kingdom of nations

Chapter 223 The Fourth Wife Candidate (Part 1)
The events that unfolded at the banquet quickly spread like wildfire throughout Cyprus and to more remote areas.

Some people praised it, some opposed it, some approved of it, some despised it, and many more believed that it was just a hypocritical act by those who benefited from the status quo.

Shortly after Walter left, two letters arrived from Arrassa Road, one of which was, of course, from Baldwin.

Baldwin's response was much more optimistic than others. He had spent almost half of his life with César—between the ages of nine and sixteen, the most important and crucial period for the formation of his values. To say whether he was influenced by César or not—of course he was.

Especially considering that Cesar's body is that of a well-educated, mature, and virtuous adult, while Baldwin is just a child, it is not surprising that they gradually develop similar views and actions on some matters due to their daily interactions and influence.

Moreover, Baldwin was not a bad person to begin with. You know, when he first met Cesar, he was just a nine-year-old child, and he had just experienced a sudden change—he was originally the sole heir of the Kingdom of Arazar, and everyone said that he would become the guardian of the Holy City in the future.

In the blink of an eye, everything was gone. His father, his mother, his sister, his servants—those friends who had sworn to stand with him through thick and thin—they all vanished, leaving him all alone in the tower.

Another child might have been filled with hatred and resentment towards the world and humanity because of this experience.

Baldwin, however, did not think, upon first seeing another healthy, beautiful, and strong peer, "Oh, I should keep him by my side and make him like me." Instead, he thought, "He should have a better place to go."

He believed that it was immoral to teach such a good person, to accompany a leprosy patient through every day of suffering, or to let the disease take away his appearance and life.

While Cesar was still in another world, as a rotating doctor, he had seen countless patients whose faces were distorted by disease and fear of death. They were once kind and good people, but disease always managed to turn them beyond recognition.

He had already prepared for the worst, but nine-year-old Baldwin gave him a completely different answer.

Cesar ultimately chose to stay by his side and do everything he could for his treatment because Baldwin was worthy.

Therefore, the only person in the world who could truly understand César was Baldwin.

In his letter, the young king said that, in fact, when introducing new blood to the Knights of the Holy Grail, he valued the character of the newcomers more than the weight of the "favors" they received, their bravery in battle, or the antiquity of their surnames—things that other lords paid great attention to. Young people who indulged in debauchery, plunder, and killing were intentionally excluded by him.

Although he did not explicitly state it, they must have sensed it—Baldwin wrote: “They became much more restrained afterward, and as for why they did not protest to me—as strongly as they had at the banquet in Cyprus and afterwards.”

I think it's because I am the king, I have the most legitimate right of succession, I am the guardian of the Holy Land, King Arrasal, Grand Master of the Knights of the Holy Grail. My rights come from my father, uncle, and grandfather, and my family has owned this territory for a hundred years.

The accusations you are facing now are largely because you are the new master of Cyprus. Your position is not yet secure and your foundation is not yet solid. They do not simply think that you are too biased towards Cypriots, which is why they voiced their discontent and did those rebellious things. This is also a kind of contest, just like what I encountered not long ago. They will test you with all sorts of things: your feelings, your will, and your abilities.

This is another form of war.

If you win, you are their master. If you lose, then you are merely a figurehead.

He then reiterated his firm support for César.

"In fact, they should be able to figure out why we don't allow these people into our army and court, even if they haven't yet shown those repulsive qualities."

But if you think about it, you'll understand that their strong opposition to the three laws you enacted means they were prepared to violate them.

It's like putting a good piece of meat in an iron box and placing it in front of a wolf and a sheep. Only the wolf will try his best to persuade us to open the box, while the sheep will not be interested at all. People who are willing to abide by your laws will not care whether anyone is actually punished for breaking the law. They will even be happy to see it happen. Only those who have broken the law or are about to break it will be furious and hope to intimidate you into retracting your decision.

Having such subordinates, especially you, is very disadvantageous.

You are not like me, nor like Count Raymond of Tripoli or Grand Duke Bohemond of Antioch. We all inherited lands and armies from our fathers. Even if there are a few wicked people who do evil, people will only think it is occasional or an exception, like a few grains of sand mixed in a handful of wheat, and will not attract the attention of others.

But you may only have fifty to one hundred knights. If even one-tenth of them are the kind of people who don't want to be restrained, when people talk about you, they will say that you are the guy who indulges his subordinates to do whatever they want and acts like a tyrant.

Now they might just say you're too strict and harsh, but if you actually give in to their wishes and let the Crusader knights run rampant, your reputation will only get worse—I've also heard that the sinner once made outrageous remarks at a banquet, saying that you wouldn't be grateful to the Cypriots for doing this.

I don't think so, or rather, quite the opposite. I have never seen a bandit or criminal who could remain loyal to someone—like the former Armenian prince, Mullah.

As for the Cypriots, even if they won't be grateful to you for it, at least they won't be hostile towards you.

When the Crusaders first stormed Arathi Basin, they looted, raped, and massacred indiscriminately. Now, some might say that such horrific acts did not lead to any serious consequences... Of course not. My father once told me that the reason the Holy City is so peaceful now is because the current residents are all people who migrated here later—the previous residents have all gone to hell with their hatred.

Cyprus is not like Assassinia. The current population of this island is no less than that of Assassinia, and its former owners were not our enemies, but our current ally, the Byzantine Empire. You cannot completely clear this huge island, nor will you do so. And without your enacted laws and the implementation of these three laws, we can all imagine that for the next ten, twenty, or even a hundred years, Cypriots will continue to stir up riots or plot conspiracies.

As for whether this will lead to a shortage of manpower, well, you only need to serve me, so you don't need to worry about it. Even if you want to join the next expedition, I only need to take you with me.

You don't need to care about anything else.

However, I believe that there will definitely be some people of high moral character like you and me who will come into your life, just like King Arthur or King David.

in addition……"

César could tell these words had been hastily added after being written, the ink color noticeably different. "I've received the relief and the golden ship you sent. I'm really short of money right now, so I was planning to take them apart and sell them, but I got scolded by my teacher. God is my witness, I just wanted to remove the gold frame and take off the jewels. Or perhaps we should offer it to the Pope, but that would be too strange, after all, it's a gift from the Byzantines."

But if you refuse their marriage proposal, perhaps it can appease the Holy Father's anger a little.

Yes, by the time I sent this letter to you, Alexander III's niece—and I say they have too many nieces—had already arrived in Cyprus.

I think you probably won't agree to this marriage, and incidentally, I won't either.

We are well aware of the malice harbored by Alexander III of the Roman Catholic Church and the emperors of the Byzantine Empire; they intended to take Cyprus back from you without spending a single penny.

Oh, and by the way, our teacher, Patriarch Heraclius, also wrote you a letter.

In this letter, I imagine he might give you a good scolding; his thinking is ultimately somewhat different from ours. If my father, Amalric I, were in your position, he wouldn't care what those Crusader knights did to the people of Cyprus, and would even use the Knights Templar and the Knights of the Good House to brutally suppress them, just as he had done in Egypt.

I cannot condemn his actions, as this is what many lords and kings would choose. But I also hope that you can forge a new path that is completely different from the norm.

Still eagerly awaiting your return—Baldwin.

After reading the letter, Cesar picked up the second one.

The second letter was, of course, from Heraclitus. He opened it and read it. Sure enough, as Baldwin had predicted, his teacher had severely reprimanded him for his behavior at the banquet.

As those who thought he was too harsh said, Heraclius also believed that, regardless of the type of law—canon law, Roman law, or customary law—only Christians could enjoy the benefits and rights associated with it.

Apart from the believers who should be under their protection, it is extremely necessary for pagans and heretics to be distinguished from Christians, especially the knights who will serve them.

But then he changed his tone and said—unless the other party committed a truly intolerable crime—such as the Antioch cannibalism incident.

The terrible crime he was referring to occurred during the First Holy War. At that time, Arslan, the Seljuk Sultan who fought against the Crusaders, was defeated by the Crusader knights' charge, but he did not lose heart or become discouraged. On the contrary, when he withdrew, he remembered to order the inhabitants of his territory to take all their food and livestock with them. In short, he implemented a scorched earth policy.

So much so that after the Crusaders captured Antioch at great cost, they found themselves out of ammunition and supplies.

Although it is still unknown whether the granaries in Antioch were burned by the Turks before they left or were lost by the Crusaders during their attack on the city, in any case, tens of thousands of men led by three lords poured into Antioch. After discovering that there was no food, they all rushed to a small town that was said to have plenty of food, called Marat Anuman. But even if the town did have food, it could not support so many people.

As a result, the Crusader troops, starving and freezing, resorted to killing the corpses of the dead in the city when they could find no food.

This time, even the most devout, indifferent, and deeply abhorrent monks could no longer tolerate it. Some monks even recorded in their records without any attempt to conceal their actions that the Crusader knights would cut adult corpses into large pieces and cook them in pots, while skewering children's limbs with spears and roasting them over fires.

News of this horrific event spread quickly. When the lords returned with their armies, their first order was to execute every single Crusader in the city.

He then went so far as to personally set fire to the entire city in an attempt to cover up this horrific crime.

By using this example, Heraclius was essentially implying that Cesar could try to exaggerate the charges, even if it meant that the two members of the Gerard family had been tempted by the devil in the world and performed evil rituals—no one had previously doubted the first Grand Duke of Antioch or suspected him of being biased towards heretics.

Given a suitable reason, those who originally loved César would try to convince themselves to forgive him.

But Cesar thought to himself that he might disappoint his teacher this time, just as the Crusaders who conquered Arrassa after the Marathan incident still showed no mercy or compassion to the inhabitants of Arrassa.

Whenever someone is punished not for breaking the law, but for something too outrageous, there will always be people who will try to break the law. After all, judging the severity of a crime based on personal opinions and feelings is not a fair thing, and the gaps in the system are so large that a camel could pass through.

Imagine if, when the Grand Duke of Antioch executed those Crusader knights, it wasn't because they ate people, but instead because he enacted laws prohibiting them from plundering, raping, and killing outside of battle; then Arazari wouldn't have suffered such a devastating fate.

Cesar had made preparations long ago. Besides his unwillingness to abandon the bottom line and beliefs he brought from another world, there was an even more important reason—he knew that his beliefs were difficult to change, and that human nature is to go from frugality to extravagance, but from extravagance to frugality.

Although this statement may not seem quite appropriate here, the meaning is the same. When he established his own laws early on and told people that these laws would be fair to everyone, many people would leave. But those who were still willing to gather around him in this situation must be good people with noble character and firm will.

If he relaxes his requirements, he may have more knights and subjects for a time, but when they really start to act recklessly, can he really tolerate it?

He didn't believe a criminal could control himself. Today he's a heretic, tomorrow a cultist, the day after tomorrow a criminal who has broken the law, and the day after that, he could be a slave, a commoner, a merchant, or even anyone of lower status than him, even his colleagues, his lord... A beast that has tasted blood can never become a harmless lamb.

This means he has to cover for them time and time again, clean up their messes, and can't even treat them harshly. If he does, these people might even feel wronged—didn't you tolerate it all before? Why are you suddenly making such high demands on us?
Even then, they will still leave him, or even betray and sell him out.

In the process, he will also lose the forces that he could have gathered—just like the Cypriots now.

He needed to carefully consider how to reply to his teacher Heraclius, but before he could take out new parchment and ink, a servant came to report that the niece of Pope Alexander III had arrived at the port and that priests and nobles had gone to greet her.

But judging from their demeanor, it seemed that the lady would only disembark after César personally came to greet her.

(End of this chapter)