Via Crucis: A Romance of the Second Crusade

by F. Marion Crawford

Still the troop came on, filling the valley from side to side, and pressing up by sheer numbers toward the pass; and the King came at last, and with him certain Greek guides to whom he listened, and who began to make a great outcry, saying that Sir Gilbert was a madman and that no horses could climb the ridge. Thereat Gilbert's men swore that they had climbed it on the preceding day, and that even a woman could ride up it. And one of the Greeks began to laugh at them, saying that they lied; so Sir Gaston de Castignac smote him on the mouth with his mailed hand, breaking all his teeth, and there was a turmoil, and the people began to take opposite sides, for many of the King's men had come up, and he himself was for the easy way up the valley.

Then Eleanor was very angry, and she mounted again, calling Gilbert's men to her side, and her own knights who rode in the van, and she told the King to his face that the Guide of Aquitaine had ever led them safely, but that whenever the army had followed the King's guides, evil had befallen. But the King would not be browbeaten before the great lords and barons, and he swore a great oath that he would go by the valley, come what might. Thereupon Eleanor turned her back on him, wheeling her horse short round; and she bade her knights ride up the hill to the trees with her, and gave orders that her army should follow her, and leave the King to take his men by any way he chose. On this the confusion became greater than ever, for in the host there were thousands of men, half pilgrims, half soldiers, who had come of their own accord, as free men, bound neither to the King nor the Queen; there were also the Poles and Bohemians, who were independent. All these began to discuss and quarrel among themselves.

Meanwhile the Queen and Anne of Auch rode slowly up the hill, straight toward the trees, with Castignac and Gilbert's men before them, and the knights of Guienne following closely after; but none of them expected evil, for the place looked peaceful in the high sunshine. Eleanor and the Lady Anne rode fearlessly in their skirts and mantles, but the men were fully armed in their mail and steel caps.

The foremost were half a dozen spears' lengths from the brushwood when the sharp twang of a bowstring broke the stillness, and an arrow that was meant for the Queen's face flew just between her and the Lady Anne. The fair woman flushed suddenly at the danger; on the dark one's forehead a vein stood out, straight from the parting of the hair, downward between the eyes. The men spurred their horses instantly, and dashed into the wood before the Queen could stop them, Castignac first by a length, with his sword out. The flight of arrows that followed the first shot struck horses and men together, and three or four horses went down with their riders; but the mail was proof, and the men were on their feet in an instant and running among the trees, whence came the sound of great blows, and the sharp twanging of many bowstrings, and the yell of the Seljuks. Now and again an arrow flew from among the trees at random, and while Eleanor sat on her horse, looking down the hill and crying to her knights to come on quickly and join in the fight, she did not know that Anne of Auch covered her with her body from the danger of a stray shaft, facing the danger with a light heart, in the hope of the blessed death for which she looked.

Of those who went in under the trees, none came back, while the din of the fight rose louder and wilder, by which Eleanor guessed that the enemy were very few and were being driven up the hill, overpowered by numbers; and lest her own men should hamper each other, she stopped them and would not allow any more to go up.

Meanwhile the King looked on from below, saying prayers; for he was in mortal dread of wishing that the Queen might be killed, since that would have been as great a sin as if he had slain her with his own hand; so that whereas when there was no present danger he constantly prayed that by some means he might be delivered from the woman of Belial, he now prayed as fervently that she might be preserved. As soon as he saw her forbidding a further advance, he took it for granted that she intended to come back and go up the valley, and he gave the signal to his own knights and men to advance in that direction, away from the place where the Seljuks were fighting. Indeed, there were always many who were ready to turn their backs on danger, especially of the poorer sort, who were ill-armed; and immediately, with great confusion and much shouting and pressing, the main body began to move on quickly, spreading out as they went, and completely filling up the valley; but then they were crowded again, as they went higher, where the valley narrowed to the pass, and at last they were so squeezed and jammed together that the horses could hardly move at all.

The Queen's ladies, with their great throng of attendants and servants, had drawn aside at the beginning of the valley, protected by two or three thousand men-at-arms, to wait the end of the fighting, but she herself was still on the spur of the hill before the woods. Before long came Sir Gaston de Castignac, on foot and covered with blood, his mail hacked in many places by the crooked Seljuk swords, and his three-cornered shield dinted and battered. He came to the Queen's side and made a grand bow, waving his right hand towards the trees, and he spoke in a loud voice.

"The Duchess's highway is clear," he said. "The way is open and the road is swept. But the broom—"

He turned livid and reeled.

"The broom is broken!" he cried, as he fell at full length almost under the Arab mare's feet.