Hugh clasped the jongleur's hand.
"That is good counsel," he said gratefully. "Doubt not I will heed it."
Matteo's few words proved the necessary alchemy to clear the confusion of Hugh's thoughts. Weaker impulses he put resolutely aside, facing squarely the issues of right and duty. He spent more time in Matteo's company, chatted with knights and lords of tricks of arms, brave deeds in the past, exploits of venery or falconry. At night he slept peacefully again.
If Helena Comnena entertained resentment for Hugh's rebuff, she concealed it easily during the days in which the Crusaders pressed on across the plains of Lombardy toward the head of the Adriatic Sea, where Venice ruled unchallenged from her citadel in the centre of the lagoons. Her manner toward him was precisely the same, a mingling of friendliness and mockery. But she never reverted to their old intimacy until the afternoon the host halted by a sedgy shore and stared over the waters at a silhouette of sparkling domes and towers that marked the Island City.
Huge flat-bottomed boats for the horses and galleys to tow them and carry the knights were in waiting. On all sides rose the bustle of embarkation. Several knights had bidden her adieu, and Hugh rode up in his turn.
"Here we part, lady," he said, and he could not be sure whether he spoke in regret or satisfaction.
"Not so," she denied, and momentarily her eyes swept up to his. "We drift from each other for a little space, Messer Hugh. But—read me for a fortune-teller an you will—Fate hath woven the strands of our lives into the same pattern."
"What mean you?"
"An I knew it all, still I should not tell you," she replied. "Yet here is one crumb for you, confident youth: be jealous how you relate your quest to strangers."
Her father cried out to her, and she turned her horse to ride on board the barge reserved for them.