Baldwin IV is a masked king of Jerusalem, “this putrid king”, alive beneath a mask, bandages and white tunics; his terminal leprosy preserves rather than kills him. He holds the throne and the Temple and fights the Templars.
| Type | Character |
| Spanish entry | Balduino IV |
Lineage
- A first Baldwin, first king of Jerusalem in the Holy Land, heads the line.
- Baldwin II, “the second with the name of Baldwin”, sovereign of Jerusalorium, is in the Temple “waiting for a Crown”.
- Baldwin IV is the masked one on the throne.
Corruption marks the house: “the putrid lineage”. Of Arsaces it was said that he “could have been like a Baldwin who was king of Jerusalem”.
Body
Under the mask there is no face: “he has no nose, he has nothing here”, all sunken. His hands are bandaged; the bandages are never removed. In combat his white tunics “began to redden and stain with blood”, but the stain is “a black liquid, really, it is strange, it is alive”. Harm that fells men does not work on him as on a man. Taking off the mask reveals the corrupt face.
The mirror mask
Baldwin’s mask, or mirror mask, is an object of power that reflects identity and “works as the base of an Ice of eye”. It is unique and goes with the king, but is not bound to him: “a man with Baldwin’s mask” can speak while wearing it. Likewise Reynó “now wears the tunic of Baldwin the dead”.
Relationships
- He rules the Kingdom of Jerusalem, or Jerusalorium if both names cover one land.
- The Grand Master is mentioned beside the possession of King Baldwin II, unexplained.
- He declares «Yo nunca llevé esa armadura» (“I never wore that armor”), the phrase the archive also gives to Master Q.
Conflicting accounts
- The record corrects itself, “Baldwin the first, not Baldwin the fourth”, unresolved; whether Baldwin II and IV succeed each other, coexist or are one king is disputed.
Open questions
- Which Baldwin is “the dead” whose tunic Reynó wears.
- Whether Arsaces carries something of Baldwin or only the comparison.
- What the living black liquid is; what the mask is made of, what an Ice of eye does, and whether the mask’s power outlives its first bearer.
- Whether the phrase shared with Master Q means identity, ritual quotation or coincidence.