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Anna Danuta bent her head and prayed fervently. But when an organ, rare in those times, began to shake the nave with majestic thunderings, filling it with angelic voices, then the princess raised her eyes, and her face expressed, beside devotion and fear, a boundless delight; and one looking at her would take her for some saint, who sees in a marvelous vision, the open heaven.
Therefore he passed the threshold of the gate, bowed low, and then having made the sign of the cross over Anna Danuta and over her court, he said; "Welcome, gracious lady, to the threshold of this poor monastery.
The prior invited Zbyszko to remain and pass the night in the monastery; but he would not, because he wanted to hang in front of the inn an inscription challenging all knights who denied that Panna Danuta Jurandowna was the most beautiful and the most virtuous girl in the kingdom, to a combat on horseback or on foot. It was not proper to hang such a challenge over the gate of the monastery.
The king was seated at the upper end of the table, having near him Wojciech Jastrzembiec, bishop of Krakow, the bishop, although inferior in rank to the other priests wearing mitres, was seated at the right hand of the king because he was the pope's envoy. The two princesses took the next places. Near Anna Danuta, the former archbishop of Gniezno, Jan, was comfortably seated in a large chair.
Finally he went to the low portico, accompanied by Princess Anna Danuta, a few priests and the knights. Zbyszko having perceived him, lifted Danusia again; the old castellan placed his hand on her golden hair, and gravely and benevolently inclined his hoary head. The assembled people understood this sign and shouted so that the walls of the castle were shaken: "May God preserve you!
"Princess Anna Danuta," said one of the townsmen, "she is Kiejstutowna, Janusz Mazowiecki's wife. She was in Krakow two weeks, but she went to Zator to visit Prince Waclaw, and now she is coming back." "Uncle Gamroth," said the other townsman, "let us go to the barn and sleep on the hay; the company is too high for us."
Therefore having heard Zbyszko's question, he frowned, lifted his eyes as if he were trying to recollect, and answered: "Panna Danuta Jurandowna? Where is she from?" "Jurandowna Danuta of Spychow." "I saw all of them, but I cannot remember their names." "She is very young; she plays the lute, and amuses the princess with her singing."
Princess Danuta glanced at Zbyszko's beautiful figure; but further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a monk from the monastery, who having greeted the princess, began to humbly reproach her, because she had not sent a courier with the news that she was coming, and because she had not stopped at the monastery, but in an ordinary inn which was not worthy of her majesty.
And again he touched the courtier and asked in a low voice: "Then she is from your court?" "Her mother came from Litwa with the princess, Anna Danuta, who married her to Count Jurand of Spychow. She was pretty and belonged to a powerful family; the princess liked her better than any of the other young girls and she loved the princess.
Princess Danuta, Macko and Zbyszko had been in Tyniec before; but in the train of attendants there were some courtiers who now saw it for the first time; these greatly admired the magnificent abbey which was surrounded by high walls built over the rocks and precipices, and stood on a lofty mountain now shining in the golden rays of the rising sun.
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