n the wood,
peradventure the beasts might devour him. Then Robert cheerfully
received him behind him on his horse; and as they rode forward, the
leper said to Robert--great baron as he was:--"My hands are so icy
cold, that unless I may cherish them against thy flesh, I cannot keep
myself on horseback." Then Robert granted the leper to put his hands
boldly under his clothing, and comfort his flesh and his members
without any fear; and when yet a third time the leper bespoke his
pity, he put him upon his saddle, and he, sitting behind him, embraced
the leper, and led him to his own chamber and put him into his own
bed, and set him in it with right good care to the end he might
repose; no one of his household perceiving ought thereof. And when the
banquet of supper was spread, having told his wife that he had lodged
the leper in his bed, his wife incontinent went to the chamber to know
if the poor sufferer would sup. The chamber, albeit there were no
perfumes therein, she found as fragrant as if it had been full of
sweet-smelling things, such that neither Robert nor his wife had ever
known so sweet scents, and the leper, whom they had come thither to
seek, they did not find, whereat the husband and the wife marvelled
beyond measure at so great a wonder; but with reverence and with fear,
both one and the other asked God to reveal to them what this might be.
And the following day Christ appeared in a vision to Robert, saying,
that it was Himself that He had revealed to him in the form of a
leper, to make trial of his piety; and He announced to him that by his
wife he should have sons, whereof one should be emperor, the next
king, and the third duke. Encouraged by this promise Robert subdued
the rebels of Apulia and of Sicily, and acquired lordship over all;
and he had five sons: William, who took to wife the daughter of
Alexis, the emperor of the Greeks, and was lord and possessor of his
empire, but died without children (some say that this was the William
which was called Longsword, but many say that this Longsword was not
of the lineage of Robert Guiscard, but of the race of the marquises of
Montferrat); and the second son of Robert Guiscard was Boagdinos
[Boemond], who was at the first duke of Tarentum; the third was Roger,
duke of Apulia, which, after the death of his father, was crowned king
of Sicily by Pope Honorius II.; the fourth son of Robert Guiscard was
Henry, duke of the Normans; the fifth son, Richard Count Cice