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It is only at night that he allows the dark thoughts to come. Only then does he let himself grieve. For the fate of Jerusalem, of Sibylla, of himself. He has tried, often and in vain, to drive these worries away and sink into much needed slumber. He has chased sleep like he has chased a vision, for most of his life. These days he no longer bothers to try. This is one fight King Baldwin has given himself leave to forfeit.
So, he lays awake in the fragrant, almost cool dark of his bedchamber and revels in misery. Jerusalem will fall; Guy de Lusignan will make it so. There is no one and nothing that can stop him, when Baldwin is dead. And he will be soon. He knows it by the deep ache in his bones that never lessens now. He knows it by the coldness he can feel creeping inside, a coldness that can no longer be driven away by even the sweltering heat of summer. It might be weeks. Or months. But it will no longer be years, and he would need years, to build something so strong that it would keep standing without him to hold it up anymore.
Tiberias will try his best, but Jerusalem isn't his dream. And in any case, he won't be king and thus his hands will be hopelessly tied. If Tiberias is wise, he will leave before the end. He will go somewhere where he can live out the final years of his life in peace. Baldwin does not begrudge him that. No, he wishes it. If his dream must end in ashes, it would give him something akin to joy to have at least some of his friends survive the fire. To remember the brightness of it, for a while, as something other than a story.
His thoughts wander to Sibylla. His fierce, proud sister. They are so different and yet so alike. She is more grounded in her hopes, more a realist. But whenever Baldwin’s sickness binds him to his bed and the doors of death loom open at the foot of it, she makes herself scarce. She refuses to face his ending. He sometimes wishes he could do likewise. Set his faith in God and just stubbornly believe that this too shall pass. But that would not make it so. So, his sister is a dreamer as well, in her own way.
He regrets her marriage to de Lusignan. Not because it makes her unhappy now, that was probable no matter the man they chose. Not because he is ungodly, he is no worse than most of his ilk, and better than some. Not because Baldwin personally dislikes him, that can not be allowed to matter here. No, he regrets the union because they had believed de Lusignan to be wise and he has turned out to be incredibly stupid. And his stupidity will be the death of thousands.
The night is velvet around him. He can recall how velvet felt against his fingertips, how soft it was, how slick. He has many of these memories, sensory, painful almost, now that he can feel next to nothing anymore. Except the pain. Lately there has been a great deal of pain.
Once, when he was still a child, he had gone out riding. Somehow, he had shaken off both his tutor and the men at arms guarding him. At first it had been a joyous thing, his heart bursting with a glorious sense of freedom, heretofore unknown. But all too soon he had grown afraid. The vastness of the desert was unnerving, terrifying. He could see no signs of the work of a human hand in any direction. Only rocks and sand and the merciless sky. The sun shone from high, casting almost no shadows and no wind moved the few scattered weeds. It was a dead place, not meant for men. And definitely not for small boys, lost and frightened and all alone.
He thinks of that long ago day now. Death should not frighten him; he has tried his best to be a good Christian. He has guarded God's own city well, confessed his meager sins of pride and bitterness as often as he can. Afterwards, there will be masses sung for the swift ascension of his soul to the Lord's side. And it is not the thought of lingering in torment that unsettles him now. But death is a place all men must enter alone. A strange, uncaring desert where there will be no succor to be had from allies and friends. In his mind's eye purgatory is a lonely place, not filled with demons but with silence. And a voice inside his own skull, relentlessly listing all he has failed to do in life.
He envies those who can welcome death as a friend. Those who can take the hand of an angel of mercy and be free from pain. His body, ravaged as it is, might be ready to let go of life. His mind, on the other hand, cannot ignore all the work still to be done.
There is the boy, Balian, of course. Not that he is much younger than Baldwin, but he feels that way. He has suffered his own griefs, it is clear in the shadow behind his eyes, but somehow he still has not lost all his brightness. He may be able to dream, after a while spent in the sun. It is possible that he could help. If Baldwin can keep his body from dying for long enough. And that seems impossible right now.
Baldwin turns to his side. His body feels like a sack of meat and bones, something he has to hoist up and move, not something that is truly a part of him anymore. He can still remember what it felt like to be able to just effortlessly move any part of himself, tiny or large. If this went on for much longer, he thinks he might forget. But it cannot be that long before the end.
And so his thoughts circle back to the inevitable, the unimaginable, the untenable. His flesh is already rotting; the process will only go faster in the ground. Soon he will be reduced to bones. Or maybe those will rot too? Has the sickness weakened them in that way? He has never wanted to ask. It is a useless question. What should it matter how his body will decay? He will have no need for it in his grave, not until Judgment Day, and then all will be made whole again. He has been told that, has believed that. But here in the lonely dark, the thought of a healthy body appears as impossible as all of his other dreams.
A light breeze from the open windows moves the curtains by the bed. He wishes he could feel it against his skin, though of course he cannot. All of him is covered in bandages these days, except his face at night, and what skin he has left there lost all sensation some time ago. He supposes he should be grateful he still has eyes to see and ears to hear. That those things have not yet been taken from him, like all the rest has been. It is very hard to feel grateful for anything anymore.
Maybe the room has grown a fraction lighter? He can make out some shadows now, the shape of his chair, the latticework frame of the window. So, he may have survived another night. And come daybreak, he will don hope again like a cloak and forswear despair. Until the darkness falls once more.