With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla (part 15)

Disclaimer: The plot and characters of Kingdom of Heaven belongs to Sir Ridley Scott, William Monahan, and history. I don’t own anything.

 

Chapter 15: What Have I Done?

 

She was alone in the crypt with her son, save for the echoes and bitter memories of brighter days. In her hand, she held a pewter knight. It had been Baldwin’s favourite toy. She was still mouthing the words to the song she had been singing when he had fallen asleep forever. Sibylla felt dry, as if all her tears had been drained from her. The grief, however, had not lessened, nor had the guilt. Had she done the right thing? She was almost certain that it had been more merciful to send her son to God peacefully and painlessly, but doubt was still gnawing at her heart. At the back of her mind, there was a small voice calling her a murderer.

 

Sibylla vaguely remembered going out of the crypt and being dressed in the royal robes of a queen. She was queen? That didn’t sound right. But she was, and that…made Guy the King of Jerusalem. She stiffened. How had it come to this? She had killed her son, and her kingdom. Balian had been right; she could not hold the kingdom in peace, and there would be war. Even now, she was certain that Reynald and Guy were busy spilling blood and preparing for a confrontation with Saladin. And the kingdom was in its death throes like a beast, felled by disease and now attacked by the spears and arrows of hunters.

With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla (part 14)

Disclaimer: I own neither the plot nor the characters of Kingdom of Heaven. They belong to Sir Ridley Scott, William Monahan, and history.

 

Chapter 14: Weeping Angels

 

Why? That was the question that Sibylla kept asking, even as she played her part in her bleak grey world of politics and intrigue. In her eyes, the colour and vibrancy of Jerusalem had been stripped away, leaving only bare hard rock. She would give up her power, her city, just to save her son. The thought of watching him become a masked ghost as her brother had done was unbearable.

 

The words on the piece of paper before her made no sense, even though she was the one writing them. Her quill moved slowly, sometimes pausing above the paper with a droplet of ink hanging from the tip.

 

It pained Raymond to see Sibylla like this. This was but a shadow of what she had been. This disease was not only slowly taking away the young king’s life, but it was also leeching the life from his mother. He watched her write, knowing that she had to acknowledge the truth soon. A king’s mother could not afford to live in a dream. And in Jerusalem, the gossips had been hard at work. He did not doubt the physician, but someone else must have seen the young king’s reaction to pain; someone like Heraclius. Something had to be done, or else the storm would be enough to raze Jerusalem to the ground.

With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla (part 13)

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything that you recognize. The characters and the plot of Kingdom of Heaven belong to Sir Ridley Scott and William Monahan, and History.

 

Chapter 13: Why?

 

Rumbling drunken snores penetrated the darkness. Sibylla lay wide awake, staring at the canopy above her. The sweaty sheets were twisted around her body, hiding her shame and nakedness. Beside her, Guy snorted and then rolled over so that his back was turned to her. That was better, but only just. Her body still hurt from his brutish touches, and she knew she would find bruises blossoming on her pale skin the next morning. It hadn’t been like this with Balian.

 

A lump grew in her throat as she remembered the tender touches of her gentle knight. Every caress had spoken of love. She supposed that she would never feel those caresses again. He had rejected her, and hurt her pride in every way possible. She had expected him to return to his little fief at Ibelin and stay there, becoming just another baron who regarded her with cold distant courtesy. Why he was still in Jerusalem was a mystery, for he never showed his face at court, probably because he was loathe to see her. Perhaps he was still here because he had business to settle before he could go back to Ibelin? That was the only rational explanation. However, in her heart, there was a little voice whispering to her, telling her that he was here because even though he did not want to see her, he was even more reluctant to leave her.

With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla (part 12)

Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters or the storyline. This is just my interpretation of Sir Ridley Scott’s film, Kingdom of Heaven.

 

Chapter 12: Price of Power

Sibylla’s mind was reeling with all the changes. There was so much she had to do, but she was not ready to deal with the affairs of state yet. First, there was her brother’s funeral. Simply thinking about Baldwin’s death made her want to weep again, but she knew she couldn’t. She was the greatest authority in the kingdom now, as the mother of the uncrowned king, and she had to be strong; stronger than the foundations of Jerusalem itself.

 

Outside her window, the sky blue standards of the kingdom fluttered against a pale grey sky. The sun, usually blazing brightly down on the Holy Land, was nowhere to be seen. The princess could not help but feel as if God had turned away from her and the kingdom.

 

‘You mustn’t think like that,’ she told herself. There was no time for morbid thoughts. She had to prepare for her brother’s funeral and for her son’s coronation.

 

“Youmna!’ she called. The maid came in and curtseyed.

 

“Milady?” she said.

 

“Send for the Lord Marshal,” said the princess. “I must consult him about matters concerning the coronation.”

 

“As you wish, milady,” said Youmna. As she dipped another curtsey, she glanced up at Sibylla. The maid had never seen her so haggard, as if she had not slept well for many nights. Underneath the face powder, her complexion was pale and she seemed almost translucent, as if she was fading away from exhaustion. The maid opened her mouth, and then hesitated. Sibylla was a princess, and she was only a handmaiden. What right did a handmaiden have to tell a princess what to do? However, Youmna knew that it was her duty to serve her mistress’ best interests. “Milady, perhaps you should rest for a while,” she ventured.

 

Sibylla sighed. “I cannot rest, Youmna,” she said. “There is too much to do.”

 

“You cannot work if you are half-alive, milady,” said the maid, more firmly this time. At least Sibylla had not snapped at her; that was a good sign.

 

“Very well. Send of the Lord Marshal. I shall rest after I have seen him.”

With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla (Part 11)

Disclaimer: All the characters and events of Kingdom of Heaven belong to Sir Ridley Scott and William Monahan, and, of course, History. I’m just borrowing them and writing my own interpretation.

 

The walls and hangings muffled the sounds from outside. Many candles burned, but they did nothing to dispel the shadow which was falling over the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. It took a while for Sibylla’s vision to adjust to the darkness of the king’s chamber. It had been so long since she had set foot in here. The scent of incense could not conceal the underlying smell of decay which permeated the room.

 

She approached the bed where her brother lay; a pitiable and wasted figure. One bandaged hand rested on his chest. The other arm was outstretched; it was in the same position which the physician had left it. The silver mask was still in place, however. It was the same cold emotionless face which he showed the world; the face which was supposed to hide weakness.

 

With a shaking hand, the princess reached out and rested it on her brother’s bandaged one, unsure of whether he would feel it or not. Baldwin stirred, and with what seemed like a great effort, opened his eyes. “Hello,” he said. His voice was breathy and weak, but Sibylla’s heart lurched at the sound of that benevolent tone. It was the same one which he had used with her all those years ago, before he had put on the silver mask.

With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla (Part 9)

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything. Kingdom of Heaven belongs to Sir Ridley Scott and William Monahan, and History.

 

Chapter 9: A Kingdom of Conscience

 

Doors were meant for protection; those leading to Sibylla’s quarters were made to keep out any unwelcome presence. Inside was her refuge; a place of peace and safety in the middle of Jerusalem’s dark undercurrents and courtly intrigues. The colours and hangings had all been chosen for the tranquillity they represented. The inner chambers were sheltered from the heat, but with the coming of evening, they would be graced for a short while, with the dying golden light of the sun as it set over the heart of Christendom.

 

The princess loved the security she felt when she was in her sanctuary; it was like being in the warm loving embrace of her old nurse, who had long since passed away. When she returned this afternoon, she expected to find her son there, playing or completing the tasks set by his tutor. What she saw gave her a most unpleasant shock. Guy had gone too far; he had invaded her haven and worse yet, he was with her son, telling her boy how he ought to arrange his pewter figures. The man had his back to her, but she could hear him quite clearly. “Always surround your knights with foot-soldiers,” he told the boy.

A Random Post

Well, it’s the last day of lectures and I have a test this afternoon. I truly don’t have anything inspiring to write; I just want to type something, and see words appearing on a screen. Weird, huh? Maybe that’s part of being a writer. I just love the look of words as they appear on the screen. It gives me a sense of achievement, and typing has a music and rhythm all of its own. Mind you, handwriting is cool as well because I feel like I’m connecting with some higher being, even if it’s just my brain. (Not that my brain is a higher being or anything. It hardly ever functions on a continual basis.) And handwriting is so old-fashioned. I just love it. People have been doing it for years.

It’s just like when I go to mass, I don’t think about the prayers or the liturgy or that sort of thing. I think about the fact that this ritual has occurred Sunday after Sunday for about two thousand years, and I’m doing more or less the same thing as what my favourite historical figure, Balian of Ibelin, did back in 1187 when he took time off his mission to take part in mass because it was the feast day of a saint or something. It’s probably partly his fault that the Battle of Hattin happened, because if he hadn’t been late, he might have been able to stop Gerard de Ridefort’s suicidal attack on the much larger Muslim delegation, but it’s still exciting to feel this link to one of the people which I admire very much. Anyway, it really seems like it’s God’s will that Balian survived but the Kingdom of Jerusalem didn’t.

I go from having nothing to write to writing about writing and then writing about religion, and then history. The mind is a wondrous thing (now I shall change topics suddenly again and talk about psychology. Am I even able to stay on topic?). It moves so quickly, and you don’t really notice the changes until you actually look back and then think ‘where did that come from?’. I guess it really contributes to the randomness of humans. We think about such a lot, and we don’t do half of what we think, mostly. Personally, I’m just not motivated. I mean, I promise myself I will be a good student and study, and then I end up getting addicted to the computer and totally neglecting the academic life until a week or two before exams. That’s fate, or just an odd coincidence.

So to close off today’s totally random post, I’ll just quote Ned Kelly, my favourite outlaw. “Such is life.” (Not sure where that came from or why it’s relevant but there you go. It’s a random post.)

The Power of Passion

It’s the end of the semester. I never realized how much I enjoyed studying history until I started revising today. Most of that stuff was still in my head, just buried under a bunch of other stuff. It was so easy to bring up with a few keywords, unlike my science subjects. Revising for those is like learning it from scratch. Mainly I put it down to the enthusiasm of lecturers, or lack thereof. For history, you could feel how much the lecturers loved what they were talking about. They might be old-fashioned, but fashion cannot change the fact that they genuinely liked what they did. For me, that was the most important thing. I’m a creature of emotion and I associate memories with emotions. Simply the word Crusade or Islam or something like that makes me excited and interested, because I’ve had good experiences while learning about those things, and I remember them. On the other hand, I’ve fallen asleep in my communication disorders class despite the large cup of coffee I’d consumed just before to prevent that very thing from happening. If one can be pumped full of caffeine and still fall asleep, then there must be something seriously wrong with that class.

With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla (Part 6)

Disclaimer: Kingdom of Heaven belongs to Ridley Scott, William Monahan and History. I don’t own any of it.

 

Chapter 6: The Key to Her Heart

Sibylla and Balian gazed at each other. Neither of them were willing to part, but they knew that they must. They came from completely different worlds. It was at that moment, when Sibylla felt that she was losing her fight with her emotions, that one of Balian’s men at arms gave a shout. “Somebody’s been shot!” he cried. Balian and Sibylla looked up. Riding up to Ibelin on a bloodstained grey horse was a man, dressed in the livery of the Royal court. He was draped over the horse, barely conscious.

 

Almaric rushed over to catch the frightened animal while Rollo, the Norman mercenary, relieved the man of his message. “My lord,” he said after reading it. “The king is marching on Kerak.”

 

“Kerak?” said Balian. Why would the king be marching on Kerak. He snatched the missive from Rollo. The baron immediately recognized Tiberias’ writing, and he had orders for Balian. “Protect the villagers,” the king had commanded. Balian glanced at Sibylla and then back down at the king’s missive. He had a duty to his princess, but also to the people of the kingdom. To protect one was to abandon another. He could not let Sibylla return to Jerusalem alone, not while there were bandits about. She was a princess; a vulnerable prize. Then again, those villagers outside Kerak were just as vulnerable and defenseless, if not more so. He was torn.

Of Ditzy Days and Student Life

I can’t say today was my best day. It started out pretty well, with handing in my second-to-last essay, a history lecture, and then shopping. I bought myself a proper Moleskine notebook, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl DVD.

And then I got lost on the bus route, waited at some strange bus-stop for half an hour, and then caught the same bus back. This time I kept my eyes open. I totally missed my destination (the university) the first time, because it was the other side of campus, and me, being half-blind, with no orientation skills, couldn’t recognize it. So that was about an hour and a bit. I came back to campus, and tried to study, but even with the caffeine pumping through my system from the coffee I had just before, I still managed to fall into a stupor while studying speech anatomy. I have to say flicking through notes is extremely annoying, especially since I have to keep referring back to diagrams which are somehow separate from all the written stuff. Definitely prefer history. The only way to study speech anatomy without falling asleep is to have loud music and a hot drink, preferably caffeinated. Too bad my mp3 player is broken.

I have an interesting new fanfiction idea. This morning, the history lecturer showed us a video about the story behind the cathedral of Chartres. It was during and around the Kingdom of Heaven period, and the architect is unknown, so there is great mystery surrounding him. Since in the movie, Balian returned to France, I was thinking of having him be the mysterious architect, since he’s an engineer, he’s smart and he’s quite innovative. I would think he was a pretty good mathematician for his day as well. It would be an effective disguise for the defender of Jerusalem. No one would be expecting him to build cathedrals, I don’t think. I’m adding it to my growing list of fanfiction story ideas. And at the same time, the Albigensian Crusade is taking place. I could have him take part, and try and save some of the Cathars. Don’t even know if I’ll get around to writing it, but putting Balian in all of these fascinating situations in history certainly does help me to learn it.

With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla (Part 3)

Disclaimer: This is based on Sir Ridley Scott’s brilliant film, Kingdom of Heaven. I’m just borrowing the characters and the main plot, and I get no profit, only enjoyment

Chapter 3: A Few Yards of Silk

Sibylla opened the door to the inner chamber just a little bit so that she could see her son. The boy had his back to the door. He sat amongst cushions, talking to himself as he moved his pewter soldiers around and fought imaginary battles. Arabic words were scattered through his speech. Love filled her. It hadn’t seemed so long since he’d been a tiny helpless baby in her arms. She stepped in as quietly as possible, so as to not disturb him, but her long silken dress got caught on one of his toys. Little Baldwin looked up when he heard his mother come in. He grinned and ran into her open arms. “Maman!” he said. “I thought you were dining with the lords.”

One down — A couple more to go

I’m so happy to have finished one essay that I can’t type properly. I did the entire first draft yesterday evening, in between posting on the fanfic forum, and I typed most of it out at university today. And guess what? The first draft was done by hand! Mostly I don’t even do a second draft for essays anymore. I suppose a change of medium works miracles. It does nothing for sticking to the word limit though. I can never do that anyway.

I should be in linguistics at the moment, but there’s nothing I can’ learn by looking over the notes which I print off the computer, and by reading the textbook. I do have my Linguistics tutorial soon though. *Sigh*. I can’t believe it’s turning out to be one of the most boring subjects. Plus, I don’t really like my tutor. She’s nice, but she doesn’t seem to accept that there are other was of pronouncing things. Like, I always pronounce my ‘r’s, so I put that in transcription, but she mostly says it’s a mistake. It annoys me, because I’m trying so hard to adopt a more widely accepted/comprehended accent. New Zealand English is hard to understand, and lazy pronunciation means bad spelling, in most cases.

So I’m totally exhausted. I have to do some history, and read up for my revolutions essay. I have to say I like this topic more than my previous one. This time I actually have some idea of what I’m going to talk about. Now I just need to grab those books from the restricted loan this afternoon. I wonder if I can leave the tutorial early.

Going to wolf down lunch now. I think I’ll do a proper entry later.

My Weekend

It’s almost the end of the weekend. Time passes so quickly, even when there’s nothing going on. Saturday, I spent almost the entire day on the computer. I wrote half of my essay, but just today, I decided that what I’d written wasn’t good enough. It was hugely convoluted and sounded like straight narrative. I’m going to have to do some organization before it’ll actually be a proper history essay. Also chatted quite a bit yesterday, on the computer of course. I lack a social life. I need one, but I’m shy, and usually, I’m not one to go with the crowd, so it makes maintaining conversation a bit difficult.

Today, I got up twenty minutes before noon. Call it my catch up sleep. It does nothing for my creativity, but sleeping in on Sunday feels good. I tried to work on my essay, but footnoting is so boring that I gave up. Come on, it’s Sunday. I am not going stress myself. Might miss Linguistics again tomorrow to work on my essay. It’s much quicker to print off the slides and learn from that.

The first thing I wrote this morning was my argument on the use of adverbs, metaphors and similes. My take on it was that a writer shouldn’t use too many of any of those. Adverbs are too vague. Figurative language is useful for setting the scene, but there’s a fine line between a good atmosphere and absolute tediousness.