Chapter 19: Invisible Gap

Amidst the flowers, jewels shine brightly.

Every time he saw Princess Sibylla, Cesar could not help but chant this line from a Saracen poet in his heart.

Princess Sibylla was always surrounded by maids and pages. These maids were all of noble birth, and their fathers were either the King's ministers or vassals with fiefs. This meant that they were pampered from birth and lived carefree lives, with delicate skin and slender fingers. And we all know that a young girl in her prime, as long as she is well-nourished, is rarely ugly.

Moreover, there were indeed a few exceptionally beautiful and cute children among them.

But no matter how beautiful or gentle they were, as long as Princess Sibylla was there, no one would cast an extra glance at them.

Just as the poem said, flowers are beautiful, but how can they compare to the brilliance of jewels? Princess Sibylla's beauty was extraordinary. Beneath her sharp and rich-colored exterior, there was a firm inner core to support it—Amalric I had also said that his daughter's temperament was as stubborn and tenacious as a man's—and she did not hide her thirst for knowledge and power, just like her aunts.

Ordinary men would feel fear and disgust toward such women, but some men would have the impulse to admire and submit to her—or the opposite—arousing impulses similar to hunting wild beasts. Among the former, Abigail was the leader, and among the latter, David was the most obvious example.

These two chaotic and intense emotions would make many ladies feel afraid. However, as far as Cesar could see, Sibylla was not only not panicked but enjoyed it. She treated these two boys and the forces they represented with caution, and from time to time, she would stir the situation to be even more confusing.

Sibylla saw Cesar earlier than Damala or other maids. Her tall stature destined that she would not be obscured even when surrounded by them. She cast a glance at the black-haired young attendant. This glance was like the cold light reflected from a cold blade, possessing a beauty that could make one forget the danger.

Just a glance, and she lowered her head again. The maids also noticed Cesar's arrival and giggled as they pushed Damala out.

Damala and Cesar's ages meant they were in a period of rapid growth and change. Cesar changed almost every day, and Damala was also very different from a few months ago. It was clear at a glance that she was ready to transform from a child into a woman—her body was softer, her eyes brighter, and her walk more light. The only thing that hadn't changed was her round little face and the dimples that would appear as soon as she saw Cesar.

If Princess Sibylla was a jewel with brilliant fire, and the other maids were beautiful flowers, Damala was a little bird jumping in the flower bushes.

Soft, plump, and holding it in your hand, you could feel its fluffy body trembling with your heartbeat.

With Princess Sibylla's permission, Damala could talk to Cesar alone nearby. Just to avoid possible rumors, Cesar stayed within the sight of the maids, stopping with Damala in front of a few myrtle bushes that were still dense with branches and leaves.

As a knight-candidate who should be attentive, Cesar spread his long cloak on the fallen myrtle leaves. Damala stretched out her feet reservedly, waiting for Cesar to take off her small shoes before stepping onto the cloak. As soon as she sat down, she let out a deep sigh—serving the Princess was a beautiful thing to be desired, but no one would think that serving others was easy. Her master, Princess Sibylla, although not the kind of harsh and sharp mistress, did not allow others to be too slack, not to mention that the maids would constantly engage in infighting, just like their fathers and brothers, competing for the favor of their superiors.

"Play the flute for me," Damala said. She could feel that someone was watching them, from the maids to the Princess.

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"Look, what a perfect match," a maid said, looking at them from afar.

Because of this sentence, the Princess's maids let out a low laugh, like a breeze sweeping across the lake and causing ripples. However, some of these laughs carried kindness, while others carried malice. Another maid then said: "Although that child is born beautiful, he is not brave enough."

Sibylla glanced at her and recognized that she was the daughter of a small family vassal to Raymond, Count of Tripoli. With this relationship, and her undisguised admiration for the Count's eldest son, David, it was not surprising that she was unkind to Cesar, who had once defeated her sweetheart.

Someone immediately refuted her, but the maid immediately quibbled that she was not talking about the Prince's new attendant's skills on horseback, but his ability in bed.

In this era where the average life expectancy might only be forty years, children always matured too early. Poor farmers, in order to resist the cold, would squeeze a whole family together with livestock onto a low wooden bed in winter. Parents did not avoid children when doing things—and in the earliest castles, it was not uncommon for masters, children, guests, and servants to sleep together in the hall with a hearth. Boys and girls had long learned various skills from their initial teachers.

This trend continued to this day. Noblewomen might still maintain a bit of reserve under church law, but men, from childhood to adulthood, were uninhibited, especially in their teens, when their souls and bodies were tightly controlled by desire. It was impossible to ask them not to be reckless, not to be impulsive, and not to crave battle and the bed. Everyone knew that whether it was the noblewomen's fiancés or the knights who admired them, even if they were all willing to defend her reputation with blood and life, there would never be a shortage of various women around them.

They acted recklessly and enjoyed themselves to the fullest. Facing noblewomen, even if they couldn't go to the final step, they would still often hurt and injure them. Some maids accepted it gladly and regarded it as a compliment, but other maids felt disgusted by it.

The daughter of that small family happened to be the former. Cesar always kept a distance from Damala. When sitting together, he didn't step on her feet, didn't kiss her lips, didn't hold her hands, and didn't look for opportunities to pick her up when dancing—these behaviors, in her view, were Cesar feeling ashamed of his background and not daring to pursue a noblewoman.

"Shut up," Sibylla said in a calm tone: "Cesar is the Prince's attendant and will be a knight of my father, Amalric I, in the future. There is no such gap between him and Damala as you think."

The Princess's words were like a cold current sweeping across the lake. For a moment, whether it was laughter or sarcasm, it all froze.

"It could also be because he will become a monk in the future," a noblewoman hurriedly said to ease the deadlock. "After all, he is so kind and pious."

Some maids nodded in agreement, but others were noncommittal—as we said before, there were indeed many people in the Shengcheng who were moved by Cesar's asceticism. Although they also knew that this asceticism could be so sensational, it was more because of the promotion of King Amalric I and the cleric Heraclius beside him, for the sake of Prince Baldwin—otherwise, would a stranger with no background go to request to clean the Holy Sepulcher Church? See if those clerics would beat him out?

But if you think that Cesar can really become a "saint" who is respected everywhere just because of this asceticism and good deeds, as those naive believers think, then you are very wrong. The favor and gifts he received were more like a reward, slightly higher than those clowns who did somersaults at the long table.

The fact is so cruel. When those in power found that their piety or not would not affect their safety and inheritance in the secular world, faith also became a tool, used by them to deter ministers, pacify the people, and bind the church—if they were really that pious, the current Yafa should be the Shengcheng of the Patriarch or the Pope, not the Shengcheng of Amalric I.

"Being a monk is not a bad thing," a maid giggled: "Sometimes monks are more 'convenient'."

Sibylla felt annoyed. Most of the people around her were short-sighted guys like this. Perhaps there were one or two noblewomen who had received more education under the tolerance of their fathers and brothers, but the tentacles of their thoughts could only extend to their own families and the families of their future husbands. They couldn't see the undercurrents surging, nor could they hear the strong wind whistling.

Amalric I was because he loved her brother Baldwin, Heraclius was out of love for talent, and Baldwin was too weak to give up such a little bit of warmth. Sibylla, however, saw it very clearly, because this black-haired, green-eyed boy—

Was the same kind of person as her.

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Damala pulled a large handkerchief from her large sleeves that could almost hang to her knees and tied it to the black-haired boy's wrist: "This is from my uncle for you." After saying this, she closed her mouth and said no more.

As for the relationship between Cesar and Damala, giving gifts to each other was not an overstepping thing. Cesar walked through more than half of the castle with that silk handkerchief embroidered with gold and silver threads, and everyone who saw it couldn't help but tease him a few times. Damala was not the most moving maid around the Princess, and she was young and didn't understand the mystery of love, but her surname, property, and the power of her father and brothers ensured that she would be a target worth fighting for by knights.

As soon as Cesar returned to the room, the first thing Baldwin saw was this large handkerchief. After all, Cesar rarely dressed so gaudily.

"Damala gave it to you?"

Cesar was not yet a knight, but he had already knelt and taken an oath. Damala could accept the attentiveness and loyalty of other knights, but he could not kneel to a second noblewoman. The invisible rules at this time were like this. Of course, knights and squires could find prostitutes or maids to have fun at will, but the latter two could not produce a large handkerchief of this quality.

The base fabric of the large handkerchief was bleached fine cotton, possibly from Egypt, with lace around the edges. What was used for embroidery was dyed wool thread and gold and silver thread. Baldwin took a look—Damala was young and couldn't grasp the weight on her fingers, so the embroidery work was not done very well, but she could fill the handkerchief with flowers with full sincerity, almost to the point where one would feel dizzy when unfolding it to take a look...

"This is a sincere gift," besides not being able to look at it too much, Baldwin said: "Keep it well."

He did not notice Cesar's momentary hesitation.

Ladies and gentlemen, sometimes we find it strange how a towering and magnificent building can collapse overnight—but at the beginning, who would pay attention to a tiny hole eaten by termites? All things in the world are like this.

Only by standing at the end of the lifeline and tracing back to the source can one discover that the root of all disasters might be a bit of extra or missing fine stone dust, but by then it must be too late, and you have no other way but to regret and sigh.

Amalric I had once felt dissatisfied with this slave he had personally chosen for his only son because of the white wool cloak, and even developed killing intent; Heraclius, out of sympathy for Prince Baldwin and pity for Cesar, spoke up to mediate; Baldwin, because he cherished this rare, real friendship with a peer, vouched for Cesar and pleaded for him... but none of these three had ever pointed this out to Cesar.

There is no need to say why Amalric I and Heraclius were like this. Baldwin's reason was much purer. He just didn't want his only friend to turn back into a submissive slave—no, it should be said that he had never regarded Cesar as a slave. He regarded him as a knight's son of the same class as himself, and mutual help had always been the due meaning of a knight.

After Baldwin fell asleep, Cesar walked out of the room alone. He sat on the cold stone steps and, with the bit of daylight coming in from the small window, unfolded the large handkerchief. Under the layers of wool thread was a floor plan of the Temple Church.

Solomon's Temple was once the highest sacrificial place for the Isaac people. It was built by King Solomon in 967 BC and had been destroyed twice. The first time it was destroyed in 586 BC by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II; the second time in 70 AD, it was destroyed by the Roman Empire General Titus.

When the Saxons occupied this place, they built two temples on the foundation of the Temple, the Omar Temple and the Al-Aqsa Temple. After the Knights Templar was established, the then King of Yafa gave the Al-Aqsa Temple to the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar converted a part of it into a church, and the rest was used as the Knights' armory and stables and other auxiliary facilities.

But no matter what, it was not considered a pure and flawless holy place. So when Amalric I chose the church for Baldwin's selection ceremony, the Temple was not in his pre-selection range at all.

Cesar, however, had to consider that if something went wrong with the Holy Sepulcher Church, the only thing left for them seemed to be the Temple Church.

Although there were several churches around the Holy Cross Fortress, the Church of the Pater Noster, the Church of the Baptist, and the Church of the Cock-Crow... but these were all built by saints—Baldwin would be the King of Yafa, and all previous Kings of Yafa were selected in the Holy Sepulcher Church. It was a powerful piece of evidence and the most convincing. If he was selected, but it was in other small halls, he would inevitably be questioned again and again—the Temple Church was, after all, the earthly residence built by King Solomon for God, and he was also a great King. If Baldwin felt the presence of King Solomon, even if King Solomon was not a saint officially canonized by the church, it would not be much inferior to Saint George, whom Amalric I felt the presence of.

When he made the request to Damala, and in fact to the Gerard family behind her, to be honest, he didn't hold much hope. After all, he was still an outsider of unknown identity. He didn't expect the Gerard family's response to be so straightforward. However, thinking that the Hospitaller Knights founded by the Gerard family and the Knights Templar had been in constant conflict in recent years, and the former had fallen behind several times—it was not surprising that they made such a move.

It was more likely because they saw Baldwin's trust in him.

Just now, when Baldwin was talking to him, Cesar was almost impulsively wanting to tell the whole story. But as the saying goes, "the distant cannot separate the near," and his making such preparations was simply insulting Amalric I and his Holy Sepulcher Knights. But he could only believe what he saw—how did Baldwin get leprosy? How did the servants around him despise and bully him? To this day, he still couldn't step into any holy place. Who was obstructing it?

For a silver coin, commoners could fight and murder. What about Yafa? It was the Shengcheng of gold. Every pious person who came here had to use up all their property to add a ray of glory to it. For these... perhaps also faith, Baldwin's enemies were everywhere, all the time, and used every means possible.

Standing from the perspective of later generations, Cesar could see through the intentions of those devils in red robes at a glance. Whether it was the Patriarch of Yafa or the Pope in Rome, they did not want Amalric I to have an impeccable successor. It would be best if Baldwin died. Even if he didn't die, he must be deprived of his inheritance and expelled from Yafa.

Even if the current Holy Sepulcher Church was controlled by the clerics of the Gerard family, no one could say that there wasn't one or two daring people or fanatics among the hundreds of clerics of other sects. And the conspiracy they were about to carry out could not be avoided by ordering knights to patrol day and night, or by adding torture.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 20 =====