The Prince and the Page Part 9

It was nearly dark when the Prince and the Page landed on the island, and found the tents already set up in their due order and rank, according to the discipline that no one durst transgress where Edward was the commander.

Richard attended him to his pavilion, and being there dismissed until supper-time, crossed the square s.p.a.ce which was always left around the royal banner, to the tent at the southern corner, which was regularly appropriated to the pages' use. On lifting its curtain he was, however, dismayed to see a kirtle there, and imagining that he must have fallen upon the ladies' quarters, he was retreating with an apology; when the sharp voice of Dame Idonea called out, "Oh yes, Master Page! 'tis you that are at home here. I was merely tarrying till 'twas the will of one of you to come in and look to the poor child."

And little John of Dunster called from a couch of mantles, "Richard, oh! is it he at last?"

"It is I," said Richard, advancing into the light of a bra.s.s lamp, hung by chains from the top of the tent. "This is kind indeed, Lady! But is he indeed so ill at ease?"

"How should he be otherwise, with none of you idle-pated pages casting a thought to him?"

"I was grieved to leave him-but the Prince summoned me," began Richard.

"Beshrew thee! Tell me not of princes, as though there were no one whom thou couldst bid to have a care of the little lad!"

"I did bid Piers-," Richard made another attempt.

"Piers, quotha? Why didst not bid the Jackanapes that sits on the luggage? A proper warder for a sick babe!"

"I am no babe!" here burst out John; "I am twelve years old come Martinmas, and I need no tendance but Richard's."

"Ha, ha! So those are all the thanks we ladies get, when we are not young and fair!" laughed Dame Idonea, rather amused.

"I want no women, young or old," petulantly repeated John; "I want Richard.-Lift me up, Richard; take away this cloak."

"For his life, no!" returned the Dame; "he has the heats and the chills on him, and to let him take cold would be mere slaughter."

"Alas!" said Richard, "I hoped nothing ailed him but the sea, and that landing would make all well."

"As if the sea ever made a child shiver and burn by turns! Nay, 'tis the trick of the sun in these parts. Strange that the sun himself should be a mere ally of the Infidel! I tell thee, if the child is ever to see Dunster again, thou must watch him well, keep him from the sun by day and the chill by night; or he'll be like the poor creatures in the French camp out there, whom, I suppose, you found in fine case."

"Alack yes, Lady!"

"I've seen it many a time; and all their disorders will be creeping into our camp next. Tell me, is it even as they told us, one king dead and the other dying?"

Richard began to wonder whether he should ever get her out of his tent, for she insisted on his telling her every possible particular- who had died, who had lived, who was sick, who well; and as from the close connection between the English, French, and Sicilian courts, whose queens were all sisters, she knew who every one was, and accounted for the history of each person she inquired after, back to the last generation-happy if it were not to the third-her conversation was not quickly over. She ended at last, by desiring Richard to give her patient some of a febrifuge, which she had brought with her, every two hours, and when it was all spent, or in case of any change in the boy's state, to summon her from the ladies' tent; adding, however, "But what's the use of leaving a pert springald like thee in charge? Thou wilt sleep like a very dormouse, I'll warrant! I'd best call Mother Jugge."

"Oh no, no!" cried John; to whom the attendance of Mother Jugge would have been a worse indignity than the being nursed by Dame Idonea; "let me have no one but Richard! Richard knows all I want.-Richard, leave me not again."

"Ay, ay; a little lad ever hangs to a bigger, were he to torture the life out of him. Small thanks for us women after our good looks be past. But I'll look in on the child in early morn, thanks or no thanks; for I know his mother well, and if I can help it, the hyenas shall not make game of his bones, as I hear them doing by the French yonder."

John strove to say that, indeed, he thanked her, and had been infinitely comforted and refreshed by her care, and that all he meant was to express his distaste to Mother Jugge, the lavender (i.e. laundress), and his desire for Richard Fowen's company; but he was little attended to, and apparently more than half offended, the brisk old lady trotted away.

That island was a dreary place; without a tree or any shelter from the glare of sun and sea, whose combined influences threatened blindness, sun-stroke, or at the very least blistered the faces of those who stepped beyond their tents by day. The Prince's orders, however, strictly confined his army within its bounds, except that at twilight parties were sent ash.o.r.e for water and provisions, under strict orders, however, to hold no parley with any one from the French or Sicilian camps, lest they should bring home the infection of the pestilence; and always under the command of some trustworthy knight, able and willing to enforce the command.

The Prince himself refused all partic.i.p.ation in the counsels of Charles of Anjou, and confined himself, like his men, entirely to the fleet and island. Charles contrived to spread a report, that his displeasure was solely due to his disappointment at being balked of fighting with the Tunisians; and that instead of indignant grief at the perversion of the wrecked Crusade, he was only showing the sullenness of an aggrieved swordsman. Even young Philippe le Hardi, a dull, heavy, ignorant youth, was led to suppose this was the cause of his offence, and though daily inquiries were sent through the Genoese crews for his health, he made no demonstration of willingness to see his cousin of England.

Thus Richard had no opportunity of ascertaining whether there were any basis for the strange impression he had received in St. Louis's death-chamber. It would have been an act of disobedience, not soon overlooked by the Prince, had one of his immediate suite transgressed his commands, and indeed, so strict was the discipline, that it would scarcely have been possible to make the attempt. Besides, Richard's time was entirely engrossed between his duties in attending on the Prince, and his care of little John of Dunster, who had a sharp attack of fever, and was no doubt only carried through it by the experienced skill of Dame Idonea Osbright, and by Richard's tender nursing. Somehow the dame's heart was not won, even by the elder page's dutiful care and obedience to all her directions. Partly she viewed him as a rival in the affections of the patient-who, poor little fellow, would in his companion's absence be the child he was, and let her treat him like his mother, or old nurse, chattering to her freely about home, and his home-sick longings; whereas the instant any male companion appeared, he made it a point of honour to be the manly warrior and crusader, just succeeding so far as to be sullen instead of plaintive; though when left to Richard, he could again relax his dignity, and become natural and affectionate. But besides this species of jealousy, Richard suspected that Lady Osbright knew, or at least guessed, his own parentage, and disliked him for it accordingly. She had never forgotten the distress and degradation of his mother's stolen marriage, nor forgiven his father for it; she had often stung the proud heart of his brother Henry, when he shared the nursery of his cousins the princes; and her st.u.r.dy English dislike of foreigners, and her strong narrow personal loyalty, had alike resulted in the most vehement hatred of the Earl of Leicester, whose head she would a.s.suredly have welcomed with barbarous exultation, worthy of her Danish ancestors. Little chance, then, was there that she would regard with favour his son under a feigned name, fostered in the Prince's own court and camp.

She was a constraint, and almost a vexation, to Richard, and he heartily wished that the boy's recovery would free his tent from her. The boy did recover favourably, in spite of all the discomforts of the island, and was decidedly convalescent when, after nearly ten days' isolation on the island, Edward drew out his whole force upon the sh.o.r.e to do honour to the embarkation of the relics of Louis IX. It was one of the most solemn and melancholy pageants that could be conceived. A wide lane of mailed soldiers was drawn up, Sicilians and Provencals on the one side, and on the other, English and the Knights of the two Orders. All stood, or sat on horseback in shining steel, guarding the way along which were carried the coffins. In memory, perhaps, of Louis's own words, "I, your leader, am going first," his remains headed the procession, closely followed by those of his young son; and behind it marched his two brothers, Charles and Alfonse, and his son-in-law, the King of Navarre (the two latter already bearing the seeds of the fatal malady), and the three English princes, Edward, Edmund, and Henry of Almayne, each followed by his immediate suite. The long line of coffins of French counts and n.o.bles, whose lives had in like manner been sacrificed, brought up the rear; and alas! how many nameless dead must have been left in the ruins!

Each coffin when brought to the sh.o.r.e was placed in a boat, and with m.u.f.fled oars transplanted to the vessel ready to receive it, while the troops remained drawn up on the sh.o.r.e. The procession that ensued was almost more mournful. It was still of biers, but these were not of the dead but of the living, and again the foremost was the King of France, while next to him came his sister, the Queen of Navarre. Edward went down to his litter, as it was brought on the beach, and offered him his arm as he feebly stepped forth to enter the boat. Philippe looked up to his tall cousin, and wrung his hands as he murmured, "Alas! what is to be the end of all this?" Edward made kind and cheerful reply, that things would look better when they met at Trapani, and then almost lifted the young king into his boat. Poor youth, he had not yet seen the end! He was yet to lose his wife, his brother-in-law, and his uncle and aunt, ere he should see his home again.

Richard and Hamlyn de Valence, as part of the Prince's train, had moved in the procession; and they were for the rest of the day in close attendance on their lord, conveying his numerous orders for the embarkation of the troops on the morrow, on their return to Sicily. It was not till night-fall that Richard returned to his tent, where John of Dunster was sitting on the sand at the door, eagerly watching for him. "Well, Jack, my lad, how hast thou sped?" asked he, advancing. "Couldst see our doleful array?"

"Is it thou, indeed, this time?" said the boy, catching at his cloak.

"Why, who should it be?"

"Thy wraith! Thy double-ganger has been here Richard."

"What, dreaming again?"

'No no! I am well, I am strong. But this IS the land of enchantment! Thou knowst it is. Did we not see a fleet of fairy boats sailing on the sea? and a leaf eat up a fly here on this very tent pole? And did not the Fay Morgaine show us towns and castles and churches in the sea? Thou didst not call me light-headed then, Richard; thou sawest it too!"

"But this wraith of mine! Where didst see it?"

"In this tent. I was lying on the sand, trying if I could make it hold enough to build a castle of it, when the curtain was put back, and there thou stoodest, Richard!"

"Well, did I speak or vanish?"

"Oh, thou spakest-I mean the THING spake, and it said, 'Is this the tent of the young Lord of Montfort?' How now-what have I said?"

"Whom did he ask for?" demanded Richard breathlessly.

"Montfort-young Lord de Montfort!" replied John; "I know it was, for he said it twice over."

"And what didst thou answer?"

"What should I answer? I said we had no Montforts here; for they were all dishonoured traitors, slain and outlawed."

Richard could not restrain a sudden indignant exclamation that startled the boy. "Every one says so! My father says so!" he returned, somewhat defiantly.

"Not of the Earl," said Richard, recollecting himself.

"He said every one of the young Montforts was a foul traitor, and man-sworn tyrant, as bad as King John had been ere the Charter," repeated John hotly, "and their father was as bad, since he would give no redress. Thou knowst how they served us in Somerset and Devon!"

"I have heard, I have heard," said Richard, cutting short the story, and controlling his own burning pain, glad that the darkness concealed his face. "No more of that; but tell me, what said this stranger?"

"Thou thinkest it was really a stranger, and not thy wraith?" said John anxiously. "I hope it was, for Dame Idonea said if it were a wraith, it betokened that thou wouldst not-live long-and oh, Richard! I could not spare thee!"

And the little fellow came nestling up to his friend's breast in an access of tenderness, such as perhaps he would have disdained save in the darkness.

"Did Dame Idonea see him?" asked Richard.

"No; but she came in soon after he had vanished."

"Vanished! What, like Fay Morgaine's castles? Tell me in sooth, John; it imports me to know. What did this stranger, when thou spakest thus of the House of Montfort?"

"He answered," said John; "he did not answer courteously-he said, that I was a malapert little a.s.s, and demanded again where this young Montfort's tent was. So then I said, that if a Montfort dared to show his traitor's face in this camp, the Prince would hang him as high as Judas; for I wanted to be rid of him, Richard! it was so dreadful to see thy face, and hear thy voice talking French, and asking for dead traitors."

"French!" said Richard. "Methought thou knewst no French!"

"I-I have heard it long now, more's the pity," faltered John, "and- and I'd have spoken anything to be rid of that shape."