G.o.d Wills It!

by William Stearns Davis.

PREFACE

The First Crusade was the sacrifice of France for the sins of the Dark Ages. Alone of all the Crusades it succeeded, despite its surrender of countless lives. No Richard of England, no St. Louis led; its heroes were the n.o.bles and peasants of France and Norman Italy, who endured a thousand perils and hewed their victorious way to Jerusalem. In this Crusade united Feudalism and Papacy won their greatest triumph.

Notwithstanding the self-seeking of a few, the ma.s.s of the Crusaders were true to their profession,--they sought no worldly gain, but to wash out their sins in infidel blood. In this Crusade also the alien civilizations of Christendom and Islam were brought into a dramatic collision which has few historic counterparts.

Except in Scott's "Count Robert of Paris," which deals wholly with the Constantinople episode, I believe the First Crusade has not been interpreted in fiction. Possibly, therefore, the present book may have a slight value, as seeking to tell the story of the greatest event of a great age.

I have sometimes used modern spellings instead of unfamiliar eleventh-century names. The Crusade chronicles often contradict one another, and once or twice I have taken trifling liberties. To Mr. S.

S. Drury and Mr. Charles Hill, University friends who have rendered kind aid on several historical details, I owe many thanks.

W. S. D.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

PROLOGUE

HOW HILDEBRAND GAVE A BATTLE CRY

High noon in Italy. Without, a hot sun, a blue bay, a slow sea-breeze; within, a vaulted chamber, bare stone walls, a few blazoned pennons upon the pillars, here and there pictured tapestries, where one might see many a merry tourney and pa.s.sage-at-arms. Very gentle were the footfalls, though the room was not empty: the whispers were so low that the droning buzz of a bee, which had stolen in at the narrow window, sounded loud as a mill wheel. There were a score of persons in the chamber: tonsured priests in white stoles, and monks in black ca.s.socks; knights in silvered hauberks; a white-robed Moor with the eyes of a falcon and the teeth of a cat; and a young lad, Richard, son of Sir William the castellan, a shy boy of twelve, who sat upon the stone window seat, blinking his great eyes and wondering what it all might mean. No eye rested on the lad: the company had thought only for one object,--a figure that turned wearily on the velvet pillows, half raised itself, sank once more. Then came a thin voice, gentle as a woman's:--

"Abd Rahman, come: feel my wrist, and do not fear to speak the truth."

The Moor at the foot of the bed rose from the rushes whereon he had been squatting; stole noiselessly to the sick man's side. From the arch of the vault above dangled a silver ball. The Moor smote the ball, and with his eye counted the slow vibrations while his hand held the wrist. Even the vagrant bee stopped humming while the sphere swung to and fro for a long minute. Then without a word Abd Rahman crept to a low table where a lamp was heating a silver vial, and on which other vials and spoons were lying. He turned the warm red elixir into a spoon, and brought it to the dying man. There was a rush of color to the pallid cheeks, with a striving to rise from the pillow; but the Moor again held his wrist. Another long silence,--then the question from the bed:--

"Do not hesitate. Is it near the end?"

Abd Rahman salaamed until his turban touched the rushes.

"Sheik Gregorius, all life save Allah's is mortal," said he in mongrel Latin.

At the words, there ran a shiver and sobbing through all the company; the priests were kissing their crucifixes; the monks were on their knees,--and had begun to mutter _Agnus Dei, qui tolles peccata mundi, miserere n.o.bis!_ The sufferer's voice checked them.

"Sweet children, what is this? Sorrow? Tears? Rather should you not rejoice that G.o.d has remembered my long travail, and opens wide the doorway to the dwellings of His rest?" But the answer was renewed sobbing. Only Abd Rahman crouched impa.s.sive. To him death was death, for Nubian slave or lordly Kalif.

"Draw nearer, dear brothers, my children in Christ," came the voice from the bed. "Let me see your faces; my sight grows dim. The end is not far."

So they stood close by, those prelates and knights of the stout Norman fortress city of Salerno, on that five-and-twentieth of May, in the year of grace one thousand and eighty-five. None spoke. Each muttered his own prayer, and looked upon the face of the dying. As they stood, the sun dropped a beam athwart the pillows, and lit up the sick man's face. It was a pale, thin, wasted face, the eyelids half drooping, the eyes now lack-l.u.s.tre, now touched by fretful and feverish fire; the scanty gray hair tonsured, the shaven lips drawn tensely, so wan that the blue veins showed, as they did through the delicate hands at rest on the coverings. Yet the onlookers saw a majesty more than royal in that wan face; for before them lay the "Servant of the Servants of G.o.d." They looked upon Gregory VII, christened Hildebrand, heir of St.

Peter, Vicar of Christ, before whom the imperial successor of Charlemagne and Caesar had knelt as suppliant and va.s.sal. The silence was again waxing long.

"Dear children," said the dying Pope, "have you no word for me before I go?" Whereupon the lordliest prelate of them all, the Archbishop of Salerno, fell on his knees, and cried aloud:--

"Oh, _Sanctissime_! how can we endure when you are reft from us? Shall we not be unshepherded sheep amongst ravening wolves; forsaken to the devices of Satan! Oh, Father, if indeed you are the Vicar of Our Lord, beg that He will spare us this loss; and even now He will lengthen out your days, as G.o.d rewarded the good Hezekiah, and you will be restored to us and to Holy Church!" But there was a weary smile upon Gregory's pale face.

"No, my brother, be not afraid. I go to the visible presence of Our Lord: before His very throne I will commend you all to His mercy."

Then the dim eyes wandered round the room. "Where is Odon? Where is Odon, Bishop of Ostia? Not here?--"

"_Beatissime_" said old Desidarius, Abbot of Monte Casino, "we have sent urgent messages to Capua, bidding him come with speed."

A wistful shadow pa.s.sed across the face of Gregory.

"I pray G.o.d I may give him my blessing before I die."

He coughed violently; another vial of Abd Rahman's elixir quieted him, but even the imperturbable face of the Moor told that the medicine could profit little.

"Let us partake of the body and blood of Our Lord," said Gregory; and the priests brought in a golden chalice and gilded pyx, containing the holy mysteries. They chanted the _Gloria Patri_ with trembling voices; the archbishop knelt at the bedside, proffering the pyx. But at that instant the lad, Richard, as he sat and wondered, saw the Pope's waxen face flush dark; he saw the thin hands crush the coverings into folds, and put by the elements.

"I forget; I am first the Vicar of Christ; second, Hildebrand, the sinner. I have yet one duty before I can stand at G.o.d's judgment seat." The archbishop rose to his feet, and the holy vessel quaked in his hand; for he saw on the brow of Gregory the black clouds, foretelling the stroke of the lightning.

"What is your command, _Sanctissime_?" he faltered.

And the Pope answered, lifting himself unaided:--

"Speak! how has G.o.d dealt with the foes of Holy Church and His Vicegerent? Has He abased Guibert of Ravenna, the Antipope, very Antichrist? Has he humbled Henry, the German, Antichrist's friend?"

The voice was strong now; it thrilled through the vaulted chamber like the roar of the wind that runs herald to the thunders.

And Desidarius answered feebly: "Holy Father, it is written, 'He that is unjust let him be unjust still.' Guibert the Antipope, who blasphemes, calling himself Clement the Third, still lords it in the city of Peter; in Germany Henry the accursed is suffered to prosper for yet a little season."

Whereupon Richard saw a terrible thing. The face of the Pope flushed with an awful fury; he sat upright in the bed, his eyes darting fire, and night on his forehead. Abd Rahman rose to quiet him--one glance thrust the Moor back. None seconded. The Pope was still Pope; his were the keys of heaven and h.e.l.l,--perdition to deny! And now he spoke in harsh command, as if handing down the doom of kingdoms, as indeed he did.

"Hearken, bishops and prelates! I, Gregory, standing at the judgment seat of G.o.d, am yet the Vicar of Christ. Of me it is said, 'Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;' and let my last act on this sinful earth be this--to devote to the devil and his angels the souls of Henry, king of the Germans, who vaunts the name of emperor, and Guibert, whose sin shall be forgiven never, for he is Antichrist."

The pontiff gasped for breath; his voice sounded again.

"Take vellum, and write the formula of the greater excommunication against the two accursed. Make haste: for all the rest of the world I will forgive, but they shall be parched forever. Then let me, like Pope Zacharias, sign the anathema with the very blood of Our Lord.

Haste; for the time grows short."

They obeyed like mute slaves. Richard saw a priest's pen racing over the parchment, and shivered to his young self; for two of the world's highest were being handed over to eternal torment. The Pope still sat.

In his eye flashed a fire born of pa.s.sion pa.s.sing reason.

"Yes," he ran on. "I am the son of the carpenter of Saona, the poor monk at St. Mary of the Aventine. Yet I have been set above kings. At Canossa the prince of this world has knelt at my feet, confessing his imperial majesty lesser than mine. I have made and unmade kings; I have raised up and pulled down; and the holy bride of Christ shall come unblemished to her marriage. The Church--the Church--shall wax forever; and this has been the work of my hands!" The Pope raved,--all knew it,--but who should say him nay? Still he stormed on in his pa.s.sion: "They have driven me to exile, but mine is the victory. I die, but the Church advances to triumph! Kingdoms fall,--the Church is established. The earth pa.s.ses away,--the Church sits down to the marriage supper with the Lamb: for the gates of h.e.l.l shall not prevail against her!"

Gregory saw the priest lift his eyes from the writing-desk.

"Is it written?"

"It is written, Holy Father."

"Bring it to me, and bring the chalice and the pen; for I will sign."

The archbishop brought the vellum and the holy cup, and knelt at the bedside; and others had brought lighted candles, twelve in number, each held by a prelate or priest who stood in semicircle about the bed. Then while they chanted the great psalm of wrath, they heard the bell of the castle tolling,--tolling,--not for the death of the body, but for the more grievous death of the soul. "_In consummatione, in ira consummationis_"--"Consume them, in wrath consume them," swelled the terrible chant.