Via Crucis: A Romance of the Second Crusade

by F. Marion Crawford

And as he spoke the words, he had laid the red-hot point to his breast and had drawn it down and crosswise; and a little line of thin, white smoke followed the hissing iron along the seared flesh. He threw the bar down upon the threshold of his door and came to join the throng, the strange smile on his rough face and the light of another world in his fire-reddened eyes. But though the multitude sent up a great cry of praise and wonder, yet Bernard shook his head gravely and walked on, for he loved not any madness, not even a madness for good deeds, and the light by which he saw was as steady and clear and true as a life-long day.

Moreover, even while he had been speaking he had felt that fanatic deeds were not far off, and a deep sadness had fallen upon him, because he knew that true belief is the fulness of true wisdom and by no means akin to any folly.

Therefore, when he was alone that night, he was very heavy-hearted, and sat a long time by his square oak table in the light of the three-cornered brazen lamp which, stood at his elbow. The principal chamber of the presbytery was cross-vaulted and divided into two by a low round arch supported on slender double columns with capitals fantastically carved. The smaller portion of the room beyond the arch made an alcove for sleeping, which could be completely shut off by a heavy curtain; the larger part was paved with stone, and in one corner a low wooden platform, on which stood a heavy table before a carved bench fastened to the wall, was set apart for writing and study. On the table, besides the lamp, there stood a reading-desk, and above the bench a strong shelf carried a number of objects, including several large bottles of ink, a pot of glue for fastening leaves of parchment, and two or three jars of blue and white earthenware. On nails there hung a brush of half dried broom, a broad-brimmed rush hat, and a blackened rosary. On the other side of the table, and by the window, there was a small holy-water basin with a little besom. On the walls were hung pieces of coarse linen roughly embroidered with small crosses flory, worked in dark red silk. The vault was blank and white, and rushes were strewn on the stone pavement. In the deep embrasures of the windows there were dark window-seats worn black with age.

The abbot had begun a letter, but the pen lay beside the unfinished writing, his elbow rested on the parchment, and he shaded his eyes from the light. The brilliancy was gone from his face and was succeeded by an almost earthy pallor, while his attitude expressed both lassitude and dejection. He had done what had been required of him, he had fired the passion of the hour, and one hour had shown him how completely it was to be beyond his control. He remembered how Peter the Hermit had led the vast advance-guard of the First Crusade to sudden and miserable destruction before the main force could be organized; he had seen enough on that afternoon to prove to him that the air was laden with such disaster, of which the responsibility would surely be heaped upon himself. He regretted not the thoughts he had preached, but the fact of having yielded to preach at all to such men and at such a time. He had begun to set forth all this and much more in a letter to Pope Eugenius, but before he had written a dozen lines the pen had fallen from his hand, and he had begun to reflect upon the impossibility of stemming the tide since it had turned to flood.

A soft step sounded in the outer hall beyond the curtained doorway, but Bernard, absorbed in his meditations, heard nothing. A jewelled hand pushed aside the thick folds of the hanging, and the most beautiful eyes in the world gazed curiously upon the unheeding abbot.

"Are you alone?" asked the Queen's voice.

Without waiting for an answer she came forward into the room and paused beside the low platform, laying one hand upon the table in a gesture half friendly, half deprecating, as if she still feared that she had disturbed the holy man. His transparent fingers fell from his eyes, and he looked up to her, hardly realizing who she was, and quite unable to guess why she had come. A dark brown mantle completely covered her gown, and only a little of her scarlet sleeve showed as her hand lay on the table. Her russet-golden hair hung in broad waves and lightened in the rays of the oil lamp. Her eyes, that looked at Bernard intently and inquiringly, were the eyes of old Duke William, whom the Abbot of Clairvaux had brought to confession and penance long ago, and who had gone from the altar of his grand-daughter's marriage straight to solitary hermitage and lonely death in the Spanish hills; they were eyes in which all thoughts were fearless and in which tenderness was beautiful, but in which kindness was often out of sight behind the blaze of vitality and the burning love of life that proceeded from her and surrounded her as an atmosphere of her own.

"You do not welcome me," she said, looking into his face. "Are you too deeply occupied to talk with me awhile? It is long since we have met."

Bernard passed his hand over his eyes as if to brush away some material veil.

"I am at your Grace's service," he said gently, and he rose from his seat as he spoke.