She had not dreamed that ever again she should taste so dear a joy as came with the sound of this tumultuous response to her appeal; for the hearts of the nobles had warmed to her, and a wave of compunction and loyalty swept the assembly.
As she took her seat upon the throne and gave the signal to open the court, the light in her face was a radiance beautiful to behold.
"Bow down before the Majesty of the Law!" His Grace the Archbishop, solemnly proclaimed, while two priests from Santa Soffia stepped forth from under the arcades, reverently carrying the illuminated MS. of the Evangel which had been the treasure of their monastery from earliest ages; and behind them came others of their brotherhood bearing the quaint, copper casket in which were enshrined those revered Books of the Law known as the "Assizes of Jerusalem," and esteemed among all the codes of the nations for their wisdom and justice.
The ancient volumes which bore this title had long since disappeared, in the destruction of Jerusalem; and tradition, prone to assign to well-known authors of illustrious deeds many good feats accomplished by those who remain nameless, had ascribed the compilation of this early masterpiece of judicial wisdom to Godfrey de Bouillon. It had been sacredly kept in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and guarded by a decree ordaining that it should not be opened except in the presence of certain high officials.
Upon the maxims of this ancient work, faithfully digested in the famous law-schools of Nikosia by their greatest scholars, the present volume of Assizes had been founded; and among those most largely concerned in its authorship was Joan of Iblin—the distinguished ancestor of Dama Margherita.
Dama Margherita had never been present when the volume was opened, for like the famous code which had preceded it, it was hedged about with solemn formalities and might not be unsealed save in the presence of the Sovereign and four barons of the realm; and she leaned eagerly forward as the herald, who parted the crowd before the bearers of the sacred chest reiterated again and again the command:
"Bow down before the Majesty of the Law!"
The little procession proceeded slowly through the intricacies of the throng, all heads bowing as they passed, until they brought it under the dome that was raised over the dias where the thrones were set for the Sovereigns, and where, looking upward, one might read in great golden characters, wrought above the frieze, this admonition from the Book of the Law:
Whoever shall appear in this Court and bear false witness, be he the noblest in the land, he shall lose his head.