless nights he had passed, accusing himself of letting even one thought of the Queen come between him and the girl who was denying his love—the restless, melancholy hours of self-accusation, the cruel self-torment—how could she know?
She was in earnest, now, though she had begun half playfully; for if the man's heart had not changed, he had gone away from her in his active life, and in the habit of hiding all real feeling which comes from living long alone or with strangers. It was true that outwardly he had hardly seemed glad to see her, and all the ring of happiness had died away out of her voice before they had exchanged many words. He felt her mood, and it grew clear to him that he had made some great mistake which it would be very hard to set right. And she was thinking how boldly she had striven with the Queen for his love, and that now it seemed to be no love at all.
But he, whose impulse was ever to act when there was danger, however much he might weary his soul with inward examination at other times, grew desperate, and gave up thinking of a way out of the difficulty. What he loved was slipping from him, and though he loved it in his own way, it was indeed all he loved, and he would not let it go.
Thoughtless at last, and sudden, he took her into his arms, and his face was close to hers, and his eyes were in hers, and their lips breathed the same breath. She was not frightened, but her lids drooped, and she turned quite white. Then he kissed her, not once, but many times, and as if he would never let her go, on her pale mouth, on her dark eyelids, on her waving hair.
"If I kill you, you shall know that I love you," he said, and he kissed her again, so that it hurt her, but it was good to be hurt.
After that she lay in his arms, very still, and she looked up slowly, and their eyes met; and it was as if the veil had fallen from between them. When he kissed her again, his kisses were gentle and altogether tender.
"I had almost lost you," he said, breathing the words to her ear.
The Norman tirewoman sat motionless by the river's edge, waiting till she should be called. After a time they began to talk again, and their voices were in tune, like their hearts. Then Gilbert spoke of what had happened in the night, but Beatrix already knew that her father had come.
"He has come to take me away," she said, "and we have talked together.Gilbert—a dreadful thing has happened; did he tell you?"
"He told me nothing—excepting that I was a coward!" He laughed scornfully.
"I think he is half mad with sorrow." She paused and laid her hand on Gilbert's. "His wife is dead,—your mother is dead,—with the child she bore him."
Gilbert's eyes alone changed, but under her palm Beatrix felt the sinews of his hand leap and the veins swell.
"Tell me quickly," he said.
"She was burned," continued Beatrix, in a tone of awe. "She made my father grind his people till they turned, and she made him hang the leader who spoke for them. Then all the yeomen and the bondmen rose, and they burned the castle, and your mother died with the child. But my father escaped alive. Now I am again his only child, and he wants me again."
Gilbert's head fell forward, as if he had received a blow, but he said nothing for a time, for he saw his mother's face; and he saw her not as when they had parted, but as he remembered her before that, when he had loved her above all things, not knowing what she was. In spite of all that had gone between, she came back to him as she had been, and the pain and the pity were real and great. But then he felt Beatrix's hand pressing his in sympathy, and it brought him again to the evil truth. He raised his head.
"She is better dead," he said bitterly. "Let us not speak of her any more. She was my mother."
He stared long at the river, and the sadness of his homeless and lonely state in the world began to come upon him, as it came often. Then a soft voice broke the spell, and the words answered his thoughts.
"We are not alone, you and I," it said, and the two small hands crept up shyly and clasped his neck, and the loving, pathetic face looked up to his. "Do not let him take me away!" she begged.
His hand pressed her head to his breast, and once more he kissed her hair.
"He shall not take you," he said. "No one shall take you from me; no one shall come between you and me."
Beatrix's eyes seemed to drink out of his the meaning of the words he spoke.
"Promise me that," she said, knowing that he would promise her the world.
"I promise it with all my heart."
"On your knightly faith?" She smiled as she insisted.
"On my honour and faith."
"And on the faith of love, too?" She almost laughed, out of sheer happiness.
"On the very truth of true love," he answered.
"Then I am quite safe," she said, and she hid her face against his surcoat. "I am glad I came to you, I am glad that I was so bold as to send for you this day, for it is the best day of my whole life. And, Gilbert, you will not wait till I send for you another time? You will try and see me—of your own accord?"
She was altogether in anxiety again, and there was a look of fear and sadness in her eyes.
"I will try—indeed I will," he said earnestly.
"Whenever you do, you shall succeed," she answered, nestling to him. "I wish I might shut my eyes and rest here—now that I know."
"Rest, sweet, rest!"
A moment, and then, from far away, a clarion call rang on the still air. With the instinct of the soldier, Gilbert started, and listened, holding his breath, but still pressing the girl close to him.
"What is it?" she asked, half frightened.
It came again, joyous and clear.
"It is nothing," he said. "It is the Christmas banquet, and perhaps theKing drinks the Queen's health—and she his."
"And perhaps, though no one knows it, she—" But Beatrix stopped and laughed. "I will not say it! Why should I care?"
She was thinking that if the Queen drank a health it might be meant, in her heart, for the Guide of Aquitaine, and she nestled closer to him in the sunshine.