The Source

by James A. Michener

  On that May afternoon when we marched south from Tyre toward the city that was to become St. Jean d’Acre, leaving the inhospitable lands of the north and entering upon those sacred grounds of Palestine, where our Lord Jesus Christ had lived and died, a great exultation seized our men, and each spurred his horse forward so that he might be the first to cry, “We have come to the land of our sweet Lord Jesus.” And in this spirit we came to a small hill from which we could look down upon the pagan spires of Acre, nestling within tremendous walls, and I feared that this formidable place would dampen our spirits, but our leaders cried, “We shall not war against that seaport, we shall leave it as we did the others. On to Jerusalem.” And right willingly did we by-pass those enormous walls.

  My Lord Volkmar and I were in the left, or eastern flank, riding midway toward the Sea of Galilee, when we chanced to see some Turks in the distance. We spurred our horses up a small hill, thinking to give them chase, when Gunter of Cologne swept past us on a French horse he had acquired, shouting, “Let us enter the Holy Land of Jesus,” and he so excited us with his movement, urging us on to follow him, that we forgot the Turkish soldiers, and rode furiously southward until we came to the crest of a hill from which we saw the most pleasing sight to greet us since the day we left Gretz. To the west rose the pagan spires of Acre, shimmering beside the sea, and there the great lords were parleying, agreeing to spare the city. To the east we saw the rich and wooded hills, leading down to the Sea of Galilee, where our blessed Lord had lived and taught.

  But straight ahead, on a small mound, with gray olive trees to the south, stood the little town of Makor, its mosques bright in the sun and the holy cross of our Lord rising from the steeple of the basilica. My Lord Volkmar cried, “Behold that sweet town and its green fields.” But before we could move forward Gunter shouted, “This town is mine!” And he galloped his horse down the hill madly, riding up to the town and shouting for all to hear, “This town is mine! It shall be the capital of my kingdom!”

  Among the infidels of Makor who had been watching for some months the southward progress of the Crusaders, none was more shrewd in estimating their final victory than the current head of the great Family of Ur. Shaliq ibn Tewfik was a hawk-eyed man of forty-two who could calculate success and failure with all the skill of his Arab training; but whether he was entitled to be called an Arab remained a moot point, not always agreed upon by the people of Makor when they sat together discussing their dealings with him. Shaliq was a Muslim, as all had to admit, and for the past four centuries his family had been Muslim too; but small-town memories are long and it was not forgotten in Makor that Shaliq’s family had once been pagan, then Jewish, and for a while Christian, so that at best his heritage was spotted. On the other hand, of a hundred men in Makor who termed themselves Arabs, not many had ridden in from the desert with the true faith; most had sprung from Hittite and Egyptian and Canaanite stock, but today all were good Muslims and they passed as Arabs, so it ill behooved any to question Shaliq ibn Tewfik.

  Regardless of his ancestry, sharp-eyed Shaliq traded wisely and listened well, and he had discovered that as the Crusaders moved down through Asia from Antioch to Ma’arrat it became a matter of chance whether a local resident survived or not. As Shaliq explained to his frightened family: “When a town is taken the Crusaders are so embittered that they slaughter Jew, Christian, Muslim alike. But as soon as the heat of battle ends—let’s say the third day—any local citizens who have survived are treated well.” He paused. “So well, in fact, that the knights will begin picking their wives from the very women that three days earlier they were spitting on their lances.” He looked at his trembling family and said harshly, “Our job is to survive for three days. But where?”

  He scouted the town, working alone so that no other family could profit from what he might discover. For a few hours he thought he might choose the cellar under the hay, but he rejected this because he had heard that the Crusaders always set fire to hay, worrying later about food for their horses. The shed hidden behind the wheat stacks was surely a trap, for the soldiers would be hungry and would haul the bags away. But in his anxiety he remembered an abandoned shaft, now almost filled with rubble, which he guessed might once have led to some well deep inside the town, and this was a cool place not known to other citizens, for the ancient tunnel to which it had once led was no longer remembered; and it was in this shaft, on May 21, 1099, that Shaliq ibn Tewfik dug a small cave and hid his wife Raya and his sixteen-year-old daughter Taleb bint Raya and his sons, taking with him water and food for three days. Pressing themselves into the cramped refuge they heard the first shock of troops in the streets, the brief fighting and the surge of feet across the square. There were screams, as Shaliq had foretold, and the smell of smoke. But the Family of Ur held fast while their father counted, “One day, then two days, then three.”

  When Gunter captured Makor—not a difficult task, for the Turks were not defending the city and there were no walls to protect it—he put to the death every visible inhabitant. Christians and Muslims alike went down, and in a pocket near the ruins of the eastern wall he cornered the last Jews ever to live within the walls of Makor—the final descendants of Joktan and Zadok and Jabaal—and he slew them all, man and woman and child. His men wanted to keep one young girl for themselves, but Gunter would not have it so. “Let there be no traffic with the enemies of Christ!” he bellowed, and the eradication was complete.

  But during this final slaughter a dismal thing occurred. One Jew, a farmer, decided not to surrender his life easily and grabbed an axe, so that when Count Volkmar of Gretz came by, this Jew leaped at him and cut a deep gash down the German’s left leg. As the blood spurted out the Jew tried to swing the axe again, but men from Gunter’s group saw the assault and killed him. That night, when it looked as if the white-haired Count of Gretz must die, Wenzel wrote sorrowfully:

  The great perfidy of Jews was proved once more when, the subjection of the city having been assured, one crafty fellow nevertheless armed himself with an axe and lay unjustly in wait for my Lord Volkmar, and sprang at him most fiendishly, near severing his left leg. We took the count to a clean room where we lay him on a bed, and his eyes came to rest on a local crucifix, for unfortunately that day we had killed many Christians, which can be forgiven, for they looked much like Arabs and in the heat of battle we could not tell saved from damned, and when Count Volkmar saw the crucifix and knew that once more we had slain Christians, he would have died, but I stayed with him that night, binding the leg and praying for his soul. On the morrow Gunter of Cologne came to see us and to say, “Brother, I must join the others lest they take Jerusalem without me and I am not present to claim my kingdom.” I said, “Dare you leave your brother so?” and Gunter answered, “I marched from Cologne to capture Jerusalem, and not the devil himself shall keep me from the Holy City.” I begged him not to desert his brother, who was dying, but he replied, “His leg will have to be cut away and he will surely die, but I will leave him six good men.” And Count Volkmar heard these words and cried from his bed, “Go to hell with your men and your kingdom,” but Gunter grew not angry and said softly, “Brother, it is this land that I intend taking for my own, and if you live you may share it with me,” and he rode off, with all his soldiers, leaving not even the six that he had promised. And I thought that my lord would die, except that on the third day from a cave appeared a man named Shaliq who had wisely escaped the slaughter, and he claimed to be a doctor and showed me how to cut off Count Volkmar’s leg and when the putrid thing was hauled away the count grew better, and the mysterious doctor said to me, “I and my family are truly Christians, but the Muslims forced us into infidel ways, and we would like to be again baptized.” And with tears in our eyes we baptized him and his wife and three sons and daughter. His name was infidel, and I said to him, “In the name of the Lord, drop thy infidel ways,” and because he was a doctor who knew how to cut a leg I told him that henceforth his name was to be Luke and he ended h
is baptism by repeating his new name many times, with approval from his family. His appearance and signs of saintliness I declared a true miracle, and judged it a good omen for our occupation of this city.

  But while Wenzel and Luke, the merchant-turned-doctor, were hacking away at his leg, and cursing Jews for their perfidy in striking a Christian knight with an axe, Count Volkmar lay in a delirium of pain, biting the handle of a dagger and seeing before him Simon Hagarzi, and he could hear again the Jew predicting, “Of a hundred men who leave Gretz, nine will be lucky if they get back,” and he knew in his madness that he would not be one of those. He would see the Rhine no more, and thinking of the Jews his men had slain along that river he forgave the solitary Jew who had attacked him. “It was God’s revenge,” he mumbled to himself as the Arab sawed on his leg bone. “May God forgive us for the things we have done.” And the leg was gone.

  For several years the re-established settlement at Makor did not see Gunter of Cologne, for he rode on to help capture Jerusalem, then participated in the siege of Ascalon, continuing to the protracted wars against Tripoli and Tyr and finally, in 1104, to the subjugation of the critical port city of Akka itself. When the solid walls of that fortress were reduced through siege and the town renamed, Gunter finally returned to Makor, where Luke, serving as bailiff-judge-treasurer of the town, welcomed him on behalf of the governor, Count Volkmar.

  “Where is my brother?” the now-slim warrior asked, and Luke led the way to a large house which served as the rude palace from which Volkmar ruled the surrounding territory.

  Gunter rushed through the door to greet his brother-in-law, who stood an old, white-haired man of fifty-six, one-legged and frail. “The fighting is ended,” Gunter announced, “and I did what I said. The fief is mine.”

  “What fief?” Volkmar asked.

  “This one. The land between Acre and Galilee.”

  Carefully choosing his words Volkmar said, “But here I rule.”

  “And so you shall!” Gunter cried expansively, shocked by his brother-in-law’s general feebleness. “And you shall continue to rule on my behalf until you die—I’ll be out extending our borders.”

  “But when I die this land passes on to my son Volkmar.” The old count signaled to Luke, who fetched an attractive dark-haired boy of three. The child ran to his father, who balanced himself on his one leg so as to catch the boy, swinging him in the air.

  “They told me you were married,” Gunter said, evading for the moment the question of inheritance. “Where’d you find a Christian girl?”

  “Here,” Volkmar replied. “One that you missed killing.” Again the count motioned to Luke, and the bailiff disappeared to return shortly with his daughter Taleb, now an attractive woman of twenty-one. Bowing to Gunter she said in lilting German, “Welcome to Makor, brother.”

  The battle-worn knight bowed and replied, “It is I who welcome you to my fief, sister.”

  This time it was Volkmar who chose to evade the question. He directed Luke to prepare a welcoming feast, and Luke, clever as always, managed to find a sheep, some good wine from the local grapes and lesser items from as far away as Damascus. “The caravans have resumed,” Volkmar explained, passing his brother-in-law fresh dates and honey from the Muslim capital. “It’s true that Damascus remains in Arab hands,” he continued ruefully, “but we both need the trade.”

  “That’s sensible,” Gunter growled, licking his fingers. “Where’d you find Luke and his daughter?”

  “Here in Makor. They hid … in a cave, till you were gone.”

  Gunter bowed to the countess. “I’m glad you survived. To tell the truth,” he confessed, “if I were starting afresh I’d kill far fewer.” Uneasily he shifted his weight and leaned forward to face the father and daughter he might have slain that first day. “I learned my lesson in Jerusalem. We killed everyone in sight … Arabs … Jews … but the next day we found that half the dead were Christians just like ourselves. No one had told us. Have you heard about the way we took Jerusalem?”

  “Many times,” Volkmar said with disgust.

  “I explained that if we were doing it again … You know, brother …”

  “I am no longer your brother,” Volkmar answered quietly.

  “You are more,” Gunter replied, taking no offense. “You are my essential friend. I was about to say that after Jerusalem we discovered how rich we would have been had we kept the local people alive.” Here again he bowed to the countess and her father. “In Jerusalem, after the slaughter, we discovered vats of purple dye worth a hundred thousand bezants with no one left alive who knew how to use it. All the Jews were dead.”

  “Here we behaved differently,” Volkmar replied. “In the villages we killed no one, and now the farms are prosperous.”

  “I’m glad you kept them that way. I’ll need them in my fief.”

  “It will never be yours,” the older man said firmly.

  “It will,” Gunter responded without anger. “With my sword I have won it, and it is mine. You’re welcome here as long as you live, because I need your help. But when I have sons of my own they shall rule, and your boy Volkmar will have to find his life elsewhere.”

  The two German knights looked hard at each other, and thus began the test of wills, with Gunter asking bluntly, “Volkmar, why don’t you take your son and go back to Germany?”

  The question startled the old man, for in the years since his wife and daughter were taken from him at the battle of the wagons he had thought little of Germany. More than eight years had passed since he last saw the Rhine. His son Otto now ruled the city of Gretz, and Volkmar no longer considered himself a German. Pointing to the modest, yet convenient room in which the feast was being held he asked, “Who would leave this warm place for a cold castle in Gretz?” He indicated the good food that Luke had procured, the wine, the merchandise already pouring in from Damascus, and these things he compared with the manner in which German knights lived in their frugal, drafty castles along the Rhine. His wife Taleb wore silk and embroidered stuffs, whereas his first wife Matwilda had been happy to find coarse goods. In Makor he had gold and silver to replace the lead and brass of Germany. Through the ingenuity of Luke he had access to medicines unknown in Germany; in fact, he declared, “If I had lost my leg in Gretz, to be cared for by German doctors, I would now be dead. I have no desire to go back to that barbarous land.”

  “Then stay here and help me rule,” the younger knight urged.

  Thus Gunter moved permanently to Makor, and during his first week initiated changes of a spectacular nature, the most lasting of which was his decision to build on the crest of the mound a huge fortified castle: “Every man from Acre to Galilee will work sixteen days a month on this fortress till it’s finished. At the quarries we’ll need a thousand men. Permanently. To haul the rocks, five hundred horses.” While Volkmar tried to follow on a crutch that Luke had carved for him, Gunter strode forth to mark the limits of his castle, and the older man was astonished at the magnitude Gunter proposed.

  “It will be immense, because from it we shall rule an immense principality.” He began that day to use the word principality, for this was what he intended to carve for himself. Finally he returned to where Volkmar stood on his crutch and asked, “You’ve lived here for five years. Which part of town will be best for our castle?”

  Volkmar explained that the northwest segment, abutting the basilica, would be best, for from that spot one could both catch the cool evening breezes that came down the wadis and enjoy the sea beyond Acre, and for these reasons Gunter was tempted to build there, but in the end considerations of defense led him to select the rugged eastern end, for there the wadi to the north showed a more precipitous face. “Some day there’ll be a siege,” Gunter predicted, “and that gully could be what saves us.”

  So northeast of the basilica he staked out an enormous castle, and when Luke saw that one third of the town’s houses stood in the marked-off area he protested, but Gunter said simply, “Tear them do
wn,” and it was done.

  From having besieged nearly thirty fortifications—Nicaea, Antioch, Jerusalem, Ascalon, the names were like dreams, with Greek fire pouring down upon his shoulders and he loading the mangonels with the chopped-off heads of Turkish prisoners to be lobbed inside to taunt the defenders—from such experiences Gunter knew how a castle should be built. No square corners would be allowed, no neatly squared-off towers, for those he had found susceptible to assault. “With a battering ram you can always knock out the corner stones,” he explained to Luke, “but with a rounded tower where do you start your attack?” He also insisted that throughout the castle each rock be fitted snugly to the next, so that grapples could find no purchase to support scaling ladders. Each wall was sloped and situated so that all parts could be protected by interlocking arrow fire from two towers. “And the bottom of each wall,” he explained, “must slope sharply outward … at this angle … so that when a rock is dropped from the battlements it will ricochet sharply forward, crushing any men trying to hide under protecting cover.”

  For two years, 1104 through 1105, Gunter worked feverishly to complete his masterpiece, and as it drew to a conclusion workmen began to look forward to the time when they could once more turn their attention to their fields, but he forestalled this by announcing that now the real work would begin, a massive wall, twenty feet thick, around the entire crown of the hill. “These farmers should go home to their families,” Volkmar protested, but the younger knight growled that if the town was not fortified the day would come when nobody in the area would have families to go home to, and he began those enormous constructions which converted the long-feeble Makor—for the thousand years since Vespasian it had known no wall—into the archetype of a Crusader town, with the castle, the basilica and the mosque all neatly tucked inside gigantic fortifications.

  The new Crusader walls, of course, had to stand well inside the lines followed by the earlier Canaanite and Jewish walls, for as the mound had risen in height its available building area was constantly constricted and was now much smaller than before, so that when the giant walls were completed a new pattern of life had to develop. Inside the cramped town no more than three hundred peasants could now live, for the castle and the religious buildings usurped most of the free space, but since the fortified town brought peace to the area, more than fifteen hundred villagers and farmers could live in security outside the walls, knowing that in time of trouble they could retreat to safety within the battlements.