Chapter 243: The Simplest, The Most Difficult
Dandolo found it hard to describe this brand-new sensation. If he had to put it into words, it was like taking a comfortable hot bath, but not externally—internally. He even felt more appetite rising, though he suppressed it and continued drinking tea.
Boccia cast an envious glance. “You can really drink it like this.” She had tried imitating her husband, but she lacked her grandfather’s endurance. Tea without anything added was too bitter and astringent.
Meanwhile, Dandolo was pondering another issue. He knew about tea, of course, and knew that this precious dried leaf was quite popular among the Saracens. In Saracen temples, it was even sold as medicine, and it might indeed be a medicine. If he had indulged in too much meat and sweets before, his stomach would feel heavy, his mind foggy and sluggish, his throat filled with a lingering jumbled breath.
But after drinking tea, that sensation mysteriously vanished.
He looked toward Caesar, recalling that he also provided tea to his knights—some used it to accuse him of being too extravagant, but few were willing to believe such claims.
In this era of material scarcity and lack of pleasures, knights, as the most important and crucial instruments of violence under their lord, always received the best treatment. Their wine was inevitably sweetened with honey, and when they ate fish and meat, it was inevitably dyed a beautiful golden yellow with saffron—at least some ginger was added.
This era also had a sweet called king bread or queen bread, made with milk, sugar, or honey, kneaded and baked from the finest flour—a precious food often used as a reward for knights.
During the period knights served their lord, the lord also had to provide all their provisions, from horse fodder to daily two or three meals for servants and knights.
If a lord was too stingy in this regard, it was no small matter—it would be seen as humiliation and contempt for the knights.
Some knights might even abandon their lord for the enemy because of it, and such actions wouldn’t face harsh criticism, since the lord had failed to fulfill his promise first.
Therefore, when those people criticized, they only accused Caesar of extravagance, which could lead young knights to pursue too much pleasure and quickly degenerate, but they wouldn’t see sharing these precious foods as a fault.
But calling it a medicine was a bit dangerous—Caesar wasn’t a priest; he had no right to use herbs privately. Dandolo had already classified tea as a spice in his mind—it was indeed fragrant.
“Do you already have sources for acquiring these…” He raised the silver cup. “Spices?”
He did, but not the kind Dandolo thought.
Caesar had been collecting various herbs, for Baldwin and for himself. He had seen that even a crown prince or king faced crises in a world where the Church monopolized all medical resources.
They either accepted the Church’s blackmail or had no choice but to silently endure the threat of pain and death.
If that were all, things might not be so bad, but the Church’s stagnation and narrow fanaticism meant medicine couldn’t develop outside the Church, and those truly capable but unwilling to submit were branded devil worshippers.
In other words, ailments that could have been treated, even healed, became truly incurable in the Church!
Most unacceptable was that the Church portrayed your misfortune as deep sin, claiming it was God’s punishment.
They would say God and the saints rejected you, neatly shoving all blame onto the patient themselves. They remained God’s representatives on earth, walking saints, deserving to be supported by the masses as holy emperors and princes…
Like the Emperor Manuel I of the Byzantine Empire. After falling into a swamp, he went into shock from drowning and panic. Even surrounded by so many priests, none could save him; all they could do in the end was anoint him with holy oil.
If Caesar hadn’t been there, the man would have died long ago.
Thus, even without Baldwin, Caesar dared not entrust his health to priests—despite his teacher’s stern warnings, he never abandoned his pursuit and study of medicine.
At Holy Cross Castle, he might have had to restrain himself somewhat, but during his mission to Acre, his reach expanded greatly.
After all, those knights loved to eat but wouldn’t care what he read in the library or bought at the market. If he called it spices, they only wanted to know if it would end up in the pot.
In the prosperous great cities of Damascus and Acre, Caesar indeed collected quite a few things, like tea leaves as one of his gains. Little known was that, besides tea leaves, he got a bag of tea seeds from that Turkish merchant.
Curiously, though these people knew tea leaves were a medicine and spice, they didn’t know those round black dried fruits could grow tea trees. They said they saw people chewing the fruits and curiously tried them.
It had some oil and fragrance but couldn’t compare to sesame, so after trying out of curiosity for a few days, they put it away.
Caesar instantly recognized them as dried tea fruit. He wasn’t sure if they could still sprout, but the two merchants, seeing his interest and having sold all their stock, gave him the bag of tea seeds without hesitation.
After bringing the tea seeds back to Holy Cross Castle, Caesar never found a chance to cultivate them. He only tried sprouting some seeds in his room with water.
That time, he took ten tea seeds, covered with silk—he had little hope. But days later, when Caesar lifted the silk, he saw a trembling, pale sprout.
His joy needs no elaboration. But before cultivating, he had to confirm if tea suited people’s tastes and needs—after all, this world had forces science couldn’t explain.
He not only tried drinking tea himself but had those around him, especially knights blessed by God, try the beverage. He got plenty of positive feedback. Besides the knights finding it bitter and needing more sugar, tea indeed worked better on them than some medicines.
They couldn’t explain why, but felt bodily changes, though they hadn’t yet linked the symptoms to the daily tea.
They just saw it as a fragrant drink, as precious as saffron and beneficial, but the biggest change was due to St. Anne’s Cathedral rising beside the Governor’s Palace.
They believed staying near this nearly completed holy site kept them spirited and tireless.
Caesar could only nod in agreement, but he was certain tea could be promoted. Cyprus had dry hot summers, warm wet winters, and ample rainfall.
It suited olives, grapes, lemons, and the acidic soil lemons and grapes loved was what tea trees preferred. He could plant tea on a large scale without improving the soil.
Even if tea seeds grew into harvestable trees, it took at least three years, but time was like that—sometimes slow, sometimes fast…
So fast that when Dandolo returned before Caesar, he wasn’t thinking of the Isaacites anymore—their ending was already set.
“How much money do you have on hand now?” he asked directly.
Caesar’s father Jocelin III left him nearly two hundred thousand gold coins in property.
Though Baldwin’s men retrieved the jewels, gold coins, and vessels, they took not a single gold coin. Even the knights’ rewards were paid by him on Caesar’s behalf.
After Caesar’s mission to Acre returned along Ayyarasa Road, he immediately handed the vast wealth intact back to Caesar.
After betrothing the Byzantine princess Anna, Caesar had several chances to amass great wealth.
If he sold those ports and cities to the Knights Templar, he could get a huge sum immediately.
Continuing Francia’s tax farming would also yield plenty.
Even just tightening the net during the rebellion—Cyprus families would be a third fewer—then their territories, money, and attached commoners would be his.
But Caesar passed on all three opportunities.
Besides military expenditures on Cyprus, Caesar might have—no, probably already given away—a large sum…
Everyone knew that in this world, the most money-consuming thing was probably war.
A king, no matter how extravagantly profligate—buying jewels, custom fine clothes, even keeping a lover, building a palace—that was limited. Only war was a bottomless pit, devouring vast manpower, supplies, and money daily like a doomsday beast.
Baldwin had no intention of touching Joscelin II’s inheritance, nor allowing others to. But everyone knew Baldwin was preparing his first expedition—not counting the rescue of Manuel I—Caesar unhesitatingly offered half his assets, one hundred thousand gold coins.
So when Dandolo asked how many new coins to mint, he could only say ten thousand first—that number was rather meager.
Venetians also undertook minting currency for other monarchs.
For just a knight, ten thousand gold coins was quite respectable, but now he was Lord of Cyprus. That was why Dandolo thought of contributing some gold to mint coins for his granddaughter, Cyprus’s mistress.
Of course, there was the simplest method, most commonly used by lords now.
Raise taxes.
Even in Francia or places without war for years, lords or kings demanding tax hikes wasn’t rare.
And Cyprus—riddled with crises, precarious. If Caesar said the tax was for holy war, who could say no?
From nobles to commoners, as long as they stayed on Cyprus, they faced endless Saracen harassment and attacks—they longed for a strong ruler to free them from heathens’ nightmares. Now just some money…
But Caesar seemed to have no such plan. He established a new taxation agency, hired new tax collectors, but Cypriots’ taxes not only didn’t increase—they decreased.
At first, Dandolo thought he wanted to profit from rock sugar, but hearing Boccia say it might become rewards for knights—after all, Caesar lacked decades of bonds with them. They came either admiring his valor, moved by his character, or to fulfill oaths to his father and grandfather and their heirs.
What surprised Dandolo was this young man, after gaining a hundred knights, didn’t think of plunder—the knights’ first choice—or intimidation and oppression, but to do business like a merchant.
No, his thinking was more like a lord obsessed with managing land.
Though nobles glorified war achievements, some, like farmers, indulged in farming and husbandry. They existed, though rarely.
But most were mediocre, either unblessed, shallowly blessed, or with priest-incurable ailments, forced to another lifestyle.
But Caesar wasn’t. Everyone knew he and Baldwin were Holy Land and Crusaders’ spear and shield. He fought over a hundred battles large and small. His feats, though not as prominent as Baldwin’s, enjoyed good fame among knights.
Even, when minstrels strummed lutes reciting long poems of campaigns Baldwin and Caesar fought, no matter how dire or terrifying, mentioning Caesar’s name made audiences chuckle, cross themselves, and calm down.
He could totally get what he wanted with sword.
“This is what I found.” Dandolo watched Caesar and said slowly.
Caesar picked up what Dandolo gave him and read it. As expected, it involved Isaacites. Besides sowing discord, creating rifts, gaining rock sugar agency and more privileges, they aimed to place wives or sisters as Boccia’s confidantes.
Courts had many such women—former courtesans or family-trained “birds” or “cats.” They might serve a man, but sometimes gained formal status near noble ladies.
Skilled in flattery and lies, they easily gained girls’ trust, even using sweet words, singing, dancing, or handsome youths to corrupt good women’s souls, forcing or tempting them to their side, then influencing their husbands through her.
It was Boccia; the love and trust from grandfather and Caesar sufficed. Spotting their plot, she denounced them without hesitation, foiling their schemes unlike before.
“Here’s my suggestion: if you truly want a stable Cyprus, arrest all Isaacites, execute them, or expel them—or both.”
“On charges of bribery?”
“Bribery? What joke? Did you promise them anything? You promised nothing. Cyprus was always yours; how you dispose of them is your power.”
Caesar fell silent. Dandolo thought he felt mercy again, unwilling to treat Isaacites so cruelly. “They deserve it, child. No one will blame you however you handle them.”
“But they didn’t steal, rape, or murder.”
When Bethlehem’s Lego was punished, it was for lying and impersonating a lord—a grave crime. Some places executed such criminals; milder meant flaying, dismemberment, or at minimum, hair removal, branding, or parading in irons.
Caesar giving them just a few lashes and expulsion was almost too lenient.
Cyprus’s Isaacites hadn’t truly sinned—or their crimes were stopped at the start.
“Worried no more Isaacites will come to Cyprus for business? Rest assured, where there’s profit, they’ll go—even hell.”
Caesar still shook his head. He knew expelling all Isaacites wouldn’t bother anyone.
“But it violates the laws I made.”
“You are the master of the law. You made it, so you can change or abolish it.” Dandolo said.
Then he saw Caesar smiling at him, suddenly understanding—the elder could hardly believe the truth he guessed. How was that possible?
“You mean, you want the laws you made to supersede yourself…?”
Dandolo always had some elder’s arrogance and unreasonableness, and since Caesar was tolerant to elders and children. Their usual interactions weren’t like merchant and local lord, but true grandfather and grandson.
But at that moment, Dandolo uncontrollably, reverently lowered his voice.
Venice republic—why, when Veneti settlers struggled in the lagoons to found the nation, did they choose republic, not duchy or kingdom?
Because they yearned to revive Ancient Rome republic’s glory, pursuing freedom, justice, integrity. Every Doge of Venice faced maximum restrictions, watched by all Venetians, like Ancient Rome generals and consuls under popular supervision.
But human greed is endless. Even for recognized morality and justice, an ambitious man inevitably slides toward dictator.
“What a lofty ideal!” Dandolo murmured.
