Via Crucis: A Romance of the Second Crusade Part 23

"The d.u.c.h.ess of Gascony shall think only the better of you when she has heard me, sir."

Thereupon, with a great gesture and a bow to which Gilbert gravely responded, the knight took his leave and went to the door; but then, suddenly forgetting all his manner, and with a genuine impulse, he turned, came back and seized Gilbert's hand once more.

"A little accent, my friend! If you only had a little accent!"

His wiry figure disappeared through the door a moment later, and Gilbert was alone. He asked himself whether the Queen had meant to insult him, and he could not believe it. But presently, as he remembered all that had happened, it occurred to him that she might be ashamed of having shown him her heart in a moment of great danger, and now, as if to cover herself, she meant him to understand that he was nothing to her but a brave man who ought to be substantially and richly rewarded for having risked his life on her behalf.

Strangely enough, the thought pleased him now, as much as the brutal offer of the gold had outraged his honourable feeling. It was far better, he reflected, that the Queen should act thus and help him to look upon her as a being altogether beyond his sphere, as she really was. After this, he thought, it would be impossible and out of the question that any look or touch of hers could send a thrill through him, like little rivers of fire, from his head to his heels. The hand that had been held out to pay him money for its own life, must be as cold as a stone and as unfeeling. She was helping him to be true.

He shook himself and stretched his long arms as if awaking from sleep and dreaming. The motion hurt him, and he felt all his bruises at once, but there was a sort of pleasure in the pain, that accorded with his strange state of heart, and he did it a second time in order to feel the pain once more.

CHAPTER XVIII

The knight, whose name was Gaston de Castignac, faithfully fulfilled Gilbert's wishes, using certain ornate flourishes of language which the Englishman could certainly not have invented, and altogether expressing an absolute refusal in the most complimentary manner imaginable. The Queen bade him return the gold to her seneschal without breaking the leaden seal that pinched the ends of the knotted strings together. When she was alone, her women being together in the outer part of the tent, she hid her face in her white hands, as she sat, and bending forward, she remained in that att.i.tude a long time, without moving.

It was as Gilbert had thought. In the generous impulse that had prompted her to ask Beatrix's forgiveness she had done what was hardest for her to do, in a sort of wild hope that, by insulting the man who had such strong attraction for her, she might send him away out of her sight forever. Had he accepted the money, she would a.s.suredly have despised him, and contempt must kill all thoughts of love; but since he refused it, he must be angry with her, and he would either leave her army, and join himself to the Germans during the rest of the campaign, or, at the very least, he would avoid her.

But now that it was done and he had sent back the money in scorn, as she clearly understood in spite of her knight's flowery speeches, she felt the shame of having treated a poor gentleman like a poor servant, and then the certainty that he must believe her ungrateful began to torment her, so that she thought of his face, and longed to see him with all her heart. For Beatrix's sake and her own honour she would not send for him; but she called one of her women and sent for the Lady Anne of Auch, who bore the standard of the ladies' troop, the same who had stopped her horse without a fall. In her the Queen had great faith for her wisdom, for she had a man's thoughts with a woman's heart.

She came presently, tall and grave as a stately cypress among silver birches and shimmering white poplar trees.

"I have sent for you to ask you a question," the Queen began, "or, perhaps, to ask your advice."

The Lady Anne bowed her head, and when Eleanor pointed to a folding- stool beside her, she sat down and waited, fixing her black eyes on a distant part of the tent.

"You saw that young Englishman who stopped my horse," the Queen began.

"I wish to reward him. I have sent him five hundred pieces of gold, and he has refused to receive the gift."

The black eyes turned steadily to the Queen's face, gazed at her for a moment, and then looked away again, while not a feature moved. There was silence, for Anne of Auch said nothing while Eleanor waited.

"What shall I do now?" Eleanor asked after a long pause.

"Madam," answered the dark lady, smiling thoughtfully, "I think that, since you have offered him gold first, he would refuse a kingdom if you should press it upon him now, for he is a brave man."

"Do you know him?" asked Eleanor, almost sharply, and her eyes hardened.

"I have seen him many times, but I have never spoken with him. We talk of him now and then, because he is unlike the other knights, mixing little with them in the camp and riding often alone on the march. They say he is very poor, and he is surely brave."

"What does Beatrix de Curboil say of him?" The Queen's voice was still sharp.

"Beatrix? She is my friend, poor girl. I never heard her speak of this gentleman."

"She is very silent, is she not?"

"Oh, no! She is sometimes sad, and she has told me how her father took a second wife who was unkind to her, and she speaks of her own childhood as if she were the daughter of a great house. But that is all."

"And she never told you her stepmother's name, and never mentioned this Englishman?"

"Never, Madam, I am quite sure. But she is often very gay and quick of wit, and makes us laugh, even when we are tired and hot after a day's march and are waiting for our women; and sometimes she sings strange old Norman songs of Duke William's day, very sweetly, and little Saxon slave songs which we cannot understand."

"I have never heard her laugh nor sing, I think," said Eleanor, thoughtfully.

"She is very grave before your Grace. I have noticed it. That may be the English manner."

"I think it is." The Queen thought of Gilbert, and wondered whether he were ever gay. "But the question," she continued, "is what am I to do for the man?"

She spoke coldly and indifferently, but her eyes were watching the Lady Anne's face.

"What should you do yourself?" she asked, as the n.o.ble woman made no answer.

"I should not have sent him gold first," replied Anne of Auch. "But since that cannot be undone, your Grace can only offer him some high honour, which may be an honour only, and not wealth."

"He is not even a knight!"

"Then give him knighthood and honour too. Your Grace has made knights,--there is Gaston de Castignac,--and the fashion of receiving knighthood from the Church only, is past."

"I have heard him say that he would have it from his own liege sovereign, or not at all. He will not even set a device in his shield, as many are beginning to do, to show in the field that they are of good stock."

"Give him one, then--a device that shall be a perpetual honour to his house and a memory of a brave deed well done for a Queen's sake."

"And then? Shall that be all?"

"And then, if he be the man he seems, single him out for some great thing, and bid him risk his life again in doing it for the Holy Cross, and for your Grace's sake."

"That is good. Your counsel was always good. What thing shall I give him to attempt?"

"Madam, the Germans have been betrayed by the Greek Emperor's Greek guides, and we ourselves have no others, so that we in turn shall be led to slaughter if we follow them. If it please your Grace, let this Englishman choose such men as he trusts, and go ever before our march, till we reach Syria, sending tidings back to us, and receiving them, and bearing the brunt of danger for us."

"That would be indeed an honourable part," said the Queen, thoughtfully, and she turned slowly pale, careless of her lady's straight gaze. "He can never live to the end of it," she added, in a low voice.

"It is better to die for the Cross than to die or live for any woman's love," said Anne of Auch, and there was the music of faith in her soft tones.

The Queen glanced at her, wondering how much she guessed, and suddenly conscious that she herself had changed colour.

"And what device shall I set in this man's shield?" she asked, going back to the beginning, in order to avoid what touched her too closely.

"A cross," answered Anne. "Let me see--why not your Grace's own? The Cross of Aquitaine?"

But the Queen did not hear, for she was dreaming, and she saw Gilbert, in her thoughts, riding to sure death with a handful of brave men, riding into an ambush of the terrible Seljuks, pierced by their arrows--one in his white throat as he reeled back in the saddle, his eyes breaking in death. She shuddered, and then started as if waking.

"What did you say?" she asked. "I was thinking of something else."

"I said that your Grace might give him the Cross of Aquitaine for a device," answered the Lady of Auch.