CHAPTER XV

HUGH'S ENEMIES STRIKE AGAIN

The comrades stood once more on the stern-castle of the galley Paradise, and watched the ruined walls of Zara dwindle in the distance. From below came the hoarse "Ha-hee-ho-ha!" of the galeotti as the long oars lifted, feathered and bit the water. In the distance frowned the savage mountains of the Sclavonian coast. All around them the pageantry of the Venetian fleet painted the sea a myriad hues—crimson and purple, Tyrian blue, orange-yellow, green and gold and silver, the colours clashed and blended in one gorgeous sheen of dazzling brilliance out of which leaped an occasional escutcheon or a saintly figure blazoned on a sail.

"Right glad I am to be no longer idle," said Hugh contentedly.

Matteo was silent for a space, his eyes drinking in the wonder of the spectacle.

"I would not have missed this," he answered at last. "No, Hugh, not for anything would I have missed this. Ha, comrade, think on the songs men will sing of what we do."

"Songs?" repeated Hugh. "Belike. But I think more of the mission we take up. Hast not forgot our quest, Matteo?"

The jongleur's hand dropped on Hugh's mail-clad shoulder.

"Nay, you are unjust," he said, with smiling eyes. "I forget not, and I rejoice with you that our course is eastward again. Bethink you, too, it is better to go as we go, with an army of friends, than to enter Byzantium alone, and mayhap dare the anger of the Emperor unaided."

"So I have thought," Hugh acquiesced. "It puts my mind at ease. And yet—" he swept one arm around the compass of the horizon, embracing the hundreds of bobbing ships—"great as is our force, we go against the mightiest lord in the world, if all we hear be true."

"Ay, the struggle will be worth while—and the glory will be all the more for the victors. We ride with the best knights that ever entered lists, but I wish I could be as sure of those who intrigue above our heads as I am of our good lord, Villehardouin."

"How say you?"

Matteo looked over his shoulder. Barring the helmsman at the unwieldy rudder and Ralph beside them, none else occupied the poop.

"Hast watched this rat, Comnenus?" asked the jongleur.

Hugh shook his head. Of a truth, he had steered a course wide of the Cæsar and his daughter.

"Then heed my advice and attend him in future. By Our Lady of Tortosa, Hugh, I have seen that which interested me! He is high in the confidence of the Doge; he sits at meat one night in three with Boniface; he is always by the side of Alexius; never a council is held without his presence. Heart and soul he seems to work in the interest of the Angeloi. And he is the heir of the Comnenoi! Ay, this Emperor Isaac, father of the Young Alexius, whom we go to restore, cast out and slew the last Comnenian Emperor, Andronicus, he who befriended your father. It is a sorry mess, Hugh."

"Mayhap, but he says that he is weary of exile, and he hopes that by aiding the Angeloi they will restore his estates and permit him to end his days in peace."

"So he says!" commented Matteo. "'Tis a tale put out for innocents to mouth. But in Outremer men say: 'Beware the promise of a Greek, for that which he promiseth is the opposite of what he intends.'"

"You are bitter, comrade."

"I am suspicious, an you like: It is as natural for a lion to befriend a lamb as for the Comnenoi to work for the profit of the Angeloi. Depend upon it, the Cæsar hath some plan at the back of his brain which none other knows—save it be his tigerish daughter."

"What make you of your suspicions?" demanded Hugh.

"Nought precise, I grant you; but much food for thought. I believe Comnenus works with the host for his own end, and that it is a different end from the one he trumpets."

"But how can that concern you and me?"

"An he were to become Emperor of Byzantium, even under Dandolo's tutelage, that would concern us, would it not?"

"Ay, but you grow over-subtle for me," laughed Hugh. "I cannot follow this reasoning. Bethink you, Matteo, we go upon a Crusade to establish one Emperor for the sake of the Faith and Christ's Sepulchre, and now, without consultation or counsel, you would set up another. 'Tis treason to the host."

"Treason? Mayhap there will be talk of such before our prows point westward again."

Hugh would have answered him with a friendly gibe, but at that moment Villehardouin and several other knights ascended the ladder-stairs to the poop.

"Ha, Messers," the Marshal greeted them. "We are well quit of that cold Sclavonian land. Now we may look forward to such opportunities as all puissant knights must crave."

"It is said there are pirates in these seas," returned Hugh. "Dost think there is any chance we may happen upon them, Lord Marshal?"

"Nay, I fear we may expect no affair of arms until we enter the realms of the Emperor. By St. Remigius, no pirate that was whole in his wit would think to assail such a foison of ships as we see about us!"

Hugh felt a hand on his arm, and turned to look into the anxious face of Ralph.

"An it please you, Messer Hugh," said the bowman, with an obeisance to the group of lords and knights, "I heard you speak of pirates. But in Zara they told me that the rocks hereabouts are occupied by hordes of harpies and sea-demons in the shape of wondrously beautiful women, who come out to lure ships to destruction and in the night draw men down to their caves under the sea."

An outburst of exclamations greeted this statement, and Villehardouin and his companions crossed themselves hastily.

"I will make note of this," said the Marshal earnestly. "I take it kindly of you, good varlet, that you brought such a danger to my attention. We will have the priests exorcise the demons, and at evening the bulwarks shall be sprinkled with holy water so that they may not climb into our midst. There be many dangers for those who would venture across the world, Messers, but an the Saints aid us we shall outface all the Powers of Darkness."

Despite Ralph's fears, the fleet passed unhindered along the forbidding coasts of the Adriatic and reached in safety the island of Corfu, off the western coast of Greece—or Roumania, as it was called in those days, when it constituted the most western province of the crumbling Empire of the New Rome, inheritor of the traditions, the language, the laws and pretensions, but not the virile power, of the Elder Rome. Here at Corfu the host tarried for three weeks, making such final preparations as were deemed necessary for the great task ahead of them. The delay was unavoidable, but it gave opportunity for a new outburst of dissension amongst the Crusaders.

How it began no man could say. Jealousy played a considerable part; gossip and rumour did the rest. The smaller lords resented the centralisation of authority in the hands of a narrow group of powerful barons. They found sympathisers amongst the considerable numbers of masterless men and the burgher companies. Discontented, uncertain of their leaders' actual intentions, it needed only the whisper of religious outlawry to develop open mutiny in the ranks of this minority.

Men told each other with bated breaths that Pope Innocent had despatched against them the ban of excommunication. All the terrible weapons which the superstition of the Middle Ages placed in the hands of the Church were supposed to hang over the heads of the host. A species of hysteria possessed the camp. Men who feared nothing physical trembled before these spiritual forces. The more ignorant expected that they might be struck by lightning bolts or devastated by plagues or perhaps paralysed in their limbs. Matters went from bad to worse.

One day, several weeks after the arrival at Corfu, the comrades found Villehardouin in his tent, wringing his hands in despair. The pressure was most severe upon him, for he was in fact, if not in title, Marshal of the entire host, as well as of the men of Champagne.

"Now, at last, I am prepared to believe that the Holy Saints and Our Lord Christ Jesus have turned their faces from us," he cried. "Never was such a sorry end to so brave an enterprise!"

"What is it, Lord Marshal?" exclaimed Hugh. "Hath some new uproar arisen?"

"In sore truth, yes. I have but just received word that a group of barons, men I have known since first we wore hauberk, have banded together to secure shipping from Count Walter de Brienne, who holds Brindisi in Apulia, so that they may leave us and return home."

"That is bad news, indeed," conceded Matteo. "Who hath done this?"

"The chief is Ode de Champlitte, a lord of Champagne, of my own country, Messers. Others are James d'Avesnes, Peter d'Amiens, Guy the Castellan of Coucy, Oger de St. Chéron, Guy de Conflans, Odo de Dampierre—I cannot repeat all the names. More than half the host—nigh all the lesser barons—are with them."

"What is to be done?" enquired Hugh.

"We hold a Parliament this day after nones, but what will come of it I do not know. I tell you, Messers, for the first time since I put my hand to this undertaking, I feel that God is not with us. I could despair."

Villehardouin had not exaggerated. The barons met that afternoon in two separate and opposing Parliaments, one determined to continue the expedition, the other firm set in their intention to abandon it and return home, if they could not secure shipping direct to Syria. Negotiations were hopeless. The host had come to the diverging of the ways.

But Boniface of Montferrat, the greatest uncrowned lord in southern Europe, one of the best generals and statesmen of his time—and with the keen brain of Dandolo behind him—was not the man to allow himself to be daunted by any obstacle. He met the situation by taking the line which his opponents did not expect, and as is usual when a leader does the unexpected, he achieved amazing success.

Accompanied by Count Baldwin, Count Louis, Count Hugh, the Marshal of Champagne and the remaining lords and prelates who adhered to him, he rode to the valley outside the camp where the rival Parliament had assembled. And there, in the face of all the chief men of the host, those who opposed him and those who held true to him, he dismounted from his horse and fell on his knees, with hands clasped, before the rebellious barons.

"Ah, lords!" he cried. "Think well what you do! Now are we in evil case, for if you depart from us, like others who departed aforetime, the numbers of the host will be so diminished that we may make no conquests nor do aught for the deliverance of the lands of Outremer. For God's sake, then, dear lords, have compassion upon us and upon yourselves, and suffer yourselves not to be led lightly astray. We must keep covenant with each Other or we shall all be dishonoured."

The tears came to his eyes as he talked. His voice shook with emotion. The barons who supported him echoed his words. They, too, dismounted and knelt on the ground, clasping their hands and weeping.

"You fear that which is not, Messers," the Marquis continued. "Ask any of our churchmen, and they will tell you that the Holy Apostle has forbidden nothing we do or seek to do, since our object has been made clear to him. Those who tell you otherwise wish to break up our enterprise, so that the Crusade may be averted and the friends of Anti-Christ rejoiced."

The ranks of mailed men quivered in response to his appeal. Some had put hands to their sword-hilts when they saw his cavalcade approaching. Many had whispered together, eyeing him askance. But as he spoke on they answered him with shouts of assent. Tears splashed on their hauberks. They wept louder and louder. An ecstasy of passion caught up the assemblage of grim warriors, tore apart their constraint and broke down the barriers of resentment. They protested incoherently that they did not wish to abandon old comrades or to disrupt the host.

"What do you wish, then?" asked Boniface.

Odo de Champlitte stepped forward from his fellows.

"Lord Marquis, we wish only this," he answered: "That you make agreement with us that if we go with you on this venture, you will promise to allow any body of men to depart for the Holy Land at any time, within fifteen days after they have announced their intention so to do, and further, that you, as commander of the host, will provide shipping for them to go in."

"How say you, lords?" said Boniface, turning to his followers. "These terms seem fair and generous to me."

"Right fair!" the lords answered him.

A wave of joy rolled over the host. Men cheered and shouted as never before. The two opposing parties surged together. Lines were broken. Old friends sought each other out and embraced. Dissension was ended, once and for all.

Of those who rejoiced at the happy issue of the trouble none was more sincere than Hugh and Matteo. For a brief period they had feared that they must find some other means of reaching Constantinople; and the day after the reconciliation of the barons they prepared to wait upon Villehardouin, as was their custom, intending to accompany him to the pavilion of Boniface and offer renewed homage and congratulations to the leader of the Crusade.

But they had not yet left their quarters in the Paradise, when the tramp of steel-shod feet resounded on the gangplank, and one of the knights of the Marquis, accompanied by a squad of foot-sergeants, appeared in the doorway of the tiny cabin.

"You will come with me, Messers," he said briefly.

"Gladly, sir knight," answered Hugh. "But what causes the summons?"

"I know not. I am ordered to bring you before the lords in council."

Hugh looked inquiringly at Matteo.

"It passeth my understanding," said the jongleur. "But we had best go swiftly." He turned to the strange knight, "Are we prisoners, Messer?"

"Yes."

Nothing more was said, and the comrades left the ship, swordless and surrounded by the sergeants. They were not bound, and their passage through the camp was unnoticed in the bustle of the morning's occupations. But when they entered the pavilion of Boniface a changed atmosphere confronted them.

On a dais sat the Marquis, with Dandolo on his right and the Young Alexius—scrawny, furtive-eyed—on his left. Comnenus stood behind the chair of Alexius, and the chief barons of the host were ranged on either hand. Every face was stern and threatening, save only Villehardouin's. The Marshal looked worried and perplexed.

The comrades were marched to the foot of the dais, and halted there in the midst of their guards.

"At the request of His Grace the Doge, I have placed the disposition of your case in his hands," said Boniface coldly. "He tells me he hath had some responsibility for your presence here."

"Nay, my fair lord," interposed Villehardouin. "It is no more than truth that I first suggested to these two that they should accompany the Crusade. And they have formed a part of my company since they joined us."

Boniface waved his hand.

"No doubt, Lord Marshal. But the Doge knows whereof he speaks. Let be, I pray you."

Villehardouin stepped back. He had done what he could.

There was an instant's silence. Dandolo sat bolt upright, his eyes staring over the prisoners' heads, a scroll of parchment in his hand. Suddenly he extended the scroll to Hugh.

"What make you of this?" he asked abruptly.

Hugh took the parchment and unrolled it. It was dated at Corfu the day previous and addressed to: "The Most Holy Apostle, Innocent, Pope of Rome, Apostolic Vicar," and it was signed Hugh de Chesby. Its contents purported to be a report of the dissensions in the host and concluded with a recommendation for action by the Pope to divert the Crusade from Constantinople. Hugh read it blankly, scarce comprehending what the situation implied.

"But—but—I know naught of this," he said dazedly.

"It is signed with your name—so the clerks say," answered Dandolo.

"I did not write it."

"You have had clerkly training?"

"Yes, but——"

Dandolo cut him off with a gesture and addressed Villehardouin.

"This young lord has performed clerkly services for you, has he not, Lord Marshal?"

"Yes, Your Grace," replied the Marshal reluctantly.

Dandolo levelled his blind old eyes full upon Hugh's face.

"Once before this I warned you that you were in my power for an indiscretion you had committed," he said, speaking in dry, clipped tones. "Then you heeded my warning. Yet it seems you had not learned your lesson, for now I find you committing such a black treason as might ruin the expedition we are embarked upon. Coming, as it doth, hard on the heels of the clamour but recently stilled, it is so peculiarly villainous that we may not pass it over, even if we would. All that remains for us is to decide how you shall die."

He paused.

"An I have my way," he went on, implacable, thin-lipped, his white features dominating the dim interior of the tent, "you will be hauled under the keel of one of my galleys, you and the miserable wretches who accompanied you."

"With permission, Lord Doge."

It was Matteo who spoke. Hugh was too stunned to make any answer. He was thinking of Edith, of Crowden Wood, of Prior Thomas, of Chesby Castle and the fair English countryside, just turning green under the persuasive breath of spring.

"An it please Your Magnificence," Matteo pursued calmly, "I am not a clerk, and my word will not go far in this matter. But seeing that my head seems to be at stake, with that of my comrade and dear lord, Messer Hugh, I hope you will not take it ill if I say somewhat concerning this charge."

"Speak on," said the Doge curtly.

"Who makes the charge? Who presents the evidence?"

"The scroll was picked up at the entrance of this pavilion by one of the varlets in attendance here."

"Touching that point, Lord Doge, I can say that neither Messer Hugh nor I was present near this pavilion yesterday or during the night just passed."

"True, mayhap," remarked a querulous voice. "But perchance a messenger was despatched with the scroll and dropped it."

Hugh looked up in surprise. The speaker was Comnenus.

Dandolo nodded his head.

"The Cæsar speaks justly," he said. "It might have happened so. Is that all you have to say?"

"Nay, Lord Doge. I have viewed this scroll—" Matteo drew the parchment from Hugh's limp fingers—"and whilst I cannot read it, still I know that 'tis not written as my Lord Hugh writes. Is it not so, Lord Marshal?" he appealed to Villehardouin.

Villehardouin studied the parchment with wrinkled brows.

"Ay," he exclaimed joyfully. "'Tis as Messer Matteo says. Messer Hugh writes in a fair enough hand, but large and round. This is writ small and sharp, so that I can make naught of the letters in it. But mayhap a clerk can testify to better advantage."

Bishop Nevelon of Soissons, the most famous warrior-prelate of the host, came forward and took the parchment.

"Ay," he agreed after a minute's examination, "this is writ in the form used by the clerks of South Europe and the East. It hath a likeness to Greek script, it is so sharp-drawn. But where is a sample of Messer Hugh's writing that we may compare the two?"

"I have a piece with me," said Villehardouin eagerly. "Here. 'Tis notes of a council Messer Hugh writ down for me from my dictation but yestereve."

The Bishop put the two parchments side by side, and instantly he extended them to Boniface.

"There can be no question," he exclaimed. "This lord, as is to be expected, writes in the large, round hand which is practised in England and North Europe. 'Tis impossible he could have composed the other parchment."

Boniface and his attendant barons—none of whom could do more than sign his name—scrutinised the two parchments closely; and all admitted the difference. It was so marked that it was palpable to the most unlettered man. There was no similarity betwixt the two writings whatsoever.

"This clears Messer Hugh of all suspicion," announced Boniface courteously. "How say you, Lord Doge?"

Dandolo had not pretended to examine the parchments, for his faint sight was a defect which it irked him to demonstrate in company.

"It pleases me to hear a unanimous verdict in the young lord's favour," he said readily. "In particular, because I could not comprehend how one of his promise could be guilty of such a crime. Messer Hugh, in common with all these lords, I cry your pardon. It seems that some one who is your enemy hath attempted to befool us. Have you any key to this person?"

"Nay, Lord Doge," answered Hugh, still bewildered by his rapid shifts of fortune. "I cannot say."

"Hast been attacked before?"

"Ay."

"By whom?"

"I know not—that is, I know not beyond question."

"An you accept my counsel, you will not wait to establish your enemy beyond question," remarked Boniface. "I cry your pardon, fair sir, for the inconvenience you have been put to. Guards, release the young lord and his friend. I beg you will sup at my board to-night, Messer Hugh, and drown your memory of this error in my wine."

The Marquis rose as sign that the audience was over, and Villehardouin and other friends pressed close around the comrades. But before they passed out of the pavilion Hugh looked back once over his shoulder. The Young Alexius was resting his dark, shaggy head on the palm of one hand, elbow propped on the arm of the chair. Close by his shoulder leaned Comnenus whispering in his ear. Whether by accident or design, the eyes of both met Hugh's glance, and his spine tingled as though he had received an actual physical shock. Mere boy that he was, Alexius had in his sullen face all the inherent evil that was his heritage from the bloody license which had attended the ill-starred house of the Angeloi.

CHAPTER XVI

THE IMPERIAL CITY

"The city, signori! Behold the city!"

The cry rang from the mastheads of the fleet. Men dropped their shipboard occupations and ran to the rails. Lord and knight, sailor and sergeant, squire and varlet, all heeded the magic words. After months of travel and toil and sorrow and heartache and disappointment, the goal of their efforts was at hand. Constantinople lay before them, a bright blur across the level surface of the Sea of Marmora, where the European and Asiatic coasts approach to form the gorge of the Bosphorus, through which the waters of the Black Sea escape to mingle with the Mediterranean. Majestic and serene on her unrivalled seat, she viewed these newcomers with the calm dignity that had been born of nine centuries of imperial rule.

Since Constantine first traced the boundaries of the destined capital of the Eastern half of the Roman world, in the year 328 A.D., a score of conquerors had dared to assail the mighty walls that had been strengthened and extended by Emperor after Emperor. The barbarian hordes which submerged Europe in the latter days of Roman dominion in the West, when the old Latin civilisation was tottering to its fall—Huns, Avars, Gepidi, Goths, Vandals, Varings, Tartars, Vlachs—and the later half-savage Slavic races, which absorbed the Asiatic flood and with it the lust for conquest—the Russians, the Bulgarians, the Serbs—had stormed against Constantinople time and time again. In the first dawn of Islam's might, when the hardy Arab tribes swept all before them in a mad rush of fanatic faith in victory, Constantinople hurled them back—twice. The rude Western warriors of the first three Crusades viewed with jealous awe the tremendous fortifications which girdled the Imperial City's matchless wealth.

Save only the capitals of the two Moslem Caliphates, Bagdad and Cordova, no cities of the Middle Ages approached it in grandeur, size or riches, and it exceeded these two even as they exceeded such huddled towns as London and Paris. A million people worked and lived within its municipal jurisdiction. All that was precious, all that was worth while in the literature and philosophy of Imperial Rome and Republican Greece, was collected in its libraries and monasteries. The art of Phidias, of Praxiteles and a long line of men not unworthy to call them masters, embellished its streets and palaces. Here only in the tumultuous mediæval world the lofty principles of Roman law were the accepted guide to justice. The cramping hand of the feudal system had not been permitted to thwart trade and commerce. Schools, police, posts, theatres, organised machinery for charitable and benevolent work, the requisites of an established society, were present and in being.

But there was a reverse to this picture of orderly magnificence. Like so many states which had preceded it, like the Elder Rome, whose name and prestige it had inherited, Constantinople was suffering from the decay of age, and this decay was working from the top downwards. With the tightening of the Imperial power and the relaxation of the supervision of the Senate, the way had been made easy for the despot. If an able Emperor assumed the purple buskins, the Empire prospered. If a sot, a degenerate, a fool or a selfish man won the Imperial dignity, the Empire crumbled. For several centuries now Byzantium had been crumbling. An Emperor occasionally arrested the slow deterioration, but the dry rot of over-centralised authority was spreading its contamination with inexorable virulence.

The Empire was dying, slowly but surely. The hammer-blows of the Saracen states on the East were driving in its boundaries in Asia Minor and blotting out the sturdy peasantry, who had been the mainstay of armies that had upheld the traditions of the Roman legions for centuries after the Roman Eagles had given way to the Cross. The line of the northern frontier, fixed by Trajan at the Danube, long since had receded to the Rhodopes, and year by year the vigorous Slav peoples pushed farther and farther into the domains of the Empire. On the shores of the Marmora and in the surrounding country in Europe and Asia Minor there still remained a belt of prosperous towns and farming communities. And no amount of misgovernment and incapacity could take away from Constantinople itself the commercial supremacy which came from its situation at the juncture of the trade routes between Asia and Africa and Europe.

But this Empire, against which was launched the comparatively feeble forces of the Fourth Crusade, was a husk, a sham, a thing of empty pomp, massive and imposing to outward seeming, inwardly a rotten core ready to fall to pieces at the first vigorous push which pierced the exterior covering. It seemed incredible that such could be the case. The knights and soldiers of the host experienced the same dumb awe which gripped the Crusaders of Godfrey de Bouillon and Frederick Barbarossa. As the vast skyline of the city loomed clearer and clearer over the water, their astonishment was changed to fear. For the first time they appreciated the full extent of their undertaking.

"St. Cuthbert be my guardian, Messer Hugh!" gasped Ralph. "But that is no city! It is a whole country by itself!"

"Ay, Ralph, never saw I the like!" assented Hugh. "Venice is but a village compared to this. There must be as many people in it as in all England."

"You say truth, Hugh," said Matteo, beside them. "I doubt if England—ay, or Northern France, holds more souls than you could count in Constantinople and its suburbs."

Their galley was close in-shore, and the panorama of the Marmoran coast unrolled itself before them. For miles back they had passed a succession of well-built towns and villages, the larger ones walled and gated against attack. Interspersed between were villas and palaces, farmsteads and monasteries. Hugh noted that none of the frequent churches had towers such as were common in France and England. Instead there were light, soaring domes, which gave an effect of ease and spaciousness to the smallest structure. People clustered on the shore to watch the fleet pass, but there were no evidences of panic fear. Farmers worked in the fields and fishermen cast their nets. Now and then the sweet chime of church-bells came to their ears, and sometimes they saw religious processions passing along the roads.

"It would seem that they set much store by religion," observed Hugh.

"Sure, Messer Hugh, I thought they were idolaters or somewhat of that like," said Ralph. "They are never Christians, are they?"

Matteo laughed.

"Your view would please the Pope and his Cardinals, I make no doubt, Ralph," he answered. "But I hold it is as needful to be fair in matters of religious controversy as in, let us say, a question of knightly deportment. The Greeks are schismatics, in sooth; yet the practise of their version of Christianity is as the breath of life to them. They like nothing better than a close dispute over some item of the Creed or mayhap the definition of a phrase that will help nobody nearer to Heaven by knowing."

"What is the chief difference between their belief and ours?" asked Hugh.

"Nay, there you would draw me beyond my depth," laughed the jongleur. "Seriously, comrade, as near as I could ever make out, 'tis largely in the question of their worship of pictures—ikons they call them—of the Blessed Virgin and Our Lord and His Saints. And of course, there is the matter of their claim to be independent of the Holy Apostle of Rome."

"Beyond question, they are in gross error," said Hugh seriously. "Let us hope we may succeed in winning them to perceive the light of grace. But when I look at those walls and towers I could doubt that even so puissant a host as ours may ever pass them."

Before Hugh, as he spoke, loomed the White Castle, the immense fortification which linked the land walls of Constantinople with the sea walls fronting the Bosphorus. Above the frowning barriers, crowded with people, showed a mass of towers and pinnacles, stretching away as far as the eye could see. In this end of the city were the poorer quarters, the slums and the haunts of the lowly. Their houses were jammed close together, and off the main thoroughfares the streets were narrow and dark. Yet there were frequent open spaces. Here a church, there a monastery, beyond a nunnery or a tree-bordered cistern fed by aqueducts which were laid under-ground from the distant hills of Thrace. Beyond all these again showed the eastern quarters of the city, perched on their six hills and the valleys between. The seventh hill—for like Imperial Rome, Imperial Constantinople boasted her seven hills—was in the southwestern quarter.

It was impossible for the eye to take in everything, but Hugh saw all that he could. What caught his attention first was the walls, ponderous, girt with hundreds of towers. To the landward they rose tier above tier, three lines of impenetrable bulwarks, fronted by a moat as broad and deep as a river. On the seaward face they were built at the water's edge with ledges of boulders to guard their foundations from the dash of the waves. At intervals, too, the serried array of the seaward towers was broken by the gap of a harbour, protected by a jetty and guarded by fortifications constructed in the sea with the same careful weight as those which owned a firm bed on land.

Hugh had never seen such walls. In France, England and Italy he had seen castles built in the new fashion of splendour combined with strength which men had brought home with them from the Holy Land after contact with the master-masons of the Saracens. But neither in Western Europe nor in Paynimry were there walls like those which encircled Constantinople. They were the outstanding achievement of engineering in mediæval times. For fourteen miles they marched, from forty to more than one hundred feet high, and on the land side presenting a series of defences two hundred feet wide. They were like cliffs, giving an effect of permanence and endurance, monuments of the skill and pertinacity of man. When Hugh saw them they had lasted for nine hundred years, and although he did not know it, they were to last seven hundred years longer.

His wonderment showed in his face.

"By St. James!" he said reverently. "They were men who built thus! How can our puny numbers avail against such barriers?"

"I know not, Hugh," returned Matteo. "An God wills us victory, it may be! But I have seen the walls of Antioch, and I tell you that though men say they could not be built again in our day, they are as nothing to what you see. Constantinople is a virgin city. No enemy hath ever forced her."

"What is that yon?"

Hugh pointed across the houseroofs to a towering structure which dwarfed the nearby buildings. In front of it a slender column of stone soared aloft like an upraised finger, crowned by a brazen statue which must have been more than lifesize to show at that distance.

"That is the Gate of the Forerunner, for so the Greeks call St. John the Baptist. It is an arch so wide and high that a galley such as ours could pass through it with sail spread and oars pulling. Before it is the Column of Constantine, erected to the memory of the great Emperor who founded the city anew. And beyond the Column is the Forum of Arcadius, whereon is the Church of the Forerunner. Look! You may see the dome sparkle in the sun. On the left hand, that enormous building is the Baths of Arcadius. You may not see it from here for the houses but close by the Forum of Arcadius there is a wondrous statue of the Lady Helen of Troy, a demoiselle of the old Greeks about whom they sing a romaunt that is right pleasant to hear. It is a statue older even than the city, they say."

The fleet drew in closer to the walls, keeping just out of range of the military engines that stood ready on every tower and curtain. Sometimes the Greeks who watched the hundreds of ships shook their swords and shouted hoarse challenges, to which the host gave answer in expressions of defiance. For the most part the passage was made in silence. Hugh looked and looked to his heart's content, and so did every man in the fleet who had energy to drag himself to the rail. Even those unfortunates who were sick with scurvy begged their comrades to help them to a view of the marvellous spectacle.

As they passed on, the buildings within the walls became less dense. Open spaces were more numerous. Groves of trees, tall, stately cypresses and cedars, grew about palaces as fair as the visions of a dream. Marble, onyx, jacinth, porphyry, sandstone, granite, picked out with copper, bronze, silver and gold, these buildings gleamed as though they were encrusted with jewels. Fountains played in their gardens, for aqueducts built by many Emperors since the days of Old Rome insured Constantinople a bountiful supply of water, and an elaborate system of stone-walled sewers laid underground furnished ample drainage and guarded the city from the terrible epidemics which at intervals decimated the insanitary cities of the West.

Hugh pointed to building after building, fascinated as a child, and Matteo described them to him. That was the Church of the Theotokos Hodegetria, founded by the Empress Pulcheria, where was treasured the ikon of the Virgin painted by the hand of St. Luke, the palladium of the city, which was brought out in times of crisis to lead the armies and revivify the failing spirits of the citizens. Involuntarily, Hugh bowed his head and crossed himself.

"God send Our Lady has turned against these people," he said devoutly. "Else we may fight in vain."

"An relics will win for them, the Greeks must be invincible," replied Matteo. "It has been said that the reason why their city hath always withstood siege is that the number and sacredness of the relics furnish a Divine aid which transcends the might of men."

The jongleur continued, and pointed out the Church of St. George, with its monastery, a rambling collection of buildings set in the midst of broad grounds; the Atrium of Justinian, a beautiful marble portico on the hill overlooking the Bosphorus and the Marmora, enshrining a porphyry statue of the Emperor's wife, Theodora, which he had erected as a memorial to her and a lounge whence the citizens might view the sunsets and in which they might seek relief from the heat of the sun. Church and palace and bath, one succeeded another.

"But that pile ahead! See, on the summit of the next hill!" cried Hugh. "It is greater than them all!"

"It is, indeed," responded Matteo. "That is the Palace of the Bucoleon, and it is the richest palace in all the world. In plain truth, it is not one palace, but a group of palaces, with pleasure gardens all about them. Moreover, it is in a way a fortress by itself, for it is surrounded by a wall, and if the Emperor wishes, he can shut himself off in it and at need defy the whole city. And besides its several palaces, it hath quarters for soldiers, stables built of marble, chapels and baths. It is a city in itself."

Hugh marvelled, but wonders crowded upon him afresh. In the distance he saw St. Sophia, the Great Church or Cathedral of the city, its high-flung dome poised in air as light as a bubble. Later he was to marvel afresh at this glorious building, the most perfect religious edifice which Christians ever built, already then more than six hundred years old and destined to last like the city's bulwarks through an additional seven hundred years of oppression, neglect and abomination.

"The open space on which it stands," Matteo told him, "is called the Augustaion. This side of it you behold the Palace of the Senate, the building with the tall pillars. Beyond that again is the Palace of the Patriarch, he who is, in a manner of speaking, the Pope of the Greeks. On the southern side that long, flat structure is the Baths of Zeuxippus. It contains pools of water as long as this ship, and in winter it can be heated so that the cold does not penetrate. The great roofless building at the opposite end of the Augustaion from St. Sophia is the Circus, where the Greeks hold their sports and games. All the people of the host might find seats in it, and there would be room for as many more."

"Is there much more of the city than we can see from here?" asked Hugh.

Matteo laughed.

"Hugh," he said, "we have not seen the half of it—nay, not the quarter of it. Look away, and you will not be able to see across the hills to the land walls, for they go inland from the White Castle, where we first viewed them. So far you have passed along but one face of the city. You will barely see the third as we round this point."

Whilst he was speaking the fleet bore out from the shore in order to pass the point of land which projects into the channel of the Bosphorus to protect the entrance of the Golden Horn. On the top of this point, a rugged hill covered with the palaces of patrician families, stood the Column of Claudius Gothicus, its brazen plates, chased in bas-relief, flaming back the rays of the sun, a mute testimonial to the more virile days of the Empire, when subject peoples bowed their necks to the Emperors and Triumphs passed through the Golden Gate and up the colonnaded length of the Mesé to the Augustaion. Round and round the column twisted the story of the battles Claudius had won, the nations he had conquered, the benefits he had showered upon Rome. Never a man who stared up at it from the decks of the fleet far below perceived the ironic message which was flashed from the brazen plates, the message of defiance of an Empire which had ceased to conquer, which had ceased even to be Roman.

Around the point a new view burst upon Hugh. He found himself looking down the close-built shores of the Golden Horn, that matchless natural harbour which had done so much to facilitate the commercial pre-eminence of the city. On either bank at the entrance was planted a squat tower, and between the two was stretched a weighty chain, which blocked the channel to hostile shipping. Beyond the chain Hugh had a brief glimpse of another succession of walls and towers, fronted by wharves packed with shipping. The perspective seemed endless. As far as he could see the city filled the distance, dense, populous, sullenly perturbed. Trails of smoke arose from countless fires and chimneys: a bodyless, indescribable hum echoed over the water; on the walls there was a gleam of arms and armour.

It was not until the fleet had come about and was making for the opposite shore of the Bosphorus that Hugh bethought him of Edith. In his wonder at the marvellous sights spread out before him, he had forgotten for a moment that she was now separated from him only by that narrow current of water and those grim walls that seemed to threaten by their immobility. What was she doing? Had she stood, perchance, in a window of her father's apartment in some wing of the huge Palace of the Bucoleon, watching the fleet pass by? Had her eyes, mayhap, been fixed on the tiny, crawling hull of the Paradise, all unknowing of his presence? Did she still think of him at all? Or had she become immersed in the brilliant life around her to a point which shut out memories of the past?

An ache he had not felt in many a day began to gnaw at Hugh's heart, but his mind was snatched back to the present by the splash of the anchor overside and the shouts of the shipmen. The fleet had come to rest in a cove on the Asiatic bank. Atop of a gentle slope which ascended from the beach stood the Imperial palace of Chalcedon, a resort of the Byzantine Emperors in summer or when they sought relaxation in hunting. In the distance were tilled fields with the corn unshocked.

Hugh turned for one last look across the strait at the outline of Constantinople, dimming in the twilight. The city appeared to grow as the light diminished, casting a monstrous shadow athwart the world.

CHAPTER XVII

HOW HUGH WON KNIGHTHOOD

For nine days the host tarried on the Asiatic shore, collecting stores of food in preparation for undertaking the siege of the city. A mile away on the opposite side of the strait lay the army of the Greeks, five times as numerous, gaily caparisoned, well-drilled, equipped with all the arms and engines of warfare. And behind this army were ten times as many more soldiers, if they were needed. By losses at Zara and the desertion of the malcontents the host had shrunk to some 20,000 fighting men. In Constantinople, alone, there were 200,000 men of arms-bearing age, and the populations of the suburbs, flowing in to take refuge behind the impregnable walls, added considerably to this total. In Adrianople, Messinopolis, Tchorlu, Salonika, Nicea and many another city there were hundreds of thousands more. The Crusaders were as a chip of wood beside an oak-tree in comparison to the Empire they had attacked.

On the tenth day a Parliament was held after mass in the open fields by Scutari. It was attended by every knight and baron, fully armoured and horsed. Boniface, Dandolo and the Young Alexius sat their saddles in the centre of a horse-shoe of steel-clad men and chargers. A forest of lances ringed them round. The words of counsel were punctuated by the clatter of hoofs, the jingling of bits and the clank of shields on hauberks. Fierce-visaged, eager, the knights cried with one voice to be led to the attack. Alexius, sumptuously clad in silks and velvets, seemed ill at ease in such martial surroundings, but Dandolo and Boniface surveyed the glittering ranks with the exultant eyes of leaders who know themselves staunchly served.

"Forward, lords!" shouted the host. "Let the lances be couched! Out swords!"

Pennons and banners fluttered like the beating wings of birds of prey, and a storm of war-cries rose from the ranks. Boniface raised his hand in a sign for silence.

"I wot well what ye seek, Messers," he said. "And it is my hope that every valiant knight and brave sergeant shall have full opportunity to prove his metal. We have now gained such store of food that our wise ally, the magnificent Lord Doge, advises we may pass over the straits and show the enemies of the Lord Alexius here that Our Lady of Heaven fights on our side. To the ships, Messers!"

The host moved in seven battalions in orderly array, as became veteran men-at-arms. The vanward was commanded by Count Baldwin, because among his Flemings there were plenty of archers and crossbowmen. The five divisions of the centre were led by Count Baldwin's brother, Henry; by Count Hugh, by Count Louis, by the Lord Matthew de Montmorency—in this battalion were the men of Champagne; and by Odo de Champlitte. Boniface himself led the rearward, the largest body of all, composed of all those peoples who were not of the north of France.

The Venetian shipmasters directed the embarkation. The knights and squires and mounted sergeants went on board the horse-transports, with their chargers. The footmen boarded the great ships and galleys. And when the last man had been assigned his place, the galleys took the transports and ships in tow and began the passage of the strait. It was a fair summer's day, with a gentle breeze blowing out of the Black Sea, and the sun shone on the armour and weapons, whilst trumpets sounded gaily from sterncastles and the coats-of-arms on shields and surcoats glowed with vivid colour.

Hugh and Matteo were aboard the transport which carried the Marshal of Champagne. They stood with other knights and squires in the hollow waist of the ship, beside their chargers, all saddled and ready to leap into the water the instant the keel struck ground. In front of them the shipmen crouched along the transport's side, waiting to unfasten the great doors, which dropped down and became bridges over which the horses could be led.

In the depths of the hold they could see nothing of the fleet's progress, but as they approached the European shore they heard the trumpets of the Greeks, shrill and challenging, and presently enormous stones, flung by petraries and mangonels, commenced to drop in the water beside them. Cross-bow bolts hissed through the air and struck the transport's hull with a vicious "ts-ss-st!" On the high forecastle the Venetian shipmen laboured at the machinery of a mangonel, which presently answered the missiles of the Greeks. The air was full of arrows and hurtling stones.

"Ha, Messers," said Villehardouin, patting the flank of his charger, "this promiseth to be a joyous enterprise. Steady, there!"

An arrow, shot high, dropped to the planks betwixt the horse's hoofs, and stuck upright, its feathers quivering.

"And do they call that an arrow, Messer Hugh?" demanded Ralph, stooping over it. "St. Cuthbert be my witness, I gave over playing with such toys before I left the village butts."

"Mayhap, Ralph," said Hugh, amidst the general laughter of the knights, "yet even so, it might have caused the death of Beosund or another."

"Nay, Messer Hugh," protested the archer, "no war-horse could come by his death from such a toy. But I will teach them a thing or two, an they will but bide in bowshot of me."

"I will warrant you do," assented Villehardouin. "St. Remi guide your shafts, brave varlet. But what says the shipmaster?"

The Venetian captain leaned over the rail of the sterncastle and shouted down to them:

"Be prepared, lords! We approach the shore. Ho, there, varlets, draw the door-pins."

The galley which had been towing them sheered to one side, casting off the tow-rope, and their keel ran into the soft sand of the beach. The shipmen let the side-doors drop, and the knights and squires led the horses down the inclined bridges which were formed by this manoeuvre. Hugh found himself splashing along in water up to his middle, clutching Beosund's bridle in one hand and his lance in the other. Matteo was beside him and Ralph a pace or two behind, holding his precious bow overhead to protect its string from the water that was boiling under the tumult of men and beasts.

"Form ranks, Messers," ordered Villehardouin, as the transport's company gained the beach. "So! With the lance! St. Remi be our guardian!"

They galloped forward in line with other units of their battalion, but the Greeks would not withstand them. Before they came to the shock the enemy had scattered and retired under shelter of a hail of arrows.

"Hold!" called Villehardouin. "We must not outrun our archers."

"Nay, Lord Marshal, but there is one with you," said Ralph, dismounting from his horse.

The Greeks had halted just out of what they deemed safe bowshot and were occupied in rearranging the dense ranks of their companies. Ralph flicked a blade of grass into the air, marked the drift of the wind, and nocked a shaft.

"The tall knight in the green surcoat, Ralph," suggested Hugh.

"Ay, Messer Hugh. Here is a message for him."

The bowstring hummed, and whilst the company breathed twice nothing happened. Then the green knight fell from his horse. There was a riffle of panic in the Greek ranks, and they retired hastily a considerable distance farther to the rear.

"Well shot," approved Villehardouin. "Here come our foot-sergeants. Now we may prick up these people again."

The seven battalions of the host were duly arrayed in line, archers in front and the main strength of mailed horsemen and footmen bringing up the rear. But the Greeks would not stay to meet the onset. Five times as strong though they were, the enemy retired slowly, pausing only occasionally to harry the Crusaders' advance. The pursuit continued all day, until the host were in sight of the walls and towers of Constantinople on the other side of the Golden Horn, and the camp of the Greeks on the near shore was occupied, including the pavilion of the Emperor Alexius, who had come forth from the city to encourage his troops.

But his presence was of no avail. The Greeks would not close battle, and the Crusaders were exasperated at the illusiveness of the enemy. Whilst their footmen and archers kept the advancing host in play, the knights and men-at-arms of the Greek army were ferried across the Golden Horn to Constantinople or else sought shelter in the fortress of Galata, which guarded the chain barring the entrance to the city's port.

"Truly such people are scarce worthy to bear arms," said Hugh scornfully. "They could have surrounded us on all sides after we left the shore, yet they were afraid to come to blows."

"Be not so sure of that, Hugh," returned Matteo. "I grant you the Greeks are not such hardy men of their hands as our people, but they are very shrewd enemies, and it is their wont to fight more with their heads. According to their rule, they came out against us in order that they might test our strength and valour. When they saw how orderly was our array and how ready we were to give battle, they reasoned that it would be foolish for them to risk fighting in the open, where if they were defeated, they must have heavy losses. Rather, they will wait behind their walls, where they will have us at a great disadvantage."

Dandolo and Boniface had come up with Villehardouin, whilst the jongleur was speaking, and the Doge nodded his head.

"You speak wisely, Messer Matteo," he agreed. "It is as you say. Lords, I acquaint you that we have not yet begun our enterprise."

There was a moment's silence and Hugh and the others within hearing of this declaration experienced a feeling of disappointment.

"What do you suggest now, Lord Doge?" asked Boniface.

"Let the men make camp in front of Galata. They have the tents left by the Greeks. There is naught to be done before night. In the morning we will bring the galleys and the ships to this place, land the machines and assail Galata. For know, lords, that we may do nothing against Constantinople itself until we have possession of the Golden Horn."

A vigilant watch was kept all night; but in the morning the men of the host became interested in the possibilities of loot in the surrounding country, and the guard on Galata was relaxed. Hugh and Matteo were returning from a ride up the shore of the Golden Horn, whence they had studied that aspect of Constantinople, when Ralph met them, flogging his horse along the road.

"Oh, Messers!" cried the archer. "Make haste! The Greeks have come out of Galata, and they are assailing our people right bloodily."

The comrades put spurs to their horses, and galloped to the verge of the open space betwixt the walls of Galata and the Jewry of Stenon and adjoining suburbs. Here the fight raged bitterly, and there was no doubt that the Crusaders were getting the worst of it. James D'Avesnes, who had commanded the gate-guard, was down; his men had been separated into isolated groups, and many of them were in flight.

The Greeks were elated by the easy victory they had won. Instead of pushing on to take the main body of the host by surprise, as they had the gate-guard, they were stopping to slaughter the remnants of the guard. They gave no heed to their flanks or rear. In the meantime, too, groups of Crusaders were coming up continually and gathering behind the comrades in the main street of Stenon. There were belted knights among these reinforcements, but in the heat of the moment none thought to question the leadership which Hugh assumed by instinct.

"This is no time for arrows, Messers," he said curtly. "Nor may we await the coming of more of our friends. Lances and swords! Forward with God!"

"Forward!" they echoed him. "Our Lady of Mercy!" "St. Remi for Champagne!" "St. Nicholas to the rescue!" "Hola, men of Burgundy!" "St. Mark for Venice!" "Hainault! Hainault!"

Matteo, at Hugh's elbow, started to whisper in his ear; but as the jongleur saw Hugh's eye sweep the field, he settled in his saddle with a smile of content.

Hugh couched his lance.

"Follow me, Messers!" he flung over his shoulder.

Like a landslide that mass of armoured men and horses shot down the slope of the hill and smote the unprotected flank of the Greeks, slicing through opposition as a sword slices through a leather doublet. On the farther side of the field they turned and charged back into the melee, emerging finally at the spot where they had first struck. Behind them was a wide swath of dead men and horses.