The Invisible Cracks

Amid blooming flowers, gems gleamed.

Whenever Cesar saw Princess Sibylla, he could not help reciting in his heart this verse from a Saracen poet.

Princess Sibylla was always surrounded by maidservants and pages. These maidservants were all nobly born; their fathers were either the king's ministers or vassals with fiefs. That meant they had been pampered and carefree from birth, with delicate skin and slender fingers. And everyone knew that a girl in the first bloom of youth, so long as she was well nourished, was unlikely to be ugly.

What was more, there truly were several especially lovely and charming girls among them.

But no matter how beautiful or gentle they were, as long as Princess Sibylla was present, no one spared them an extra glance.

Just as the verse said, flowers might be beautiful, but how could they compare with the radiance of jewels? Princess Sibylla's beauty transcended the ordinary. Beneath that shell of sharp, rich colors lay an equally fitting inner hardness to support it—Amalric I had once said that his daughter was as stubborn and tenacious as a man. Nor did she conceal her hunger for learning and power, just like her aunts.

Ordinary men felt fear and disgust toward such a woman, but some men were driven to admire and submit to her. Or the opposite—they were stirred by an impulse like that of hunting a wild beast. Abigail led the former, while David was the most conspicuous example of the latter.

These two confused and violent emotions frightened many ladies, but from what Cesar had seen, Sibylla was not alarmed in the least. On the contrary, she delighted in them. She treated the two boys and the forces they represented with caution, while from time to time making the situation even more bewildering.

Sibylla spotted Cesar before Damara or the other maidservants did. Her tall stature ensured that even surrounded by them, her line of sight could not be blocked. She cast a glance at the black-haired young attendant. That glance was like cold light reflected from an icy blade, possessing a beauty that could make one forget danger.

With only that glance, she lowered her head again. The maidservants noticed Cesar's arrival as well, and laughingly pushed Damara out toward him.

Cesar and Damara were at an age when they were growing and changing rapidly. Cesar seemed to change almost every day, and Damara too was vastly different from a few months ago. One glance was enough to tell that she was ready to shed childhood and become a woman—her body had grown softer, her eyes brighter, and her steps ever lighter. The only things unchanged were her round little face and the dimple that appeared whenever she saw Cesar.

If Princess Sibylla was a jewel ablaze with fire, and the other maidservants were bright, delicate flowers, then Damara was a little bird hopping among the blossoms.

Soft, plump—held in one's hand, its fluffy little body would tremble with one's heartbeat.

With Princess Sibylla's permission, Damara could speak alone with Cesar some distance away. Yet to avoid possible gossip, Cesar remained within sight of the maidservants, stopping with Damara before several myrtle bushes whose branches and leaves were still dense.

As a knight candidate who ought to be attentive, Cesar spread out his long cloak over the fallen myrtle leaves. Damara demurely extended her foot and waited until Cesar had removed her tiny shoe before stepping onto the cloak. The moment she sat down, she let out a long breath—serving the princess was certainly a blessing one could only hope for, but no one imagined serving another person was easy. Though Princess Sibylla was not a harsh and spiteful mistress, neither did she permit others to grow too lax. Not to mention that the maidservants were forever scheming against one another, like their fathers and brothers, competing for the favor of those above them.

"Play the flute for me," Damara said. She could feel that people were watching them, from the maidservants to the princess.

"Look, what a well-matched pair," one maidservant said, gazing toward them.

At those words, the princess's maidservants let out a low ripple of laughter, like a breeze skimming across a lake and raising rings upon its surface. Yet some of that laughter was kind, while some was malicious. Another maidservant then said, "That boy may be pretty, but he is not brave enough."

Sibylla glanced at her and recognized her as the daughter of a minor family attached to Count Raymond of Tripoli. Given that connection, along with her undisguised infatuation with David, the count's eldest son, it was hardly surprising that she showed no courtesy to Cesar, who had once defeated the man she loved.

Someone immediately contradicted her, but the maidservant at once argued that she had not meant the prince's new attendant's skill in the saddle, but his ability in bed.

In an age when the average lifespan might have been only forty years, children always matured too early. Poor peasants, to fend off the cold in winter, crowded an entire household together with their livestock onto a low wooden bed. Parents did not hide what they did from their children. And in the earliest castles, it was not uncommon for the lord, children, guests, and servants to sleep together in the hall with its hearth. Boys and girls had long since learned every sort of skill from their earliest teachers.

That custom had continued to this day. Noble ladies might retain a measure of restraint under the teachings of the faith, but men, from childhood to adulthood, knew no taboos. Especially in their teens, when both soul and body were tightly gripped by desire, it was impossible to ask them not to be rash, not to be impulsive, not to crave battle and bed alike. Everyone knew that whether they were the betrothed husbands of noble ladies or the knights who admired them, even if each was willing to defend her good name with his blood and life, there would never be a shortage of women of every kind at their sides.

They acted as they pleased and reveled to their hearts' content. Before noble ladies, even if they could not go to the final step, they still often hurt and injured them. Some maidservants gladly accepted this and regarded it as a compliment, but others deeply loathed it.

The daughter of that minor family happened to be the former kind. Cesar had always kept a distance from Damara. When they sat together, he did not step on her feet, kiss her lips, take her hand, or seek an opportunity to lift her into his arms while dancing. To her, such behavior meant that Cesar was ashamed of his birth and did not dare pursue a noble lady.

"Be quiet," Sibylla said calmly. "Cesar is the prince's attendant, and in the future he will be a knight of my father, Amalric I. There is no gulf between him and Damara such as you imagine."

The princess's words were like a cold current sweeping over a lake. For a moment, laughter and mockery alike froze solid.

"Perhaps it is because he will become a monk someday," a noble lady hurriedly said, trying to ease the stalemate. "After all, he is so kind and devout."

Some maidservants nodded in agreement, while others remained noncommittal. As we have said before, there were indeed many in the holy city who had been moved by Cesar's penance. Though they also knew that the reason this penance had caused such a sensation was largely because King Amalric I and the monk Heraclius at his side had promoted it—for Prince Baldwin's sake. Otherwise, if some stranger with no background came asking to sweep the great hall of the Holy Sepulchre, did they think those monks would not beat him out?

But if one believed that Cesar could truly become a "saint" revered everywhere merely because of this penance and these good deeds, as those naive believers imagined, then one was gravely mistaken. The favor and gifts he received were more like a reward, only slightly above what was bestowed upon clowns turning somersaults on the long tables.

The truth was that cruel. Once those who held power discovered that their own piety or lack of it did not affect their worldly safety or inheritance, faith too became a tool, used to cow ministers, pacify the people, and bind the Church. If they had truly been so devout, Jerusalem should now have been the holy city of the patriarch or the pope of Rome, rather than the holy city of Amalric I.

"Being a monk is not such a bad thing," one maidservant giggled. "Sometimes monks are even more... convenient."

Sibylla was irritated. Most of those surrounding her were such shortsighted creatures. Perhaps one or two noble ladies had received more education through the indulgence of their fathers and brothers, but the longest reach of their thoughts extended only to their own families and those of their future husbands. They could not see the undercurrents surging, nor hear the fierce winds howling.

Amalric I acted out of love for her brother Baldwin. Heraclius acted from an appreciation of talent. Baldwin was too soft-hearted to abandon such a small measure of tender warmth. But Sibylla saw it very clearly, because this black-haired, green-eyed boy—

Was the same kind of person as she was.

Damara drew a large handkerchief from the enormous sleeves that nearly hung to her knees and tied it around the black-haired boy's wrist. "My uncle gave this to you." After saying that, she shut her mouth and spoke no more.

Given the relationship between Cesar and Damara, exchanging gifts was not an overstep. Cesar wore the silk handkerchief embroidered with gold and silver thread through more than half the castle, and everyone who saw him could not help teasing him a few times. Damara was not the most captivating maidservant beside the princess, and she was young, still ignorant of love's mysteries, but her family name, property, and the influence of her father and brothers ensured that she would be someone worth contending for among knights.

The moment Cesar returned to the room, the first thing Baldwin noticed was that large handkerchief. After all, Cesar rarely dressed himself up so gaudily.

"Damara gave it to you?"

Cesar was not yet a knight, but he had already knelt and sworn an oath. Damara could accept the attentions and loyalty of other knights, but he could not kneel before a second noble lady. Such were the invisible rules at this time. Of course, knights and squires could freely seek pleasure with courtesans or maidservants, but neither of those could produce a handkerchief of such quality.

The handkerchief's base fabric was fine bleached cotton, perhaps from Egypt. Lace edged its borders, and the embroidery had been done in dyed wool thread as well as gold and silver thread. Baldwin took one look—Damara was young and could not yet control the force of her fingers, so her embroidery was not very good. But she had filled the handkerchief with flowers in wholehearted sincerity, so densely that one might feel dizzy the moment it was unfolded...

"It is a sincere gift," Baldwin said. "Other than not looking at it too much, keep it safely put away."

He did not notice Cesar's momentary hesitation.

My lords, sometimes we wonder how a towering, splendid building could collapse overnight—but in the beginning, who would notice the tiny hole gnawed out by termites? Such is the way of all things in this world.

Only by standing at the end of fate's thread and tracing it backward could one discover that the root of every disaster might have been no more than an extra or missing grain of stone dust. But by then, it would surely already be too late. Beyond regret and lamentation, there would be nothing one could do.

Amalric I had once become dissatisfied with this slave he had personally chosen for his only son over the matter of the white wool cloak, even feeling the urge to kill him. Heraclius had spoken to mediate out of sympathy for Prince Baldwin and pity for Cesar. Baldwin, meanwhile, had treasured too dearly this rare, genuine friendship with someone his own age; he had vouched for Cesar and pleaded for him... Yet none of the three had ever given Cesar a word of guidance on this matter.

There was no need to explain why Amalric I and Heraclius had acted as they did. Baldwin's reason was far purer. He simply did not wish for his only friend to become once more a submissive, cringing slave—no, it should be said that he had never regarded Cesar as a slave. He saw him as the son of a knight, of the same rank as himself. Mutual aid had always been the proper duty of knights.

After Baldwin fell asleep, Cesar left the room alone. He sat on the cold stone steps and, by the little daylight streaming through a small window, unfolded the large handkerchief. Beneath layers upon layers of wool thread lay a floor plan of Temple Church.

Solomon's Temple had once been the highest sacrificial site of the Isaacites. It was built by King Solomon in 967 BC and had been destroyed twice. The first time was in 586 BC, when it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon. The second was in AD 70, when it was destroyed by Titus, a general of the Roman Empire.

When the Saxons occupied this place, they built two mosques upon the temple's foundations: Omar Mosque and Al-Aqsa Mosque. After the Knights Templar was established, the king of Jerusalem at the time gifted Al-Aqsa Mosque to the order. The order converted part of it into a church, while using the rest as an armory, stables, and other auxiliary facilities for the knights.

But no matter how one looked at it, it was not a purely immaculate sacred place. Thus, when Amalric I selected a church for Baldwin's choosing ceremony, the temple had never even entered his preliminary considerations.

Yet Cesar had to consider that if something went wrong at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, it seemed that Temple Church would be all they had left.

Although there were several other churches around Holy Cross Castle—the Pater Noster Church, the Church of the Baptist, and the Church of the Cockcrow... they had all been built by saints. Baldwin was to become king of Jerusalem, and every king of Jerusalem had been chosen in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was powerful proof, and the most convincing proof. If he were chosen in some other small chapel, he would inevitably be questioned again and again. Temple Church, however, was ultimately the earthly dwelling built by King Solomon for God, and Solomon too had been a great king. If Baldwin received a vision of King Solomon, then even though Solomon was not a saint formally canonized by the Church, it would not be much inferior to the vision of Saint George received by Amalric I.

When he made his request to Damara—indeed, to the Gerard family behind her—he had not held much hope. After all, he was still an outsider of unknown identity. He had not expected the Gerard family's response to be so decisive. Yet when he considered the unceasing conflicts in recent years between the Knights Hospitaller founded by the Gerard family and the Knights Templar, with the former having repeatedly fallen into the disadvantage, such a move was hardly strange.

More likely, they had seen Baldwin's trust in him.

When Baldwin had spoken to him just now, Cesar had almost, in a moment of impulse, wanted to tell him everything. But as the saying went, distance should not come between those close by blood. Making such preparations was practically an insult to Amalric I and his Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. Yet he could only trust what he had seen—how had Baldwin contracted leprosy? How had the servants around him scorned and abused him? Why was he still unable to enter any sacred place? Who was obstructing him?

For a single silver coin, commoners could brawl and murder. What then of Jerusalem? It was the holy city of gold. Every devout person who came here exhausted all their wealth to add a thread of brilliance to it. For these things... perhaps for faith as well, Baldwin's enemies were everywhere, at every moment, and they would stop at nothing.

From the perspective of those who came after, Cesar could see through the intentions of those devils in red robes at a glance. Whether the patriarch in Jerusalem or the pope in Rome, neither wished Amalric I to have an heir beyond reproach. Baldwin would be best off dead. Even if he did not die, he had to be stripped of his inheritance and driven from Jerusalem.

Even though the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was now controlled by priests of the Gerard family, no one could say that among the several hundred priests of other sects, there were not one or two reckless men or fanatics. And the conspiracy they were about to carry out was not something that could be prevented by ordering knights to patrol day and night, or by indiscriminate torture and interrogation.