The weather was a rare gift: cloudless sky, gentle wind, and placid sea. With the harsh, miserly merchant dead, the captain and crew no longer had to feign industry. They lolled on deck, skin damp and glistening in the sun. Laundry hung from the rigging, and passengers gathered in twos and threes to talk; no one wanted to suffocate in the stale cabins below.

The atmosphere aboard ship had been strained these past two days. A handful of passengers had disembarked outright at Crete, intending to catch another vessel to the Holy Land: anything to escape the awkwardness. On the night of the sirens, Lothar had witnessed scenes he wished he hadn't: passengers and crew, men and women alike, tangled in each other's arms. In Catholic doctrine, both adultery and sodomy were grave sins.

"Once we reach the Holy Land, all sins shall be absolved." So said Father Beckett to the congregation. He himself had spent that night wrestling with a male crewman in the hold. Jesus, presumably, did not believe that setting foot in the Holy Land automatically scrubbed a man clean, but the monk said it anyway. Just as Jesus, presumably, did not believe that murdering infidels was a sinless path to Heaven, but the Pope said it anyway.

The sailors understood this sort of thing better than most. Years at sea had worn their faith thin. When the storms came, when the pirates closed in, they prayed as readily to the pagan sea god Poseidon as to Christ. And in the cramped, isolated world of a ship at sea, bonds between men, though not exactly common, were hardly unthinkable.

Siren corpses, it was said, yielded a perfume as prized as ambergris, a potent aphrodisiac. But Lothar chose not to carve them open. He could not yet bring himself to butcher human-shaped creatures like livestock.

Two full days had passed since they left Crete. They'd stopped at Cyprus: just long enough to replenish their water casks, then sailed on. The island had once been a core territory of the Eastern Empire; it had seized independence soon after the Empress-Regent's coronation and now commanded a respectable naval force of its own. Beyond Cyprus, the Holy Land was close. Through the haze, a dull yellow smear of coastline had begun to resolve.

The sea traffic thickened. Merchantmen heavy with Eastern spices and silk. Passenger vessels carrying scattered crusaders. Pirate galleys bristling with oars and bow-mounted ballistae, swift and lethal. The floating wreckage of splintered hulls and drifting barrels appeared with regularity: the aftermath of raids, or of naval patrols doing their work.

"Look!" The sailors were suddenly shouting. One of them was cheering. "Our ships!"

On the far horizon, a massive fleet was taking shape before their eyes. Sleek escorts. Hulking capital ships. Oared galleys. Their vast black sails bore white crosses.

"That's the Hospitaller fleet!" Lothar snapped the order at once. "Run up the crusader banner. I don't want our Christian brothers mistaking us for a target."

Father Beckett's voice swelled with pride. "The Hospitallers command a formidable maritime force in the Holy Land. They patrol these waters constantly: protecting trade and the safety of pilgrims at sea." This was the power of the military orders in this age. Not kingdoms, but more than kingdoms.

Lothar gave him a sidelong look, and the monk ducked his head. Beckett had been noticeably subdued these past days. His fall from grace had cost him much of his standing aboard ship, while fear that Lothar might spread the story left him anxious and defensive.

The cog reached the port of Jaffa at high noon: the worst hour, when the sun was a hammer. The landscape was wind-scoured and arid: desert, stony barrens, the occasional eroded watchtower standing alone against the endless ochre desolation.

Fringilla's voice, thick with theatrical languor: "My lord. The sun. It's burning me alive."

Lothar rolled his eyes. "Stop performing. You overdrew your Spirit once and slept it off for two days. You're a vampire of royal blood. You're not that fragile."

"But it's vampires who fear the sun the most!"

Prajna, as ever, stood silently at his side, his shadow. She kept her presence small in quiet moments, but when the moments turned sharp, you were always glad she was there.

"Hans! Raise my swallowtail banner. From today on, we'll be dealing with nobles. You will serve as acting herald."

Hans hesitated. "Forgive me, my lord. I am honored, but my knowledge of heraldry is limited. I may not prove equal to the office."

"It doesn't matter if you're equal or not—we need a herald. Besides, your heraldic knowledge already exceeds that of most knights."

Laine was barking at the followers. "Straighten your backs! Remember everything Sergeant Modell and I have taught you these past days. Don't shame the master!"

"Yes, sir!" The male followers now carried spears and shields in uniform fashion. They had no armor, but each wore a surcoat of the same pattern. They looked the part, barely.

For now, they were parade soldiers, good for ceremony and little else. Their combat effectiveness was perhaps a hair above raw peasant levies. Drill on paper was never a substitute for drill on the field.

Lothar drew a deep lungful of the dry inland wind. Finally. He was here.

"This is the Holy Land. Men come seeking salvation, and wealth. A knight from the West, broke and nameless, can rise here to become lord of a city."

He stood on the dock, his legs adjusting: days at sea had turned solid ground strange beneath him. Prajna steadied him before he could stumble.

"Ready to move. It's not far to Jerusalem. The sooner we arrive, the sooner we rest."

The cog he left to the captain, but the dead merchant's wealth he confiscated in full: a "sacred donation" toward the defense of the Holy Land.

They had barely left the docks when a party approached from the quayside. They marched under a flag of gold charged with a cross, most of them in dark red and white surcoats. Their equipment was excellent: professional soldiers and knights, clearly. The lead knight, leading his horse, called out directly.

"That lion-rampant crest. I know it. Are you of House Habsburg?"

"Who's asking?" Lothar frowned. "Habsburg was no famous name: its influence barely extended past Swabia and Bavaria. I hadn't expected to be recognized within minutes of stepping ashore."

"I am Sir Kevan MacKidd, sworn to Baron Godfrey of Ibelin. This is my young master, the Baron's sole heir, Lord Balian."

Lothar shifted his attention to the young man in the dark red surcoat behind the knight. So this was the real principal. He didn't make much of an impression.

"I am Lothar of Aargau. House Habsburg. Second son of Count Werner. A landless knight."

He nodded to each in turn. "An honor, Lord Balian of Ibelin. Sir Kevan."

"Sir Lothar. Your father and my master were the closest of friends. They served King Baldwin together in the Royal Knights of Jerusalem. I witnessed the bond they forged, fighting side by side."

Kevan studied Lothar's surcoat. A wistful look crossed his face. "That style of tabard. It takes me back."

The Royal Knights of Jerusalem were clearly not a monastic military order like the Templars or Hospitallers. It was more akin to the later Order of the Golden Fleece of Burgundy: an honorific, a mark of distinction.

"What I don't understand is why he chose to leave. To return to Switzerland, some poor mountain valley, and be a country count, instead of staying here."

"To be honest," Lothar said with a shrug, "I never understood his reasoning either. I always assumed he'd failed to make his way here and slunk back to Swabia."

He knew the name, of course. Baron Godfrey of Ibelin was among the handful of comrades his father had occasionally mentioned from his time in the Holy Land. The House of Ibelin was no minor power.

True, they held only a barony, but the title's weight was far heavier than Count Werner's out in Aargau. For one, Ibelin sat close to Jaffa, a trade town with a ceaseless flow of caravans; the tolls alone were a handsome income. And the Kingdom of Jerusalem was not large.

It had maybe a dozen barons worth the name, and Ibelin was plainly among the foremost, a close ally of King Baldwin, iron-cast members of the royalist faction, with more than one fief to their name. Lothar had been mulling how to make contact with them the whole voyage. Now, by pure chance, here were the heir and the household knight.

"Sir Lothar, are you bound for the Holy City?"

"Naturally. Now that I've set foot in the Holy Land, how could I wait any longer to see the Holy City? To see the Holy Sepulchre with my own eyes: to stand in the Church of the Agony on the Mount of Olives?"

"Ha. Well said. If you've no objection, let us travel together. The Baron is waiting in Jaffa. I think he'll be more than pleased to greet both his old friend's son and his own at the same time."

"Nothing would please me more." Lothar was all warmth. "Balian, are you from Gaul? Perhaps I should call you Balian instead. It sounds more natural."

Balian nodded faintly. "That's right. Sir Lothar."

"You seem a little stiff, Balian."

"Truth be told… I'm not really a noble. I mean—I used to be a blacksmith. I'm not used to dealing with people like you."

"I understand. But if I may be frank: you've no cause to feel awkward. This era is crawling with nobles no better than thugs. A man with a noble soul, even a blacksmith, can stand taller than a prince."

Balian's situation was, in plain terms, the legitimization of a bastard: not uncommon in this age, particularly in families facing extinction. Though a thin claim was vulnerable; cases of inheritance being seized by powerful cousins were far from rare. The Middle Ages cared deeply about legal formalities. But in the end, it all came down to the fist.

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Author's Note: The film Kingdom of Heaven takes significant artistic liberties, and outright fabricates others. Balian, for example, was not a bastard at all: he was the third son of the family, and nowhere near as young as the film portrays. This is to say: do not attempt to learn history from fiction. The author will adapt some elements from the film, invent others, and sprinkle in a small portion of actual history.