So Godwin read:

"In the Name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate! I,
Salah-ed-din, Yusuf ibn Ayoub, Commander of the Faithful, cause
these words to be written, and seal them with my own hand, to the
Frankish lord, Sir Andrew D'Arcy, husband of my sister by another
mother, Sitt Zobeide, the beautiful and faithless, on whom Allah
has taken vengeance for her sin. Or if he be dead also, then to
his daughter and hers, my niece, and by blood a princess of Syria
and Egypt, who among the English is named the lady Rose of the
World.

"You, Sir Andrew, will remember how, many years ago, what we were
friends, you, by an evil chance, became acquainted with my sister
Zobeide, while you were a prisoner and sick in my father's house.
How, too, Satan put it into her heart to listen to your words of
love, so that she became a Cross-worshipper, and was married to
you after the Frankish custom, and fled with you to England. You
will remember also, although at the time we could not recapture
her from your vessel, how I sent a messenger to you, saying that
soon or late I would yet tear her from your arms and deal with
her as we deal with faithless women. But within six years of that
time sure news reached me that Allah had taken her, therefore I
mourned for my sister and her fate awhile, and forgot her and
you.

"Know that a certain knight named Lozelle, who dwelt in the part
of England where you have your castle, has told me that Zobeide
left a daughter, who is very beautiful. Now my heart, which loved
her mother, goes out towards this niece whom I have never seen,
for although she is your child and a Cross-worshipper at
least--save in the matter of her mother's theft--you were a brave
and noble knight, of good blood, as, indeed, I remember your
brother was also, he who fell in the fight at Harenc.

"Learn now that, having by the will of Allah come to great estate
here at Damascus and throughout the East, I desire to lift your
daughter up to be a princess of my house. Therefore I invite her
to journey to Damascus, and you with her, if you live. Moreover,
lest you should fear some trap, on behalf of myself, my
successors and councillors, I promise in the Name of God, and by
the word of Salah-ed-din, which never yet was broken, that
although I trust the merciful God may change her heart so that
she enters it of her own will, I will not force her to accept the
Faith or to bind herself in any marriage which she does not
desire. N