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Balian slowly set down his pawn, leaning back on his cushioned seat. The king in turn leaned forward, turning his head, eyes racking over the board. Balian studied his mask carefully. The eye holes, where the red flesh connects with the sleek, cold metal. Whichever blacksmith had the honour of sculpting the king’s face, he wondered. Was it someone who new the king when he was younger? Balian tries to imagine a spry, 16-year-old Baldwin radiating joy and victory. It comes to him suddenly that he does not even know whether the king would have Sybilla’s dark features. Perhaps he does not take after her at all. Balian is not a vain person, truly. He tries to see people for what they are, beyond the fairness of their skin or the lavishness of their clothes. He succeeds, most of the time, for no one knows better than him that actions make the man more than anything else.
The king’s eyes flicker towards him, almost accusatory. One thing is for sure – Balian is certain that 16-year-old freshly heroic Baldwin had the same intensity in his gaze.
“It is your turn.” The king says evenly. Balian startles, as though he were sleeping, struggling to get his mind back into the game.
“You are troubled,” the king says, in that tone that eradicates all other possibilities. “My face. Is it troubling you?”
Balian looks at the king. Baldwin sometimes seems all knowing, though that is not the case. No detail escapes the leper king, and Balian has been getting used to the easiness of their visits. The king’s calm, uninviting and yet unmistakenly warm demeanour has gotten Balian to let his guard down.
“I was wondering who made your mask,” Balian answer sincerely, for there is no use or will in him to lie. “And I wandered whether they knew your young face.”
Balian has gotten used to being able to read the kings thoughts in the details of his manners, but Baldwin clearly knows how to make himself unreadable when needed. He does not seem surprised. There is possibly even the glint of a smile in his eyes, momentarily discernible by the candlelight.
“No need to trouble yourself so much, you know you can ask me freely about these things. I have lived too poor a life to want to judge people’s questions” he focused his gaze somewhere behind Balian, somewhere else entirely. “It was made by Jerusalem’s finest back when I was 16. My face had started showing its first disruptions. I did not need the mask, but I was young and concerned with grandeur. I wanted to bring fear to Saladin’s troops for my first battle.” He made a dismissive motion with his hand, as though the thought was stupid “letting them fight a ghost of steel. Perhaps I should’ve enjoyed my freedom more.”
His eyes drift back to Balian, as if daring him to answer.
“Are you….” he paused, choosing his words “were you beautiful then? Before?”
Baldwin shrugged, indifferent.
“I did and do not concern myself with it. Who’s to say? You can ask Sybilla if you want to know so desperately.”
There was no heat to his words, and no bitterness either, as though the subject was monotonous to him. Balian was almost ashamed to have asked. It would make no difference what the king used to look like either way. He moved his bishop, turning Balwin’s attention back to the board. How long had the king been looking? And better yet, what exactly had he seen?
Baldwin moved his queen almost immediately, as though Balian did exactly as he expected. And then he said something Balian would have never even imagined happening somewhere beyond the grave.
“Would it ease your mind to see my face? Or would it give you more trouble?”
He posed it as a challenge, as though he were putting Balian in checkmate. Much like Baldwin himself, it was a riddle Balian needed to figure out.
“It would make no difference to my mind.” He paused, looking the king in the eyes “but it would ease my heart, perhaps.”
The king’s eyes widened for just a millisecond behind the mask, before returning to their natural, calm state. For a second it seemed as though the whole universe stilled, the moment during a battle just before both party’s attack. A moment of contemplation of some sorts. Even the flame of the candle seemed still and the wind outside quiet.
“Very well.”
His fingers moved to remove the mask, but Balian stopped him, even before thinking about it himself.
“No…let me…if you permit it so.”
The king said nothing, lowering his hands. It was as though he was resigning, giving himself over to fate. But better said would be that he was giving himself over to Balian.
Balian moved swiftly, softly, crouching slightly above the king’s chair. Baldwin looked at him intently, and Balian’s fingers slowly traced the edges of the mask at the sides of the face, carefully reaching for the straps that bind it at the back of the head. The bandaged flesh seemed uneven and feverish under his hands, but nevertheless real. It was like sipping cool water, and in the moment realising you have been thirsty for days. It was like getting reassurance that the leper king, the kind, fair, wise, extraordinary person Balian managed to fall in love with so effortlessly was real, and not a result of some fever dream.
The king angled his head upwards, towards Balian’s face, as the clasps came undone.
Balian lifted the mask slowly, almost afraid. Not in what would be behind it, but in what would happen with his heart from this moment. What would happen with his heart after the king bared such grace towards it. He set the mask down on the table. The king blinked slowly, and took an audible breath, as though he had forgotten to do so for minutes.
It was difficult to say that it was a pretty sight. In fact, what first came to Balian’s mind was how he imagined his wife’s severed head buried in the ground. It was a face that only a soldier can learn to look at. It seemed as though from the corner of the mouth to the bridge of the nose someone had took a knife and turned the skin inside out. The mouth could not close there where the gum met the jaw, and one could look into the nose if they wished. Baldwin’s breath was hot, and Balian dimly realised that the mask was not just for fear of ugliness, but for convenience as well. It did not seem good for the light to touch so many places of the face.
And yet, after all that, he was beautiful, Balian could not lie even if he would want to. The clear blue of the eyes seemed to become even more remarkable, the cheeks, though textured similarly to the rest of the body seemed soft through the touch in their shape, the forehead was high in that way that suited nobility, and there were even tufts of soft blonde hear peeking out of the hood.
“Say something,” came Baldwin’s voice, almost scared, but clear for the first time. Balian had always thought it was beautiful, flowing like the sand of the surrounding deserts.
“You’re blond!” Balian laughed in amazement. His question had been answered. That version of Baldwin, 16 years old and shining from victory was blond, just as he is now.
The king’s lips pulled upwards at the corners. Balian had finally seen the smile, the existence of which he could prior to this only speculate about. And then the king’s expression turned to one he had never seen before.
“If god had given me the lips to kiss that which I love,” he paused hand coming up to Balian’s knee “I would do so now, Balian.”