Defender of Jerusalem

by Helena P. Schrader

  His father laughed softly and nodded. “Indeed.” Then he gave Rufus more rein and they started down the back side of the dune, the sand sinking and sliding under the palfrey’s shod hooves. John saw a rabbit dart to safety amidst the scrub brush, and then looked up to the bird of prey wheeling lazily overhead. He did not know enough to know what kind of bird it was, only that it was looking for something to eat on the earth below.

  When the footing became a little harder and flatter, Balian laid his right arm firmly around his son’s waist, pulled him closer, and warned him to “hold tight” before taking up a canter. John loved it when they cantered, for the gait, particularly Rufus’s gait, was fluid and easy to sit—although it was frighteningly fast if he looked down. John avoided looking down and concentrated on the sea, which came slowly nearer, as they raced between the low bushes and trampled the yellow wildflowers. Then the sea was right before them, crashing white upon the hard-packed wet sand of the beach, and his father drew up and let his palfrey shake his head and stretch his neck with a satisfied snort.

  John could not remember being so near the sea before, not like this. He had been to Jaffa, of course, but a harbor full of ships and docks cluttered with people, cranes, carts, and draft animals was totally different. The sea there had been dirty and brown, filled with rubbish and floating waste. Here the water looked clear. He could see the waves heaving up and crashing down, and the smell on the air was salty and tangy, not foul. Overhead the seagulls cried. John looked up, shading his eyes against the glare of the sun. Father Angelus said that the souls of sailors who had gone to their watery graves unshriven were trapped in the bodies of seagulls, and that was the reason they cried out so piteously. John watched a seagull riding the wind overhead without ever a twitch of his wings, and wondered about the sailor he had once been.

  But eventually he got tired of watching the seagull and looked up at his father expectantly and questioningly. His father usually talked to him on these rides: lecturing him about the crops that could be produced and the weather they needed to produce them, or about the different trees—the lemons and cherries, almonds and plums. Or he talked about the people that lived in Ibelin and why they spoke different languages and wore different clothes. It really didn’t matter what his father talked about; John was happy just having his father’s attention to himself. “What’s the matter, Papa?” John asked when his father just kept staring at the sea.

  Balian sighed and looked down at him with a sad smile. “Today we learned that a good man has died.”

  “Who?” John wanted to know.

  “Baldwin, by the grace of God, King of Jerusalem and my liege lord.”

  “But he’s been sick for a long time,” John protested, not understanding his father’s sorrow.

  “Yes,” Balian conceded. “That is my comfort: that he is now with Christ and he is no longer suffering, as he did for far too long. I am sure he is now whole and he can laugh and sing and, indeed, fly—like those seagulls there.” Balian nodded with his head toward what was now a pair of seagulls, turning their heads from side to side as they glided effortlessly on the air currents rising from the sea. “He must feel elated and liberated to be rid of his putrefying body at last. I do not mourn for him,” Balian told his son, “but for us. We are all poorer without him.” He paused and ruffled his son’s hair in an affectionate gesture before admitting, “I loved him like a younger brother.”

  John didn’t see that that was so special, since he didn’t feel all that much fondness for his younger brother Philip. He dismissed his father’s feelings to ask, “And who is King now?”

  “A boy only two years older than you are: Baldwin V.”

  “He can be king at only eight?” John sounded distinctly jealous.

  “He has a regent, who rules for him—the good Raymond, Count of Tripoli—and a guardian, Joscelin, Count of Edessa, who will look after his lessons and ensure he learns his duties. Then there is your cousin’s husband, the Constable Aimery de Lusignan, to command his armies for him, and the entire High Court to advise and guide him.”

  That sounded like way too much control, John decided. “When will he get to rule on his own?”

  “When he is fifteen,” Balian answered, thinking of another boy who had seized the reins of government at fifteen.

  To John, turning fifteen was too far away to be imaginable, so he lost interest, but surprised his father with the perceptive question: “Do you think Salah ad-Din will attack us now that the King is dead?”

  “I hope not, John. The Count of Tripoli does not want war, and he has said many times that we should make a new truce with the Saracens, but it can never be more than a truce,” Balian warned. “The Sultan has vowed to drive us into that sea, and he will not rest until we are destroyed or he is dead. We can only hope to hold him off so long as he lives, and pray to God that when he dies his empire will fall apart under squabbling rivals to his throne or that his successor, if there is just one, is less intent on jihad.”

  John didn’t understand all that, but it didn’t matter. He had spotted something on the water. “Is that a sea monster?” he asked excitedly.

  “No,” Balian answered with a faint smile, all he could muster in his current mood. “That is the sail of a ship. Pray that it is a ship from the West, full of strong fighting men and steel weapons.” Then he took up the reins and turned the head of his horse away from the sea to ride back to Ibelin, his heart still heavy, but his arm held firmly around his vulnerable son.

  Chapter 14

  Damascus, May 1185

  THE HEAT WAS OPPRESSIVE. IBELIN FELT as if he were slowly baking inside his armor, while the metal exposed to the sun was too hot to touch. Rufus was sweating, too, although they were only walking, and Balian suspected he would be as happy as his master to find some shade and stop. At least they were nearing the end of their journey. They had descended from the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and were approaching Damascus itself.

  Their escort of twoscore Mamlukes had met them at the border and still surrounded the little party of Christian emissaries. The Master of the Knights Hospitaller, Roger des Moulins, led the little delegation, accompanied by one knight and one Turcopole from his Order. Ibelin traveled with Gabriel, the militarily more useful of his squires, and Mathewos, because of the latter’s language skills and ability to blend into a Saracen society. Traveling under the banners of Jerusalem, they came at the behest of Raymond de Tripoli to try to negotiate a truce with Salah ad-Din.

  One of the Mamlukes from their escort spurred ahead, apparently to clear the way and announce their arrival to the garrison of Damascus, while the rest of them plodded along the poorly paved and increasingly crowded road. Ibelin was feeling distinctly disappointed. Some of that was just the natural effect of the heat and his parched throat, but most was due to false expectations. He had been told by Ibrahim and others that Damascus was “like paradise on earth.” It was, he had been led to believe, an oasis in the midst of the desert, but so far Ibelin had seen only desert. The back side of the Anti-Lebanon was so dry that the mountains were bare of vegetation—unless you counted dried-out thorn bushes. The surface was carved with dry gullies and wadis filled with gravel. Ibelin had expected that, but he had also expected that once they left the mountains and reached the plateau on which Damascus was built, they would enter a green and fertile region similar to home.

  Instead, the orchards around Damascus made a parched impression. The irrigation ditches contained at best a trickle of water. No weeds, much less a crop (as in Ibelin), grew between the trees. The surface soil was dry, and each breath of air blew up tiny cyclones that dusted the drooping leaves and choked the air. That said one thing to Ibelin: drought.

  They entered Damascus proper by a square stone gate, not significantly different from those of Jerusalem or other Christian cities, and found themselves in a crowded, cacophonic city. With inward amusement Ibelin recognized that most of what was being shouted at them in Arabic was identical to what he woul
d have heard in Jerusalem or Acre: offers of clean beds, good wine, cheap food. Only the offers of “succulent women” was new to the mix; Western pimps weren’t quite so brazen, because Christianity frowned on commercial sex, whereas Islam did not. Now and again there were insults shouted at them as well, but the presence of the Sultan’s personal bodyguard kept hostility at a minimum and a distance.

  The deeper they penetrated the city, the more crowded it seemed to become. To Ibelin’s eyes the near absence of women was notable, and what women there were, were completely shrouded in black. Their faces and sometimes even their eyes were covered, robbing them of any identity, much less personality, and they kept to the shadows and the fringes like frightened stray cats: heads down and shoulders hunched to make themselves even less visible.

  The streets narrowed. Soon the buildings crowded so close to the uneven pavement that the balconies almost touched overhead. It became necessary to ride single file. Ibelin glanced curiously to the side, trying to get a glimpse through the latticework enclosing the balconies to what lay inside. All he saw were shadowy figures that drew back from the intrusion into their privacy.

  Meanwhile the stench was getting worse. So much for Muslim cities being cleaner, Ibelin thought to himself. Just as everywhere else in the world, rubbish was thrown into the streets and chamber pots emptied into the gutters. It would be nightfall before the streets were swept down and the rubbish carted away to make them clean again.

  At last they emerged out of the crowded Old Quarter, however, and found themselves in an attractive square, surrounded by impressive buildings with elaborate and ornate facades. One was clearly a major mosque, with no less than three minarets rising above the white stone walls that enclosed it. One of their escorts came back to ride beside Ibelin and, pointing to the mosque, told him it contained the head of John the Baptist. “If you convert,” he added with a grin, “I will take you inside so you may see it.”

  Ibelin smiled back at him. “But if I don’t convert, I will have the blessings of the Baptist’s spirit, which are worth far more than the sight of his mortal remains.”

  The Mamluke countered aggressively, “I thought you Christian pigs worshiped things!”

  “No,” Ibelin answered steadily, “we believe in God the Father and in his only Son, Jesus Christ.”

  “Polytheist!” the Muslim dismissed him, and then changed the subject by pointing in the opposite direction to the tall, turreted walls of a citadel. “That is the Sultan’s residence. You are welcome to stay inside—or, he instructed me to offer you accommodation in one of the best caravansaries. It is just up there!” He pointed to a street leading away from the square.

  “What is he saying?” Master des Moulins demanded irritably. His face was bright red and glistening with sweat. Moulins had been in the Holy Land less than a decade and had never bothered to learn even rudimentary Arabic.

  “We are offered accommodation in either the citadel or a caravansary,” Ibelin explained to him.

  “Ask if the latter is near a bathhouse. Salah ad-Din will have his spies all over the citadel.”

  “He will have his spies all over the caravansary as well,” Ibelin replied cynically, but asked their escort about the baths and received the assurance that the caravansary was directly beside a bathhouse, so they proceeded there.

  The owners of the caravansary had clearly been warned to expect important guests, and the owner and his sons were lined up outside to greet the visitors, bowing graciously and welcoming the ambassadors with broad smiles. Ibelin supposed Salah ad-Din had made it worth their while to host the Christians, but he was too relieved to get into the shade to care.

  Their escort withdrew, promising to report their safe arrival to the Sultan. Ibelin dismounted to find a young man frowning at him. “You are wearing crosses!” the youth exclaimed, staring at Ibelin’s surcoat, which bore the red crosses of Ibelin painted all over the background of marigold linen. “And that is a fine horse,” the caravansary groom added, with admiring looks at Rufus.

  “He is. Take good care of him,” Ibelin answered, looking automatically for Mathewos, as he no longer trusted this groom.

  “It is forbidden for Christians to ride horses!” the young man protested emphatically, frowning more fiercely.

  “Not where I come from,” Ibelin countered firmly.

  The young man, however, grew even more indignant, declaring, “I’ll teach you your place, you Christian pig!” He raised his hand as if to strike Ibelin.

  Before Ibelin could respond, the innkeeper called out, “It’s all right, Ayub! He’s an ambassador from Jerusalem.”

  The young man looked at his employer in outrage, but the innkeeper now came over and put him in his place with a deluge of insults, interspersed with reference to Salah ad-Din and his safe-conduct. He concluded with the warning that if the youth didn’t behave he’d be sacked. This silenced the groom, but he continued to cast hateful looks at Ibelin while Mathewos came and took Rufus.

  The horses taken off their hands, the guests were rapidly shown to a suite of private rooms on the first floor of the caravansary. The floors were paved with white and brown tiles in a checkerboard pattern, and the furnishings, although showing signs of age and wear, were of good-quality wood, elaborately carved and outfitted with cushions in bright patterned covers. Best of all, however, there were two balconies, each fully encased in wooden latticework that blocked out the sun but let in a light breeze. Because they looked out on two different streets, they allowed for a welcome cross current.

  Ibelin went at once to one of the balconies to get a look at the city from this raised perspective, and quickly noted that he could see the citadel. Behind him Moulins was stripping off his armor and replacing it with his simple monk’s habit in preparation for going to the baths, while Gabriel and the Hospitaller Turcopole dumped the saddlebags on the floor.

  The innkeeper made a second appearance, bowing deeply to Moulins and offering to have “some of his slaves” escort them to the baths. Moulins accepted with so much relief that Ibelin knew he should not dally any longer. He left the balcony, unbuckling his own sword, and ordered Gabriel to help him out of his mail.

  “Are you sure you want to disarm?” Gabriel asked skeptically.

  “I can’t bathe in my armor,” Ibelin countered.

  “But you’re vulnerable without it.”

  “We are protected by nothing but our diplomatic immunity,” Ibelin reminded him. “If Salah ad-Din gives the order to kill us, even ten coats of mail would not save us.”

  Gabriel sighed. He had been excited to be selected for this mission and eager to see Damascus. So far it had been an adventure, but now that they were here, he was starting to feel frightened.

  The baths were indeed adjacent to the caravansary, and a narrow passage led directly from one building to the other, where the visitors were again evidently expected. Ibelin stripped naked and then wrapped the towel provided around his waist before being led to the marble steam room. This chamber had a domed ceiling that let in light through round, glazed holes. Ibelin lay down and tried to relax his mind as well as his body.

  Although he agreed with Tripoli’s policy of trying to negotiate a truce for—if possible—the full six years it would take Baldwin V to reach his majority, he was less comfortable with being tasked to accompany Moulins. Tripoli had argued that his exceptional command of Arabic was invaluable, and Ibelin had countered that his brother of Ramla already knew Salah ad-Din and therefore had an advantage.

  “Your brother is not a diplomat,” Tripoli had replied bluntly. “If I want a man to lead a near-suicidal charge, I can think of no one better than Ramla—or Oultrejourdain; for delicate negotiations, you’re the better man.”

  Which, Balian conceded, might be true, but he was still unhappy with this mission. He was certain the Sultan begrudged him for the hard bargaining he had conducted over the ransom of his captives after Montgisard, and he suspected the Sultan felt misled about Barry’s prospects o
f becoming King of Jerusalem after the Battle on the Litani. With a sigh he turned over onto his back, his eyes closed, and tried to empty his head. He concentrated on the sweat forming and slowly trickling off the promontories of his body to drip on to the marble slab under him.

  He was startled awake by a gasp, and his eyes flew open to see a youth standing over him, staring down. “Sir!” the boy exclaimed.

  “What?” Balian asked, alarmed and wary.

  “That—that’s a cross! The Cross of Our Lord!”

  Balian’s hand went to the gold cross he had worn around his neck from the day he was knighted, a gift from Hugh. He had never taken it off since, although it was usually hidden from view by his clothes. He rarely thought about it, but it was always against his heart. “Yes, of course,” he remarked cautiously.

  “Are—are you Christian?” the youth asked in wonder.

  “Yes.”

  “But I was told you were a great lord,” the youth protested.

  Balian almost laughed. “I am—in Jerusalem.”

  “You’ve come from Jerusalem?” The youth’s eyes were growing bigger.

  “Yes, my colleague and I have come from Jerusalem.” Balian nodded to Moulins, who appeared to have dozed off on the other side of the room.

  The youth lowered his head and whispered, “We are Christians, too.”

  “Jacobite?” Balian asked, and the boy nodded vigorously before asking, “And you?”

  “Latin,” Balian answered, then nodded for the boy to continue with his duties. The youth set to work with a will. He dipped his sponge into a bucket of water that was cool compared to the heat of the room, and started slowly but effectively wiping Balian’s sweat away with all the grime it carried. Then came the soap, scented with balsam, which he vigorously rubbed between his hands to create suds before soaping Balian down and then sponging him off again. After that came a massage with oil.

  Glancing over his shoulders and determining that all the other customers had left except Moulins, who was now awake and being sponged down by a second attendant, the youth confided, “I wish we lived in Jerusalem. The taxes on Christians here are terrible. No matter how hard we work, there is never enough to live on. And sometimes they attack us, too—when the Sultan is away. Six years ago, they said we were to blame for the drought, and they broke in and trashed everything! You can still see some of the damage they did!” He pointed to some chips and cracks in the marble. “My father is afraid they will do the same again if the drought continues much longer.”