God Wills It! A Tale of the First Crusade

"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.

"Héh, fellow," grunted a second guard, "I have seen you before lurking about. By the Mass, 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 noble 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 God, 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. God 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 nobleman, 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 Marseilles, 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 Marseilles 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 God, 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?"

"I go with my husband," said Mary, simply, looking straight upon him with her frank, dark eyes.

"Then remember this," replied the Spaniard, very gravely, "if at any time—and so Allah wills—I can serve you with wit, or sword, or life, remember I am Richard Longsword's brother, and, therefore, your own. What I said at Palermo, I say once more. And who is so wise that he will say: 'Musa the Moslem shall never again give succor to Mary, the Star of the Christians'?"

"Hei," cried Mary, trying to laugh, a little tearfully, "your face is sad as though you saw me in the clutch—" she was about to say, "of Iftikhar," but the shadow of the memory of that scene at Palermo, when the emir's mad breath smote her cheek, passed before her mind, and she was silent.

"Sweet lady," answered the Spaniard, smiling, yet after his melancholy way, "I have scant belief in omens. Men say I am reckless in danger, as though tempting Allah to write my name in the book of doom. Listen: when I was young my father had the astrologers of the king of Seville's court cast my horoscope. And they came to him, saying: 'Lord, your son will be a great cavalier; he shall escape a thousand perils; a thousand enemies shall seek his life; he shall mock them all. Nevertheless he shall perish, and that because of the passion for a maid, whose beauty shall outrun praise by the poet Nawas, whose loveliness shall surpass the houris of Paradise; yet even she in her guilelessness shall undo him.'"

"But you distrust prophecies!" exclaimed the Greek, blushing.

"Even so," continued the Andalusian, stroking his beard; "yet see. If it be true as the astrologers say, I may run to myriad dangers and stand scatheless; for where is the maid who shall put madness in me saving you," with a soft smile; "and are you not my sister, in whose love for my brother I joy?"

"You speak riddles," said Mary, this time casting down her eyes.

"Riddles? There is little profit in the unweaving. Perhaps in Egypt, in that warm, enchanted Nile country, in some genii-haunted island of the great river where the cataract foams, and the sun makes rainbow ever on the mist,—who knows but that I may find my temptress—my destruction!"

"Ah!" cried Richard, laughing now, "she must indeed be more than human fair, for I think no mortal maid will stir the heart of Musa, son of Abdallah, if—" But he paused, and his eyes were on Mary, who clapped her hand upon his lips. Musa was humming gently a weird Spanish song, then laughed in turn in pure merriment. "See, we almost draw swords, because I will not confess myself covetous of Richard's bride!"

"Silence, or I wed neither!" came from Mary; and perforce the two made her blush no more.

Then before the sober days that awaited them came, there was the wedding. Musa was soon to take ship to Palermo, thence to Egypt; so they hastened the bridal, and Baron Hardouin gave them one which was long the talk of the country-side. Never before was the sky more blue, the air more sweet, the village church bells' pealing merrier. A hundred guests from far and near; amongst them Counts Raymond and Gaston, ridden over from Orange. A noble procession it was to the church, the jongleurs leading in their brightest motley; the bride all in violet silk, gold lace and ermine at her fair throat; on her hair a great crown of roses red as her own red lips; behind pranced Rollo, bearing his lord on an ivory saddle; then all the guests, the great ladies crowned with gold; and flowers upon every neck, upon the beasts, upon the roadway; till the throng came to the church porch, where Sebastian stood to greet them.

In his hands was a book, and on it a little silver ring. Mary stood before the priest, and Richard Longsword at her side. Her eyes were cast down—"She has neither father nor mother to give her away, ah! dear lady," all the women were lamenting. But Baron Hardouin advanced to her, took her hand in his, laid it in the hand of the Norman; and the latter—the words coming from his very soul—repeated the great vow: "Forever I swear it, by God's strength and my strength; in health or in sickness, I promise to guard her." Then Sebastian took the ring: he said a little prayer over it, and gave to Richard; and Richard placed it on three fingers in succession of the little hand that lay in his. "In the name of the Father!"—then, "of the Son!"—then, "of the Holy Ghost!" And on that third finger the ring should abide till life was sped. As it slipped to its place, the women gave a little laugh and cry, "Good omen! it glides easily! She will be a peaceful bride!" For when the ring stuck fast, there was foreboding of shrewings and sorrow.

Then into the church—dim, awesome; two candles on the altar; a cloud of incense; a vast company still pressing about with curious whisperings. In the gray nave they knelt for the benediction; distant, mysterious as from another world, "May God bless you, and show Himself favorable unto you, your bodies and your souls." Then they received the host at the altar; and Richard, as was appointed, in the sight of a thousand, with a great crucifix above and Christ Himself in the golden dove beneath the altar, took Mary in his arms, and gave her the kiss of peace—the peace of the love that may not die in earth or in heaven.

This over, back to the castle, the trumpets making the azure quake; banners on every house; flowers rained upon the bride; her black mule treading a scarlet carpet. All shouted, "Joy, joy and long life to the noble Lady of St. Julien! Joy to the valiant Baron! Joy to both!" So there were fêtes and tournaments eight days long, as the custom was. Mary and Richard went to their wedding mass, and during the service the bride, as did all good brides, they told her, made vows to obey her lord, to call him "Monsire," or, better, the good Latin "Domine." But she straightway disproved this promise, and mocked the great De St. Julien to his face.

On the ninth day Musa said farewell. Richard and Mary rode forth with him for a long way, to see him well towards Marseilles. Neither he nor Richard spoke the word nearest their hearts,—"What will befall the soul of my brother?" But they had many things to say, of when the Crusade should be over, and Moslem and Christian might be friends at least in this world. But that hour seemed very far away.

At last they came to the fork, and the two could go no farther. Musa turned to bid farewell. "Remember," said he, in his musical Spanish Arabic, "remember the mercy of Allah surpasses all human mercy. We are all in the hollow of His hand; Christian and Moslem alike in His keeping. By His will we shall meet, and naught shall sever."

"Amen!" said Richard, looking down. They had all dismounted. Without speaking, he cast his arms about Musa, and gave him a close embrace. And when the two stood apart, the Spaniard's eyes rested on Mary, then on Longsword. The Norman smiled and nodded. "Are you not my sister?" said Musa, simply. And he laid his hands upon her arms, and kissed her forehead, while she resisted not, nor even blushed. Only her long lashes were bright, when she answered:—

"Yes, my brother, my heart is very full. I cannot speak all the things I feel."

Musa swung into his saddle; the men-at-arms of Hardouin who were to escort him to Marseilles cantered after. They saw the Spaniard climb a hillock; just at the curve he gave one sweep of the hand—was gone. Mary laid her head on Richard's shoulder, and spoke nothing for a long time. Then they rode to La Haye together, and neither had heart for idle speech.

At the castle gate Sebastian met them, his face—so far as he ever suffered it—twisted with a smile.

"Glory to St. Raphael! The unbeliever is departed!"

"Musa is gone," answered Richard, soberly.

"Praises to God! the devil hath reclaimed his own! the lake of unquenchable fire—"

But he spoke no more. Richard had knotted his fist and with one buffet felled the priest, so that he did not speak for a good while; and when he did, Mary observed that never by word or deed did he recall the Spaniard.

CHAPTER XXIII

HOW IFTIKHAR'S MESSENGER RETURNED

It was the twelfth day of the sacred month Ramadan, in the year of the flight of the Prophet four hundred and ninety,—according to the Christian reckoning in the month of August, one thousand and ninety-six,—that Iftikhar Eddauleh sat over his sherbet in the palace El Halebah, which is by the Syrian city of Aleppo. Now good Moslems were not presumed to enjoy food or drink from rise to set of sun during the sacred month, therefore the grand prior of the Ismaelians sat shaded on the liwan, a raised hall opening off the great court of the palace. Here, with the door covered by Indian tapestries, and with silken carpets of Kerman deadening the footfalls of each soft-stepping Persian slave, the great man could lie upon his purple couch, and let his eye rove from the bright, inlaid stones of the alabaster walls to the ceiling beams of gilded teak. Without the sun beat hot, the parching south wind from the desert swept sand-dust in the eyes of man and beast; but within all was cool, darkened, fragrant with frankincense from the smouldering brazier.

Iftikhar was in that mood of sleepy indolence to which men wonted to a life of restless action are often prone. He was clad only in a loose under-mantle of green cotton; and while he dozed a dark-eyed maid of Dekkan was bathing his feet with perfumed water from a porcelain basin. A second maid stood by the couch, and often, as the master languidly held out his cup, refilled it with the sweet rose sherbet from a brass cooler of snow. Iftikhar drank again, and again, speaking not a word; till at last the first Hindoo, having borne away the bowl, stood at his head with a great fan of bright feathers. So far as speech or expression was in question, his ministers might have been moving statues, so noiseless, so mechanical, was every action.

Presently Iftikhar began communing with himself, as was his wont, half aloud. "One year in Syria; Wallah! truly if prosperity is not my destiny, all the jinns deceive. I have been to Alamont, the 'Vulture's Nest,' have seen Hassan ben-Sabah, Lord of the Ismaelians, and all the 'devoted' have been bidden to obey my word as they would the 'Cid of the Mountain.' At my nod ten thousand daggers flash, ten thousand riders go forth. Let emir or sultan offend:—he lies down on his bed, his memlouks about; he awakes—in paradise; for in all Islam who may escape our daggers? Mashallah!—let others boast; what may not I, Iftikhar, accomplish? I, who was left a foundling in the great Cairo mosque El-Azhar, and was reared by the compassionate Imam Abdul Aziz? Power, riches, glory—there shall be no bound to my fortune!"

The Egyptian leaped up and began to pace the floor.

"Much yet to do," ran he on; "I have Hassan Sabah's pledge that I shall be his successor. Every barrier must be plucked down betwixt the Ismaelians and empire over all Islam, such as Harun or Mansur never held. 'All is permitted, naught feared,'—such is our watchword, taught the initiated at the grand lodge in Cairo. Let him who stands in our way be snuffed out like a rushlight,—Barkyarok the arch-sultan, the Bagdad kalif, who is Barkyarok's puppet—all—all!"

As the Egyptian spoke, a huge negro, shining with great earrings, and, save for a red cincture, clothed only in his ebony, glided from behind the curtained door. In his hand was a naked cimeter of startling length. Never a word he said, but only pointed with his weapon to the passage, then salaamed.

"The dervish Kerbogha?" asked Iftikhar, stopping his pacings.

The negro, who was a mute, only bowed almost to the floor.

"Bid him enter." The giant salaamed a third time, and was gone. An instant later a stranger entered. His robe was spotless white, but the shoes and belt were red. He was a man just in the turn of life, with a powerful military frame, the nose of a hawk, and a hawk's keen eye; a grizzled beard, very thick, that swept his breast; his head crowned with a peaked felt hat, also white. The sun had long since tanned his skin to a rich bronze; there were scars on cheeks, forehead, hands. He strode with the springing step of one who loved hardship for hardship's sake; and no second glance was needed to tell that power and command were second nature.

Iftikhar bowed very ceremoniously, thrusting one hand in his bosom, and the stranger doing the like, while the formula was exchanged: "Peace be on you." "On you be peace, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings."

Then the Egyptian bade the Hindoos bring new water and sherbet. The stranger flung himself upon the divan, and words flew fast.

"You have been to Antioch?" asked Iftikhar.

"I have," replied Kerbogha,—for such was the new comer's name. "Yaghi-Sian is willing to link hands with us. His pride has been humbled mightily since he attacked your friend Redouan, lord of Aleppo, and was defeated. Now he sees that only by joining the Ismaelians can he hope for success."

"And you promised—?"

"That if the plans of Hassan Sabah fail not, we shall have the puppet kalif, Mustazhir, and his master, the arch-sultan Barkyarok, at our mercy in two years. Then each prince who is of our party shall divide the spoils, and rule every one in his own land, sending some tribute to Alamont in sign of fealty to the order. I have engaged, you will warn Redouan, that Yaghi-Sian is not to be attacked; and if he refuse, let him remember how our daggers found Nizam ul-Mulk, the great vizier. To-day I am at Aleppo, to-morrow I go to Mosul, thence to Alamont to tell my tale to Hassan Sabah."

Whereupon Iftikhar replied, while the slaves bathed Kerbogha's feet:—

"I see all goes well. The Seljouk power declines since the death of Malek Shah. Yet Barkyarok is not to be despised; he can still summon the Turkish hordes. The 'devoted' cannot do all. The dagger throws down many thrones, raises none. To strike kalif and sultan we need more—an army—myriads; how gather it? A whisper at Ispahan, 'Kerbogha is of the Ismaelians; he moves disguised as a dervish to seduce the emirs.' How long then does the arch-sultan delay to send the bowstring?"

Kerbogha set down his sherbet cup and laughed dryly.

"Wallah, can one always play at backgammon,1 and win? So in life; fortune and skill must go together. Let us play our game, and take what Allah sends without a quiver."

"An army, an army; where an army, to break the arch-sultan's might?" Iftikhar was repeating, when the curtain was thrust away. The giant negro was salaaming again.

"Another stranger?"

The mute nodded.

"Can he be trusted?" the second question from Kerbogha.

A second nod. "Let him come in."

And the curtains gave way for none other than the dwarf Zeyneb, travel-stained, with a ragged beard and a very tattered costume. At sight of his master and Kerbogha, the dwarf bowed to the rugs, then laid his hand on lips and forehead. At last Iftikhar spoke:—

"You come from Frankland?"

"I have been amongst the Franks, lord, as you deigned to command."

"And Richard Longsword, whom my soul hates?" came eagerly.

The dwarf looked his master full in the eye.

"He still lives, and to my knowledge prospers."

"Child of Eblees the Devil, have you failed yet again? at Palermo, at Cefalu, and now in France?" And Iftikhar put forth his hand for the ivory staff that lay by the divan. "Sluggard, an hundred strokes on your bare heels for this!"

The dwarf still did not flinch.

"Master, once at Clermont where the Frankish lords were all gathered to prepare for taking Jerusalem, I stabbed at him through the walls of his tent; some jinn prompted him to wear a Valencia hauberk. Barely I made away. Again in Provence, when he stood by the Star of the Greeks, I would have stricken him in her arms; but that chain shirt, enchanted doubtless, turned the blow. I was cast into a dungeon, and only because Allah granted that I should know how to pick loose fetters, and because He shed sleep upon my guard, did I escape being food for dogs. Therefore, if I deserve stripes, lay on; yet my small wit could do no more. The hand of Allah protects Richard Longsword."

Iftikhar controlled himself by no common effort.

"You have ever been a trusty slave, Zeyneb; no man may contend against the Most High. I do wrong to be angry. Depart, and when refreshed, return and tell all; of the Star of the Greeks and of the commotions amongst the Franks; for of these last the Lord Kerbogha will be glad to hear."

But as Zeyneb was bowing himself out of the liwan, a low, weird song stole from the chambers within; now softly rising as the breeze, now mounting shriller, shriller, till the gilded stalactites trembled, and the whole hall throbbed with the wailing melody, then fainter, dying like the retreating wind. Again and again the three heard the wild song rise, throb, fall, and a strange awe spread over them, as if more than mortal accents drifted with the note.