Writing Biographical Fiction: King Baldwin IV

No biography of Balian d’Ibelin can ignore the man who was king for the eleven critical years 1174 – 1185, Baldwin IV. Baldwin has gone down in history as the “Leper King” simply because he suffered from this illness throughout his reign, although this moniker detracts from his significant accomplishments as king. Our image of him today is further distorted by Ridley Scott’s film “The Kingdom of Heaven” in which Baldwin IV is a leading character. So as with Balian himself, I found myself confronted with a popular image of a major character that did not necessarily conform to historical reality ― or suit my purposes as a novelist.

Baldwin IV’s modern biographer, Bernard Hamilton, for example, provides considerable evidence that challenges conventional depictions of Baldwin IV as either peace-loving (ala Ridley Scott) or helpless (ala Jeffrey Lee). Hamilton also makes the critical point that Baldwin IV’s leprosy was not initially debilitating. Baldwin, he points out, retained the use of his left hand/arm and both legs and did not suffer from noticeable disfigurement at the time he ascended the throne. At that time, he had no visible ulcers and was able to move normally. Indeed, the contemporary chronicler and Baldwin’s tutor, the later Archbishop of Tyre, claims that Baldwin was “a good-looking child … and more skilled than men who were older than himself in controlling horses and riding them at a gallop.” 

In the summer of 1176, Baldwin turned 15 and so attained his majority. He took the reins of government for himself. Unfortunately, this occurred at a time when the enemies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were getting stronger. The Kurdish general Salah-ad-Din had seized control in both Cairo and Damascus. Baldwin IV sought to counter the rise of Salah-ad-Din by following his father's policy of alliance with the Byzantine Empire and attacking Cairo. Unfortunately, internal differences between Frankish leaders delayed the campaign, the Byzantine fleet withdrew and the bulk of the crusader and local barons and knights of Jerusalem undertook a campaign in the north. Salah-ad-Din, who had assembled his forces to meet the expected invasion, recognized that the Kingdom of Jerusalem was practically defenseless, and invaded. As he approached Ascalon, a city that had been in Egyptian hands until 1153, he prepared to besiege the city.

In a dramatic move Baldwin IV rode to the rescue of Ascalon with just 367 knights, reaching the city shortly before the Sultan's army enveloped it. But now the King of Jerusalem was in Ascalon and Jerusalem was practically defenseless. Salah-ad-Din decided to strike for heart of the kingdom: Jerusalem. Furthermore, he had such overwhelming superiority of force and so little respect for a youth of 16 that he allowed his troops to continue plundering along the way rather than concentrating on his goal. (This is such a dramatic historical event that I simply had to include it in my novel, and the best way to do was to have Balian in Ascalon at the time.)

Furthermore, Saladin had miscalculated. King Baldwin sallied out of Ascalon, called up the feudal levies and fell on Salah-ad-Din from the rear, winning a stunning and complete victory at Montgisard on November 25, 1177. While Jeffrey Lee in his recent biography of Reynald de Châtillon tries to give all the credit for this victory to subject, his case is based on the false assumption that Baldwin IV was already an invalid in a litter. In fact, there is every indication that at Montgisard Baldwin IV led his own troops on horseback, still fit enough to ride and fight.

But the consequences of this victory for Baldwin personally were devastating. Based on the historical descriptions of Baldwin’s initial illness, modern medical experts believe that Baldwin IV suffered initially from polyneuritic tuberculoid leprosy, which is comparatively mild and not necessarily debilitating. However, according to Piers D. Mitchell ("An Evaluation of the Leprosy of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem in the Context of the Medieval World," in Bernard Hamilton's The Leper King and His Heirs, Cambridge University Press, 2000), Baldwin’s leprosy deteriorated into lepromatous leprosy during puberty. While puberty itself can induce such deterioration, so can untended wounds (that go unnoticed due to loss of feeling) which cause ulcers to break out. 

When Baldwin led his daring campaign against Salah-ad-Din that led to the surprise victory at Montgisard he was in puberty, just 16 years old. It is probable that it was in part because of this campaign — which required camping out in the field and going without the usual bathing of his feet and hands — that Baldwin's leprosy took a turn for the worse.

When in 1179, Salah-ad-Din invaded a second time, Baldwin was unhorsed in the engagement, a clear indication of his deteriorating condition, and when Salah-ad-Din invaded a third time in 1182, Baldwin could no longer ride at all and had to command his army from a litter -- but still fought the Saracens to a stand-still, forcing them to withdraw. The following year, however, he was seized with fever and believing he was on his death-bed made his brother-in-law Guy de Lusignan regent. Thus when Salah-ad-Din invaded a fourth time in 1183, it was Guy de Lusignan who led the Christian armies to face him.

The results were not good. While the Saracens eventually withdrew, they had managed to do considerable damage and the barons of Jerusalem flat-out refused to follow Guy de Lusignan anywhere again. Baldwin dismissed him as regent, and dragged his disintegrating body halfway across the kingdom at the head of his army to relieve a siege of the castle of Kerak. The mere approach of the Leper King, was enough to convince Salah-ad-Din to withdraw, but by now Baldwin IV knew he did not have much time left to him. He had his nephew, Sibylla's son by her first husband William de Montferrat crowned as a co-monarch, and asked his bishops to find a way to dissolve Sibylla's marriage to Guy in the hope that another husband, more congenial to his barons, could be found for her. In the latter he failed, and hence when he died just short of his 24th birthday in the spring of 1185, he was succeeded by his nephew Baldwin V, and -- at the latter's death a year later -- by Guy de Lusignan.

Baldwin IV ruled for less than ten years and throughout his reign he was handicapped by a progressively debilitating and disfiguring disease. Yet he retained the loyalty of his subjects to the very end and on no less than five occasions prevented Salah-ad-Din's vastly superior forces from over-running his fragile kingdom. For that he should be revered and respected rather than dismissed as “the leper king.”

As a novelist, the character Baldwin IV presents several challenges ― and opportunities. First and foremost, I was determined to depict the progress of his disease realistically rather than showing him as a worthless blob in a liter from the start, as so many other modern writers. In short, my Baldwin is a youth who is ill but not debilitated when he comes to the throne, but who over the succeeding decade must come to terms with his declining strength, mobility and life-expectancy.

Other issues I had to address were Baldwin’s relationship to his mother and step-mother. Because he was separated from his mother at a very young age he could hardly have formed very close ties to her as a child.  Instead, he was raised at court, primarily by nurses and tutors. Although it is usually assumed they would have had nothing to do with his step-mother Maria Comnena, it is just as possible that she took an interest in him. Indeed, in the inevitably small circle surrounding a ruling king and his heir, she might have been more like an older sister than a step-mother since she was only about seven years older than Baldwin. After becoming king, however, Baldwin welcomed his mother at his court and she rapidly gained inordinate influence over him. This suggests that although Baldwin had not known his mother well, he felt a gap or a need that Maria Comnena (either because of her age or temperament) had not be able to fill.

His relationship to his sisters appear to have been very different. First, Sibylla was only a year older than Baldwin, and although raised in a convent, she would have been present at major holidays and feasts as long as their father was alive. Given Baldwin’s later behavior to Sibylla (allowing her to marry a man totally unsuitable for example), it seems likely that they were close as children. Isabella, on the other hand, was only two years old at her father’s death and thereafter left court so that Baldwin is unlikely to have had strong bonds with her. This is borne out by the cold-hearted manner in which he ordered her taken from her mother at the age of eight and turned over to the “tender” care of a notoriously brutal man, Reynald de Châtillon.

As a novelist, these various actions suggest a youth who loved his mother and sister, but gradually came to see that they were only interested in their personal gain and so acting against the interests of his kingdom. In my novels, Baldwin suffers not only from the increasing ravages of leprosy, but also from a slow disillusionment with his mother and sister.

And then there is the issue of his relationship to Balian himself. Two historical facts suggest a close relationship. First, Baldwin explicitly consented to Balian’s scandalously advantageous marriage to the dowager queen (Baldwin’s step-mother Maria Comnena), and eight years later, when practically on his death-bed, King Baldwin selected Balian to carry his nephew in a crown-wearing ceremony; it would have been more appropriate for his nephew’s guardian (Edessa) or regent (Tripoli) to carry the young king, so this was very clearly a mark of favor quite exceptional for such an insignificant baron.

Based on these admittedly thin shreds of evidence but driven by the compelling duty of a novelist to produce a good story, I created a close and early friendship between Balian and the future king, based on Balian taking over the role of riding-master. (In addition to knowing that Baldwin rode exceptionally well, there are some indications he was taught to ride by the brother of one of his Syrian Christian doctors.) 

Based on the fact that after coming of age, Baldwin turned to his mother and she not only hated Balian’s wife Maria but also arranged for Maria’s daughter by King Amalric to been taken away from her, I postulated a break between Balian and King Baldwin― which is healed only shortly before the king’s death.  

Baldwin IV is an important character in the first two books of my Jerusalem Trilogy. 

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What Lepers Can Do: An Excerpt from "Defender of Jerusalem"

“They might just kill us all—as we’re no use as slaves. When the enemy comes, we must take refuge in the city,” a middle-aged leper, whose fingerless hands were wrapped in bandages, declared forcefully.

“What makes you think the citizens of Jerusalem will let us inside?” a little man without ears or nose asked back bitterly. He had been expelled from his native Cologne and had walked all the way to Jerusalem in hope of a cure. Instead, he found himself segregated with his fellow lepers, albeit in better circumstances than in the Holy Roman Empire.

“We can appeal to the Grand Hospitaller,” a woman with deforming ulcers on her face and neck answered. The Order of St. Lazarus was an offshoot of the Knights of St. John.

It was at this point that Sir Daniel straightened and raised his voice. “No—Ibelin is in command now, and I will go to him.”

The congress of lepers fell restlessly silent as they turned to look at the speaker. Sir Daniel was one of them—and he wasn’t. He had never really fit in, and then he had gone off to serve the King. When he returned, he had kept himself apart, as if he thought he was better than the rest of them. Yet the leprosy had rendered his left arm useless; it was ulcerous and the fingers were rotting away. Because he could no longer hold a shield, he had not been allowed to go with the knights that mustered with King Guy, despite his protests and pleading.

Now he stepped out of the side aisle to stand directly in front of the altar (the lepers were meeting in the church) and reminded them: “Listen to me. I once served the Baron of Ibelin. If I go to him, he will grant what we request.”

Several in the audience, who didn’t like Daniel very well and thought him arrogant, grumbled to themselves that he shouldn’t be so sure about what the Baron of Ibelin would or would not do. The majority, like him or not, nodded and agreed that what he said made sense.

“But first we must decide what it is we want,” Daniel’s voice rang out, amplified by the acoustics of the church. His audience grew still, surprised and captivated by something in his tone.

“Do we want to cower behind the walls of Jerusalem like piteous rubbish, waiting for our fate?” He paused, but no one answered him; most of his audience, in their rags and rotting limbs, didn’t see what choice they had.

“Or do we want to follow in the footsteps of the late King Baldwin?” Again he paused, but now an intangible excitement had gripped them. The lepers toward the back or behind taller people squirmed and strained to get a better view of Sir Daniel.

Sir Daniel was still a surprisingly impressive figure. His face was not yet marked by the disease, and he stood tall and straight, a habit from his years in the King’s service. His rotting arm was wrapped in bandages and hidden from view in his cloak.

“King Baldwin never stopped fighting for his Kingdom, for this city, for Christ. Even when he was too weak to stand, when he could not use his hands, when his sight was dim. To the very end, he fought. Three times, the Leper King threw back Salah ad-Din’s armies! It took a healthy man to lead the Army of Jerusalem to defeat!” he reminded them, and suddenly they were nodding and congratulating themselves.

“I say if he could fight in his condition, then so can all of us!”

“He had others to do his fighting,” one of Sir Daniel’s detractors grumbled. “All he had to do was command.”

“Well, if you want to just whine and act like an infant, then do so!” Sir Daniel sneered. “But I know that I can be useful—and so can you, Tom, and you, too, Molly!” Daniel began addressing them by name. “In fact,” Daniel continued, “there are things we can do better than the healthy! With less feeling in our limbs, we can handle hot cauldrons with boiling oil and water, or even stamp out fires with our senseless feet. And who knows better than we how to prepare strips of cotton or how to wind them firmly? Why, then, who better than we to wrap arrows with cotton strips and dip them in tar and oil so they can be sent flaming over the ramparts to the enemy?”

His enthusiasm and conviction were contagious. Particularly, the younger and healthier of his colleagues were with him. “Yes, yes!” they started to shout. “We can help!”

“We can tend fires—”

“And put them out!”

“We can remove the dead!”

“We can throw the enemy dead back at them!”

“We can!”

“We can!”

All doubts, voiced and unvoiced, were soon drowned out in the euphoria of newfound purpose, and Sir Daniel was elected “Master” of the Lepers of St. Lazarus at Jerusalem by popular acclaim. 

An excerpt from:

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The Leper King

My most recent novel, Knight of Jerusalem, is set in the lifetime and reign of Baldwin IV of Jerusalem. It therefore seemed only fair to introduce my readers to the historical Baldwin IV -- most commonly known as the "The Leper King." 

Balian d'Ibelin and Baldwin IV as depicted in Ridley Scott's Film "The Kingdom of Heaven"

Baldwin was born in 1161, the second child of Amalric of Jerusalem and Amalric's first wife, Agnes de Courtney. At the time of his birth, his father was the younger brother and heir apparent to King Baldwin III of Jerusalem. Two years latter, his uncle died and his father ascended the throne -- but only on the condition that he set aside Agnes de Courtney. Agnes was duly disposed of, but Baldwin with his sister Sibylla remained at court with their father, recognized as his heirs. In 1167, Amalric remarried, this time to the Byzantine Princess Maria Comnena.  

At about this same time, Baldwin was diagnosed with leprosy by his tutor William, later Archbishop of Tyre. According to Tyre, the leprosy first manifested itself as a lack of feeling in Baldwin’s right hand. Yet there was no discoloration much less ulcers.  Accounts also stress that he was at his time an agile rider. 

In 1174, Baldwin's father died unexpectedly of dysentery on his way back from a campaign against Nur ad-Din, the Sultan of Damascus. Baldwin, despite his handicap, was elected King by the High Court of Jerusalem, despite the fact that other crown vassals afflicted with leprosy were required to join the Knights of St. Lazarus.  Being still a minor (13) at the time of his father's death, the Kingdom was placed in the care of a regent, Count Raymond of Tripoli, himself a descendent of Baldwin II and one of the most powerful barons. Notably, at this time Baldwin could still move and above a ride without apparent impediment.

Hawking was a popular sport at his time in the Kingdom of Jerusalem

In the summer of 1176, Baldwin turned 15 and so attained his majority. He clearly took the reins of government for himself and signalled this by calling his mother back to court and placing his maternal uncle into the powerful position of Seneschal of Jerusalem. Tripoi appears to have been sidelined, but not in anyway humiliated. 

Given his own illness and the certainty that he would not sire a successor, the most pressing business of the Kingdom was the marriage of Baldwin's older sister Sibylla as she was de facto his heir. In fact, Tripoli had already arranged a marriage for her with William de Montferrat, a man from a powerful north Italian family. Unfortunately, William died in the summer of 1177, leaving Sibylla pregnant at 17. 

Meanwhile, the enemies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were getting stronger. The Kurdish general Salah-ad-Din had first murdered the Vizier in Cairo and then, on the death of the Fatimid Caliph, declared Egypt Sunni. The death of the Sultan of Damascus in 1174 opened the way for Salah-ad-Din to seize control of Damascus as well, with Nur-ad-Din's legal heir fleeing to Aleppo. Although Salah-ad-Din would need almost ten more years to consolidate his position and eliminate all his rivals, he had effectively united Shiia Egypt and Sunni Syria under his rule by 1177 -- and to bolster his own legitimacy he had declared jihad against the Christian states in the Holy Land. 

Saladin in "The Kingdom of Heaven"

Baldwin IV sought to counter the rise of Salah-ad-Din by following his father's policy of alliance with the Byzantine Empire and attacking Cairo. Baldwin hoped to capitalize on disaffection among Salah-ad-Din's Shiia/Arab subjects for the Sunni/Kurdish usurper. Unfortunately, the Count of Flanders, who had arrived from the West with a large contingent of knights, thought he should be made King of Egypt if he helped conquer it, and the coalition fell apart. The Byzantine fleet withdrew and the Count of Flanders went off to campaign against Syria, taking many of the barons and knights of Jerusalem with him. 

Salah-ad-Din had assembled his forces to meet the expected invasion and suddenly saw the Kingdom of Jerusalem open and practically defenseless before him. He invaded, sacking and plundering as he advanced north, leaving well defended positions like the Templar castle at Gaza untouched until he came to Ascalon. Ascalon has been in Egyptian hands until 1153 and was considered a key strategic position for the defense of Egypt -- or the attack on Jerusalem. Saladin prepared to besiege the city.

In a dramatic move, Baldwin IV rode to the rescue of Ascalon with only 367 knights, reaching the city just before the Sultan's army enveloped it. But now Baldwin was trapped inside and Jerusalem was more defenseless than ever, so Salah-ad-Din decided to strike for the greatest prize of all: Jerusalem. Leaving maybe a third of his forces around Ascalon to keep Baldwin in the trap, Salah-ad-Din moved the bulk of his army north. Salah-ad-Din had such overwhelming superiority of force and so little respect for a leper youth of 16 that he allowed his troops to continue plundering along the way rather than concentrating on his goal.

He had miscalculated. Baldwin sallied out of Ascalon, called up the feudal levies and fell on Salah-ad-Din from the rear, winning a stunning and complete victory at Montgisard on November 25, 1177. (Watch for my entry on or near that date.) 

A Modern Depiction of Montgisard, Copyright Talento

But the consequences for Baldwin personally were also devastating. Based on the historical descriptions of Baldwin’s initial illness, which state he had lost the feeling in his arm but that there were no other symptoms such as discoloration or ulcers, modern experts in the disease believe that Baldwin IV initially had primary polyneuritic tuberculoid leprosy, which deteriorated into lepromatous leprosy during puberty. There was, according to Piers D. Mitchell ("An Evaluation of the Leprosy of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem in the Context of the Medieval World," in Bernard Hamilton's The Leper King and His Heirs, Cambridge University Press, 2000), nothing inevitable about this deterioration.  However, puberty itself can induce the deterioration as can untended wounds (that go unnoticed due to loss of feeling) which cause ulcers to break out. 

When Baldwin led his daring campaign against Salah-ad-Din that led to the surprise victory at Montgisard he was in puberty, just 16 years old. It is probable that it was in part because of this campaign — which required camping out in the field and going without the usual bathing of his feet and hands — that caused Baldwin's leprosy to take a turn for the worse. According to Mitchell, children who develop lepromatous leprosy are likely to die prematurely, and so once Baldwin’s leprosy had become lepromatous it inevitably led took its course through the gruesome stages of increasing incapacitation to a an early death.

But Baldwin wasn't dead yet. In 1180, he allowed his sister Sibylla to marry a young adventurer from the West, Guy de Lusignan. According to one contemporary chronicler, Sibylla was seduced by Guy (and she would not have been the first princess in Outremer to be seduced by a young adventurer), and Baldwin first threatened to hang Guy for "debauching" an princess, but then gave in to his sister and mother's pleadings to let his sister marry "the man she loved." Other sources suggest that Baldwin feared the Count of Tripoli was planning to depose him by arranging a marriage between Sibylla and Baldwin d'Ibelin, the Baron of Ramla and Mirabel. Whatever the reason, with Sibylla's marriage to Guy the succession appeared secure again.

A Royal Wedding in Jerusalem

The succession might have been secure, but the Kingdom was not. Salah-ad-Din had invaded a second time in 1179 and Baldwin had been unhorsed in the engagement, an indication of his deteriorating condition. When Salah-ad-Din invaded a third time in 1182, Baldwin could no longer ride and commanded his army from a litter -- but still fought the Saracens to a stand-still, forcing them to withdraw. The following year, however, he was seized with fever and believing he was on his death-bed designated his brother-in-law Guy de Lusignan regent. Thus when Salah-ad-Din invaded a fourth time in 1183, it was Guy de Lusignan who led the Christian armies to face him.

The results were not good. While the Saracens eventually withdrew, they had managed to do considerable damage and the barons of Jerusalem returned in a rebellious mood. The news that the key castle of Kerak was under siege (with both Princesses of Jerusalem, the Queen Mother and the Dowager Queen all trapped inside for a wedding) should have triggered the immediate dispatch of a major relief force. Instead, the entire High Court (allegedly unanimously) refused to follow Guy de Lusignan anywhere. He was dismissed as regent, and Baldwin IV had to drag is disintegrating body halfway across the kingdom at the head of his army. The mere approach of the Leper King, however, was enough to convince Salah-ad-Din to withdraw. 

By now Baldwin IV knew he did not have much time left to him. He had his nephew, Sibylla's son by her first husband William de Montferrat crowned as a co-monarch, and asked his bishops to find a way to dissolve Sibylla's marriage to Guy in the hope that another husband, more congenial to his barons, could be found for her. In the latter he failed, and hence when he died just short of his 24th birthday in the spring of 1185, he was succeeded by his nephew Baldwin V, and -- at the boy's death a year latter -- by Guy de Lusignan.

Baldwin IV ruled for less than ten years and throughout his reign he was handicapped by a progressively debilitating and disfiguring disease. Yet he retained the loyalty of his subjects to the very end and on no less than five occasions prevented Salah-ad-Din's vastly superior forces from over-running his fragile kingdom. For that he should be revered and respected.

Baldwin IV plays a major role in the first two volumes of my three part biography of Balian d'Ibelin:

Book I: Knight of Jerusalem was released in September 2014.


A landless knight,
                     a leper king,
                                 and the struggle for Jerusalem.
'


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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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