The other was the most beautiful parchment Hugh had ever seen. It was inscribed in vermillion ink, bedight with gilding and the capitals of the Latin letters all enscrolled with gold.
"To all strangers in all lands," it read. "Be it known that the Most Sacred, Holy and Christian Sovereign, Alexius, Emperor of Rome, Lord of Constantinople, Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, Scythia, Hungary, Bithynia, Armenia, Anatolia, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Mesopotamia, the Islands of the Sea, Jerusalem and the lands beyond, Augustus, hath commissioned his trusty servant, Andrea Mocenigo, to fare forth from the harbour of the Golden Horn in the Imperial dromon Kyrie Eleison and to sail the seas to the realm of England, there to deliver the Emperor's message to the King who hath succeeded him men called Lion-Heart and to bring back with him the daughter of the Emperor's right trusty servant, the Grand Acolyth of the Empire, Sir Cedric Halcroft, in such state as would be accorded a daughter of the Imperial Court. Christ save us all!"
"Well-spoken, well-spoken," cried Sir Godwin warmly. "His Majesty doth my brother great honour."
"None stands higher in the confidence of the Augustus than the Grand Acolyth," replied Mocenigo, with a low bow to Edith. "And all the Court await with expectation the coming of Sir Cedric's daughter."
Hugh glared at the Emperor's Ambassador, wroth at the flush that tinted Edith's cheek.
"After all, 'tis no more than is fitting for her," he said haughtily. "I have heard you say often, Sir Godwin, that she hath in her veins the blood of King Harold and the Sainted Edmund."
Sir Godwin laughed.
"True, lad, but it ill becomes your Norman blood to prate of our Saxon lineage."
It was Hugh's turn to flush.
"Good blood is good blood," he muttered. "No Norman denies it. How many lords of my race have wooed your womankind?"