VOW OF CHASTITY & SUGAR

Led by Captain Ramzi, Yosef climbed the stairs to the quarter deck on Ambrosia Hand. It was a beautiful morning, the sun was rising over the horizon, with a cool breeze blowing from the northwest. The sails were at full mast. The deck was full of activity, sailors moving back and forth.

On the quarter-deck, a table for four had been set, it was covered with a clean orange cloth. A variety of foods were arranged neatly on the small table. There were 4 metallic cups, a small wooden box with sugar inside, a small iron kettle with steam raising from its' mouth (probably some steaming tea inside), a plate of biscuits, four apples, and a kitchen knife beside it.

At the sight of these items on the table, Yosef began to salivate. It felt like ages since he last ate a decent meal.

Captain Ramzi invited Yosef to have a seat at the table. Shortly afterward, they were joined by Chief Mate Musa and Cook/physician Jasper.

With all of them gathered at the table, Captain Ramzi spoke up. " Good morning Musa, Jasper, and my neighbor Knight Yosef. Let the noble knight give us a small prayer of thanksgiving before we partake in this humble breakfast".

"Good morning everyone, it's a blessing from the Almighty to be seated with all of you this morning. Thanks, Captain for granting me this opportunity to say a prayer for our breakfast. Lets' humble ourselves and pray. Yosef told his colleagues at the table.

"Heavenly Father, we thank you for this beautiful morning on this sea, we thank you for having taken us through the shadow of death yesterday evening during the terrible storm. As we gathered here to partake in this breakfast, bless it, may it give us the strength to go through the day. All this we pray in your name, Amen!"

With the prayer said, everyone began pouring tea into their cups and mixing in the coarse brown sugar before stirring the mixture.

Yosef took a sip of his tea with the sugar mixed in, and he exclaimed, "Oh my God, this sugar tastes different Captain."

"Indeed you have got an observant tongue, this sugar is different from the one grown by the Knights Templar in Cyprus and Spain. This one, I procured it from the Knight Hospitallers from their sugar plantation outside Tiberias. I Am told their sugar is extremely processed to be extra sweet and palatable to neutralize the bitter taste of most of

their oral medicine", the Captain explained to Yosef.

"I see, but I prefer the Knight Templar sugar over this one grown in Tiberias. I heard one knight in Jerusalem a few years complaining that he lost some of his teeth because he was addicted to sucking the sugar provided by the Knight Hospitallers", Yosef added.

"How did he know that the sugar from the Hospitallers was responsible?" Asked Chief Mate Musa.

"From what I heard, the physician blamed it on him frequenting the Knight Hospitaller hospitals in Jerusalem to borrow sugar meant for patients or befriending patients so that they willingly shared their small sugar meant for daily tea or potage. In our Templar camp, sugar is only taken once in the morning during breakfast." Yosef responded.

"Secondly, too much sugar is a temptation to our brothers, going against our vows of chastity and poverty," Yosef added to the earlier statement.

"Haha haha, you are killing me with your funny words and weird vows", said Chief Mate Musa laughing painfully until tears streamed on the side of his eyes. Whenever he tried to stop, he could start afresh laughing.

"Ok Sir Knight Yosef, I understand how sugar can go with the vows of poverty but chastity, is that not a very big stretch?" Jasper the cook finally asked. So far he had been silent sipping his tea and occasionally biting on his apple.

"Cook Jasper that is a very good question. Remember asking also the same question sometime back, and I was told sugar is sweet like sex. For us brothers who have never indulged in it and will never indulge in it, we could be tempted to sample out this lesser evil to know what makes men like sailor Musa go wild in the presence of women whenever the ship anchors at the port". Yosef calmly explained.

"Bullshit!" Roared Captain Ramzi.

" I can tell you, sugar is far from the actual sweetness experienced from the act of sex, but I guess to the unworldly brothers of yours, that explanation will suffice," Ramzi said while smiling from his grey eyes like a wizened grandfather explaining to a grandchild.

This made Yosef feel small and belittled. So he decide to add in a few extra words to show that he understood the world even if he has never engaged in the acts.

"We may not have engaged in the physical act, but from reading what King Solomon wrote in Songs of Songs, we understand well and sometimes even better than some of you are married.

In Songs of Songs, chapter 8, verse 6, it says:

"Set me like a seal on your heart,

like a seal on your arm.

For love is as strong as Death,

passion as harsh as Sheol:

its sparks are sparks of fire,

flames of the divine."

"Okay, okay, we get it, Sir Knight Yosef!" Chief Mate Musa said they were all smiling at him and he thought he had made them see the sense in the scripture.

"The winds, are favorable Sir Knight Yosef, we should be in Jaffa port today." The captain told him while munching on the last piece of his biscuit and looking at the distant horizon in the East where the sun had risen from.

Talking of Jaffa. This was a place with pleasant memories for Yosef and also a place rich in history as he had come to learn. The earliest writings he had read from the Bible talked about Jaffa or sometimes known as Joppa. The area was given to the tribe of Dan as part of its' inheritance when they entered the promised land. Unfortunately, they were not able to hold it and it fell in the hands of the Canaanite kings for several centuries until King David defeated the Canaanites to have it as part of Israel proper. Solomon King Davids' son modernized Joppa port since it was the transit port for bringing in the renowned ciders of Lebanon used to build the first temple.

With the fall of the United Kingdom of Israel, Joppa or Jaffa as it later came to be known shifted from Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Roman, Hellenistic under Alexander the Great, Byzantine, and lastly the Muslim invaders from 636AD. In 1099AD, the Knights Templar fought a bitter battle with the Muslim forces prevailing, thus Jaffa was incorporated into the Kingdom of Jerusalem with semi-autonomy as the County of Jaffa.

In 1191AD, as a sergeant in the fourth company of the Knights Templar. Yosef was injured on the last day of the battle when the illustrious King the Lionheart conquered the port and city on 10th September 1191AD. After that, he was transported to Cyprus to recuperate and participate in non-battle intensive roles of the Temple.

One year down the road, Yosef Gideon, an orphan from Cyprus with his ancestry from Ethiopia was returning to Jaffa, this time around not as a Sergeant but as Knight of the order.

A few weeks back, the Templar brothers had repelled and defeated the Muslim armies under their charismatic leader Saladin as he tried to retake Jaffa. How Knight Yosef wished he had partaken in this battle and paid back in kind what they did to him in 1191AD when he was almost crippled. As a warrior, he did not fear death as that could be granting him entrance into the next life, but he loathed being crippled, once a proud and independent warrior could turn into someone surviving at the mercy of others. That was not a good life to live.

Like Captain Ramzi had said, the winds were favorable today. At midday, the port of Jaffa appeared on the horizon. Yosef's heart skipped a beat when he saw the landmass over the horizon. This was like a sweet homecoming for him.

Without wasting any time. He rushed to his cabin and began packing up the little clothes he had hung up in the closet into the wooden chest. Picked up his dry sandals and put them on.

Reverently, Yosef picked up the long sword that was given to him as a gift by the Marshal on the day he was knighted. It was enclosed in a hard leather sheath, brown in color, well maintained. The hilt and pommel were the only parts visible outside the sheath. Looking closely; the hilt was inlaid with Crisscrossing soft brown leather geared towards a firm grip, above the hilt was the pommel which was round in shape with flat edges on the back and front, inside both of the edges, they were exquisitely inlaid with two silver templar coins.

Yosef placed one hand on the hilt, holding it firmly, and the other on the sheath. He lifted the sword upwards above his head, and slowly unsheathed the sword. As he did so, the broad, sharp two-edged blade slowly left the embrace of the sheath to show its sturdy metallic body and sharp edges. In the middle of the blade, it had been inscribed with the Knight Templar creed in Latin.

'Non-Nobis, Domine, Non-Nobis, Sed Nomini Tuo Da Glorium' (translated, Nothing for us, Lord, nothing for us but for the glory of thy name).

Yosef had secretly renamed this sword Abyssinia Ironwood in memory of the hardest wood in Africa known as Black Ironwood or sometimes Elgon Olive.

He went ahead to strap on the sheath to his waist and placed the sword back into the sheath. Carried his chest to the main deck.

Standing on the main deck, the Jaffa port was now clearly seen to the naked eye. Each minute that went by ship adjusted its course to enter the crowded port waters.