The Prince and the Page: A Story of the Last Crusade

Richard's heart beat high. Guy a well-endowed count, with a castle, lands, and home! He would have asked where Guy now was, and how far off was the Maremma; but the conference between the princes was actually commencing, and silence became necessary on the part of their attendants.

They could only hear the murmur of voices; but could discern plainly the keen looks and animated gestures of Charles of Anjou, the sickly sullen indifference of Philippe, and the majestic gravity of Edward, whose noble head towered above the other two as if he were their natural judge. Charles was, in fact, trying to persuade the others to sail with him for Greece, and there turn their forces on the unfortunate Michael Palaeologos, who had lately recovered Constantinople, the Empire that Charles hoped to win for himself, the favoured champion of Rome.

Philippe merely replied that he had had enough of crusading, he was sick and weary, he must go home and bury his father, and get himself crowned. Charles might be then seen trying a little hypocrisy; and telling Philippe that his saintly father would only have wished to speed him on the way of the Cross. Then that trumpet voice of Edward, whose tones Richard never missed, answered, "What is the way of the Cross, fair uncle?"

It was well known that Louis IX. had refused to crusade against Christians, even Greek Christians, and Philippe soon sheltered himself under the plea that had not at first occurred to his dull mind. In effect, he laid particulars before his uncle, that quickly made it plain that the French army was in too miserable a condition to do anything but return home; and Charles then addressed his persuasions to Edward—striving to convince him in the first place of the sanctity of a war against Greek heretics, and when Edward proved past being persuaded that arms meant for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre ought not to be employed against Christians who reverenced it, he tried to demonstrate the uselessness of hoping to conquer the Holy Land, even by such a Crusade as had been at first planned, far less with the few attached to Edward's individual banner. Long did the king argue on. His low voice was scarcely audible, even without the words; but Edward's brief, ringing, almost scornful, replies, never failed to reach Richard's ear, and the last of them was, "It skills not, my fair uncle. For the Holy Land I am vowed to fight, and thither would I go had I none with me but Fowen, my groom!"

And withal his eye lit on Richard, with a look of certainty of response; of security that here was one to partake his genuine ardour, and of refreshment in the midst of his disgust with the selfish uncle and sluggish cousin. That look, that half smile, made the youth's heart bound once more. Yes, with him he would go to the ends of the earth! What was the freedom of Guy's castle, to the following of such a lord and leader in such a cause?

Richard could have thrown himself at his feet, and poured forth pledges of fidelity. But in ten minutes he was following home the unapproachable, silent, cold warrior.

And the lack of any outlet for his aspirations turned them back upon themselves, with a strange sense of bitterness and almost of resentment. Leonillo alone, as the creature lay at his feet, and looked up into his face with eyes of deep wistful meaning, seemed to him to have any feeling for him; and Leonillo became the recipient of many an outpouring of something between discontent and melancholy. Leonillo, the sole remnant of his home! He burnt for that Holy Land where he was to win the name and fame lacking to him; but there was to be long delay.

Fain would the Prince have proceeded at once to Palestine; but the Genoese, from whom, in the abeyance of the English navy, he had been obliged to hire his transports, absolutely refused to sail for the East until after the three winter months; and he was therefore obliged to remain in Sicily. King Charles invited him to spend Christmas at the court at Syracuse or Naples, in hopes, perhaps, of persuading him to the Greek expedition; but Edward was far too much displeased with the Angevin to accept his hospitality; recollecting, perhaps, that such a sojourn had been little beneficial to his great- uncle Coeur de Lion's army. He decided upon staying where he was, in the remotest corner of Sicily, and keeping his three hundred crusaders as much to themselves and to strict military discipline as possible, maintaining them at his own cost, and avoiding as far as he could all transactions with the cruel and violent Provencal adventurers, with whom Charles had filled the island.

Thus Richard found his hopes of obtaining further intelligence about his brothers entirely passing away. He did, indeed, venture on one day saying to the Prince, "My Lord, I hear that my brother Guy hath become a Neapolitan count!"

"A Tuscan robber would be nearer the mark!" coldly replied Edward.

"And," added Richard, "methought, while the host is in winter quarters, I would venture on craving your license, my Lord, to visit him?"

"Thou hast thy choice, Richard," answered the Prince, with grave displeasure; "loyalty and honour with me, or lawlessness and violence with thy brother. Both cannot be thine!"

And returning to his study of the Lais of Marie de France, he made it evident that he would hear no more, and left Richard to a sharp struggle; in which hot irritation and wounded feeling would have carried him away at once from the stern superior who required the sacrifice of all his family, and gave not a word of sympathy in return. It was the crusading vow alone that detained the youth. He could not throw away his pledge to the wars of the Cross, and it was plain that if he went now to seek out Guy, he should never be allowed to return to the crusading army. But that vow once fulfilled, proud Edward should see, that not merely sufferance but friendliness was needed to bind the son of his father's sister to his service. The brother at Bednall Green was right, this bondage was worse than beggary. Nor, under the influence of these feelings, had Richard's service the alacrity and affection for which it had once been remarkable: the Prince rebuked his short-comings unsparingly, and thus added to the sense of injury that had caused them; Hamlyn de Valence sneered, and Dame Idonea took good care to point out both the youth's neglects and his sullenness, and to whisper significantly that she did not wonder, considering the stock he came of. A soothing word or gentle excuse from the kind-hearted Princess were the only gleams of comfort that rendered the present state of things endurable.

Just after Christmas arrived a vessel with reinforcements from home. Among them came a small body of Hospitaliers, with the novice Raynal at their head, now a full-blown knight, in dazzling scarlet and white, as Sir Reginald Ferrers. Richard at once recognized him, when he came to present himself to the Prince, and was very desirous of learning whether he knew aught of that other brother, so mysteriously hidden in obscurity. Sir Raynal on his side seemed to share the desire; he exchanged a friendly glance with the page, and when the formality of the reception was over sought him out, saying, "I have a greeting for you, Master Fowen."

"From Sir Robert Darcy?" asked Richard. "How fares it with the kind old knight?"

"Excellent well! Nay, nothing fares amiss with Father Robert!" said the young knight, smiling. "Everything is the very best that could have befallen him—to hear him speak. He is the very sunshine of the Spital, and had he been ordered on this Crusade, I think all the hamlets round would have risen to withhold him."

"Ah!" said Richard, hoping he was acting indifference; "said he aught of the little maiden with the blind father?"

"Pretty Bessee and Blind Hal of Bednall Green? Verily, that was the purport of my message. The poor knave hath been sorely sick and more cracked than ever this autumn; insomuch that Father Robert spent whole nights with him; and though he be better now, and as much in his senses as e'er he will be, such another access is like to make an end of him. Now, Father Robert saith that you, Sir Page, know who the poor man is by birth, and that he prays you to send him word what had best be done with the child, in case either of his death or of his getting so frenzied as to be unable to take care of her."

"Send him word!" repeated Richard in perplexity.

"We shall certainly have some one returning soon to the Spital," replied Sir Raynal. "Indeed, methinks some of the princes will be like to return, for the old King of the Romans is failing fast, and King Henry implored that the Prince of Almayne would come to hearten him."

"Then must I write to Sir Robert?" said Richard; "mine is scarce a message for word of mouth."

"So he said it was like to be," returned the knight, "and he took thought to send you a slip of parchment, knowing, he said, that such things are not wont to be found in a crusader's budget. Moreover, if ink be wanting, he bade me tell you that there's a fish in these seas, with many arms, and very like the foul fiend, that carries a bag of ink as good as any scrivener s.

"I have seen the monster," said Richard, who had often been down to the beach to see the unlading of the fishermen's boats, and to share little John of Dunster's unfailing marvel, that the Mediterranean should produce such outlandish creatures, so alien to his Bristol Channel experiences.

And the very next time the boats came in, Richard made his way to the shore, on the beautiful, rocky, broken coast; and presently encountered a sepia, which fully justified Sir Robert's comparison, lying at the bottom of a boat. The fisherman intended it for his own dinner, when all his choicer fish should have gone to supply the Friday's meal of the English chivalry; and he was a good deal amazed when the young gentleman, making his Provencal as like Sicilian as he could, began to traffic with him for it, and at last made him understand that it was only its ink-bag that he wanted.

The said ink, secured in a shell, was brought home by Richard, together with a couple of the largest sea-bird's quills that he could find—and which he shaped with his dagger, as best he might, in remembrance of Father Adam de Marisco's writing lessons. He meditated what should be the language of his letter, which was not likely to be secure from the eyes of the few who could read it; and finally decided that English was the tongue known to the fewest readers, who, if they knew letters at all, were sure to be acquainted with French and Latin.

On a strip of parchment, then, about nine inches long and three wide, he proceeded to indite, in upright cramped letters, with many contractions, nearly in such terms as these -

REVEREND AND KNIGHTLY FATHER,

The good ghostly father and knight, Sir Raynald Ferrers, hath borne to me your tidings of my brother's sickness, and of all your goodness to him—whereof I pray that our blessed Lady and good St. John may reward you, for I can only pray for you. Touching his poor little daughter, in case of his death or frenzy, which the Saints of their mercy forefend, I would entreat you of your goodness to place her in some nunnery, but without making known her name and quality until my return; so Heaven bring me home safe. But an if I should be slain in this Eastern land, then were it most for the little one's good to present her to the gracious lady Princess, by whom she would be most lovingly and naturally cared for; and would be more safe than with such as might shun to own her rights of blood and heirship. Commend me to my brother, if so be that he cares to hear of me; and tell him that Guy hath wedded the lady of a castle in the land of Italy. And so praying you, ghostly father, for your blessing, I greet you well, and rest your grateful bedesman and servant,

RICHARD OF LEICESTER.

Given at the Prince's camp at Drepanum, in the realm of Sicilia, on the octave of the Epiphany, in the year of grace MCCLXX.; and so our Lord have you heartily in His keeping.

Letter-writing was a mighty task; and Richard's extemporary implements were not of the best. He laboured hard over his composition, kneeling against a chest in the tent. When at length he raised his head, he encountered a face full of the most utter amazement. Little John of Dunster had come into the tent, and stood gazing at him with open eyes and gaping mouth, as if he were perpetrating an incantation. Richard could not help laughing.

"Why, Jack, dost think I am framing a spell for thee?"

"Writing!" gasped John, relieving his distended mouth by at length closing it.

"Wherefore not? Did not I see the chaplain teaching thee to write at

Guildford?"

"Ay—but that was when I was a babe! Writing! Why, my father never writes!"

"But the Prince does. Thou hast seen him write. Come now," added Richard: "if thou wilt, I will help thee to write a letter to send thy greetings home to Dunster. Thy father and mother will be right glad to hear thou hast 'scaped that African fever."

"They!—They'd think me no better than a French monk!" said John. "And none of them could read it either! I'll never write! My grandsire only set his cross to the great charter!"

And John retreated—in fear perhaps that Richard would sully his manhood with a writing lesson!

The letter was rolled up in a scroll, bound with a silken thread, and committed to the charge of Sir Raynald Ferrers, who was going shortly to be commandery of his Order at Castel San Giovanni, whence he had no doubt of being able to send the letter safely to Sir Robert Darcy, at the Grand Priory.

It would perhaps have been more expeditious to have intrusted the letter to one of the suite of Prince Henry of Almayne, who had been recalled by the tidings of the state of his father's health; but Richard dreaded betraying his brother's secret too much to venture on confiding the missive to any of this party—none of whom were indeed likely to wish to oblige him. Hamlyn de Valence was going with Henry as his esquire; and his absence seemed to Richard like the beginning of better days.

CHAPTER IX—ASH WEDNESDAY

"Mostrocci un ombra da l' un canto solaDicendo 'Colui feese in grembo a DioLo cuor che'n su Tamigi ancor si cola.'"DANTE. Inferno.

Shrovetide had come, and the Prince had, before leaving Trapani, been taking some share in the entertainments of the Carnival. Personally, his grave reserve made gaieties distasteful to him; and the disastrous commencement of the Crusade weighed on his spirits. But when state and show were necessary, he provided for them with royal bounty and magnificence, and caused them to be regulated with the admirable taste of that age of exceeding beauty in which he lived.

Thus, in this festal season, banquets were provided, and military shows took place, for the benefit of the Sicilian nobility and of the citizens of Trapani, on such a scale, that the English rose high in general esteem; and many were the secret wishes that Edmund of Lancaster rather than Charles of Anjou had been able to make good the grant from the Pope.

Splendid were the displays, and no slight toil did they involve on the part of the immediate train of the Prince, few in number as they were, and destitute of the appliances of the resident court. Richard hurrying hither and thither, and waiting upon every one, had little of the diversion of the affair; but he would willingly have taken treble the care and toil in the relief it was to be free from the prying mistrustful eyes of Hamlyn de Valence. Looking after little John of Dunster was, however, no small part of his trouble; the urchin was so certain to get into some mischief if left to himself— now treading on a lady's train, now upsetting a flagon of wine, now nearly impaling himself upon the point of a whole spitful of ortolans that were being handed round to the company, now becoming uncivilly deaf upon his French ear. Altogether, it was a relief to Richard's mind when he stumbled upon the little fellow fast asleep, even though it was in the middle of the Princess's violet velvet and ermine mantle, which she had laid down in order to tread a stately measure with Sire Guillaume de Porceles.

After all Richard's exertions that evening, it was no wonder that the morning found him fast asleep at the unexampled hour of eight! His wakening was a strange one. His little fellow-page was standing beside him with a strange frightened yet important air.

"What is the matter, John? It is late? Is the Prince gone to Mass? Has he missed me?" cried Richard, starting up in dismay, for unpunctuality was a great offence with Edward.

"He is gone to Mass," said John, "but, before he comes back," he came near and lowered his voice, "Hob Longbow sent me to say you had better flee."

"Flee! Boy, why should I flee? Are YOUR senses fleeing?"

"O Richard," cried John, his face clearing up, "then it is not true!

You are not one of the traitor Montforts!"

"If I were a hundred Montforts, what has that to do with it?"

"Then all is well," exclaimed the boy. "I said you were no such thing! I'll tell Hob he lied in his throat."

"If he said I was a traitor, verily he did; but as to being a

Montfort—But, how now, John, what means all this?"

"Then it is so! O Richard, Richard, you cannot be one of them! You cannot have written that letter to warn them to murder Prince Henry."

"To murder Prince Henry!" Richard stood transfixed. "Not the

Prince's little son!"

"Oh no, Prince Henry of Almayne! At Viterbo! Hamlyn de Valence saw it. He is come back. It was in the Cathedral. O Richard—at the elevation of the Host! Guy and Simon de Montfort fell on him, stabbed him to the heart, and rushed out. Then they came back again, and dragged him by the hair of his head into the mire, and shouted that so their father had been dragged through the streets of Evesham. And then they went off to the Maremma! And," continued the boy breathlessly, "Hob Long-bow is on guard, and he bade me tell you, that for love of your father he will let you pass; and then you can hide; if only you can go ere the Prince comes forth."

"Hide! Wherefore should I hide? This is most horrible, but it is no deed of mine!" said Richard. "Who dares to think it is?"

"Then you are none of them! You had no part in it! I shall tell Hob he is a villain—"

"Stay," said Richard, laying a detaining hand on the boy. "Why does

Hob think me in danger? Is anything stirring against me?"

"They all—all of poor Prince Henry's meine, that are come back with Hamlyn—say that you are a Montfort too, and—oh! do not look so fierce!—that you sent a letter to warn your brethren where to meet, and fall on the Prince. And the murderers being fled, they are keen to have your life; and, Richard, you know I saw you write the letter."

"That you saw me write a letter, is as certain as that my name is Montfort," said Richard, "but I am not therefore leagued with traitors or murderers! In the church, saidst thou? Oh, well that the Prince forbade me to visit Guy!"

"Then you will not flee?"

"No, forsooth. I will stay and prove my innocence."

"But you are a Montfort! And I saw you write the letter."

"Did you speak of my having written the letter?" asked Richard, pausing.

The boy hung his head, and muttered something about Dame Idonea.

By this time, even if Richard had thought of flight, it would have been impossible. Two archers made their presence apparent at the entrance of the tent, and in brief gruff tones informed Richard that the Prince required his presence. The space between his tent and the royal pavilion was short, but in those few steps Richard had time to glance over the dangers of his position, and take up his resolution though with a certain stunned sense that nothing could be before the member of a proscribed family, but failure, suspicion, and ruin.

The two brothers, Edward and Edmund, with the Earl of Gloucester, and their other chief councillors, were assembled; and there were looks of deep concern on the faces of all, making Edward's more than ever like a rigid marble statue; while Edmund had evidently been weeping bitterly, though his features were full of fierce indignation. Hamlyn de Valence, and a few other members of the murdered Prince's suite, stood near in deep mourning suits.

"Richard de Montfort," said Prince Edward, looking at him with a sorrowful reproachful sternness that went to his heart, "we have sent for you to answer for yourself, on a grave charge. You have heard of that which has befallen?"

"I have heard, my Lord, of a foul crime which my soul abhors. I trust none present here think me capable of sharing in it! Whoever dares to accuse me, shall be answered by my sword!" and he glanced fiercely at Hamlyn.

"Hold!" said Edward severely, "no one is so senseless as to accuse you of taking actual part in a crime that took place beyond the sea; but there is only too much reason to believe that you have been tampered with by your brothers."

Then, as his brother Edmund made some suggestion to him, he added,

"Is John de Mohun of Dunster here?"

"Yea, my Lord," said the little boy, coming forward, with a flush on his face, and a bold though wistful look, "but verily Richard is no traitor, be he who he may!"

"That is not what we wished to ask of you," said the Prince, too sad and earnest to be amused even for a moment. "Tell us whom you said, even now, you had seen in the tent you shared with him in Africa."

"I said I had seen his wraith," said John.

No smile lighted upon the Prince's features; they were as serious as those of the boy, as he commented, "His likeness—his exact likeness- -you mean."

"Ay," said the boy; "but Richard proved to me after, that it had been less tall, and was bearded likewise. So I hoped it did not bode him ill."

"Worse, I fear, than if it had in sooth been his double," said Gloucester to Prince Edmund. The Prince added the question whether this visitor had spoken; and John related the inquiry for Richard by the name of Montfort, and his own reply, which elicited a murmur of amused applause among the bystanders.

The Prince, however, continued in the same grave manner to draw from the little witness his account of Richard's injunction to secresy; and then asked about the letter-writing, of which John gave his plain account. The Prince then said, "Speak now, Hamlyn."

"This, then, I have to add, my Lord, that I, as all the world, remarked that Richard de Montfort consorted much with Sir Reginald de Ferrieres, who, as we all remember, is the son of a family deeply concerned in the Mad Parliament. By Sir Reginald, on his arrival at Castel San Giovanni, a messenger is despatched, bearing letters to the Hospital at Florence, and it is immediately after his arrival there, that the two Montforts speed from the Maremma to the unhappy and bloody Mass at Viterbo."

You hear, Richard!" said the Prince. "I bade you choose between me and your brothers. Had you believed me that you could not serve both, it had been better for you. I credit not that you incited them to the assassination; but your tidings led them to perpetrate it. I cannot retain the spy of the Montforts in my camp."

"My Lord," said Richard, at last finding space for speech, "I deny all collusion with my brothers. I have neither seen, spoken with, nor sent to them by letter nor word."

"Then to whom was this letter?" demanded the Prince.

"To Sir Robert Darcy, the Grand Prior of England," answered Richard.

A murmur of incredulous amazement was heard.

"The purport?" continued Edward.

"That, my Lord, it consorts not with my duty to tell."

"Look here, Richard," interposed Gilbert of Gloucester, "this is an unlikely tale. You can have no cause for secresy, save in connection with these brothers; and if you will point to some way of clearing yourself of being art and part in this foul act of murder, you may be sent scot free from the camp; but if you wilfully maintain this denial, what can we do but treat you as a traitor? No obstinacy! What can a lad like you have to say to good old Sir Robert Darcy, that all the world might not know?"

"My Lord of Gloucester," said Richard, "I am bound in honour not to reveal the matters between me and Sir Robert; I can only declare on the faith of a Christian gentleman that I have neither had, nor attempted to have, any dealings with either of my brothers, Guy or Simon; and if any man says I have, I will prove his falsehood on his body." And Richard flung down his glove before the Prince.