Part 5

"Amen!" said Father Eudes. "Dame Mary, pray for us poor sinners!"

There was a great bustle after that, and noise, and clashing; and I do not remember much distinctly, till I got into the litter with Bertrade, and then first Amaury set forth on his charger, with his squires after him, and then Marguerite behind Robert on horseback, and Perette behind Amaury's varlet, who is a cousin of hers; and then my litter moved forward, with the armed men around and behind. I just saw them all clearly for one moment--Alix with her lips set, looking at us, as if she were determined not to say a word; and Messire Raymond smoothing his moustache; and Guillot with an old shoe poised in the air, which hit my fore postilion the next minute; and Umberge with that fair false smile with which she deludes every one at first sight; and Monseigneur, with his arms folded, and the tears fairly running down his cheeks, and his lips working as if he were deeply grieved. Just for one minute there they all stood; and I think they will make a picture in my eyes till the end of time for me. And then my litter was drawn out of the Castle gate, and the horses tramped across the drawbridge, and down the slope below: and I drew the curtain of the litter aside, and looked back to see my dear old home, the fair strong Castle of Lusignan, growing less and less behind me every moment, till at last it faded into a more dim speck in the distance, and I felt that my long and venturesome journey had begun.

Oh, why do people never let us know how much they love us, until just as we unclasp hands and part?

Do they always know it themselves?

And I wonder whether dying is anything like this. Do men go a long journey to God, with an armed escort of angels, and do they see the world go less and less behind them as they mount? I will ask Margot what she thinks. She is but a villein, in truth, but then she has such curious fancies.

I have asked Marguerite, and she shakes her head.

"Ha! no, my Damoiselle. It can be no long journey to God. Father Eudes said but last Sunday, reading from the Breviary, in his sermon, that 'He is not far from every one of us.' And the good thief Ditmas, that was crucified with God, was there in half a day. It can only be a little way to Heaven. Ah! much less than half a day, it must be; for did not Monseigneur Saint Gabriel, the holy Archangel, begin to fly when Monseigneur Saint Daniel began to pray?--and he was there before he had finished his beads. It is a long while since Father Eudes told us that; and I thought it so comforting, because it showed that Heaven was not far, and also that the good Lord listens so quickly when we call. Ah! I have to say, 'Wait, Heloise!--I am listening to Perette:' but the good Lord does not need to do that. He can hear my Lady the Queen, and the Lady Alix, and Monseigneur Guy, and my Damoiselle, and her servant Marguerite, all at once."

Yes, I suppose it must be so, though I cannot understand it. One has to believe so many things that one cannot understand. Do we even know how we live from day to day? Of course it is known that we have certain organs in our bodies, by which we breathe, and speak, and walk, and digest food; but can any one tell _how_ all they do goes to make up what we call life? I do not believe it.

We took our way by Poictiers, across the duchies of Berry and Burgundy, and through Franche-Comte, crossing some terrible mountains between Besancon and Neufchatel. Then we travelled across Switzerland--Oh, how beautiful it is! I felt as though I should have been content to stay there, and never go any farther. But Amaury said that was just like a silly girl. What man, said he--with such an accent on the _man_!--ever wanted to stop away from gorgeous pageants and gallant deeds of arms, just to stare at a big hill with some snow on it, or a pool of water with some trees round it? How could any body make a name in that foolish way?--said Messire Amaury.

But old Marguerite thought with me. "Damoiselle," she said, "I am very thankful I came on this journey. Methinks I have a better notion what Heaven will be like than I had before we left Poitou. I did not know the good God was so rich. There seems to be no end to the beautiful things He can make. Oh, how beautiful He Himself must be! And we shall see His face. Father Eudes read it."

Whatever one says to Marguerite, she always finds something to say in answer about the good God. Surely she should have been a nun.

We came into Italy through two great passes,--one over the Julier mountain, so called from Julius Caesar, the great Emperor, who made the road by help of the black art, and set up two pillars on the summit to commemorate his deeds: and then, passing through a beautiful valley, where all flowers of the year were out together, and there was a lovely chain of lakes,--(which naughty Amaury scornfully called crocuses and dirty water!)--we wound up hill after hill, until at last it really seemed as if we must have reached the top of the world. Here were two small lakes, at the foot of a drear slope of ice, which in these parts they call a glacier: and they call them the Black Lake and the White Lake. We had two sturdy peasants as guides over the mountains, and I should have liked dearly to talk with them about their country, but of course it would not have been seemly in a damsel of my rank: _noblesse oblige_. But I got Marguerite to ask them several questions, for their language is sufficiently like the Langue d'Oc[#] for us to understand them, though they speak very thickly and indistinctly. They told Marguerite that their beautiful valley is named the Val Engiadina,[#] and they were originally a colony from Italy, who fled from a persecution of the Saracens.[#] This pass is called the Bernina, for _berne_ in their tongue signifies a bear, and there are many bears about here in winter. And they say this mountain is the top of the world, for here the waters separate, on the one side flowing far away into Asia, near the place where Adam dwelt in Paradise;[#] and on the other, into the great western sea,[#] which we shall shortly have to cross. And here, on the very summit of this mountain, dwelt a holy hermit, who gave me a shelter in his hut, while the men camped outside round great fires; for though it was August, yet at this great height it was quite cold. And so, through the pass, we wound slowly down into Italy.

[#] Two cognate languages were at this time spoken in France; north of the Loire, the Langue d'Oil, and south, the Langue d'Oc, both words meaning _yes_ in the respective languages. The more northern language was the harsher, _ch_ being sounded as _k_, just as _church_ in England becomes _kirk_ in Scotland. _Cher, chaise, chien_, therefore, were pronounced _ker, kaise, kien_, in the Langue d'Oil.

[#] The Engadine.

[#] All the evil done or doing in the world was at this time attributed to the Saracens. The colony is supposed to have arisen from the flight of a group of Christians in the persecution under Diocletian.

[#] The Black Sea.

[#] The Mediterranean.

Marguerite and Perette were both full of the beauty they had seen in the great glacier, on which they went with the guides: but it would not have done for a damsel of my rank, and really I saw no beauty in it from across the lake; it looked like a quantity of very dirty ice, with ashes scattered over it. But they said it was full of deep cracks or fissures, in which were the loveliest colours that human eye could see or heart imagine.

"Ah! I can guess now!" said Marguerite. "I could not think what Monseigneur Saint John meant when he said the city was gold like clear crystal. I know now. Damoiselle, in the glacier there are walls of light, the sweetest green shading into blue that my Damoiselle can possibly imagine: they must be like that, but golden. Ha! if my Damoiselle had seen it! The great nobles have not all the good things. It is well not to be so high up that one cannot see the riches of the good God."

She has the queerest notions!

Well!--we travelled on through Lombardy, and tarried a few days at Milan, whence we journeyed to Venice, which is the strangest place I ever saw or dreamed of, for all the streets are canals, and one calls for one's boat where other people order their horses. The Duke of Venice, who is called the Doge, was very kind to us. He told us at supper a comical story of a Duchess of Venice who lived about a hundred years ago. She so dearly loved ease and luxury that she thought it too much trouble to eat with her fingers like everybody else; and she actually caused her attendants to cut her meat into little pieces, like dice, and then she had a curious instrument with two prongs,[#] made of gold, with which she picked up the bits and put them in her dainty mouth. Only fancy!

[#] The first fork on record.

At Venice we embarked, and sailed to Messina, where most of the pilgrims for the Holy Land assemble, as it is the most convenient port. We did not go overland, as some pilgrims do, through the dominions of the Byzantine Caesar;[#] but we sailed thence to Crete. I was rather sorry to miss Byzantium,[#] both on account of the beautiful stuffs which are sold there, and the holy relics: but since I have seen a spine of the crown of thorns, which the Lady de Montbeillard has--she gave seven hundred crowns for it to Monseigneur de Rheims[#]--I did not care so much about the relics as I might otherwise have done. Perhaps I shall meet with the same kind of stuffs in Palestine; and certainly there will be relics enough.

[#] The Eastern Emperor; his dominions in Europe extended over Greece and Turkey.

[#] Constantinople.

[#] The Archbishop.

From Crete we sailed to Rhodes, and thence to Cyprus. They all say that I am an excellent sailor, for I feel no illness nor inconvenience at all; but poor Bertrade has been dreadfully ill, and Marguerite and Perette say they both feel very uncomfortable on the water. At Cyprus is an abbey of monks, on the Hill of the Holy Cross; and here Amaury and his men were housed for the night, and I and my women at a convent of nuns not far off. At the Abbey they have a cross, which they say is the very cross on which our Lord suffered, but some say it is only the cross of Ditmas, the good thief. I was rather puzzled to know whether, there being a doubt whether it really is the holy cross, it ought to be worshipped. If it be only a piece of common wood, I suppose it would be idolatry. So I thought it more right and seemly to profess to have a bad headache, and decline to mount the hill. I asked Amaury what he had done.

"Oh! worshipped it, of course," said he.

"But how if it were not the true cross?" I asked.

"My sister, wouldst thou have a knight thus discourteous? The monks believe it true. It would have hurt their feelings to show any doubt."

"But, Amaury, it would be idolatry!"

"Ha, bah!" he answered. "The angels will see it put to the right account--no doubt of that. Dear me!--if one is to be for ever considering little scruples like that, why, there would be no end to them--one would never do any thing."

Then I asked Marguerite if she went up to worship the holy cross.

"No, Damoiselle," said she. "The Grey Friar said we worship not the cross, but the good God that died thereon. And I suppose He is as near to us at the bottom of the hill as at the top."

Well, it does look reasonable, I must say. But it must be one of Marguerite's queer notions. There would be no good in relics and holy places if that were always true.

This island of Cyprus is large and fair. It was of old time dedicated by the Paynims to Venus, their goddess of beauty: but when it fell into Christian hands, it was consecrated anew to Mary the holy Mother.

From Cyprus we sailed again, a day and a half, to Tyre; but we did not land there, but coasted southwards to the great city of Acre, and there at last we took land in Palestine.

Here we were lodged in the castle, which is very strong: and we found already here some friends of Amaury, the Baron de Montluc and his two sons, who had landed about three weeks before us. Hence we despatched a letter to Guy. I was the writer, of course, for Amaury can write nothing but his name; but he signed the letter with me. Messire Renaud de Montluc, who was setting out for the Holy City, undertook to see the letter safe. We were to follow more slowly.

We remained at Acre about ten days. Then we set forth, Amaury and I, the Baron de Montluc and his son Messire Tristan, and several other knights who were waiting for a company, with our respective trains; and the Governor of Acre lent us an additional convoy of armed men, to see us safe to the Holy City.

This was my first experience of tent life; and very strange it felt, and horribly insecure. I, accustomed to dwell within walls several feet thick, with portcullis and doors guarded by bolts and bars, in a chamber opening on an inner court, to have no more than one fold of goats' hair canvas between me and the outside world! True, the men-at-arms were camped outside; but that was no more than a castle garrison: and where was the castle?

"Margot," said I, "dost thou not feel horribly frightened?"

For of course, she, a villein, would be more accessible to fear than a noble.

"Oh no, my Damoiselle," she said very quietly. "Is it not in the holy Psalter that 'the Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them'? We are as safe as in the Castle of Lusignan."

It is a very good thing for Marguerite and the maidens that I am here. Because, of course, the holy angels, who are of high rank, would never think of taking care of mere villeins. It must mean persons of noble blood.

We journeyed on southwards slowly, pausing at the holy places--Capernaum, where Messeigneurs Saint Peter and Saint Andrew dwelt before they followed our Lord; and where Monseigneur Saint Peter left Madame his wife, and his daughter, Madame Saint Petronilla, when he became our Lord's disciple. Of course, he was obliged to leave them behind, for a holy apostle could not have a wife. (Marguerite says that man in sackcloth, who preached at the Cross at Lusignan, said that in the early ages of the Church, priests and even bishops used to be married men, and that it would have been better if they had continued to be so. I am afraid he must be a very wicked person, and one of those heretical Waldenses.) We also tarried a while at Caesarea, where our Lord gave the keys to Monseigneur Saint Peter, and appointed him the first Bishop of Rome; and Nazareth, where our Lady was born and spent her early life. Not far from Neapolis,[#] anciently called Sychem, they show the ruins of a palace, where dwelt King Ahab, who was a very wicked Paynim, and had a Saracen to his wife. At Neapolis is the well of Monseigneur Saint Jacob, on which our Lord once sat when He was weary. This was the only holy place we passed which old Marguerite had the curiosity to go and see.

[#] Nablous.

"Now, what made thee care more for that than any other?" I asked her. "Of course it was a holy place, but there was nothing to look at save a stone well in a valley. Our Lady's Fountain, at Nazareth, was much prettier."

"Ah, my Damoiselle is young and blithe!" she said, and smiled. "It is long, long since I was a young mother like our Lady, and longer still since I was a little child. But the bare old well in the stony valley--that came home to me. He was weary! Yet He was God. He is rested now, on the throne of His glory: yet He cares for me, that am weary still. So I just knelt down at the old well, and I said to Him, in my ignorant way,--'Fair Father,[#] Jesu Christ, I thank Thee that Thou wert weary, and that by Thy weariness thou hast given me rest.' It felt to rest me,--a visit to the place where He sat, tired and hungry. But my Damoiselle cannot understand."

[#] "Bel Pere"--one of the invocations then usual.

"No, Margot, I don't at all," said I.

"Ah, no! It takes a tired man to know the sweetness of rest."

Three days' journey through the Val de Luna, which used to be called the Vale of Ajalon, brought us to the city of Gran David, which was of old named Gibeon. The valley is styled De Luna because it was here that Monseigneur Saint Joshua commanded the sun and moon to stand still while he vanquished the Paynims. From Gran David it is only one day's journey to the Holy City.

"To-morrow, Margot!" said I, in great glee. "Only to-morrow, we shall see the Holy Sepulchre!"

"Ha! Thanks be to the good God. And we need not wait till to-morrow to see Him that rose from it."

"Why, Marguerite, dost thou ever have visions?"

"Visions? Oh no! Those are for the holy saints; not for a poor ignorant villein woman like me."

"Then what didst thou mean, just now?"

"Ah, my Damoiselle cannot understand."

"Margot, I don't like that. Thou art always saying it. I want to understand."

"Then she must ask the good God to show her."

And that is all I can get out of her.

Short of a league from the Holy City is the little hill called Mont Joie, because from it the palmers catch the first glimpse of the blessed Jerusalem. We were mounting, as it seemed to me, a low hillock, when Amaury rode up beside me, and parting the curtains, said--

"Now, Elaine, look out, for we are on the Mont Joie. Wilt thou light down?"

"Certainly," I answered.

So Amaury stopped the litter, and gave me his hand, and I jumped out. He took me to the place where the palmers kneel in thanksgiving for being brought thus far on their journey: and here I had my first sight of the Holy City.

It is but a small city, yet strongly fortified, having three walls. No Paynim is permitted to enter it, nor of course any heathen Jew. I cannot imagine how it was that the good God ever suffered the Holy City, even for an hour, to be in the hands of those wicked people. Yet last night, in the tent, if Marguerite did not ask me whether Monseigneur Saint Paul was not a Jew! I was shocked.

"Oh dear, no!" said I.

"I heard somebody say so," she replied.

"I should think it was some Paynim," said I. "Why, of course none of the holy Apostles were Jews. That miscreant Judas Iscariot, and Pontius Pilatus, and all those wicked people, I suppose, were Jews: but not the holy Apostles and the saints. It is quite shocking to think of such a thing!"

"Then what were they, if my Damoiselle pleases?" said Marguerite.

"Oh, they were of some other nation," said I.

For really, I do not know of what nation they were,--only that they could never have been Jews.

Amaury said that we must first visit the Holy Sepulchre; so, though I was dying to have news of Guy, I comforted myself with the thought that I should hereby acquire so much more merit than if I had not cared about it.

We entered the Holy City by the west gate, just as the dusk was beginning; and passing in single file along the streets, we descended the hill of Zion to the Holy Sepulchre.

In this church are kept many holy relics. In the courtyard is the prison where our Lord was confined after His betrayal, and the pillar to which He was bound when scourged: and in the portico the lance which pierced His side. The stone which the Angel rolled away from the sepulchre is now broken in two. Here our Lady died, and was buried in the Church of Saint Mary, close by. In this church is kept the cup of our Lord, out of which He habitually drank: it is of silver, with a handle on each side, and holds about a quart. Here also is the sponge which was held to His mouth, and the crown of thorns. (By a miracle of the good God, one half of the crown is also at Byzantium.) The tomb of our Lord is seven feet long, and rises three palms from the floor; fifteen golden lamps burn before it, day and night. I told the whole Rosary at the holy tomb, or should have done, for I felt that the longer I waited to see Guy, the more merit I should heap up: but Amaury became impatient, and insisted on my coming when a Pater and eight Aves were still to say.

Then we mounted the hill of Zion again, passing the church built in honour of the Prince of the Apostles, on the spot where he denied our Lord: and so we reached the King's Palace at last.

Amaury sprang from his horse, and motioned my postilion to draw up in front of the chief gate. I heard him say to the porter--

"Is Sir Guy de Lusignan here?"

"My gracious Lord, the Count of Joppa and Ascalon, is here, if it like you, noble Sir," replied the porter. "He is at this moment in audience of my Lady the Queen."

I was so glad to hear it. Then Guy had really been created a Count! He must be in high favour. One half of his prophecy was fulfilled. But what about the other?

"Pray you," said Amaury to the porter, "do my Lord Count to wit that his brother, Sir Amaury de Lusignan, and his sister, the Lady Elaine, are before the gate."

I hardly know how I got through the next ten minutes. Then came quick steps, a sound of speech, a laugh, and then my curtains were pushed aside, and the voice I loved best in all the world said--

"Lynette! Lynette, my darling!"

Ay, it was my own Guy who came back to me. Changed?--no, not really changed at all. A little older; a little more bronzed; a little longer and fuller in the beard:--that was all. But it was my Guy, himself.

"Come! jump out," he said, holding his hand, "and let me present thee to the Lady Queen. I long to see my Lynette the fairest ornament of her Court. And how goes it with Monseigneur, our fair father?"

So, talking all the way, I walked with Guy, hand in hand, up the stairs, and into the very bower of the imperial lady who bears the crown of all the world, since it is the flower of all the crowns.

"I can assure thee," said Guy, "the Lady Queen has often talked of thee, and is prepared to welcome thee."

It was a beautiful room, though small, decorated with carved and fragrant cedar-work, and hung with blue and gold. Round the walls were blue and gold settles, and three curule chairs in the midst. There were only three ladies there,--but I must describe them.

The Queen, who sat in one of the curule chairs, was rather short and stout, with a pleasant, motherly sort of look. She appeared to be between forty and fifty years of age. Her daughter, the Lady Isabel, who sat in another chair, busied with some embroidery, was apparently about eighteen; but Guy told me afterwards that she is only fifteen, for women ripen early in these Eastern lands, and grow old fast. She has luxuriant black hair and dark shining eyes. On the settle was a damsel a little older than the Princess, not quite so dark, nor so handsome. She, as I afterwards found, was the Damoiselle Melisende de Courtenay,[#] a distant relative of the King, who dwells with the Princesses. Guy led me up to the Queen.

[#] A fictitious person. Millicent is the modern version of this old Gothic name. It comes from Amala-suinde, and signifies _heavenly-wisdom_.

"Madam," said he, "your Highness has heard me often speak of my younger sister."

"Ha! the little Damoiselle Helena?"[#] replied the Queen, smiling very kindly. "Be welcome, my child. I have indeed heard much of you; this brother of yours thinks nobody like you in the world,--not even one, eh, Sir Count?--Isabel! I desire thee to make much of the Damoiselle, and let her feel herself at home. And,--Melisende! I pray thee, give order for her lodging, and let her women be seen to. Ah!--here comes another who will be glad to be acquainted with you."