Chapter 32: Count Étienne

We all know that human thought is inherently stubborn, sometimes so stubborn as to ignore facts entirely—like a man who has lived since birth amid feces and rotting fish, grown accustomed to the sticky, pungent, or faint but ever-present stench; if you drag him out and place him among roses, he will not feel comforted, but instead be terrified, believing he has encountered a demon, and desperately try to escape.

Count Étienne’s feelings at this moment were much the same—he was a clever man, and it was precisely this cleverness that had worn him down by the world.

As a child, he saw through his father’s indifference, his mother’s annoyance, his elder brother’s contempt, and his younger brother’s suspicion; he could detect the mockery in servants’ words and understand the knights’ impatience; his father’s ministers fawned and groveled, but their target was certainly not him; the clergy taught him that God created all things, that humanity bore original sin, and that everyone must be humble, devout, and strive to do good deeds to atone for their sins.

Yet when they lifted their robes and dallied with maids and footmen, when they brandished holy books to threaten peasants into surrendering their last grain, their final handful of peas, even their last bundles of twigs, they showed not a trace of shame.

And in his thirty-seven years of life, the only glimmer of light he had found amid these dark surroundings was his wife, Adèle.

People mocked him for waging war against the king and two counts over a woman, gaining no dowry and merely inviting a troublesome enemy.

Only Étienne knew that if Adèle had been merely another woman—dull-witted or heartless like the rest—he might have accepted it; but she was truly a woman of “beauty” and “goodness”—King Ansel II was not the worst of men; he was merely an ordinary noble, meaning he possessed all the virtues and vices of his class.

Upon seeing Ansel II, Étienne could instantly foresee Adèle’s future: either she would be despised and discarded by her husband for failing to obey, or she would be “accidentally dead,” or forced to fulfill “a wife’s duties” and wither away in gloom.

He took Adèle away—not so much out of uncontrollable love for the girl he had grown up with (he had served as a squire in her father’s castle), but out of pity; his marriage to Adèle was less a union than a salvation of himself.

When he arrived at Louis VII’s court, he thought he might at least find among these “noble people” someone who was not merely hollow in title; after all, in the songs of minstrels, kings were 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, its people were not better, but worse.

If you asked him whether he had searched further in disappointment, yes—he had seen priests and monks who were sons of peasants or craftsmen—but did they, because of their past, feel any pity or understanding toward their former kin? No, they wished everyone would forget their origins, and when exploiting the lower classes, they were even crueler and more vile.

Count Étienne could only settle for less: if there truly were no perfect saints in this world, surely there must be some who possessed one or two virtues—but when he truly sought them, he found them as rare as pearls in sand, gold in soil; and even if they existed, they had long since been claimed by bishops or lords who were neither blind nor deaf.

In the end, the only people left around him were knights and monks who were merely not so bad—and the best among them was only the monk Aronsia, who had been “chosen,” yet showed no outstanding talent.

Moreover, he did not meet the current expectations of monks: he was too frivolous, too unsteady, showed little regard for the power of authority or wealth, often spoke up for the poor, and this made the abbot of his Trois-Châteaux monastery detest him; upon hearing Count Étienne wished to take him, the abbot promptly sent him off.

So when Count Étienne heard of the “Little Saint” in Jaffa, his thoughts aligned perfectly with those of other nobles: this was merely a ploy by King Amalric I to elevate his son Baldwin, but because Prince Baldwin suffered from the dreaded leprosy, he could not perform “touch-healing” (Footnote 1) or prolonged public prayer or processions, so his attendants had devised this clever trick to boost his reputation.

He did not even believe the boy had truly cleaned the entire cathedral—perhaps he had simply been hidden somewhere, then brought out at the appointed time…

When Geoffrey of the Templars charged into the wolf pack, they cried out, “God be praised, the knight is valiant!”—who would notice the squire who followed close behind?

Only when Count Étienne fell into the crevice, his thigh broken, his body icy cold, wondering whether he would be eaten by rats or insects, did he see Cesar, and thought the boy possessed admirable courage, and felt a flicker of appreciation.

But later, when they met Muley, Cesar’s wisdom and boldness again drew the count’s attention—just as he had observed before, even one or two virtues were enough for a man to stand firm in court, army, or church… Was this earnestness hiding some other motive?

When he returned to the Holy Cross Castle, he inquired further and learned that Amalric I had not encountered Cesar in a marketplace or castle, nor bought him from the Isaac slave merchant.

At that time, the Isaac slave merchant had chosen a hill in the Judaean highlands to castrate a group of boys for sale as eunuchs to pagan courts; Amalric I’s hunting party was passing between two hills—Cesar, then still an unnamed slave, feverish and near death, had suddenly leapt up while the slave traders and guards knelt before the king in homage, vaulted over their bowed heads, and rolled to a stop at Amalric I’s horse’s hooves.

Count Étienne was a knight himself, and hunting was as routine as bread and butter—he knew hunting was a miniature battle, and the king’s mounted retinue was heavily guarded and well-trained; that Cesar had not been trampled to death or beaten to death by attendants was why Amalric I had redeemed him from the Isaac merchant… Though Amalric I had his own motives, not every Isaac slave could move him.

He was said to have forgotten much—his origins, his family, his faith—but he could still read and write Latin, count, and calculate; one of Gerard’s abbots loved him so much he was reluctant to return him to the king.

Upon arriving at the Holy Cross Castle, he was ostracized, framed, and even targeted for assassination by the prince’s former servants—such things were not uncommon; the oppression among the lower classes was more direct and cruel than among the upper, yet he not only avoided their traps, but killed two servants in return, one of whom he threw into the latrine passage—both were grown men, one tall and fat…

He also defeated David, the son of the Count of Tripoli, in combat.

Prince Baldwin, delighted and cherishful of such a companion, soon treated him as if he were the son of a duke—Count Étienne noticed: if sharing meals and travel with the prince could be seen as favoring a squire, Baldwin letting him wear the gold cross and black sable fur meant he regarded him as an equal in rank.

Even more astonishing was the evaluation Aronsia gathered after asking around—from laundresses to laborers, from squires to knights, from knights to monks—everyone, except those jealous or stubborn, praised him unanimously; even those who disliked him, when pressed to name a fault, could not find one.

And as for the origin of the “Little Saint” title—he had done far more than clean the holiest place; through his good deeds, he had cleansed the filth from people’s hearts.

Ever since that grand procession, though the monks of the Holy Sepulchre still charged fees for pilgrimage and veneration, every month they allowed pilgrims to elect one person of greatest virtue or greatest need for pardon to enter the Holy Sepulchre, exempt from all costs.

Even the brazen criminals in the Holy City—who dared rob pilgrims wearing shell-adorned hats (symbol of Saint James)—would deliberately avoid the path the “Little Saint” walked.

To achieve this, merely pardoning a woman and her infant was far from enough; the count heard he had donated all gifts from lords and noble ladies to the poor, keeping only one white woolen cloth said to have covered the Holy Sepulchre, which he offered to his master, Prince Baldwin.

Was this ordered by Amalric I, or his own initiative? After discreetly questioning several of Amalric I’s attendants, Étienne believed it was the latter, for in the days following, Amalric I remained cold toward the prince’s squire.

No one could calculate the total value of the jewels and clothes Cesar had given away, but Count Étienne had witnessed several post-mass processions, where monks and knights, bare-chested and shackled, whipped themselves cruelly until their flesh bled and convulsed, and nobles would then cast down their jewelry, cloaks, or silks.

One knight had boasted that a single ring was worth fifty gold coins…

At that time, Count Étienne still did not believe such a good man existed; he thought either Cesar was too young to understand the value of these things, or he sought something great—what could he possibly seek? From the count’s perspective, apart from escaping a leper steeped in sin, what else could it be?!

This was not worthy of blame; whether he agreed to serve as the prince’s squire or wished to leave, it was merely a mortal’s act of self-preservation in the face of great threat; moreover, he had indeed helped many poor people; for that alone, the count was willing to spend the favor Amalric I owed him to redeem him.

“You may not fully understand,” the count patiently explained, also for the sake of those poor who had benefited from the boy: “You are young and inexperienced; the title of prince’s squire is indeed attractive, but you serve a leper—never mind whether he might pass his sin onto you…”

He paused, observing Cesar’s arms and face, confirming he showed no signs of illness: “Perhaps one day, perhaps not—but he will not live past thirty, and he cannot have offspring; Amalric I will take a new wife, and he is younger than I am—he may yet have another son; then even your master will mean nothing, and what future will you have?”

“Precisely because of this,” Cesar replied patiently, “do I remain by his side. I serve him until his death, to fulfill the sincere friendship between us.”

“Then, I will petition my king, Amalric I, to leave the castle; by then I will still be young—I can become a monk, a craftsman, even a farmer. I know it will be hard, but it is already far better than my original fate.”

“But… you could have had a better future.”

Everyone seeks their own gain, everything is weighed on a scale—why not become one of them?

Unnoticed by Count Étienne, the monk Aronsia had already risen; the count stared at the boy, his chest rising and falling, emotions nearly overwhelming him.

Long after, even the sunlight had lost its brilliance, he turned to his monk: “Bring me the reliquary.”

The reliquary was the most popular ornament and storage item of the twelfth century; as the name implies, it usually contained relics: bones, hair, fragments of instruments of torture; some shaped like hands or feet, others like crosses, still others like coffins or small chests; varying in size, some meant only for altars or shrines, others wearable around the neck.

The count’s reliquary was shaped like a cross, about one foot in length and width, and as thick as a palm; the monk was slightly surprised, yet not entirely so; he quickly brought the reliquary; the count removed the small key from around his neck, opened it, and took out several scrolls of parchment.

The monk moved the long chest; the count unrolled them one by one, weighting them down with his ring: “Bring me the box of gold coins.”

This time, the monk did not mutter any complaint—such as “Can’t you just say it all at once?”—but turned and carried over another box; it was made of oak, plain and unadorned, without carving or gilding, only iron reinforcements at the corners and hinges.

“This is the pilgrimage permit signed by Alexander III,” Cesar instinctively leaned down to look; besides the sacred signature, it contained brief details about the pilgrim: a devout Christian, a respectable wine merchant under the Count of Champagne, who, having no son after twenty years of marriage, had decided to pilgrimage to Outremer…

Seeing Cesar’s puzzled look, the count smiled and pointed to another parchment: this was the “safe passage permit” signed by Louis VII, similarly listing the wine merchant’s details, and another signed by Byzantine Emperor Manuel I.

After he had seen these, the count displayed several more documents—the pilgrimage permit signed by the Bishop of Troyes, the identity and safe passage permit signed by the Count of Champagne, followed by the safe passage permits signed by Nur ad-Din, the Zengid Sultan, and the Fatimid Caliph At-Tayyib.

Cesar had been in this world only a short time, but he could tell this was a complete set of pilgrimage documents; with these parchments, he could travel almost unimpeded along the entire pilgrimage route; every king had decreed that pilgrims must not be killed or imprisoned, the authority of bishops and the Pope was sacred and unshakable; as for why pagan emperors had signed them—when devout or cautious pilgrims feared crossing pagan lands, they would buy such permits; for money, sultans and caliphs did not care if Christians passed through their territories.

Of course, if you encountered bandits who cared nothing for sin or law, you could only accept your misfortune.

Count Étienne pointed to the monk beside him: “Aronsia is skilled at forging documents; he will alter the details to make you the nephew of someone, explaining you are making this pilgrimage on your uncle’s behalf to beg for a son.”

He pushed the box of gold coins toward him: “Here are three hundred gold coins; here, I do not advise you to give them to the poor—the poor of the Holy Land are as countless as the sea, one group fades, another arrives; you may say, even saving one is better—but I hope it is you who is saved.”

The count gazed at Cesar, his emotions complex: “You saved my life; I should repay you. But you refused my first proposal, so I can only give you these.” He spoke low but clearly: “Take this gold. Prince Baldwin will not ask for it back, but some knights and squires will come to borrow from you, or tempt you to gamble; perhaps even courtesans and merchants will lure you into the mire of pleasure. Child, listen to none, believe none. Keep this money and these documents hidden—tell no one.”

“When the time is right, leave the castle, rent a small house outside, hire someone to guard your things—nothing much: a few clothes, a sturdy mule or donkey; remember to equip yourself with a wide-brimmed hat adorned with shells, and a sturdy walking staff.”

These were the pilgrim’s gear.

“I hope such a day never comes, but if it does, use the money to bribe guards or others, escape the Holy Cross Castle, go to the house, dress as a pilgrim, mount the mule, and hurry to Jaffa or Acre; the captains there, seeing your permits and money, will let you board; when you reach Acre, come to me in Sancerre.”

Footnote 1: “Touch-healing” was a popular palliative therapy from the fifth to the eighteenth century.

Specifically, the king would touch the patient’s forehead or face, then give a gold coin as a blessing, supposedly curing the then-prevalent scrofula.

Research has not confirmed whether princes or nobles could perform this; here we assume that if the king permitted, a prince could as well, given the frequent co-ruling arrangements of the period.

PS:

I calculated: last month’s monthly votes exceeded a thousand, recommendation votes nearly ten thousand, and tips far surpassed my expectations—

Your enthusiasm truly overwhelms me!

Deeply grateful!

I will gradually fulfill the bonus chapters promised earlier throughout February.

Also: to thank the patrons of this novel, I have added a special bonus chapter!

PSS: I thought this novel didn’t need special disclaimers anymore.

No harem, no harem, no BL!

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(End of Chapter)