Act XII: The Destruction of Sodom (Part Two)
two
“Yakov, wake up.” Yubi shook his heavy shoulders. “Are you going to the wedding?”
What wedding? Yakov was exhausted, too sleepy to keep his eyes open. Yubi's cold fingers slid down his shoulder, then slowly traced his brow bone, as if determined to smooth out the fierce wrinkles accumulated over the years, to straighten each of his unruly, savage eyebrows. The knight grabbed the mischievous hand and tucked it into his warm embrace, giving a lazy reply.
“Are you tired?” Yubi asked softly. “I know you couldn’t sleep again last night… I can just go with Schumeer, I don’t need you.”
“No,” Yakov finally spoke clearly. “I’ll get up now.”
“You don’t have to go,” Yubi said, but then stopped him. “You’ve already fought a major battle; you should rest. Leave the rest to me and Schumeer.”
“If I don’t bring the soldiers, the Baron of Ibelin will cause you trouble.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Yubi laughed. “Do you know who the bride and groom are?”
What does that have to do with the army and the ownership of Ludl? Yakov thought about it in a daze for a while. His eyelids felt as heavy as if they were weighed down with iron, and his mind was still like a dream. "Who is it?" he asked with his eyes closed.
“Look at you, worrying about nothing when you know nothing.” Yubi’s voice was muffled. “The king married the old king’s widow to Berion of Ibelin. Do you remember her? The Queen of Jerusalem we met in Constantinople, her surname was Komnenos, she was a Byzantine princess, and she helped you get into the Knights.”
These complex and cumbersome names finally brought Yakov to his senses. Amidst the chaos of his memories, he found the lavish banquet where he had been tricked by Ambikia, recalling his stubborn and obsessive nature back then. He opened his eyes, and Yubi burst into his line of sight—the vampire had wrapped his head in a turban and wore a veil, his body and face completely covered by black and red silk, only his large eyes, painted with antimony eyeliner, staring at him intently. Sunlight gleamed dangerously on the gold ornaments hanging outside his veil.
"...What does their marriage have to do with you and me?" Yakov rubbed his aching head and got out of bed.
“Lud is to be owned by Baron Ibelin, who is to marry the widow of the King of Komnenos, and we are here because of the permission granted by the Roman Emperor,” Schumeer, who was guarding the door, said.
Yakov glanced over and saw that the Jew was now dressed in a magnificent robe embroidered with gold thread, his back straight, looking more like a wealthy moneylender or patriarch than the down-on-his-luck yet shrewd painter he once was. "For the sake of the Romans and their own interests, all the nobles of the Holy Land have no choice but to allow us here, unless they really want to turn against Byzantium," he said, stroking his mustache and clicking his tongue contentedly.
Yakov really didn't want to be thinking about these convoluted things so early in the morning. "...Was it that leper king who arranged this?" he couldn't help but ask, "For our sake?"
The remark made Yubi embarrassed, and Schumeer laughed heartily. "You really have a knack for humor sometimes," Schumeer said, adjusting his wide sleeves. "How could it possibly be for us?"
"What happened?" Yakov asked, staring at Yubi's face.
“…Do you remember Princess Sibylla? Ever since her husband William the Longsword died, whoever marries her will become the next King of Jerusalem.” Yubi lowered his head shyly. “The Baron of Ibelin wanted to propose to the princess to gain merit in battle. But the princess was pregnant, and according to religious law, she had to remain a widow for one year and one day… So the king compromised and married the old king’s Queen Komnenos to his brother, since the queen also had a little princess who could inherit the Holy Land.”
“One year and one day.” Schumer nodded with his hands behind his back. “If we had come a few months later, it would have been too late.”
"These are all excuses," Yakov scoffed dismissively. "If the king truly wanted the people of Ibelin to inherit the Holy Land, why would he care about the length of a widow's mourning period?"
“Whether it’s an excuse or luck, opportunity always comes our way.” Schumeer didn’t argue. “Only the brave, who are well-prepared, can seize the gifts of fate.”
Yakov took the words as a compliment, yet something felt strange and unsettling. He hesitated, leaning against the headboard, as he struggled to get up, moving his arms and legs with difficulty. However, Yubi's palm pressed against the imprint on his chest, giving him only a gentle nudge before he obediently lay back down on the soft bed.
"You've done so much, worked so hard for so long," the vampire sweetly comforted him, "Rest now! It's time for you to enjoy yourself!"
The soft bed was so comfortable, Yakov thought; it must be filled with goose down and wrapped in smooth silk. His mind was soothed and relaxed, and for the first time, he truly appreciated these luxurious touches. He remembered many harsh and desolate nights he had spent sleeping beside cold haystacks and campfires, his head against the winter river, listening to the thawing of the ice. Yubi's delicate hands stroked his beard again, as gently as if he were with his most beloved lover. Yakov suddenly realized: he had come this far, and it seemed he could indeed finally relax and catch his breath.
“…If I don’t go, take Daoud with you.” Before closing his eyes again, he added, “Let him take half of my soldiers, and give him that Damascus steel dagger as a token.”
"good."
“And there’s the matter of Yesau… the matter of the blood slaves.” Yakov closed his eyes. “You must be careful.”
“I know, Yakov, don’t worry.” Yubi’s cool hand covered Yakov’s eye sockets. “Sleep, don’t think about anything.”
The knight slept luxuriously until the afternoon before waking up again. He felt refreshed, as if fate had long owed him such a deep and pleasant sleep, and now it had finally been returned to him, which filled him with a sense of pride and triumph.
He donned a simple robe emblazoned with a red cross and emerged from his bedroom. They were temporarily residing in the monastery next to the church, where the monks had prepared the best area of the courtyard for their new lord, rendering all rules of fasting and celibacy ineffective. Seeing him awake, the newly arrived slaves of the Ubisoft filed out of the doorway, serving him thyme-sprinkled bread, roasted eggplant, and chicken fried in olive oil, along with a milky, cloudy wine with an anise-like aroma.
"What is this?" the knight asked.
“This is called ‘Lion’s Milk,’” the slave said respectfully, bowing his head. “It’s a drink that only warriors can drink.”
"Aren't they all forbidden to drink?" Yakov examined the faces of the new slaves—most of them had dark skin and thick eyebrows and deep-set eyes typical of Saracens. He picked up the glass of wine, took a sip, and the spicy taste flowed pleasantly down his throat, but he immediately put the glass down.
“This liquor is too strong.” Yakov said restrainedly, pushing the flask away. “I shouldn’t drink it.”
The wedding was held in Nablus. It would take Yubi and his entourage three days to go to the banquet and another three days to return—for most people, this would be considered a holiday for rest, but for Yakov, it was all about the things that needed to be done.
On his first day, he wandered around the small town several times, measuring the length of each street with his footsteps and memorizing the location of each shack. The bishop who had previously ruled the city followed him, timidly answering his every question.
"What's your name?" Yakov asked, gripping the scabbard. "Where are you from?"
“My name is Domenico,” the bishop said, bowing slightly. “I was transferred here from Pisa to serve as bishop.”
“No wonder you speak with an Italian accent.” Yakov casually tapped the bricks in the hall. “Who is the saint depicted in the church?”
“It is Saint George, Your Excellency,” said Bishop Domenico. “A martyred warrior saint. He was born here and is buried here.”
Yakov had no interest in listening to these obscure religious stories. "Is this saint famous?" he asked again. "How many pilgrims come here every year?"
"Not particularly famous." The bishop was disheartened by his worldly and snobbish demeanor. "There aren't many pilgrims who come here..."
Yakov didn't respond, only slightly raising his eyebrows before frowning again. "Besides martyrdom, what else?" he asked, pointing to the mosaic behind the altar. "Since he was a martial saint, who did he fight, and what were his skills?"
Bishop Domenico pursed his lips hesitantly. “There’s a legend that he slew a dragon and saved a maiden…” he said timidly, “but that has little to do with Christ; it’s just something people made up…”
“Tell the Franks who come on pilgrimage more about his dragon-slaying and less about his martyrdom,” Yakov interrupted him. “Tell them what they want to hear. The more pilgrims there are, the more gold coins there will be.”
The bishop beside him clearly wanted to say something more, but he pursed his lips and remained silent.
The next day, Yakov went to the stable to visit his old horse—a chestnut Norman horse that had been wounded in the Colosseum of Constantinople and had been brought all the way to Jerusalem to recover, at great expense. Now it seemed that the injury had been a blessing in disguise, sparing it the tragic fate of dying on the hillside. Most of the horses were short Turkic and Arabian, and after a month of riding them, they would visibly lose weight, requiring constant rotation. Only tall Norman horses would do, Yakov thought.
Yakov gave its wounds a final check and found they were healing well. He patted the docile horse's back, leaped onto it, and left through the city gate to survey the surrounding villages, then measured the distance to Ramre, the neighboring territory of Ibelin. The lord's brother there had also gone to Nablus for a wedding, and the city was temporarily at peace, unconcerned by Yakov's watchful eye and tight security.
The knight led a few men along the base of the fortress wall, where they encountered some people who had previously been denied entry to the city, including the commoners and Jews. "Let us come into the city to pray on ordinary days, sir," they pleaded, fearful and wary of the red cross on Yakov's body. "The mosques and synagogues in the city have been closed for a long time." "This is my homeland, sir, please return my ancestral home to me."
Yakov recalled the monastery where he had stayed that night, its eaves and walls seemingly inlaid with oriental-style bricks and tiles—the aesthetics of the □□ (a derogatory term for the □□) had always despised figurative human figures and animals, favoring orderly and intricate geometric floral shapes, quite different from the aesthetics of Christians; he also remembered that south of St. George's Church there seemed to be an ancient well shaped like a six-pointed star, overgrown with weeds and blocked by bricks, its spring dried up. "Get away, don't stand in front of the horses!" But he only chased away these infidels, "The lord is not here, we can petition him when he returns, there's no way to deal with it now!"
The desert winter was bitterly cold, and the chill seeped into his flesh and bone through his robe and chainmail, no matter how tightly he wrapped his headscarf and cloak around himself.
On the third day, Yakov headed towards Montiza—the battlefield where the previous day had ended so tragically. His horse galloped for half a day, and he arrived at midday when the sun was at its highest.
A new monastery was being built on the hill where the battlefield had once been—a gift of gratitude from the leper king to Christ, commemorating this miraculous victory against overwhelming odds. Yakov tied up his horse, rested briefly, then decided to remove his iron gloves, roll up his sleeves, tie his turban, and join the workers and peasants in helping with the wall repairs. Thousands had died; only those still remembered were entitled to be recognized and buried. The rest were either those who had perished with all those they knew, or pilgrims who had left their homes to join the eastward campaign; or perhaps, the traitors and South African slaves brought by Saladin, who were not entitled to burial. Yakov thought, let this great monastery commemorating the saint be the tombstone for all of them; beneath the bricks and earth lay their bones.
Finally, he couldn't help but recall Sancho's round face.
His Spanish comrade's grave was right next to the monastery. As the sun set, Yakov stopped working and led his horse up the hill to the cemetery.
The few lines inscribed on Sancho's tomb read: his surname and given name, his hometown of Toledo, and the Templar motto. The crooked letters gradually dimmed in the setting sun. This couldn't possibly capture what kind of person Sancho was, Yakov thought to himself. Later generations would never have the chance to understand his foolish and ridiculous nature; they could only consider him a devout, generously martyred Templar Knight who had traveled from Spain—just as Schumacher described him, one among millions of religious madmen.
He sat down in front of the grave, gazing thoughtfully at the cold stone marked with a cross.
The vampire was forced to consider the unavoidable question: what if he hadn't rejected Yubi's proposal, what if he had actually allowed the vampires to turn his comrades into indestructible monsters like himself before the war…? How would things have been different? How would Sancho have viewed these true supernatural powers? How was this different from sacred faith and omnipotent gods?
Could this fulfill his naive yet distant dream—that the Holy Land could become like Toledo once was, allowing everyone to put aside their differences and live together peacefully?
The wind whipped sand against Yakov's back, and the setting sun warmed him. He sadly realized that the more he pondered this question, the more the mark on his chest ached like chains binding his heart. Yakov understood why: it had to be Yubi, and no one else. How could his naive and foolish master shoulder such a terrible responsibility, withstand the scrutiny of his own conscience, or fathom the answer that millions had sought for millennia? Yet he couldn't help but think: it couldn't be anyone but Yubi. If it weren't Yubi, who else would condescend to experience such pain, who would possess such a strong and insightful heart, who would listen to him?
"Not even to be my slave?" Yakov recalled Yubi asking him that question. He suppressed his pain and pondered deeply. Was being Yubi's blood slave really so despicable? If it could save Sancho's life, restore Shumel's sight, provide shelter for the displaced Nuk, and guide the lost and bewildered Daoud... was power truly such a despicable thing? Was the blame ultimately on power itself, or on those who wielded it—or was it borne by him himself?
These thoughts of slipping away were comforting and decadent, as natural as lying back on the mattress under one's own weight, yet they couldn't stop the pain of the mark. Yakov pressed his palm to his heart. The pain was simply unreasonable, sensual, and absurd! He searched his mind for any clues, trying to fill in any gaps, trying to convince the pain to stop.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a path on the hillside—a distant figure standing there, strikingly similar to himself, leading a horse: a Templar Knight, blond and blue-eyed, with a burly build and a longsword inlaid with rubies hanging at his waist, standing on the dusty ground.
Yakov squinted as if waking from a dream, pulled off his headscarf, and gazed at the figure. The other person, in turn, pulled off his headscarf and gazed back at him.
"Who are you?" the blood slave shouted. "Whose blood slave are you?"
But the figure only shook its head, as if expressing regret over the issue.
“I have no master!” he shouted back. “I am free!”
Yakov was infuriated by this absurd answer. He scrambled to his feet, intending to rush over and grab the man to demand an explanation. But the figure immediately mounted his horse and galloped down the barren desert, disappearing in the sunset dust in the blink of an eye.
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