With such news to set him cogitating, Jocelyn halted his banners south of the Lorient, and took counsel with his captains as to what their schemes should be. To strike at Holy Guard, they had to cross the river and march along the northern bank through the enemy’s country. Now Samson the Heretic was at Marvail with three hundred men, ignorant, perhaps, that the southern barons had drawn so near. Samson was the one man in all Christendom whom the Holy Father desired to see in chains, and the chance was too flattering for Jocelyn to eschew it.
The Bishop’s tent was pitched in the woods south of the river, with the crusaders camped around under cover of the trees. Jocelyn had called Count Reynaud, Benedict, and several other barons to him in council. He had determined to set the necessity of Samson’s capture before his confederates that night. They were gathered under the shade of a huge ilex tree, with the great banner adroop over the embroidered canopy of the tent. Through the opening they could see the woods billowing below them to the river valley, the dark domes of the trees clear cut under the sky.
Jocelyn was very suave, yet mightily in earnest. He gestured with his hands, used the subtlest modulations of his voice, lifted his eyes to the darkening heavens as though ever ready to behold visions, stars portending the triumph of the truth.
“Remember, sirs,” he said, “that our faith constrains us to save the ignorant from the powers of those who trade upon their folly. If we could bind the arch-fiend, how many souls we should preserve from hell! Even so is it in this war of ours. This Samson, foul-mouthed blasphemer, perverter of the Scriptures, has bewitched with his tongue the province of the Seven Streams. To slay the heresy, we must slay the arch-heretic. Heaven seems eager to deliver him even now into our hands. You, sirs, as men of the sword, are able to deal with the elements of war.”
Benedict of the Mountains was quick to understand the churchman’s argument. He and Jocelyn were cronies of a common cult, and the soldier would have been more outspoken in the vulgar sense had not the occasion constrained him to dignity. Count Reynaud of Vanclure was a good Catholic and an honest knight, one who hated coarseness and would not suffer a lie. And since he was a powerful noble and necessary to the cause, Jocelyn pandered to his respect with a display of exaggerated zeal. His great power over the Count was by the power of fanaticism; even such a Christian as Reynaud could wax brutal in the battle for a faith.
“So, my lord, you would have us strike at this Samson, speedily?”
Jocelyn spread his hands, made a pretence of leaving all technical machinations to their military intelligence.
“An ambuscade, a false message, a night attack,” he said; “these, sirs, are ruses I may abandon to your strategy. All I desire is that you shall deliver this blasphemer into my hands, and I vouch that the Holy Father will bless your children.”
“The man is a lying whelp,” said Benedict, with a pious leer. “What say you, Sir Reynaud and gentlemen, to a night attack?”
The Lord of Vanclure bent his brows.