"But Richard Longsword slay not. In my own time will I deal with him, man to man. Rather let him live, and eat his pangs as I have eaten mine, and know that I have borne away his prize."
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Arab name: Tāwulah.
CHAPTER XXIV
HOW THEY SLEW THE FIRST INFIDEL
Richard and Mary made the toilsome journey across Lombardy and Dalmatia with trials enough to expiate many sins, before Count Raymond's host reached Constantinople. There also Emperor Alexius gave the Crusaders chill greeting, and earned many curses. Yet when Richard saw the riches of the "City guarded of God," and heard how the first hordes, led by Peter the Hermit and Walter Lackpenny, had lighted like locusts on its suburbs, and had sacked palace and church as though despoiling very infidels, Longsword did not marvel that Alexius thought needful to deal warily with later comers. Here for the first time he learned the fate of the first peasant hordes,—how, to save his city from ruin, Alexius had ferried them across the Bosphorus. Left then to the Turks' tender mercies, the Sultan of Nicæa had pounced upon them with his light cavalry and cut them short in their sins. Peter the Hermit had escaped to Constantinople; his followers had perished almost to a man; and so began the great outpouring of life-blood in the long agony of the Crusade.
Small wonder Alexius Comnenus saw in his later guests doubtful friends or worse! Or that with all his matchless guile he sought pledges from them, that their coming might bring blessing rather than destruction to his empire; for the blunt Franks openly swore that the schismatic Greeks were but one degree better than Moslems. So day followed day of intrigue and lie-giving; the Augustus bickering and haggling with Raymond, Godfrey, and the other Latin chiefs. In the meantime Richard had time to learn the marvels of this great city of the Cæsars. What city like it! Palermo had not one tithe its wealth. Its walls might mock all the chivalry of France. Where in the West was one building so notable as were a score along the Mesa, the great street from the "Golden Gate" to the "Sacred Palace"? Everywhere Corinthian columns, veined marbles, bronzes that nigh seemed breathing, palaces, churches a hundred and more; great fora where swelled a mighty traffic; merchants whose shops boasted the luxurious wares of Persia, China, Ind; and multitudes on every street—Greek, Bulgar, Russian, Armenian, Jew. To Richard the scene was for long an enchanted confusion; and he marvelled to see how to Mary the pomp and bustle alike came as the common course of life. When he rode at her side through the humming city, or felt the light bark spring under the oar, as they shot up the Golden Horn or toward Chrysopolis, he was fain to question how any one here born and bred could find joy in coarser, wilder Frankland.
Together the two had been in St. Sophia, monarch of churches, had seen the great dome swimming on its sea of light above its forty windows; had heard the choir sing as angels the praise of "Mary, God-bearer, Giver of Victory." And Richard's soul had been almost carried aloft by the throb of the stately service. Again in the street, he said: "Dear life, I feel as if I were but just plucked down from heaven. What have I done that you love me so; that you can so cheerfully leave all this, and dwell with me in our rude, bare West?" And Mary, as she rode beside him, answered, smiling: "Why? And can one live forever in the great church, and eat and drink music? Is all life a rowing from Chalcedon to Prinkipo? Ah, Richard, could I be happy to spend my days after the manner of these ladies of Constantinople,—watched like cats by sleek eunuchs, and kept close that our masters may stroke us? Is it better to listen to the music of St. Sophia and to read Sophocles and Herodotus; or to ride, hawk on fist, over the merry country with you at my side, to feel the wild wind tossing my hair, to sniff the breeze in the free woods, and think how sweet a thing is life?"
"Then you are true Frank at heart!" laughed her husband, "despite your Greek name and learning."