"Men are talking of a second Crusade," said Arnold, one day, when he and Gilbert had chanced to meet in the garden court of Saint Peter's.
Gilbert was standing with his back against one of the cypress trees, watching the fiery monk with thoughtful eyes.
"They talk of Crusades," said Arnold, stopping to face the young man. "They talk of sending hundreds of thousands of Christian men to die every death under God's sun in Palestine-for what? To save men? To lift up a race? To plant good, that good may grow? They go for none of those things. The sign on their breasts is the cross; the word on their lips is Christ; the thought in their hearts is the thought of all your ruthless race-to take from others and add to your own stores; to take land, wealth, humanity, life, everything that can be taken from conquered man before he is left naked to die."
Gilbert did not smile, for he was wondering whether there were not some truth in the monk's accusation.
"Do you say this because Norman men hold half of your Italy?" he asked gravely. "Have they held it well or ill?"
"Ill," answered Arnold, fixing his eyes sharply on Gilbert's face. "But that is not the matter; some of them have helped me, too. There are good men and bad among Normans, as among Saracens."
"I thank you," said Gilbert, smiling now, in spite of himself.
"The devils also believe and tremble," retorted Arnold, grimly quoting. "The taking of the South proves my words; it is not half my meaning. Men take the cross and give their lives for a name, a tradition, the sacred memories of a holy place. They will not give a week of their lives, a drop of their blood, for their fellow-men, nor for the beliefs that alone can save the world."
"And what are those beliefs?" asked Gilbert.
Arnold paused before he replied, and then as he lifted his face, it was full of light.
"Faith, Hope, Charity," he answered, and then, as his head drooped with a sudden look of hopelessness, he turned away with slow steps toward the great gate.
Gilbert did not change his position as he looked after him rather sadly. The man's perfect simplicity, his eagerness for the most lofty ideals, the spotless purity of his life, commanded Gilbert's most true admiration. And yet to the Norman, Arnold of Brescia was but a dreamer, a visionary, and a madman. Gilbert could listen to him for a while, but then the terrible tension of the friar's thought and speech wearied him. Just now he was almost glad that his companion should depart so suddenly; but as he watched him he saw him stop, as if he had forgotten something, and then turn back, searching for some object in the bosom of his frock.
"I had forgotten what brought me here," said the friar, producing a small roll of parchment tied and bound together with thin leathern laces, and tied again with a string of scarlet silk to which was fastened a heavy leaden seal. "I have here a letter for you."
"A letter!" Gilbert showed a not unnatural surprise. He had never received a letter in his life, and in those days persons of ordinary importance rarely sent or received messages except by word of mouth.
"I went to your lodging," replied the monk, handing Gilbert the parchment. "I guessed that I might find you here, where we have met before."
"I thank you," said Gilbert, turning the roll over in his hands as if hardly knowing what to do. "How came you by this?"
"Last night there arrived messengers from France," answered Arnold, "bringing letters for the Senate and for me, and with them was this, which the messenger said had been delivered into his hand by the Queen of France, who had commanded him to find out the person to whom it was addressed, and had promised him a reward if he should succeed. I therefore told him that I would give it to you."
Gilbert was looking at the seal. The heavy disk of lead through which the silken strings had been drawn was as large as the bottom of a drinking-cup and was stamped with the device of Aquitaine; doubtless the very one used by Duke William, for it bore the figures of Saint George and the Dragon, which Eleanor was afterwards to hand down to English kings to this day. Gilbert tried to pull the silk cord through the lead, but the blow that had struck the die had crushed and jammed them firmly.
"Cut it," suggested the friar, and his ascetic face relaxed in a smile.
Gilbert drew his dagger, which was a serviceable blade, half an ell long, and as broad as a man's three fingers under the straight cross— hilt, and as sharp as a razor on both edges, for Dunstan was a master at whetting. Gilbert cut the string and then the laces, and slipped the seal into his wallet, unrolling the stiff sheet till he found a short writing, some six or eight lines, not covering half the page, and signed, 'Eleanora R.'
But when he had opened the letter he saw that it was not to be read easily. Nevertheless, his eye lighted almost at once upon the name which of all others he should not hare expected to find there, 'Beatrix.' There was no mistaking the letters, and presently he found them once again, and soon after that the sense was clear to him.
'If this reach you,' it said, in moderately fair Latin, 'greeting. I will that you make haste and come again to our castle in Paris, both because you shall at all times be welcome, and more especially now, and quickly, because the noble maiden Beatrix de Curboil is now at this court among my ladies, and is in great hope of seeing you, since she has left her father to be under my protection. Moreover, Bernard, the abbot, is preaching the Cross in Chartres and other places, and is coming here before long, and to Vezelay. Beatrix greets you.'
"Can you tell me where I can find the messenger who brought you this?" asked Gilbert, looking up when he had at last deciphered every word.
But Arnold was gone. The idea that an acquaintance whom he had been endeavouring to convert to republican doctrines should be in correspondence with one of those sovereigns against whom he so bitterly inveighed had finally disgusted him, and he had gone his way, if not in wrath, at least in displeasure. Seeing himself alone, Gilbert shrugged his shoulders indifferently, and began to walk up and down, reading the letter over and over. It was very short, but yet it contained so much information that he found some difficulty in adjusting his thoughts to what was an entirely new situation, and one which no amount of thinking could fully explain. He was far too simple to suppose that Eleanor had called Beatrix to her court solely for the sake of bringing him back to Paris. He therefore imagined the most complicated and absurd reasons for Queen Eleanor's letter.