LORD STEPHEN! DOZING AGAIN. HIS SHOULDER WOUND is healing, but he gave his skull such a crack that he injured the inside of his head. He smiles; he’s serene. But where are all his sharp questions and opinions and dry jokes? Will they ever come back?
“He will not fight no more. Maybe not stand up no more.” That’s what Milon said. He said, “Maybe he die.”
Sir William has wrecked Lord Stephen’s life.
His angry heart and drunken body ignored his head, and acted without the least regard for the consequences. The same as when he took advantage of my mother. And when he did away with her husband. When he threw my ring into the waves.
Yes, my father has wrecked Lord Stephen’s life; he has wrecked our dream of journeying to Jerusalem.
But one thing he and Lord Stephen and Milon did agree was that the crusade is going badly. Sir William said it was launched under a dark star, and Lord Stephen thought the Doge has been using us for his own purposes, and Milon said the decision to go to Constantinople is a disaster.
In Zara, I scarcely had time to think, or maybe I just didn’t dare think. I was so shocked and scared.
But now I can’t stop myself thinking, and remembering.…
Sometimes I wake up sweating and trembling. I’ve seen things I wish I’d never seen.
In my stone, warfare is glorious. It is quick and clean, almost painless, not foul and excruciating. Right fights against wrong. But really it’s nothing like as simple as that.
Even my father knew that. He admired Saladin.…And Sir John said Saladin was an honorable man, and he and Coeur-de-Lion were both fighting a holy war.
The Pope says by killing infidels I will win salvation. But how can that be true? How can Count Thibaud and the cardinal and the knight with the cross branded on his forehead and even Lord Stephen be right? Jesus redeemed us by laying down His own life, not by slaying others.
What the Holy Father says troubles my head. It troubles my heart.
So maybe it’s best after all that I’ve had to leave our crusade. But it’s still difficult and disappointing to have to turn back.
On deck, saltspray stings my eyes, and my sight blurs; the roaring wind deafens me and the ocean-reach chills me.
Please God, let me always keep asking questions. Let me say what I believe.