"I am the wife of Richard de St. Julien," answered she, very seriously; "and he is a mighty baron of France."
So they viewed the great city through each other's eyes, and Richard grew humble as he saw how much wit heaven had granted those Greeks he once despised. At last the negotiating ended; the Emperor came down from his dignity; the princes swore him a loose manner of fealty; Bohemond of Tarentum, the most covetous of the chiefs, abated his demands. On a day never to be forgotten, the imperial galleys bore the host across the narrow strait. "Asia!" the cry of each knight as he kissed the very soil; at last they were fairly set to go to Jerusalem!
And now the all-reigning desire was to slay infidels. Not many leagues away lay a great paynim stronghold, Nicæa, capital of Kilidge Arslan, sultan of Roum,—with fighting promised of a right knightly kind. Merry the music, and merrier the hearts of the hundred thousands, that May season, as the host swept in flashing steel and unsoiled bleaunts past old Nicomedia under the blue Bithynian sky, the hills all bright and green in springtime glory.
"Sure, Our Lord is with us!" cried Richard. "I feel a giant's strength!" But Sebastian plodded on with bowed head. "Boast not," was the reply; "for our sins we all may yet be sorely chastened."
"But is not God on our side, father?"
"Yes, truly; but it shall be even as with the band of Gideon. Of thirty and two thousand there were left to fall on the Midianites three hundred; and to be among these, may we be worthy!"
At this Richard laughed, looking off to the long lines of bright hauberks and forests of lances, far as the eye could reach; yet he had not laughed, had he known that of the six hundred thousand of fighting-men that crossed into Asia, scarce fifty thousand were to see with mortal eye the Holy City. But for the moment the skies seemed very bright, and the shadows commenced creeping only when forth from the forest stole ragged wretches, nigh starving, refugees from Peter the Hermit's rout. These told how Kilidge Arslan had slaughtered man, woman, and child, when he stormed the camp of Walter Lackpenny. Then, when the host advanced a little farther, they came to a wide heap of bones, more than could be counted, bleaching in the sun, and the crows still a black cloud above; for here had been the first battle and the first defeat. Loud rose the oaths and threats of vengeance from peasant and baron; the lines advanced in closer array, the music lessened, every lance was ready; for now at last they were treading on the soil of the infidel.
Richard Longsword rode with the three thousand pioneers that Duke Godfrey sent ahead to plant crosses by the wayside as guides to the hosts who came after. Thus it befell, the saints granted that he should be among the first knights to set eyes on the unbelievers. With Prince Tancred, Bohemond's valiant nephew,—who had not forgotten the lists at Palermo,—Richard saw a band of horsemen whizzing ahead, and, lo, as the Christian riders drew near, the Turks' little crooked bows began spitting out barbed arrows, which glanced harmlessly on the chain mail, but now and then wounded a horse. "Rash infidels,—singled out doubtless by Satan for destruction,"—so Prince Tancred cried when he couched his lance; and away went the whole squadron of knights. The Seljouks wheeled like lightning, and were off; their bony Tartar horses flew madly under the spur, while the men, bending dexterously in their saddles, launched their shafts. But destruction was upon them; the Christians rode them down one after another; some were lanced, some taken; a few escaped, howling in a truly devilish fashion, to tell the tale to their fellow-unbelievers. It had been so easy for the cavaliers, that they rallied one another on the prowess of the day.
"Ha! De St. Julien," Tancred would cry,—"how many paladins have you slain?" And Richard would answer, "As many as you, fair lord; but who is this grand soldan you have strapped to your stirrup? Will he fetch a thousand byzants' ransom?"
They brought the luckless prisoners into camp, and scarce knew what to do with them. Shock-headed, small-eyed fellows they were,—all bones, teeth, and sinew. None could speak their language. Raymond of Agiles, worthy chaplain, stood before them with a crucifix, and discoursed an hour long in Latin on the perilous state of their souls, hoping that some word of the truth might lodge in their hearts through a miracle of grace. But the wretches only blinked out of their little eyes, and never moved a muscle nor gave a sign on their stolid faces. Theroulde advised that, following Charlemagne's precept, they should be put to death.