Chapter 11

A crazy thought came into Robert's brain. He had a dagger at his belt; if he could but take Hildebrand unawares and slay him, one danger would be out of Perpetua's path. His hand felt for the handle, held it fast. He poised his crippled body for a spring, turned swiftly on the altar stairs, and leaped with lifted blade at Hildebrand. But Hildebrand had watched his gesture, divined his thoughts; he caught him as he sprang, by the throat and wrist, and while with the one hand he squeezed so hard that he wellnigh forced the breath from Robert's body, with the other he twisted Robert's wrist so that the knife fell clattering on the flags of the church. Then he tossed Robert, limp and gasping, to the ground.

"Keep your fury for the day of fight," Hildebrand sneered. "See now how easily you could overcome me. Yet you are a trouble to me now, and I think I will kill you, Master Fool!"

Robert did not heed, did not hear his threat. While Hildebrand put his hand to the hilt of his sword and loosened it in its sheath, Robert crawled to the steps of the altar, cowering, with clasped hands.

"God give me back my strength," he prayed. "There is no punishment too heavy for my sin, but for this woman's sake breathe back my manhood into this withered body that I may fight for her. Then cast me unprotesting into hell. Ah!"

Even as he prayed he seemed to feel the breath of a great spirit fill his body with new life, his sinews with new strength, his pulses with new fire. A voice seemed to be calling in his ear, telling him what to do, and he obeyed it as a child obeys its sire. He rose and faced Hildebrand.

"You shall not do this thing," Robert said, and the sound of his voice thrilled him with unspeakable hope.

Hildebrand laughed mockingly.

"Shall I not, rascal? Is it still the King who commands me?" he asked, and his fingers closed tighter upon his sword-hilt.

The voice seemed ever to speak in Robert's ear, and ever Robert obeyed its prompting.

"No," he cried. "It is not the King who commands you, but the humblest, the meanest, the unworthiest of mortal men. There is no creature living in the world lowlier than I, yet I command you in the name of that symbol which casts down the mighty, and before which the King and the beggar are alike but a little quickened dust."

Spurred by inspiration he rushed to the altar and clasped his hands around the iron cross. Scarcely to his surprise he found that he could lift the massive symbol like a reed. Poising the cross on high he turned upon Hildebrand.

"Will you set your cross against my sword?" Hildebrand cried. "You shall carry it to hell."

Robert answered with the voice of a strong man.

"The cross against the sword, in the name of God!"

He advanced against Hildebrand with the iron cross raised. Hildebrand drew his great sword and made to strike, but before he could deal a stroke Robert, swinging the cross, with one blow beat him to the ground, and stood over him with the cross raised.

"The cross against the sword," Robert thundered.

Hildebrand, grovelling on the ground like a crushed snake, rolled on one side, felt at the cold stones with his hands futilely for a moment, and then with infinite difficulty propped himself up a little and looked up at Robert.

"You have killed me," he gasped. Fear and wonder questioned in his dying eyes, forced a question from his dying lips. "Who are you?" Even as he asked, an awful look came over his face, he saw and knew. "The King!" he cried, horribly. His hands slipped on the stones, his head struck the floor, he was dead.

Robert dropped on his knees beside the dead man, and spoke softly.

"He hath uplifted the humble."

XVII

IN THE ARENA

The great amphitheatre which Roman craft had planned, which Roman hands had fashioned, lived almost in its integrity in the days of King Robert the Good. He had girdled it with gardens; he had sought to obliterate the memories of its old-time brutalities, its old-time bloodshed, by the institution of kindly sports and gentle pastimes. A populace had laughed innocently, had contested healthily in the place where man had fought with man, where man had fought with beast, where the soil had sucked thirstily the red wine of life. But a good king does not last forever, and a good king's ways are not always inherited, and Syracuse had been fluttered by the rumor that King Robert the Bad intended to surpass the pagans and to make the ancient amphitheatre again the scene of evil deeds. And by way of consecration to its new-old use, a maiden was to be burned by fire in its arena on a charge of sorcery against the King--burned by fire, unless her appeal to the ordeal of battle could find for her between sky and earth any champion doughty enough to overthrow the King's man, the challenger, who stood for the King and accused the girl of witchcraft. And this did not seem likely, for the King was known to have chosen for his champion the strongest, the most skilful swordsman in all Sicily, his dearest friend, his favorite companion, the Lord Hildebrand.

Of the girl herself, whose life stood in such jeopardy, Syracuse knew little. She was the daughter of Theron the executioner; she had lived on the top of a mountain; she had been snared in a church. Certain citizens of Syracuse had seen her in the church, a beautiful white child, with flame-colored hair, who tugged at King Robert's bell and appealed for pity. There was a queer fool, too, mixed up with the business, but he seemed to have disappeared, and really nobody cared very much what had happened to him. What everybody cared for very much, indeed, was the news that there was to be this great show in the ancient amphitheatre: two men fighting for a woman's life, a young man and an old man--for everybody knew, too, that the only champion Perpetua could find was her own father, the executioner Theron--and at the end of the battle a fair maid on a stack of faggots, and then a big blaze. Such a thing had not been seen, had not been heard of in Syracuse for many a long day, and those who heard of it now were resolved, to a man and to a woman, to see it. Not that the citizens of Syracuse were particularly cruel; but in the first place it was a spectacle too novel to miss, and in the second place all Syracuse had been formally summoned, under pain of death, to be present at the event, and to witness the King's vengeance on his enemy.

The day after Perpetua's capture was lovely, even for Syracuse, even for Sicily. The great amphitheatre lay in the soft morning light, a wonder of white curves, beneath great awnings of silk, crimson and gold. All around the orchards and gardens, that the good King had planted, showed cool and green; the subtle odors of many flowers charged the air with sweetness, and the ceaseless lapse of fountains lulled the ear with distant whispers of delight. It were hard to believe that so fair a place, upon so fair a day, could be destined for a scene of trial by bloodshed and punishment by fire. But in the great space of the arena one object stood ominous, to remind the spectator that the reign of Robert the Good was ended. This was a small wooden platform with two steps and an upright beam, the whole painted a glaring scarlet. Round this platform were banked great piles of faggots, sinister witnesses to the work that was to be done ere noon.

The great arena was almost empty. By order of the King, no citizens of Syracuse were to be permitted to enter the royal gardens, through which alone access to the amphitheatre was possible, until the sounding of a trumpet told the city that the hour had come. The great arena was almost empty, but not quite. On one of the lowest tiers of seats an old man sat in an attitude of grief. This man was Theron the executioner.

It had been his duty, as instrument of the King's justice, to make all the preparations for the deed that was to be done that day, and now all was completed and he sat alone and thought bitter thoughts. The child of his life was in peril, the beautiful Perpetua, so dear to him for herself, so dear in reincarnating for him the great love and the great sorrow of his manhood. Only one moon ago their life had been as it had ever been, tranquil, happy, a companionship of peace and joy. And now this beloved child, this dear companion, lay a prisoner under the terrible charge of sorcery, and in the ordeal of battle which was to decide her fate the only arm that could be found to champion her was her father's arm, the arm of an old man against the arm of the most brilliant swordsman in Sicily. Theron remembered with a pang the ease and grace with which Hildebrand had wielded the great sword of the headsman on that unhappy morning, and he asked himself, despairingly, what hope there could be for him against such an adversary.

Out from an archway in the side of the amphitheatre, a dark archway that opened from the corridor leading to the cells where prisoners used to be confined, and where Perpetua was now confined, Hieronymus came forth. He saw Theron where he sat, and advancing towards him rested his hand on his shoulder and named his name.

Theron looked wearily up and bowed for the benediction of the religious.

"My son," Hieronymus said, gravely, "by trumpet-call, within the hour, the chafing populace will be admitted into these royal gardens to witness the ordeal by battle. My son, my son, when your child's voice cries for a champion to-day, I fear yours will be the only hand raised to defend her."

"They fear her for a witch," Theron answered, bitterly; "as if such golden goodness could go to the making of witch-flesh. Men are fools--men are devils."

"Be brave, be patient," Hieronymus exhorted. "Courage and patience are the harness of a soldier of God."

Theron made a gesture of impatience. "You have every man and woman in Syracuse for son and daughter. She is my only child. How is she?"

"Smiling like a bride," Hieronymus replied. "Never since the heathen built these walls did any martyr face her fate more radiantly."

"She is not harshly treated?" Theron asked, anxiously.

Hieronymus shook his head.

"Will they not let me see her?" Theron questioned anew.

"I think they will let you see her by-and-by," Hieronymus answered. "I have entreated for you. I shall know soon."

Theron gripped his hands tightly together. "I wish I had the King here at my mercy," he muttered.

Hieronymus raised a reproving hand. "We must forgive our enemies, though, indeed, such a King is God's enemy. His prisons are filled with the flower of Sicilian chivalry--the list of those he dooms to die is long."

"Though none have died yet," Theron interrupted.

Hieronymus nodded. "They say he swore a great oath his court-fool should be the first victim of your sword, and till the fool is found the victims wait on death."

"Please Heaven he be not found, then," Theron prayed.

Hieronymus smiled sadly. "He will be found when his time comes," he said. "Yet Heaven seems to counter the wicked King. Those whom he drove into exile still linger in the port. Contrary winds deny their sails."

Theron lifted his head from his hands. "They say the fairest maids of Sicily have been carried to his palace."

"Yet they are maids still," Hieronymus said, "for he swears to love no woman till your daughter dies."

"He is so sure of that," Theron sighed.

Hieronymus sought to console him.

"Your cause is just, your sword is sharp; fight in God's name. I will go to your daughter now."

Theron thanked him with a grateful glance.

"Tell her her father loves her. She knows that well, yet tell it to her."

Hieronymus left him and passed out of the arena through the archway which led to the cells. Theron remained sitting on the step with his elbows on his knees and his chin propped on his hands.

"This is the time when a man should pray," he said to himself, "but my thoughts tangle and my words jangle."

Through the gardens came a singular figure, tall and lean and withered, with a wry shoulder like a gibbous moon and a wry leg like a stricken tree, and his face had a long, peaked nose and loose, protruding lips, and ears like the wings of bats. His mottled livery was grass-stained and earth-stained, and he had dizened it with a kind of woodland finery. He had wild flowers twisted in his hair; a chaplet of scarlet wood-berries was about his neck; he carried an ash sapling for a staff, and he munched at an apple. He looked about him curiously, as if a little dazed. Then he saw Theron and went towards him.

"Good-morning, gaffer," he said.

Theron looked up and beheld to his surprise the missing court-fool Diogenes.

"You are the fool Diogenes," Theron said. "Why have you come back? The King longs for your head. I care little who lives or dies, save one, but fly if you are wise."

Diogenes, for it was indeed he, shook his head. "Nay, nay, gaffer," he answered. "I am wise; I know my business. I think I have been asleep in the green wood a thousand years and waited upon by elves and fairies and all manner of pygmies, and they taught me the speech of birds, and what the trees whisper to each other from dawn to dusk, and the war-cries of the winds, with other much delectable knowledge which would have made me wiser than the wisest--but now that I am awake I have forgot it all."

Theron eyed him curiously. This was not the way the bitter court-fool had been wont to speak. "You seem to me a changed fool," he said, wearily.

Diogenes patted him fondly on the shoulder.

"Set it down to hearing birds whistle and watching green things grow. I am ripe and mellow. If you squeezed me dry you would find no drop of bitter in me. I bulge with benevolence like a ripe fig--and therefore your lugubrious visage troubles me."

Theron answered, heavily: "My child is charged with sorcery. There is no man but me to champion her. If I fail to win the day she dies by fire."

Diogenes seemed grieved. "She was a sweet lass and she gave me sweet milk to drink, and she showed me the way to the wonder-world of the wood. If I were something more of a fool and something less of a wiseacre I would champion her myself." And he swelled his lean body and strutted, ludicrously martial.

"Away, fool!" Theron said, angrily, for the fantastic figure vexed him.

But Diogenes was not to be offended.

"Nay, now," he hummed, benignly. "You are short with me, yet my brain bubbles with all the wit of the elder world. When I woke this morn in the green wood, a bird sang in my ear and his song told me to go down to Syracuse and creep into the King's garden; and because I am wise enough to know that the birds are wiser than I, why, I came, but I did not think it was to see a fair maid murdered. I would have liked such a sight once, but now I do not, so I will go and sleep in the rose-garden. That is what the fairies told me to do, and they will tell me when to wake. Courage, ancient! courage!"

He paused for a moment, with his head cocked on one side, eying the executioner compassionately, yet listening with pricked, bat-wing ears. Some sound startled him, for he suddenly stirred like a startled hare, and, stooping, scuttled with incredible swiftness into the shelter of the royal gardens, where he was soon lost to sight.

Theron sighed as if his heart would break. "The very fool pities me. I am grown old and weak and have no hope."

Even as he spoke the sound of the footsteps that had scared away Diogenes grew louder, and Hieronymus emerged from the archway and came to Theron.

"Come," Hieronymus said. "Some unfamiliar gentleness in the King permits you to see your daughter. Go at once. The jailer will admit you."

Theron bowed his head. "Your blessing and your prayers," he said. Then he rose and moved slowly to the archway and disappeared.

Hieronymus looked after him thoughtfully. "Oh," he mused, "that a poor priest's blessing might be as potent as a great King's curse!"

At that moment a great trumpet sounded, the signal to admit the people of Syracuse to the royal gardens. Hieronymus could hear the eager shouts and the tramp of hurrying feet. Sadly he turned and followed Theron to the cell where Perpetua lay.

The arena was not long empty. Soon the human flood poured over its sand, babbling, shouting, eager to get seated.

"Hurry, dame, hurry!" cried one citizen to his mate. "'Tis first come first served, and there is a rare scrambling for the seats."

"I wish," grumbled another, "the King had given us leave to enter the gardens earlier. We could have sat here cosily, eating and drinking till the sport began."

"Nay," philosophized a third, "kings have their whimsies like the rest of the world and love to make folk uncomfortable."

"Humph!" said a stalwart fellow as he sped. "If I had an odd life or two to spare I would strike a stroke for the child."

"Ay," grunted his companion, "and be damned for your pains if she be no better than a black witch."

"I cannot believe it," stalwart said, stoutly.

His companion was positive.

"They say there's no mortal doubt of the matter. She fondles a black cat, her familiar, and straddles a broomstick for a sky-ride when the wind is howling."

A listener commented briskly. "Nay, then it is no worse than very well that she should die. For my part, I cannot abide cats since my neighbor's grimalkin stole my sausage."

And so they hurried on gossiping, a stream of humanity climbing to its appointed places. Languidly through the crowd moved Lycabetta with her women.

"Truly," Lycabetta said to Lysidice, "the King is ever a good friend to us. We shall sit in the royal quarter and see as well as any of the courtly wantons. It is a warm day, but I swear I shall feel a cold at my heart till I can warm my palms at the girl blazing."

"Have you no pity for her?" Lysidice asked.

Lycabetta laughed. "Why should I, you green ape? She is our enemy. If there were many such as she in the world we might as well haul down our sign, for we should not have a bed to lie on."

"'Tis said the Lord Hildebrand is the accuser," Glycerium observed.

"Yea," Lycabetta answered, "and sure of victory. I thought he would have visited me last night."

"He husbands himself for the combat," Hypsipyle suggested.

Lycabetta tapped her woman in playful anger with her fan.

"You wrong him, minion," she said. Her eyes suddenly brightened, for she saw Sigurd Olafson making his way towards her through the press. There was a look of constraint in his blue eyes as he greeted her.

"Loveliest lady," he said, hesitatingly, "I have some unlovely news for you."

Lycabetta raised her eyebrows in surprise. The salutation was unexpected.

"What grief do you herald?" she questioned, with an air of unconcern.

Sigurd spoke with evident embarrassment.

"Lady, the King commands that you and all your women return to Naples with the first fair wind."

For a moment the words shook Lycabetta and her eyes flashed anger. Then instantly she recovered her composure. She knew that it would be useless to appeal against any command of the King, the King who had not visited her now for more than a month.

"Is it so?" she said. "Then be it so. Naples or Sicily, what does it matter so long as there is sun to warm the blood?"

The blue eyes of Sigurd Olafson burned bright with passion.

"I will follow you to Naples," he said, in a low, eager voice.

Lycabetta's eyes answered his passion, Lycabetta's voice replied to his desire.

"You will be very welcome, blue eyes," she promised. "But to-day at least we may stay and see the show?"

"Surely," answered Sigurd. "Let me guide you to your places. They are of the best." And he conducted her and her women to the tier where their seats had been set apart.

XVIII

ORDEAL OF BATTLE

By this time the vast amphitheatre, that was capable of seating twenty-four thousand people, if Syracuse had only had twenty-four thousand people to offer it, had swallowed up the eager crowds, and the arena lay bare, save for the little wooden platform with its scarlet stain. There was a flourish of royal music. Cries of "The King! The King!" ran from lip to lip; many soldiers marched across the arena from the royal gardens, and in their midst, on an open litter, was carried the likeness of the King, attended by a brilliant cloud of courtiers. As it seemed to all the thousand watching eyes, the King descended from his litter and mounted, amid salutations, to the enclosure on the amphitheatre where his throne was set up, and seating himself upon the throne gazed steadfastly at the arena, where now assistant executioners were piling the faggots close about the platform.

Not far from the King the court ladies babbled.

"Do they need so much wood to burn one little woman?" Messalinda asked, curiously, watching the executioners at their task.

Faustina chuckled maliciously.

"If she be a witch, it will take a deal of fire to frighten the devil out of her."

Soft-haired, soft-eyed Yolande gave a little, delicate shiver, for she was sensitive and fastidious.

"I hope she will not make a great noise," she said.

Faustina reassured her.

"I do not think so; they say the smoke will soon choke her."

Yolande gave a sigh of relief and settled herself down for entertainment. Over in the royal enclosure the archbishop of Syracuse turned with an obeisance to the image of the King.

"Shall we begin, sire?" he asked, and the seeming King answered him.

"Is all ready?"

"All, sire," the archbishop answered.

"Let them begin," the royal figure commanded. The archbishop bent to where Sigurd Olafson stood, below the royal enclosure.

"The King waits," he said. Sigurd instantly gave the order for the prisoner to be brought forth. There was a brief pause, then a new flourish of trumpets, and from the dark archway, that yawned like a wolf's mouth in the side of the amphitheatre, Perpetua was brought in, chained and guarded, and led in front of the royal throne. "She looked very pale," wrote an old Norman chronicler, "and very fair, and as brave as a sainted martyr."

The archbishop of Syracuse rose and addressed her.

"Woman, you are charged by the King's sainted majesty with working by witchcraft against his sovereign person, delivering him to his lips enchantment in a draught of seeming water, to the hurt of his body and the peril of his soul. If you are guilty and will confess yourself, we need not waste some precious moments in a vain contest for your sinful flesh."

Perpetua answered very quietly and very clearly, and all men in Syracuse heard what she had to say that day.

"I am not guilty. My soul is as clean of sin as on the day my mother gave me birth. I pray Heaven's forgiveness for the King."

The archbishop flushed angrily.

"Do not blaspheme," he commanded. "Then you persist in your appeal to the ordeal of battle?"

"I do appeal," Perpetua answered, firmly, "hoping that Heaven will strengthen the hand that is lifted to-day in my cause, which is God's."

The archbishop frowned.

"You are perverse and stubborn, but the law is plain and must be obeyed. Call the King's challenger."

Sigurd, raising his voice, called loudly:

"In the King's name I call on the King's challenger to appear." Rang out a great rattle of trumpets, voices hummed in expectation, and all heads turned in the direction of another archway in the amphitheatre, from which it was known that the challenger and the champion would appear.

Out of the darkness, into the bright light of the arena stepped a figure all in armor, with the visor of his helmet down, so that none could see his face. The armor was plain; the shield bore no device, but it was buzzed about in all directions that this was the Lord Hildebrand, and any doubts were answered by the assertion, patently true, that the Lord Hildebrand did not make one of the glittering group about the King. The archbishop addressed the new-comer.

"Proclaim your purpose," he commanded.