A cell somewhere in Antioch.
The air was thick with a nauseating stench. The reek of excrement and filth mingled with the damp smell of mold, as if every breath sapped the very strength from one's body.
The cell's two windows had long been nailed shut with heavy wooden planks, letting in not a single ray of sunlight. The prisoners could only distinguish day from night by the faint light that occasionally pierced through the cracks, but in this gloomy cell, time had long lost all meaning.
The cell, not particularly large, was crammed with over thirty Frankish and German nobles. Prolonged starvation had left them weak and exhausted. They leaned against the walls, many drifting in and out of consciousness.
Most of them hailed from the northern and central regions of the Frankish lands and Germany.
