"Yes, his days are numbered, or I have never seen the sickness of the lungs. Also, Hugh, he knoweth it."
Matteo spoke no more than the truth. Messer Fulke was too ill to journey on with the host that day. He tarried for a while at Troyes, rallying his strength, and then rode forth to castigate certain dilatory persons who had taken the Cross, and in the heat of his labour perished as he had foreseen, unable to witness the fruit of his own mighty efforts.
The knights and leaders of the host were not sorry to miss Fulke. They had a strong contingent of churchmen for the necessary masses and other holy services, jolly, live-at-your-ease clerks, who kept sermons for sermon time; and the hard-fighting men-at-arms preferred the counsels of such to the relentless, austere piety of the priest of Neuilly, who was swift to seize every opportunity for admonition and who spared none from prince to varlet.
The host was like a snowball that starts an avalanche. Every league that the column traversed brought some addition to it. Perhaps it was the following of a petty baron; perhaps a single adventurer, armoured knight or leather-coated burgher; perhaps the imposing array of a province or town. From day to day the numbers grew, and long before they had traversed Burgundy and reached the pass over Mont Cenis they had attained the proportions of an army.
Geoffrey the Marshal made much of Hugh and Matteo, and they rode with the great lords and barons. Knights famous throughout Europe companioned them—Manasses de l'Lisle, Macaire de Sainte-Menehould, Miles le Brabant, Reginald de Dampierre, Geoffrey de Joinville, Payen d'Orleans, Peter de Bracieux, Matthew de Montmorency, Conon de Béthune, James d'Avesnes, Anseau de Cayeaux and many more, noted for skill in tourney and the field. Villehardouin had not boasted when he claimed that the best men-at-arms of Western Europe were joining the host.
Previous Crusades had enlisted larger armies, but in none had the organisation been so precise. Each lord and baron, in accordance with his degree, had made himself the captain of a company of men-at-arms and foot-sergeants who owned his leadership. The lesser barons, in turn, were leagued under the great lords of their localities, and these, likewise, ranged themselves under one or another of the princes at the head of the host, the Marquis Boniface de Montferrat, who had been elected general of the Crusade; Count Baldwin of Flanders and Hainault, Count Louis of Blois, Count Walter de Brienne, Count Hugh de St. Paul, Count Simon de Montfort or Count Bertrand von Katzenelenbogen who led the German Crusaders.
In this task of organisation Villehardouin had played the principal part. Indeed, no other man had borne so considerable a share of the burden of planning the details of mobilising and moving the Crusaders from widely-scattered countries across Europe and the Mediterranean, and now that his dream was approaching fulfilment he was happy as a lad.
"Ah, lordling, little may you guess the toils and anxieties which have been my lot," he said to Hugh, as they rode with the immense white skyline of the Alps before them. "Two and a half years have I laboured since my late lord, the Count Thibaut—God rest his soul!—and his cousin, the Count of Blois, took the cross at the tournament at Ecri and so set an example to all hardy Christians. Many a night have I lain sleepless, fearing the Crusade would never start; but always God hath stepped down and helped us when human aid was not.
"'Tis now more than a year gone since I treated with the Venetians to carry us over-sea, and there were times then when it seemed impossible we could come to terms. But the worst blow ever was struck at me was when I journeyed home, with fair terms gained, to find my lord, Count Thibaut, dying. Never lived there gentler knight! The barons had picked him for their leader, and when he died we were like children without a father.
"Time pressed, and none would fill his place. Duke Odo of Burgundy and Count Thibaut of Bar-le-duc refused. My heart weakened. I lost faith. But as a last resort we sent messages to the Marquis Boniface de Montferrat, begging him to lead us, and at a parliament held at Soissons he gave his consent. Ah, Messer Hugh, I cannot speak of our joy, for we knew him for a lord, bold and fearless and a right trusty knight."