Welcomed by the inmates of the seraglio, the royal ladies were conducted to baths, where all sense of fatigue was lost in the plastic embrace of the fragrant waters; after which reclining upon couches they enjoyed delicious repose, while their dark-eyed attendants plaited their hair according to the eastern fashion, and apparelled them with the flowing and graceful drapery of the Egyptian court. Thence they were ushered into a refectory, where seated upon divans, they regaled themselves with a simple collation of cakes and fruits, inhaling the balmy air redolent with accumulated sweets, gathered from the fragrant gardens that bordered the Nile. From the banquet room they passed to an apartment magnificently adorned with all the appliances of Oriental luxury. Lofty windows admitted the light, which, shaded by curtains of varied colors, was tempered to a soft radiance that filled the apartment with an indefinable bloom. Suddenly the silken partitions inwoven with pearls and gold in the midst of the hall, were drawn aside, and Elsiebede, descending from a canopied throne, and resigning the stately dignity of the queen, greeted her European guests with the gracious familiarity that she had learned in the household of Richard Cœur de Lion. Reclining upon cushions that offered rest and inspired a soft languor, they listened to her sweet assurances of favor uttered in the welcome language of Frangistan, or watched the airy motions of sportive girls, who keeping time to the tinkling ornaments that decorated their delicate limbs, sported before them in the joyous evolutions of the dance. The unaffected grace of the little Violante, who joined the performers, gave infinite delight to the almé or learned women, who accompanied by the Syrian lute, sang verses in compliment to the distinguished guests.
Upon the evacuation of Egypt by the Christians, the volunteers returned to Europe, and the Barons of Syria and the military orders retired to Acre. The hostages being now at liberty, the king set off for Palestine, leaving his wife and child to travel by the imperial caravan, under the safe conduct of the Sultana. He found his kingdom in a distracted state. The Templars were in effect the lords of Palestine, and a cessation of hostilities with the Infidels, was but a signal for the breaking out of animosities between the rival Christians.
Disheartened with the gloomy aspect of things, the disconsolate king sat in his palace at Acre, devising schemes to mend his broken fortunes, each one of which, upon mature consideration, he was forced to abandon as hopeless and impracticable, when the chamberlain entered and presented a letter. The epistle was from Elsiebede, and brought the melancholy intelligence of the death of his beloved Mary, whose remains, preserved in wax, and attended by her own christian maidens, had been brought to Acre under the convoy of the fleet of Melech Camel. With the delicate tenderness of one who had tasted grief, the Sultana dwelt upon the virtues of the deceased queen, and consoled the bereaved husband with assurances that her disease had been treated by the most learned leeches of the royal household, and her last hours been blest with the attendance of a christian priest, and the performance of the rites enjoined by the christian faith. Concerning the orphan, Violante, she continued, “Let the damsel, I pray thee, abide with me, that I may show kindness unto her for her mother’s sake. She shall have the nurture of a princess in the house of the Egyptian, for God hath made her unto me as Moses to the daughter of Pharaoh. The angel of the storm rideth upon the sea, while the winter remaineth, but when the queen of the flowers shall ascend her throne of enamelled foliage, thou mayest require her, and she shall come to thee, by the blessing of Allah (whose name be exalted), and by the blessing also of thy prophet Jesus, in whom thou trustest.”
The burial-ground of Acre was crowded with christian graves. The best and noblest of the brave sons of the West, champions and martyrs of the cross, had there gained worthy sepulture; but it was meet that the Queen of Jerusalem should find her last resting-place among the ancient kings of that time-honored metropolis. By the favor of Cohr-Eddin permission was gained to convey her body thither; mass was said for her soul in the church of the Holy Sepulchre; her grave was made in the valley of Jehoshaphat; and Christian and Saracen stood together in reverent silence, while the Patriarch of Jerusalem committed “Earth to earth, and dust to dust,” to wait the morning of the resurrection.
CHAPTER III.
| “The death of those distinguished by their station, But by their virtue more, awakes the mind To solemn dread, and strikes a saddening awe.” |
When the loss of Damietta and the evacuation of Egypt was known at Rome, Pope Honorius III. reproached the emperor, Frederic II. with being the cause of the signal failure of the christian arms in the East, and threatened him with excommunication if he did not immediately fulfil his vow, by leading his armies against the Infidel. This insolence roused the indignation of the prince, and excited him to hostility. He proceeded to claim the kingdom of the two Sicilies, in right of his mother, Constance, and marching thither, drove out the partisans of the Holy See, established bishops of his own choosing in the vacant benefices, and even threatened to plunder Rome. Honorius discovering that he had involved himself in strife with a powerful enemy, wrote a conciliatory letter to the emperor, saying, “I exhort you, my dear son, to recall to your recollection, that you are the protector of the Roman Church; do not forget what you owe to that good mother, and take pity on her daughter, the church of the East, which extends towards you her arms, like an unfortunate, who has no longer any hope but in you.”
Frederic, too much occupied in his plans for adding Italy to the German Empire, to undertake a distant expedition that afforded so little prospect of an increase of patrimony or glory, was, notwithstanding, willing to avail himself of the popular enthusiasm. He professed his intention to obey the mandate of the holy father, and prepared for the pious work, by causing his son Henry to be crowned King of the Romans, and by adding the imperial to the kingly diadem upon his own head, 1220. It is even probable that the subjugation of Italy, and the assertion of the rights of the temporal against the spiritual power, might have prevented Frederic from ever attempting anything for Palestine, had not the sagacious pontiff found an irresistible ally in the beautiful Violante, Queen of Jerusalem.
Wearied of endeavoring to convert his marital rights to the sovereignty of Jerusalem, into actual and firm dominion, Jean de Brienne listened to the suggestions of the Roman legate, that his claims to the nominal crown might be transferred with the hand of his daughter to some powerful prince of Europe.
Accompanied by the patriarch of Jerusalem, Jean de Brienne sailed for Egypt on his route to Italy. Melech Camel received his guests with a pompous distinction calculated to impress them with the security and prosperity of his government; and Violante, whose sojourn with Elsiebede had been protracted to several years, welcomed her father with the timid reserve consequent upon the harem-like seclusion in which she had been nurtured. Her dress was Oriental, both in richness of material and peculiarity of costume. She returned the king’s embrace gracefully and affectionately, but when the patriarch fixed his admiring eyes upon her, she instantly concealed her blushing countenance behind the folds of her veil, and the prelate observed that though the prayers she repeated in her agitation, were such as the church prescribed, she held in her hand an “Implement of praise,” or Moslem rosary, of thrice three and thirty precious stones, and that she involuntarily mingled with her more orthodox devotions, “Ya Alla khalick, ya Alla kareem.” He would fain have relieved her of the Infidel charm, but the spoiled princess resisted his pious endeavor, and sought refuge from his remonstrances in the female apartments of the palace.