Via Crucis: A Romance of the Second CrusadeCrawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion)
General
Via Crucis: A Romance of the Second Crusade
Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion)
Crusades -- Second, 1147-1149 -- Fiction
For Arnold de Curboil's servants had been all Greeks, and when they had
learned that their master had been killed in the night, they had bolted
and barred the house, and had bound Beatrix and her Norman tirewoman
hand and foot and gagged their mouths with cloths, in order that they
might carry off the rich plunder, but at first they had not meant to
kill the women. Only when they were just about to slip away, one at a
time, so as to escape notice, they held a council, and the most of them
said that it would be better to throw the women into the well, lest
either of them should help the other, and getting loose, escape from
the house and cause a pursuit. So they threw the Norman woman down
first, and when they saw that she sank the third time, being drowned,
they threw Beatrix after her. But the well was not so deep as they had
thought, and was narrow, so that Beatrix had kept her head above the
water a long time, her feet just touching the body of her drowned
servant. And in this way the faithful woman had saved her mistress
after she was dead. When this was known, they took her from the well
and bore her to burial without the city, while Beatrix was asleep.
That night Gilbert and Dunstan lay on their cloaks within the
half-broken door of the house, which could not be bolted, for they were
tired, having watched by the Sepulchre all the night before that; and
little Alric kept watch in the courtyard, walking up and down lest he
should sleep, for the Syrian wine might have made him drowsy, and he
had the whole bottle to himself. But he drank slowly and thoughtfully,
and when he felt that his head was not clear, he let the wine alone,
and walked up and down a long time talking to himself and warning
himself to keep sober. This being accomplished, he swallowed another
draught, wisely sipping it by half mouthfuls, and then walked again;
and so all night, and in the dawn he was as fresh and rosy and sober as
ever, but the big leathern bottle lay quite flat and disconsolate on
the pavement; for he came of the old English archers, who were good men
at a bowl, and steady on their legs.
In the morning Gilbert awoke and sat up, on the pavement, and as Alric
came near he made a sign that he should not wake Dunstan, but let him
rest. He looked at the sleeper's face, and thought how much this
servant of his had suffered, being quite half as gentle by birth as he
himself; and he remembered how the man had fought ever bravely, and had
shed his blood, and had never taken gifts of money from his master,
save for great necessity, and had asked for a sword rather than for a
tunic when he had raised the riot to save Beatrix and the Queen in
Nicaea; and Gilbert was ashamed that such a man, who was in truth the
eldest born of a great house, should be a starving servant. So when
Dunstan opened his eyes and started up at seeing his master awake,
Gilbert spoke to him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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