Chapter 77: To Egypt!
Caesar didn’t think at all that what Walter and Geoffrey were saying would be anything good. It was one thing when he had just arrived, but after spending so many years in the Holy Land, how could he not know what kind of character these Templar Knights had?
Sure enough, the so-called good thing was that they had left him with the most precious captive. If it were on a battlefield of Christians against Christians, that would be equivalent to giving him a sum of money, but this was a battlefield of Christians against heathens, and Amalric I had said that this campaign required no captives.
So his use was to have Caesar chop off his head.
Caesar recalled that the Prince had once told him that when he was nine years old, under the supervision of the King and Heraclius, he had executed a criminal. The one who died was not a thief or a beggar, but a Lord bearing grave sins.
For the nobles of the Franks, this might be a kind of tradition.
Walter saw the person behind him; the elder was riding a horse and didn’t look like a captive, but rather like a friend met by chance. “I heard that after you arrived on Ayyarasa Road, the first person you killed was just a foolish servant. Now you can make up for that regret.”
The Templar Knight said this while smilingly gazing at Caesar’s face, as if trying to discover something deeply buried in his heart. But Caesar merely nodded silently.
The leader, bound and placed on a clearing, also saw the elder and showed an expression of both grief and anger, as well as despair.
After hearing those Franks say that this child who was clearly not yet a knight would carry out his execution, he became extremely angry. Obviously, it wasn’t only knights among the Christians who demanded treatment befitting their status.
Walter was already prepared to chop off the other’s hand or foot. Unexpectedly, the elder just said a few words to him in Greek, and the leader quieted down.
He scratched his ear and turned to Caesar.
“What did they say?”
Almost every knight who came to the Holy Land was already an adult, some even with years of renown, but their learning was generally poor. They usually spoke Frankish or colloquial Latin haltingly.
After a few years in the Holy Land, some knights could understand simple Saracen speech, but the elder used Greek, which stumped them.
When the elder had spoken with Caesar before, it was also in Greek.
For Saracen scholars, Greek was not a foreign language. They were always busy translating and studying ancient Greek texts, with a thorough understanding and mastery of the language.
Caesar had systematically learned Greek out of interest in another world. After arriving here, under Heraclius’s guidance, Greek and Latin were as natural to him as his mother tongue, making conversation with the old man effortless.
“He was persuading the other Saracen to accept his destiny.”
“Is that so?” Walter asked full of doubt. “But he said a lot.”
“That’s because Greek is not as concise as our language.”
“I’m not a fool,” Walter muttered, but he didn’t press further.
Caesar wielded a long sword, and everyone present was somewhat tense until the sword fell, the leader’s head dropped to the ground, and surprisingly let out a sigh of relief—killing someone unable to resist was completely different from slaughter on the battlefield. Geoffrey relaxed, Caesar had done it very cleanly; any hesitation or doubt at this moment would lead to extremely dire consequences.
There were plenty of knights brave and skilled on the battlefield who, during executions, failed to sever the neck in one blow, causing the sinner to struggle wildly, covered in blood, a horrific sight.
Next was the elder; his last words were: “What a pity. Child.”
Though these words were in Saracen, everyone present understood them, and then his head rolled together with the leader’s.
After completing this work, the knights and escorts all got moving. They chopped off all the Saracen heads, roughly washed them in a nearby small lake, sealed the necks with lime, piled them in wooden boxes, loaded them into that carriage, and left the corpses in the wilderness to be devoured by beasts.
“Is it him? Is it them?”
When returning to the camp, Damara, who had already received the news, ran ahead of everyone. She didn’t know which Saracen had killed her good sister Elena, but that didn’t stop her from boldly opening the boxes one by one to look.
After looking, she didn’t even have time to wash her hands before rushing straight to Caesar, hugging his waist tightly with both hands, expressing endless gratitude until her father came running with a strange expression and pulled her away.
He was of course delighted that his daughter had such a knight, who at a young age already displayed wisdom and bravery, but he also had some concerns.
The head of the Gerard family was a good father and did not expect his daughter to win him much glory and wealth. He only hoped she could find a gentle-tempered Lord with no great ambitions, even if not in the Holy Land, but in Francia or the Apennines, he could accept that.
But Caesar was a man destined to be entangled in endless conspiracies and intrigues, unlikely to escape even until death.
Even if people said this former slave child’s future prospects were limitless, as the head of the Gerard family, he knew best—towering wealth and power often meant endless strife, conflict, and death.
He knew his daughter was not the kind of woman who enjoyed conspiracies and intrigues. If she formed a marriage contract with Caesar, it would not be good for her or for Caesar.
“You should return to Ayyarasa Road,” he said to Damara.
The attitude of the head of the Gerard family somewhat displeased Baldwin, though very slightly.
He knew the Gerard family had invested in Caesar, but that didn’t mean the head of the Gerard family could adopt such a distant attitude.
Though he himself wouldn’t choose a girl like Damara as a wife for Caesar either; in his view, Damara was too childish.
Moreover, though she was a girl of the Gerard family, she had several older sisters above her, meaning her dowry wouldn’t be much, and there would be no territory—gaining territory through marriage was the quickest way for knights without inheritance rights to become Lords; otherwise, he would have to wait until after his ascension to find an opportunity to enfeoff Caesar.
He had already entrusted Caesar’s marriage to his mother, the Countess of Jaffa, and his sister, Princess Sibylla; they would surely select a satisfactory good marriage for Caesar.
——————
That night, Amalric I held an extremely lively banquet. The banquet lasted all night until dawn, and Caesar drank a lot of wine, several times his usual amount. This was partly due to others’ enthusiastic requests and invitations, but more to release that hard-to-dispel pressure.
Baldwin said nothing, but as dawn approached the next day, when apart from the guards all the camp tents had fallen quiet, he suddenly nudged Caesar’s arm: “Want to take a bath?”
Before sleeping, they had done a simple wash, just wiping their faces with linen cloth; the body and such.
In the barracks, taking a hot bath wasn’t impossible, but it would definitely alarm many people—those carrying the bath tub, fetching hot and cold water, serving nearby—generally only the King or commander had the privilege.
So from knights and their escorts to the running servants, servants, and even the lowliest laborers, they could only bathe in nearby rivers or lakes. Disgust for filth is human nature—even monkeys bathe.
This nature would only be forcibly changed one or two hundred years later due to the ravages of the Black Death.
There was a small lake near their tent. It connected to tributaries, and even with many people drawing water here, it showed no signs of drying up or becoming turbid.
Some patrolling knights saw them and saluted the Prince— a monk reminded them that the water here was exceptionally cold.
The place Baldwin found was a depression connected to the small lake; under the cobalt blue sky, it appeared especially dark, surrounded by dense reeds forming a natural barrier.
Caesar suspected a particularly thick tree had once grown here; after it fell, it left a cave into which lake water surged, creating a convenient and clean “small pool.” Baldwin reached in to test; sure enough, as the monk said, though it was October in Egypt, the lake water was still a bit cold.
So they gathered some stones, heated them over a bonfire, and threw them into the “small pool.” The scalding stones hissed upon touching the water and produced large amounts of white steam.
A few knights came to look, smiled, and walked away.
Only then did they jump in with splashes. It must be said, the warmth from the stones wasn’t much; it just made the water no longer so icy and piercing.
But this coldness carried away the burning heat accumulated in Caesar’s body.
He looked at Baldwin; they were already thirteen, and in another year they could formally come of age, discuss marriage, hold power, be taken seriously; Amalric I was also preparing to promote them to knights.
Their height already surpassed ordinary escorts; some knights couldn’t match them, but both Baldwin and he still retained childish features on their faces.
Caesar desperately wanted to grow up, yet knew nothing could happen overnight. Even if he grew up, until he broke free of this world’s shackles on him, he would still suffer from the pull between reality and ideal.
“Don’t rush.” Baldwin said. Seeing Caesar look up at him in surprise, he smiled. “You think I can’t see what’s in your heart?
In fact, I too am extremely fed up with such behavior. Every time I see them, I feel like I’m seeing devils crawled out from hell—I don’t understand, if we are just and the Saracens are evil, how can our knights be greedier and more brutal than them?
Shouldn’t we demand of ourselves a broader mind, fairer attitude, and stricter discipline?
This is the most sacred place in the world.
Yet these knights, after arriving in the Holy Land, not only failed to receive the proper enlightenment and become more humble, honest, and benevolent, but instead released the beasts in their hearts, becoming unrestrained and without bottom line.
Sometimes I wonder what kind of people they are in Francia, Hungary, and the Apennines? Would they do this to their own subjects and others’ subjects?
If so, what terrible torment are those fellow Christian farmers and craftsmen enduring? You tell me,” he asked Caesar, “if I become King of Ayyarasa Road in the future, can such a situation be changed?”
“Definitely,” Caesar said: “but it will be extremely, extremely, extremely difficult.
After all, we and the Saracens stand on completely opposing positions to begin with.
I’m not just talking about faith, but this land; this land originally belonged to the Isaacites, then to the Romans. Only after the Romans left did it come to the Saracens.
Of course, we can also become the new masters of this land, but it will inevitably involve painful struggle and brewing; after all, no one will selflessly grant their authority and interests to others.
Jesus Christ merely shook a little of the Isaacite priests’ power and was slandered to death by them.
Ayyarasa Road is the center of the world. The golden crown is inlaid with pearls of religion, rubies of economy, and sapphires of legitimacy—who can easily relinquish that?
If you are King of Ayyarasa Road, you can’t confront the entire Saracen world alone; you need helpers, vassals, endless resources, but these are not free.
Just like this expedition, your father Amalric I has raised a huge sum, yet still can’t bear the entire army’s consumption. If he doesn’t allow them to plunder, rape, arson, and kill, he will only be seen as cowardly or stingy.
They won’t think your father is a good person, only that he is not worth following. They have already come; if they don’t get what they want, you should know what will happen.”
Baldwin slapped the water surface. “What else? Wanton recklessness against everyone! If possible, they might even make Ayyarasa Road change kings—such things aren’t unprecedented.
But there must be a way, right?”
Caesar recalled events from his world: “There is, but it would take a saint to accomplish it.”
“Who? Jesus Christ?” Baldwin said, then realizing he was a bit too flippant, he quickly prayed silently and made the sign of the cross on his chest in penance. But punishment still came; he sneezed loudly, and Caesar immediately stopped the conversation and pulled him out of the water.
They quickly dried their bodies with cotton cloth, changed into clean warm clothes, ran back to their tent, pulled up furs to wrap themselves, and slept comfortably.
When they woke the next day, Amalric I’s rewards and the nobles’ gifts were already laid out in front of their tent, the most prominent being the silver-plated chainmail, helmet gifted by Elena’s husband, and the long sword from Gerard.
Because Caesar was always inseparable from Baldwin, their gifts were in double portions.
“This chainmail needs resizing,” Baldwin said somewhat dissatisfied. “It doesn’t fit well.”
He was being picky; after all, even William Marshal, who had been highly praised by the King, had only received a suit of silver-plated chainmail from Amalric I.
“Loose is fine. I can tighten it with a leather strap.” Caesar didn’t mind. At this time, armor whether cotton armor, leather armor, or chainmail, all needed to be made to the wearer’s measurements—custom-made.
To Caesar’s eye, this chainmail’s height and width were just right, just a bit large; perhaps it originally belonged to some Lord and was won or bought by Elena’s husband as a gift.
If adjusting it to match his current build exactly, the blacksmith would have to remove a lot of excess, but he thought, as long as nutrition was sufficient, he and Baldwin would soon grow strong, and then they’d need to add back the cut parts—what a waste?
Besides, he couldn’t wear such chainmail on the battlefield; this silver-plated or gold-plated chainmail was purely expensive ornament. Wearing it on the battlefield would just make enemies target you.
“True, you can wear it when you’re knighted,” Baldwin said, but soon Caesar put on this chainmail—no other reason than that Amalric I’s decree to Bilbeis finally had a reply.
