Day sped into day. The great host of Raymond of Toulouse was preparing to set forth for Italy. The hours of dreaming in the orchard under the ivy-hung castle wall at last saw an end. Musa had received by the latest ship to Marseilles from the East, a long and flattering letter from Afdhal, the vizier of the Fatimite kalif himself. The offer was a notable one, a high emirate in the Egyptian service. There would be fighting in plenty in Tripoli and Ethiopia, not to mention Syria and beyond; for the Cairo government had on foot a great project to break the power of the Abbaside rivals at Bagdad and their Seljouk masters and guardians. Musa brought the letter to Richard and Mary, as the two sat beneath the great trees, each hearing no music save the other's voice. And when he had finished, Richard said calmly: "Yes, brother mine, now at last you must leave us. Yet, please God, you shall see no service in Syria till we have sped our arrow at Jerusalem, for good or ill. Our hopes and hearts go with you; but you must go."
Musa bowed his head; then to Mary: "And you, Brightness of the Greeks, are you bound irrevocably to go to Palestine?"
"I go with my husband," said Mary, simply, looking straight upon him with her frank, dark eyes.
"Then remember this," replied the Spaniard, very gravely, "if at any time—and so Allah wills—I can serve you with wit, or sword, or life, remember I am Richard Longsword's brother, and, therefore, your own. What I said at Palermo, I say once more. And who is so wise that he will say: 'Musa the Moslem shall never again give succor to Mary, the Star of the Christians'?"
"Hei," cried Mary, trying to laugh, a little tearfully, "your face is sad as though you saw me in the clutch—" she was about to say, "of Iftikhar," but the shadow of the memory of that scene at Palermo, when the emir's mad breath smote her cheek, passed before her mind, and she was silent.
"Sweet lady," answered the Spaniard, smiling, yet after his melancholy way, "I have scant belief in omens. Men say I am reckless in danger, as though tempting Allah to write my name in the book of doom. Listen: when I was young my father had the astrologers of the king of Seville's court cast my horoscope. And they came to him, saying: 'Lord, your son will be a great cavalier; he shall escape a thousand perils; a thousand enemies shall seek his life; he shall mock them all. Nevertheless he shall perish, and that because of the passion for a maid, whose beauty shall outrun praise by the poet Nawas, whose loveliness shall surpass the houris of Paradise; yet even she in her guilelessness shall undo him.'"
"But you distrust prophecies!" exclaimed the Greek, blushing.
"Even so," continued the Andalusian, stroking his beard; "yet see. If it be true as the astrologers say, I may run to myriad dangers and stand scatheless; for where is the maid who shall put madness in me saving you," with a soft smile; "and are you not my sister, in whose love for my brother I joy?"
"You speak riddles," said Mary, this time casting down her eyes.