Chapter 12

The foreign-looking officer smiled incredulously when this explanation was given, and watched them for some time with obvious suspicion. But the men seemed not to be plotting together, and to be thinking only of their work. If the English were fools enough to do more than they were made to do it was certainly no loss to their masters.

“I should like to know the name of that vinegar-faced captain,” said Edrupt one day. “I mistrust he wasn't born here.”

“No,” said Nicholas. “They call him the Khawadji, and they never use that name for one of themselves.”

“He's too free with his whip. Yon tall man that tends his horses could tell something of that, I make my guess.”

One night they came on the Khawadji's stable-man caring for a lame horse with such skill that Nicholas spoke of it. By some instinct he spoke in Norman-French. The other answered in the same tongue.

“Every knight should know his horse.”

“You are of gentle birth, my lord?”

“Call me not lord,” the Norman said wearily. “I have seen too much to be any man's lord hereafter. Since my fever I am fit only for this, and none will know the grave of Stephen Giffard.”

Nicholas' heart leaped. “Sir,” he said quickly, “ere we left London the Lady Adelicia, your wife, came to my father's house to beseech him to aid her in searching for you. If any of us ever see home again I will take care that she is told of this.”

The knight looked ten years younger. “I thank you,” he answered gravely. “And if I should not live to see her again, I would have her know that my thoughts have been constantly of her.”

“Is not this Khawadji a caitiff knight of France? He does not seem like a Moor.”

The Norman nodded. “He is Garin de Biterres, a miscreant of Guienne. My brother balked him in some villainy years ago. He took me for Walter when he saw me, and let it out. Aquitaine being too hot to hold him, and the Normans in Ireland refusing to enlist him, he came through the Breach of Roland and took service under the Crescent. He was once a slave among the Moors of Andalusia, and owes his deformity to that. He cozened an old beggar into treating his leg with some ointment which would wither it up so that he could not work, and it never wholly recovered.”

“How comes it that he has not allowed you to send word to your people? Most of these folk are greedy for ransom.”

“I think he keeps me here for his pleasure. At first he took the letters I wrote and pretended to have sent them, and gibed in his bitter fashion when no reply came. That is how I know that the letters were not sent at all. Had my lady heard so much as a word of my captivity she would have searched me out.”

The approach of some troopers broke off the conversation, and Nicholas went his way, marveling at the strange chances of life.

Some months passed, during which the English worked at varying tasks--brickmaking, the hauling of brick and cut stone, the building of walls. Then a merchant called Mustafa came seeking slaves for his galley. After much crafty bargaining he secured Nicholas and his companions for about two-thirds the original price asked. But the Khawadji refused to part with Stephen Giffard.

The galley was a rackety, noisome trading-ship that plied along the coast. On board were already some rowers of various races, accustomed to the work, but the bulk of the labor was to be done by the new men. It was killing toil. Fed on black beans and coarse bread and unclean water, they worked the ship from one filthy white-walled port to another, never seeing more than the dock where the galley anchored or some mean street where their barracks might be. There were times when Nicholas seemed to himself hardly more human than the rats that gnawed and scrabbled in the dark at night. He began to see how a galley-slave is made--molded and tainted through and through by that of which he is a part.

The clean comradeship of the little group of Northern exiles did not count for so much in this work. The pace of the ship was the average pace of the whole crew. They became too weary to think or feel, too ravenous to disdain the most unwholesome rations. Nicholas found himself mysteriously aware of the moods of those about him, as men are when herded together in silent multitudes. In the free world one feels this only now and then--in an army, a mob, a church. Among slaves the dog-like instinct is common. They know more of their masters than their masters can ever know of them.

Nicholas had been carefully trained by wise parents to the habit of self-control, but he found that he was moved nevertheless by the mad unreasoning impulses of the half-barbarous people about him, ridden fiercely by their black thoughts of hate and fear. That it was the same with his comrades he knew from little things they said--and even more from what they did not say. They grew dulled to beauty and suffering alike. There were glorious dawns, that flushed the white walls of a seaport rose-red, above waters of mingled ink and blood that changed as by magic to blue like lapis-lazuli. Then the sky turned saffron and the minarets were of a fleeting gold above the deep blue shadows of the streets. There were velvet nights when the stars blazed like a king's ransom, and white-robed desert men moved in the moist chill air like phantoms. But all this was as little to them as to the lizards that crept along the walls or the sweeps they handled with their hardening hands. Years after, Nicholas recalled those nights and those mornings and knew that something that sat within his deadened brain had been alive and had stored the memories for him. But he did not know it then.

Mustafa bragged among his friends, from Jebel el Tarik to Iskanderia, of his fine ship and his unparalleled crew. The listeners would smile and stroke their beards and exclaim at intervals, “Ma sh'Allah!”--believing perhaps one tenth of what they heard. Oftenest he boasted of the Feringhi rowers whom he had purchased from the sheikh's own steward in the slave-market of Lundra--a city of mist and wealth and pigs and fair maidens. Thus it came about that Ahmed ibn Said, the host, and Abu Selim, the letter-writer of the bazaar, devised a jest for a supper at the khan. They would send for one of these Frankish slaves and see what he would say. The flattered Mustafa agreed, and the messenger returned with Nicholas Gay, whose gray eyes and yellow hair caused a mild sensation.

The guests began to ask questions, first in Levantine, then in Arabic. Were there bazaars in Lundra? Did the people drink coffee? Had they camels? Did the muezzin call them to prayer? Did the women sleep upon the housetops? Was the city most like Aleppo the White, or Istamboul, or Damasc-ush-Shah? How many Muslimun were there? How many of the idolaters?

To these inquiries Nicholas replied, at first with faint amusement at the mingled shrewdness and ignorance of these men, then with a fierce pride in his city which made his words, as the letter-writer expressed it, shine like rubies and sing like a fountain. The merchants listened, and munched their sticky baclawi, ripe olives and dates and figs, and drank many tiny cups of coffee, more entertained than they had ever been by Mustafa. Finally the host sent for a basket of fruit--great pale Egyptian melons, pomegranates, oranges, figs--and graciously bestowed it upon the gifted galley-slave. He meant to come next day, he said, and with Mustafa's permission behold the prowess of the English in swimming.

To every one's surprise, Ahmed really came. Those who could swim were had out of their stifling quarters and allowed to do so. Nicholas could swim like an eel, and all were amazed when, after swimming farther out than any of the others, he flung up his arms, uttered a loud cry, and vanished. They watched and searched, but nothing more was seen of him, and there was mourning among the English.

But there was a Genoese galley in the harbor, and Nicholas had seen it. He had dived, swum under water as far as he could inshore, and come up with his head inside the scooped-out rind of a large melon. During the search the seeming melon quietly bobbed away toward a reedy shallow, and the swimmer hid among the reeds until dark, and then swam across to the Genoese ship. The captain knew Gilbert Gay and listened with interest to the youth's story.

The Genoese captain did not care to interfere with' Mustafa in a town full of his Moslem countrymen. He waited until the crazy trading-galley was well out to sea and rammed her with the beak of his own ship. Crossbowmen lined the rail, grappling irons were thrown out, and the captain, with Nicholas and some soldiers, went and unearthed Mustafa among bales of striped cotton. When he understood that they merely wanted all of his Feringhi slaves, he thankfully surrendered them.

“Shall we put this fellow to death?” inquired the captain. Mustafa understood the tone and gesture though not the words, and turned a dirty yellow-gray. “No,” said Nicholas Gay. “He was a good master--for an Arab.”

Mustafa took heart. He would never reach port, he complained, being so short-handed.

“You can work your ship under sail for that distance,” said the Genoese, twisting his mustachios, “if you dare loose your other slaves.” At that Mustafa had an ague. When they saw the last of him he was making slow and crooked progress.

“And after all,” said Edrupt one day, as they sighted the cliffs of Dover, “you bore witness among the heathen, as the fat old monk directed.”

“Stupid pig!” David grumbled. “I'd like fine to have him bearing witness in a Barbary brick-yard, sweating and whaizling over his tale o' brick. He'd throw his six hundred a day or I'd have his hide.”

“All the same,” said Edrupt thoughtfully, “a Londoner beats a Turk even for a galley-slave--eh, Nicholas?”

“We were never slaves,” said Nicholas. “We were free men doing the work of slaves for a time. We had memory and hope left us. There is nothing to be learned at such work. Stick together and give them the slip if you can--that's all the wisdom of the galleys.”

HARBOUR SONG

Sails in the mist-gray morning, wide wings alert for flight, Outward you fare with the sea-wind, seeking your ancient right To range with your foster-brethren, the sleepless waves of the sea, And come at the end of your wandering home again to me. By the bright Antares, the Shield of Sobieski, By the Southern Cross ablaze above the hot black sea, You shall seek the Pole-Star below the far horizon,-- Steer by Arthur's Wain, lads, and home again to me!

Caravel, sloop and galleon follow the salt sea gale That whispers ever of treasure, the ancient maddening tale,-- Round the world he leads ye, the sorcerer of the sea, Battered and patched and bleeding ye come again to me. By the spice and sendal, beads and trumpery trinkets, By the weight of ingots that cost a thousand dead, You shall seek your fortune under hawthorn hedges,-- Come to know your birthright in the land you fled.

Sails of my sons and my lovers, I watch for ye through the night, My lamps are trimmed and burning, my hearth is clear and bright. With every sough of the trade-wind that blows across the sea I wake and wait and listen for the call of your hearts to me. By Saint Malo's lanterns, by Medusa-fires Rolling round your plunging prows in midnight tropic sea, You shall sight the beacon on my headlands lifting-- All sail set, lads, and home again to me!

XIV

SOLOMON'S SEAL

Where the moor met the woodland beyond the Fairies' Hill, old Izan went painfully searching for the herbs she had been wont to find there. The woodcutters had opened clearings that gave an unaccustomed look to the place. Fumiter, mercury, gilt-cups, four-leaved grass and the delicate blossoms of herb-robert came out to meet the sun with a half-scared look, and wished they had stayed underground. The old wife was in a bad humor, and she was not the better pleased when her donkey, moved by some eccentric donkeyish idea, gave a loud bray and went trotting gleefully off down the hill.

“Saints save us!” muttered the old woman, shaking a vain crutch after him. “I can never walk all that distance.”

But the donkey was not to get his holiday so easily. There came a shout from the forest, and a boy on a brown moor pony went racing off after the truant beast, while a lady and a young girl looked on laughing. It was a very pretty chase, but at last Roger came back in triumph and tethered the donkey, repentant and lop-eared, to a wind-warped oak.

“O Mother Izan!” cried Eleanor, “we've found a great parcel of herbs. I never saw this before, but mother thinks it's what they called polygonec in France and used for bruises and wounds.”

The old woman seized eagerly on the plant. It was a long curved stalk with a knotted root and oval leaves almost concealing the narrow greenish bells that hung from the joints of the stem. “Aye,” she said, “that's Solomon's Seal, and 'tis master good for ointment. The women,” she added dryly, “mostly comes for it after their men ha' made holiday.”

Eleanor was already off her pony, and Roger followed her. “We'll get you all you want, Mother Izan,” she called back; “there's ever so much of it up here among the rocks.”

“I should like to know,” queried Roger as they pulled and pried at the queer twisted roots, “why they call this Solomon's Seal. I don't believe Solomon ever came here.”

“Maybe it was because he was so wise,” said Eleanor sagely. “Mother said it was good to seal wounds. We'll ask David.”

In those days a knowledge of herbs and medicines was part of a lady's education. Physicians were few, and in remote places the ladies of the castle were called upon not only to nurse but to prescribe for cases of accident, fever, wounds or pestilence. Rarely did a week go by without Lady Philippa being consulted about some illness among her husband's people. She had begun to teach Eleanor the use of herbs, especially the nature of those to be found in the neighborhood, and here Mother Izan was of great service. In her younger days she had ranged the country for miles in every direction, in search of healing plants, and she knew what grew in every swamp, glen, meadow and thicket.

“Mother Izan must have been uncommonly anxious to get that Solomon's Seal,” said Roger as they rode home in the purple dusk. “I believe Howel has been beating Gwillym again.”

Almost as well-informed as Mother Izan was David Saumond, the stone-mason, who was rebuilding the village church. He had come to the castle one day with news of Sir Stephen Giffard, Eleanor's uncle, who had been a prisoner among the infidels but had now been ransomed and was on his way home. Finding that David understood his business, the lord and lady of the castle had decided to give into his hands the work to be done on the church. Masons were scarce in England at that time, and most of those who had skill were at work on half-built cathedrals. David was a wise and thorough builder, but he had the reputation of being rather crotchety. Sir Walter Giffard suspected that this was due to his absolute honesty. He would rather pick up a job here and there which he could do as it should be done, than to have steady employment where scamped building was winked at. This suited the knight very well. He wanted a man whom he need not watch.

“An unfaithful mason's like a broken tooth or a foot out of joint,” observed the Scot when he saw some haphazard masonry he was to replace with proper stonework. “That wall's a bit o' baith.”

David would take all the pains in the world with a well-meaning but slow workman, but he disposed of shirkers and double-dealers without needless words. Neither did he encourage discussion and idle talk about the work.

“A true mason's no sae glib-gabbet,” he observed one day. “There's no need o' speechmaking to make an adder bite or a gude man work.”

David confirmed Mother Izan's opinion of the virtues of Solomon's Seal. The Turks, he said, used to eat the young shoots, cooked. The children already knew that Solomon was the Grand Worshipful Master of all the masons of the world. About his majestic and mystical figure centered legends and traditions innumerable. Solomon's Knot was a curious intricate combination of curving lines. Solomon's signet was a stone of magical virtues. The temple of Solomon was the most wonderful building ever seen, and the secrets of its masonry were still treasured by master masons everywhere. No sound of building was heard within its walls; the stones were so perfectly cut and fitted that they slid into their places without noise. And Solomon himself was the wisest man who ever lived. He could understand the talk of the martins under the eaves, the mice in the meal-tub and the beasts of burden in the stables, when they conversed among themselves.

“Aiblins that's what gar'd him grow sae unco wise,” David ended. “You bear in mind, Master Roger, that every leevin' thing ye see, frae baukie-bird tae blackfish, kens some bit cantrip he doesna tell, and ye'll be a Solomon--if ye live.”

David was eating his bread and cheese on the lee side of the wall when Eleanor came by with a gray lump of clay in her hands.

“See what Gwillym has made,” she said.

David stopped with the cheese half way to his mouth. “Who's Gwillym?” he asked.

“He's a boy we've known ever since he was very little--he's only eight now--and he does make the most alive looking things out of clay. He heard you telling about Solomon talking with the birds and beasts, and he made this.”

The clay group was really an unusual piece of modelling for an untrained hand. That a child should have made it was more than remarkable. The thin bent figure of the wise King was seated on a throne formed of gnarled tree-roots. On his wrist a raven perched; on his shoulder crouched a squirrel, with tail alert for flight; two rabbits sat upright at his feet; a lamb huddled against his knee on one side and a goat on the other. The figures all had a curiously lifelike appearance. As Eleanor said, one felt that if they heard a noise they would go away. Moreover she saw with wonder that the head of King Solomon and his lifted hand made him a fair portrait of David.

David took the clay group in his hand, turned it about, whistled softly. “Wha owns this bairn?” he inquired.

“Howel's his father,” said Roger. “He's quite good to him--unless he's drunk. Then he pounds him. He hates to have Gwillym make images; he thinks it's witch-craft. Gwillym made an image of him once and the leg broke off, and that very same day Howel's donkey kicked him and made him lame for a week.”

“There's ower mony gowks in the land for a' the mills to grind,” said David, and that was all they could get out of him. They knew he was interested or he would not have been so Scotch. David could speak very good English, and did as a rule, but with Eleanor and Roger he often returned to the speech of his boyhood because they liked it so much.

They liked David exceedingly. He had seen more interesting things than any one else they knew. He showed Roger how to make a fish-pond, and he told Eleanor how the Saracen city in her tapestry ought to look. He had himself been a slave among the infidels, and the children heard his adventures with awe and delight. Eleanor loved the story of the bath-pavilion like a tiny palace, built by the emir for the lady Halima, and the turning of the course of a river to fill her baths and her fountains, and water her gardens. Roger's hero was the young English merchant who had escaped by swimming, under his master's very nose. If one could have such exciting experiences it seemed almost worth while to be a captive of the Moslems. But when Roger said so, David smiled a dry smile and said nothing.

But it was of King Solomon that he spoke most, and he seemed to have the sayings of the wise king all by heart. A Hebrew physician whom he had once known used, he said, to write one of Solomon's proverbs on the lid of every box of salve he sent out.

“You follow his wisdom, Master Roger,” David said one day, “and you'll see how to build ye a house or a kingdom. 'Envy thou not the oppressor and choose none of his ways,' he says. 'Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of man to do it,' he says. 'God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.'

“I tell ye,” David added, glancing from the trim gray wall of the lychgate up to the castle on the hill, “every day's judgment day wi' a builder--or the head of a house.”

Thus the stonemason was touched more deeply perhaps than he would have owned, by the likening of his face to that of Solomon in the clay figures of little Gwillym ap Howel.

As the work on the church progressed three friends of David's journeyed from Salisbury to see him. They had come from Lombardy a long time ago, when they were Piero, Andrea and Gianbattista. At Avignon they were known as Pierre, Jean-Baptiste and Andre, and in Spain they were rechristened Pedro, Juan and Andres. Now they were called Peter, Andrew and John,--and sometimes the Apostles. Peter understood vaulting; Andrew could carve a stone image of anything he saw, and John had great skill in the laying of pavements. They talked of cathedrals and palaces with a familiarity that took one's breath away.

The building of a cathedral seemed to be full of a kind of fairy lore. The plan was that of a crucifix, the chancel being the head, the transept the arms and the nave representing body and legs. The two western towers stood for Adam and Eve. There was a magic in numbers; three, seven and nine were better than six, eleven or thirteen. Certain flowers were marked for use in sacred sculpture as they were for other purposes. Euphrasy or eyebright with its little bright eye was a medicine for sore eyes. The four-petaled flowers,--the cross-bearers,--were never poisonous, and many of them, as mustard and cabbage, were valuable for food or medicine. But when Roger took this lore to Mother Izan for her opinion she remarked that if that was doctors' learning it was no wonder they killed more folk than they cured.

In fact the three Lombard builders, while each man was a master of his own especial art, had done most of their work in cities, and when it came to matters of the fields and woods they were not to be trusted. But when David found Roger a little inclined to vaunt his superior woodcraft he set him a riddle to answer:

“The baldmouse and the chauve-souri, The baukie-bird and bat, The barbastel and flittermouse,-- How many birds be that?”

And the masons were all grinning at him before Roger found out that these were half a dozen names for the bat, from as many different places.

The vaulting of the roof of the church was now under consideration. For so small a building the “barrel vault,” a row of round arches, was often used; but David's voice was for the pointed arch throughout. “The soarin' curve lifts the eye,” he said, “like the mountains yonder.” He drew with a bit of charcoal a line so beautiful that it was like music. It was not merely the meeting of two arcs of a circle, but the meeting of two mysteriously curved perfect lines. Sir Walter Giffard saw at a glance that here was the arch he had dreamed of.

He saw more than that. David was that rare builder, a man who can work with his hands and see all the time inside his soul the completed work. He could no more endure slipshod work or graceless lines in his building than the knight himself could do a cowardly or dishonest thing. David would have done his task faithfully in any case, but it rejoiced his soul to find that the knight and his lady would know not only that their village church was beautiful, but why it was so.