Chapter 132: Envoy
According to customary law and canon law, a newborn’s birth certificate should be made in duplicate. The child’s parents hold one copy, while the most credible local church and monastery keep the other. Whenever inheritance rights or other matters requiring proof of bloodline and surname arise, these two documents will be produced as the strongest evidence.
However, when Joscelin IV, that is, Caesar, and his sister were born, the circumstances were truly bizarre and special. They were born in an enemy castle, and those who delivered them, baptized them, and signed their birth certificate were all prisoners. To insist at this point that they find a church or monastery to keep the second birth certificate would be asking too much.
Moreover, what was taken out along with the birth certificate was property worth two hundred thousand gold coins. Just this one “proof” was enough to convince people.
But it must be said, this question was indeed tricky and vicious, striking right at the weakest link in the whole affair—that is, these two children did exist, but almost everyone who could prove that the two young people standing here now are those children is dead.
Even if not dead, such as Joscelin III and his wife—but these two children were sent away at three or four years old. Now they are adults, and without blood type or DNA testing, how could Joscelin III confirm their identities? The proof does not mention any birthmarks or moles on these two children.
Although green eyes as clear and bright as Caesar’s are indeed rare, it cannot be said that there is no second pair in the world.
What if that pair of loyal servants did not complete the work entrusted by their master? They may not have been negligent or lax, but child mortality was commonplace in this era, from kings to farmers all having experienced watching their children gradually lose breath—perhaps after grief they feared punishment, or harbored other thoughts—who knows if Joscelin III could leave the Saracen castle, or if he and the Armenian Princess would have more children.
They might adopt or buy two children to pass off as Joscelin III’s true bloodline. After all, in Acre, the “goods” of slave merchants even outnumbered cattle and horses. Nathia has common hazel eyes, Caesar’s green eyes are rare, but if willing to offer a heavy gold reward, it’s not impossible to obtain one like you.
Baldwin IV glanced coldly at the official who raised the objection. He was a scribe under Raymond, deeply trusted by this lord. But his statement would undoubtedly be noted by the king—or rather, Baldwin remembered his master Raymond. How dare an ordinary official speak out easily on such a matter?
“I remember Joscelin II…” Bohemond said quietly—Of course no one present could know Joscelin III; who made him a Saracen captive from age five? And with the complete fall of Edessa（ Joscelin II also died as a captive in a Seljuk castle） in 59, even fewer cared about Joscelin III.
But Joscelin II was a typical knight with a rugged face and sturdy build, his wife the Armenian Princess was not considered a beauty, and their son should also just be a mediocre man. While the Armenian Princess who was Joscelin III’s wife, if she were beautiful enough, Nur al-Din would not have expelled her from his harem to marry a prisoner.
And their pair of children…
If Nathia could still be called delicately beautiful, Caesar’s appearance had transcended most people’s imagination of a beauty. As he grew older, he was no longer androgynous as in childhood, increasingly like a blade drawn from its sheath—chilling before even approaching—yet irresistibly drawing people closer, even if it meant being cut.
He was polite to people, but there was always an indescribable, innate aloofness that made his inhuman quality strikingly vivid.
Could a child like this really be the son of Joscelin III and an Armenian woman?
Faced with this hard-to-refute question, Nathia showed no panic or anger.
“Please cut open this proof,” she said. “The evidence is inside.”
Such important certificates often use precious vellum. This leather is peeled from calves that have never seen daylight, can be polished very thin yet tough and hard to tear.
So when Nathia said this, Patriarch Heraclius’s first reaction was to reach out and pinch the vellum, finding it indeed thicker than ordinary vellum. But at the time he thought it was due to long storage or accumulation of too much dust in prolonged darkness.
Now looking closely, he spotted the issue—the front and back of the birth certificate had inconsistent growth patterns and fiber directions. He stepped forward a few paces, held it up to the scorching sunlight, and indeed saw a faint trace outlining the vellum.
Was something else sealed inside?
But this thickness had fooled everyone here. If not for Nathia’s reminder: “But doing so would destroy this certificate.” The other copy was in the hands of the Archbishop of Edessa. However, he had already perished in a Saracen prison. He only said he had kept that certificate safe, but told no one the exact location.
Now this had become an unsolvable secret. Unless one day the Crusaders could capture Acre, then they could dismantle the entire prison into stone bricks to search.
But they had only this one document to prove Nathia and Caesar’s identities—Patriarch Heraclius thought for a moment and decided to do it himself. As a priest he had traveled for decades, and among the things priests excel at is how to make paper.
The paper here was of course not plant-fiber paper, but parchment and vellum. Every priest had done the grueling work of stripping sheepskin, scraping off the fat, stretching it taut, drying it in the sun, then coating it with chalk and repeatedly polishing it to make it light, thin, and smooth.
The Patriarch had his disciple fetch an exceptionally sharp small knife, its blade a thin piece of obsidian. Such blades had a short lifespan, either breaking or shattering. But at this time, iron tool craftsmanship had not yet reached the standard created by nature. At least to separate these two adhered pieces of vellum with almost no seam, a black iron knife could hardly do it.
Under people’s gaze, Heraclius took some time to peel apart the two pieces of vellum. He was very patient and cautious; this identity certificate directly affected a large sum of money and territorial title inheritance. Though the territory was now effectively gone, if Caesar truly became Joscelin IV, he could in the future use this certificate to seek aid from his monarch and peers, whether funds, men, or provisions.
After all, the Crusaders were a minority on this land; the states they established must unite and aid each other to stand against the heathens’ repeated attacks like crashing waves.
Once opened, people saw that on the back of the vellum with the identity written on it were printed very small handprints and footprints.
“What is this?”
“These are mine and Caesar’s hand and footprints,” Nathia said nostalgically. “At our birth, my father used the most indelible dye mixed with ointment, making us press our hand and footprints on it.”
“I don’t understand what use this has?”
“The Archbishop of Edessa once made an extremely accidental discovery. He found it very interesting and proof of God’s omnipotence and omniscience. For this reason, he conducted much research involving hundreds of people, including merchants and craftsmen, but mostly ordinary commoners or servants.”
“In his research,” Nathia said, “he discovered that every person’s palms and soles have unique patterns. Whether noble or beggar, after this discovery he tested many people over several years—these patterns are present from birth, deepen with growth, fade with age, but only enlarge proportionally without changing shape, width, or number.
After confirming this, he hadn’t had time to spread it everywhere—he believed it was a miracle God granted to humanity, also to help angels and saints better identify mortal bodies—when Edessa was breached, he was captured and imprisoned in a Saracen castle. Before our father Joscelin III thought to send us out, he had a premonition and urged our father to have us each press handprints and footprints on our birth certificates.
She looked at Caesar: “Brother, go find a blank parchment and print your handprint and footprints. I’ll do the same, then let them compare. They will find they are identical.”
The hand and foot prints on the back of the birth certificate were indeed very clear. The patterns were as if engraved on them, distinct and clear. No one knows what they used; even today, the color is just somewhat faded but not blurred or distorted.
Parchment was quickly brought. Caesar and Nathia cleaned their hands and feet. The handmaids, as if playing a game, smeared bright red rouge on their palms and soles, then gently pressed them onto the parchment, leaving their current handprints and footprints.
Before they dried, people eagerly took them to compare. For them, even unrelated to a territory’s inheritance, this discovery was quite astonishing. And upon comparison, as Nathia said, the two sets of prints, ignoring size, were exactly the same in shape, spacing, and breaks. At this point, Nathia and Caesar’s identities needed no further words; they were indeed the son and daughter of Count of Edessa Joscelin III.
Moreover, news soon came from Acre—the envoy had been forced to participate in this inheritance case. Originally he could have stood by indifferently; Count of Edessa Joscelin III belonged to Nur al-Din, and whoever he was handed to in the future would not be a Christian.
What is gained through war must of course be reclaimed through war, but Caesar’s good deed had indeed touched the softest part of his hardened heart. He immediately dispatched a messenger back to Acre, and news soon came from there—given that Caesar had once served their father Sultan Nur al-Din, they were also willing to pardon his father, allowing father and son to reunite.
This made the subsequent negotiations smoother and swifter. Acre first proposed releasing Count Joscelin III and his wife—without ransom. The King of Ayyarasa Road immediately reciprocated: the Saracens could take back Sultan Nur al-Din’s remains, also without ransom, and would not be disturbed on the way back.
This affair could be called a win-win. Even the Saracens had to sigh that perhaps this was destiny. It made them more accepting of Sultan Nur al-Din’s great defeat and death at the Sea of Galilee—perhaps as that Christian knight said, he had simply completed his duty in the human world and it was time to return to heaven.
————
“I have a task I want you to do,” Heraclius said. “Though dangerous and not entirely honorable, the timing is too good and the justification sufficient…”
Caesar lowered his head in thought for a moment: “You want me to go to Acre?”
Heraclius smiled approvingly: “Yes, Sultan Nur al-Din is dead, and he has three sons—one adult, the other two not yet—but I have no doubt they will immediately claim to be Nur al-Din’s heir—not,” he shook his head with both regret and sigh, “more than that. I hear Egypt’s Saladin, Damascus’s Governor, Mosul’s Sultan—his nephew, a puppet—all vie for the authority of the Light of Faith… What do you think will happen next?”
“Civil war.”
“Saracen civil war has always been a good opportunity for us, but how we act is crucial in judging these people—who is most cowardly, most impulsive, most ambitious, most profit-driven? Child, these things are impossible without seeing with your own eyes. But compared to Holy Cross Castle, there will be even more conspiracies in the Saracen court—not to mention they only have masters and slaves… Even envoys can hardly ensure they return unharmed.”
“You mean…”
“This good deed may have been just your whim, out of pity for an old man, yet it unexpectedly bore rich fruit. In any case, Nur al-Din’s ‘heirs’ could hardly harm someone who once performed ‘ablution’ for Nur al-Din in their stead; they might even come to thank you personally—as long as you are in Syria, you can quietly observe them from the sidelines… I believe you can see more than others.”
“I am willing, teacher. But…” He and Heraclius said in unison: “Baldwin!”
