Defender of Jerusalem

by Helena P. Schrader

  Ibelin shifted his gaze from the base of the walls to the wider situation, and saw Saracens jogging out of the camp in good order to reinforce the attackers. Some units must have been told they could stay behind for morning prayers, but to join the assault thereafter.

  Looking down again, he saw the enemy oozing along the base of the wall to the left and right of Tancred’s Tower, looking for weakness. Ibelin was not concerned. Men along the western wall all the way to the citadel of David sprang into action as soon as targets came into range. Along the northern wall the Saracens spread out as far as the Leper Pool, still out of range of the men on St. Stephen’s Gate—although one or two over-eager archers from that gate tried their luck before their sergeants made them stand down and save their arrows.

  Ibelin pulled back from the outer edge of the wall and crossed the roof of the Tower to look down into the city again. There were more carts filled with arrows lined up in the street below, and young boys and women had formed a chain to pass the arrows up from the wagons to the ramparts. Other wagons loaded with water were also visible, and women were dunking tin pitchers into the barrels to fill them before passing them up by the same method to the men manning the wall. Ibelin nodded his satisfaction. The weeks of preparation was paying off.

  Jerusalem, September 24, 1187

  Salah ad-Din kept up the attacks from dawn to dusk for two solid days, but the Christian resistance did not crack. Then he deployed his siege engines.

  Massive mangonels hurled both boulders and smaller stones and sometimes flaming material: twigs woven together and wrapped in oil-soaked rags, then set alight. All were equally deadly. The boulders were directed mostly at the gates and upper portions of the walls, with the objective of weakening the masonry to the point of crumbling or collapse. The stones were “anti-personnel” weapons that killed anyone unlucky enough to be in their path. The flaming materials were intended to set roofs alight inside the city and create havoc, thereby dividing the attention of the defenders.

  Movable siege towers were also rolled forward. These wooden towers, mounted on wheels, contained multiple platforms from which archers could fire on the city walls from roughly the same or greater height as the defenders on the wall. This effectively eliminated the advantage of the defending archers. The attacking archers were partly protected by woven mats covered with animal hides, soaked in vinegar to reduce flammability. From these platforms the Saracens could rain death upon the defenders—and if they got close enough, they had drawbridges that could be lowered on to the walls, so that foot soldiers could pour on to the ramparts and take possession of walls, gates, and ultimately the city. Although Ibelin had smaller siege engines mounted on Tancred’s Tower and the Tower of David to answer Salah ad-Din’s larger ones, with the deployment of the siege engines Christian casualties began to mount dramatically.

  Sister Adela had been a Hospitaller sister for a quarter century. She thought of herself as a professional, but nothing in her life had prepared her for the casualties that flooded the Hospital of St. John at Jerusalem after the mangonels went into action. By nightfall on September 24, 1187, after two days of bombardment, the courtyard of the Hospital was paved with wounded, and bands of lay brothers moved systematically and continuously between them to identify and remove the dead. In the wards, the brothers worked feverishly to remove arrows protruding from profusely bleeding wounds, stop the hemorrhaging opened by the missiles, and set or amputate the limbs of people partially crushed by the flung stones. Their habits were drenched in the mixed blood of dozens of patients, and their hands were so covered with it that when they went to wipe the sweat from their brows, they left smears of scarlet on their faces.

  Most of the casualties were fighting men, but some of the helpers—women bringing water, boys bringing arrows—had been hit, too. The sight of a young boy writhing in agony from an arrow in his guts made even Sister Adela taste vomit in her throat, while many of the younger sisters were openly weeping and shaking. They were all seeing and hearing things that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.

  Beth returned to the Ibelin palace at dusk. As usual, her face and hands were black with soot from standing near the boilers of tar all day long. Her shoulders ached, her back hurt, her feet were swollen and sore, and her throat was parched so badly she could hardly swallow. Just as on the previous four days.

  But this evening when Tsion opened the door for her, preparing to welcome her home to a hot meal and wine, she gasped. Beth looked so terrible that at first Tsion thought she had been wounded. “Beth! What is it? What happened?” the Ethiopian teenager asked in wide-eyed alarm as she pulled her sister-in-law inside.

  “Nothing,” Beth told her dully as she sank down on the wooden bench.

  She had seen a bundle of burning rags land squarely on one of her co-workers. The woman had been set alight. Mad with pain, she had started screaming in agony and running about in panic. One of the men had to tackle her so they could smother the flames with a blanket, but by then her face was a charred wreck. She’d screamed like she was being gutted when they tried to carry her to the Hospital.

  Like Sister Adela, Father Michael found himself overwhelmed despite all the preparations. There were too many wounded! If he stopped to hear one man’s confession, another died while waiting for him. The sight of a little boy with a crushed chest that left him wheezing and breathing frothy blood, his head rolling back and forth in pain, made him want to scream in rage at the injustice of it all. His only comfort was that the little boy surely had no sins on his conscience, and Christ would receive him with open arms.

  The same could not be said for many of the men and women who grabbed at his ankles, begging for absolution with terror in their eyes. Father Michael went down on his heels beside yet another—was it the fiftieth or one-hundredth?—and tried not to hear the sins he had committed. He did not really want to know what his fellow Christians were capable of. Somewhere here, he thought as he made the sign of the cross and moved on, might be the very men who had plundered an orphanage and left little children locked in a cellar to starve. But he would give them absolution if they asked for it. What else could he do?

  Sir Daniel finally caught up with Ibelin at the Cattle Market. Ibelin had been ceaselessly patrolling the city for four days, apparently without stopping to sleep, since he seemed to be everywhere: on Tancred’s Tower and at the Citadel, of course, but also inspecting the men holding the Armenian sectors of the wall to ensure they maintained their vigilance, encouraging the women running the field kitchens, and even visiting the wounded. That he also took time to check on the livestock struck Daniel as somewhat obsessive—even if the pig market was within range of the Saracen siege engines and Ibelin had ordered the pigs moved to the cattle market, which was not under bombardment.

  As Ibelin left the market, Daniel intercepted him. “My lord, there’s something we lepers want to propose to you. If you would just come with me?”

  Ibelin stopped. Up close Daniel could see the strain of the last four days written on the baron’s face. “Is this important?” Ibelin asked, in a tone that suggested he did not believe it could be.

  That hurt, and Daniel became slightly resentful. Ibelin still saw him as a runaway baker’s apprentice, he thought. But he was going to change that. He drew himself upright and answered firmly, “Yes, my lord; it’s about the siege engines.” When Daniel could detect no reaction, he added, “We have a plan to destroy at least some of them.”

  “So do I,” Ibelin countered. “And I need to implement it.” He glanced to the west, where the sun had now set, leaving only an orange smudge on the underside of a large cloud bank. He had come to the cattle market in part to pass the time until darkness, when he planned to lead an attack on the siege engines.

  Daniel took advantage of his silence to speak up. “My father says you plan to attack the siege engines tonight. You must hear us out before you do that!” Daniel insisted.

  Ibelin turned back to Daniel. He should have
guessed that Sir Roger or Father Michael would keep Daniel well informed of his plans. “All right. Tell me.”

  “Not here, my lord; I want to you to hear it from all of us.”

  Ibelin raised his eyebrows, but Daniel did not detect the gesture because Ibelin’s eyebrows were hidden under his coif. All Daniel saw was that Ibelin nodded. Together they started for the long covered market that led from this quarter of the city near the southern wall, due north to the Syrian exchange just east of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

  It was rapidly getting dark, and the bells were ringing Vespers as they entered the market. Normally the shopkeepers would have been locking up their stalls or sweeping away the rubbish in preparation for going home, leaving the narrow, paved alley almost abandoned. Instead, Daniel was startled to find himself amidst masses of people, as if it were the middle of the busiest day in pilgrim season. The entire covered alleyway stretching out before them as it scaled the hill ahead of them was lit up by brass and glass lamps swaying in the arches of the shops.

  Then it dawned on Daniel that these weren’t shoppers, but rather the families of the shopkeepers. They were sheltering from the enemy bombardment behind the stone walls and under the stone vaults of the market. Children cried and laughed, infants squalled, old men gossiped, and women chatted—all cut off from the sight and sound of incoming boulders, the screams of combat, and the flames and smoke of the fires. It was like being in a womb—or a tomb, Daniel thought, as they made their way up the alleyway punctuated by steps between the shops in the flanking vaults.

  They emerged at the Syrian exchange and turned into the street between the Hospital and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. They walked past the courtyard where Ibelin had created eighty-one new knights, and on between the shuttered souvenir shops. Here the air was heavy with smoke from fires that had been ignited all around, and as they came abreast of the Patriarch’s palace they encountered the charred remains of a half-dozen shops that had burned before the fire could be put out. The ashes blew in the light evening wind, and some embers winked at them in the darkness.

  Beyond the Patriarch’s palace, they reached the corner of the wall beside Tancred’s Tower now occupied by the lepers. It stank badly because the latrines were inadequate for the numbers crowded together in this awkward, cramped space. But at the sight of Ibelin, the lepers struggled to their feet and stood upright. They seemed strangely excited about something.

  When a hush had fallen over them, Sir Daniel spoke. “My lord. If we don’t destroy the Sultan’s siege engines, they will surely destroy us.” He gestured vaguely across the city where several fires were still burning, but he did not try Ibelin’s patience by pausing. “But the Saracens guard them well, both day and night. Furthermore, they will expect attacks from the flanks by men sallying out of the other gates of Jerusalem.”

  Ibelin said nothing. Daniel not only appeared to know his plan, he was right. Ibelin just didn’t have any alternative.

  “But, my lord, what if we were to sally forth from here?” Daniel pointed at the heavy postern gate almost lost in the shadows behind him. “Just out there are two of the enemy’s siege towers. If we could set them on fire, the enemy will be distracted and partially blinded as well. If the siege towers go up, they will light up this entire sector of the wall—and the perimeter, where the siege engines are, will be cast in greater darkness. While all attention is on the burning siege towers, you can lead the attack on the mangonels!” Daniel got his plan out all in one breath, eager for approbation.

  Ibelin drew a deep breath to keep calm. “Sir Daniel, the idea of a diversion is a good one, and I thank you for it. But the men out there defending the siege towers are some of Salah ad-Din’s best. If we so much as crack this postern to let troops out, they will rush forward and overwhelm us, possibly gaining entry. The city would be lost almost immediately.”

  “No, my lord, it won’t! I mean, if fighting men tried to sally out, you are right. The enemy would joyously slaughter them and storm the postern. But we’re suggesting that we go out.”

  Ibelin stared at Daniel for a second, and then let his eyes sweep over the nearly two hundred lepers collected around him. They were nodding vigorous assent.

  “If we go out in our rags and bandages, begging mercy and saying we have been expelled,” Daniel hastened to explain, “they will be shocked and cast into confusion. Meanwhile, other men from the garrison can slam the postern shut and secure it. But each of us will carry a pot of Greek fire hidden in our bandages. As soon as we are in range, we will start pelting the siege towers with them to set them alight. When the towers go up in flame, you can launch your attack on the mangonels.”

  “You’ll be trapped between the burning siege engines and the closed postern!” Ibelin protested. “You will all die.”

  “We will all die, my lord,” Sir Daniel answered steadily, adding with passion, “but rather than dying limb by limb in shame and poverty, we will die so others might save Jerusalem for Christ.”

  “This is what you have all decided to do?” Ibelin asked, directing his question to the other lepers, searching their misshapen and deteriorating faces for some sign of dissent or doubt. He found none—at least not in the poor light of this confined space. They all seemed to be nodding, and several ventured to call out “Yes, my lord!” until someone shouted “Deus le Volt!” The battle cry of the First Crusade was rapidly picked up by the others and became a chant. “Deus le Volt!” God wills it.

  “But you need to supply us with enough Greek fire,” Daniel hastened to point out in a low voice as the others chanted.

  Balian met Daniel’s eyes. He knew this was Daniel’s idea, although he could not know how he had convinced the others to join him. He sensed Daniel still wanted to atone for the sins he thought he had committed: letting Ibrahim get expelled from Baldwin’s service, not stopping Guy de Lusignan from wrenching the Regency from a browbeaten Baldwin. . . . But did he really have the right to lead the other lepers to certain death?

  “I think King Baldwin would want this,” Daniel played his trump. “I think he would want lepers to destroy the siege towers.”

  Balian capitulated. “God wills it!”

  So far the burden of the defense had fallen to the archers. The knights had been positioned on the wall, ready to fight any Saracen who actually made it to the ramparts, and once or twice the enemy had succeeded in getting ladders laid up against the side of the wall. When it happened on Sir Galeran’s salient, he’d rushed forward with several of his fellows to push the ladder back or kill the man at the head. Yet even as they drew their swords and readied themselves for glory, a team of aging and far from slender Armenians upended a huge ceramic pot filled with boiling pitch over the side. This cleared the ladder of assailants and left them screaming at the base of the wall. Sir Galeran was pleased with the effectiveness of the defense—but slightly disappointed that he had not yet played an active role in it.

  And then they were ordered to muster on foot in the inner ward of the Citadel.

  Again the new knights helped each other arm, asking in anxious voices what this was about. If this was a sortie, surely they would have been asked to mount up?

  They made their way on foot the short distance up the Street of the Armenians from the Royal Palace to the tower that gave access to the Citadel of David from the city. Overhead the sky was still lit up by occasional incoming balls of flame, and across the northwestern quarter fires burned with various grades of intensity. The fires seemed particularly intense in the vicinity of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and Sir Galeran was sure that was intentional. The Muslims were trying to hit the dome of the Church to destroy it, but the dome reared up proud and defiant against the backdrop of wavering firelight and billowing smoke, as people worked feverishly to put out the fires in the Street of the Money Lenders and the Street of Bad Cooking.

  The knights were admitted at the gatehouse and passed through it to cross by drawbridge over the dry ditch surrounding the Cita
del. Just as Sir Galeran started across the wooden bridge, a boulder pounded against the David Gate with such force that it made the drawbridge jump. Sir Galeran caught his breath, then looked at his fellows sheepishly. Several others looked back, as alarmed as he felt. They hurried together across the drawbridge and into the somewhat cramped courtyard of the Citadel. Yet no sooner had Galeran gained the apparent safety of the inner ward than another boulder boomed against the adjacent gate, and someone cursed under his breath. The very earth seemed to shake beneath them.

  Sir Galeran glanced upwards to the ramparts, thinking maybe they had been summoned to reinforce the defense at this critical point, but he could make out a substantial number of men silhouetted against a sky lightened by fires. Then another boulder pounded against the masonry, and Sir Galeran shook his head. How long could the walls take that?

  The low muttering of his colleagues drew his attention to a figure coming down the stairs from the Tower of David; Sir Galeran realized it must be the Baron of Ibelin, trailed by Sirs Constantine, Roger, and Mathewos. Ibelin stopped on the second step so that he was raised slightly above his knights and could be seen by all. “Sirs.” He gestured for them to come closer. When they were all standing in an eager pack at his feet, he announced: “Sirs, we need to destroy the Saracen siege engines.”

  Sir Galeran had already nodded agreement before he registered that when the baron said “we,” he didn’t mean the Christian defenders generally; he meant the men he was addressing. Suddenly Sir Galeran felt cold, although the night was warm.

  Ibelin was continuing. “We will divide into two groups, so that if one party is discovered and destroyed, the other party will still stand a chance of attaining part of our objective. Sir Constantine will take half of you out the Mount Zion Gate and circle back to take the Saracen siege engines opposite this citadel from the south. Your principal objective will be that mangonel hammering David’s Gate.” He gestured as yet another boulder smashed against the wall, making the earth shake.