(standard disclaimer applies; Nathalie is what I have chosen to call Balian's wife)
Sibylla wears silk at night. Not the heavily embroidered cloth that makes up her daily dress, but a light, airy thing that flows to a puddle beside the bed when Balian pulls it over her head. It holds the cool of evening, she says, when the sun begins to rise.
Nathalie wore a silk shift beneath her homespun. A luxury they could scarcely afford, but the weather was turning cold and she needed the extra heat trapped against her skin. He could feel the warmth at the end of the day, when she lowered her cumbersome body to the mattress and laid his arm across her belly.
Baldwin wraps himself in strips of silk. It protects his skin from the chafing of royal robes, and it protects his attendants from the disease. From the danger of contracting it, naturally, but also from bearing the sight of his ravaged form.
He leans over to pick up the pale, slippery thing on the floor, runs it through his fingers. Afraid his touch might mar its beauty but unable to help himself. Sibylla stirs beside him, her fingers curling reflexively over his hip.
Balian clutches the silk dressing gown in his fist. It is beautiful and practical, but it is fragile. It will not protect her from being swallowed up by politics and ancient debts, as a desert sandstorm can swallow a man whole. Perhaps a better life could have saved his wife, but he could only give her the one to which he'd been born, and so her last layer was stripped away. And nothing can keep the people from fear that their anointed king is dying behind the shining mask, that his dream might die as well.
He fights for them all. The dusting of freckles over the bridge of her nose, the punishment so cruelly meted out, the red-rimmed faith in his eyes –that most of all, as each day passes and his land thrives and the threat of war grows ever closer. If it proves to be enough, God has willed it so; if He wills it, it will be enough.