Now, this is not a history of King Richard. If you would like to know more about him and what he did in England and in Palestine you can read two of Sir Walter Scott's best books, "Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman," and very stirring times they tell about. What we are most concerned with is what the fragments of the Iron Star saw in their travels, and one stout piece of its steel had now parted from its comrades for ever. In that terrible battle, what was the value of one sword, more or less, to the knights as they charged and fell back with the surging of the red tide? So the sword that Louis wielded lay uncared for where it fell.
Meanwhile, yonder in the royal tent Louis and Blondel had joyous times together. It was delightful for the young Englishman to lie back among his cushions, with a servant to fan him and hand him cooling drink, to watch through the looped-up doorway the men-at-arms without, wrestling, quoit-throwing, boxing, fencing, in the way that men of English blood, the world over, keep their muscles sturdy and lithe, quick to guard their heads.
It was blissful, though embarrassing, when through the tent came Richard's stately little queen Berengaria, or her taller, more dignified cousin Edith, two of the most beautiful of women, and deigned to ask graciously, in the soft, low voice of pity, how he did. It was soul-stirring when the great King himself came striding in, perhaps full of wrath over some bit of state-craft gone wrong, perhaps joyous with the prospect of another battle; perhaps in as happy and more peaceful a mood, when he would seize the harp of Blondel and sweep the strings with massive, yet practised hands, and send his great voice rolling across the encampment in thundering song, like the impetuous Frenchman that he was.
For Richard I. was French! We are so apt to look on him as the King of the English, and as being so very much of an Englishman as to be the sample of the race, that we are apt to forget that although he was born in England his mother was French, his father French by descent, and Richard himself ruled England for the most of his reign from his home in France—when he was not off on a Crusade away from both countries—and carried on wars in France. All told, he did not live twelve months on English soil. But the knights of England were so French—Norman-French—themselves that this did not greatly matter to them. Still less did it matter to Louis! But one day those great hands picked up the harp more hastily than usual and with a war-song clashed the strings; and presently there came a sharp twang or two, and the singer looked at Blondel like a schoolboy caught in mischief for the harp lay a wreck in his hands.
"Never mind, Blondel," laughed the royal culprit, "there is gold yet in our coffers with which to buy another."
"That may be, your Majesty," replied Blondel, ruefully, "But all the gold of Saladin could not buy what is not; and where to look for harp- strings in this land of sand is beyond me!"
Then spoke up Louis from his couch right gladly,
"But I have a set! I found them packed away with my armour by some mistake of a retainer, although I know more of sword-play than of music."
"Time enough yet for both, lad," cried the King. "The true knight is master of both, and knight shalt thou be when next on horse again!" A matter which indeed came to pass; for Richard laughingly declared that, considering that the young man already had fairly won his knightly spurs in the field, never was a set of harp-strings so cheaply bought before as by the exchange just ordered. But Louis lay back on his cushions with his heart fluttering like a girl's, knowing well that it was but a jest of the merry monarch's, and that the real honour he meant the world to know was battle-won.
Thus he came back from Palestine "Sir Louis of Daneshold," with the red cross of the Crusader blazoned on his shoulder, and knighted by the King's own hand. And thus it came to pass, also, that Blondel struck up such a friendship for the giver of the harp-strings, and found them so wonderfully resonant, that when the expedition broke up and all started homeward, he insisted on going with him, at least part way. Thus they had a joyous journeying together by land and sea.