CHAPTER 50
September 1187
Latrun, Outremer
When they reached the Templar castle at Latrun, Salāh al-Dīn instructed Gerard de Ridefort to order the stronghold to surrender. The Templars were appalled at the command, but they were sworn to obey their grand master without question, and they yielded, just as the elderly Templars at Gaza had done. The sultan was still at Latrun when Adam arrived with a letter from Balian d’Ibelin. There was a delay while it was translated into Arabic for Salāh al-Dīn, who then had it read aloud in council, to the amazement of his audience.
Gökböri was the first to respond. “Such crazed courage ought to be rewarded. Save this man from himself, my lord. Insist that he leave al-Quds whilst he still can.”
After the laughter subsided, Taqī al-Dīn surprised them by offering rare praise for an infidel. “I agree that we do not want this Frank in al-Quds. He knows how to fight, as he proved at Haṭṭīn.” Adding with a sly glance toward Gökböri, “You can attest to that, I believe.”
Gökböri scowled, for he’d endured more than his share of barbed humor over the failure of his men to keep the Franks’ rearguard from escaping the battle. Before he could retaliate, the lawyer ‘Īsā al-Hakkari smoothly interceded. “Will you be freeing the Templar grand master?”
They were united in their contempt for Gerard de Ridefort, scornful that he’d betrayed his brethren by buying his freedom with the order’s strongholds, none believing he deserved to regain his liberty. The only opinion that mattered, however, was Salāh al-Dīn’s, and he ended the discussion by reminding them that he’d given the Templar his word. Al-‘Ādil evoked more laughter by observing that the Templar and the king of the Franks were the Muslims’ secret weapons, sure to wreak more havoc amongst the Christians by their utter ineptitude. Soon afterward, the council broke up, but al-‘Ādil lingered, giving his brother a speculative look.
“I must admit that I admire Balian d’Ibelin for caring so much about his countrymen. He has integrity as well as courage, Yūsuf, and that is all too rare.” He waited but his brother merely nodded, so he tried again. “You have not yet told us what you mean to do.”
That earned him the shadow of a smile. “No,” the sultan agreed, “I have not, have I?”
Balian and Maria and their household were having their evening meal when Adam burst into the great hall. “I have it, lord,” he panted, “the sultan’s answer!” Too excited to remember his French, he blurted out his news in Arabic that only Balian understood. But his presence was enough for Maria, who felt her knife slip through suddenly numb fingers. Renier Rohard understood, too, for Balian had confided in him when he’d questioned why they’d not left the city straightaway, and he half rose from his seat. Balian sat frozen for a moment and then reached across the table to take the letter that Adam was holding out.
As his eyes met Maria’s, he mouthed the word “solar,” and then he was gone, so swiftly that the other diners noticed and began to murmur uneasily among themselves. Maria forced herself to rise without haste, invited Adam to take a seat at one of the tables, and signaled for servants to continue ladling out the food. Only then did she follow her husband. When she reached the solar, she hesitated for a moment before the door, dreading what she was about to learn. No matter what Saladin decided, Balian would be the loser. And so would she.
Balian was standing by the window. He looked up as she entered, the expression on his face not easy for her to interpret. By the time she’d reached his side, she’d decided that it was absolute astonishment. “He released me from my oath, Marika. He said he understood why I felt compelled to stay. Not only is he not wroth with me, he said that I am a man of honor and he will still provide an escort for you, our children, and household.”
They looked at each other in silence. “I’d best go to the palace and tell Sybilla that I will take command,” he said at last. She nodded mutely, determined to hold herself together until he was gone. He halted at the door, gave her one final look that communicated all they dared not say. As soon as the door closed, she stumbled toward the closest chair. Her eyes were burning and she was finding it hard to catch her breath. But she did not weep, for if she did, she feared she’d not be able to stop.
Isabella had rarely seen her stepfather angry in the ten years since he’d married her mother, but he was obviously angry now, and more disconcertingly, angry with her. “What you are doing is brave. It is also foolhardy, Bella. You have no idea what occurs when a city is taken by the sword. Yes, I know what you said, that you’d be safe if you stayed in the palace with Sybilla, that Saladin would not let the queen and her sister be harmed. But you do not know the madness that comes over some men at such times. Anything can happen—anything.”
Balian paused, for she was still shaking her head stubbornly. “I cannot believe Sybilla would let you do this,” he said, so sharply that she winced.
“She did not ask it of me, Pateras. I told you that. But when I said I’d stay with her, I could see her relief. She is overwhelmed, knowing she is responsible for the safety of her daughters and all the people in the city. She needs my support.”
“And what of Maria? You think she will not need you? A widow with four young children?”
Isabella gasped, for until now, she’d not realized that he fully expected to die defending Jerusalem. She looked so stricken that Balian’s anger ebbed away. Reminding himself that she was only fifteen, he took her in his arms and she dried her tears against his tunic. “There is more to it,” she confided. “Humphrey’s mother is not well. You know how she is, as prickly as a hedgehog, so she’d never admit she was needy. And I will not pretend that I like her. But she is still Humphrey’s mother. How could I face him if she came to harm?”
Balian had no doubts that Humphrey’s fears for his wife would be far greater than any fear for his difficult mother. He saw, though, that Isabella was trying to live up to the sort of high expectations the young too often demanded of themselves. She confirmed that now by another confession, that she did not want to desert the terrified people of Jerusalem, for the first time revealing that she shared some of her mother’s pride of birth, the noblesse oblige of a king’s daughter and an emperor’s kinswoman.
“My mother is very distraught that I plan to stay,” she admitted, “but in her heart, she understands. You do not think she’d ever have left you, Pateras, if not for your children?” She mustered up a small smile. “I promised her that I’d look after you since she cannot.”
She seemed heartbreakingly vulnerable to Balian, innocent and obstinate, lost in that unexplored terrain between childhood and womanhood. “And you must promise me, Bella, that you will become Sybilla’s shadow once the siege begins.” Her only security would be found in the palace, for he was sure Saladin would send men to safeguard Sybilla as soon as the city fell.
He would have to stress that with Marika, the only comfort he’d be able to offer. Isabella promised that she would. Gazing up into his face, she wanted to tell him that she loved him as much as any daughter could love her father. But she saw that he already knew.
They left the city at dawn. Al-‘Ādil’s men waited just out of arrow range. Adam waved to confirm that all was set and they would escort Maria, her children, and household members to the sultan’s camp at Latrun, then on to safety in Tripoli. Renier’s wife and mother were accompanying Maria and Balian had done his best to convince Renier to leave, too, arguing that they might need his protection on the journey. Renier had refused, saying Balian would have greater need of him. Balian had also failed to get Ernoul out of the city, despite ordering the youth to see his family safely through the war-ravaged countryside. Ernoul had not argued; he’d simply disappeared during the night, intent upon hiding until his lord’s lady was gone.
Balian and Maria had rarely lied to their children, but they did now, assuring them that their father was remaining behind to take care of some important matters in the city and would join them as soon as he could. While the little ones did not question it, Helvis was old enough to harbor doubts and even John seemed uneasy. Eleven-year-old Thomasin understood all too well what his uncle was doing. He did his best, though, to reassure his cousins, and Balian was very grateful to him. He did not think he or Maria could have borne it otherwise.
He was astride the stallion al-‘Ādil had given him, a bay palfrey that he’d named Bayard. His owner had probably died at Jaffa, but he’d trained the horse well and when Balian reined him in alongside Maria’s mare, Bayard halted obediently, allowing his new master to lean over and kiss his wife. They did not speak. They’d said little during the night either, clinging to each other in a final farewell that held more pain than passion.
Isabella nudged her mare forward then, reaching out to clasp hands with her mother. “We will see you in Tripoli,” she said, as convincingly as she could. Maria dredged up a smile from the depths of memory, squeezed her daughter’s hand, and then urged her mount toward David’s Gate. She did not look back, having promised Balian that she would not. The others followed slowly. Balian guided Bayard into the barbican, watching only long enough to see them greeted by their Saracen protectors. He turned the stallion around then and rode back into the city as the portcullis clanged shut behind him.
Balian spent the next few days in almost ceaseless activity. He began by meeting with Patriarch Eraclius, Sybilla, the master of the Hospitaller Hospital of St. John, the patriarch of the Armenian Church, the grand master of the leper knights, a few elderly Templar serjeants, and several of the most influential members of the burgesses’ community. There he learned that their plight was even worse than he’d expected. Sybilla and Eraclius had done their best to shelter the thousands of refugees, housing some in the pilgrim hospices, others in the hospitals, calling upon churches to take them in, ordering bakeries to stoke their ovens from dawn till dusk to provide loafs of bread for the hungry. But they’d done little to bolster Jerusalem’s defenses, had not even taken measures to identify the Muslim slaves and prisoners in the city.
Balian’s first action was to find out the number of Saracens being held prisoner or enslaved by the Templars and Hospitallers, who used them for their building projects; he was troubled to learn there were five thousand of them. He and Renier inspected the city walls and gates, then assembled teams to shore up the most vulnerable areas. Balian next checked the city’s water sources. Jerusalemites relied upon cisterns for drinking water, but there were also three reservoirs within the walls that could be used for animals and to extinguish fires. Unlike most of Christendom, Outremer did not have guilds. Some of the more affluent trades did have fraternities and he arranged to meet with the leaders of the goldsmiths, silversmiths, and mercers, telling them that he needed volunteers to man the walls and asking them to spread the word.
He used the town crier to summon carpenters to the palace, agreeing to buy all the lumber they had at hand. He and Renier sketched for them diagrams of mangonels, explaining that they would have to assemble them upon the roofs of David’s Tower and Tancred’s Tower. Renier took on the duty of finding men among the refugees and residents who’d ever operated mangonels and Balian put unskilled laborers to work lugging heavy stones up to the tower roofs.
One of the greatest challenges was supplying weapons. The need was far greater than the armories of the Templars and Hospitallers could provide. Jerusalem had a few bladesmiths, but swords were custom-made, so they had a limited number in stock, never mass-produced. Balian had to rely upon the blacksmiths for spears and axes and the bowyers for crossbows. The latter were fairly easy to learn, so he set up archery lessons in the open area between the grain market and Tancred’s Tower.
He formed a squadron of gravediggers, too; in a city under siege, the dead needed to be buried quickly to ward off plague. When they pointed out that the charnel houses were located beyond the walls, he told them that the dead would have to be buried in the churchyards, even unhallowed ground if need be. After some of the priests heard this, they came to protest, insisting graves must be properly consecrated. Balian paid them little heed, for he was already on to the next problem—that many of the men he was conscripting expected to be paid for their labors. Apparently not even an impending Saracen attack was enough to suspend the normal laws of commerce.
It was then that a familiar figure appeared, hurrying toward him to volunteer. Balian had not seen Anselm since Baldwin’s death and was very pleased by the sight of the older man. Anselm had two virtues worth their weight in gold—he was utterly reliable and almost impossible to fluster. Anselm proved it when given his first assignment, leading men to strip silver from the roofs of the richest churches and cart it over to the Royal Mint to be melted down into coins. A number of priests protested strenuously to that. But they found Balian had a strong ally in the patriarch, who had sharp words for any who came to complain about his orders.
Even with money to pay defenders, Balian knew that he could not muster enough of them. Eraclius had told him that they thought there were at least sixty thousand people in the city, and only about twenty thousand of them were males. It was his opinion that of this group, fewer than six thousand were capable of offering real resistance, the rest being too old or too ill or unwilling. For the specter of betrayal hung over the city, too. Eraclius admitted that he was not sure they could trust all of the Syrian Orthodox Christians.
“They’d lived under Muslim rule for centuries until the Kingdom of Jerusalem was carved from blood and bone and faith, and as much as it grieves me to say it, I think some of them might even welcome a Saracen victory. There are rumors that Saladin’s spies have been trying since Haṭṭīn to plant seeds of disloyalty amongst the Syrians.”
Even at such a moment, Eraclius could not suppress his flair for oratory. Despite the ornate delivery, the warning was a credible one, but Balian could only deal with one threat at a time. He asked Eraclius for a list of the sons of knights and nobles, those who’d reached their legal majority of fifteen. Summoning these youths to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, he awed and thrilled them by calling each one forward to kneel and be knighted. It was a solemn ceremony, conducted by candlelight in the most sacred church in Christendom, and their audience was moved to tears. Balian then shocked some of them by knighting forty more men. These new knights were well respected, pillars of the community. They were also burgesses, not of noble birth, and there were those who disapproved of Balian’s action, viewing it as subversive, undermining the social order. Most of the trapped Jerusalemites were quite willing, though, to embrace whatever Balian did, seeing him as a gift from God, a man who knew warfare as they did not, the battle commander who would save them and their Holy City from an infidel army.
Balian had eaten little, slept even less, driven to get as much done as he could in the dwindling time they had left. By Sunday evening, he was so exhausted that he finally had to rest, and at Ernoul’s urging, he agreed to sleep for an hour or so. Sprawling across the bed after pausing only to remove his boots, he fell asleep at once. When he was awakened by a hand on his shoulder, he felt as if he’d just closed his eyes. “Has Compline rung already?”
Renier shook his head. “No, not yet. But whilst you slept, Saladin’s army arrived. They are setting up camp to the west. On the morrow . . .” He did not finish the sentence; there was no need. On the morrow, the Saracens would unleash hell upon Jerusalem.
The men of Jerusalem stood on the battlements, nervously clutching their weapons as they gazed upon the sultan’s army. While many of them had convinced themselves that God would never let the Holy City fall to the infidels, their conviction wavered now that the day of judgment had actually arrived. Balian was one of the few who was encouraged by the sight meeting their eyes. Thousands of seasoned soldiers spread out below them, the victors of Haṭṭīn. But Saladin had done what Balian had hoped he would do—he’d chosen to assault the city from the west, assuming that David’s Tower had been built to bolster the walls where they were weakest. That was a mistake. Not only were these walls strongly buttressed, the terrain was very rough, choked with thorny underbrush and steep, rock-strewn slopes that would not make it easy for the Saracens to get close enough to fill in the fosse. The longer they could keep the sultan’s men from reaching the walls, the more time they could buy for themselves.
Well aware that Jerusalem was a city without soldiers, Salāh al-Dīn and his amirs had not expected its defenders to put up much of a fight. But the assault did not go as planned. When they began to employ their siege engines, the Franks answered with their own mangonels, and it was soon apparent that theirs were more dangerous. Their height upon the tower roofs gave them a greater range and men scattered as rocks crashed down upon them. And when the Saracens launched their first attack, they found it was slow going. As they stumbled and lurched on the uneven ground, crossbow bolts and arrows found fleshy targets and stones were heaved from the walls, claiming victims, too. They were eventually forced to make a humiliating retreat.
The second day went no better for the Saracens. The mangonels of the Franks were operated in shifts so there was no respite, and several of their own siege engines were damaged by the lethal bombardment from the roof of David’s Tower. The sultan and his amirs watched in frustrated fury as their men died without ever reaching the city walls.
On the third day of the siege, the Franks took the offensive, launching a sudden sortie as night fell. Salāh al-Dīn’s men had withdrawn to their tents and their siege engines were not well guarded, for none of them thought civilians would dare to venture beyond their protective walls. So they were taken utterly by surprise when they found themselves confronted by charging horsemen. As they ran for safety, the Franks threw torches at several of their siege engines, then wheeled about and galloped off. By the time the chaos in the Saracen camp had settled down, it was too late. One of their mangonels was in flames and their foes were safely back in the city.
By the fifth day of the siege, nothing had changed. The Saracens had been unable to cross the fosse and their casualties were much heavier than they’d anticipated, while they knew the Franks’ losses had been minimal. Another assault had failed to reach the walls and more men had been killed by the aerial onslaught from Tancred’s and David’s Towers; when the Franks ran out of rocks, Balian had sent men to dig up paving stones. Salāh al-Dīn met with his amirs and soon afterward, the Saracens’ own mangonels fell silent. In late afternoon, men up on the walls began to shout and cheer, and people rushed from their houses and shops to be told that the sultan and his men were dismantling their mangonels and packing up. As the citizens watched in awe, the Saracen army moved off, eventually disappearing over the hills to the north of the city. Jerusalem erupted in joyful celebration, its citizens dazed by their sudden deliverance.
Later that night, Balian was summoned to the palace. The streets were still thronged with people on their way to churches to thank God or to taverns to savor their reprieve and he was cheered and applauded by all who recognized him. When he did not respond, they were not offended, agreeing that the poor man was simply exhausted, looking as if he’d not slept in days.
Upon Balian’s arrival at the palace, Sybilla had the same reaction as the citizens in the streets, for he was unshaven, eyes swollen and bloodshot, clearly starved for sleep. “Balian, you are not ailing? Do you even remember when you last ate? Or slept?”
The patriarch did not share her solicitude, for he put a more ominous interpretation upon Balian’s haggard appearance. D’Ibelin had accomplished a miracle, saved the Holy City from the infidels. So why was he not happier about it? “Although the siege is over,” he said, “we may be still in danger. The people are dazzled, even besotted, by the sweetness of salvation, and who can blame them? But our future remains imperiled. Saladin can always come back—”
“He will be back.”
Sybilla seemed genuinely surprised by Balian’s words and he found himself thinking that she and Guy were well matched, both happily dwelling in a fool’s paradise in which the only facts that mattered were the ones they chose to believe. At least the patriarch had a better grasp of reality, for he interrupted when Sybilla started to protest.
“How much time do you think we have ere he lays siege to Jerusalem again?”
“The siege is not over. When he broke camp today, he was not giving up. He was admitting he’d made a tactical mistake. Their army will return on the morrow and this time they will attack the most vulnerable sections of the wall, east of St. Stephen’s Gate.”
Balian paused, for he’d almost lost his train of thought. Until now, he’d not realized that fatigue can affect a man like too much wine. He’d pushed himself to the brink, but he did not see that he had a choice. Besides, there was a mercy in being too tired to think. He found one final truth for them, then, answering the question they feared to ask.
“No . . . we will not be able to keep them from breaking into the city.” Or from taking vengeance for all the blood spilled by the Franks when they took Jerusalem in God’s year 1099. For Sybilla’s sake, he left that truth unspoken.
The city awoke the next morning to discover that the Saracens had returned. As Balian had predicted, they were now aiming their assault at the northern wall, following the trail blazed by the men of the first crusade, ironically aided by the large stone cross the crusaders had erected above the spot where they’d breached the wall.
Because they’d deluded themselves into believing that the threat was over, at least for now, the shock was shattering for the Jerusalemites. And they soon saw that they’d no longer be able to keep the enemy at a distance. It was now too risky to employ the siege engine on David’s Tower, for if the arc fell short, the stones would slam down into the streets, killing their own citizens. While the mangonel on Tancred’s Tower did not have to shoot over the city, they’d have to aim it at an angle and none of the novice operators had the requisite skill for that. Balian ordered the mangonels dismantled and reassembled atop St. Stephen’s Gate, but without the height advantage, they’d forfeited the greater range that had proven so effective during the first part of the siege.
The Saracens were benefiting, too, from a sudden shift in the wind, blowing from the north instead of the usual westerlies at that time of year. They hastily loaded dirt into their mangonel buckets and sent it swirling up into the sky, creating dust storms that enveloped much of the city. These dust clouds drove coughing defenders from the walls and sent people scurrying for shelter. While the visibility was so dramatically diminished for the Franks, the sultan’s soldiers advanced to the fore wall that fronted the city’s northern wall. By now their mangonels were being rolled up and were soon in action. By day’s end, they had already done more damage than they had during their five days’ assault from the west.
The next two days were harrowing for the trapped civilians. The Saracens continued to assemble more and more siege engines. So many archers were shooting up at the defenders that it seemed to be raining arrows. On Saturday afternoon, Balian was summoned to the roof of St. Stephen’s Gate, where he found Renier staring toward the east. “Look at that siege engine they’re setting up,” he said, “the one so much bigger than the others. Is that what I think it is?”
Balian studied it, then confirmed Renier’s fears by muttering an obscenity. The trebuchet was still uncommon, too heavy to be wheeled like the mangonels, relying upon a counterweight to launch its load. It did not have the range of a mangonel, but it was more powerful and could propel boulders airborne, doing much more damage when they hit its target. It was also more accurate, and as they watched helplessly, the Saracen engineers initiated its maiden run. Winching down the verge, a long beam that pivoted on an axle, they loaded huge rocks into its sling. When the hook was released, the counterweight plunged downward and the beam shot up, the sling cracking like a whip as the rocks hurtled toward the city. They’d been aimed at the wall by the postern gate of St. Mary Magdalene, and they struck with a thunderous sound that reverberated throughout the Syrian Quarter.
As long as daylight lingered, the trebuchet continued to wreak havoc upon the walls, the rocks sometimes sailing over the battlements into the city, invariably followed by screams. With so many mangonels in action, the men up on the walls spent more time ducking for cover than shooting at the enemy army below them. Their own mangonels were still functioning, until a boulder roared down upon one, smashing the frame into kindling and killing all its operators.
On Sunday, the Saracens unleashed a new and even more terrifying weapon, using their trebuchet to launch a clay pot of the flammable liquid known as Greek fire. A panic broke out when it flew over the wall, a tail of fire trailing behind it. Balian dove for the battlement stairs, following its fiery descent until it disappeared from view. He could hear shouting coming from Jehoshaphat Street and headed in that direction. It had barely missed two shrines, the chapel of St. Savior and the house of Pontius Pilate. A nearby hospice for pilgrims was not as fortunate and when the clay pot shattered against the wooden door, it burst into flames.
Bystanders were kept away by the intensity of the heat, but a few men were running toward the bathhouse by Jehoshaphat’s Gate, yelling that they’d fetch water. As Balian reached the scene, the hospice’s shutters were jerked open and several of its panicky residents scrambled out onto the street. Balian and a priest hastened over to help them escape. Smoke and flames were spreading when two Templars emerged from the Templar compound, rolling a large barrel.
Balian yelled that they must not pour water on the fire. They ignored him, lifted the barrel, and dumped sand onto the burning door. Clad in the brown mantles of Templar serjeants, they were men long past their prime, judged too old to fight at Haṭṭīn by Gerard de Ridefort, and they watched now with satisfaction as the fire slowly suffocated. Glancing toward Balian, one said, “We are not green lads. We learned long ago that Greek fire burns even brighter in water. Only sand can snuff it out, though vinegar helps, too.” He paused, his grin belying his age. “Well, there is one other way. If the sand did not work, we were going to piss on it.”
Both serjeants laughed at that, and after a moment, Balian joined in, for any opportunity to laugh was not to be spurned, not in the middle of a siege that could have only one ending.
Vespers had sounded, the churches filled to overflowing as people entreated the Almighty to protect them from their enemies and from the temptation to sin. Many were convinced that Haṭṭīn had been a test of faith and they’d failed it. Balian was offended by this increasingly popular explanation for the disaster that had befallen their kingdom, for it implied that the men who’d suffered and died on the Horns of Haṭṭīn deserved their fate. He did not believe that their defeat was divine retribution for the sins of the Poulains and he thought few soldiers believed it, either. This argument was always made by priests. To his relief, he was spared this sort of harangue during the evening’s sermon, and afterward he headed for the palace and a meeting with the queen and patriarch. He sought Isabella out first, though.
She looked so fragile to him that he silently cursed himself for not forcing her to leave the city with Maria. If she’d had moments, too, when she regretted her gallant impulsiveness, she was not willing to admit it, and they did not speak of regrets. Instead, she told him that her mother by marriage was still ailing and Sybilla had agreed to let Stephanie stay in the palace. She confided that she’d offered to help at the women’s hospital run by the Hospitallers, which was housing hundreds of female refugees, but they did not think it seemly work for a king’s daughter. And she asked him numerous questions about the mysterious Greek fire.
Balian was willing to indulge her curiosity, for that kept him from having to dwell upon the ordeal that lay ahead for her. Greek fire had been employed by the Greek emperors for centuries, mainly in sea battles, for it would burn upon the surface of the water. Its ingredients were a closely guarded secret, but the Saracens had eventually come up with a variation of their own. He was not sure about its elements; an alchemist had once told him it likely contained quicklime, sulfur, resin, naphtha, and pitch. He told her about the Templar serjeants and confirmed that they were right: whilst Greek fire could best be extinguished by sand, urine could also be used to fight it. So if they ran out of sand, he supposed they could always form squads of men ready, willing, and able to piss upon any future fires.
As he’d hoped, that made her smile. It lost its luster, though, when he rose to go, and she asked plaintively if he could not stay awhile longer. Shaking his head, he reached out and took her hands in his. “Remember what you promised me, Bella, that you will stay closer to Sybilla than her own shadow. Do not leave the palace again.”
Wide-eyed, she agreed solemnly, and he had to content himself with that.
Sybilla and Eraclius listened as Balian told them that he’d ordered barrels of sand to be placed at strategic locations throughout the city in case the Saracens continued to make use of Greek fire. Sybilla was struggling with a severe headache and merely nodded. Eraclius pondered what he’d just heard. “You sound as if you do not expect the Saracens to keep hurling Greek fire at us. Why would they not do so? They frightened the people half out of their wits.”
“If one of the fires got out of control, it could destroy much of the city. Saladin does not want to claim a smoldering, charred ruin.” Balian could see that his honesty did not please them, but the time was long past for polite dissembling. “I fear the Saracens used the Greek fire as a distraction, a way of keeping us from recognizing the real danger. Soon after their return on Friday, they started to build cats—wooden structures to shelter their soldiers as they worked to fill in the moat. I think the cats were also meant for another purpose. Saladin has hundreds of men from Aleppo in his army.”
They did not seem to understand the significance of that, so he said, “Aleppo is famed for its sappers, engineers skilled in mining. The Saracens are digging a tunnel.”
That they did understand, for even noncombatants had heard stories of sieges in which castles or towns were taken when the attackers tunneled under the walls. Sybilla leaned back in her chair, rubbing her fingers against her throbbing temples. Eraclius had long ago mastered the requisite political skills that had enabled him to rise so high in the Church, one of which was his ability to conceal his thoughts from others. It failed him now, though; he paled visibly and his shoulders sagged like a man who’d just been blindsided. “Can we stop them?”
“No,” Balian said wearily, “we cannot.”
By Monday morning, the Saracen sappers had done what the sultan had required of them, excavating a tunnel of more than one hundred feet that burrowed under the foundation of the wall east of the postern gate of St. Mary Magdalene. They’d shored up the tunnel with wooden struts, and now set fire to them before hastily racing back to the surface. Their commanders had gathered to watch from a safe distance. After the props burned, the tunnel caved in and took down the section of wall above it. There was a loud rumble when it collapsed, so much dust kicked up that the wall was temporarily hidden from view. As it settled, they saw rubble strewn over a wide area and a breach in the wall, as if Allah had carved out a gate for the sultan’s army to reclaim al-Quds. What happened next was even more dramatic and so symbolic that they burst into wild cheering. The large stone cross erected by the Franks to commemorate their victory eighty-eight years ago began to sway and then it came crashing down, shattering as it hit the ground. Their triumph was made all the sweeter by the wailing and screaming coming from the city as the unbelievers saw their cross brought low and realized that all was lost.
The patriarch rose to his feet as Balian entered. They both were exhausted, Balian having spent the day protecting the breach in the north wall and Eraclius trying to find men to defend it once night fell. Despite offering a generous bonus to anyone who’d guard the breach from dusk till dawn, he’d been unsuccessful. Gesturing toward a table with a wine flagon, he told Balian to help himself. “So how can we keep the Saracens from streaming into the city after dark? Have you any thoughts on that?”
“Build bonfires in the gap. The Templars did that when Saladin was besieging their castle at Jacob’s Ford.”
“A good idea,” the prelate said approvingly. “Who can we get to tend the fires through the night?” Neither man mentioned that the bonfires had only delayed the inevitable. The fortress at Jacob’s Ford had still fallen to the Saracens, with a great loss of life.
Balian said the Templar serjeants would be willing to guard the fires. He dispatched Ernoul to the Templar commandery and then accepted Eraclius’s invitation to share the evening meal when he realized he’d not eaten all day. Eraclius did not think it was appropriate—or convenient—to use the patriarchal palace as a shelter for refugees. But he did not feel he could turn his fellow clerics away and some of the fugitives who’d flooded into Jerusalem were priests or monks. Feeding so many men was a logistical challenge and the great hall was so crowded that Eraclius had begun taking his own meals in his private quarters. He’d gone to the door to tell a servant that the Lord of Nablus would be his guest that evening when he saw one of the canons hastening across the cloisters toward him. After a brief exchange, he turned back to Balian, his expression that of a man pushed to the limits of his patience.
“Ere we can dine, I must talk with Father Jerome and some of his more fervid acolytes. Since you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, you will have that privilege, too.”
Balian understood the patriarch’s sardonic tone, for he’d also had several encounters with Father Jerome, the parish priest of St. John the Evangelist, and those whom Eraclius dryly dubbed his acolytes. Theirs were the loudest voices insisting that Haṭṭīn was God’s punishment and Balian had found them to be more harmful than helpful as he’d organized Jerusalem’s defenses. Their dire proclamations and street-corner sermons kept the populace in a state of frenzy. Instead of volunteering to man the walls, Father Jerome led processions of priests and nuns through the city, and fearful citizens soon swelled their ranks, seeking to show the Almighty the depths of their remorse. Balian said nothing, but he was no more pleased than Eraclius. What now?
When Father Jerome was ushered into the chamber, his followers crowded in behind him. Some were priests. Some were too old to fight, others too young. Among them were pilgrims unlucky enough to have taken the cross in a year of jihad. Affluent merchants stood beside men who’d sometimes had to beg for bread. A few looked as if they’d spilled their share of blood, if only in tavern brawls or dark alleys. All they had in common was that they were male and they were drunk on despair.
Balian and the patriarch were not long kept in suspense, for Father Jerome was eager to reveal his overwrought vision. The city was doomed now that the wall had been breached, he declared, but they need not cower in their homes and churches awaiting slaughter like sheep. No, they could ride out to confront the accursed infidels and die like men, killing as many heathens as they could in the name of the Lord of Hosts and His Beloved Son, and by their sacrifice earning holy martyrdom.
“We come for your blessings, my lord patriarch, and to invite you to join us as we ride to glory everlasting. You, too, lord.” Father Jerome included Balian with obvious reluctance. He believed those who’d fought at Haṭṭīn were tainted by their defeat, having been judged and found wanting by the Almighty, all save Reynald de Chatillon, who’d died for Christ in Saladin’s tent.
This was to be one of the rare times when Balian and Eraclius were in complete harmony. Exchanging a quick glance to confirm that they had the same opinion of this vainglorious suicide mission, they shocked the men by rejecting it out of hand. Balian thought the patriarch’s objections would carry more weight with them, so he confined himself to just one question. “What of the thousands left behind as you ride out to seek martyrdom?”
Eraclius was even blunter. “I could never bless such a selfish undertaking,” he said coolly, evoking a chorus of gasps and indrawn breaths. “For every able-bodied man in the city, there are more than ten women and children, as well as the elderly and the ailing. If we could save them by offering up our own lives, I would approve. But once we are dead, they will be at the mercy of the Saracens. Whilst we embrace salvation, they will be slain or enslaved and, worst of all, many will be forced to renounce the faith of Jesus Christ, especially the children, and their souls will be lost to God.”
Not all of the men were willing to give up the intoxicating appeal of martyrdom and they continued to argue for dramatic battlefield deaths. But in reminding them of the most vulnerable, many of them their own families, Eraclius had forced them to see their intended action in a harsher, less heroic light. Eventually a blacksmith posed the question that signified the patriarch had prevailed. “I’ll die defending my woman if it comes to that. But is there no longer any chance of avoiding a massacre?”
Eraclius and Balian had asked themselves that, too, in the four days since the siege resumed. Neither man had much hope, for they could think of no way to persuade Saladin to disavow his oath to take the city by the sword. But if there was even the faintest chance, they had to try. As all eyes turned toward Balian, he got to his feet. “On the morrow,” he said, “I will ride out to Saladin’s camp and do my best to convince him to accept our surrender.”
Soon after sunrise, Balian rode out of Jehoshaphat’s Gate. He was alone, protected only by a flag of truce, and had no idea what to expect from the Saracen soldiers. Saladin’s command tent was pitched on the Mount of Olives, so he guided Bayard in that direction.
Some of the most popular pilgrimages were to sites on or near the Mount of Olives: the cave of Gethsemane, where the Lord Christ has been betrayed by Judas, the chapel built around the rock where Jesus had prayed before his arrest, the tomb of the Blessed Virgin in the church of St. Mary, now enclosed within a Benedictine monastery. Balian assumed that Saladin would destroy the abbey, but he hoped the sultan would spare Mary’s crypt, for she was beloved by many Muslims, the only woman to be mentioned by name in the Qur’an. The True Cross had been lost because of the blunders of their rulers, yet surely their ancient holy sites would survive the death of their kingdom? As he rode toward the Saracen camp, Balian sought to keep his thoughts upon the fate of these sacred shrines, for then he could avoid thinking of the thousands of men, women, and children under sentence of death and dependent upon him to save them.
To his relief, he encountered no open enmity. The Saracens merely glanced at his flag of truce and then moved aside to let him pass. He wondered if they’d been told to expect an overture from the Franks; if so, did that mean Saladin was willing to listen to what he had to say? He was nearing the sultan’s camp when a man rode out to meet him. Mounted on a chestnut stallion that reminded Balian of Khamsin, al-‘Ādil reined in beside him. “I was hoping you’d come.”
As they rode toward the camp, Balian was greatly encouraged by what al-‘Ādil told him. He wanted Balian to convince his brother to accept the surrender of the city. Many of their amirs did, too. Their reasons were pragmatic ones. If al-Quds was taken by storm, it would be plundered by their soldiers. If it surrendered, the city’s riches would go into the sultan’s treasury. He needed the money, al-‘Ādil admitted, for his generosity was as lavish as it was legendary.
This made sense to Balian and he decided to stress the practical benefits of allowing the city to yield. “It gladdens me that you and I are in agreement about the wisdom of a peaceful surrender,” he said, and the sultan’s brother shrugged.
“We’d rather avoid any more deaths.” He paused before adding very dryly, “Had the sultan known you’d be so good at commanding their defenses, I think he’d have insisted that you honor your vow to depart the city with your family.”
“We want to avoid any more deaths, too,” Balian said, so fervently that the other man gave him a searching glance and then an unexpected smile, one that held something almost like sympathy.
“It cannot have been easy, being acclaimed as a savior by a city of terrified people.”
Impressed by his insight, Balian confessed that it was an experience he could have done without. As their eyes met, he offered a heartfelt thank-you, a bit embarrassed by the emotion suddenly surging into his voice.
Al-‘Ādil seemed to understand, for he responded with surprising candor. “You owe me no thanks. I want this for my brother. If he insists upon honoring his oath to take al-Quds by the sword, I fear that he’ll come to regret it. He does not like to shed blood unless he deems it absolutely necessary, as with the Templars.” When he smiled again, this one was more familiar to Balian, for it was flavored with ironic amusement. “Nor would history treat him kindly for a slaughter of thousands of women and children, and like all great men, he cares how posterity will judge him.”
By now they’d reached the sultan’s command tent. After they dismounted, al-‘Ādil handed his reins to Balian, telling him he should wait there until summoned. Once he disappeared into the tent, Balian found himself the focus of hundreds of eyes, some angry, others challenging, all curious. Studying the faces of these Saracen soldiers, he decided that many of them wanted a peaceful resolution to the siege, too, and for the first time, he allowed himself the luxury of hope, allowed himself to believe that Jerusalem would be spared the carnage promised by Saladin.
He was not sure how much time had elapsed since al-‘Ādil had entered the tent, but it seemed a long while. He was mentally rehearsing what he would say when the sultan’s brother finally reemerged. One glance at his face and Balian went cold, an icy shiver shooting up his spine as if it were the dead of winter, not a day of summery September warmth.
“I am sorry,” al-‘Ādil said softly. “He refuses to see you. He says there is nothing to be said.”