The Prince and the Page Part 10

"And wert thou rid? What befell then?"

"It cursed the Prince, and King, and all of them," said John with a shudder; "it looked black and deadly, and I crossed myself, and said the Blessed Name, and no doubt it writhed itself and went off in brimstone and smoke, for I shut my eyes, and when I looked up again it was gone!"

"Gone! Didst look after him?"

"Oh, no! Earthly things are all food for a brave man's sword," said Master John, drawing himself up very valiantly, "but wraiths and things from beneath-they do scare the very heart out of a man. And I lay, I don't know how, till Dame Idonea came in; and she said either the foul fiend had put on thy shape because he boded thee ill, or it was one of the traitor brood looking for his like."

"Tell me, John," said Richard anxiously; "surely he was not in all points like me. Had he our English white cross?"

"I cannot say as to the cross," said John; "meseemed it was all you- yourself-and that was all-only I thought your voice was strange and hollow-and-now I think of it-yes-he was bearded-brown bearded. And," with a sudden thought, "stand up, prithee, in the opening of the tent;" and then taking his post where he had been sitting at the time of the apparition, "He was not so tall as thou art. Thy head comes above the fold of the curtain, and his, I know, did not touch it, for I saw the light over it. Then thou dost not think it was thy wraith?" he added anxiously.

"I think my wraith would have measured me more exactly both in stature and in age," said Richard lightly. "But how did Leonillo comport himself? He brooks not a stranger in general; and dogs cannot endure the presence of a spirit."

"Ah! but he fawned upon this one, and thrust his nose into his hand," said John, "and I think he must have run after him; for it was so long ere he came back to me, that I had feared greatly he was gone, and oh, Richard! then I must have gone too! I could never have met you without Leonillo."

By this time Richard had little doubt that the visitor must have been one of his brothers, Simon or Guy, who were not unlikely to be among the Provencals, in the army of Charles of Anjou. He had not been thought to resemble them as a boy, but he had observed how much more alike brothers appear to strangers than they do to their own family; and he knew by occasional observations from the Prince, as well as from his brother Henry's recognition of his voice, that the old Montfort characteristics must be strong in himself. He would not, however, avow his belief to John of Dunster. Secrecy on his own birth had been enjoined on him by his uncle the King; and disobedience to the old man's most trifling commands was always sharply resented by the Prince; nor was the boy's view of the House of Montfort very favourable to such a declaration. Richard really loved the brave little fellow, and trusted that some day when the discovery must be made, it would be coupled with some exploit that would show it was no name to be ashamed of. So he only told the boy that he had no doubt the stranger was a foreign knight, who had once known the old Leicester family; but bade him mention the circ.u.mstance to no one. He feared, however, that the caution came too late, since Dame Idonea was not only an inveterate gossip, but was likely to hold in direful suspicion any one who had been inquired for by such a name.

The personal disappointment of having missed his brother was great. Richard was very lonely. The Princes, and Hamlyn de Valence, were the only persons who knew his secret, and both by Prince Edmund and De Valence he was treated with indifference or dislike. Edward himself, though the object of his fervent affection, and his protector in all essentials, was of a reserved nature, and kept all his attendants at a great distance. On very rare occasions, when his feelings had been strongly stirred-as in the instance of his visit to his uncle's death-chamber-he might sometimes unbend; and momentary flashes from the glow of his warm deep heart went further in securing the love and devotion of those around him, than would the daily affability of a lower nature; but in ordinary life, towards all concerned with him except his nearest relations, he was a strict, cold, grave disciplinarian, ever just, though on the side of severity, and stern towards the slightest neglect or breach of observance, nor did he make any exception in favour of Richard. If the youth seldom received one of his brief annihilating reproofs, it was because they were scarcely ever merited; but he had experienced that any want of exact.i.tude in his duties was quite as severely visited as if he had not been the Prince's close kinsman, romantically rescued by him, and placed near his person by his special desire. And Eleanor, with all her gentle courtesy and kindness, was strictly withheld by her husband from pampering or c.o.c.kering his pages; nor did she ever transgress his will.

The atmosphere was perhaps bracing, but it was bleak: and there were times when Richard regretted his acceptance of the Prince's offer, and yearned after family ties, equality, and freedom. Simon and Guy had never been kind to him, but at least they were his brothers, and with them disguise and constraint would be over-he should, too, be in communication with his mother and sister. He was strongly inclined to cast in his lot with them, and end this life of secrecy, and distrust from all around him save one, and his loyal love ill requited even by that one. It grieved him keenly that one of his brothers should have been repulsed from his tent; an absolutely famished longing for fraternal intercourse gained possession of him, and as he lay on his pallet that night in the dark, he even shed tears at the thought of the greeting and embrace that he had missed.

Still he had hopes for the future. There must be meetings and possibilities of inquiries pa.s.sing between the three armies, and he would let no opportunity go by. The next day, however, there was no chance. The English troops were embarked in their vessels, and after a short and prosperous pa.s.sage were again landed at Trapani, the western angle of Sicily. The French had sailed first, but were not in harbour when the English came in; and the Sicilians, who had brought up the rear, arrived the next day, but still there was no tidings of the French. Towards the evening, however, the royal vessel bearing Philippe III. came into harbour, and all the rest were in sight, when at sunset a frightful storm arose, and the ships were in fearful case. Many foundered, many were wrecked on the rocky islets around the port, and the French army was almost as much reduced in numbers as it had been by the Plague of Carthage.

Charles of Anjou remained himself in the town of Trapani, but knowing the evils of crowding a small s.p.a.ce with troops, he at once sent his men inland, and Richard was again disappointed of the hope of seeing or hearing of his brothers; for the Prince still forbade all intercourse with the shattered remnant of the French army, justly dreading that they might still carry about them the seeds of the infection of the camp.

The three heads of the Crusade, however, met in the Castle of Trapani to hold council on their future proceedings. The place was the state-chamber of the castle.

Each prince had brought with him a single attendant, and the three stood in waiting near the door, in full view of their lords, though out of earshot. It was an opportunity that Richard could not bear to miss of asking for his brothers, unheard by any of those English ears who would be suspicious about his solicitude for the House of Montfort. A lively-looking Neapolitan lad was the attendant of King Charles; and in spite of all the perils of attempting conversation while thus waiting, Richard had-while the princes were greeting one another, and taking their seats-ventured the question, whether any of the sons of the English Earl of Leicester were in the Sicilian army. Of Earl of Leicester the Italian knew nothing; but Count of Montfort was a more familiar sound. "Si, si, vero!" Sicily had rung with it; and Count Rosso Aldobrandini, of the Maremma Toscana, had given his only daughter and heiress to the banished English knight, Guido di Monforte, who had served in the king's army as a Provencal.

Richard's heart beat high. Guy a well-endowed count, with a castle, lands, and home! He would have asked where Guy now was, and how far off was the Maremma; but the conference between the princes was actually commencing, and silence became necessary on the part of their attendants.

They could only hear the murmur of voices; but could discern plainly the keen looks and animated gestures of Charles of Anjou, the sickly sullen indifference of Philippe, and the majestic gravity of Edward, whose n.o.ble head towered above the other two as if he were their natural judge. Charles was, in fact, trying to persuade the others to sail with him for Greece, and there turn their forces on the unfortunate Michael Palaeologos, who had lately recovered Constantinople, the Empire that Charles hoped to win for himself, the favoured champion of Rome.

Philippe merely replied that he had had enough of crusading, he was sick and weary, he must go home and bury his father, and get himself crowned. Charles might be then seen trying a little hypocrisy; and telling Philippe that his saintly father would only have wished to speed him on the way of the Cross. Then that trumpet voice of Edward, whose tones Richard never missed, answered, "What is the way of the Cross, fair uncle?"

It was well known that Louis IX. had refused to crusade against Christians, even Greek Christians, and Philippe soon sheltered himself under the plea that had not at first occurred to his dull mind. In effect, he laid particulars before his uncle, that quickly made it plain that the French army was in too miserable a condition to do anything but return home; and Charles then addressed his persuasions to Edward-striving to convince him in the first place of the sanct.i.ty of a war against Greek heretics, and when Edward proved past being persuaded that arms meant for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre ought not to be employed against Christians who reverenced it, he tried to demonstrate the uselessness of hoping to conquer the Holy Land, even by such a Crusade as had been at first planned, far less with the few attached to Edward's individual banner. Long did the king argue on. His low voice was scarcely audible, even without the words; but Edward's brief, ringing, almost scornful, replies, never failed to reach Richard's ear, and the last of them was, "It skills not, my fair uncle. For the Holy Land I am vowed to fight, and thither would I go had I none with me but Fowen, my groom!"

And withal his eye lit on Richard, with a look of certainty of response; of security that here was one to partake his genuine ardour, and of refreshment in the midst of his disgust with the selfish uncle and sluggish cousin. That look, that half smile, made the youth's heart bound once more. Yes, with him he would go to the ends of the earth! What was the freedom of Guy's castle, to the following of such a lord and leader in such a cause?

Richard could have thrown himself at his feet, and poured forth pledges of fidelity. But in ten minutes he was following home the unapproachable, silent, cold warrior.

And the lack of any outlet for his aspirations turned them back upon themselves, with a strange sense of bitterness and almost of resentment. Leonillo alone, as the creature lay at his feet, and looked up into his face with eyes of deep wistful meaning, seemed to him to have any feeling for him; and Leonillo became the recipient of many an outpouring of something between discontent and melancholy. Leonillo, the sole remnant of his home! He burnt for that Holy Land where he was to win the name and fame lacking to him; but there was to be long delay.

Fain would the Prince have proceeded at once to Palestine; but the Genoese, from whom, in the abeyance of the English navy, he had been obliged to hire his transports, absolutely refused to sail for the East until after the three winter months; and he was therefore obliged to remain in Sicily. King Charles invited him to spend Christmas at the court at Syracuse or Naples, in hopes, perhaps, of persuading him to the Greek expedition; but Edward was far too much displeased with the Angevin to accept his hospitality; recollecting, perhaps, that such a sojourn had been little beneficial to his great- uncle Coeur de Lion's army. He decided upon staying where he was, in the remotest corner of Sicily, and keeping his three hundred crusaders as much to themselves and to strict military discipline as possible, maintaining them at his own cost, and avoiding as far as he could all transactions with the cruel and violent Provencal adventurers, with whom Charles had filled the island.

Thus Richard found his hopes of obtaining further intelligence about his brothers entirely pa.s.sing away. He did, indeed, venture on one day saying to the Prince, "My Lord, I hear that my brother Guy hath become a Neapolitan count!"

"A Tuscan robber would be nearer the mark!" coldly replied Edward.

"And," added Richard, "methought, while the host is in winter quarters, I would venture on craving your license, my Lord, to visit him?"

"Thou hast thy choice, Richard," answered the Prince, with grave displeasure; "loyalty and honour with me, or lawlessness and violence with thy brother. Both cannot be thine!"

And returning to his study of the Lais of Marie de France, he made it evident that he would hear no more, and left Richard to a sharp struggle; in which hot irritation and wounded feeling would have carried him away at once from the stern superior who required the sacrifice of all his family, and gave not a word of sympathy in return. It was the crusading vow alone that detained the youth. He could not throw away his pledge to the wars of the Cross, and it was plain that if he went now to seek out Guy, he should never be allowed to return to the crusading army. But that vow once fulfilled, proud Edward should see, that not merely sufferance but friendliness was needed to bind the son of his father's sister to his service. The brother at Bednall Green was right, this bondage was worse than beggary. Nor, under the influence of these feelings, had Richard's service the alacrity and affection for which it had once been remarkable: the Prince rebuked his short-comings unsparingly, and thus added to the sense of injury that had caused them; Hamlyn de Valence sneered, and Dame Idonea took good care to point out both the youth's neglects and his sullenness, and to whisper significantly that she did not wonder, considering the stock he came of. A soothing word or gentle excuse from the kind-hearted Princess were the only gleams of comfort that rendered the present state of things endurable.

Just after Christmas arrived a vessel with reinforcements from home. Among them came a small body of Hospitaliers, with the novice Raynal at their head, now a full-blown knight, in dazzling scarlet and white, as Sir Reginald Ferrers. Richard at once recognized him, when he came to present himself to the Prince, and was very desirous of learning whether he knew aught of that other brother, so mysteriously hidden in obscurity. Sir Raynal on his side seemed to share the desire; he exchanged a friendly glance with the page, and when the formality of the reception was over sought him out, saying, "I have a greeting for you, Master Fowen."

"From Sir Robert Darcy?" asked Richard. "How fares it with the kind old knight?"

"Excellent well! Nay, nothing fares amiss with Father Robert!" said the young knight, smiling. "Everything is the very best that could have befallen him-to hear him speak. He is the very sunshine of the Spital, and had he been ordered on this Crusade, I think all the hamlets round would have risen to withhold him."

"Ah!" said Richard, hoping he was acting indifference; "said he aught of the little maiden with the blind father?"

"Pretty Bessee and Blind Hal of Bednall Green? Verily, that was the purport of my message. The poor knave hath been sorely sick and more cracked than ever this autumn; insomuch that Father Robert spent whole nights with him; and though he be better now, and as much in his senses as e'er he will be, such another access is like to make an end of him. Now, Father Robert saith that you, Sir Page, know who the poor man is by birth, and that he prays you to send him word what had best be done with the child, in case either of his death or of his getting so frenzied as to be unable to take care of her."

"Send him word!" repeated Richard in perplexity.

"We shall certainly have some one returning soon to the Spital," replied Sir Raynal. "Indeed, methinks some of the princes will be like to return, for the old King of the Romans is failing fast, and King Henry implored that the Prince of Almayne would come to hearten him."

"Then must I write to Sir Robert?" said Richard; "mine is scarce a message for word of mouth."

"So he said it was like to be," returned the knight, "and he took thought to send you a slip of parchment, knowing, he said, that such things are not wont to be found in a crusader's budget. Moreover, if ink be wanting, he bade me tell you that there's a fish in these seas, with many arms, and very like the foul fiend, that carries a bag of ink as good as any scrivener s.

"I have seen the monster," said Richard, who had often been down to the beach to see the unlading of the fishermen's boats, and to share little John of Dunster's unfailing marvel, that the Mediterranean should produce such outlandish creatures, so alien to his Bristol Channel experiences.

And the very next time the boats came in, Richard made his way to the sh.o.r.e, on the beautiful, rocky, broken coast; and presently encountered a sepia, which fully justified Sir Robert's comparison, lying at the bottom of a boat. The fisherman intended it for his own dinner, when all his choicer fish should have gone to supply the Friday's meal of the English chivalry; and he was a good deal amazed when the young gentleman, making his Provencal as like Sicilian as he could, began to traffic with him for it, and at last made him understand that it was only its ink-bag that he wanted.

The said ink, secured in a sh.e.l.l, was brought home by Richard, together with a couple of the largest sea-bird's quills that he could find-and which he shaped with his dagger, as best he might, in remembrance of Father Adam de Marisco's writing lessons. He meditated what should be the language of his letter, which was not likely to be secure from the eyes of the few who could read it; and finally decided that English was the tongue known to the fewest readers, who, if they knew letters at all, were sure to be acquainted with French and Latin.

On a strip of parchment, then, about nine inches long and three wide, he proceeded to indite, in upright cramped letters, with many contractions, nearly in such terms as these -

REVEREND AND KNIGHTLY FATHER,

The good ghostly father and knight, Sir Raynald Ferrers, hath borne to me your tidings of my brother's sickness, and of all your goodness to him-whereof I pray that our blessed Lady and good St. John may reward you, for I can only pray for you. Touching his poor little daughter, in case of his death or frenzy, which the Saints of their mercy forefend, I would entreat you of your goodness to place her in some nunnery, but without making known her name and quality until my return; so Heaven bring me home safe. But an if I should be slain in this Eastern land, then were it most for the little one's good to present her to the gracious lady Princess, by whom she would be most lovingly and naturally cared for; and would be more safe than with such as might shun to own her rights of blood and heirship. Commend me to my brother, if so be that he cares to hear of me; and tell him that Guy hath wedded the lady of a castle in the land of Italy. And so praying you, ghostly father, for your blessing, I greet you well, and rest your grateful bedesman and servant,

RICHARD OF LEICESTER.

Given at the Prince's camp at Drepanum, in the realm of Sicilia, on the octave of the Epiphany, in the year of grace MCCLXX.; and so our Lord have you heartily in His keeping.

Letter-writing was a mighty task; and Richard's extemporary implements were not of the best. He laboured hard over his composition, kneeling against a chest in the tent. When at length he raised his head, he encountered a face full of the most utter amazement. Little John of Dunster had come into the tent, and stood gazing at him with open eyes and gaping mouth, as if he were perpetrating an incantation. Richard could not help laughing.

"Why, Jack, dost think I am framing a spell for thee?"

"Writing!" gasped John, relieving his distended mouth by at length closing it.

"Wherefore not? Did not I see the chaplain teaching thee to write at Guildford?"

"Ay-but that was when I was a babe! Writing! Why, my father never writes!"

"But the Prince does. Thou hast seen him write. Come now," added Richard: "if thou wilt, I will help thee to write a letter to send thy greetings home to Dunster. Thy father and mother will be right glad to hear thou hast 'scaped that African fever."