Princess Sibylla

Of course, the first to stride in with her head held high was Princess Sibylla.

Like Baldwin, she had inherited Amalric I's blue eyes and their late mother's dark brown hair. Her lovely hair rose and fell with the grace of seaweed in the waves, neatly braided and coiled before being hidden beneath a hennin—a tall, pointed conical hat held in shape with wire.

The princess's hat was covered in white satin matching the long-sleeved underdress beneath it, with layers of fine gauze hanging from its tip. When she moved, they drifted around her like clouds or feathers.

Her eyes were blue, certainly, but they were unlike Amalric I's. The king's gray-blue eyes were cold as steel, and they were unlike Baldwin's as well, whose eyes were as pure as a lake untouched by dust. Her blue eyes were like the deepest depths of the sea, a ring of vivid golden cracks surrounding their black pupils, as though bright lava surged from the sea's eye. At a single glance, they could shake one's soul and never be forgotten.

Her skin was like piled snow, like deep, heavy snow without end. That ultimate whiteness lent even the cinnabar-red velvet cloak she wore a touch of stark desolation, giving her a majesty that utterly transcended both sex and age.

Unlike the quiet emptiness around Baldwin, the princess had at least twelve maidservants following her, with attendants and servants behind them. Yet only the four maidservants who enjoyed the princess's greatest trust and possessed the most daring entered the room. They were all young, their makeup exquisite, wearing either hennins or flower crowns and carrying bouquets. Two also had small tambourines hanging at their waists, while another held a lute.

They had long heard Cesar's name, but while he had still been a servant of unknown origins, any unnecessary attention or favor would have stained a noble lady's reputation. Now that the princess had permitted them to see him, they no longer had that concern and could openly look Cesar over to their hearts' content.

The maidservants surrounded the black-haired, green-eyed boy, all smiles and easy expressions. Though they could not touch his face, take his hand, or kiss his lips, they were completely satisfied.

Sibylla and Baldwin watched them with smiling eyes, as though watching a group of kittens circling a newly arrived puppy. Then Sibylla called over a maidservant who might have been only seven or eight, with a round little face and round eyes. "This is Damara," she said. "Damara of the Gerard family. From now on, if you have any trouble, you may come directly to her."

"Is this Damara's knight?" The maidservants' laughter grew louder as they teased Damara, whose cheeks had flushed red.

"He is not a knight yet." Though Damara blushed, she remained calm and spoke with solemn seriousness. "When he cuts off his swallowtail pennon, one of the signs of being raised to knighthood, then he may offer me his loyalty. I would not mind then."

With a trace of shyness, she removed her gloves—small white satin gloves—and handed them to Cesar. "You are not a knight yet, so you cannot wear them on your helmet. But you can keep them over your heart."

Cesar had already learned from Baldwin that in this era, whenever a young man became a knight, he ought to have a beloved; likewise, when a noble lady reached marriageable age, she ought to have a knight willing to remain forever faithful to her. Such love involved neither the body in reality nor marriage. They would marry other people, yet this affection—especially for a knight—was worth defending with one's life.

Though Cesar completely failed to understand this conduct that people regarded as supremely noble and beautiful—he had never imagined that declaring a lady to be the most virtuous, beautiful, and wise meant challenging any dissenter to a duel, the sort in which one side had to surrender as a captive or die.

But Damara was a girl of the Gerard family. Before this, Cesar had known only one person from the Gerard family: the plump Abbot John. Abbot John's care for him was beyond doubt, so after only a moment's thought, he stepped forward and, following the custom of the time, knelt on one knee before Princess Sibylla—because she was Damara's mistress—and said, "Though I am not yet a knight, and this noble lady has not yet come of age, I can promise that if I become a knight in the future, I will come and swear myself to her."

The maidservants cried out in delight. But while Damara's happiness came from the bottom of her heart, the others could not help feeling a faint twinge of bitterness. Even Sibylla could not help saying, "Are you certain, child? An oath is not something to be made in jest!"

"I am certain."

"Very well, very well." Sibylla clapped her hands. "It is settled, then. I will bear witness here. When you become a knight, you must repeat this oath before God and the Cross, before a priest."

Those words seemed to throw open the gates of celebration. Everyone present immediately became jubilant. Damara handed her tambourine to another maidservant, who began to play with the maidservant holding the lute, and everyone happily began to dance.

There was no need, gentlemen, to question whether the space was too cramped. The dances of this time, especially at court, were quite solemn. Men and women both kept their hands at their sides, standing an arm's length apart and turning gracefully around themselves or one another. Their only contact was through their gazes.

If one wished to hold another person's hand, that would be a dance of hell harshly condemned by the Church. So long as there was room for everyone to stand with their arms spread, it was sufficient for dancing.

Before long, servants brought in platter after platter of delicacies, from roasted venison to dried figs, walnuts, almonds, and other nuts. As an attendant, Cesar ought to have stood behind Baldwin, but everyone believed he should sit beside Damara and share food from the same plate with her. "Though you are not a knight yet," Sibylla said, "there is no harm in beginning to learn now."

Though Damara was still a child, she was sweet and lovely just like her name—Damara meant date palm. She was not particularly haughty, and she was very brave. She ate everything Cesar brought to her lips. Sibylla watched them with smiling eyes. "They look very well matched, do they not, Baldwin?"

Baldwin glanced at them, truly unwilling to speak too much against his conscience. Damara was indeed adorable, but Cesar's greatest difference from children his own age lay in his composure and restraint. When he was with Damara, he looked entirely like an older person caring for a toddler, without the slightest trace of romantic feeling. "Perhaps," he said, though he did not object much either.

Sibylla withdrew her gaze, as though she had merely spoken casually, then looked at Baldwin's plate. "Why are you not eating the venison?" she asked. "Today's venison is very tender."

"I am fasting."

"But today is not a fast day."

"I made a vow," Baldwin said.

Sibylla did not press the matter. After the meal, they danced together for a while longer. This time Sibylla and Baldwin danced as well, though Baldwin kept his veil and gloves on throughout.

After that day, it was as though Cesar had suddenly cast off the identity of an invisible man. Like those noble ladies, everyone had clearly known that Baldwin had gained a new attendant long ago, but they had waited until Amalric I brought him before the altar as he would the sons of dukes and counts, and until Princess Sibylla permitted him to one day become the knight of Damara Gerard, her ward. Only then did they awaken as if from a dream and discover that such a handsome attendant existed.

Before this, Cesar's circle had included only Baldwin, clergy such as Heraclius, and the servants in the castle. Now, whenever he stepped outside a room, the servants would bow to him respectfully and call him "Master Attendant."

The tolerance and warmth they had once shown Cesar now passed to the pages and squires of higher rank. Some smiled, some nodded, and though they did not dare invite Cesar to drink and play games with them, they still brought him quite a few toys.

Yes, toys.

It was a surprising thing. Children of this era, regardless of wealth, poverty, rank, or status, rarely received such tender special treatment. They were regarded either as animals or as defective humans. Later generations believed they might not have had a childhood at all.

But human nature could never truly be changed or restrained. Toys appeared in the guise of tools or teaching aids. Cesar's collection now included spinning tops, stilts, bubble pipes, small drums, and dolls whose joints and heads could move.

When Baldwin saw the gifts Cesar had brought back, he eagerly took out the toys he had stored in a chest. When he had thought he would be going to a monastery, he had packed them all away. A prince's toys were indeed a cut above everyone else's. Besides the things already mentioned, Baldwin had small bronze knight figures—men and horses, helmets and swords, all detachable from one another—a pure gold Christ Child with His silk cradle, and a set of Shatranj made from walrus ivory.

Cesar picked up the bronze knights and the pure gold Christ Child only to look at them before setting them down. Baldwin noticed that his gaze had settled on the Shatranj set.

"Can you play?" Baldwin asked. Though playing Shatranj was among the seven arts a knight was required to master—riding, swimming, archery, swordsmanship, hunting, composing poetry, and playing Shatranj—just as most knights would rather wield a heavy two-handed sword than pick up a light quill, they often neglected the last two arts or merely sampled them at the surface.

"I do not know whether the rules in my memories are the same as the ones here." Cesar picked up a piece and spun it between his fingers.

"Let us play a game and talk as we go." Baldwin's interest was piqued, and he set out the pieces with Cesar.

The Shatranj of this era differed from the chess of centuries later in three major ways. First, victory did not come from capturing the king, but from wiping out the other side's entire army, which suited current customs quite well. Second, there was no queen; beside the king stood a vizier, which also accorded with women's present status. Third, not only was the order of play decided by the roll of dice, but the number of moves one could make afterward was also determined by the dice.

At first, unfamiliar with the rules, Cesar lost. Later, Baldwin lost several games through carelessness. In the end, they met blade against blade, evenly matched and impossible to distinguish. Cesar was steady and cautious, thorough in his considerations; even at a disadvantage, he could unexpectedly turn the tide at the final moment. Baldwin's play was sharper and more cutting, aggressive and pressing forward, often venturing into danger, so that he either won overwhelmingly or suffered a crushing defeat.

Without realizing it, the light had completely faded, and Cesar could no longer see the pieces. Only then did they realize it was time for evening prayer. After sunset, doctrine forbade them from eating any more. Baldwin did not care in the least. "A few dates will do."

But Cesar disagreed. "Your body needs sufficient nourishment," he said. "The kitchen has already prepared food for you." This had been one of the requests he had made to Amalric I.

Baldwin could only regretfully put aside the board and go light a candle. "Then I will wait for you. Come back quickly."

When Cesar returned from the kitchen, only a faint remnant of sunset still lingered even over the broad open ground. Several squires rode ponies, holding long wooden poles, circling a quintain by the last of the light. It was something that could be called both a game and training.

A quintain could be regarded as a large weather vane standing upright on the ground. Fixed atop the wooden post was a crossbar that could turn three hundred and sixty degrees. One end of it held a shield, while a sandbag hung from the other.

When someone charged at the shield on horseback and struck it, the crossbar rotated from the force, moving the sandbag at the other end. The sandbag would swing out and slam heavily into him, perfectly reproducing conditions on the battlefield. It was useful for training in the use of the lance and avoiding other people's weapons.

The quintain used by the squires differed slightly from the common design. It was shorter, its sandbags smaller, and its single crossbar had been replaced by two intersecting ones. Seen from above, it resembled an equal-armed cross, with shields and sandbags mounted at equal intervals.

A squire stopped Cesar there.

"I am David of Tripoli," said the squire, poised upon the boundary between childhood and adolescence with an arrogant air. "My father is Count Raymond of Tripoli. I now challenge you. I declare that in Jerusalem, Arabia, and indeed the entire world, there is one and only one lady who is the most beautiful, virtuous, and wise: Princess Sibylla, daughter of the King of Jerusalem. No other lady can compare to her."

Cesar set down the food basket. "Have you sworn yourself to her?" Neither he nor David was a knight; both would have to wait until they were eighteen to twenty before they might be knighted.

"No," David said. "Have you not also failed to swear formally? But that does not hinder our loyalty to ladies."

Cesar looked around. Several knights were watching, yet showed no intention of stopping them. Indeed, people of this time were pleased to see boys display a hunger for honor and victory from an early age, and show no fear of pain or death.

Though he saw no meaning in such behavior, just as he had not forgiven the servants who had attempted to murder him, if he shrank back and refused, he would only be regarded as a cowardly weakling and receive more contempt and bullying. If Amalric I and Baldwin believed they had been deceived, his fate might not be better than Witt's.

"I accept," Cesar said.

David nodded in satisfaction. "Then you may choose the weapons and method." He was following the knights' rules exactly.

"God has already chosen for us." Cesar pointed to the quintain beside them. "We will take turns striking the shield with wooden poles. Whoever is hit by the sandbag first loses."

"What if neither of us is hit?"

"Then we continue until the sun has completely set and it grows too dark for us to see the shield. Whoever strikes the shield the most times wins."

"That sounds quite fair, but the knights say you are not skilled at fighting on horseback."

"That was before," Cesar said. "I have a good teacher." After martial training resumed, Baldwin had discovered that Cesar could ride but was not skilled at wielding weapons from horseback, so he had become Cesar's second teacher, training him while reviewing his own skills.

Before he fell ill, Baldwin's martial instructor had been Count Raymond of Tripoli. His patron saint was the valiant Joshua, and on the battlefield he was like the warrior who had aided and succeeded the holy Moses as leader of the Isaacites: utterly loyal to Amalric I and invincible wherever he went.

With such a martial instructor, even at only nine years old, Baldwin had mastered more techniques than other children. In this respect, he held nothing back from Cesar. Cesar's words softened David's expression further. "Then it is not merely fair in appearance now." He turned to his companions. "Who is willing to lend him a horse?"