Chapter 10: Receiving The Eucharist By Proxy
Heraclius did not tell the children the exact time and place—to avoid further incidents, and to this day Amalric I has not been able to find any trace of the source of the leprosy.
As Caesar had speculated, the nearest leper gathering place to Ayyarasa Road, a leper valley, was still fifty miles away. Even if there was a leper hiding among the pilgrims, he could not easily approach Baldwin.
Baldwin was only nine years old, not even an attendant or escort. Apart from a few rare outings for hunting, his range of activity was limited to the inner city of Holy Cross Castle. The people around him were either the lord’s heir or a minister’s son, and afterwards none of them showed signs of illness. Could it really be that God was displeased with Godfrey and his descendants’ unwillingness to hand over Ayyarasa Road to His representative, and sent an angel to punish him?
Heraclius and Amalric I were in complete agreement on this point: this was not a natural disaster, but man-made.
To avoid a second man-made disaster, Heraclius naturally would not reveal in detail to a third person the plot between himself and the king.
“There is one more thing I need you to do.” Heraclius said again: “Tomorrow when attending Mass, you are to receive the Eucharist on behalf of Baldwin.”
“Receive the Eucharist improperly?” Baldwin said in surprise: “Isn’t that a grave sacrilege?”
“Receiving the Eucharist improperly refers to the presumption of the unbaptized, unconfessed, or those untaught in doctrine and canon law. You are not among them, Baldwin.” Heraclius said calmly, showing no sign of how many times he and Amalric I had debated and argued with the Patriarch of the Holy Land over this matter in the past few days.
Baldwin breathed rapidly.
“Your father has told you,” Heraclius said: “You can trust him.”
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“How can he stand ahead of everyone?” Abigail, son of Grand Duke Bohemond of Antioch, stared intently at the black-haired boy standing shoulder to shoulder with Princess Sibylla.
“Because he is acting on behalf of Prince Baldwin,” Bohemond said lazily in a low voice: “Of course he is qualified.”
“But he should also know his status,” Abigail said fiercely: “Such a lowly creature…” yet he could stand so close to her, her fragrance filling his breath.
Bohemond merely raised his eyes in contempt; he knew what his son was thinking—
“So will you go?” He moved his lips, his volume matching those around him, with a touch of indistinctness to ensure only Abigail pressed close to him could hear: “I can request His Majesty to allow you to serve His Highness, the question is,” he shifted his knee slightly; Holy Cross Castle’s chapel was high in the main tower, but it still could not avoid the chill penetrating from the stone.
“Do you have the courage? To stay by a leper’s side at all times? Holding his golden cup, carrying his cloak, sleeping under his bed, inhaling the breath he exhales—do you dare? If I remember correctly, upon hearing that the king’s only son, your friend and future master, was a leper, you were so frightened that you shed endless tears, your knees went weak, and you knelt on the ground begging me never to make you the prince’s attendant again.”
At this point, the grand duke even lifted the corner of his mouth: “You said you would rather become a monk, go fight the Saracens, and die, than live day and night with a sinner punished by God.”
Hearing his father say this, Abigail’s face flushed red instantly. He opened and closed his lips, breathing rapidly, but even after the monks finished singing a chapter, he did not muster enough courage, and finally could only mutter: “Just a slave…”
“‘Because they are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves.'” Bohemond repeated a passage from scripture（we can find in《Leviticus》）,”When Amalric I bought him from that Isaac slave merchant, he was no longer a slave.”
Abigail was speechless, but getting this stubborn young man to let go of his unwillingness was not so easy. Bohemond could see at a glance the malice brewing in his heart, and could not help but sigh inwardly at how he had such a mediocre eldest son.
Sibylla, the eldest daughter of the King of Ayyarasa Road, was thirteen years old this year, with a slender waist, budding breasts, lips, forehead, and cheeks that shone brightly like the morning sky even without rouge. Some said she was as pure and flawless as the Vestal Virgins of the Palatine Hill, others said she had the wisdom and talent of the Queen of Sheba of Marib. From the northernmost Galilee to the southernmost Hebron, those who wished to become her husband were as numerous as the sand in the wilderness.
For such a beauty, even glancing at the shadow she left in the dust was sacrilege, yet now such a lowly slave, simply because he was the prince’s attendant, could interact with the princess as if they were close friends, taking the golden cup and the host from her hand. How could it not ignite jealousy in a simple young man’s heart?
Bohemond did not care how much Abigail admired the princess; what he cared about was that his eldest son was so foolish as to completely fail to see what he should truly grasp, confusing priorities.
For a great noble like Bohemond, the most valuable thing about Sibylla was her inheritance rights to the Kingdom of Ayyarasa.
The Kingdom of Ayyarasa Road, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa that fell a few years ago, as well as the Patriarch of the Holy Land, all recognized primogeniture（male heir preference）. If the king had no male heir, then his daughter could inherit everything and hand it to her husband—that is, if a kingdom had no heir, an outsider could obtain a kingdom through marriage.
When King Godfrey I of Ayyarasa Road strongly favored this system back then, it was because he had three daughters. These three daughters successively married the lords of Antioch, Tripoli, and Edessa, and as Godfrey I had hoped, briefly became regent dowagers after their husbands’ deaths—except for Edessa. Perhaps it was for this reason that the former County of Edessa had a distant and cold relationship with the Kingdom of Ayyarasa Road, so much so that when it was attacked by Saracens and Amalric’s people, Ayyarasa Road, along with the other two allies, ignored previous promises and stood idly by.
Ironically, Bohemond thought to himself, Godfrey I probably did not expect that the inheritance law he established might not always favor Ayyarasa Road. After his death without heirs, his brother, then Count of Edessa Baldwin, inherited Ayyarasa Road. Unexpectedly, Baldwin’s son Baldwin II also had no son, and his kingdom had to be handed over to his son-in-law.
Baldwin II’s grandson, Baldwin III, Bohemond, and Raymond of Tripoli were all his attendants, as well as friends and brothers. They spent their entire childhood and youth together in Holy Cross Castle, until Bohemond had to return to Antioch to fulfill his duties. But unsurprisingly, he would soon be summoned back to Ayyarasa Road to become Baldwin III’s right-hand man, wielding immense power.
But fate played tricks; Baldwin III died suddenly, without even having time to marry. His brother, Count of Edessa and later Amalric I, became the new master of Ayyarasa Road. Although he also recalled Bohemond, truthfully speaking, the relationship between Bohemond and Amalric I was not close.
To make up for this shortcoming, he early sent his eldest son Abigail to the side of Amalric I’s only son little Baldwin, hoping he could, like himself, establish a solid friendship with the future king.
To his disappointment, Abigail and little Baldwin had an ordinary relationship—or rather, he had shifted all the energy and time he should have invested in the king’s son to the king’s daughter. However, after little Baldwin was found to have leprosy, Bohemond’s attitude shifted from opposition to ambiguity—who knew a leper did not live long and could not give a woman children.
But what troubled the Grand Duke of Antioch was that between Abigail and Sibylla, clearly Sibylla held the upper hand. Given the lesson from Godfrey’s daughters, Bohemond could not help but worry that Abigail would ultimately become a puppet manipulated at Sibylla’s whim.
Just one among many.
There were plenty of young men here who admired the princess, not just Abigail: David of Tripoli, Yudith of the Knights Templar, Roger of the Knights Hospitaller, William of Acre, Nasir of Galilee, Guy of Arabia…
They had all once been attendants to the king’s son, and also friends of the brother most cherished by Sibylla. Among them there might be cowards like Abigail, but also youths as brave to the point of recklessness like David—he still requested to return to the prince’s side after learning little Baldwin was ill.
Of course, Amalric I did not allow it.
Any one of these people leaking even a little malice would be enough to overwhelm this attendant with no roots or background. As Bohemond thought this, he could not help but roll his eyes inwardly—his stupid son had not even thought of this, and was instead eagerly the first to show an ugly and useless face. He did not consider that if something happened to this boy, he would be the primary scapegoat.
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Caesar took the golden cup.
To say he was oblivious to the burning gazes and surging malice behind him would be a joke. In fact, in the chapel, apart from Amalric I, few people held any goodwill toward him—the Crusaders were still fighting the Saracens, and he was goods from an Isaac slave merchant, of unknown origin, worse than an illegitimate son or commoner. No one could guarantee he was not a spy or a heathen.
If—and he meant if—Amalric I had only made him a lowly servant, these people would not have cared at all.
But after Baldwin contracted leprosy, Amalric I had to bear double the heavy pressure—on himself and on Baldwin. He had to be responsible for his nation, fight for his faith, and bear responsibility to his vassals and subjects… This pressure almost drove him a little mad, making his temperament extreme.
The more they wanted Amalric I to strip his only son of his status, position, and power, the more he would elevate him to a height others could not reach. Even if Baldwin still could not leave his room, he would use extreme favoritism toward Caesar to tell others that his son was still the most noble heir of Ayyarasa Road! Even his attendant had the right to look levelly at the sons of counts or dukes.
For some timid and cowardly people, this was sheer torment, but for Caesar, it was merely a responsibility equal to power. Unless he was willing to endure the intense inequality of bloodline and status in this era and place, he would not refuse.
The priests’ dissatisfaction was more accumulated on the matter of “receiving the Eucharist by proxy.” “Such a thing has never happened before!” they shouted. Because the wine and unleavened bread in Mass represent Christ’s blood and flesh, previously they could only be received personally by believers. If a believer was immobile, the priest would personally distribute the Eucharist, and no one would proxy it.
But Baldwin’s situation was different. Whether leprosy was God’s punishment or God’s trial was still uncertain for now. Although lepers could not receive sacraments as written in canon law, Amalric I was undoubtedly playing an edge card.
But no matter how they complained, Amalric I would not change his mind. Proxy receiving the Eucharist was just the first step; he would make everyone understand—Baldwin’s status and position would not be shaken in the slightest because he was a leper.
Under everyone’s gaze, Caesar held the golden cup containing wine and the unleavened bread wrapped in fine cotton cloth, leaving from the secret passage behind the chapel. Guarding the secret passage was a sturdy but sullen-faced monk, who bowed to Caesar upon seeing him, then opened the door.
The secret passage was narrow, filled with the peculiar musty smell of stone. Thin rays of light shone in from small holes in the walls, barely illuminating the steps. A few minutes later, Caesar arrived at the left tower.
Seeing him, Baldwin could not help but take a deep breath, and upon seeing the Eucharist, he felt a great relief.
He took the unleavened bread from Caesar’s hand, dipped it in the wine, and swallowed it in one gulp.
Baldwin originally wanted to ask in detail about the situation at the time and everyone’s reactions, but before Caesar could put away the golden cup, servants came—new servants, because the previous ones who were hanged were all as meek as lambs. They might mutter some bad words inwardly, but things like openly sprinkling salt in water, doorways, and corridors to ward off evil as Witt did, demanding rewards, slacking off, drinking, and gambling no longer happened.
They came to report that Princess Sibylla had come to visit her brother.
By this time they had already heard a series of clinking sounds like small hammers striking a xylophone—that was the wooden shoe soles or hard cowhide shoe soles of the princess and her handmaids knocking against the stone steps.
There was also the faint rustling of silk and linen skirts rubbing against each other, brushing past walls and floors, and low whispers like nightingales chirping. Without even looking, just by listening one could imagine how lively and adorable a group of young girls it was.
“No need to send your attendant away,” a crisp and beautiful voice said from outside the door: “These lovely ladies have come precisely to see him.”
