Lady Sybil's Choice: A Tale of the CrusadesHolt, Emily Sarah
History
Lady Sybil's Choice: A Tale of the Crusades
Holt, Emily Sarah
Crusades -- Fiction; Historical fiction
We remained at Acre about ten days. Then we set forth, Amaury and I,
the Baron de Montluc and his son Messire Tristan, and several other
knights who were waiting for a company, with our respective trains; and
the Governor of Acre lent us an additional convoy of armed men, to see
us safe to the Holy City.
This was my first experience of tent life; and very strange it felt, and
horribly insecure. I, accustomed to dwell within walls several feet
thick, with portcullis and doors guarded by bolts and bars, in a chamber
opening on an inner court, to have no more than one fold of goats’ hair
canvas between me and the outside world! True, the men-at-arms were
camped outside; but that was no more than a castle garrison: and where
was the castle?
"Margot," said I, "dost thou not feel horribly frightened?"
For of course, she, a villein, would be more accessible to fear than a
noble.
"Oh no, my Damoiselle," she said very quietly. "Is it not in the holy
Psalter that ’the Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear
Him, and delivereth them’? We are as safe as in the Castle of
Lusignan."
It is a very good thing for Marguerite and the maidens that I am here.
Because, of course, the holy angels, who are of high rank, would never
think of taking care of mere villeins. It must mean persons of noble
blood.
We journeyed on southwards slowly, pausing at the holy places—Capernaum,
where Messeigneurs Saint Peter and Saint Andrew dwelt before they
followed our Lord; and where Monseigneur Saint Peter left Madame his
wife, and his daughter, Madame Saint Petronilla, when he became our
Lord’s disciple. Of course, he was obliged to leave them behind, for a
holy apostle could not have a wife. (Marguerite says that man in
sackcloth, who preached at the Cross at Lusignan, said that in the early
ages of the Church, priests and even bishops used to be married men, and
that it would have been better if they had continued to be so. I am
afraid he must be a very wicked person, and one of those heretical
Waldenses.) We also tarried a while at Cæsarea, where our Lord gave the
keys to Monseigneur Saint Peter, and appointed him the first Bishop of
Rome; and Nazareth, where our Lady was born and spent her early life.
Not far from Neapolis,[#] anciently called Sychem, they show the ruins
of a palace, where dwelt King Ahab, who was a very wicked Paynim, and
had a Saracen to his wife. At Neapolis is the well of Monseigneur Saint
Jacob, on which our Lord once sat when He was weary. This was the only
holy place we passed which old Marguerite had the curiosity to go and
see.
[#] Nablous.
"Now, what made thee care more for that than any other?" I asked her.
"Of course it was a holy place, but there was nothing to look at save a
stone well in a valley. Our Lady’s Fountain, at Nazareth, was much
prettier."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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