The Talisman

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"Something I have learned, and something I have done, noble
King," answered the celebrated Blondel, with a retiring modesty
which all Richard's enthusiastic admiration of his skill had been
unable to banish.

"We will hear thee, man--we will hear thee instantly," said the
King. Then, touching Blondel's shoulder kindly, he added, "That
is, if thou art not fatigued with thy journey; for I would sooner
ride my best horse to death than injure a note of thy voice."

"My voice is, as ever, at the service of my royal patron," said
Blondel; "but your Majesty," he added, looking at some papers on
the table, "seems more importantly engaged, and the hour waxes
late."

"Not a whit, man, not a whit, my dearest Blondel. I did but
sketch an array of battle against the Saracens, a thing of a
moment, almost as soon done as the routing of them."

"Methinks, however," said Thomas de Vaux, "it were not unfit to
inquire what soldiers your Grace hath to array. I bring reports
on that subject from Ascalon."

"Thou art a mule, Thomas," said the King--"a very mule for
dullness and obstinacy! Come, nobles--a hall--a hall--range ye
around him! Give Blondel the tabouret. Where is his harp-bearer?--or, soft, lend him my harp, his own
may be damaged by
the journey."

"I would your Grace would take my report," said Thomas de Vaux.
"I have ridden far, and have more list to my bed than to have my
ears tickled."

"THY ears tickled!" said the King; "that must be with a
woodcock's feather, and not with sweet sounds. Hark thee,
Thomas, do thine ears know the singing of Blondel from the
braying of an ass?"

"In faith, my liege," replied Thomas, "I cannot well say; but
setting Blondel out of the question, who is a born gentleman, and
doubtless of high acquirements, I shall never, for the sake of
your Grace's question, look on a minstrel but I shall think upon
an ass."

"And might not your manners," said Richard, "have excepted me,
who am a gentleman born as well as Blondel, and, like him, a
guild-brother of the joyeuse science?"

"Your Grace should remember," said De Vaux, smiling, "that 'tis
useless asking for manners from a mule."

"Most truly spoken," said the King; "and an ill-conditioned
animal thou art. But come hither, master mule, and be unloaded,
that thou mayest get thee to thy litter, without any music being
wasted on thee. Meantime do thou, good brother of Salisbury, go
to our consort's tent, and tell her that Blondel has arrived,
with his budget fraught with the newest minstrelsy. Bid her come
hither instantly, and do thou escort her, and see that our
cousin, Edith Plantagenet, remain not behind."

His eye then rested for a moment on the Nubian, with that
expression of doubtful meaning which his countenance usually
displayed when he looked at him.

"Ha, our silent and secret messenger returned?--Stand up, slave,
behind the back of De Neville, and thou shalt hear presently
sounds which will make thee bless God that He afflicted thee
rather with dumbness than deafness."

So saying, he turned from the rest of the company towards De
Vaux, and plunged instantly into the military details which that
baron laid before him.

About the time that the Lord of Gilsland had finished his
audience, a messenger announced that the Queen and her attendants
were approaching the royal tent.--"A flask of wine, ho!" said
the King; "of old King Isaac's long-saved Cyprus, which we won
when we stormed Famagosta. Fill to the stout Lord of Gilsland,
gentles--a more careful and faithful servant never had any
prince."

"I am glad," said Thomas de Vaux, "that your Grace finds the mule
a useful slave, though his voice be less musical than horse-hair
or wire."

"What, thou canst not yet digest that quip of the mule?" said
Richard. "Wash it down with a brimming flagon, man, or thou wilt
choke upon it. Why, so--well pulled!--and now I will tell thee,
thou art a soldier as well as I, and we must brook each other's
jests in the hall as each other's blows in the tourney, and love
each other the harder we hit. By my faith, if thou didst not hit
me as hard as I did thee in our late encounter! thou gavest all
thy wit to the thrust. But here lies the difference betwixt thee
and Blondel. Thou art but my comrade--I might say my pupil--in
the art of war; Blondel is my master in the science of minstrelsy
and music. To thee I permit the freedom of intimacy; to him I
must do reverence, as to my superior in his art. Come, man, be
not peevish, but remain and hear our glee."

"To see your Majesty in such cheerful mood," said the Lord of
Gilsland, "by my faith, I could remain till Blondel had achieved
the great romance of King Arthur, which lasts for three days."

"We will not tax your patience so deeply," said the King. "But
see, yonder glare of torches without shows that our consort
approaches. Away to receive her, man, and win thyself grace in
the brightest eyes of Christendom. Nay, never stop to adjust thy
cloak. See, thou hast let Neville come between the wind and the
sails of thy galley."

"He was never before me in the field of battle," said De Vaux,
not greatly pleased to see himself anticipated by the more active
service of the chamberlain.

"No, neither he nor any one went before thee there, my good Tom
of the Gills," said the King, "unless it was ourself, now and
then."

"Ay, my liege," said De Vaux, "and let us do justice to the
unfortunate. The unhappy Knight of the Leopard hath been before
me too, at a season; for, look you, he weighs less on horseback,
and so--"

"Hush!" said the King, interrupting him in a peremptory tone,
"not a word of him," and instantly stepped forward to greet his
royal consort; and when he had done so, he presented to her
Blondel, as king of minstrelsy and his master in the gay science.
Berengaria, who well knew that her royal husband's passion for
poetry and music almost equalled his appetite for warlike fame,
and that Blondel was his especial favourite, took anxious care to
receive him with all the flattering distinctions due to one whom
the King delighted to honour. Yet it was evident that, though
Blondel made suitable returns to the compliments showered on him
something too abundantly by the royal beauty, he owned with
deeper reverence and more humble gratitude the simple and
graceful welcome of Edith, whose kindly greeting appeared to him,
perhaps, sincere in proportion to its brevity and simplicity.

Both the Queen and her royal husband were aware of this
distinction, and Richard, seeing his consort somewhat piqued at
the preference assigned to his cousin, by which perhaps he
himself did not feel much gratified, said in the hearing of both,
"We minstrels, Berengaria, as thou mayest see by the bearing of
our master Blondel, pay more reverence to a severe judge like our
kinswoman than to a kindly, partial friend like thyself, who is
willing to take our worth upon trust."

Edith was moved by this sarcasm of her royal kinsman, and
hesitated not to reply that, "To be a harsh and severe judge was
not an attribute proper to her alone of all the Plantagenets."

She had perhaps said more, having some touch of the temper of
that house, which, deriving their name and cognizance from the
lowly broom (PLANTA GENISTA), assumed as an emblem of humility,
were perhaps one of the proudest families that ever ruled in
England; but her eye, when kindling in her reply, suddenly caught
those of the Nubian, although he endeavoured to conceal himself
behind the nobles who were present, and she sunk upon a seat,
turning so pale that Queen Berengaria deemed herself obliged to
call for water and essences, and to go through the other
ceremonies appropriate to a lady's swoon. Richard, who better
estimated Edith's strength of mind, called to Blondel to assume
his seat and commence his lay, declaring that minstrelsy was
worth every other recipe to recall a Plantagenet to life. "Sing
us," he said, "that song of the Bloody Vest, of which thou didst
formerly give me the argument ere I left Cyprus. Thou must be
perfect in it by this time, or, as our yeomen say, thy bow is
broken."

The anxious eye of the minstrel, however, dwelt on Edith, and it
was not till he observed her returning colour that he obeyed the
repeated commands of the King. Then, accompanying his voice with
the harp, so as to grace, but yet not drown, the sense of what he
sung, he chanted in a sort of recitative one of those ancient
adventures of love and knighthood which were wont of yore to win
the public attention. So soon as he began to prelude, the
insignificance of his personal appearance seemed to disappear,
and his countenance glowed with energy and inspiration. His
full, manly, mellow voice, so absolutely under command of the
purest taste, thrilled on every ear and to every heart. Richard,
rejoiced as after victory, called out the appropriate summons for
silence,

"Listen, lords, in bower and hall;"

while, with the zeal of a patron at once and a pupil, he arranged
the circle around, and hushed them into silence; and he himself
sat down with an air of expectation and interest, not altogether
unmixed with the gravity of the professed critic. The courtiers
turned their eyes on the King, that they might be ready to trace
and imitate the emotions his features should express, and Thomas
de Vaux yawned tremendously, as one who submitted unwillingly to
a wearisome penance. The song of Blondel was of course in the
Norman language, but the verses which follow express its meaning
and its manner.

THE BLOODY VEST.

'Twas near the fair city of Benevent,
When the sun was setting on bough and bent,
And knights were preparing in bower and tent,
On the eve of the Baptist's tournament;
When in Lincoln green a stripling gent,
Well seeming a page by a princess sent,
Wander'd the camp, and, still as he went,
Inquired for the Englishman, Thomas a Kent.

Far hath he far'd, and farther must fare,
Till he finds his pavilion nor stately nor rare,--
Little save iron and steel was there;
And, as lacking the coin to pay armourer's care,
With his sinewy arms to the shoulders bare,
The good knight with hammer and file did repair
The mail that to-morrow must see him wear,
For the honour of Saint John and his lady fair.

"Thus speaks my lady," the page said he,
And the knight bent lowly both head and knee,
"She is Benevent's Princess so high in degree,
And thou art as lowly as knight may well be--
He that would climb so lofty a tree,
Or spring such a gulf as divides her from thee,
Must dare some high deed, by which all men may see
His ambition is back'd by his hie chivalrie.

"Therefore thus speaks my lady," the fair page he said,
And the knight lowly louted with hand and with head,
"Fling aside the good armour in which thou art clad,
And don thou this weed of her night-gear instead,
For a hauberk of steel, a kirtle of thread;
And charge, thus attir'd, in the tournament dread,
And fight as thy wont is where most blood is shed,
And bring honour away, or remain with the dead."

Untroubled in his look, and untroubled in his breast,
The knight the weed hath taken, and reverently hath kiss'd.
"Now blessed be the moment, the messenger be blest!
Much honour'd do I hold me in my lady's high behest;
And say unto my lady, in this dear night-weed dress'd,
To the best armed champion I will not veil my crest;
But if I live and bear me well 'tis her turn to take the test."
Here, gentles, ends the foremost fytte of the Lay of the Bloody
Vest.

"Thou hast changed the measure upon us unawares in that last
couplet, my Blondel," said the King.

"Most true, my lord," said Blondel. "I rendered the verses from
the Italian of an old harper whom I met in Cyprus, and not having
had time either to translate it accurately or commit it to
memory, I am fain to supply gaps in the music and the verse as I
can upon the spur of the moment, as you see boors mend a quickset
fence with a fagot."

"Nay, on my faith," said the King, "I like these rattling,
rolling Alexandrines. Methinks they come more twangingly off to
the music than that briefer measure."

"Both are licensed, as is well known to your Grace," answered
Blondel.

"They are so, Blondel," said Richard, "yet methinks the scene
where there is like to be fighting will go best on in these same
thundering Alexandrines, which sound like the charge of cavalry,
while the other measure is but like the sidelong amble of a
lady's palfrey."

"It shall be as your Grace pleases," replied Blondel, and began
again to prelude.

"Nay, first cherish thy fancy with a cup of fiery Chios wine,"
said the King. "And hark thee, I would have thee fling away that
new-fangled restriction of thine, of terminating in accurate and
similar rhymes. They are a constraint on thy flow of fancy, and
make thee resemble a man dancing in fetters."

"The fetters are easily flung off, at least," said Blondel, again
sweeping his fingers over the strings, as one who would rather
have played than listened to criticism.

"But why put them on, man?" continued the King. "Wherefore thrust
thy genius into iron bracelets? I marvel how you got forward at
all. I am sure I should not have been able to compose a stanza
in yonder hampered measure."

Blondel looked down, and busied himself with the strings of his
harp, to hide an involuntary smile which crept over his features;
but it escaped not Richard's observation.

"By my faith, thou laughest at me, Blondel," he said; "and, in
good truth, every man deserves it who presumes to play the master
when he should be the pupil. But we kings get bad habits of
self-opinion. Come, on with thy lay, dearest Blondel--on after
thine own fashion, better than aught that we can suggest, though
we must needs be talking."

Blondel resumed the lay; but as extemporaneous composition was
familiar to him, he failed not to comply with the King's hints,
and was perhaps not displeased to show with how much ease he
could new-model a poem, even while in the act of recitation.

THE BLOODY VEST.

FYTTE SECOND.

The Baptist's fair morrow beheld gallant feats--
There was winning of honour and losing of seats;
There was hewing with falchions and splintering of staves--
The victors won glory, the vanquish'd won graves.
Oh, many a knight there fought bravely and well,
Yet one was accounted his peers to excel,
And 'twas he whose sole armour on body and breast
Seem'd the weed of a damsel when bouned for her rest.

There were some dealt him wounds that were bloody and sore,
But others respected his plight, and forbore.
"It is some oath of honour," they said, "and I trow,
'Twere unknightly to slay him achieving his vow."
Then the Prince, for his sake, bade the tournament cease--
He flung down his warder, the trumpets sung peace;
And the judges declare, and competitors yield,
That the Knight of the Night-gear was first in the field.

The feast it was nigh, and the mass it was nigher,
When before the fair Princess low looted a squire,
And deliver'd a garment unseemly to view,
With sword-cut and spear-thrust, all hack'd and pierc'd through;
All rent and all tatter'd, all clotted with blood,
With foam of the horses, with dust, and with mud;
Not the point of that lady's small finger, I ween,
Could have rested on spot was unsullied and clean.

"This token my master, Sir Thomas a Kent,
Restores to the Princess of fair Benevent;
He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit,
He that leaps the wide gulf should prevail in his suit;
Through life's utmost peril the prize I have won,
And now must the faith of my mistress be shown:
For she who prompts knights on such danger to run
Must avouch his true service in front of the sun.

"'I restore,' says my master, 'the garment I've worn,
And I claim of the Princess to don it in turn;
For its stains and its rents she should prize it the more,
Since by shame 'tis unsullied, though crimson'd with gore.'"
Then deep blush'd the Princess--yet kiss'd she and press'd
The blood-spotted robes to her lips and her breast.
"Go tell my true knight, church and chamber shall show
If I value the blood on this garment or no."

And when it was time for the nobles to pass,
In solemn procession to minster and mass,
The first walk'd the Princess in purple and pall,
But the blood-besmear'd night-robe she wore over all;
And eke, in the hall, where they all sat at dine,
When she knelt to her father and proffer'd the wine,
Over all her rich robes and state jewels she wore
That wimple unseemly bedabbled with gore.

Then lords whisper'd ladies, as well you may think,
And ladies replied with nod, titter, and wink;
And the Prince, who in anger and shame had look'd down,
Turn'd at length to his daughter, and spoke with a frown:
"Now since thou hast publish'd thy folly and guilt,
E'en atone with thy hand for the blood thou hast spilt;
Yet sore for your boldness you both will repent,
When you wander as exiles from fair Benevent'"

Then out spoke stout Thomas, in hall where he stood,
Exhausted and feeble, but dauntless of mood:
"The blood that I lost for this daughter of thine,
I pour'd forth as freely as flask gives its wine;
And if for my sake she brooks penance and blame,
Do not doubt I will save her from suffering and shame;
And light will she reck of thy princedom and rent,
When I hail her, in England, the Countess of Kent,"

A murmur of applause ran through the assembly, following
the example of Richard himself, who loaded with praises
his favourite minstrel, and ended by presenting him with a
ring of considerable value. The Queen hastened to
distinguish the favourite by a rich bracelet, and many of the
nobles who were present followed the royal example.

"Is our cousin Edith," said the King, "become insensible to the
sound of the harp she once loved?"

"She thanks Blondel for his lay," replied Edith, "but doubly the
kindness of the kinsman who suggested it."

"Thou art angry, cousin," said the King; "angry because thou hast
heard of a woman more wayward than thyself. But you escape me
not. I will walk a space homeward with you towards the Queen's
pavilion. We must have conference together ere the night has
waned into morning."

The Queen and her attendants were now on foot, and the other
guests withdrew from the royal tent. A train with blazing
torches, and an escort of archers, awaited Berengaria without the
pavilion, and she was soon on her way homeward. Richard, as he
had proposed, walked beside his kinswoman, and compelled her to
accept of his arm as her support, so that they could speak to
each other without being overheard.

"What answer, then, am I to return to the noble Soldan?" said
Richard. "The kings and princes are falling from me, Edith; this
new quarrel hath alienated them once more. I would do something
for the Holy Sepulchre by composition, if not by victory; and the
chance of my doing this depends, alas, on the caprice of a woman.
I would lay my single spear in the rest against ten of the best
lances in Christendom, rather than argue with a wilful wench who
knows not what is for her own good. What answer, coz, am I to
return to the Soldan? It must be decisive."

"Tell him," said Edith, "that the poorest of the Plantagenets
will rather wed with misery than with misbelief."

"Shall I say with slavery, Edith?" said the King. "Methinks that
is nearer thy thoughts."

"There is no room," said Edith, "for the suspicion you so grossly
insinuate. Slavery of the body might have been pitied, but that
of the soul is only to be despised. Shame to thee, King of merry
England. Thou hast enthralled both the limbs and the spirit of a
knight, one scarce less famed than thyself."

"Should I not prevent my kinswoman from drinking poison, by
sullying the vessel which contained it, if I saw no other means
of disgusting her with the fatal liquor?" replied the King.

"It is thyself," answered Edith, "that would press me to drink
poison, because it is proffered in a golden chalice."

"Edith," said Richard, "I cannot force thy resolution; but beware
you shut not the door which Heaven opens. The hermit of Engaddi
--he whom Popes and Councils have regarded as a prophet--hath
read in the stars that thy marriage shall reconcile me with a
powerful enemy, and that thy husband shall be Christian, leaving
thus the fairest ground to hope that the conversion of the
Soldan, and the bringing in of the sons of Ishmael to the pale of
the church, will be the consequence of thy wedding with Saladin.
Come, thou must make some sacrifice rather than mar such happy
prospects."

"Men may sacrifice rams and goats," said Edith, "but not honour
and conscience. I have heard that it was the dishonour of a
Christian maiden which brought the Saracens into Spain; the shame
of another is no likely mode of expelling them from Palestine."

"Dost thou call it shame to become an empress?" said the King.

"I call it shame and dishonour to profane a Christian sacrament
by entering into it with an infidel whom it cannot bind; and I
call it foul dishonour that I, the descendant of a Christian
princess, should become of free will the head of a haram of
heathen concubines."

"Well, kinswoman," said the King, after a pause, "I must not
quarrel with thee, though I think thy dependent condition might
have dictated more compliance."

"My liege," replied Edith, "your Grace hath worthily succeeded to
all the wealth, dignity, and dominion of the House of
Plantagenet--do not, therefore, begrudge your poor kinswoman some
small share of their pride."

"By my faith, wench," said the King, "thou hast unhorsed me with
that very word, so we will kiss and be friends. I will presently
dispatch thy answer to Saladin. But after all, coz, were it not
better to suspend your answer till you have seen him? Men say he
is pre-eminently handsome."

"There is no chance of our meeting, my lord," said Edith.

"By Saint George, but there is next to a certainty of it," said
the King; "for Saladin will doubtless afford us a free field for
the doing of this new battle of the Standard, and will witness it
himself. Berengaria is wild to behold it also; and I dare be
sworn not a feather of you, her companions and attendants, will
remain behind--least of all thou thyself, fair coz. But come, we
have reached the pavilion, and must part; not in unkindness thou,
oh--nay, thou must seal it with thy lip as well as thy hand,
sweet Edith--it is my right as a sovereign to kiss my pretty
vassals."

He embraced her respectfully and affectionately, and returned
through the moonlit camp, humming to himself such snatches of
Blondel's lay as he could recollect.

On his arrival he lost no time in making up his dispatches for
Saladin, and delivered them to the Nubian, with a charge to set
out by peep of day on his return to the Soldan.

CHAPTER XXVII.

We heard the Tecbir--so these Arabs call
Their shout of onset, when, with loud acclaim,
They challenge Heaven to give them victory. SIEGE OF DAMASCUS.

On the subsequent morning Richard was invited to a conference by
Philip of France, in which the latter, with many expressions of
his high esteem for his brother of England, communicated to him
in terms extremely courteous, but too explicit to be
misunderstood, his positive intention to return to Europe, and to
the cares of his kingdom, as entirely despairing of future
success in their undertaking, with their diminished forces and
civil discords. Richard remonstrated, but in vain; and when the
conference ended he received without surprise a manifesto from
the Duke of Austria, and several other princes, announcing a
resolution similar to that of Philip, and in no modified terms,
assigning, for their defection from the cause of the Cross, the
inordinate ambition and arbitrary domination of Richard of
England. All hopes of continuing the war with any prospect of
ultimate success were now abandoned; and Richard, while he shed
bitter tears over his disappointed hopes of glory, was little
consoled by the recollection that the failure was in some degree
to be imputed to the advantages which he had given his enemies by
his own hasty and imprudent temper.

"They had not dared to have deserted my father thus," he said to
De Vaux, in the bitterness of his resentment. "No slanders they
could have uttered against so wise a king would have been
believed in Christendom; whereas--fool that I am!--I have not
only afforded them a pretext for deserting me, but even a colour
for casting all the blame of the rupture upon my unhappy
foibles."

These thoughts were so deeply galling to the King, that De Vaux
was rejoiced when the arrival of an ambassador from Saladin
turned his reflections into a different channel.

This new envoy was an Emir much respected by the Soldan, whose
name was Abdallah el Hadgi. He derived his descent from the
family of the Prophet, and the race or tribe of Hashem, in
witness of which genealogy he wore a green turban of large
dimensions. He had also three times performed the journey to
Mecca, from which he derived his epithet of El Hadgi, or the
Pilgrim. Notwithstanding these various pretensions to sanctity,
Abdallah was (for an Arab) a boon companion, who enjoyed a merry
tale, and laid aside his gravity so far as to quaff a blithe
flagon when secrecy ensured him against scandal. He was likewise
a statesman, whose abilities had been used by Saladin in various
negotiations with the Christian princes, and particularly with
Richard, to whom El Hadgi was personally known and acceptable.
Animated by the cheerful acquiescence with which the envoy of
Saladin afforded a fair field for the combat, a safe conduct for
all who might choose to witness it, and offered his own person as
a guarantee of his fidelity, Richard soon forgot his disappointed
hopes, and the approaching dissolution of the Christian league,
in the interesting discussions preceding a combat in the lists.

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