hild is he, Anton? Lusty, you say, and well-formed? I would my arms
could have held him.... But I must be about my business of dying. I will
take the news to Philip."

Hope had risen again in the Cluniac's breast. It seemed that here was
a penitent. He approached the bed with a raised crucifix, and stumbled
over the whimpering monkey. The woman's eyes saw him and a last flicker
woke in them.

"Begone, man," she cried. "I have done with the world. Anton, rid me
of both these apes. And fetch the priest of St. Martin's, for I would
confess and be shriven. Yon curate is no doubt a fool, but he serves my
jesting God."

CHAPTER 4. EYES OF YOUTH

On the morning of Shrove Tuesday, in the year of our Lord 1249, Sir
Aimery of Beaumanoir, the envoy of the most Christian king, Louis of
France, arrived in the port of Acre, having made the voyage from Cyprus
with a fair wind in a day and a night in a ship of Genoa flying the red
and gold banner of the Temple. Weary of the palms and sun-baked streets
of Limasol and the eternal wrangling of the Crusading hosts, he looked
with favour at the noble Palestine harbour, and the gilt steeples and
carven houses of the fair city. From the quay he rode to the palace of
the Templars and was admitted straightway to an audience with the Grand
Master. For he had come in a business of some moment.

The taste of Cyprus was still in his mouth; the sweet sticky air of the
coastlands; the smell of endless camps of packed humanity, set among
mountains of barrels and malodorous sprouting forage-stuffs; the narrow
streets lit at night by flares of tarry staves; and over all that
rotting yet acrid flavour which is the token of the East. The young
damoiseau of Beaumanoir had grown very sick of it all since the royal
dromonds first swung into Limasol Bay. He had seen his friends die like
flies of strange maladies, while the host waited on Hugh of Burgundy.
Egypt was but four days off across the waters, and on its sands Louis
had ordained that the War of the Cross should begin.

... But the King seemed strangely supine. Each day the enemy was the
better forewarned, and each day the quarrels of Templar and Hospitaller
grew more envenomed, and yet he sat patiently twiddling his thumbs, as
if all time lay before him and not a man's brief life. And now when at
long last the laggards of Burgundy and the Morea were reported on their
way, Sir Aimery had to turn his thoughts from the honest field of war.
Not