Helena Schrader's Historical Fiction

Dr. Helena P. Schrader is the author of 24 historical fiction and non-fiction works and the winner of more than 53 literary accolades. More than 34,000 copies of her books have been sold. For a complete list of her books and awards see: http://helenapschrader.com

For readers tired of clichés and cartoons, award-winning novelist Helena P. Schrader offers nuanced insight into historical events and figures based on sound research and an understanding of human nature. Her complex and engaging characters bring history back to life as a means to better understand ourselves.

Friday, October 31, 2014

"I cannot tell you the pain I am in." - Excerpt 7

Kingdom of Jerusalem, December 1177




During this altercation, Balian had gone to Ibrahim. The old slave had been knocked backwards by Sibylla’s blow, or his efforts to avoid it, and he sat on the floor holding his face in his hands. “Ibrahim! Are you hurt?”

“Hurt?” The old slave looked up at Balian with tears in his eyes. “I cannot tell you the pain I am in, my lord.” His lips were quivering with emotion. “The leprosy is spreading again and it has become ulcerous! My lord’s feet are covered with running soars, and his own sister does not care! Does not even want to hear about it!”

Balian turned to stare at the closed door separating him from Baldwin, and then he reached down and helped Ibrahim to his feet. “I will go to him—“

“No, my lord! He ordered me to keep everyone away! I tried to stop Lady Sibylla, but –“

“I will go to him, Ibrahim, and he will not blame you. Zoe! Come help Ibrahim wash the blood from his lips and nose.”

Maria Zoe was already taking the old slave by his elbow and leading him to one of the waiting benches, while Balian gently opened the door to the inner chamber and slipped inside.

The chamber was completely dark. Not a single candle burned here and the only light came from a double-light window facing west out of city to the luminescent sky in which the sun had set. Balian stood inside the door adjusting to the dark, searching with his eyes and ears for the room’s occupant. After almost a minute, he realized that there was no one in sight, but the curtains to the bed were closed. Taking a deep breath, Balian moved silently to the bed and slowly drew back the curtain.

Baldwin was lying on his side, his back to Balian. His shoulder was shaking convulsively. Balian knelt with one knee on the edge of the bed and laid his hand on Baldwin’s shoulder.

“Why?” Baldwin croaked out of a throat cramped from suppressing his sobs. “Why does God hate me, Ibrahim?”

“He does not hate you, Baldwin.”

“Balian! Where did you come from?” Baldwin reared up and turned around in a single gesture. He stared at his friend with wide eyes and a face streaked with tears.

“We’ve been waiting in the anteroom for hours, but were told you were not ready to receive us. Ibrahim tried to stop me, so don’t blame him.”

“Of course not! If I’d known you – Oh, Balian, have you heard? The leprosy. We thought it had stopped spreading but it’s –“ Baldwin broke down again and started sobbing.

Balian sat down on the bed and pulled the teenager into his arms. “Ibrahim told me.”

“Why?” Baldwin cried into his breast. “Why? Why? Why? What have I done to deserve this? Why does God want to punish me? For what?”

“Not for anything you have done, Baldwin. Like Christ, you are suffering for our sins ― the sins of your subjects.”

“That’s not fair, Balian! Other kings don’t suffer for the sins of their subjects. Why me?”

“I don’t know, Baldwin, I can only tell you that while you may suffer in this life, He will take you into his arms like a long lost son in the next. You will go straight to heaven, Baldwin, while the rest of us languish in our graves, in purgatory or in hell. He has laid upon you the suffering He reserves only for those He loves most: His Son, His saints and His martyrs.”

Baldwin drew back enough to look Balian in the face. “Do you really believe that?” He asked at length.

“I have to, Your Grace, or I would lose faith in God himself.”

Baldwin drew a ragged breath and then slowly straightened up, pulling out of Balian’s embrace. “I don’t want you to be infected,” he whispered, the tears streaming down his face nevertheless. Balian grabbed the bed sheets and found a corner with which to wipe the tears from his king’s face. Then he held him firmly by the shoulders and looked him in the eye. “It will be as God wills it, Baldwin, but it seems He does not think me worthy of your suffering.”

“Or He wants to reward you in a different way,” Baldwin suggested with a weak attempt at a smile. “Why are you here?”

“To ask ― to ask a favor,” Balian confessed.

“A favor?” Baldwin asked frowning. “You too?” 


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Friday, October 24, 2014

Just who was Balian d'Ibelin? - Excerpt 6

Ascalon, Kingdom of Jerusalem





Disappointed, Maria Zoë went to one of the chairs between the arches and slowly sank down onto it. From habit she folded her hands in her lap, and the image she presented to the outside world was one of a patient queen, awaiting the refreshments promised. Behind that façade, however, her emotions were teetering on the brink of panic. She had ridden all this way, mystifying those around her, for a confrontation with what? A ghost from her past? A figment of her imagination?

Just who was Balian d’Ibelin?

In this functional room, shorn of all her dreams and wishful thinking, she realized that she did not know him at all. He had never said one word about himself―about his feelings, his plans, his dreams. He had always spoken of Baldwin. Baldwin had been their shared interest. Nothing more.

There was a knock on the door and she caught her breath, turning toward it expectantly. But the tall young knight who entered was not Balian. He looked vaguely familiar, but Maria Zoë could not place him. He came toward her, smiling, and bowed deeply from two feet away before announcing, “My lord was out in the lists, but he will return shortly. Meanwhile, is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable, your grace? Sherbet is being prepared even as we speak, but perhaps you would like something more substantial?”

“At the moment, no, aside from learning your name, sir.”

“Oh, I’m Sir Walter. You’ll remember me as Sir Balian’s squire.”

“Ah, yes, of course.” Now that he said it, she did recognize him, although he had matured significantly; his lean body had filled out and his face looked like it could now grow a beard. “So you’ve been knighted,” she noted politely. Two years was a long time for a youth on the brink of manhood.

Walter grinned at her. “Sir Balian didn’t have any choice. He felt the city was inadequately defended, so he doubled the number of knights in Ascalon by knighting me.”

Maria Zoë looked suitably shocked, and Walter laughed. “And even so, he’d rather tilt with the quintain than with me. I fall off the horse from just thinking about the lance hitting me. Ah! Here’s the sherbet.” Walter went to open the door wider for a servant carrying a silver tray, laden with two glazed pottery bowls packed with sherbet, a bowl of cashews, and spoons. The servant set the tray down on the table beside Maria Zoë and offloaded it. Rahel motioned to Walter to sit with her lady, but he shook his head, adding graciously to the waiting woman, “Refresh yourself, my lady. You’ve had a hot ride, while I’ve been comfortable in the shade. But I will keep you company, if you like?” 
The question was directed to the Queen.

“By all means,” the latter assured him as Rahel sat down, and Walter grabbed a stool to sit astride at Maria Zoë’s feet.

Maria Zoë’s head was filled with questions that Walter could undoubtedly answer. For example, was Balian looking for a wife? And if so, where? And if not, why not? But she dared not ask.

“Did you come directly from Jerusalem, your grace?” Walter asked in the vacuum left by her own silence.

“Yes, we did.”

“Then could you be so kind as to tell us the latest news? Is it true Salah-ad-Din has left Damascus?”

“Yes, he has returned to Egypt. Our spies suggest there was a revolt, but Salah-ad-Din is said to have ruthlessly suppressed it with terrible bloodshed.” Maria Zoë had been with the King when this word was brought to him by a Syrian Christian who traded in ivory between Cairo and Damascus. “Our source says that he sealed off the quarter of the city in which the rebels lived and sent his men in to slaughter the women and children house by house until none survived.” Maria Zoë shook her head in aversion at the story, adding,
“And now he is preaching jihad and threatening us with the same fate. It is said Salah-ad-Din has vowed to drive the Kingdom of Jerusalem into the sea.”

“Then this is an odd time to visit Ascalon,” Balian remarked softly, coming in the open door.

Maria Zoë started at the sound of his voice and looked up with racing pulse. He was exactly as she remembered him―no, he was much more handsome. Two years ago he had been a knight in her husband’s service: young, strong, tanned, and earnest, as befitted the only knight who dared serve a leper. Now he commanded a city, and his new position gave him stature. But the eyes were still the same molten bronze. No, they weren’t. They were much bolder. He looked her straight in the eye as he approached, and it took her breath away.

Balian’s skin was flushed from the steam bath and glowed with oils, and he smelled of balsam. His hair was still wet and looked almost black, but the drying strands looked as soft and silky as Maria Zoë’s own when her hair was freshly cleaned, only straight rather than curly. Balian’s chin was slightly darkened with the promise of a beard to come, as he had not taken the time to shave. Maria Zoë heard her heart thundering in her ears―and registered that this must be what the troubadours meant when they sang of a knight making his lady’s blood burn.

Balian had crossed the room, and he bowed deeply over her hand. “Welcome to Ascalon, your grace. I regret that without warning, we could not provide you with a more suitable welcome. I hope Sir Walter has been behaving himself and has made you feel at home?”

“Sir Walter is a paragon of chivalry, my lord,” Maria Zoë answered smoothly, too conscious of the turmoil of her emotions to realize how cool and aloof she sounded.
Walter had jumped to his feet when Balian arrived, and Rahel had stood, too. She again gestured to the seat she had occupied.

Balian shook his head to Rahel, gesturing for her to resume her seat. He looked over his shoulder and found a smaller chair, which he grabbed and placed before the table. “To what do we owe the honor of your presence in Ascalon, your grace?”

Balian could not have been more formal, and Walter wanted to kick him. That’s no way to court a lady, he wanted to shout at his lord, not any lady―much less one of the most beautiful creatures on God’s earth, with a queen’s dower portion on top!

Walter was right, of course. Maria Zoë felt as if she had been burned by ice. Balian had always been meticulously polite to her, of course, but before, it had been a façade. Hadn’t it? He had been polite to disguise how much he really felt for her, hadn’t he? She had been so sure of it at the time. She had believed in his affection for the two years she had been with the Carmelites. It was the conviction that he would be pleased to see her that had brought her here―two days’ ride from Jerusalem to the most vulnerable city in the Kingdom.


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Friday, October 17, 2014

Salah-ad-Din! - Excerpt 5

Ascalon, November 1177




“Salah-ad-Din!” the man shouted up to the lookouts on the ramparts of the barbican. “With his whole army!” He gestured wildly to the south with one hand while trying to drag a reluctant overloaded mule toward the closed Gaza Gate with the other. It was nearly midnight and the gates were locked and barred, but the watch peered down at not just one man with a mule, but dozens of people streaming toward the city by the light of the setting moon.

The captain of the watch squinted into the darkness, trying to estimate the number of refugees. Then he turned to the man next to him and said, “Better rouse Sergeant Shoreham. I’m not opening these gates without his orders.” He leaned over the ramparts and shouted down to the man with the mule, “Patience! We’ll let the lot of you in at once, not piecemeal.”

By the time Roger arrived, his hair sticking up in all directions, the crowd at the gate had grown to an angry, milling mob of nearly a half a hundred people, including squalling babies, whimpering children, and pleading women. “Salah-ad-Din!” the men kept shouting and gesturing. “He’s coming with his whole army!”

Roger gave the order to admit the refugees and, after hesitating a moment, also ordered the sounding of the alarm to call the garrison to the walls. The men stared at him in shock, but then one of them grabbed the bell cord and began vigorously ringing the heavy brass bell on the Gaza barbican with all his might. The sound seemed paltry in the vastness of the night, but it was quickly answered by the bells on the other gates―and slowly, haphazardly, as priests and deacons were roused from their sleep, the bells of the city’s churches took up the clangor. Within minutes St. Paul’s added its deep, heavy voice to the chorus of bells, and St. Mary’s, the main Orthodox church, seemed to be competing for the loudest clang.

The sound brought Balian from his sleep with a start, trying to remember what saint’s day it was. Then he registered that it was pitch dark, and he sat bolt upright in his bed as he realized the bells could only be ringing alarm. He had been Constable of Ascalon for fifteen months now, but this was the first time he had heard the bells rung in earnest. He flung off the light covers and jumped out of bed. “Arms! Bring my arms!” he shouted at a bewildered Dawit, just dragging himself out of his own sleep.

Balian flug off his nightshirt and grabbed his braies. He pulled them on and tied the cord, while Daniel stumbled to his feet to bring him his shirt. Balian pulled this over his head and snapped his fingers for his hose, which Daniel brought and helped him draw on and make fast to his braies. Balian was already in his gambeson and stuffing his feet into knee-high suede boots by the time a servant knocked on the door, shouting: “Sir Balian! Sir Balian! Sergeant Shoreham requests your presence at the Gaza Gate!”

“I’m coming!” Balian answered, and bent so Dawit could slip his hauberk over his head. He pushed his arms through the slack chain-mail sleeves while Daniel waited with his surcoat. He pulled this on, grabbed his sword from Dawit’s outstretched arms, and selected the lighter, open-faced crevelier rather than the heavy helm Daniel offered him. Finished at last, he ordered his squires to dress themselves, wake Sir Walter, and join him on the Gaza Gate.

By the time Balian reached the Gaza Gate, the number of refugees had swollen to nearly a hundred, and the ten Hospitaller knights had also mustered on foot. “They’re saying Salah-ad-Din is on the move with his entire army!” one of the Hospitallers called out to Balian as the latter jumped down from Jupiter to mount the stairs onto the barbican.

Balian handed his reins to one of the Hospitallers, asking: “How far away is he supposed to be?”

“Not more than twelve miles, they say. Most of these people fled early in the morning and have been making for Ascalon all day.”

“That would mean he’s marched past the Templar castle at Gaza,” Balian countered.

“These people are reporting one hundred thousand soldiers with Salah-ad-Din; the Templars only have five hundred fighting men at Gaza. Even they wouldn’t be mad enough to attack against those odds.”

“These people are panicked refugees. I’ll believe this is Salah-ad-Din’s whole army, and not just a raid, when I have better evidence than the panicked claims of fleeing peasants. How soon can you be ready to ride?” he asked the Hospitaller.

The man glanced back at his troops and then replied, “Ten minutes.”

“Good. Make ready,” Balian ordered (although he had no right to do so), and then plunged into the darkness of the narrow spiral stairwell leading up to the ramparts of the barbican.

When Balian stepped out of the stairwell onto the roof of the barbican, he quickly counted double the number of men usually stationed there, and recognized George Smith and Joachim Zimmermann among them. They were wearing leather jacks with hoods and had swords at their hips. Just as Roger had promised, it wasn’t just the garrison that had responded to the clanging of the bells.

Roger caught sight of Balian and went over to him. “You’ve seen the refugees, my lord? They’re saying Salah-ad-Din is on the march with his whole army.”

“What makes you think this is an invasion and not a raid?”

“I don’t know, sir. I would just rather be safe than sorry.”

Balian nodded his approval, but his guts were twisting themselves in knots. Salah-ad-Din had assembled his army to counter a threat posed by a Byzantine fleet sent to support the troops of the Count of Flanders and the Army of Jerusalem, but Flanders had quarreled with the Byzantines (ignoring Zoë’s advice, she confided in him), and now the Byzantine fleet had withdrawn and the Count of Flanders had gone campaigning in the north. This left Salah-ad-Din with his assembled forces on the southern border of the Kingdom at a time when it was virtually denuded of troops. The Saracens would be mad not to take advantage of the situation and attack, Balian thought as he followed Roger to the parapet. And Ascalon made the most tempting target. The Sultan must be itching to take it back and regain a base for his own fleet.

“There! Do you see the pinpoints of light on the horizon?” Roger broke into his thoughts.

Balian had to look very hard, but then he nodded. “Burning villages?”

“That’s my guess, my lord.”

Balian nodded again. “Roger, I want you to put the city on the defensive.”

“Yes, my lord, that’s what we’ve done.”

“Yes. What I meant is: I want you to take command of the defense.”

“But, my lord―”

Balian held up his hand and turned to Walter, Dawit, and Daniel, who had just arrived together. “Dawit, tack up Gladiator―with battle gear, the chain reins―and bring him here.”

“Do you need your lance and helmet, sir?” Daniel asked with breathless excitement.
“Yes.”

“You aren’t going out there, my lord!” Roger gasped.

“The Hospitallers and I will ride reconnaissance,” Balian answered.




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Friday, October 10, 2014

A Political Marriage - Excerpt 4

Jerusalem, September 1172






When the King still had not come to her more than a fortnight after her recovery, Maria Zoë took things into her own hands. She knew that Amalric, a conscientious monarch, met with his Privy Council every day at noon in the Tower of David. She ordered her ladies to dress her in her wedding gown with its extravagance of jewels, and she set the crown of Jerusalem upon sheer silk veils that shimmered gold and white over her dark hair. Then she sent for the herald. “Announce me to the King,” she ordered the astonished herald.

“But, your grace—” He broke off as she rose to her feet and met him in the eye.

“I am going to the Tower of David to see my husband. Go and announce me.”

The herald backed out of her chamber, bowing, and Maria Zoë could hear his boots as he ran along the gallery leading from the modern palace back to the ancient citadel. Maria Zoë moved slowly to give the herald time to warn her husband, but not so slowly that Amalric could escape her altogether. By the time she reached the exterior stairs leading up to the great audience chamber in the ancient tower, the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Constable, Humphrey de Toron, were exiting the grand chamber in apparent haste. Both men bowed their heads to their Queen, and Maria Zoë could feel their eyes boring into her back.

As she entered the grand chamber with the throne and a table for the council, two clerks were falling over themselves in their haste to put away their quills and inkpots and clear out. They, too, bowed deeply to Maria Zoë and beat a hasty retreat.

Amalric awaited her seated, his face impassive, his eyes following her alertly. Maria Zoë approached the throne and went down in a formal curtsy. “My lord,” she murmured as she righted herself. “Since you have avoided my presence these last two weeks, I thought it was time I sought you out.”

“Hmm,” Amalric remarked. “You are recovered, then?”

“I am recovered. And you, my lord, you are well?”

“As well as a man can be—after being presented with a second daughter at a time when the Kingdom desperately needs a male heir. People may not say it out loud, but Baldwin has leprosy. Very likely it disqualifies him from the throne altogether. A nobleman with leprosy must enter the Order of St. Lazarus. Can the law exempt a prince?”

“My lord, I am as disappointed as you are that my child is a girl,” Maria Zoë answered steadily. “But I cannot decide the sex of my child.”

“No, so I’m told,” Amalric admitted grudgingly.

“The only solution is for us to try again.” Maria Zoë had practiced this line in her head a hundred times and she tried to sound bold, but her voice quavered a little nevertheless.

“Oh, really?” Amalric asked sarcastically, making Maria Zoë blush. “Somehow, I never had the impression you were very enthusiastic about sexual intimacy—at least not with me.”

Maria Zoë gasped. “You cannot think I have been unfaithful to you!”

Amalric considered his bride and smiled cynically. He had always preferred married women to girls, precisely because virgins were rarely enthusiastic partners in bed. Maria Zoë’s beauty had seduced him at first, but her unresponsiveness—often with a twisted face and gasps of pain—had soon dulled his appetite. She seemed to dislike physical intimacy so intensely that he truly found it hard to imagine her risking her crown, her head, and her soul for the sake of carnal pleasures—unlike Agnes de Courtney, who was always eager for variety in fornication. Nevertheless, he reasoned that it didn’t hurt to let his wife think he doubted her, so that she would be frightened as well as disinclined. In answer to her reply, he merely weighed his head from side to side and remarked, “You’re a beautiful young woman—and as such, weak and easily seduced.”

“Never!” she declared indignantly, her cheeks flushed. “And how should another man have a chance if you are there?”

“Where? You mean in your bed? Ah, well, believe me, it’s quite possible to make love in other venues—but that is a topic best saved for another time, and not exactly the reason you are here, is it?”

“My lord, as you said, the Kingdom of Jerusalem needs a male heir, and only you can sire him.”

“Indeed, but not necessarily with you.”

So the rumors were true, Maria Zoë registered, and he was considering setting her aside.

“I am your wife—”

“Perhaps not. If my marriage to Agnes was valid, then my marriage to you is bigamous, and you are nothing more than my concubine.” He let this sink in, enjoying the look of horror on Maria Zoë’s face. Like all Greeks, she considered herself fundamentally superior to other races, and Amalric took a certain pleasure in pointing out the weakness of her position. “I’m sure I could find a priest—even a bishop—who would argue the case. Should I so desire …” Amalric threatened with a mild, unfriendly smile.

“I’m sure you could, too, my lord,” Maria Zoë answered steadily, having recovered from the insult of being called a concubine. She wasn’t, after all, entirely unprepared for his line of attack. She was no fool, and she had given much thought to where this conversation might lead. Since he had played this trump, however, she drew hers. “And I’m just as certain that my great-uncle would see such a move as an insult incompatible with his status as your overlord.”

“The Greek Emperor is not my overlord,” Amalric retorted sharply.

“No? I thought that was the purpose of your trip to Constantinople last year—to renew your lapsed oaths of homage,” Maria Zoë pointed out coolly. Although Amalric had not seen fit to include her in his meetings with her great-uncle, her father had been present, and he had assured her that Amalric had dutifully acknowledged that he held Jerusalem as a vassal of Constantinople.

“The Greek Emperor generously offered me his protection, and I assured him of my goodwill—no more than that,” Amalric insisted, frowning sidelong at his beautiful doll-wife, who had never dared talk to him like this before.

Maria Zoë recognized that she could not argue this point, and changed her tactic. “Whether my great-uncle is your overlord or not, neither he nor my brother-in-law of Antioch will allow me to be set aside without consequences for Jerusalem.”

Amalric snorted in exasperation—because she was right. The Emperor in Constantinople had made it very clear that he considered himself the center of the universe and would take any slight to his prestige as lèse majesté, while Antioch had tied himself to Constantinople because he needed Greek support to keep the Seljuks at bay. This dependency was reflected in his marriage politics: Prince Bohemond’s sister Mary was the Emperor’s current wife, while Bohemond himself was married to Maria Zoë’s sister. In short, Amalric’s two most powerful allies would both side with his wife in any public dispute, and Jerusalem could not afford to fall out with both Constantinople and Antioch.

Amalric considered his wife again through narrowed eyes, registering that she was not as fragile, weak, or docile as he had taken her to be. She was clearly growing up. He grunted a second time. He was stuck with this wife for political reasons—and truth to tell, it was not such a difficult duty to get her pregnant again. “I’ll tell you what,” Amalric suggested, leaning closer to Maria Zoë and lowering his voice. “You make me feel welcome in your bed, and I’ll think about spending as much time there as we need to make a son together.”

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Friday, October 3, 2014

If God has seen fit to make the heir to Jerusalem an leper... Excerpt 3

Jerusalem, May 1171




William, Archdeacon of Tyre, led Balian along the interior gallery toward the Jaffa Tower. The Archdeacon was not yet an old man, but he was no longer young, either; Balian had heard that he’d spent sixteen years studying in the West before returning to the city of his birth to serve the King. Balian judged he was roughly half a century old. He wore long ecclesiastical robes and soft doeskin slippers, so his feet were silent on the checkerboard of light and dark marble paving stones. “He is a very bright boy,” the Archdeacon told the young knight. “He is exceptionally quick to pick up on things, and he has a sharp analytic capability that often surprises me. More than once he has made observations that would honor a grown man. If it weren’t for his illness, I would rejoice that the Kingdom of Jerusalem had been blessed by such an intelligent boy as its heir.”

Balian nodded, and the Archdeacon looked at him sidelong. “You fear contagion,” he concluded.

Balian took a deep breath. “Shouldn’t I?”

“You should, for despite what the King says, the boy is almost certainly struck by leprosy. The King does not want to believe that, and as long as we can pretend it might be something else, we do. But in your shoes, I would assume it is leprosy. That said, the danger of contagion is far less than many people believe―especially under the circumstances. You see, the son of a king can afford what commoners cannot: to be bathed morning and night, and to have fresh bandages and fresh clothes each day. The bandages and clothes removed at night are boiled in large vats with salts that sterilize them. I personally wear cotton gloves when I am near Baldwin, and I change my gloves each day, sending the dirty gloves to be sterilized in the same way. I would strongly recommend you bathe nightly as well. I make no promises―after all, none of us know how Prince Baldwin became infected―but there is no reason to see this assignment as a death sentence.”

Balian glanced at the churchman with a wan smile. “Am I so easy to read?”

The Archdeacon laughed. “In this case, yes―but mostly because it is what everyone thinks. Only slaves attend Baldwin, because—I am ashamed to admit—none of the Christian servants were willing to take on the duties of looking after him.”

“The Prince of Jerusalem is surrounded by Muslim slaves?” Balian asked, shocked.

“And you and me,” the Archdeacon reminded him with a smile, but then he grew serious and halted. They were still a good ten paces from the entrance to the Prince’s suite of rooms, guarded by men-at-arms in the livery of Jerusalem. The Archdeacon lowered his voice and looked Balian in the eye. “You and I will be working closely together in the months, maybe even years, ahead. I wish to know more about you.”

“I am the third son of the first Baron d’Ibelin, the younger brother of Barisan de Ramla―”
The Archdeacon cut him off with a shake of his head. “I know who you were born, Sir Balian. I am not interested in your bloodlines and estate, but rather in your character. I would like to know why you accepted this position―since evidently you consider it a death sentence.”

Balian looked down, embarrassed.

“Would you feel more comfortable in a chapel?” the Archdeacon asked, leaning past Balian to open the doors to a room immediately off the gallery. It was hardly more than an oratory, really, with room for no more than two or three people to kneel before the altar. But Christ was here, the Eucharist candle hanging by silver chains above the altar. The Archdeacon closed the door behind them, and Balian was cornered. This was a confession, only facing the priest.

“There is nothing wrong with admitting you took this position for the rewards the King offered, for I’m sure he offered you something valuable,” the Archdeacon told Balian with a smile, as if trying to make this easier for him.

“No, I didn’t take it for rewards, since I question whether I will live long enough to collect,” Balian answered honestly.

“Then why did you take this position?”

Balian fixed his eyes on the Eucharist rather than the churchman. “Because I thought that if God had seen fit to make the Prince of Jerusalem a leper, then who was I to think I was too good to serve him?”

This answer took even the Archdeacon by surprise. In a spontaneous gesture that was very rare for the learned cleric, he embraced Balian and murmured, “My son!” Then, as if embarrassed by his own gesture, he stepped back and held Balian at arm’s length, looking him in the eye. “Do you know what the Byzantines call leprosy? They call it ‘the holy disease.’ You must understand: lepers are not punished for the blackness of their souls! You will understand that better when you meet Baldwin. Rather, leprosy is a sign of His grace. Lepers have been singled out to suffer as He did—and to give other Christian men an opportunity to demonstrate their faith through service to these poor souls. I see that you understand that, and I am certain the Lord has blessed you, young man. But remember, he who is blessed by the Lord is not guaranteed health or prosperity in this life, but surely in the next. He will be with you always!”

“May I do nothing to offend Him, my lord.”

“Amen!”

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