The Talisman

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"They might choose the Archduke of Austria," said De Vaux.

"What! because he is big and burly like thyself, Thomas--nearly
as thick-headed, but without thy indifference to danger and
carelessness of offence? I tell thee that Austria has in all
that mass of flesh no bolder animation than is afforded by the
peevishness of a wasp and the courage of a wren. Out upon him!
He a leader of chivalry to deeds of glory! Give him a flagon of
Rhenish to drink with his besmirched baaren-hauters and lance-knechts."

"There is the Grand Master of the Templars," continued the baron,
not sorry to keep his master's attention engaged on other topics
than his own illness, though at the expense of the characters of
prince and potentate. "There is the Grand Master of the
Templars," he continued, "undaunted, skilful, brave in battle,
and sage in council, having no separate kingdoms of his own to
divert his exertions from the recovery of the Holy Land--what
thinks your Majesty of the Master as a general leader of the
Christian host?"

"Ha, Beau-Seant?" answered the King. "Oh, no exception can be
taken to Brother Giles Amaury; he understands the ordering of a
battle, and the fighting in front when it begins. But, Sir
Thomas, were it fair to take the Holy Land from the heathen
Saladin, so full of all the virtues which may distinguish
unchristened man, and give it to Giles Amaury, a worse pagan than
himself, an idolater, a devil-worshipper, a necromancer, who
practises crimes the most dark and unnatural in the vaults and
secret places of abomination and darkness?"

"The Grand Master of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem is
not tainted by fame, either with heresy or magic," said Thomas de
Vaux.

"But is he not a sordid miser?" said Richard hastily; "has he
not been suspected--ay, more than suspected--of selling to the
infidels those advantages which they would never have won by fair
force? Tush, man, better give the army to be made merchandise of
by Venetian skippers and Lombardy pedlars, than trust it to the
Grand Master of St. John."

"Well, then, I will venture but another guess," said the Baron de
Vaux. "What say you to the gallant Marquis of Montserrat, so
wise, so elegant, such a good man-at-arms?"

"Wise?--cunning, you would say," replied Richard; "elegant in a
lady's chamber, if you will. Oh, ay, Conrade of Montserrat--who
knows not the popinjay? Politic and versatile, he will change
you his purposes as often as the trimmings of his doublet, and
you shall never be able to guess the hue of his inmost vestments
from their outward colours. A man-at-arms? Ay, a fine figure on
horseback, and can bear him well in the tilt-yard, and at the
barriers, when swords are blunted at point and edge, and spears
are tipped with trenchers of wood instead of steel pikes. Wert
thou not with me when I said to that same gay Marquis, 'Here we
be, three good Christians, and on yonder plain there pricks a
band of some threescore Saracens--what say you to charge them
briskly? There are but twenty unbelieving miscreants to each
true knight."

"I recollect the Marquis replied," said De Vaux, "that his limbs
were of flesh, not of iron, and that he would rather bear the
heart of a man than of a beast, though that beast were the lion,
But I see how it is--we shall end where we began, without hope of
praying at the Sepulchre until Heaven shall restore King Richard
to health."

At this grave remark Richard burst out into a hearty fit of
laughter, the first which he had for some time indulged in. "Why
what a thing is conscience," he said, "that through its means
even such a thick-witted northern lord as thou canst bring thy
sovereign to confess his folly! It is true that, did they not
propose themselves as fit to hold my leading-staff, little should
I care for plucking the silken trappings off the puppets thou
hast shown me in succession. What concerns it me what fine
tinsel robes they swagger in, unless when they are named as
rivals in the glorious enterprise to which I have vowed myself?
Yes, De Vaux, I confess my weakness, and the wilfulness of my
ambition. The Christian camp contains, doubtless, many a better
knight than Richard of England, and it would be wise and worthy
to assign to the best of them the leading of the host. But,"
continued the warlike monarch, raising himself in his bed, and
shaking the cover from his head, while his eyes sparkled as they
were wont to do on the eve of battle, "were such a knight to
plant the banner of the Cross on the Temple of Jerusalem while I
was unable to bear my share in the noble task, he should, so soon
as I was fit to lay lance in rest, undergo my challenge to mortal
combat, for having diminished my fame, and pressed in before to
the object of my enterprise. But hark, what trumpets are those
at a distance?"

"Those of King Philip, as I guess, my liege," said the stout
Englishman.

"Thou art dull of ear, Thomas," said the King, endeavouring to
start up; "hearest thou not that clash and clang? By Heaven, the
Turks are in the camp--I hear their LELIES." [The war-cries of
the Moslemah.]

He again endeavoured to get out of bed, and De Vaux was obliged
to exercise his own great strength, and also to summon the
assistance of the chamberlains from the inner tent, to restrain
him.

"Thou art a false traitor, De Vaux," said the incensed monarch,
when, breathless and exhausted with struggling, he was compelled
to submit to superior strength, and to repose in quiet on his
couch. "I would I were--I would I were but strong enough to dash
thy brains out with my battle-axe!"

"I would you had the strength, my liege," said De Vaux, "and
would even take the risk of its being so employed. The odds
would be great in favour of Christendom were Thomas Multon dead
and Coeur de Lion himself again."

"Mine honest faithful servant," said Richard, extending his hand,
which the baron reverentially saluted, "forgive thy master's
impatience of mood. It is this burning fever which chides thee,
and not thy kind master, Richard of England. But go, I prithee,
and bring me word what strangers are in the camp, for these
sounds are not of Christendom."

De Vaux left the pavilion on the errand assigned, and in his
absence, which he had resolved should be brief, he charged the
chamberlains, pages, and attendants to redouble their attention
on their sovereign, with threats of holding them to
responsibility, which rather added to than diminished their timid
anxiety in the discharge of their duty; for next, perhaps, to the
ire of the monarch himself, they dreaded that of the stern and
inexorable Lord of Gilsland. [Sir Thomas Multon of Gilsland.]

CHAPTER VII.

There never was a time on the march parts yet,
When Scottish with English met,
But it was marvel if the red blood ran not
As the rain does in the street. BATTLE OF OTTERBOURNE.

A considerable band of Scottish warriors had joined the
Crusaders, and had naturally placed themselves under the command
of the English monarch, being, like his native troops, most of
them of Saxon and Norman descent, speaking the same languages,
possessed, some of them, of English as well as Scottish demesnes,
and allied in some cases by blood and intermarriage. The period
also preceded that when the grasping ambition of Edward I. gave a
deadly and envenomed character to the wars betwixt the two
nations--the English fighting for the subjugation of Scotland,
and the Scottish, with all the stern determination and obstinacy
which has ever characterized their nation, for the defence of
their independence, by the most violent means, under the most
disadvantageous circumstances, and at the most extreme hazard.
As yet, wars betwixt the two nations, though fierce and frequent,
had been conducted on principles of fair hostility, and admitted
of those softening shades by which courtesy and the respect for
open and generous foemen qualify and mitigate the horrors of war.
In time of peace, therefore, and especially when both, as at
present, were engaged in war, waged in behalf of a common cause,
and rendered dear to them by their ideas of religion, the
adventurers of both countries frequently fought side by side,
their national emulation serving only to stimulate them to excel
each other in their efforts against the common enemy.

The frank and martial character of Richard, who made no
distinction betwixt his own subjects and those of William of
Scotland, excepting as they bore themselves in the field of
battle, tended much to conciliate the troops of both nations.
But upon his illness, and the disadvantageous circumstances in
which the Crusaders were placed, the national disunion between
the various bands united in the Crusade, began to display itself,
just as old wounds break out afresh in the human body when under
the influence of disease or debility.

The Scottish and English, equally jealous and high-spirited, and
apt to take offence--the former the more so, because the poorer
and the weaker nation--began to fill up by internal dissension
the period when the truce forbade them to wreak their united
vengeance on the Saracens. Like the contending Roman chiefs of
old, the Scottish would admit no superiority, and their southern
neighbours would brook no equality. There were charges and
recriminations, and both the common soldiery and their leaders
and commanders, who had been good comrades in time of victory,
lowered on each other in the period of adversity, as if their
union had not been then more essential than ever, not only to the
success of their common cause, but to their joint safety. The
same disunion had begun to show itself betwixt the French and
English, the Italians and the Germans, and even between the Danes
and Swedes; but it is only that which divided the two nations
whom one island bred, and who seemed more animated against each
other for the very reason, that our narrative is principally
concerned with.

Of all the English nobles who had followed their King to
Palestine, De Vaux was most prejudiced against the Scottish.
They were his near neighbours, with whom he had been engaged
during his whole life in private or public warfare, and on whom
he had inflicted many calamities, while he had sustained at their
hands not a few. His love and devotion to the King was like the
vivid affection of the old English mastiff to his master, leaving
him churlish and inaccessible to all others even towards those to
whom he was indifferent--and rough and dangerous to any against
whom he entertained a prejudice. De Vaux had never observed
without jealousy and displeasure his King exhibit any mark of
courtesy or favour to the wicked, deceitful, and ferocious race
born on the other side of a river, or an imaginary line drawn
through waste and wilderness; and he even doubted the success of
a Crusade in which they were suffered to bear arms, holding them
in his secret soul little better than the Saracens whom he came
to combat. It may be added that, as being himself a blunt and
downright Englishman, unaccustomed to conceal the slightest
movement either of love or of dislike, he accounted the fair-spoken courtesy which the Scots had learned,
either from
imitation of their frequent allies, the French, or which might
have arisen from their own proud and reserved character, as a
false and astucious mark of the most dangerous designs against
their neighbours, over whom he believed, with genuine English
confidence, they could, by fair manhood, never obtain any
advantage.

Yet, though De Vaux entertained these sentiments concerning his
Northern neighbours, and extended them, with little mitigation,
even to such as had assumed the Cross, his respect for the King,
and a sense of the duty imposed by his vow as a Crusader,
prevented him from displaying them otherwise than by regularly
shunning all intercourse with his Scottish brethren-at-arms as
far as possible, by observing a sullen taciturnity when compelled
to meet them occasionally, and by looking scornfully upon them
when they encountered on the march and in camp. The Scottish
barons and knights were not men to bear his scorn unobserved or
unreplied to; and it came to that pass that he was regarded as
the determined and active enemy of a nation, whom, after all, he
only disliked, and in some sort despised. Nay, it was remarked
by close observers that, if he had not towards them the charity
of Scripture, which suffereth long, and judges kindly, he was by
no means deficient in the subordinate and limited virtue, which
alleviates and relieves the wants of others. The wealth of
Thomas of Gilsland procured supplies of provisions and medicines,
and some of these usually flowed by secret channels into the
quarters of the Scottish--his surly benevolence proceeding on the
principle that, next to a man's friend, his foe was of most
importance to him, passing over all the intermediate relations as
too indifferent to merit even a thought. This explanation is
necessary, in order that the reader may fully understand what we
are now to detail.

Thomas de Vaux had not made many steps beyond the entrance of the
royal pavilion when he was aware of what the far more acute ear
of the English monarch--no mean proficient in the art of
minstrelsy--had instantly discovered, that the musical strains,
namely, which had reached their ears, were produced by the pipes,
shalms, and kettle-drums of the Saracens; and at the bottom of an
avenue of tents, which formed a broad access to the pavilion of
Richard, he could see a crowd of idle soldiers assembled around
the spot from which the music was heard, almost in the centre of
the camp; and he saw, with great surprise, mingled amid the
helmets of various forms worn by the Crusaders of different
nations, white turbans and long pikes, announcing the presence of
armed Saracens, and the huge deformed heads of several camels or
dromedaries, overlooking the multitude by aid of their long,
disproportioned necks.

Wondering, and displeased at a sight so unexpected and singular
--for it was customary to leave all flags of truce and other
communications from the enemy at an appointed place without the
barriers--the baron looked eagerly round for some one of whom he
might inquire the cause of this alarming novelty.

The first person whom he met advancing to him he set down at
once, by his grave and haughty step, as a Spaniard or a Scot; and
presently after muttered to himself, "And a Scot it is--he of the
Leopard. I have seen him fight indifferently well, for one of
his country."

Loath to ask even a passing question, he was about to pass Sir
Kenneth, with that sullen and lowering port which seems to say,
"I know thee, but I will hold no communication with thee." But
his purpose was defeated by the Northern Knight, who moved
forward directly to him, and accosting him with formal courtesy,
said, "My Lord de Vaux of Gilsland, I have in charge to speak
with you."

"Ha!" returned the English baron, "with me? But say your
pleasure, so it be shortly spoken--I am on the King's errand."

"Mine touches King Richard yet more nearly," answered Sir
Kenneth; "I bring him, I trust, health."

The Lord of Gilsland measured the Scot with incredulous eyes, and
replied, "Thou art no leech, I think, Sir Scot; I had as soon
thought of your bringing the King of England wealth."

Sir Kenneth, though displeased with the manner of the baron's
reply, answered calmly, "Health to Richard is glory and wealth to
Christendom.--But my time presses; I pray you, may I see the
King?"

"Surely not, fair sir," said the baron, "until your errand be
told more distinctly. The sick chambers of princes open not to
all who inquire, like a northern hostelry."

"My lord," said Kenneth, "the cross which I wear in common with
yourself, and the importance of what I have to tell, must, for
the present, cause me to pass over a bearing which else I were
unapt to endure. In plain language, then, I bring with me a
Moorish physician, who undertakes to work a cure on King
Richard."

"A Moorish physician!" said De Vaux; "and who will warrant that
he brings not poisons instead of remedies?"

"His own life, my lord--his head, which he offers as a
guarantee."

"I have known many a resolute ruffian," said De Vaux, "who valued
his own life as little as it deserved, and would troop to the
gallows as merrily as if the hangman were his partner in a
dance."

"But thus it is, my lord," replied the Scot. "Saladin, to whom
none will deny the credit of a generous and valiant enemy, hath
sent this leech hither with an honourable retinue and guard,
befitting the high estimation in which El Hakim [The Physician]
is held by the Soldan, and with fruits and refreshments for the
King's private chamber, and such message as may pass betwixt
honourable enemies, praying him to be recovered of his fever,
that he may be the fitter to receive a visit from the Soldan,
with his naked scimitar in his hand, and a hundred thousand
cavaliers at his back. Will it please you, who are of the King's
secret council, to cause these camels to be discharged of their
burdens, and some order taken as to the reception of the learned
physician?"

"Wonderful!" said De Vaux, as speaking to himself.--"And who
will vouch for the honour of Saladin, in a case when bad faith
would rid him at once of his most powerful adversary?"

"I myself," replied Sir Kenneth, "will be his guarantee, with
honour, life, and fortune."

"Strange!" again ejaculated De Vaux; "the North vouches for the
South--the Scot for the Turk! May I crave of you, Sir Knight,
how you became concerned in this affair?"

"I have been absent on a pilgrimage, in the course of which,"
replied Sir Kenneth "I had a message to discharge towards the
holy hermit of Engaddi."

"May I not be entrusted with it, Sir Kenneth, and with the answer
of the holy man?"

"It may not be, my lord," answered the Scot.

"I am of the secret council of England," said the Englishman
haughtily.

"To which land I owe no allegiance," said Kenneth. "Though I
have voluntarily followed in this war the personal fortunes of
England's sovereign, I was dispatched by the General Council of
the kings, princes, and supreme leaders of the army of the
Blessed Cross, and to them only I render my errand."

"Ha! sayest thou?" said the proud Baron de Vaux. "But know,
messenger of the kings and princes as thou mayest be, no leech
shall approach the sick-bed of Richard of England without the
consent of him of Gilsland; and they will come on evil errand who
dare to intrude themselves against it."

He was turning loftily away, when the Scot, placing himself
closer, and more opposite to him, asked, in a calm voice, yet not
without expressing his share of pride, whether the Lord of
Gilsland esteemed him a gentleman and a good knight.

"All Scots are ennobled by their birthright," answered Thomas de
Vaux, something ironically; but sensible of his own injustice,
and perceiving that Kenneth's colour rose, he added, "For a good
knight it were sin to doubt you, in one at least who has seen you
well and bravely discharge your devoir."

"Well, then," said the Scottish knight, satisfied with the
frankness of the last admission, "and let me swear to you, Thomas
of Gilsland, that, as I am true Scottish man, which I hold a
privilege equal to my ancient gentry, and as sure as I am a
belted knight, and come hither to acquire LOS [Los--laus, praise,
or renown] and fame in this mortal life, and forgiveness of my
sins in that which is to come--so truly, and by the blessed Cross
which I wear, do I protest unto you that I desire but the safety
of Richard Coeur de Lion, in recommending the ministry of this
Moslem physician."

The Englishman was struck with the solemnity of the obtestation,
and answered with more cordiality than he had yet exhibited,
"Tell me, Sir Knight of the Leopard, granting (which I do not
doubt) that thou art thyself satisfied in this matter, shall I do
well, in a land where the art of poisoning is as general as that
of cooking, to bring this unknown physician to practise with his
drugs on a health so valuable to Christendom?"

"My lord," replied the Scot, "thus only can I reply--that my
squire, the only one of my retinue whom war and disease had left
in attendance on me, has been of late suffering dangerously under
this same fever, which, in valiant King Richard, has disabled the
principal limb of our holy enterprise. This leech, this El
Hakim, hath ministered remedies to him not two hours since, and
already he hath fallen into a refreshing sleep. That he can cure
the disorder, which has proved so fatal, I nothing doubt; that he
hath the purpose to do it is, I think, warranted by his mission
from the royal Soldan, who is true-hearted and loyal, so far as a
blinded infidel may be called so; and for his eventual success,
the certainty of reward in case of succeeding, and punishment in
case of voluntary failure, may be a sufficient guarantee."

The Englishman listened with downcast looks, as one who doubted,
yet was not unwilling to receive conviction. At length he looked
up and said, "May I see your sick squire, fair sir?"

The Scottish knight hesitated and coloured, yet answered at last,
"Willingly, my Lord of Gilsland. But you must remember, when you
see my poor quarter, that the nobles and knights of Scotland feed
not so high, sleep not so soft, and care not for the magnificence
of lodgment which is Proper to their southern neighbours. I am
POORLY lodged, my Lord of Gilsland," he added, with a haughty
emphasis on the word, while, with some unwillingness, he led the
way to his temporary place of abode.

Whatever were the prejudices of De Vaux against the nation of his
new acquaintance, and though we undertake not to deny that some
of these were excited by its proverbial poverty, he had too much
nobleness of disposition to enjoy the mortification of a brave
individual thus compelled to make known wants which his pride
would gladly have concealed.

"Shame to the soldier of the Cross," he said, "who thinks of
worldly splendour, or of luxurious accommodation, when pressing
forward to the conquest of the Holy City. Fare as hard as we
may, we shall yet be better than the host of martyrs and of
saints, who, having trod these scenes before us, now hold golden
lamps and evergreen palms."

This was the most metaphorical speech which Thomas of Gilsland
was ever known to utter, the rather, perhaps (as will sometimes
happen), that it did not entirely express his own sentiments,
being somewhat a lover of good cheer and splendid accommodation.
By this time they reached the place of the camp where the Knight
of the Leopard had assumed his abode.

Appearances here did indeed promise no breach of the laws of
mortification, to which the Crusaders, according to the opinion
expressed by him of Gilsland, ought to subject themselves. A
space of ground, large enough to accommodate perhaps thirty
tents, according to the Crusaders' rules of castrametation, was
partly vacant--because, in ostentation, the knight had demanded
ground to the extent of his original retinue--partly occupied by
a few miserable huts, hastily constructed of boughs, and covered
with palm-leaves. These habitations seemed entirely deserted,
and several of them were ruinous. The central hut, which
represented the pavilion of the leader, was distinguished by his
swallow-tailed pennon, placed on the point of a spear, from which
its long folds dropped motionless to the ground, as if sickening
under the scorching rays of the Asiatic sun. But no pages or
squires--not even a solitary warder--was placed by the emblem of
feudal power and knightly degree. If its reputation defended it
not from insult, it had no other guard.

Sir Kenneth cast a melancholy look around him, but suppessing his
feelings, entered the hut, making a sign to the Baron of Gilsland
to follow. He also cast around a glance of examination, which
implied pity not altogether unmingled with contempt, to which,
perhaps, it is as nearly akin as it is said to be to love. He
then stooped his lofty crest, and entered a lowly hut, which his
bulky form seemed almost entirely to fill.

The interior of the hut was chiefly occupied by two beds. One
was empty, but composed of collected leaves, and spread with an
antelope's hide. It seemed, from the articles of armour laid
beside it, and from a crucifix of silver, carefully and
reverentially disposed at the head, to be the couch of the knight
himself. The other contained the invalid, of whom Sir Kenneth
had spoken, a strong-built and harsh-featured man, past, as his
looks betokened, the middle age of life. His couch was trimmed
more softly than his master's, and it was plain that the more
courtly garments of the latter, the loose robe in which the
knights showed themselves on pacific occasions, and the other
little spare articles of dress and adornment, had been applied by
Sir Kenneth to the accommodation of his sick domestic. In an
outward part of the hut, which yet was within the range of the
English baron's eye, a boy, rudely attired with buskins of deer's
hide, a blue cap or bonnet, and a doublet, whose original finery
was much tarnished, sat on his knees by a chafing-dish filled
with charcoal, cooking upon a plate of iron the cakes of barley-bread, which were then, and still are, a
favourite food with the
Scottish people. Part of an antelope was suspended against one
of the main props of the hut. Nor was it difficult to know how
it had been procured; for a large stag greyhound, nobler in size
and appearance than those even which guarded King Richard's sick-bed, lay eyeing the process of baking
the cake. The sagacious
animal, on their first entrance, uttered a stifled growl, which
sounded from his deep chest like distant thunder. But he saw his
master, and acknowledged his presence by wagging his tail and
couching his head, abstaining from more tumultuous or noisy
greeting, as if his noble instinct had taught him the propriety
of silence in a sick man's chamber.

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