Jealousy

Cesar saw a not entirely unfamiliar figure by the kitchen hearth.

The castle's hearths were nowhere near as refined and elaborate as people in later generations imagined. They differed from the hearths used by commoners only in size.

A rectangular fireplace stretched across a wall nearly thirty paces long. Its interior had been deliberately divided into roaring flames, low flames, and embers. Soup pots hung over the roaring fire, iron spits rested over the low fire, and acorns and pinewood had been scattered over the embers. Through the rising smoke, poultry and game awaiting the completion of their smoking appeared and vanished.

That small servant who delivered water was squatting by the low fire. He looked as though he were working diligently, but every so often he took down a spit, cut off a small piece of meat, and ate it. Then, as if savoring its flavor, he smacked his lips and shook his head. Several people were rolling their eyes at him, but he either pretended not to see or flashed a nasty fake smile.

Of course he knew the kitchen staff wanted nothing more than to take sticks and forks to him, preferably shove him straight into the hearth in one go. But who told them he was a knight's son, and Prince Baldwin's servant, with the chance of becoming a squire someday? They did not even dare approach him, because he would spit at them—after all, this was saliva spat by someone closest to a leper!

Kram's expression abruptly darkened. He strode over to the small servant, yanked him to his feet, slapped him across the face, then kicked him in the backside and drove him out of the kitchen. Yet the small servant showed not the slightest fear. He grinned and capered about, exactly like a clown.

"You're still pleased with yourself?!" Kram said angrily. "Do you know you're about to get thrown out?"

The small servant's smile froze on his face. His eyes flew wide, and he bared his teeth like a rat cornered with nowhere to run. "What are you talking about, Uncle?!" he cried. "What do you mean, I'm about to get thrown out? Who has the authority to do that?"

"Too many people," Kram said. "Who do you think you are? Witt, you're only my brother's bastard child, a complete fool crawled out of an Isaac woman's womb. I worked so hard to use this good opportunity to get you into the castle, yet you disregarded my goodwill and wasted my favors and money for nothing!"

"What nonsense are you talking about?" Witt shouted. "I've always been a good servant, a good slave! Every moment, I think of my good master, serving him earnestly and working for him!"

Kram truly laughed this time. He seized the leather pouch hanging from Witt's belt and gave it a shake. Silver coins immediately clattered all over the floor. As Witt hurriedly dropped to the ground to gather them, Kram could no longer be bothered to hide his disappointment. "Do you think I don't know where this money came from?" He pointed into the kitchen. "Do you see that pretty boy beside me? He is the new squire His Majesty chose for Prince Baldwin."

Witt's hand stopped. "A new squire?" he asked. "Is he the son of a count? Or a duke?"

"Neither. He was originally only the slave of an Isaac merchant." Kram said with disgust, "Look at this. That position should have been yours, but you only had eyes for such a trifling amount of money. Now Prince Baldwin has a new companion. He no longer needs you lot, and all of you must get out!"

"That isn't fair!" Witt raised his head, a vicious gleam bursting from his eyes. "That isn't fair! His Majesty said—"

"Yes," Kram cut him off. "His Majesty said that as long as you earned Prince Baldwin's favor, he would mercifully make an exception and allow lowly commoners like you to become the prince's squires. But did you manage it? No! The prince does not like any of you, not a single one! But after seeing that boy only once, he allowed him to sleep at his side and wear his clothes."

Witt swiftly glanced into the kitchen. Though it was far away and he could not see clearly, he remembered that fleeting glimpse in the tower, when he had wondered why the new servant looked like such a woman... "Is it him?" he asked through gritted teeth. "He's going to drive all of us away, isn't he?"

"Whether it is or not makes no difference," Kram said. "Once I have selected new servants, all of you will have to leave the castle. Go do whatever you ought to do—be farmers, craftsmen, cooks... whatever you like. I will not concern myself with you anymore, Witt. You are as useless as your father and your Isaac mother!"

He practically roared the last sentence. Then he spun around and walked away without looking back.

Boiling water spouted from the narrow mouth of the kettle and fell into a wooden tub lined with silk. Steam surged upward, and the air immediately became scorching and humid.

The Church did not encourage bathing, for many reasons. One important reason was that bathing was undoubtedly a luxury, utterly contrary to the simplicity demanded by the Church.

Even the bathing tubs used by kings and princes had countless fine wood splinters, since there were no tools capable of polishing them smooth. To avoid being pricked, a layer of silk had to be spread over the tub for every bath. But after enduring boiling water, trampling, and tugging, that costly silk completely lost its former value.

Cesar used a balance to weigh out one pound of dried Saint John's wort and put it into the water.

Saint John's wort was a medicinal herb often used by monks and commoners. It could treat sunburns, scalds, and cuts, ease muscle pain, and relieve the symptoms of gout and rheumatism. Yet its effect on leprosy was negligible. At most, it could delay some early symptoms and keep them from progressing too quickly—blisters, numbness, and the like. After Baldwin used it, he could only sleep a little more peacefully.

While Baldwin was soaking in the bath, someone knocked on the door again. This time, the knocking was much more polite. Cesar opened the door and saw a tray stacked neatly with clean clothes.

"Who is it?" Baldwin asked.

"Someone has brought the washed clothes." At a time when commoners still passed garments down through several generations as an important inheritance, even the King of Jerusalem changed only one linen shirt each day. But because Prince Baldwin had contracted leprosy and had to remain absolutely clean, the clothes he changed out of every day were taken away by servants, washed clean, and brought back.

The clothes on the large wooden tray were not only clean but quite fluffy, still retaining a trace of warmth from the sun. Deep purple lavender had been tucked among the fabrics, giving off a pleasant fragrance. On top were stockings; beneath them was a shirt; beneath the shirt was a black outer robe. Gloves and a gauze veil lay beside them.

"Cesar?"

"I'll find another outer robe for you, Your Highness," Cesar said. "This one has bird droppings on it." He pulled out the black outer robe and tossed it onto the floor, found a creamy-white woolen outer robe in the clothes chest, then carried out the "bird-dropping-stained" robe. He returned to the tower before Baldwin finished bathing.

The problem with that garment was certainly not bird droppings. More precisely, it was not an outer robe, but a long robe. Nobles often wore black outer garments, hose, or cloaks, but black long robes were still restricted to funerals, belonging to the dead and their closer relatives.

Or rather, if Baldwin had been healthy, perhaps a black long robe would not have been such a sensitive matter.

But back when he had still been at the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist, Cesar, favored by the monks, had learned from them that lepers who received the Church's mercy before being driven from their cities and homes would have a priest conduct an "early" last rite for them.

The patient would wear a black long robe and stand in a freshly dug grave, surrounded by family and friends. The priest would anoint them with holy oil, sprinkle holy water, hear their confession, and recite prayers. At the end, a group of monks would shovel up several handfuls of earth and scatter them over him or her, saying as they did so, "You have died to the mortal world, but before God, you have been reborn."

It was the equivalent of a funeral.

If Cesar had been even slightly careless, or had not understood what it meant, and rashly handed the black long robe to Baldwin, then by those people's way of thinking, even if His Highness the prince did not immediately fly into a rage, he would certainly harbor resentment. Or, if Amalric I learned of it, he would at once drive away this servant, whether reckless or foolish.

Cesar's sharpness undoubtedly disappointed some people. Before the evening office began, the small servant personally came to invite Cesar to a feast. In his words, they had sincerely prepared fine wine and pork pies, and intended to share with the newcomer their secrets for serving the highborn.

Cesar was not sure how sincere they were, but Witt and the servants who nested with him like snakes and rats had indeed gone to considerable effort.

Wine was not something servants could ordinarily touch. They could only drink bland beer. Pork pies required not only pork—pork was rarely seen in Jerusalem, because the Saracens did not eat it, and the climate and environment here were unsuitable for raising pigs—but also fine wheat flour to knead into dough, which was then left to rise before being baked in an oven.

"We mustn't disturb His Highness's rest," Witt said eagerly. They entertained Cesar in the defensive tower nearest the left tower, among the twelve defensive towers. Besides an impressive quantity of wine and pies, they had somehow even found courtesans. Each bared her chest and back, dripping with charm. Before the men had even begun drinking in the stifling little room, they already felt pleasantly light-headed.

There was not much else to say. They drank, ate pies, laughed and shouted loudly, showing no sign at all of having learned that dreadful news. Witt sat beside Cesar, with a courtesan on his other side. Witt put on a show of leaning close to whisper his so-called secrets into Cesar's ear—though they were hardly secrets, merely things that lured one into ruin, precisely the sort of things boys Cesar's age found most interesting. The courtesan either held up a wine cup or picked up a pie, constantly feeding him food and drink.

They kept reveling until deep into the night. "We should go back," Witt said. "Before we return, should we offer a prayer?"

The men and women all burst into laughter. The prayer Witt spoke of naturally did not mean prayer in the literal sense. He was asking whether they needed to use the toilet. Castle towers usually had a privy built high up, appearing from outside like a small room jutting from the wall. The nobility always called it a "wardrobe" or a "prayer room" in delicate language, so Witt's words carried a trace of mockery.

"You go first," Witt said. "Lord Squire, I had someone scrub it earlier. It's clean."

"All right." Cesar spoke slowly. He looked fairly sober, but his sluggish steps and the hand he had to brace against the wall showed that he was nearly drunk as well.

The privies in the defensive towers were Roman in style. No—rather, almost all the privies in the entire castle were like this. One could imagine it as a platform built of stone, with a wooden board wide enough for two people to sit side by side laid across it. There was a hole in the board, and below it was a vertical shaft twenty or thirty feet deep. At the bottom sat a deep pit, filled with human waste.

A fishy, cold wind swept up from that pitch-black hole, sickening enough to make one retch. Yet amid that foul stench that made one want only to flee, there was a strange sweet fragrance. For a moment, Cesar could not remember what it was. He felt along the wall, searching for the candle stubs and flint kept in a recess, but found nothing. There was only a vent high above, but perhaps for defense against enemies, it was very small. And it was night, so he still could not see anything.

He thought for only a few seconds before deciding to leave. Just then, a shadow lunged at him and shoved him toward the stone platform. Cesar's knee slammed heavily against the stone, and he pitched forward uncontrollably. Yet even as he fell, he nimbly curled his body and violently dropped—rolled—out through the narrow gap between the wooden board and his attacker's body. He had once sought a way to survive beneath the hooves of a hundred horses and the claws and teeth of dozens of hunting dogs. This was not difficult.

After his knee, his shoulder struck the wall as well, but he did not feel pain at all. In a single motion, he drew the short knife he carried with him. It had originally belonged to Baldwin. Its blade was only a palm's length, used to cut meat and bone at the table, but it would work just as well on a person.

A lean, tall man rushed forward. Cesar's short knife rose from below and bit into his thigh, tearing through thin linen. Amid the crisp sound of fabric ripping, the distinctive elasticity and softness of human skin and muscle traveled from the blade to the web between Cesar's thumb and forefinger. He held his breath and drove it deeper, upward, until it reached that most important place for a man.

The rusty scent of blood mingled with the hot, fresh stench of feces and urine.

The third attacker recoiled. Without a moment's hesitation, he abandoned his companions and fled into the darkness, but Cesar had already recognized who he was.

He rose to his feet. By then, he could make out his surroundings a little better. The first man who had attacked him was stuck, no wonder he had not joined the later fight.

He was a large man, jammed into the wooden board headfirst, all the way to his shoulders. No matter how he flailed, he could not break free, and could only kick his legs futilely. But if Cesar was not mistaken, no matter how large that hole was, it should not have allowed an adult man to force his head and shoulders through it.

He edged over and touched the broken portion of the board. Only part of the fresh break was jagged; the rest was as straight and smooth as a line.

Cesar remembered where that sweet scent had come from. Ordinary people might have found it hard to identify, but in the monastery, carving was also one of the crafts the monks excelled at. It was the scent released amid scattered wood shavings when timber was cut.

Someone had carefully sawn through the board, but only far enough that it would not break entirely, then loosely set it back in place. If he had let food and drink dull his vigilance, entered, and sat down without hesitation, then he would certainly have fallen into the cesspit below, dying an ugly and humiliating death.

To ensure nothing went wrong, that person had also lain in ambush outside with two others. If Cesar had not fallen into the trap, they would have seized him and thrown him down directly.

As Cesar inserted his dagger into the crack in the board, he considered whether he ought to tell Baldwin first, or Kram, or threaten this fellow into dragging out the true culprit hiding behind him. In the end, though, he only gave a bitter smile.

"What a damned world," he said. Then he levered the dagger. His Highness the prince's dagger was indeed thick and sturdy enough. The board immediately gave a creak of unbearable strain. The trapped man instantly began shouting in terror, but hanging upside down, he could not make as much noise as he could standing upright. Even Cesar could only hear indistinct rumbling sounds.

That time must have seemed agonizingly long to the man, but to Cesar, it was only a minute or two. When he lifted the man by both legs and threw him down, he did not hesitate.