Chapter 54: Celebration
“Are you saying we’re going to become escorts?” Caesar asked in a low voice.
“I will become a novice knight, you are an escort, but we both have to follow our master, that is, my father Amalric I.” Baldwin said softly. He was worried that Caesar might be a bit unhappy, after all, he had personally admitted that Caesar was his brother.
It wasn’t unheard of for attendants or even pages to skip the escort stage and directly become novice knights, sometimes for marriage reasons. No matter what, a knight tying the knot with a noble lady sounded much better than an escort tying the knot with a noble lady, but a fourteen-year-old boy could get married, but couldn’t directly become a knight…
There were also issues involving fief ownership. We all know that kings enfeoff nobles, nobles enfeoff knights, and in this period they all came with fiefs, even if just a bridge or a mill, and knights had to serve their lords, like how many days a year they had to fight for him and such.
If a knight suddenly died, and his liege lord was about to go to war or wanted to reclaim the fief, his eldest son had to put on armor, ride a horse, raise the flag, and get to work, even if he was under fourteen.
But to do that, first you needed a horse, armor, and weapons.
Count Etienne and Templar Knight Geoffrey were both giving Caesar money, just in case he suffered envy and hatred from petty people and was restrained and given difficulty in such a place.
Amalric I hadn’t stooped so low as to forbid Baldwin from preparing a set of armor for his little friend. The problem was, if he did that, people would think Caesar was either too naive or too greedy. They would say: The prince has already given him plenty, yet he even asks the prince for a chainmail…
Although many escorts could never become knights precisely because they couldn’t afford a set of armor.
But Amalric I still put some thought into it and arranged for Baldwin to become a novice knight first. “Isn’t this good? Back then the king promised me, if you become a knight, I will be your escort,” Caesar said in a low voice. “He kept his promise, and I am deeply grateful.”
Baldwin nodded. “You’ll be promoted soon too, as long as there’s war—there’s always war here.”
Then they sat up straight. This might be the last time in the next few years that they sat at the dining table eating at such a grand banquet. Once they became escorts and novice knights, sorry, they would have to start fulfilling their duties, that is, serving their master Amalric I.
Not to mention sitting down to eat while enjoying performances by poets and dwarfs. Throughout the entire banquet, they had to stand behind Amalric I and the new mistress Maria, cutting meat for them, serving soup, pouring wine. Only after the banquet ended could they run to the kitchen with the other attendants and escorts to fill their empty stomachs with dry bread and stew.
There were attendants and escorts willing to pick at the leftovers on their master’s plate, but Baldwin and Caesar wouldn’t do that.
In fact, Caesar was even a bit luckier than Baldwin. Baldwin had really gone to feed pigs, though it was more like a game.
As for Caesar, from the moment he arrived here, he only served Baldwin alone. Baldwin was such a gentle good boy, treating him like a friend and brother. Others had no right or were unwilling to order him around—with Witt’s intimidation beforehand, they were also afraid of getting too close to Caesar and catching leprosy.
But after receiving the blessing, that possibility became negligible. That meant the real trial for Caesar was yet to come—Caesar remembered that escorts all seemed to sleep squeezed together in one room, directly on a large bed padded with rush, wrapped in sheepskin or bedsheets, several people together enduring waves of attacks from bedbugs, fleas, and lice.
Originally the situation wasn’t that dire, but after Prince Baldwin fell ill, he moved to the left tower. Not many dared to live with him, or Amalric I didn’t allow it, so all the original left tower residents moved to the right tower…
People of David and Abigail’s status might still get a small room, but Caesar definitely wouldn’t.
It seemed cleaning a room needed to be added to the schedule, Caesar thought.
At the start of the banquet, the Byzantine Princess Maria had already changed out of her previous clothes—not because that outfit was covered in bear and human blood. She had changed into Frankish clothes, a gesture that satisfied everyone present, including the Byzantines. After all, at Byzantine weddings, foreign brides likewise had to change into Byzantine clothes, as when Manuel I married Mary of Antioch.
Once everyone was sated, Princess Maria returned to her room. Their wedding would be held in June, during which King Amalric I would hold several martial arts tournaments of different types, followed by banquets, and he himself would participate in one or two.
“Make the most of this time,” Heraclius also said. “Have fun. After June, you’ll be busy.”
Caesar really wanted to ask him to stop talking. He even felt a bit resentful toward his little friend—although Baldwin had told him this as good news, he simply couldn’t appreciate those fierce and exciting combats—his attention was entirely drawn to the escorts running back and forth.
They had to help knights don armor, helmets, pointed iron boots, lead the horse for the knight, hold spears and carry swords, with a hammer hanging from the waist. At a knight’s reach, they had to know exactly which weapon to hand over.
Generally speaking, for one-on-one mounted spear jousts, there was only one answer: first the spear. If both fell from their horses, or one fell but the other was willing to continue fighting him, it became ground sword fighting. If the ground sword fighting was still undecided or one side insisted on dragging it out, it turned directly into unarmed grappling…
But in chaotic melee combat, it was no different from a real battlefield. Escorts not only had to observe their master’s intentions but also gauge the enemy’s strength, deciding whether to hand over a hammer, a battle axe, or a mace.
At the start of combat, they had to stick close to their master. Many knights were unhorsed by enemies at first clash. Escorts had to seize the opportunity, or use brute force to clear the surroundings, pull the dazed master off the battlefield, lead away his horse, drag both man and horse to the edge of the field, remove his helmet, wipe his face, and check his injuries.
If the knight could still fight, the escort would give him a drink of wine and repeat the above steps.
Such melees would last a whole day, after which the king would judge the winner.
If the knight lost, the escort had to take over the original horse’s job—the losers would lose their armor, horse, and weapons, and also pay their own ransom. The escort had to carry the bruised, perhaps injured master back to the tent. Sometimes irate knights would blame their failure on the escort and beat them until they howled.
Fortunately, such knights were few.
Additionally, Caesar discovered something interesting: in melee combat, if an escort performed exceptionally well, he would be poached… Sometimes knights would directly approach the escort they fancied and try to persuade him; sometimes knights would negotiate with the escort’s master. If the poacher had higher status than the owner or was willing to pay, the knight would usually agree.
In their free time—right, they still had free time now—Caesar would go with Baldwin, sneaking into the knights’ camp—because the martial arts tournament lasted a whole month, Amalric I had set aside an area in the Isaacites’ residential zone for them to eat, rest, polish armor, and such.
“The Isaacites demanded a large sum of money.”
“The king gave it?”
“My father said, those who fight for God won’t owe the Isaacites money,” Baldwin said.
This was a hellish joke. The First Crusade was in 1097. Since knights had to provide their own equipment and provisions, besides plundering their own subjects, they also carried out utterly wanton pillaging and massacres against the local Isaacites. Although Henry IV was greatly shocked, believing this was not what Christ’s warriors should do.
But they replied to him: “We fight for God—how can we owe the Isaacites money?”
“They should have thought of that from the start,” Caesar couldn’t help sighing. “The Byzantines’ blood still seeps in the stone cracks, not washed clean by the rain.”
Had these Isaacites gone mad for money? Crusader knights had a terrible impression of them from the start. When recapturing the Holy City, who knew how many Isaacites were killed. Even now, they were seen as dogs ready to betray Christ at any moment.
Amalric I hadn’t taken their property, just asked them to temporarily leave the residential area, and hadn’t forbidden them from doing business with the knights. Yet they still wanted rent from the king?
“That’s how Isaacites are. Be careful dealing with them in the future,” Baldwin hesitated. “If you have no money, you can borrow from me. If you need to buy something, you can tell the castle steward too. Those Isaacites could skin even the devil.”
A knight spotted them and quickly turned away. Although Baldwin and Caesar were simply dressed when leaving the castle—just white robes plus a black-gray wool sleeveless cloak, belted with a leather belt, looking like two ordinary boys—at entering the camp, Baldwin pulled out his gold cross and had Caesar do the same.
Upon seeing the gold cross, those people knew they weren’t ones to be casually ordered around, though the gazes fixed on them remained numerous. Some knew who they were, some didn’t—they were just looking at Caesar.
Caesar was looking at the escorts.
Almost all those busy outside the tents were escorts. Only a few poor knights were helping each other or handling things alone. Clearly they hadn’t won in the martial arts tournament either, or at least they could have sold spoils of war to merchants for some money to hire someone.
Combat was always exhilarating, but post-combat chores were so tedious they nearly drove one mad.
Knights didn’t don armor directly on their bodies. Inside the helmet was a cotton cap, shaped like a sleep cap, with lacing on the sides to tighten. If the knight had long hair, he also wore a hairnet.
Inside the chainmail was a face armor, that is, a quilted padded short robe with a high collar that both prevented the chainmail from chafing the skin and reduced damage from heavy blows. Outside was a surcoat with coat of arms to display one’s status.
Once soaked with water—whether drenched in sweat on the battlefield or unlucky enough to have the ship sink—they had to be removed immediately, lest the devil blow wind on them, making the man feverish and the chainmail rust.
Of course there were always knights who didn’t care for their armor, but if it was captured booty, aside from some that could only be sent to the blacksmith for reforging, most would be patched up, cleaned—chainmail certainly couldn’t be washed with water; escorts used the cleaning bucket.
As the name implied, the cleaning bucket was an oak bucket mounted on a grill, rotatable like roasting chicken via a curved lever. The bucket had a lid that could be opened to stuff in rusty chainmail and sand. After the escort closed the lid, he would vigorously shake and turn the bucket—this was of course hard labor. Chainmail generally weighed around fifty pounds, sand about ten pounds. Baldwin watched the escort shaking with a ferocious face, grinding his teeth, and couldn’t help paling.
“They won’t…”
“I’ve never actually done it,” Baldwin hadn’t experienced the escort stage either. “So even if I’m directly promoted to novice knight, father will definitely still make me do these things.”
Caesar coughed.
This escort was still polishing chainmail; that one started polishing the helmet.
He spread his legs, sat on a small stool, fixed the helmet to a block of wood, first ground it with a rough stone, then with a bundle of coarse rope, finally polished it with a wool clump until that spot was shiny as new, gleaming almost like a mirror. After finishing, he checked himself in it, unsure if satisfied with his own face or his craftsmanship. He spat on the helmet and wiped it with his sleeve…
Caesar involuntarily glanced toward the closed tent flap, hoping his master wouldn’t coincidentally come out right then.
Not far from them, another escort was clangorously hammering another helmet with a small hammer. This helmet seemed to have been heavily struck by some blunt weapon—unclear if its original owner’s head was intact—said so because several helmets of different sizes and coats of arms lay at the escort’s feet. His master must have been extremely valiant.
The escort hammered a bit, checked, and sighed. He had done his best, but couldn’t restore the helmet to its previous state. “Sir!” he shouted toward the tent gap. “Mind your strength next time, even if just for the ransom!”
A man emerged from the tent, his youth surprising both Baldwin and Caesar.
“Oh my,” he spotted the two even before the careless escort did. “Where did these two little lords come from?”
