CHAPTER XI
HOW RICHARD FARED TO AUVERGNE
Now when the south wind blew gently with the advancing spring, Richard set forth for Auvergne. With him went Sebastian, rejoiced to see "that very Christian country of France," and Herbert his arch-counsellor, and Nasr with a score of tough Saracens, very fiends as they looked, Baron William's old retainers, who would have followed the devil with a stout heart so long as he led to hard blows and good plunder. Just before he started, Richard was admonished by his father not to rush into quarrel with Raoul, the brother of Louis, whose lands of Valmont lay close by St. Julien. "A rough, bearish fellow," William called him, who had won the name of the "Bull of Valmont" by his headlong courage. He had broiled with Louis, chased him from the fief, and now lived alone with his mother, the Lady Ide, and young brother Gilbert. Just now, report had it, he was at sword's points with the abbot of Our Lady of St. Julien, who claimed freedom from tolls upon the Valmont lands, and William warned his son against being used by the monk to fight his unchurchly quarrel. So Richard promised discretion, kissed his mother for the last time; and away he went on a stanch galleon of Amalfi headed for Marseilles, and making Palermo on her voyage from Alexandria.
A short voyage, too short almost for Richard and Mary, who found even the evenings grow enchanted, while they sat on the gilded poop watching the sun creep down into the deep; or listened to the tales of Theroulde, who set Mary a-laughing when he told of King Julius Cæsar, and how he built the walls of Constantinople, and wooed the "very discreet Fée," Morgue, who became his wife. But the joy was rarest to be alone upon the poop, with the soft breeze crooning in the rigging, the foam dancing from the beak and trailing behind its snowy pathway where trod the dying light.
"Ah," said Mary one evening, as the first star twinkled in the deep violet, "one year it is since I set eyes on you, my Richard; since you plucked me from the Berbers. In this year I have lost my father, and gained—you!" And there were both sadness and joy upon her face.
"A year!" quoth Richard, his eyes not upon the stars, but upon a coronal of brown hair. "How could I ever have lived without you? Since you have entered into me, my strength waxes twenty-fold. By St. Michael, I will seek a great adventure to prove it!"
"Do you think to give me joy by risking life at every cross-road to prove your love? Does a true lover think so meanly of his love, that he is willing to tear her heart by thrusting his precious self in peril?"
"No," protested he, taking her right hand in his own, then the other; and holding both captive in his right, while she laughed and struggled vainly to get free. "But what do you love in me? The only thing I have;—an arm that is very heavy. And shall I not use that gift of the saints? Are there not haughty tyrants with no fear of God in their hearts, who must be overthrown by a Christian cavalier? Is the world so good, so free from violence, and wickedness, and strife, that he who can wield a sword for Christ should let it rust in the scabbard? You would not have me always in your bower, listening to those Greek books which I called Churchmen's frippery, until you made them all music. Only yesterday I heard Sebastian grumble, 'St. Martin forbid that the princess play the Philistine woman to our Samson, and shear his locks; so that Holy Church fail of a noble champion!'"
"I will never play the Philistine woman to you, my Richard," answered Mary, lightly. Then as a sweet and sober light came into her eyes: "Oh, dear heart, I know well what you must be! It is true the world is very evil. We are young, and the light shines fair; but there is a day to dance, and a day, not to mourn, but to put by idle things. You will be a great man, Richard," with a proud, bright glance into his face; "men will dread you and your righteous anger against their wickedness; God will give you mighty deeds to do, great battles to win, great wrongs to right, and perhaps"—here with another glance—"they will think you grow hard and sombre, when it is only because you dare not turn back from your task, but must think of duty, not of childish things. But I will still be with you; and when you go away to the wars, as go you must, I will never weep till your banner is out of sight; and if I do weep, I will still say, as you said, 'It is no dreadful thing for a brave gentleman to die, if he dies with his face toward the foe, and his conscience clear.'"
"You will make me a very saint," said Richard, still holding fast her hands; "but it is by your prayers alone, dear saint, that I may dare have hope of heaven."
"No," replied the Greek, smiling, "you are not a saint. Oh, you will do very wrong, I know! But God and Our Lady understand that your heart is true and pure. It is our souls that go to heaven, not our tongues with their harsh words, nor our hands with their cruel blows. And when you are fiercest, and the tempting fiends tear you, and the sky seems very black, then I will kiss you—so—and you will recollect yourself, and be my own true cavalier, who wields his sword because the love of Christ is in his heart."
"But you will not always be with me," protested Richard. "When I am alone and sorely tempted—what then?"
"Then you must love me so much that my face will be ever before your eyes; and by this you will know when you strike for Christ, and when for worldly passion or glory."
"Ah!" cried Richard, "what have I done that God should send down one of His saints to sit by me, and speak to me, and dwell forever with me?"
"Forever!" said Mary, lugubriously; "we shall all be in heaven in a hundred years. How well that there is no marriage nor giving in marriage there, or some of those lovely saintesses might make eyes at so fine a warrior-angel as you; then I would wax jealous, and St. Peter, if he is the peacemaker, might have his wits sore puzzled." But here soberness left them both, and they laughed and laughed once more; till Musa and Theroulde, who had discreetly withdrawn to the cabin, came forth, and the jongleur, looking up at the now gleaming planets, told how wise beldames said, those lights sang a wondrous melody all night long, and a new-born child heard their music.
Richard was still holding Mary's hands, and she saucily told Musa that she had begun early those lessons of obedience which her lord would surely teach her.
"Flower of Greece," laughed the Spaniard, "in Andalusia the women are our rulers; at their beck palaces rise, wars are declared, peace is stricken. The king of Seville for his favorite wife once flooded his palace court with rose water, to satisfy her whim. Come with me to Spain, not Auvergne."
"No," answered Mary, tugging free her hands and shaking a dainty sleeve of Cyprian gauze, "we will never turn infidel and peril our souls—not even to please you, Sir Musa."
She saw a dark shadow flit over Musa's face: was it as the ship's lantern swayed in the slow swell of the sea? But he replied quickly:—
"Alas! I am not such a friend to the lord of Andalusia to-day that I can proffer there princely hospitality."
Then their talk ran fast on a thousand nothings; but the shadow on Musa's face haunted Mary. She resolved in her heart, she would never again remind him that their faith lay as a gulf between them.
The stout ship reached Marseilles, where she was to barter her Eastern wares for Frankish iron, oil, and wax. Her passengers sped joyously to La Haye, a rich and stately castle in the pleasant South Country, where Baron Hardouin, Mary's uncle, received his niece and future nephew with courtly hospitality, as became a great seigneur of Provence. And when Richard rode again northward with a lock of brown hair in his bosom, he had a promise that, when he returned in autumn, there should be a wedding such as became the heiress of a Greek Cæsar and a great Baroness of the Languedoc.
Never again was Longsword to ride with fairer visions and a merrier heart. He was in France, the home of knightly chivalry, of Christian faith. As they passed through Aix and Avignon and Orange, and all along the stately Rhone, the wealthy lords and ladies entertained him in their castles, Theroulde paying by his stories for all the feastings and wassail. And Richard carried his head high, for the fame of his deeds in Sicily had run overseas; and men honored him, and the great countesses gave soft looks and words,—with more perchance, had he only suffered. "Verily," thought Richard in his heart, "the jongleurs did well to sing that when King Alexander the Great lay a-dying, he had only one sorrow,—that he had not conquered France, head of the whole world." But for the ladies, their troops of troubadours and their "courts of love," Richard had only pleasant words, no more. For Longsword had a vision before his eyes that two years before he had never dreamed. Fairer than all knightly glory, the sweet delirium of battle, the cry of a thousand heralds proclaiming him victor, rose the dream of a strong and beautiful woman ever beside him; her voice ever in his ears, her touch upon his arm, her breath upon his cheek; and from year unto year his soul drawing to itself joy and power merely by looking upon her—this was the dream. And Richard marvelled that once his life had found rest in hawking and sword-play. So as he rode northward, all the little birds upon the arching trees sang that one name "Mary"; and the great Rhone, hastening seaward, murmured it from each eddy and foaming boulder; and the kind west wind whispered it, as it blew over the pleasant corn-lands of Toulouse and Aquitaine.
Thus ever toward the north; at last they touched the domain of the Count of Vaudan close to Auvergne, and near St. Flour they entered Auvergne itself. Then around them rose the mountains like frozen billows of the angry North Sea, their jagged summits crowned with cinder-filled craters; upon their bold flanks patches of basalt, where clinging pines shook down their needles. On nigh each cliff perched a castle, black as the rock and as steep; and amid the clefts of the mountains were little valleys where browsed sure-footed kine; where the people were rude, rough men, with great beards, leather dresses, surly speech, and hands that went often to their sword-hilts.
"Sure, it is a wild land I have come to set right!" cried Richard, gazing at the fire-scarped ranges of puys; and he rejoiced at thought of ordering his grandsire's barony with a strong hand. But Sebastian again was only gloom and warnings.
"Ah, dear son, how much better to leave your grandfather's petty seigneury to its fate, and heed the word of holy Peter the Hermit, who is preaching the war against the infidels."
"Not while Mary Kurkuas lives will I quit her to go to Jerusalem," proclaimed Richard, boldly, and Sebastian shook his head, as was his wont. "'The woman tempted me, and I did eat,'" was his bitter answer; "God is not mocked; your pride shall yet be dashed utterly."
CHAPTER XII
HOW RICHARD CAME TO ST. JULIEN
Now at last they were drawing near to St. Julien, whither Richard sent advance messengers. And as he saw how, despite the rocks and the ragged landscape, fair meadow valleys began to spread out, and wide fields bursting with their summer fatness, he grew still more elated and arrogant in soul. How many gallant adventures awaited beyond those hills! How he would rule with a strong hand his grandsire's seigneury! Nay more, he would do better: he would some day ride over this road with Mary Kurkuas at his side, and hear knight and villain hail him, "Richard, by the Grace of God, Count and Suzerain of all Auvergne." With only five horsemen had Robert Guiscard left Normandy, and when he died, half Italy and nigh all Sicily were at his feet; and should not Richard of Cefalu do better, with a fair, rich barony to build upon?
Presently, after a long day's ride, the young knight's company came forth from the last pass amongst the hilltops, and before them—St. Julien. Richard could see the tall square towers of the distant castle shining yellow gray in the dying sun; he could see the long reaches of ploughed land, the glebe of the Abbey of Our Lady of St. Julien, to whose abbot the local baron paid each year six bunches of wild flowers, token of nominal fealty. Far away were the dun masses of the monastery's many roofs and walls; about the castle nestled the thatches of a little town, a fair stream ran through the valley, and all around the beetling mountains kept watch.
"A goodly land," cried Sebastian, shading his eyes with a gaunt hand; "a goodly land; ah, dear Christ, grant that the hearts of the men within it be as pure as thine own heavens above!"
"And have I done wrong," declared Richard, pointing from corn-land to castle, and thence to river, "to come so far to possess it? Does not God will rather that I should play my part here, than throw away life and love in a mad wandering to Jerusalem?"
But Sebastian shook his head.
"They say the devil can appear as an angel of light; God forfend that the earthly beauty of this country breed perdition for your soul."
So they went down the hillside, laughing and singing, and pricking on their flagging steeds, though Richard saw that Musa was only half merry.
"Tell me, brother mine," said he, "why are you not gay? Do you envy me my first inheritance?"
The Spaniard threw up his hands in inimitable gesture.
"Wallah; is not your joy my joy, soul of my soul!" cried he, earnestly. "Not gay? Allah forbid that there be truth in portents. As at noon we rested, and I slept under the trees, I dreamt that I was grievously plucked by the hair."
"And that forbodes—?"
"That some calamity or ill news comes either to me or to some dear to me. So our Arabian diviners interpret dreams, and so some years since Al-Aāzid, my master at Cordova, instructed me."
"Christ defend us!" quoth Richard, crossing himself. He was not imagining ill for himself nor for Musa, but for Mary Kurkuas.
"Be not troubled," continued the Spaniard; "the surest presages often fail." Richard rode on in silence. The melancholy of his friend was contagious. A cloud drifted over the sun; the bright landscape darkened. As they passed by a wayside cross on the hillside, a skeleton swung from an oak in the hot wind—some brigand or villain, who had enraged the seigneur. A wretched beggar met them, just as they plunged into the trees to enter the valley.
"Alms! alms! kind lord," he croaked, his face red with bloody patches; and as he spoke he lay on the ground, and foamed as if grievously ill.
"Away with you!" growled Sebastian, angrily; "you have smeared blood on your face, and there is a bit of soap in your cheeks."
So they left, and heard his shrill curse, when he saw Richard tossed forth never a denier.
"No good omens," muttered Herbert, in his beard.
"Ride faster," commanded Richard, touching spur to Rollo.
So they hastened, while above them the canopy of leaves grew denser, and more clouds piled across the dimming sun. Then as they swung round a turn, they came upon a man with a great load of fagots on his back,—a tall, coarse-faced fellow, with a shock head and unkempt beard, hatless, dressed in a dirt-dyed blouse held by a leathern belt, woollen trousers, and high, rude boots.
Herbert rode up to him, as he stood staring with dazed, lack-lustre eyes at the company.
"Ho, sirrah; and are we on the Baron of St. Julien's land?" No answer; then again, "Are we on the Baron of St. Julien's land?" Still no answer, while the scoundrel gazed about like a cornered cat, looking for chance to escape. Herbert grasped his ear in no gentle pinch.
"I work miracles," bellowed he. "I make the dumb speak!" Then as he twisted the ear, the man howled out:—
"Yes, this is his land."
"And why not all this before?" roared Herbert.
"I love my lord," growled the fellow; "how do I know but that you seek his ill? Sorrow enough he has, without need of more."
"Ha!" exclaimed Richard, "what is this? Speak out, my man. I am his friend and yours!"
But before he could get answer, the pound, pound, of several horsemen was heard ahead. And they saw in the road four riders, two accoutred men-at-arms, two others, by their dress and steeds evidently gentlemen of the lesser sort. One of these, a tall young man of about Richard's age, spurred ahead; and as he drew near, he dropped his lance-head in salute.
"Noble lord," said he, "do I speak with Richard Longsword of Cefalu, grandson of the Baron of St. Julien?"
"I am he, fair sir," replied Richard, with like salute.
"I am rejoiced to see your safety. Your messengers have arrived. We expected your coming. Know that I am Bertrand, squire of the Baron, your grandfather; and this is his good vassal the castellan, Sir Oliver de Carnac; in our Lord's name we greet you well and all your company."
So Richard thanked them for their courtesy, and then questioned:—
"And is my lord the Baron well?"
But at his words a great cloud lowered on the face of the squire, and he turned to De Carnac; and that stern-faced knight began to look very blank, though saying nothing. Then Bertrand began hesitatingly:—
"It grieves me, fair lord; but the Baron is very ill just now; the skill of the monks of St. Julien does nothing for him."
"Ha!" exclaimed the Norman. "I give him joy; I have here a famous Spanish knight, who, besides being a mighty cavalier, knows all the wisdom of the paynim schools, which, if very bad for the soul, is sovereign for the body."
"No skill avails, lord," said Bertrand, looking down. "He is blind."
"Blind!" came from Longsword. "When? how? he did not write."
"No, fair sir; three days since it happed; and I have a sorry tale to tell."
"Briefly then." Musa saw the Norman's face very calm and grave, and he shuddered, knowing a mighty storm was gathering.
"Lord," said Bertrand, "over yonder mountain lies the castle of Valmont: its seigneur, Raoul, has for years been at feud with your grandfather, my lord. Much blood has flowed to neither's advantage. When Louis went away, the two barons made a manner of peace; but of late they quarrelled, touching the rights to certain hunting-land. The suzerain, Count Robert of Auvergne, is old; he gave judgment against Raoul, but had no power to enforce. Four days since Baron Gaston went upon the debatable land to lay a hound; with him only Gaspar, the huntsman. Raoul and many men meet them; high words, drawn swords; and after our Baron had slain three men with his own hands, the 'Bull of Valmont' takes him. Raoul is in a black rage, and his enemy in his power."
Richard's face was black also, but he was not raging.
"Go on," said he, very calmly.
"Raoul says to my lord, 'It is a grievous thing to take the life of a cavalier, who cannot defend himself. I will not do it, yet you shall never see that pleasant hunting-land more.' Then he calls John of the Iron Arm, a man-at-arms and chief devil at Valmont, who is after his own heart, and bids him bring the 'hot-bowl.'"
"The 'hot-bowl'?"
"Yes, lord; a red-hot brazier, which they passed before our Baron's eyeballs, until the sight was scorched out forever."
Richard was turning very pale. "Mother of God!" muttered he, crossing himself; but Bertrand went on:—
"Then Raoul struck off Gaspar's right hand, and bade him lead his seigneur home with the other, and let them remember there was brave hunting on the Valmont lands."
"And what has been done against Raoul?" asked Richard.
"Nothing, lord. De Carnac is our chief; but when we knew you were coming, and heard how you had laid the Bull's brother, Louis de Valmont, on his back, great knight that he was, we waited; for, we said, 'When Sir Richard comes, we shall be led by one of St. Julien's own stock, and we shall see if he loves Raoul more than do we.'"
"You have done well, dear friend," said Richard, still very quietly. "Now tell me, how is my grandfather; well, save for his eyes?"
"Alas! he was nigh dead when he came back, and to-day the monks declared he would slip away; only desire for revenge keeps his soul in him."
"I must see him," said Longsword, simply; then to Musa, "Ha! my brother, will you be at my side in this adventure?"
"Allah akhbar," cried the Spaniard, his eyes on fire, "that Raoul shall feel my cimeter!"
"Softly, softly, dear son," quoth Sebastian, who had heard all, "Omnia licent, sed omnia non expediunt!"
"No Latin now, good father," was the Norman's prompt retort, and he turned to Bertrand: "To the castle with speed!"
Forward they rode through the squalid little village, where ragged peasants and slatternly women opened their eyes wide, and crossed themselves as their eyes lit on the "Saracen devils"; then they clattered onto the stone bridge, and past the toll-keeper's booth at the drawbridge in the middle span. Before them across a stretch of cleared land rose the castle: not a curiously planned system of outworks, barbicans, baileys, and keeps, as Richard saw in his older days, but a single massive tower, square, built from ponderous blocks of black basalt that could mock at battering-ram. It perched upon a rocky rising, at the foot a moat, deep, flooded by the stream, where even now the fish were leaping; outside the moat, a high wooden stockade; within this, the stables. From the crest far above, the eye could sweep to the farthest glens of the valley. Ten men could make good the hold against an army; for where was the hero that could mount to the only entrance—that door in the sheer wall thirty feet above the moat, and only a wooden drawbridge to reach it, which pulleys could lift in a twinkling?
Richard looked at the castle and shrugged his shoulders. "Is the hold of Raoul de Valmont like to this?" he asked.
"As you say, lord; only the outer wall is higher," replied Bertrand, while they left their steeds at the foot of the dizzy bridge. Richard blew through his teeth. "St. Michael," cried he, "there will be a tale to tell ere we get inside!"
When they came within the great hall, dark and sombre, with slits for the archers its only windows, there were all the castle servants waiting to do Richard honor, from the gray old chamberlain and the consequential cellarer to the "sergeants" that kept the guard. But Longsword would have none of their scrapes and bows.
"Take me to my grandfather," he commanded, after turning down a horn of mead. So they led him up blind ladders to a room above. Here the windows were scarce larger; there was a great canopied bed, a prie-dieu chair, two or three clothes-presses; on the floor new, sweet rushes. The day was sultry, but there was a hot fire roaring in the cavernous chimney-place. The glowing logs sent a red glare over all the room; in every corner lurked black shadows. Before the fire stretched two enormous wolf-hounds, meet hunters for the fiercest bear. There was a huge armchair deeply cushioned before the fire, the back toward the doorway. As Richard entered, the hounds sprang up, growling, with grinning teeth, and a sharp brattling voice broke out:—
"Out of the room, pestilent monk. Away to perdition with your cordials, or I set the dogs on you. Give me the head of Raoul de Valmont, then stab me if you will!"
"Grandsire, it is I!" cried Richard, and ran beside the chair, and fell on his knees. A great hairy hand reached out for him, and he saw a face, hard as a knotted old oak, beaten by storm, scorched by lightning. Strength was there, brute courage, bitter hate, and an iron will. Only the lips now were crisped, the white beard was singed to the very jowl, and across the eyes was drawn a white bandage, stained with blood.
"Mother of God!" moaned the old man, groping piteously. "Is this the welcome that I give you, sweet grandson?"
But Richard, who thought it no shame to weep, held the mighty hand to his lips and sobbed loudly, while "the water of his heart" ran down his cheeks.
"Ai, dear grandsire," said he, when he had his voice, "it is well I have come. I too bear no love for the race of Valmont."
The old Baron felt for the Norman's arm; caught it; ran his hands from wrist to shoulder; gripped tight on the iron muscles.
"It is true, it is true!" he half laughed; "you are of my stock, and your father was a mighty cavalier. You will be worthy to have the barony."
"Say it not, sweet sir," cried Richard; "please God, you will yet live many a year!"
"Ho!" roared the Baron, in anger, "would you have me live as a blind cow! What is life without hawks or hounds or tourneys or war! God willing, I shall die soon. Hell were nothing worse than this. I do not fear it!"
"Christ forbid you should speak sincerely!" protested Richard, crossing himself.
"No; it is true," raged the old man; "there is good company down below. Do not say Bernard the Devil is not there, these seven years, and he was my good friend. I am as bad as he. Fire can't hurt a man, if he can only see. What have I to do with your saints and prayers and priests' prattle! Heaven for them; and for men who love good sword-play and a merry lass—"
But Richard cut him short.
"Don't blaspheme! How know you that this is not a reward for all your sins?"
"Raoul used by the saints to reward me? Ha, ha—" and the Baron this time bellowed a wild laugh in earnest.
"Grandfather," said Richard, very gently, "you are in no mood for further talk. I will leave you, and come again."
"Come, and say that Raoul has gone to the imps!" raged the Baron; then, as Richard's steps sounded departing, "and if you take John of the Iron Arm, Raoul's chief under-devil, alive, give him a bath in boiling lard to remind him of what awaits him yonder!"
Barely had Richard reached the great hall when Bertrand was at him again:—
"Their reverences, the abbot of Our Lady of St. Julien, the prior, and the sub-prior, come to see your lordship."
So the three monks in their black Benedictine habits came in before Richard, who bowed very low, remembering the wise maxim: "Honor all churchmen, but look well to your money." The abbot was short and fat, the prior short but less fat, the sub-prior leaner still. Otherwise they seemed children of one mother, with their pale, flabby faces, their long gray beards, and black cowls and cassocks.
"Benedicte, fair son," began the abbot; "we trust the true love of God and Holy Church is in your heart."
"Of God and Holy Church," repeated the prior.
"Of God and Holy Church," chanted the sub-prior.
"I am a great sinner, holy father," quoth Richard, dutifully, "yet I hope for forgiveness. What may I do for you?"
Then the abbot ran off into a long, winding discourse as to how the barons of St. Julien had ever been the protectors and "advocates" of the abbey, and how of late "that man of Belial, Raoul de Valmont," had oppressed the monks in many ways. "And even now God has mysteriously deigned," continued the prelate, "that he should commit a sin, the like whereof have been few since the days of Judas called Iscariot."
"And what may this be?" asked Richard, soberly.
"When our refectarius," solemnly went on the abbot, "passed over the Valmont lands, driving three black pigs, and with twelve fair round Auvergne cheeses amongst other gifts of the pious in his cart, this man of blood cruelly possessed himself of the pigs and cheeses, saying, 'The holy brethren will find prayers rise strongest when they have pulse in their bellies'—blasphemous sinner!"
"Accursed robber!" cried the prior.
"Friend of the fiends!" echoed the sub-prior.
"And therefore," wound up the abbot, "we do warn you, on the peril of your soul, to cut off this child of perdition root and branch; to call forth to arms the ban and the arrière-ban; to make his castle a dunghill and his name a byword and a hissing!"
Richard was smiling. When the abbot finished, he gave the holy fathers a merry laugh that made them half feel their weighty mission a failure. But Musa, as he looked upon his friend, trembled, for he did not like that kind of smile or laugh. Richard flashed forth Trenchefer, and laid his hand on the knob that contained such holy relics.
"See you, holy fathers, gentlemen and vassals all. I, Richard Longsword, setting my hand on the holy relics of the blessed Matthias and the blessed Gereon, do swear before God Most High, that I will have the life of Raoul de Valmont, and of every man or lad of his sinful race; and God and these holy saints do so to me, if I show mercy!"
And all the men-at-arms, and Bertrand and De Carnac, saw that they had to do with a born leader of warriors, and cried out "Amen!" with a mighty shout, so that the solid rafters quaked and reëchoed. But Sebastian as well as Musa shuddered when he beheld Longsword; for the Norman's words rang hard and sharp as whetted steel, and the good churchman's heart was heavy with new foreboding.
"This is a cruel vow, my son," he broke in. "Raoul de Valmont must suffer for his sin; but Louis,—he whom you spared when at your feet,—will you seek his life also, and that of the lad Gilbert, the younger brother?"
But Richard flung out hotly:—
"Silence, Sebastian; cursed am I for sparing Louis de Valmont. Cursed for sparing an accursed race! I will have the lives of all—all; and will right my grandsire and myself also. So help me God!"
Sebastian had one last appeal.
"For the sake of Mary Kurkuas, do not rush into this blood-feud. God will not bless you if you go beyond Raoul!"
Longsword threw back his head.
"I were unworthy of Mary Kurkuas if I yielded a hair! No power shall shake me! Let Christ pity them; I will not!"
Sebastian turned away.
"Dear Lord," he prayed, "Thou seest how my sweet son is torn by the fiends who seek his soul; first he forgets Jerusalem, now will dip his hands wantonly in Christian blood. Spare him; pity him; restore him to himself."
That night Richard sat at chess with Musa; played skilfully, laughed loud. His talk was merry, but his face was very hard.