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Baldwin rides with the might of the entire Christian army behind him, and all he can think about is Balian.
No, that’s not entirely true. As his attendants had helped him into his armor and fixed his ceremonial mask to his face, his thoughts of course were for his people, and the battle looming at the horizon, and what would happen were he to fail at his negotiations. As his army sets out across the dunes, he thinks about the fortress at Kerak and his sister in its towers.
He thinks about Guy and Reynauld and their insolence, and how he’d wring their necks himself if he had the strength, because all of this is so unnecessary. Peace had been within Baldwin’s grasp for so long, and if Balian is out there wounded or— God forbid— dead, because of the Templars’ greed and stupidity— Baldwin doesn’t know what he’ll do.
But as his body aches with every jostle of his horse, he makes himself think of Balian. His knight, with his golden skin that warms Baldwin to his core, his all too expressive eyes that Baldwin could drown in.
Because there is a thick dread seeping into his brittle bones with the knowledge that this journey will kill him. Even if there is no battle to fell him, this venture will be enough— the straw to break the camel’s back, the feather to tip the scales and send Baldwin tumbling from Balian’s side. So Baldwin rides to meet Saladin, and thinks of Balian.
“Withdraw, or we will all die here,” Baldwin says.
He can see it in Saladin’s eyes as the man makes his decision, and a thread loosens in Baldwin’s chest— but Saladin is not one to admit to submission so easily. It is why Baldwin likes him, to be honest. In another lifetime, he has a feeling they would have been great friends.
“Is your lover here?” Saladin asks instead, and his eyes stay roaming the army behind Baldwin, and the fortress on the hill, but Baldwin is still suddenly grateful for his mask to hide his expression. “I have heard of him. Does he watch us?”
Baldwin could lie, or change the subject, but Saladin would likely see the avoidance as an insult, and since there’s no one close enough to hear them, center stage as they are— Baldwin inclines his head, ever so slightly, to the frozen skirmish to their side.
“He does.”
“You send your lover to battle?” Saladin asks, surprise coloring his voice, confusion at his brow.
“I could not stop him if I wanted to,” Baldwin replies. “And I would not want to.” He could recognize Balian in pitch darkness, so it is easy to identify him in the bloodied throng, even as his silhouette warps slightly in the desert heat. Baldwin steadies under the weight of the knight’s gaze, and a smile tugs at his mouth, despite everything. “He is a credit to Jerusalem.”
“He is a credit to you,” Saladin corrects, with an amused smile of his own.
While Baldwin is grateful for Saladin’s compassion, the adrenaline of an evaded massacre is quickly being sapped from his veins, and his lungs, which had been throbbing, are now burning hot as the sun, reminded of the heat and the stress of travel. And now, of the simultaneous joy and heartache of Balian’s survival.
“Do we have terms?” he asks, and Saladin nods decisively, his smile vanishing as he takes in Baldwin’s appearance more fully.
“I will send you my physicians,” Saladin says, and Baldwin thanks him.
Saladin and his forces recede, and Baldwin turns to the fortress, and away from his knight.
Baldwin almost recoils at the wet press of Reynauld’s mouth to his exposed flesh, but this is the traitor’s punishment, to kiss Baldwin’s rotting body, so Baldwin bears it, even as it repulses him. When he knocks Reynauld to the ground and turns his back on the man, he seeks out Balian in the crowd on instinct, and he braces himself for what he’ll find.
Because as Baldwin had ridden into the fortress, he knew the price of the discipline he had to deal: Balian has never seen the mottled skin beneath Baldwin’s bandages, so it is only natural the knight will wear his own disgust, and Baldwin will use that disgust to grant Balian the opportunity to leave him. He will not make his knight stay now he knows what ugliness lies beneath that mask.
Because, like Saladin, Baldwin has heard the whispers about the Leper King’s Consort, and the questions, in their curiosity and cruelty: how can a leper have a lover; what satisfaction does Balian achieve from such an affair. The rumors are bearable so long as Baldwin shoulders the insult of them— it is when they accuse Balian of fault, of impotence and fetish, of manipulation, that Baldwin’s hands curl to fists tight enough his knuckles split and stain his bandages.
Baldwin surrendered his privacy at birth, before he ever knew it; Balian made no such choice, so Baldwin will give it to him now.
But when Baldwin faces Balian, he is shocked to find not revulsion, but anger in his lover’s stare.
The shock of that anger, coupled with his exhaustion, is enough to send the world tilting under his feet. It is Tiberius, not Balian, who catches Baldwin as he stumbles. It is Tiberius, not Balian, who hears Baldwin’s whimper, and mistakes it for pain and calls for the guard.
He barely registers being lowered into the cushions of his cot. He can hear his attendants insisting he be taken to rest, to Saladin’s physicians, but their voices are little more than a buzz. All he can think of is Balian.
His eyes are closed— when had they closed?— but he forces them open as the tidal wave of nausea subsides, and there’s Balian staring back— his eyes still tight with fury but Baldwin knows his lover’s body better than his own, and he can see by the tension in Balian’s shoulders that he’s coiled like a snake, ready to spring. Baldwin barely has to lift his lead-heavy hand before Balian is racing to his side.
The eyes of all Jerusalem are on them, but Baldwin can’t find it in himself to care. His confusion is enough to make him sick: why is Balian running to him? Why is he not running away?
Balian falls to his knees beside Baldwin’s cot, but his hands flutter, unsure, just out of reach. Over the knight’s shoulder, Baldwin glimpses Tiberius approaching, and his faithful marshal angles himself to shield them, if only partially, from their audience. Baldwin is grateful. He, too, is guilty of greed: he does not want to share this moment, whatever devastation it holds, with anyone.
“Balian,” Baldwin rasps, but the knight ignores him, his words cutting Baldwin’s half-hearted protests to ribbons.
“He touched you,” Balian all but growls, “You should not have let him touch you.”
Baldwin’s heart shatters into dust finer than sand. “A sin for a sin.”
And there is that anger again, surging to the surface, but somehow, this time, Baldwin knows it isn’t aimed at him. “To love you is the farthest thing from sin,” Balian insists, “If I could— If I— to touch—"
His hand finally curls over Baldwin’s bandaged one, where it rests on the cross gilding his heaving chest, and Baldwin swears he can feel the pressure. Baldwin had dropped his glove to strike Reynauld, so he cannot lift his other hand to hold Balian’s against him, though he wishes so desperately that he could.
“I would not,” Baldwin whispers, “subject you to—” He sucks in a breath. “Balian, I am… I am granting you permission. If you wish to le—”
“You told me once I never needed your permission,” Balian interrupts, and if it were anyone else, Baldwin could have him killed for interrupting a king. But he isn’t anyone else. He’s Baldwin’s perfect knight. “If you no longer want me, command me, and I will obey. But do not ask me anything you do not wish for yourself.”
And Baldwin should command it. This man he loves so deeply should not have to watch him die. But he also knows it would kill them both, if he makes Balian leave. It would carve Balian hollow as an empty grave.
So Baldwin says nothing, and that rage in Balian’s eyes simmers slowly to understanding, and reverence, and love. Baldwin does not have much time left. But, he swears his oath to God, with the cross beneath their fingers, he will spend every second he is given with Balian.
“You live,” Baldwin murmurs, because that’s what he’d wanted to say, initially, when he’d first glimpsed Balian across the bloodied sand. The gash at Balian’s forehead has stopped oozing, but still Baldwin wishes keenly to kiss it clean.
Balian’s mouth twitches affectionately. “I do.”
“I am glad of it.”
Tiberius, perhaps sensing something in their audience that Baldwin and Balian cannot, wrapped in their cocoon as they are, clears his throat softly to call their attention. “Perhaps, my lord, we should continue this conversation elsewhere.”
Baldwin hums, and the weight of his kingdom settles on his chest once more, but at least Balian’s hand is there to help temper it. “Yes. I need you in Jerusalem, my knight,” he tells Balian. Tiberius signals to the guard to lift Baldwin’s cot and carry him away, but instead of drawing back, Balian simply rises and walks alongside him, his hand still steady on Baldwin’s cross.
Baldwin closes his eyes against the sun, and smiles.