kingdom of nations

Chapter 24 The Unfortunate Count Etienne (Part )

"Snowing."

Count Etienne's expression suddenly turned ugly.

In fact, even if he didn't say it, the people sitting around could feel it - even though the dim light made it difficult for them to see small things, but what else could those rustling things constantly fall on their hair, eyebrows and beards?

Not to mention, the chilling air peculiar to the snowy day was constantly pouring towards them. It was like a Turkic dagger, clearly and quickly piercing the knights' joints, cutting their lips, and stabbing their throats, making them feel all the blood being drained from their bodies even if they just moved.

Count Etienne felt deeply that he must have been cursed by the devil to have fallen into this situation.

Even if two armies go to war, the envoys who come to the enemy with flags and declarations of war will not necessarily suffer humiliation or lose their lives. He is also the special envoy of the Holy Land. The exchanges between Frank, Britain and the Holy Roman Empire and the Holy Land have never stopped. Especially before and after each expedition, every king, every lord, and every grand master of the knightly order must maintain frequent and close contact to ensure that they can respond to each other and there will be no mobilization failure or communication interruption.

Messengers carrying letters and charters might be in some danger, but they were undoubtedly the most respected.

When Louis VII summoned him and handed him the commission as envoy to the Holy Land, Count Etienne was fully convinced that this would be a good deed dedicated to God, the King, and Christians. Although the journey was long, rugged, and full of wild beasts and pagans... he still proudly believed that he could complete the task perfectly and return home safely, just like every envoy before him.

But he hadn't anticipated that not all dangers came from wild beasts and pagans. A young and beautiful princess could also put him in a difficult position. Facing those hostile looks, Count Etienne didn't even dare to stay until the next day. God knows, that night he spent clad in chain mail, an iron helmet on his head, eyes open, sword in hand, staring at the door, a night that felt like a year. Even though Amalric I realized his mistake and promised him that no one would challenge him to a duel or do anything despicable...

But Etienne was twenty years old when he rushed into the church and snatched away the girl he loved, Adélae. How could he not know what kind of stupid things a twenty-year-old could do?
He had to abandon his original plan - after all, no one who came to the Holy Land would fail to make a pilgrimage - and left early with his knights, squires, and monks, only able to look back at the sacred hill from afar in the pale golden morning light.

The people around him were also sighing. They all thought this was a rare opportunity and tried every means to join this team - who wouldn't want to see the silk workshops on Andros, tour the ruins of the Colossus on Rhodes, sing loudly in the semicircular theater of Myra, stroll in the port of Phryne, and enjoy the cool sea breeze amid the cries of seagulls?

They also planned to pray at the tomb of St. Nicholas and look for the miracle of St. Peter in Cyprus. They would pass through the Gate of David and gaze for a long time at the famous golden dome at the foot of the Temple Mount, a pagan temple that now belongs to the Knights of Christ. They would go to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed with his disciples and was betrayed by Judas.

They will also go to the most sacred place, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and they will crawl forward and kiss every inch of the ground, whether it is the cell where Jesus was imprisoned after his betrayal, the pit left by the cross where he was hung, the pillar where he was tied when he was scourged, and even the stone where his blood dripped when he was forced to wear the crown of thorns, and the stone tomb where he finally rested and was resurrected there...

There are also chapels built around this sacred place, Mary Magdalene, St. John, the Virgin Mary, St. James, St. Peter...

They came here full of hope and even paid a lot of rewards in advance, but now all of this was in vain, which inevitably caused Count Etienne to suffer many complaints. He could only promise them on the ship that when they returned to France, he would give each of them a gift worth one hundred gold coins. When they heard this, their anger immediately subsided and they smiled.

Of course, this expensive debt could not be borne by Count Etienne alone. Fundamentally, this was an absurd thing caused by the arrogance and recklessness of Louis VII and Amalric I, and he should not have been responsible for it. Amalric I had already promised to give him a good compensation, and Louis VII would not be too stingy. It was a very cost-effective thing to use this money to ensure his safety on the way back.

But Count Etienne did not expect that his ship would run aground shortly after passing through the strait between Cyprus and Tarsus.

We have described in detail the routes of the First and Second Crusades. If you, like the king and prince of Alazarus, have a map related to them, you will find something very interesting.

That is, looking at the map, the Crusaders could have boarded a ship in Sicily or Athens, crossed the Mediterranean and reached Alassari, but they chose to go through the difficult terrain of Istria, traversing most of Europe, West Asia, and Central Asia, passing through part of the Seljuk Turkic territory, and crossing Armenia before reaching Antioch...

Do they feel that God’s test is too easy and therefore want to increase the difficulty?
Of course not. This was due to the extremely backward shipbuilding and navigation technology of the time. Regardless of size, ships were almost all single-masted and single-deck, relying solely on wind and human power for kinetic energy. They simply couldn't withstand the raging winds and waves of the deep sea. Furthermore, the resulting problem of insufficient ship loads forced people to constantly choose between ensuring passengers and cargo, or ensuring supplies...

Another tricky hurdle comes from direction and route - people in later generations often see captains and lookouts of this period holding a telescope and scanning the surroundings. What are they looking at?

Look at the land.

They needed to rely on the scenery on the land or islands to confirm that they were on the right path... There was no other way. It was still a hundred years before the Saracens introduced the eastern compass or Sinan to Europe...

In short, at this time, ships almost had to stay close to the coastline to ensure that they would not get lost, avoid encountering difficult storms, and it would be convenient to stop for replenishment of supplies. However, this also caused a problem, that is, the ships could easily run aground on the reefs near the coast.

At this time, Count Etienne had not yet realized that this was not an accident, but the captain was a decisive man. After discovering that the ship had run aground, he desperately ordered the sailors to rush the ship to the shore. The ship creaked under the heavy load and used up its last bit of strength. In the end, it did not sink but ran aground.

They were not sure where this place was, perhaps Christian territory, or perhaps Seljuk territory. In any case, it was not a good idea to continue staying here. Given that there was a rather notorious law at that time - the ownership of shipwrecked goods, no matter what religion it was, as long as a shipwreck washed ashore, all the items on it belonged to the local lord.

The pagan lord might accept them along with the survivors on the ship, after all, slaves were considered assets.

You might think that Christian lords would be better? No, to avoid subsequent trouble, they would simply kill all the survivors and witnesses...

Count Étienne and his entourage were quite swift in their movements. They not only escaped with their lives, but also took their horses from the cabin—some of them had broken legs or necks, so they had to leave them there—and took away as much food and wine as they could.

After walking for a while, they found that the scenery they saw was unfamiliar, and there were no signs of human presence. A knight climbed a broken dead log and looked into the distance, but he could not see the smoke or flames rising from the village or castle. Count Etienne tried to ask their guide, but the guide seemed to have been hit on the head by the collision. He kept groaning and couldn't say anything. He couldn't even open his eyes. Forget pointing them to the right path. Even if he was put on the ground and walked, he couldn't walk in a straight line.

They could only carry him away on horseback.

Their clothes were soaked to the skin, and as the sunlight gradually faded, no longer able to bring even a little light or warmth—even in December, an ominous white frost had begun to condense on the pilgrimage route—the wind blew and they trembled all over, barely able to stand. Seeing this, Count Étienne had no choice but to order the knights to dismount, with the horses blocking the way and the knights walking in the middle.

Fortunately, they soon came across a pine forest.

No one knew how long this pine forest had existed. The ground was covered with a thick layer of pine needles, and only the surface layer was slightly moist, while the layer below was rich and dry. When the knights saw this, they immediately cheered. They raked and dug up a large pile of pine needles, cleared out a small space in the bushes at the edge of the forest, and started a fire on it.

The horses were still left outside, and the servants tied the horse clothes and cloaks together and draped them over the horses, and used their swords and spears in them, so that they had a roofless tent, but this could only block the wind for them. They shared some of the food brought from the ship, knocked a few pine cones, and drank some wine to warm themselves up.

After resolving the imminent crisis, the knights became active. A bold squire, who was the illegitimate son of the Count of Champagne and, in terms of blood relationship, the nephew of Count Etienne, could not help but complain half-truthfully that Count Etienne did not need to be so heartless.

Alaska is the cradle of the church, the center of the world, and the place that every Christian regards as the "most sacred." Being a king elsewhere only means enjoying worldly power, but being a king in Alaska not only means enjoying worldly power, but also receiving God's blessings, health, and glory. In the future, one will surely ascend to heaven surrounded by saints.

In response to the young man's question, Count Etienne simply shook his head and said, "I can answer you with a line from a Saracen poem: 'Alasarus is a golden basin full of scorpions.'"

Whoever becomes greedy for it and reaches out to take it will be bitten.

Although Count Etienne only stayed in Jaffa for three days and in Alaska for one night, he saw it all too clearly. Although Amalric I was a powerful ruler, he no longer had the energy and spirit of the past. He was like a tree struck by lightning, rotten inside, with only the exterior barely intact. The reason why he insisted on not falling down was perhaps because of his promise to Christ - he would never give up easily before choosing a suitable successor.

But who is this person?
Prince Baldwin? A leper who wouldn't live past thirty?

Or was it Raymond, Count of Tripoli? Bohemond, Duke of Antioch? Og de Barlebon, Grand Master of the Knights of the Charity, Philippe de Mily, Grand Master of the Knights Templar? Or was it him, a French nobleman who had come from afar?
Count Etienne didn't believe these people were truly as virtuous as they appeared, willing to place the crown of Alasar on an outsider. If he really fell for their tricks, lost in the present moment, and truly stayed to marry Princess Sibylle, the most likely outcome would be that they would exploit him to the bone, using him to his heart's content, and then he would be "killed in battle," "die of illness," or even "disappear"...

But he couldn't say these words to anyone.

"But Princess Sibylle is such a beauty. I can't believe you could be so hard-hearted."

This made Count Etienne laugh out loud. "It was because of seeing her that I decided to run away."

"Do you doubt her love?"

"Love? Although Princess Sibylle is only thirteen, I don't see that in her eyes." Count Etienne looked around. The young attendants and knights all had curious expressions on their faces, while the older ones smiled in sync with the count. "Don't you feel any danger?"

"A beauty like Princess Sibylle always has ways of making these young men throw down their weapons," a knight, older than Count Etienne, quipped humorously. "Let alone danger, even if Satan dropped a basket at their feet, they would jump in without hesitation."

"Then I can teach you something here," Count Étienne raised a finger. "At any time, anywhere, facing anyone, put yourself in their shoes and think about it. If you were them, would you be willing to give benefits to a stranger for no reason?"

"Odysseus's sailors arrived at a deserted island, where they were met by a beautiful woman who prepared a great feast for them. After they ate and drank, they were transformed into the witch Circe's pigs.

Then there was the fierce-willed Medea, who, in order to help her lover who had stolen the Golden Fleece escape, even dismembered her own brother and threw his body on the road. But when Jason fell in love with another woman, she was willing to weave a gorgeous robe and craft an exquisite crown for his new lover, which ultimately led to the poor princess being poisoned to death.

And there is Delilah, whom we are all familiar with. Samson knew that she was the daughter of his enemy, but he still held her in his arms, revealing his secret. In the end, the Philistines gouged out his eyes, took him to Gaza, chained him with bronze chains, and forced him to grind like an animal..."

"Everyone," he sneered, "Princess Sibylle is only thirteen years old, and I am thirty-seven, even older than her father. No matter how others flatter me, I know I am heading towards the grave. Doesn't she have a companion of the same age, status, and appearance?

She has made a terrible loss by yielding to me. I cannot imagine how much I would have to pay back to satisfy her if I had signed the contract."

He finished his words in one breath, and the atmosphere in the field became a little stagnant. The knight who had just interrupted felt pity for these young people who were bewitched by beauty, and suggested that they could go into the pine forest while there was still daylight. There might be a nest of grouse there, or even a few rabbits or a deer. Although they still had some food now, it would be used up by tomorrow.

The knight's suggestion was agreed by everyone.

(End of this chapter)