for whom the lord loveth he correcteth

Sibylla has a fine eye for beautiful things, but sometimes the flaws in a particular material may be very subtle indeed, not easily discerned. Kings must be discerning in all matters.

Since his unmarked boyhood Baldwin has made a study of men’s gestures, of their expressions, whether they may be in their faces or their bodies. Their overall bearing is easy enough to mimic or make sense of, which man has a limp (and whether the cause lies in the joint or in the muscle) or the tipsy gait of one about to be overcome by the heat, but their small gestures require scrutiny to interpret. Since he first began to wear the mask this has been critical to making men at ease, though they will never be completely so. Once he sat as still and straight as he was able; now this did not suffice for inspiring men with more than discomfort. Or laughter; it gave the impression of helplessness, of being a mere inert object propped up on the throne, as much as regal indifference. He has learned to project majesty even at rest. An expressionless face has its advantages, but there’s no man in Christendom who can look into Baldwin’s eyes without discerning something of his meaning. He inclines his head one way, just so, or turns his body in his seat, and so conveys his mood as a man might smile or frown. His own actions and gestures must be carefully moderated to gracefully express that which he cannot convey otherwise from behind a mask. Too much of grace makes men uneasy.

Now he is scarcely able to walk or to stand, and from the flagging of his own flesh he knows that he may not have his sight much longer. Baldwin can live without feeling, without taste (and all tastes bitter to the King of Jerusalem, but is that sorrow or the blood in his mouth?) and, he supposes, without a sense of smell. He hasn’t much of one anyway, without a nose, and perhaps it would make his own condition more bearable. But he will not last long without his eyes and ears.

Something passes over him in this moment, looking him over in the thin light of the moon. The ghost of something that perhaps once lived in him but lives no longer, an opportunity perhaps. It is not difficult for a leper to remain chaste, even a young man and a king. Maybe that’s a blessing. His interest here (passing his gaze over Balian’s sun-browned flesh, where he does not dare draw his hand) is not entirely selfless.

“If I had a wife,” he says, “the Muslims would never let me near her. Even a concubine. The Patriarch of Jerusalem insists likewise, and were I a Jew, the same would still stand. Too much risk, should sin prove contagious.”

“I am not afraid,” Balian of Ibelin says, but his eyes are averted. Let him. Let him suffer to be looked at. Let him tremble.

“You are not afraid of divine punishment?”

The knight shifts forward, lowering his head. His brow is set, permanently furrowed. “I have been punished already. I see nothing to fear.”

It does not take a great deal of discerning to know Balian of Ibelin was once a married man, and to guess at what has become of his wife. She was melancholy, Sibylla said, and he loved her; he has never once spoken her name, perhaps out of conscientiousness. Or perhaps it is Godfrey he mourns for, or at rest he sags under the combined weight of his fallen comrades, or he pines for the green fields of France. Nobody ever said one could interpret these signs with any reliability, that might be the province of older men.

(Godfrey’s manners come to mind; he was not a refined man by any means for all his powers, but he knew courtesy. Balian could not have known the man long, not long enough enough at any rate for the particulars to cast their shadow on him, but there’s a little of his father’s solemnity around the corners of his mouth.)

“You’ve known loss, I think, when I look at you. Sibylla has mourned, too, and will again; My sister’s son is not well, and I suspect her husband will not live long.”

He can’t keep a touch of macabre humor from creeping into his voice. Sibylla is not without her ways; one poison or another should be more than enough for a man who drinks hastily and for all his pretensions of superiority over the locals likes his food heavily-spiced. If Baldwin had only asked… At times he has entertained the thought, of maintaining some governance of his own person and cutting his life shorter still. That particular preoccupation bears down on him like a black beast when he is too ill to move. But his health rallies as it has before, and he regrets having considered it, cannot excuse the sin. (And yet he would not begrudge another man the same – as a man suffering, if not in his capacity as a Christian.) Sibylla would bring him the cup if he only asked, Tiberias would hold the sword steady for him and help to drive it home; he does not know if a knight would.

Balian’s face betrays no understanding, but he is grave-faced at the best of times.

“Will you serve her better than he does?”

“I will.”

“A husband has many roles. Come closer.”

Balian does not flinch when his gloved hand touches his bare skin in a moment of clumsiness, brushing back the collar of his tunic. Silk doesn’t suit him, but he’s clever enough not to refuse hospitality out of some self-mortifying impulse. It’s difficult to take comfort in the subjection of a body already dead.

Sibylla’s token hangs around his sun-browned neck on a chain of silver, her ring has grown warm and its stone dull against his skin. The way she speaks of him is token enough of her affection. He’ll have to give her another one, he thinks muzzily, captivated briefly by the thought. Has her unlikely knight exchanged with her some sign of his own? She can wear it at her belt or woven into the web of her hair, her so-called husband will never so much as notice. They must have lain together. Must have. Love from afar is well and good, but it would be a shame not to. He’s not sure how he should feel about the subject, being inclined to forgive her everything.

His gaze is soft, and he is too slow to conceal his admiration. Balian meets his eyes.

“Your sister resembles you a great deal.”

“She is the elder of us two by a full year; it might be fairer to say that I once resembled her. Not to speak of the comparison now, of course.” His laughter is a dry breath that scarcely leaves his own mouth, if one can call it that.

“I meant,” Balian has stumbled over his own thought, ashamed, “I mean in disposition.”

“My sister has never been anything but impetuous.” Sibylla is as graceful and vigorous as one of her dozen greyhounds, studying her is a joy. She brims over with life, with all the spiritedness of a warrior of antiquity, who are so unlike these downtrodden Crusaders who bake in the heat resenting their neighbors. She is lively and lovely and good, and he hopes she lives to see 80. “While I’ve never been anything of the sort. Do go on.”

Godfrey’s son halts and considers. That which Balian the blacksmith from France does not say to the king of Jerusalem lies heavy on the air. He wants to suggest that they’re alike in their loneliness, but he can’t quite manage it, and knows better than to carry that comparison too far.

“You are both charitable. And you are both wise.”

The tone of doubtful Balian’s praise is achingly sincere. What will Baldwin’s wisdom count for, if he cannot keep his soul lodged in his body long enough to snatch ten years’ peace? If he had Sibylla’s liveliness or half her loveliness, he would kiss him, and might weep.