Bauldino IV

Since the age of 7, I had had to deal with the pain and the sin of leprosy

Her skin itself was a reminder of the disease; her body looked worse every day and burned in ways that doctors didn't know how to soothe.

But the real pain wasn't the sores or her rotting skin, but the loneliness.

Not even his own family treated him well; his sister Sibyl kept him away from his nephew, the maids barely spoke to him, and his knights only answered to his orders.

His kingdom... even his own people didn't know the true state of his health

It would be wrong for a man with leprosy—leprosy being the disease of the sinful, of the impure—to now be the king of Jerusalem.

He was even confined to his room most of the time... even though the kingdom needed his presence.

Not a single woman had ever looked at him... or accepted him... even though many times in his youth he had tried to attract women... when his body didn't yet look so inhuman, not even then could he have a partner, they all preferred death to dealing with his body and he... had grown tired of searching... he gave up... he even... preferred to kill them... than see them reject him

Loneliness was the real pain

---

But on that day when everything changed, he was in his room, playing with his chess set, looking at the pieces like a battlefield, still thinking about how to deal with this new war with the Muslims who were beginning to frighten his lands again.

However, there was a knock at his door, and when he gave the signal to enter, one of his best knights, Tiberias, entered with a serious expression and clenched fists.

"Forgive me for interrupting, my lord... but we have apprehended a group of gypsies at the palace gates, making a racket and what appeared to be a pagan festival... the people... require your guidance. "