Chapter Twenty-Three: Saint Rosamund
>From the day when he saw Saladin Godwin began to grow strong
again, and as his health came back, so he fell to thinking.
Rosamund was lost to him and Masouda was dead, and at times he
wished that he were dead also. What more had he to do with his
life, which had been so full of sorrow, struggle and bloodshed?
Go back to England to live there upon his lands, and wait until
old age and death overtook him? The prospect would have pleased
many, but it did not please Godwin, who felt that his days were
not given to him for this purpose, and that while he lived he
must also labour.
As he sat thinking thus, and was very unhappy, the aged bishop
Egbert, who had nursed him so well, entered his tent, and, noting
his face, asked:
"What ails you, my son?"
"Would you wish to hear?" said Godwin.
"Am I not your confessor, with a right to hear?" answered the
gentle old man. "Show me your trouble."
So Godwin began at the beginning and told it all--how as a lad he
had secretly desired to enter the Church; how the old prior of
the abbey at Stangate counselled him that he was too young to
judge; how then the love of Rosamund had entered into his life
with his manhood, and he had thought no more of religion. He told
him also of the dream that he had dreamed when he lay wounded
after the fight on Death Creek; of the vows which he and Wulf had
vowed at the time of their knighting, and of how by degrees he
had learned that Rosamund's love was not for him. Lastly, he told
him of Masouda, but of her Egbert, who had shriven her, knew
already.
The bishop listened in silence till he had finished. Then he
looked up, saying:
"And now?"
"Now," answered Godwin, "I know not. Yet it seems to me that I
hear the sound of my own feet walking upon cloister stones, and
of my own voice lifted up in prayer before the altar."
"You are still young to talk thus, and though Rosamund be lost to
you and Masouda dead, there are other women in the world," said
Egbert.
Godwin shook his head.
"Not for me, my father."
"Then there are the knightly Orders, in which you might rise
high."
Again he shook his head.
"The Templars and the Hospitallers are crushed. Moreover, I
watched them in Jerusalem and the field, and love them not.
Should they change their ways, or should I be needed to fight
against the Infidel, I can join them by dispensation in days to
come. But counsel me--what shall I do now?"
"Oh! my son," the old bishop said, his face lighting up, "if God
calls you, come to God. I will show you the road."
"Yes, I will come," Godwin answered quietly. "I will come, and,
unless the Cross should once more call me to follow it in war, I
will strive to spend the time that is left to me in His service
and that of men. For I think, my father, that to this end I was
born."
Three days later Godwin was ordained a priest, there in the camp
of Saladin, by the hand of the bishop Egbert, while around his
tent the servants of Mahomet, triumphant at the approaching
downfall of the Cross, shouted that God is great and Mahomet His
only prophet.
Saladin lifted his head and looked at Balian.
"Tell me," he said, "what of the princess of Baalbec, whom you
know as the lady Rosamund D'Arcy? I told you that I would speak
no more with you of the safety of Jerusalem until she was
delivered to me for judgment. Yet I see her not."
"Sultan," answered Balian, "we found this lady in the convent of
the Holy Cross, wearing the robe of a novice of that order. She
had taken the sanctuary there by the altar which we deem so
sacred and inviolable, and refused to come."
Saladin laughed.
"Cannot all your men-at-arms drag one maiden from an altar
stone?--unless, indeed, the great knight Wulf stood before it
with sword aloft," he added.
"So he stood," answered Balian, "but it was not of him that we
thought, though assuredly he would have slain some of us. To do
this thing would have been an awful crime, which we were sure
must bring down the vengeance of our God upon us and upon the
city."
"What of the vengeance of Salah-ed-din?"
"Sore as is our case, Sultan, we still fear God more than
Saladin."
"Ay, Sir Balian, but Salah-ed-din may be a sword in the hand of
God."
"Which sword, Sultan, would have fallen swiftly had we done this
deed."
"I think that it is about to fall," said Saladin, and again was
silent and stroked his beard.
"Listen, now," he said at length. "Let the princess, my niece,
come to me and ask it of my grace, and I think that I will grant
you terms for which, in your plight, you may be thankful."
"Then we must dare the great sin and take her," answered Balian
sadly, "having first slain the knight Wulf, who will not let her
go while he is alive."
"Nay, Sir Balian, for that I should be sorry, nor will I suffer
it, for though a Christian he is a man after my own heart. This
time I said 'Let her come to me,' not 'Let her be brought.' Ay,
come of her own free will, to answer to me for her sin against
me, understanding that I promise her nothing, who in the old days
promised her much, and kept my word. Then she was the princess of
Baalbec, with all the rights belonging to that great rank, to
whom I had sworn that no husband should be forced upon her, nor
any change of faith. Now I take back these oaths, and if she
comes, she comes as an escaped Cross-worshipping slave, to whom I
offer only the choice of Islam or of a shameful death."
"What high-born lady would take such terms?" asked Balian in
dismay. "Rather, I think, would she choose to die by her own hand
than by that of your hangman, since she can never abjure her
faith."
"And thereby doom eighty thousand of her fellow Christians, who
must accompany her to that death," answered Saladin sternly.
"Know, Sir Balian, I swear it before Allah and for the last time,
that if my niece Rosamund does not come, of her own free will,
unforced by any, Jerusalem shall be put to sack."
"Then the fate of the holy city and all its inhabitants hangs
upon the nobleness of a single woman?" stammered Balian.
"Ay, upon the nobleness of a single woman, as my vision told me
it should be. If her spirit is high enough, Jerusalem may yet be
saved. If it be baser than I thought, as well may chance, then
assuredly with her it is doomed. I have no more to say, but my
envoys shall ride with you bearing a letter, which with their own
hands they must present to my niece, the princess of Baalbec.
Then she can return with them to me, or she can bide where she
is, when I shall know that I saw but a Iying vision of peace and
mercy flowing from her hands, and will press on this war to its
bloody end."
Within an hour Balian rode to the city under safe conduct, taking
with him the envoys of Saladin and the letter, which they were
charged to deliver to Rosamund.
It was night, and in their lamp-lit chapel the Virgins of the
Holy Cross upon bended knees chanted the slow and solemn
Miserere. From their hearts they sang, to whom death and
dishonour were so near, praying their Lord and the merciful
Mother of God to have pity, and to spare them and the
inhabitants of the hallowed town where He had dwelt and suffered,
and to lead them safe through the shadow of a fate as awful as
His own. They knew that the end was near, that the walls were
tottering to their fall, that the defenders were exhausted, and
that soon the wild soldiers of Saladin would be surging through
the narrow streets.
Then would come the sack and the slaughter, either by the sword
of the Saracens, or, perchance, if these found time and they were
not forgotten, more mercifully at the hands of Christian men, who
thus would save them from the worst.
Their dirge ended, the abbess rose and addressed them. Her
bearing was still proud, but her voice quavered.
"My daughters in the Lord," she said, "the doom is almost at our
door, and we must brace our hearts to meet it. If the commanders
of the city do what they have promised, they will send some here
to behead us at the last, and so we shall pass happily to glory
and be ever with the Lord. But perchance they will forget us, who
are but a few among eighty thousand souls, of whom some fifty
thousand must thus be killed. Or their arms may grow weary, or
themselves they may fall before ever they reach this house--and
what, my daughters, shall we do then?"
Now some of the nuns clung together and sobbed in their affright,
and some were silent. Only Rosamund drew herself to her full
height, and spoke proudly.
"My Mother," she said, "I am a newcomer among you, but I have
seen the slaughter of Hattin, and I know what befalls Christian
women and children among the unbelievers. Therefore I ask your
leave to say my say."
"Speak," said the abbess.
"This is my counsel," went on Rosamund, "and it is short and
plain. When we know that the Saracens are in the city, let us set
fire to this convent and get us to our knees and so perish."
"Well spoken; it is best," muttered several. But the abbess
answered with a sad smile:
"High counsel indeed, such as might be looked for from high
blood. Yet it may not be taken, since self-slaughter is a deadly
sin."
"I see little difference between it," said Rosamund, "and the
stretching out of our necks to the swords of friends. Yet,
although for others I cannot judge, for myself I do judge who am
bound by no final vows. I tell you that rather than fall into the
hands of the Paynims, I will dare that sin and leave them nothing
but the vile mould which once held the spirit of a woman."
And she laid her hand upon the dagger hilt that was hidden in her
robe.
Then again the abbess spoke.
"To you, daughter, I cannot forbid the deed, but to those who
have fully sworn to obey me I do forbid it, and to them I show
another if a more piteous way of escape from the last shame of
womanhood. Some of us are old and withered, and have naught to
fear but death, but others are still young and fair. To these I
say, when the end is nigh, let them take steel and score face and
bosom and seat themselves here in this chapel, red with their own
blood and made loathsome to the sight of man. Then will the end
come upon them quickly, and they will pass hence unstained to be
the brides of Heaven."
Now a great groan of horror went up from those miserable women,
who already saw themselves seated in stained robes, and hideous
to behold, there in the carved chairs of their choir, awaiting
death by the swords of furious and savage men, as in a day to
come their sisters of the Faith were to await it in the doomed
convent of the Virgins of St. Clare at Acre.*
[* Those who are curious to know the story of the end of those
holy heroines, the Virgins of St. Clare, I think in the year
1291, may read it in my book, "A Winter Pilgrimage," pp. 270 and
271--AUTHOR.]
Yet one by one, except the aged among them, they came up to the
abbess and swore that they would obey her in this as in
everything, while the abbess said that herself she would lead
them down that dreadful road of pain and mutilation. Yes, save
Rosamund, who declared that she would die undisfigured as God had
made her, and two other novices, they swore it one by one, laying
their hands upon the altar.
Then again they got them to their knees and sang the Miserere.
Presently, above their mournful chant, the sound of loud,
insistent knockings echoed down the vaulted roofs. They sprang up
screaming:
"The Saracens are here! Give us knives! Give us knives! "
Rosamund drew the dagger from its sheath.
"Wait awhile," cried the abbess. "These may be friends, not foes.
Sister Ursula, go to the door and seek tidings."
The sister, an aged woman, obeyed with tottering steps, and,
reaching the massive portal, undid the guichet, or lattice, and
asked with a quavering voice:
"Who are you that knock?" while the nuns within held their breath
and strained their ears to catch the answer.
Presently it came, in a woman's silvery tones, that sounded
strangely still and small in the spaces of that tomb-like
church.
"I am the Queen Sybilla, with her ladies."
"And what would you with us, O Queen? The right of sanctuary?"
"Nay; I bring with me some envoys from Saladin, who would have
speech with the lady named Rosamund D'Arcy, who is among you."
Now at these words Rosamund fled to the altar, and stood there,
still holding the naked dagger in her hand.
"Let her not fear," went on the silvery voice, "for no harm shall
come to her against her will. Admit us, holy Abbess, we beseech
you in the name of Christ."
Then the abbess said, "Let us receive the queen with such dignity
as we may." Motioning to the nuns to take their appointed seats.
in the choir she placed herself in the great chair at the head of
them, whilst behind her at the raised altar stood Rosamund, the
bare knife in her hand.
The door was opened, and through it swept a strange procession.
First came the beauteous queen wearing her insignia of royalty,
but with a black veil upon her head. Next followed ladies of her
court--twelve of them-- trembling with fright but splendidly
apparelled, and after these three stern and turbaned Saracens
clad in mail, their jewelled scimitars at their sides. Then
appeared a procession of women, most of them draped in mourning,
and leading scared children by the hand; the wives, sisters, and
widows of nobles, knights and burgesses of Jerusalem. Last of all
marched a hundred or more of captains and warriors, among them
Wulf, headed by Sir Balian and ended by the patriarch Heraclius
in his gorgeous robes, with his attendant priests and acolytes.
On swept the queen, up the length of the long church, and as she
came the abbess and her nuns rose and bowed to her, while one
offered her the chair of state that was set apart to be used by
the bishop in his visitations. But she would have none of it.
"Nay," said the queen, "mock me with no honourable seat who come
here as a humble suppliant, and will make my prayer upon my
knees."
So down she went upon the marble floor, with all her ladies and
the following women, while the solemn Saracens looked at her
wondering and the knights and nobles massed themselves behind.
"What can we give you, O Queen," asked the abbess, "who have
nothing left save our treasure, to which you are most welcome,
our honour, and our lives?"
"Alas!" answered the royal lady. "Alas, that I must say it! I
come to ask the life of one of you."
"Of whom, O Queen?"
Sybilla lifted her head, and with her outstretched arm pointed to
Rosamund, who stood above them all by the high altar.
For a moment Rosamund turned pale, then spoke in a steady voice:
"Say, what service can my poor life be to you, O Queen, and
by whom is it sought?"
Thrice Sybilla strove to answer, and at last murmured:
"I cannot. Let the envoys give her the letter, if she is able to
read their tongue."
"I am able," answered Rosamund, and a Saracen emir drew forth a
roll and laid it against his forehead, then gave it to the
abbess, who brought it to Rosamund. With her dagger blade she cut
its silk, opened it, and read aloud, always in the same quiet
voice, translating as she read:--
"In the name of Allah the One, the All-merciful, to my niece,
aforetime the princess of Baalbec, Rosamund D'Arcy by name, now a
fugitive hidden in a convent of the Franks in the city el-Kuds
Esh-sherif, the holy city of Jerusalem:
"Niece,--All my promises to you I have performed, and more, since
for your sake I spared the lives of your cousins, the twin
knights. But you have repaid me with ingratitude and trickery,
after the manner of those of your false and accursed faith, and
have fled from me. I promised you also, again and yet again, that
if you attempted this thing, death should be your portion. No
longer, therefore, are you the princess of Baalbec, but only an
escaped Christian slave, and as such doomed to die whenever my
sword reaches you.
"Of my vision concerning you, which caused me to bring you to the
East from England, you know well. Repeat it in your heart before
you answer. That vision told me that by your nobleness and
sacrifice you should save the lives of many. I demanded that you
should be brought back to me, and the request was refused--why,
it matters not. Now I understand the reason--that this was so
ordained. I demand no more that force should be used to you. I
demand that you shall come of your own free will, to suffer the
bitter and shameful reward of your sin. Or, if you so desire,
bide where you are of your own free will, and be dealt with as
God shall decree. This hangs upon your judgment. If you come and
ask it of me, I will consider the question of the sparing of
Jerusalem and its inhabitants. If you refuse to come, I will
certainly put every one of them to the sword, save such of the
women and children as may be kept for slaves. Decide, then,
Niece, and quickly, whether you will return with my envoys, or
bide where they find you.--
Yusuf Salah-ed-din
Rosamund finished reading, and the letter fluttered from her hand
down to the marble floor.
Then the queen said:
"Lady, we ask this sacrifice of you in the name of these and all
their fellows," and she pointed to the women and the children
behind her.
"And my life?" mused Rosamund aloud. "It is all I have. When I
have paid it away I shall be beggared," and her eyes wandered to
where the tall shape of Wulf stood by a pillar of the church.
"Perchance Saladin will be merciful," hazarded the queen.
"Why should he be merciful," answered Rosamund, "who has always
warned me that if I escaped from him and was recaptured,
certainly I must die? Nay, he will offer me Islam, or death,
which means--death by the rope-- or in some worse fashion."
"But if you stay here you must die," pleaded the queen, "or at
best fall into the hands of the soldiers. Oh! lady, your life is
but one life, and with it you can buy those of eighty thousand
souls."
"Is that so sure?" asked Rosamund. "The Sultan has made no
promise; he says only that, if I pray it of him, he will consider
the question of the sparing of Jerusalem."
"But--but," went on the queen, "he says also that if you do not
come he will surely put Jerusalem to the sword, and to Sir Balian
he said that if you gave yourself up he thought he might grant
terms which we should be glad to take. Therefore we dare to ask
of you to give your life in payment for such a hope. Think think
what otherwise must be the lot of these"--and again she pointed
to the women and children--"ay, and your own sisterhood and of
all of us. Whereas, if you die, it will be with much honour, and
your name shall be worshipped as a saint and martyr in every
church in Christendom.
"Oh! refuse not our prayer, but show that you indeed are great
enough to step forward to meet the death which comes to every one
of us, and thereby earn the blessings of half the world and make
sure your place in heaven, nigh to Him Who also died for men.
Plead with her, my sisters--plead with her! "
Then the women and the children threw themselves down before her,
and with tears and sobbing prayed her that she would give up her
life for theirs. Rosamund looked at them and smiled, then said in
a clear voice:
"What say you, my cousin and betrothed, Sir Wulf D'Arcy? Come
hither, and, as is fitting in this strait, give me your counsel."
So the grey-eyed, war-worn Wulf strode up the aisle, and,
standing by the altar rails, saluted her.
"You have heard," said Rosamund. "Your counsel. Would you have me
die?"
"Alas!" he answered in a hoarse voice. "It is hard to speak. Yet,
they are many--you are but one."
Now there was a murmur of applause. For it was known that this
knight loved his lady dearly, and that but the other day he had
stood there to defend her to the death against those who would
give her up to Saladin.
Now Rosamund laughed out, and the sweet sound of her laughter was
strange in that solemn place and hour.
"Ah, Wulf!" she said. "Wulf, who must ever speak the truth, even
when it costs him dear. Well, I would not have it otherwise.
Queen, and all you foolish people, I did but try your tempers.
Could you, then, think me so base that I would spare to spend
this poor life of mine, and to forego such few joys as God might
have in store for me on earth, when those of tens of thousands
may hang upon the issue? Nay, nay; it is far otherwise."
Then Rosamund sheathed the dagger that all this while she had
held in her hand, and, lifting the letter from the floor, touched
her brow with it in signal of obedience, saying in Arabic to the
envoys:
"I am the slave of Salah-ed-din, Commander of the Faithful. I am
the small dust beneath his feet. Take notice, Emirs, that in
presence of all here gathered, of my own free will I, Rosamund
D'Arcy, aforetime princess and sovereign lady of Baalbec,
determine to accompany you to the Sultan's camp, there to make
prayer for the sparing of the lives of the citizens of Jerusalem,
and afterwards to suffer the punishment of death in payment of my
flight, according to my royal uncle's high decree. One request I
make only, if he be pleased to grant it--that my body be brought
back to Jerusalem for burial before this altar, where of my own
act I lay down my life. Emirs, I am ready."
Now the envoys bowed before her in grave admiration, and the air
grew thick with blessings. As Rosamund stepped down from the
altar the queen threw her arms about her neck and kissed her,
while lords and knights, women and children, pressed their lips
upon her hands, upon the hem of her white robe, and even on her
feet, calling her "Saint" and "Deliverer."
"Alas!" she answered, waving them back. "As yet I am neither of
these things, though the latter of them I hope to be. Come; let
us be going."
"Ay," echoed Wulf, stepping to her side, "let us be going."
Rosamund started at the words, and all there stared. "Listen,
Queen, Emirs, and People," he went on. "I am this lady's kinsman
and her betrothed knight, sworn to serve her to the end. If she
be guilty of a crime against the Sultan, I am more guilty, and on
me also shall fall his vengeance. Let us be going."
"Wulf, Wulf," she said, "it shall not be. One life is asked--not
both."
"Yet, lady, both shall be given that the measure of atonement may
run over, and Saladin moved to mercy. Nay, forbid me not. I have
lived for you, and for you I die. Yes, if they hold me by force,
still I die, if need be, on my own sword. When I counselled you
just now, I counselled myself also. Surely you never dreamed that
I would suffer you to go alone, when by sharing it I could make
your doom easier."
"Oh, Wulf!" she cried. "You will but make it harder."
"No, no; faced hand in hand, death loses half its terrors.
Moreover, Saladin is my friend, and I also would plead with him
for the people of Jerusalem."
Then he whispered in her ear, "Sweet Rosamund, deny me not, lest
you should drive me to madness and self-murder, who will have no
more of earth without you."
Now, her eyes full of tears and shining with love, Rosamund
murmured back:
"You are too strong for me. Let it befall as God wills."
Nor did the others attempt to stay him any more.
Going to the abbess, Rosamund would have knelt before her, but it
was the abbess who knelt and called her blessed, and kissed her.
The sisters also kissed her one by one in farewell. Then a priest
was brought--not the patriarch, of whom she would have none, but
another, a holy man.
To him apart at the altar, first Rosamund and then Wulf made
confession of their sins, receiving absolution and the sacrament
in that form in which it was given to the dying; while, save the
emirs, all in the church knelt and prayed as for souls that pass.
The solemn ritual was ended. They rose, and, followed by two of
the envoys--for already the third had departed under escort to
the court of Saladin to give him warning--the queen, her ladies
and all the company, walked from the church and through the
convent halls out into the narrow Street of Woe. Here Wulf, as
her kinsman, took Rosamund by the hand, leading her as a man
leads his sister to her bridal. Without it was bright moonlight,
moonlight clear as day, and by now tidings of this strange story
had spread through all Jerusalem, so that its narrow streets were
crowded with spectators, who stood also upon every roof and at
every window.
"The lady Rosamund!" they shouted. "The blessed Rosamund, who
goes t o a martyr's death to save us. The pure Saint Rosamund and
her brave knight Wulf!" And they tore flowers and green leaves
from the gardens and threw them in their path.
Down the long, winding streets, with bent heads and humble mien,
companioned ever by the multitude, through which soldiers
cleared the way, they walked thus, while women held up their
children to touch the robe of Rosamund or to look upon her face.
At length the gate was reached, and while it was unbarred they
halted. Then came forward Sir Balian of Ibelin, bareheaded, and
said:
"Lady, on behalf of the people of Jerusalem and of the whole of
Christendom, I give you honour and thanks, and to you also, Sir
Wulf D'Arcy, the bravest and most faithful of all knights."
A company of priests also, headed by a bishop, advanced chanting
and swinging censers, and blessed them solemnly in the name of
the Church and of Christ its Master.
"Give us not praise and thanks, but prayers," answered Rosamund;
"prayers that we may succeed in our mission, to which we gladly
offer up our lives, and afterwards, when we are dead, prayers for
the welfare of our sinful souls. But should we fail, as it may
chance, then remember of us only that we did our best. Oh! good
people, great sorrows have come upon this land, and the Cross of
Christ is veiled with shame. Yet it shall shine forth once more,
and to it through the ages shall all men bow the knee. Oh! may
you live! May no more death come among you! It is our last
petition, and with it, this--that when at length you die we may
meet again in heaven! Now fare you well."
Then they passed through the gate, and as the envoys declared
that none might accompany them further, walked forward followed
by the sound of the weeping of the multitude towards the camp of
Saladin, two strange and lonesome figures in the moonlight.
At last these lamentations could be heard no more, and there, on
the outskirts of the Moslem lines, an escort met them, and
bearers with a litter.
But into this Rosamund would not enter, so they walked onwards up
the hill, till they came to the great square in the centre of the
camp upon the Mount of Olives, beyond the grey trees of the
Garden of Gethsemane. There, awaiting them at the head of the
square, sat Saladin in state, while all about, rank upon rank, in
thousands and tens of thousands, was gathered his vast army, who
watched them pass in silence.
Thus they came into the presence of the Sultan and knelt before
him, Rosamund in her novice's white robe, and Wulf in his
battered mail.
