Heroines of the Crusades

by C. A. Bloss

Since her expedition to Jaffa, Elsiebede had remained in care of her uncle; and Richard was now informed that Saphadin, disappointed in his suit with the lady Joanna, had transferred his affections to the bewitching Gyptianos. The crosses which Cœur de Lion had borne in the crusade had somewhat moderated the imperiousness of his temper, and taught him the policy of a seeming acquiescence in inevitable necessity; and thus though vividly impressed with an anticipation of Berengaria’s frowns, he gracefully acceded to the request of Mestoc, and bestowed the Moorish girl and her swarthy attendant upon his noble friend.

The Soldan had arranged the pavilion of the christian monarch with the utmost magnificence, at the southern extremity of the encampment, while his own sable tent had been pitched opposite on the north. Near the close of a bright Syrian day, as Richard sat listening to the strains with which Blondel beguiled the tedium of the listless hours, his chamberlain entered to announce the emperor. The illustrious Soldan came without the usual attendants of his rank, and Richard surprised and not ill-pleased by this mark of friendly familiarity, received him with the frank cordiality characteristic of his nature. The face of the noble Kurd wore a seriousness that seemed the result of thought rather than the habitual gravity of his nation and religion, and Richard, with instinctive delicacy, dismissed the minstrel, and waited in silent wonder for the communication of his honored guest. But what was his surprise when the gifted Saracen, instead of employing the common Lingua Franca, addressed him easily and fluently in the liquid Provençal. “The Melech Ric,” said he, “wonders to hear his mother-tongue in a foreign land, but not stranger to thee than to me are my words. Forty and three times have the constellations described their circles in the heavens since my lip assayed this language; but thy presence has been to my heart like the beams of the rising sun that causes the statue of Memnon to speak.”

Astonishment prevented reply; but every feature of Cœur de Lion evinced the intensest curiosity. “Know then,” said Saladin, answering the mute interrogation, “that as the warmth of our Eastern clime flushes the grape with a deeper hue than the temperate north, so it earlier awakens and strengthens the passions in the human breast. Hence was it that though but a youth I saw and loved a beautiful daughter of Frangistan. Her eyes—God said to them, Be—and they were, affecting my heart with the potency of wine. Her voice—it made me forget the spirits that stand about the throne of Allah (blessed be his name), and had not the Prophet ordained that she should suddenly be torn from me, I might have become a convert to the faith of the Nazarene.”

“Would to heaven thou hadst!” ejaculated Richard, “for Godfrey of Boulogne could not more worthily fill the throne of Jerusalem.”

Without appearing to note the enthusiasm of Richard, the Saracen slowly unfastened the scarf that bound his caftan, and exhibited the embroidered cross of Aquitaine.

“Thou art a Christian in thy secret heart,” said Richard, starting up at the sight and grasping the hand of the Soldan. “It solves the mystery of thy victories. I knew that no unbaptized Infidel could have so prevailed against the armies of the Lord.”

“Nay,” said the Mussulman, smiling gravely, “think not the prince of the thousand tribes worships a symbol as do the Franks, though for the memory of her whose slender fingers wrought the emblem, I have sometimes spared the lives of those whom our laws hold accursed—but there is no God but one God, and Mohammed is his Prophet.”

Somewhat abashed Richard sat holding the scarf in his hand and murmuring half aloud, “The Provençal tongue; the cross of Aquitaine; a daughter of Frangistan.” Then raising his eyes he said, with a look of painful embarrassment, “Noble Saladin, thy generous interest in the English crusader is sufficiently explained. Destroy not, I pray thee, the gratitude of the son of Eleanor by alluding to the follies of the mother.”

“Nay,” said Saladin, satisfied that he had correctly interpreted the hereditary peculiarities, which his observant eye had detected in Richard, “the name of the beloved is secure from reproach; but my memory still looks upon her as she was, and I would fain teach my imagination to regard her as she is. Dwells she in the trembling tent of age? or has the angel Azrael drawn around her silent couch the curtain of perpetual night?”

“She lives,” returns Richard, proudly, “regent of my noble realm. Thousands receive benefits from her hands, which as thy poet saith, ‘are the keys of the supplies of Providence.’”