Chapter II: Strangers at Blancherive

The courtyard at Blancherive was thronged and noisy, as Hugh and Edith rode across the drawbridge and through the passage under the gate-tower. Men-at-arms, grooms and servants swarmed about a group of swarthy, bright-garbed men, who lounged by the Castle stables. Voices clacked high in speculation over these mysterious persons who could not understand either of the tongues known to the Castle's company--that is, Norman French and the Saxon dialect. So great was the turmoil that Hugh must needs force a path for Edith to the steps that led up to the entrance to the Great Hall in the Keep.

There they dismounted, and leaving their horses with Ralph, who awaited them, Hugh and Edith entered the rush-strewn Hall. It stretched before them, high-ceiled, gloomy, its bareness scarce concealed by flapping tapestries and the long tables that reached from the door to the platform reserved for the Lord of the Manor and his family and guests. In one corner a fire blazed dimly in a huge, open hearth. Otherwise the only illumination was the scant sunlight that crept through loopholes in the massy walls.

On the dais sat Sir Godwin and the man they had met that morning on the London Road. The Lord of Blancherive sprang to his feet as they entered. He was a small man, very wiry, with immensely broad shoulders; but he carried himself with a dignity that enhanced his stature.

"What ado we have had!" he called in a deep, brazen voice--the voice of a warrior. "Could you not have done your hunting some other time, my children? But no--I am unfair. You could have done it no other time. You did right to pleasure yourselves, whilst you could."

"Why, Uncle Godwin, what do you mean?" cried Edith.

"Anon, anon," he answered, and turned to Hugh. "I have had great need of you, Hugh," he went on. "You are our clerk, and without you I have been helpless."

He held up several rolls of parchment, tied with parti-coloured silk and decorated with elaborate pendant seals.

"Is it from father?" exclaimed Edith.

"It is. Sore news, my maid. Nay, do not weep. 'Tis fine news for you. For me it spells loneliness, an Hugh makes good his threat and leaves me, too."

Both Hugh and Edith regarded him in bewilderment. Hugh shifted his gaze suddenly to the stranger, and met a stare focussed on his own face. But the man from Outremer looked quickly away.

"But I do not understand," said Hugh.

"'Tis simply that my brother hath sent for Edith, as we knew he must when it seemed him best," answered Sir Godwin. "He hath sent word by the Most Noble Messer Andrea Mocenigo, Special Ambassador to King John, who, he hath been telling me, journeyed hither in one of the dromons of the Emperor of Constantinople, all the way by the Inner Sea, past the country of the Soldan of Babylon, the country of the man-eating people and around the land of the Moors through the Great Ocean. Truly a marvellous venture!"

The stranger bowed.

"You exalt me unduly, my lord," he said.

"And Edith must go by the same way?" asked Hugh, turning the parchments in his hands.

Sir Godwin looked to his guest.

"'Tis so," replied Mocenigo. "But fear not, Sir Englishman. My ship is large, my crew brave and well-armed. I have done the journey before this."

"I like it not," said Hugh stubbornly.

"Indeed, lordling, you concern yourself over nothing," the stranger insisted suavely. "The Most Noble Grand Acolyth, Commander of the Varangian Guard of his Most Eminent, Holy and Christian Majesty, the Emperor of Constantinople, deigned to commission me especially for this task, under the Emperor's sanction, and all arrangements have been made to insure the protection of the young maid. Off Sicily we shall pick up a squadron of escort galleys, but without help we can easily beat off the corsairs of the Narrow Seas."

From the rear of the platform came the sound of weeping. Hugh turned and strove to peer through the shadows.

"'Tis Dame Alicia," said Sir Godwin. "She goes with the maid."

Hugh fumbled with the seals of the parchments.

"When?" he asked.

"So soon as may be," returned the Ambassador. "I must make haste. 'Tis many months since I left my master, the Emperor. I have fulfilled my mission at London, and I must lose no time in carrying back the message of your King. We should ride hence to-morrow."

"But I could never make ready in that short time," protested Edith.

"All is ready for you, lady," answered Mocenigo. "Your father, the Grand Acolyth, requested that you bring with you your old nurse, but he was at pains to provide me with several dames to keep you company on the voyage. They have brought with them dress-stuffs, everything needful."

Edith stood staring into the depths of the hall for a moment. Then she made a little gesture of assent.

"'Tis right I should go, is it not, Uncle Godwin?" she questioned.

"Yes, my maid--but first I would have Hugh read us these letters. It may be they contain further instructions."

Hugh broke the seals and unrolled the first parchment. It was writ fairly in Latin, a tongue the monks had taught him, and dated at Constantinople four months before. It began:

"Sir Cedric Halcroft, known as the Grand Acolyth of the Empire, Commander of the Varangian Guard, from the Palace of the Bucoleon in Constantinople to his brother Godwin, Lord of Blancherive, a Castle which is in England beyond the Great Sea and the Land of the French:

"Brother Godwin, I write this by the pen of one Dominick, a holy monk sojourning at the Hospice of the Knights of St. John, to say to you that I have grown lonely for the maid, my daughter, and it is my desire that you send her, with Dame Alicia, her nurse, in the custody of the bearer of this, one Messer Andrea Mocenigo, Ambassador of my master, the Emperor, and a man learned in travel and the ways of the sea, who hath been commissioned particularly for this task. He is to be trusted. Accept my thanks for the care you have taken of the maid. All goes well with me, and I pray God and His Blessed Saints daily that your lot may be happy."

The other was the most beautiful parchment Hugh had ever seen. It was inscribed in vermillion ink, bedight with gilding and the capitals of the Latin letters all enscrolled with gold.

"To all strangers in all lands," it read. "Be it known that the Most Sacred, Holy and Christian Sovereign, Alexius, Emperor of Rome, Lord of Constantinople, Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, Scythia, Hungary, Bithynia, Armenia, Anatolia, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Mesopotamia, the Islands of the Sea, Jerusalem and the lands beyond, Augustus, hath commissioned his trusty servant, Andrea Mocenigo, to fare forth from the harbour of the Golden Horn in the Imperial dromon Kyrie Eleison and to sail the seas to the realm of England, there to deliver the Emperor's message to the King who hath succeeded him men called Lion-Heart and to bring back with him the daughter of the Emperor's right trusty servant, the Grand Acolyth of the Empire, Sir Cedric Halcroft, in such state as would be accorded a daughter of the Imperial Court. Christ save us all!"

"Well-spoken, well-spoken," cried Sir Godwin warmly. "His Majesty doth my brother great honour."

"None stands higher in the confidence of the Augustus than the Grand Acolyth," replied Mocenigo, with a low bow to Edith. "And all the Court await with expectation the coming of Sir Cedric's daughter."

Hugh glared at the Emperor's Ambassador, wroth at the flush that tinted Edith's cheek.

"After all, 'tis no more than is fitting for her," he said haughtily. "I have heard you say often, Sir Godwin, that she hath in her veins the blood of King Harold and the Sainted Edmund."

Sir Godwin laughed.

"True, lad, but it ill becomes your Norman blood to prate of our Saxon lineage."

It was Hugh's turn to flush.

"Good blood is good blood," he muttered. "No Norman denies it. How many lords of my race have wooed your womankind?"

"Nay, now, that issue is buried, Hugh." Sir Godwin banished the argument with a wave of the hand. "In the haste of our greetings I have forgotten to present you to my guest. Messer Mocenigo, I make known to you my neighbour, the Lord Hugh de Chesby. His lands march with mine."

"Young sir, I am honoured." Mocenigo bowed from his supple hips, his cap sweeping the rushes. To Hugh it seemed there was a touch of irony in the exaggerated courtesy. But his resentment was forgotten in the man's next words. "De Chesby? Surely, that is a name familiar to the folk of Outremer!"

"You know my father, Messer Mocenigo?" asked Hugh eagerly.

"Not the great Sir James?"

"Yes, Sir James de Chesby--'the Knight of the Holy Sepulchre' he was called in the Holy Land."

The Italian gave Hugh a sidelong look out of his heavy-lidded eyes.

"It was never my fortune to know your father," he answered. "But he was indicated to me once in the streets of Tripoli. A stout knight and of matchless fame! The jongleurs still sing of his deeds. 'Tis a vast pity, young sir, he is not with us to-day to fend off the Paynims."

Hugh stepped closer on the dais.

"Do you think him dead?" he asked tensely.

Mocenigo made a gesture of surprise.

"But is not that accepted?" he returned. "It is a part of the story, a legend of itself. I, myself, the time I speak of, saw Sir James de Chesby going down to his galley to start upon his last voyage from Tripoli."

"He is not dead," declared Hugh.

The Italian laughed uneasily.

"Not dead? But----"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Of course, the jongleurs have that tale, too," he went on. "The heroes of Outremer never die, you know. They say that even Barbarossa, the German Emperor, who perished in the last Crusade, is not dead, but sleeps in a cavern in the mountains of his own land, and that some day he and all his knights will wake up again."

"But none saw my father die," insisted Hugh. "He sailed away from Tripoli. His galley reached Constantinople. Some say he was then on board of her; some say he was not. But nobody saw him die. He disappeared."

Mocenigo raised his eyebrows.

"There is the Grand Acolyth," he suggested. "Has he not----"

"Sir Cedric made inquiries," interposed the Lord of Blancherive. "He could learn nothing. The galley Sir James sailed upon had disappeared from those seas. There was no trace of him in Constantinople, nor was he ever seen or heard of in any other part of the Empire or in the Holy Land."

"He might have been taken by the Saracens," said Mocenigo.

"Think you they would have let pass the chance to boast of such a prisoner?" retorted Hugh. "Or the ransom he would have brought?"

"Lion-heart, himself, bade the Templars and Hospitallers make inquiries of the Emirs of his fate," added Sir Godwin. "King Richard loved Sir James, and would have given much to ransom him, had it been possible."

The Italian shrugged his shoulders again.

"Sirs, you baffle me," he said. "I can make no suggestions in face of what you say. In Outremer Sir James has become a memory, a stirring echo from the past, a shadowy figure in a tale men gather to hear. I have not thought of him as living this many a year."

"He lives," said Hugh stoutly. "And I shall find him--or make certain of his fate."

A startled look came into Mocenigo's face.

"You would seek him out?" he questioned.

"Yes," answered Hugh shortly.

"'Tis a far journey from England to Outremer."

"Yet you have made it."

"True, lordling. But the way was smoothed for me." The Italian wetted his lips nervously. "There are many dangers in Outremer, dangers on sea and dangers on land. The Saracens pin the Franks closer and closer to their few castles on the seaboard of the Holy Land. The Old Man of the Mountains sends his Assassins to slay whom he pleases. Corsairs ravage the shipping. Men slay the stranger first, and empty his wallet and strip off his armour, afterward. When the Franks are not fighting one another or the Emirs, they are quarrelling with my master. Few men live long in Outremer."

A slight smile twisted Hugh's mouth.

"What you say hath interested me still more in my purposed venture, Sir Ambassador," he said quietly. "And if I find only peril and no aid in the Holy Land, I may come to Constantinople, where all is peace and order."

"To Constantinople?" Mocenigo leaned forward, sweat beading out on his face. "But why Constantinople, young sir?"

"Did not my father's galley sail for Constantinople from Tripoli?"

"Ay, but if there was trace of him in the realms of the Augustus, the Grand Acolyth would have found it by this."

Mocenigo settled back in his seat as he spoke, and smiled palely.

"I must go everywhere," answered Hugh steadily. "I may leave no spot untouched in my quest. I have sworn it."

"If my advice had weight with you, lordling, you would abandon your venture. 'Tis more promising of danger than glory."

Hugh looked at him, but said nothing, and after the silence had grown embarrassing, Mocenigo turned to Edith, who stood quietly by her uncle's chair.

"Perchance, you would care to hear of the life at my master's court--the centre of the world, it hath been called," he proposed.

"With your leave, Messer Mocenigo, she must put off that pleasure to relieve the tedium of the voyage," interrupted Sir Godwin. "Dame Alicia hath need of her to settle many matters ere morning."

The Italian bowed his assent.

"Rest assured, lady, no step has been left untaken to secure your comfort," he said.

Hugh felt the hot blood surge through his veins at the hint of devotion in Mocenigo's voice. But to his surprise Edith accepted it with queenly indifference. An hour before she would have blushed and known not what to do. Now, already, she had learned her first lesson in the higher school of life, had leaped at a single bound from the hoyden to the threshold of womanhood.

"I must ride back to Chesby," he said, fighting down the heart-soreness that was growing within him. "Give you god-den, Messer Mocenigo. Sir Godwin, I shall come to bid you god-speed to-morrow, and you ride hence with Edith."

"Do so, lad, do so," boomed Sir Godwin. "St. Edmund willing, I ride with our maid to Hastings port, where the dromon awaits her."

Mocenigo gave Hugh a sinister look from the corner of his eye.

"Forget not my advice, young sir," he said. "Toward Outremer lies danger. Here in England is all that man may desire."

"I know my path," answered Hugh coldly. "I must journey it."

He held back the curtain over the door to the living quarters of the Keep, so that Edith might pass out, then followed her. As the arras fell into place, Mocenigo leaned toward Sir Godwin, his fingers gripping tight hold of the arms of his chair.

"A sturdy youth and a bold," he remarked with studied calm. "How is it he hath not yet set forth upon this quest he speaks of?"

"No fault of his," laughed Sir Godwin. "By the terms of his father's charter, left with the monks of Crowden, Hugh must bide by his lands under tutelage of the Prior until he is one-and-twenty. Then he is his own master. He hath a year to wait."

"I knew not Sir James de Chesby had a son---or if I did, it slipped my mind," replied Mocenigo.

"He was married but a year. His wife died at the birth of Hugh. Sir James conceived the idea that he could help to win her eternal joy in Paradise by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He set forth ere Hugh was a year old."

"On his way he stopped at Constantinople, I believe?"

"Ay, he was much thought of by the Emperor Andronicus. But he went on to the Holy Land. He fought at Hattin, when King Guy and the Holy Cross were taken. He was of those few who escaped, and he reached the Holy City with Balian d'Ibelin and helped in its last defence. Saladin so admired him, as you must know, that he granted him freedom and presented him with a purse of gold. When our King Lion-heart crossed to Outremer on crusade, Sir James joined him and fought at Acre and Arsouf. When Lion-heart left and the Crusade broke up, Sir James stayed on and fought as chance allowed. He was the best knight ever I knew. We were lads together. Many a spear I have shivered with him."

Mocenigo listened to this with an air of interest that masked his burning desire to get away. He was on his feet so soon as Sir Godwin had spoken the last word.

"If it pleases you, my lord," he said, "I must instruct my men for the night."

"Ay, do so," agreed Sir Godwin. "Whatever they require they shall have. My household are at your disposal, Sir Ambassador."