“What!” she cried. “You, the patriarch of this sacred city, would tear me from the sanctuary of its holiest altar? Oh! then, indeed shall the curse fall upon it and you. Hence, they say, our sweet Lord was haled to sacrifice by the command of an unjust judge, and thereafter Jerusalem was taken by the sword. Must I too be dragged from the spot that His feet have hallowed, and even in these weeds”—and she pointed to her white robe—“thrown as an offering to your foes, who mayhap will bid me choose between death and the Koran? If so, I say assuredly that offering will be made in vain, and assuredly your streets shall run red with the blood of those who tore me from my sanctuary.”
Now they consulted together, some taking one side and some the other, but the most of them declared that she must be given up to Saladin.
“Come of your own will, I pray you,” said the patriarch, “since we would not take you by force.”
“By force only will you take me,” answered Rosamund.
Then the abbess spoke.
“Sirs, will you commit so great a crime? Then I tell you that it cannot go without its punishment. With this lady I say”—and she drew up her tall shape—“that it shall be paid for in your blood, and mayhap in the blood of all of us. Remember my words when the Saracens have won the city, and are putting its children to the sword.”
“I absolve you from the sin,” shouted the patriarch, “if sin it is.”
“Absolve yourself,” broke in Wulf sternly, “and know this. I am but one man, but I have some strength and skill. If you seek but to lay a hand upon the novice Rosamund to hale her away to be slain by Saladin, as he has sworn that he would do should she dare to fly from him, before I die there are those among you who have looked the last upon the light.”
Then, standing there before the altar rails, he lifted his great blade and settled the skull-blazoned shield upon his arm.
Now the patriarch raved and stormed, and one among them cried that they would fetch bows and shoot Wulf down from a distance.