"Sir Louis, recollect yourself," she commanded sternly; "let what has slipped you be forgotten. I repeat—depart, or I call my father's servants; and come not again, until your quarrel with Richard Longsword be ended."
"Then, by Christ's wounds, I will have his life!" roared the Provençal with a great oath, and tore out of the room, leaving Mary quaking amid hysteric laughter.
When Manuel Kurkuas heard what had passed, he grew very grave.
"Enemies they have been since first they met here at Monreale," was his comment, "and now I fear they will strike friendship only in heaven, unless," he added dryly, "their sins be such—and they are many—they will perchance meet elsewhere."
So his daughter spent the remainder of the day in no little trepidation and sorrow; for it was no pleasant thing to feel that two gallant gentlemen, for whom she had cared much, were to risk immortal souls, perhaps on her account. About noon the next day, Sylvana came to her gleefully with the whole story.
"Ei, my lady," chattered she, "all Palermo is talking of it, and Bardas has brought me all they say. It is told that this morning Sir Richard went to the Cathedral, and confessed to a priest and received the host; then he set hand on a box of holy relics and swore something secret, but doubtless terrible. A little later, lo! in comes Sir Louis and does the very same. Then right in the porch of the church they came face to face, and Sir Louis broke out with revilings terrible to hear, and finally cried, 'You are not an equal fit to kiss my cheek; "villain" you are, or little better, who should kiss my spurs!' Whereupon Sir Richard gave him a great box on the ear, which nearly knocked him down, crying, 'This is the kiss I give you!' And then and there they would have drawn, but other gentlemen dragged them asunder by main force, and took them to Count Roger, who, when he found he could not compose their quarrel, demanded of each his knightly word that they would remain apart until the great tourney, which will be when the envoys from the Egyptian emperor come. Then the two will meet, and Our Lady guard their lives!"
Mary Kurkuas did not sleep soundly that night. Often as the dreams came to her, they took form of champions in armor, charging, charging, ever charging! And when she awoke, it was with the last words of De Valmont ringing in her ears, "By Christ's wounds, I will have his life!" A long time after all the palace was still, she arose, lit a taper, and knelt before a stiff little Byzantine painting of the Holy Mother that was by her bedside.
"O pure and blessed Lady," she prayed, "have mercy on me! Have mercy on them both! I have sinned in leading them on so madly; they have sinned in loving me so madly! Oh, pity, mercy; have compassion on us all!"
So ran her prayer. After a while she was a little comforted, and fell into troubled sleep.
CHAPTER VIII
HOW IFTIKHAR SPED A VAIN ARROW
News from over the sea,—from Italy! News that set old Sebastian declaiming, and wandering about all day with a mad fire in his eyes and a verse from Isaiah the prophet on his lips. For it was bruited abroad that a wonderful pilgrim had come from the East, Peter of Amiens, once a noble and a warrior, but one who had forsworn the world and gone to the Holy City to expiate his sins. Now he had returned, and stood before Pope Urban with messages from the down-trodden Patriarch of Jerusalem; also with a marvellous tale,—that Christ had appeared in vision to him, and bidden him summon the soldiers of the West to the deliverance of the City of God. And the Holy Father had believed, and given him letters bidding all men hear him and obey. Nor was that all. There was a great council of the Church soon to convene at Plaisance to move all Italy to go against the infidel; and if Italy were too sunken in her civil strifes and unknightly commerce, the Pope had sworn he would appeal to his own people, the French—"bold cavaliers so dear to God."
When Sebastian heard this tale, brought by a Genoese, he was all eagerness to take the next ship for Marseilles with Richard. "It was the acceptable day of the Lord; who was not for Him was against Him: beware lest the laggards endure the reproach of Deborah upon Reuben, that abode by his sheepfold, and Dan, who remained in his ships." But Richard only swelled with desire to see De Valmont prone upon the sands; and Musa smiled in his soft manner, saying, "Have not you Franks broils enough among yourselves, that you must seek Jerusalem?" Whereupon Sebastian had cried, "Ah! Child of the Devil, you seek to pluck away Richard's soul; but every night I wrestle with God in prayer, beseeching God He will sever this unholy friendship. And my faith does not fail!"
Musa gave no answer; silence was the stoutest armor against the churchman.
Presently all thoughts of Italy and France were chased from mind by the coming of the long-awaited embassy from the Egyptian kalif to Palermo. A great and splendid embassy it was, headed by no less a person than Hisham, son of Afdhal, vizier to the kalif Abul Kasim. There were long trains of stately Abyssinian eunuchs and negro guardsmen in gay liveries; a mighty glitter of scarlet and purple caftans, jewel-decked turbans, gold-sheathed cimeters, a present of dazzling gems for the Count and the Countess. The echo of the earthquake in France and Italy had been heard in Africa, and the kalif had been anxious to forestall the joining of the redoubtable Sicilian Count to the Crusade by early display of friendship. Then, too, it was told that the kalif had especial love for Count Roger, because in crushing the Sicilian emirs he had only chastised rebels, who had a little earlier cast off their fealty to the Cairo Emperor.
And Count Roger, bound to do his guests full honor, sent out his heralds over the length and breadth of Sicily, proclaiming a grand tournament. Forth went the messengers "crying the tourney," till their mules were dust-covered and their voices cracked. To the remotest Norman castle and Saracen village in the mountains they went, and man and maid made ready their best, and counted the days; for the Count had ordered there should be games and combats for Christian and Moslem alike.
The days sped slowly for Mary Kurkuas. De Valmont and Longsword were bound by pledge to Count Roger not to wait on her till after the tourney. Bitterly Mary reproached herself for her folly. Did not all Palermo know how she had given her glove to De Valmont? And Richard? Why had she held that cup to his lips that night at Cefalu? Mere gratitude? Was not that repaying her preserver with more than friendship? And was she not willing to pay? Such her questions—never answered. Poor little Countess Blanche, Count Roger's daughter, soon to be exiled as given in marriage to the king of Hungary, would have laughed with glee to have two such gallant cavaliers joust with her name on their lips. But Mary's heart told her that it was very wrong. Her father's health failed fast; she was filled with foreboding. Musa and Iftikhar were the only visitors at Monreale now. Musa was ever the same,—gentle, sweet-voiced, courtly, never unduly familiar. Iftikhar at times swelled with a passion that nearly betrayed him; but Mary was too accustomed to ardent lovers to take alarm. Yet at times, to her dismay, she saw he really held that their religion was no barrier between them, and that he would gladly have stood on equality with Richard and De Valmont. One day it befell that the fire in the emir nearly flashed out. He had paid a more than commonly florid compliment, and Mary twitted him.
"But you Moslems in truth cannot care much for women, for all your verses and praise; we are not even granted immortal souls by your law!"
"Oh, believe it not," cried the emir, hotly; "for in Paradise the true believer will rejoice in the company of all the wives of his mortal state!"
"Yes," interposed Musa, with a soft laugh. "He will if he desire them, otherwise not; and there are many husbands and many wives!"
The princess saw the frown that swept over the brow of the emir at this interference.
"Come, my lord," commanded she, pointing to the lute, "you shall sing to me! Sing of love, and mirth, and laughter, for I am in a doleful mood to-day."
But Iftikhar only frowned the more.
"O Brightness of the Heart!" he replied gloomily, "I too am not merry. Were I to sing, it would be Kalif Rahdi's poem, of which the burden runs, 'Man is but the child of woe!' You would not care for such melancholy?"
"Assuredly not," laughed the lady. "Then you shall play the minstrel, Sir Musa. First you shall tell us of those wonderful poets' gardens in your Spain; then you shall sing one of the songs that win the sighs and blushes in the harems of Seville or Granada." And she held out the lute.
Musa obeyed,