"Then do not speak of it again, dear father," said she.
The mules of the bishop's party, which had been taken when the pirates fell upon them, had been recovered, and the bishop began to stop groaning over his bruises. The Baron remarked that, although the baggage had been retaken, it was too late to repack and make the journey that day. One and all, they must go back to Cefalu and enjoy the hospitality of the castle. The bishop demurred, when he saw that the Moslem Musa was bidden to share the feast; but he was very hungry, and reflected that Christ and Mohammed were impiously good comrades in Sicily. He and the priests with the Greek and his daughter mounted the mules and started away, just as Herbert rode up with the tidings that the Berbers' ship had long since put to sea. As for the great black horse that had nigh carried Mary away from her rescuers, the grateful prelate bestowed him upon Richard. "He was an unruly beast," declared the bishop, "furiosus, impetuosus, perditus equus, in whom a devil beyond all doubt had entered; and if the Baron's son desired him, he was welcome, though he feared, instead of a gift, he was bestowing a cursing." But Richard beheld the huge crupper and chest of the great beast, watched his mighty stride, and reflected that such a destrer would bear quite as safely in battle as one with the prized white coat and greyhound feet. Therefore he thanked the bishop and led the horse away.
So they fared back to the castle, while the Cefalu people gave them cheers and flowers as they passed along the way; but the fairest welcome was on Lady Margaret's face when they all pounded over the drawbridge.
CHAPTER III
HOW RICHARD WON A BROTHER
A notable feast it was the good Lady Margaret set before her unexpected guests; for if the warning was short, the eager hands were many, and the day before there had been rare hunting. The worthy Baron, her lord, took pride in the goodly Norman habit of sitting long at table, and would have found eight hours none too many for meat and drink, had there been another to keep him company. And if this feast ended sooner, there was no lack of good food and better cheer. Hincmar, the stately chamberlain, marshalled his guests up to the fountain at the door of the great hall, where they washed their hands in punctilious order of precedence. The hall itself was hung with rare tapestries, the floor was strewn with fresh mint and cornflags; over the diners' benches were cast rich carpets of the East, and for the host and his immediate relatives and guests were gilt chairs of embossed leather. Then the serving-lads went in and out, bringing wine-soup in three kinds in remembrance of the Trinity, and flesh and fowl, from a stuffed cormorant to a haunch of bear's flesh. Last of all the great drinking-horns began to pass to and fro, and the skins of Cyprian wine from the cellars, to empty.
The Baron had placed the bishop at his right hand at the head of the long table, on his left the Greek Cæsar. But a little lower sat Richard, and beside him Musa and Mary Kurkuas; and while they were busy over the trenchers talk flew fast, and these in brief were the stories they told one another.
William Longsword, the present Baron of Cefalu, had been a Norman seigneur of noble lineage and slender estates near the ducal capital of Rouen. The Longswords were an ancient house. They boasted their descent from that notable William Longsword who had succeeded to the sovereignty of Rollo the Norman; yet, as too often, a great name did not mean great fiefs, and young William's best fortune was the weight of his battle-axe. But that battle-axe was very heavy. At Val-es-Dunes, when William the Bastard crushed his rebellious barons, Longsword had won the great Duke's highest favor. At Hastings none had struck doughtier blows than he. For a moment he had dreamt of a broad English barony and a Saxon heiress. But when the new king was at York there rose ill-blood and a hint to the monarch that the mutiny of certain Anjou mercenaries was due to his vassal.
One morning Longsword finding that fetters, not fiefs, waited him in England, fled just in time to Flanders, and went south to gaaignant, "to go a gaining," as the Normans put it, seeking fortune wherever the saints favored. In Auvergne he had married the daughter of a mountain baron, but had drifted on to Italy, had served with Counts Robert Guiscard and Roger, his brother, in Calabria, Epirus, and Sicily; and at last when Noto, the last Saracen stronghold in Sicily, fell, and Count Roger rewarded his faithful cavaliers, William Longsword had found himself Lord of Cefalu, with a stout castle and a barony of peaceful and industrious Moslems and Greeks for vassals; now for four years past he had ceased roving, and dreamed of handing down a goodly seigneury to his firstborn.