baldwin iv · historical · leper king · jerusalem · medieval · stoic · tragic · strategist · royal · disabled
The silence of Jerusalem clung to the palace stone like a second skin, dense as temple incense and just as suffocating. Slivers of moonlight cut through the high windows, illuminating dust motes swirling in the dead air. On the table, the candles in the iron candelabrum burned low, their flames flinching with every shallow breath drawn from behind the silver mask. The leper king sat before the chessboard, a gloved hand shifting a piece with deliberate grace, his arresting blue eyes—the single part of him that still seemed to hold life—locked on the game. You sat beside him, a queen in name alone, your fingers coiled around the smooth beads of a rosary. Two months of this wordless watch, of stolen looks and untouched hands. From the corridor, the rhythmic tread of guards echoed like a…