Count Étienne's Counsel (Part Two)

We all knew that human thought had always been stubborn. At times, it could be so stubborn that it disregarded the facts entirely. Like a person who had lived since birth amid heaps of excrement and rotten fish, grown accustomed to those greasy, pungent, or faint yet lingering foul odors—if you dragged him out and set him among heaps of roses, not only would he feel no relief, he would be horrified, believing he had encountered a demon, and desperately try to flee.

Count Étienne felt the same way at this moment. He was a clever man, and it was precisely that cleverness that had ground him down beneath the whetstone of this world.

From a very young age, he had seen through his father's perfunctory manner, his mother's annoyance, his eldest brother's contempt, and his second brother's wariness. He could hear the mockery in the servants' words and understand the knights' impatience. His father's retainers fawned upon the powerful and bowed and scraped, but their target was certainly not him. The clergy taught him that God had created all things, that mankind bore original sin, and thus everyone ought to be humble and devout, striving to do good works to redeem their sins.

That was what they said, but when they hitched up their robes and dallied with maids and servants, or held up scripture to intimidate peasants into giving up their last grain of wheat, their last handful of peas, even their last bundles of firewood, they showed not the slightest guilt.

And in his thirty-seven years of life, the sole glimmer of brightness he had found amid that gloomy backdrop was his wife, Adela.

People mocked him for going to war with the king and two counts over a woman, not only failing to obtain a dowry but needlessly provoking a troublesome enemy.

Only Étienne knew that if Adela had merely been an ordinary woman like all the others—muddled and confused, or with a heart like a venomous snake—it would have been one thing. But she was a woman who truly possessed "beauty" and "goodness." Anseau II was not the worst of evil men; he was simply the most ordinary sort of nobleman. That was to say, he possessed every virtue and flaw a nobleman could have.

The moment Étienne saw Anseau II, he could see Adela's future at a glance. Either she would be despised by her husband for failing to obey him, cast aside or "accidentally killed," or she would be forced to fulfill "a wife's duties," languish in melancholy, and wither before her time...

When he took Adela away, rather than being driven by an uncontrollable love for the girl he had grown up with—he had served as a page in Adela's father's castle—it would be more accurate to call it pity. When he married Adela, it was more like he was saving himself.

When he arrived at Louis VII's court, he had thought that among these "noble people," he could at least find someone who was not so utterly unworthy of their reputation. After all, in the songs of troubadours, kings were always great and devout, ministers wise and loyal, queens and noble ladies steadfast and merciful—but he was disappointed almost at once. The court was merely a slightly larger castle, or rather, the people there were not better, but worse.

If you asked whether, after his disappointment, he had looked further down the ladder, he had. Among the clergy and monks around him were sons of peasants and craftsmen. But did their former experiences make them hold even a little compassion and understanding for those who had once been their own kind? Regrettably, no. They wished everyone would forget their origins, and when it came to squeezing the people at the bottom, they were even fiercer and more vile!

Count Étienne could only settle for second best. If there truly were no flawless saints in this world, then surely there must be people with one or two virtues. But when he truly went looking, he discovered that they were as rare as pearls among sand and gold in the soil. Even when they existed, bishops or lords who were neither blind nor deaf had long since gathered them into their own hands.

In the end, there were only a few knights and monks around him who were not quite so bad. The best of them was unexpectedly the monk Anuncia at his side. He had been "chosen," but his talent was not exceptional.

Not to mention that he did not quite meet people's expectations of a monk. He was too frivolous, too unsteady, and somewhat dismissive of the might of power and wealth. He often spoke for the poor, which made the abbot of Troyes Abbey, where he resided, loathe him intensely. The moment he heard that Count Étienne was willing to take him, he hurriedly packed him off.

Thus, when Count Étienne heard in Jaffa about the "little saint," his thoughts were exactly the same as those of the other nobles: this was merely a tactic by King Amalric I of Jerusalem to build up his son Baldwin's reputation. It was only because Prince Baldwin had contracted the leprosy everyone feared and avoided, making it impossible for him to perform "healing by touch" or engage in prolonged public prayers or processions, that his attendant had used such a clever shortcut to elevate his standing.

Forget "an angel descending into the cathedral to assist with cleaning"—Count Étienne did not even believe he had truly cleaned the entire cathedral. They had probably simply found some random place for him to stay, then let him walk out once the time came...

When the Templar Geoffrey charged into the wolf pack, they loudly praised, "God bless us, the knight is valiant!" Who would have noticed the little attendant close behind him?

It was not until Count Étienne fell into the crevice, broke his thigh, and lay chilled to the bone, wondering whether rats or insects would eat him, that he saw Cesar. He considered the child remarkably brave and felt a measure of appreciation for him.

But afterward, when they encountered Mleh, the wisdom and courage Cesar displayed made the count look at him anew—just as he had seen before, of the ten virtues, a mortal needed only one or two to establish himself at court, in the army, or in the Church... Was he being so attentive because he harbored some other ambition?

After returning to Holy Cross Castle, he made a point of asking around and learned that Amalric I had not originally encountered Cesar at a market or in a castle and bought him from an Isaac slave trader.

At the time, the Isaac slave trader had chosen a hill in the Judean Hills and intended to castrate a group of children there, so they could be sold as eunuchs to the courts of unbelievers. Amalric I's hunting party was passing between two hills—Cesar, then merely a nameless slave, half-dead and burning with fever, had somehow seized the moment when the slave trader and guards prostrated themselves to show reverence and submission to the king. He sprang up, leapt over those bowed heads, and rolled down before Amalric I's horse.

Count Étienne was also a knight, and hunting was as commonplace to him as daily bread. Of course he knew that a hunt was equivalent to a small tournament or campaign, and the king's mounted party was heavily guarded and rigorously trained. Yet Cesar had neither been trampled to death by the horses nor beaten to death by the retainers—only then did Amalric I ransom him from the Isaac trader... Although Amalric I had his own selfish motives, not every Isaac trader's slave could move him.

It was said that he had forgotten many things—his origins, family, and faith—but he could still read and write Latin, count, and calculate. An abbot in Gerard liked him so much that he had almost been unwilling to return him to the king.

When he came to Holy Cross Castle, he suffered exclusion, framing, and even assassination attempts from the prince's former servants. Such things were not uncommon—the strife among those at the bottom was only more direct and cruel than that among those at the top. Not only had he not fallen for their schemes, he had turned around and killed two servants. One had even been killed after he was thrown into the passage leading to the latrine. Both servants had been adults, and one was tall and fat...

He had also fought David, the son of the Count of Tripoli, in a contest and won.

Having gained such a companion, Prince Baldwin was both delighted and cherished him greatly. Within days, he treated him as the son of a duke—the count had seen it himself. If Cesar lived, ate, and traveled with the prince, that could still be said to show the prince valued an attendant. But Baldwin had let him wear the gold cross and sable fur, which meant he regarded him as someone of the same rank as himself.

What surprised the count even more was the verdict Anuncia received after making inquiries everywhere—from washerwomen to laborers, from attendants to knights, and then from knights to monks, everyone gave him praise of one color, save those who envied him or were obstinate by nature. Even the former, who disliked him, could not say what was bad about the prince's new attendant when pressed.

And there was the origin of the title "little saint"—it was far more than that he had cleaned the holiest of places. Because of his good deeds, the filth in people's hearts had also been cleared away.

Since that grand procession, although the monks of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre still collected fees for worship and veneration, three days every month they allowed pilgrims to choose a person of the greatest virtue or most in need of absolution to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. That person was exempt from all expenses.

Even those audacious villains who committed evil in the Holy City—they even dared rob pilgrims whose hats bore shells, the symbol of Saint James—would consciously avoid the road the "little saint" had traveled.

To achieve this, merely pardoning the sins of a woman and an infant in swaddling clothes was far from enough. The count had heard that he had donated every reward given by lords and noble ladies to the poor, keeping only a piece of white woolen cloth said to have been draped over the Holy Sepulchre, which he presented to his master, Prince Baldwin.

Had this been Amalric I's instruction, or had he done it of his own accord? After Count Étienne probed several attendants around Amalric I, he believed it was the latter, because for several days afterward, Amalric I had remained cold toward his son's attendant.

No one could calculate the total worth of the jewels and clothes Cesar had taken out to donate to the poor, but the count had also witnessed several great processions after Mass. When those monks and knights bared their upper bodies, chained their feet, and savagely scourged themselves, lashing their stinking flesh until it was dripping with blood and convulsing in waves, the nobles would also cast down their jewelry, cloaks, or silk scarves.

As one knight had boasted, a single ring alone could be worth fifty gold coins...

At that time, Count Étienne still did not believe such a good person existed in the world. He believed that either Cesar was too young to understand the value of these things, or that his ambitions were immense. What did he seek? From the count's perspective, what else could it be but leaving a leper steeped in sin behind?!

That was not something to criticize. Whether he had agreed to become the prince's attendant or wanted to leave, it was merely a mortal's act of self-preservation in the face of an immense threat. Besides, he truly had helped many poor people. For that alone, the count was willing to use the favor Amalric I owed him to ransom the boy.

"You may not quite understand," the count patiently advised, also for the sake of those poor people who had benefited from the child. "You have not yet seen much of the world. The title of a prince's attendant is indeed attractive, but you serve a leper. Never mind whether he might pass his sins on to you..."

He paused, examining Cesar's arms and face to make sure he had not been infected. "Perhaps that day will come, perhaps it will not. But he will not live past thirty, and he cannot have descendants. Amalric I will also have a new wife. He is younger than I am and could very well have another son. When that happens, even your master will count for nothing. What future could you possibly have?"

"That is precisely why I must remain by his side," Cesar said with equal patience. "I will serve him until he dies, so that the sincere friendship between us may be brought to completion.

When that time comes, I will make a request of my king, Amalric I, and leave the castle. I will still be in my prime then. I can become a monk, a craftsman, even a farmer. I know it will be difficult, but it will still be unimaginably better than my original fate."

"But..." But you could have had a better future.

Everyone sought profit for themselves. Everything could be placed upon the scales. Why were you unwilling to become one of them?

Without Count Étienne noticing, the monk Anuncia had already risen. The count stared at the youth, his chest heaving as though he could no longer suppress his emotions.

A long time later, when even the sunlight was no longer so brilliant and dazzling, he turned to his monk. "Bring me the reliquary."

Reliquaries were among the most popular ornaments, jewelry, and storage articles of the twelfth century. As their name suggested, they generally contained some kind of relic: bones, hair, fragments of instruments of torture, and so on. Some were shaped like hands or feet, some like crosses, and others like coffins or little cabinets. They varied in size; some could only be displayed on altars or in shrines, while others could be hung around the neck.

The count's reliquary was shaped like a cross, about a foot in both length and width, and as thick as a palm. The monk was somewhat surprised, though not entirely. He quickly brought the reliquary over. The count removed the small key hanging from his neck, opened it, and took out several rolls of parchment.

The monk moved over a long chest. The count unrolled the parchments one by one and held them down with rings. "Bring me the box containing the gold coins as well."

This time, unusually, the monk did not mutter something like, Couldn't you have said it all at once? He turned and carried over another box. It was oak, plain and unremarkable, without carvings or gilt, reinforced only with iron plates at its corners and hinges.

"This is a pilgrimage permit signed by Alexander III." Cesar lowered his head to look at it instinctively. Besides that sacred signature, it contained brief information about the pilgrim, stating that he was a devout Christian, an honest wine merchant under the Count of Champagne, who had decided to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem because he had remained without a son after twenty years of marriage...

Seeing Cesar's puzzled gaze, the count smiled and pointed out another parchment. This was a "safe-conduct pass" signed by Louis VII, likewise recording some information about the wine merchant, followed by a "safe-conduct pass" signed by Manuel I, Emperor of Byzantium.

Once Cesar had read it, he displayed several more documents in succession—a pilgrimage permit signed by the Bishop of Troyes, proof of identity and a "safe-conduct pass" signed by the Count of Champagne, followed by "safe-conduct passes" signed by Sultan Nur ad-Din of Zengi and Caliph al-Adid of the Fatimid.

Cesar had not been in this world long, but even he could see that these were a complete set of documents specifically for pilgrims. With these parchments, he could travel almost unimpeded along the entire pilgrimage route. Every king had decreed that pilgrims were not to be killed or imprisoned, while the authority of bishops and the pope was sacred and unshakable. As for why there were documents signed by unbelieving rulers—when devout or cautious pilgrims believed they might need to pass through unbelievers' territory, they would find a way to purchase such permits. For money, sultans and caliphs did not much care whether Christians crossed their lands.

Of course, if you truly encountered bandits who cared neither for sin nor the law, you could only count yourself unlucky.

Count Étienne pointed to the monk beside him. "Anuncia is skilled at forging documents. He will alter the information to make you the nephew of a certain man, stating that you are making the pilgrimage in your uncle's stead so that he may obtain a son."

He pushed the box of gold coins over as well. "There are three hundred gold coins here. I do not recommend that you use them to aid the poor here. The poor of the Holy Land are like seawater, layer upon layer; before the old are gone, the new have already come. You may say it is good if even one can be saved, but I hope that one will be you."

The count gazed at Cesar and said with complicated emotion, "You saved my life, and I ought to repay you. But you refused my first proposal, so I can only give these things to you." His voice was low but clear. "Take this gold. Prince Baldwin will not demand it from you, but some knights and attendants will come to borrow money from you, or tempt you into gambling. Prostitutes and merchants may also come, trying to drag you into the mire of indulgence. Child, listen to none of them. Trust none of them. Hide this money and these documents well. Tell no one.

When the time is right, leave the castle. Rent a little house outside, hire someone to watch the things in it. You need not have much: a few changes of clothes, a sturdy mule or donkey. Remember to equip yourself with a broad-brimmed hat decorated with shells and a solid walking staff."

This was a pilgrim's equipment.

"I hope that day never comes, but if it does, take the money, bribe the guards or someone else, escape Holy Cross Castle, and run to the little house. Dress as a pilgrim, mount the mule, and hurry to Jaffa or Acre. When the captains there see your permit and your money, they will let you aboard. Once you reach Aigues-Mortes, come to Sancerre and find me."