King Baldwin IV

A/N: This was the first poem I ever wrote of King Baldwin IV, the first time I ever described his condition. This isn't set on a specific time, but it would be later in his life since that was when he went blind and had to lift a siege off Kerak. The description of leprosy is based off research I did on leprosy, but I also allowed for some creative license since medieval leprosy was different from modern leprosy (and different from Biblical leprosy).

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In the midst of his overturned commands and bickering barons,

he rode in front, leading his army into the fields of battle.

A fresh corpse had more life than he while he still lived.

Skin and bones rattled with the slightest breath of life.

Burning frankincense and bandages soaked in lavender

warded off the stench of living death.

Hands and feet—deformed and rotted.

Toes and fingers—long since fallen off.

Skin—peeled back and blistered bleeding.

Muscles—decayed to bone.

Dead nerves stirred no feeling.

A veil concealed his face and kept insects from crawling

into the gaping hole where his handsome nose had been.

It hid the eternal sneer of his lip eaten away and cracked,

The upper lip stuck to his bloody gums,

exposing his broken teeth,

yet the veil concealed this face.

Only his eyes peered out of his living mummified state,

but gray fish scales veiled his pupils,

leaving him in a world of darkness

but revealing to him the world of truth—

the truth of his subjects seeing him as dead

and waiting for his soul to join his body in the grave.

He rode across the desert burning

with a fever.

He rode encased in riding armor,

his sword strapped to his fingerless hand,

his body tied to his royal steed.

He rode to lift a siege

and free his people.

Though his own subjects saw little worth in his words,

in battle, his enemies saw him as Death embodied.

The most fearsome creature in the bloodshed—

a dying leper king.