“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.”