Via Crucis: A Romance of the Second Crusade

by F. Marion Crawford

Above the saddles Gilbert's mail hung by the neck, with a stout staff run through both arms to stretch it out, lest dampness should rust it; also his other armour and his sword were fastened up like an ancient trophy, with bridles and leathern bottles and other gear. Beside the saddles, on the ground, the shining copper kettle held three bright brass bowls, well-scoured wooden trenchers, a long wooden ladle, an iron skewer, and three brass spoons, the simple necessities for cooking and eating. Forks had not been thought of in those days.

Gilbert lay on his back and turned his face away from his man. He was bruised and scratched, and his head ached from being struck on the ground when the mare had dragged him; but he was whole and sound in limb, and Dunstan had stretched his joints and pressed his bruises with a wise touch that had in it something of Oriental skill. He lay wrapped in a long robe of coarse white linen, as thick as wool—a sensible Greek garment which he had got in Constantinople. The afternoon was warm, and though the flap of the tent was raised and stretched out like an awning, there was little air, and the place smelt of the leathern trappings and of hot canvas; and through the side to which he turned his face Gilbert could see little dazzling sparks of rays where the sun was beating full upon the outside.

He wished that in the mad rush of the Arab the life might have been pounded out of him, and that he might never have waked to know what he had done; for although in his sober senses he did not love the Queen, it seemed to him that he had loved her in the moment when he sprang to save her life, and that he could never again forget the look of fear for him in her eyes and her cry of terror for his sake. All that Beatrix had said to him in the garden at Constantinople came back to him now; until now, he had disbelieved it all, as a wild and foolish impossibility, for he was over-modest and diffident of himself in such matters.

Beatrix would certainly have been killed but for the chance which had thrown the mare across the narrow way, and he had risked his life to save another woman. It mattered not that the other was the Queen; that was not the reason why he had leapt upon the bridle. He had done it for a glance of her eyes, for the tone of her voice, as it were in an instant of temptation, when he had stepped out of the rank to face destruction for a dearer sake. It seemed like a crime, and it proved against his own belief that he loved what he loved not. Had he let the Queen pass, and had he stopped Beatrix's horse instead, she might have been unhurt, and one other brave man might have saved Eleanor at the brink. Indeed, he thought of the sad face with its pathetic little smile, drawn with pain and hot upon the pillow, by his fault; and he thought with greater fear of the danger that some deep hurt might leave the slender frame bent and crippled for life.

But meanwhile the news had spread quickly that it was the silent Englishman, neither knight nor squire, who had saved the Queen, and outside the tent men stopped and talked of the deed, and asked questions of Alric, who had picked up enough Norman-French to give tolerably intelligible answers. At first came soldiers, passing as they went to fetch water from the lake, and again as they came back with copper vessels filled to the brim and dripping upon their shoulders, they set down their burdens and talked together. Presently came a great knight, the Count of Montferrat, brother to the Count of Savoy, who had been at Vezelay, where Gilbert had talked with him. He walked with slow strides, his bright eyes seeming to cut a way for him, his long mantle trailing, his soft red leather boots pushed down in close creases about his ankles, his gloved hand pressing down the cross-hilt of his sword, so that the sheath lifted his mantle behind him. On each side of him walked his favourite knights, and their squires with them, all on their way to the King's quarters, where a council of war was to be held, since it was known how the great German host had been routed, and that the Emperor himself might follow Duke Frederick of Suabia. This Duke had already reached the camp, after beating off the Seljuk skirmishers who had harassed his retreat and driven in the first fright-struck Germans.

The soldiers and grooms made way for the noble, but he asked which might be the tent of Gilbert Warde, the Englishman; so they pointed to the raised flap, where Alric stood with his sturdy legs apart, under the shadow of Gilbert's long shield, which was hanging from a lance stuck in the ground. The shield was blank, though many gentlemen already painted devices on theirs, and sovereign lords displayed the heraldic emblems of their houses long before their vassals began to use their coats-of-arms on their shields in war. But Gilbert would bear neither emblem nor device till some great deed should make him famous.

The Count of Montferrat glanced at the blank shield thoughtfully, and asked little Alric of what family his master was; and when he heard that his forefathers had been with Robert the Devil when he died, and with William at Hastings, and with Godfrey at Jerusalem, and that his father had died fighting for Maud against the usurper, but that Gilbert had not knighthood for all that, he wondered gravely. Yet knowing that he was hurt and ill at ease, the Count would not go in, but gave Alric a piece of gold and bade him greet the young Lord of Stoke and tell him that the Count of Montferrat craved better acquaintance with him when he should be recovered.

He went on his way, and was not gone far when the Count of Savoy and the lord of fated Coucy came strolling side by side, with their trains of knights and squires, on their way to the council. And having seen Montferrat stop at the tent, they did likewise, and asked the same questions, giving Alric money out of respect for his master's brave deed and good name, according to custom. Many others came after them, great and small, and the great gave the groom money, and the poor men-at-arms asked him to drink with them after supper; so that his flat leathern wallet, which was cracking in its creases from having been long empty, was puffed out and hard, and weighed heavily at his belt, and as for the wine promised him, he might have floated a boat in it.

There was one of the Greek guides who stood near the tent, playing with a string of thick beads, and keeping behind Alric; and when there was a crowd around him this Greek slipped nearer, with his razor in the palm of his hand, and stealthily tried to cut the thongs by which the wallet was fastened. So the Saxon turned quickly and smote him between the eyes with his fist, and it was an hour before the Greek came to himself and crawled away, for nobody would lift him. But Alric laughed often as he sucked the trickling blood from his knuckles, and though he was a little man and young, the soldiers looked at him with respect, and many more of them asked him to drink.

So on that afternoon Gilbert's reputation grew suddenly, as a bright lily that has been long in bud under a wet sky breaks out like a flame in the first sunshine; and the days were over when he must trudge along unnoticed in the vast throng of nobles, with his two men and his modest baggage.