Defender of Jerusalem

by Helena P. Schrader

  Jerusalem, September 29, 1187

  On September 29 at about 5:15 in the afternoon, the attackers set fire to the timbers holding up the tunnel that ran for roughly thirty meters under Jerusalem’s northern wall between St. Stephen’s Gate and the Postern of Mary Magdalene. The excited shouts of the Saracens as they poured out of the far end of the tunnel gave the Christians a fifteen–second warning, and some of the men manning that sector of the wall managed to get away. Many more were sucked down by the collapsing masonry and were crushed or suffocated in the rubble as the wall collapsed.

  Ibelin had been on the Gate of Jehoshaphat at the time. He heard the sound of rolling thunder coming out of the earth, then the crashing of stones and the screams of men, and he started running in the direction of the sound, oblivious to the arrows aimed at him. Even before he reached the breach, he was screaming orders for archers to pour fire into the gap, and shouting down into the streets for men to rush into the breach to stop the inevitable Saracen assault.

  Sir Roger, who had been on St. Stephen’s Gate, converged on the breach from the opposite direction, shouting identical orders. The dust had not yet settled before Sir Mathewos arrived with a troop of crossbowmen who had been held in reserve for this event, while from St. Mary Magdalene Sir Constantine brought the last of his Greek engineers.

  The Saracens, of course, had prepared an assault troop just behind the head of the tunnel. As the wall collapsed, shouts of “Allahu Akbar!” went up from across the Saracen camp—and thousands of jubilant Saracen troops, whether Turks, Kurds, Egyptians, or Nubians, pumped their swords or bows over their heads in triumph.

  The troops selected for the honor of being the first to enter Jerusalem rushed forward with élan and elation. This was their moment of greatest glory yet. Hattin had been a victory, to be sure: they had humiliated the Non-Believers and crushed them once and for all. But this—this was a moment that would live in history forever. They would repay the outrage of the Christian massacre of their brothers eighty-eight years ago and make them drown in their own blood. They would liberate the Dome of the Rock from the filth of the Franks.

  They surged up over the rubble, which was still encased in clouds of dust and billowing smoke from the burning timbers of the tunnel underneath. Because the stones had been dislodged but not settled, they foundered and scrambled as the blocks shifted under their weight. They fell as the broken masonry gave way under their feet, and the leading men started small landslides that knocked down the men behind them. And all the while, death rained on them, loosed by Christian archers on either side of the breach.

  Just as they crested the highest part of the rubble and were ready to run down into the city, they were hit head-on by a barrage of crossbow bolts and flaming arrows. The defenders were at such close range that when the bolts struck the Saracens they went clear through their first victim, and some killed the man behind as well. Behind the crossbowmen came slingers releasing pots full of Greek fire. Within a quarter-hour, the breach in the wall was a burning graveyard.

  But Salah ad-Din did not have a shortage of fanatical followers ready to take the place of the failed first assault team. The second wave rushed forward, calling on Allah as they charged. These had an easier time mounting the north-facing slope of the debris, but met the same barrage of crossbowmen and Greek fire at the crest. So did the third and fourth assault wave. By then the sun had set and the muezzins were calling the Faithful to prayer.

  Ibelin stood on the corner tower, watching the survivors of the last assault drag as many of their dead comrades as possible out of the flames and back down the slope of rubble. Then he turned and strained his eyes in the direction of the Sultan’s tent. He thought he saw a flicker of motion: the tent flap opening or closing. Salah ad-Din had no doubt been watching just as he had. Hopefully he had had enough for today.

  People were shouting all around him, trying to get Christian wounded to the Hospital and Christian dead to the improvised catacombs. Men had collapsed against the inside of the ramparts and were sobbing from exhaustion, terror, relief—who knew. Somewhere a woman was keening as she discovered her husband or son or lover among the dead. And then the bells of the Holy Sepulcher began to clang. Balian lifted his head and looked across the rubble, through the smoke and dust, toward the dome of the great church, and wondered how many more times it would be allowed to raise its deep, comforting voice.

  Ibelin was beginning to regret he had called the leading citizens together. They had gathered in the ward of the royal palace—which, being in the southwest corner of the city, was out of range of the enemy’s siege engines. The new knights—the sixty-odd survivors—were there, along with the heads of the guilds and the merchant companies, the Grand Hospitaller, the Patriarch, and the heads of the Syrian, Armenian, Greek, and Coptic churches.

  He should have known that at this stage there would be no consensus. The merchants, particularly the Syrians, clearly favored surrender. They argued that Salah ad-Din had shown mercy to other cities. Yes, he’d vowed to destroy them, and he would surely want to humiliate them, but he was a hard-headed man who knew he’d ultimately gain more by letting them live and taxing them hereafter. The Armenians, on the other hand, had memories of many bitter slaughters at the hands of the Seljuks, and insisted there would be no mercy and it was better to go down fighting. Meanwhile, the example of Masada was raised by some of the Frankish leaders: if they were all going to be slaughtered anyway, then why not slaughter their wives and daughters before they could be dishonored and abused, and then kill each other as well, to leave the enemy a city of corpses?

  Ibelin was relieved when Heraclius came out firmly against this proposal, insisting that it was not Christian to slaughter themselves. Suicide, he reminded them, was a sin one could not repent, and would lead inexorably to damnation. He added indignantly that it was even more against the teaching of Christ to slaughter, as he rightly put it, “those innocent women and children whom God entrusted to our protection.”

  “But we can’t protect them anyway!” someone retorted in exasperation.

  “Let us ride out to martyrdom!” one of the young knights shouted passionately into the crowd. “If we are to die, let it be with a lance in our hands!”

  The knights around him cheered their approval.

  “Yes, and while you ride to martyrdom, our women and children will be dragged off to slavery!” Heraclius retorted furiously. “We must try to negotiate!”

  “Negotiate? How? It’s too late!” a chorus answered him.

  “My lord of Ibelin,” the Grand Hospitaller cut through the noise. “What say you? We have recognized your authority, and you have made us stronger than ever we thought we could be. You have enabled us to inflict great damage on the enemy, and you have led us wisely ever since you came to Jerusalem. What do you advise?”

  Ibelin drew a deep breath. He had hoped they would make a decision without him, but he should have known they would not. “We have only a few pots of Greek fire left. We will not be able to defend the breach tomorrow—or not for long. Nor will darkness come in time.”

  His words were met with stunned silence—as if, despite everything, they had believed he would give them new hope.

  “There is, of course, one last thing we could try. . . .”

  They waited with bated breath.

  “We could try to penetrate the Saracen camp to the Sultan’s tent and kill him. If we did,” Balian repeated the argument he had used to the Sultan’s face, “there’s a chance that his many heirs will become so preoccupied with fighting each other that they will leave us in peace—until such time as one of them has established dominance over the others. By which time, by the Grace of God, help may have come from the West.”

  Ibelin was surprised by the enthusiasm that greeted his plan, but he had not really doubted his knights would embrace it. They were mostly young men without wives or families. They were still fired by idealism, as well as undiminished naive faith in the righteousness of their c
ause. It was a little like leading lambs to the slaughter, but it was also a way of sparing them—and himself—the indignity of execution at the hands of the enemy, as the Hospitallers and Templars had suffered after Hattin.

  The shouting had not yet died down, and the archers were still exchanging fire in the darkness, when al-Adil burst in on his brother. “You were right, Yusef. Again,” he conceded.

  The Sultan smiled wanly. “What is the expression? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Ibn Barzan caught us sleeping with his night attack on the siege engines—”

  “Only because he was willing to slaughter lepers like cattle!” Al-Adil protested indignantly. “How could we expect such heartlessness towards the most benighted of God’s creatures, even from Christian pigs? To force the most miserable of souls to burn themselves alive is beyond the imagination of a Muslim!”

  “Hmm,” Salah ad-Din answered. “But who forced them?”

  “The Christians!”

  “I mean, after they were outside the city, they could have just thrown themselves on our mercy. Why did they go through with the attack?”

  Al-Adil shrugged. “I presume because they had been led to believe we would kill them.”

  “Perhaps; but wouldn’t you have at least tried to plead for mercy rather than burn yourself alive?”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “That I believe they were volunteers. The Christians, too, have fanatics.”

  “Yes! Men like the Templars and Hospitallers. But these were lepers, including many women.”

  “And we all know how irrational women are!” his brother countered with a smile, before continuing, “Besides, I was not just referring to the raid on our siege engines, but to the fact that Ibn Barzan tried to kill me once before in a desperate situation.”

  “At Hattin, yes.”

  “So,” Salah ad-Din shrugged, “I expected it.”

  Loud voices outside the tent disturbed them, and Salah ad-Din looked toward the tent entrance, expecting what followed. One of his Mamlukes bent through the opening and bowed low. “My lord, we have captured one of the Christians alive.”

  “Ibn Barzan?” Salah ad-Din asked hopefully.

  “No, my lord, one of the other knights.”

  “Bring him in.”

  His brother looked at him sidelong, wondering what he would have done if it had been Ibn Barzan.

  The knight had his arms tied behind his back at the elbows, and his ankles had been bound, too, but he still struggled. It took one Mamluke on either side of him to drag him into the tent. The Mamlukes forced him to kneel by kicking the back of his knees, and once he was down, they pushed his head right down into the carpet of the tent and held it there until he was so short of breath he went limp.

  The Sultan gestured for the Mamluke holding his head down to lift up his face, which he did by taking a fistful of the Christian’s hair and yanking the knight upright, holding his head so he looked straight at the Sultan.

  The young man was bleeding from his nose and mouth, and he also had a gash on his forehead, but Salah ad-Din started in surprise. “I’ve seen you before! Who are you?”

  When the young knight didn’t answer, one of his guards kicked him hard in the kidneys.

  He crumpled up with a gasp of pain, and Salah ad-Din frowned and gestured to the Mamluke that that was enough. “Come, tell me who you are.”

  “Sir Gabriel.”

  The name meant nothing to the Sultan, and he racked his memory. Did the boy just resemble one of the Frankish prisoners from Hattin, perhaps? “Who is your father?”

  “Sir Roger Shoreham.”

  That, too, meant nothing to Salah ad-Din. Where else might he have met him? And then it came to him. “You accompanied Ibn Barzan—Baron Ibelin—to Damascus when he came about the truce!”

  It was no longer a question, and Gabriel saw no point in denying it. He nodded.

  “So you are still following Ibn Barzan around. Tell me, was he trying again to kill me?”

  Gabriel decided not to answer that, and was surprised when the Sultan laughed, and then gestured for one of his slaves to bring water. The slave brought it to the Sultan in a silver chalice with a deep bow. Salah ad-Din took the chalice and walked over to Gabriel. “Would you like some water?”

  Gabriel looked him in the eye.

  “You understand the significance?” the Sultan asked.

  Gabriel nodded.

  “So.” Salah ad-Din offered him the chalice. Since his hands were tied, Gabriel would have to bend forward and drink from it like a dog. Gabriel shook his head.

  “If you reject my hospitality, you remain my enemy.”

  “And if I accept, I am your slave,” Gabriel countered.

  Salah ad-Din could see that Gabriel was breathing very had, but he wasn’t sure if it was just the aftereffect of combat, or fear.

  “Unless someone can pay your ransom,” Salah ad-Din countered with an indifferent shrug.

  Gabriel did not doubt that his father would sell everything he owned to pay his ransom, but his father owned little. Lord Balian would pay his ransom, too, but his lord was unlikely to live through tomorrow. Should he trade martyrdom for a few hours of hope and a lifetime of slavery? He shook his head. “There is no one to pay my ransom.”

  “Then you have the choice of slavery or death,” Salah ad-Din answered matter-of-factly.

  Gabriel swallowed. “Make it swift.”

  Salah ad-Din shook his head in incomprehension, but he stepped back and returned the chalice to the slave. “I am sorry. You are a brave man. You would make a fine Mamluke.” Salah ad-Din indicated the guards on either side of him. “If you convert to Islam, you could rise high, maybe even become an emir one day.”

  Gabriel stubbornly shook his head. He was thinking of Daniel. His brother, with one arm rotting away already, had set an example.

  Salah ad-Din sighed again, genuinely sorry to waste such a fine young man, but he had given him a chance and had wasted enough time on him already. He gestured for the Mamlukes to remove him and execute him, adding mercifully, “Make it swift.”

  Jerusalem, September 30, 1187

  The city was no longer defensible, and the sortie of the night before had been crushed by Saracen cavalry almost before they were out of the gate. The only good thing about that was that most of the knights had made it back inside the still-open Jehoshaphat Gate, and the Saracen horsemen foolish enough to pursue were slaughtered in the street before St. Anne’s. Only eight knights were lost.

  That one of those was Sir Gabriel weighed heavily on Balian. He found it nearly impossible to look the young man’s father in the face.

  Roger took the loss with a wooden calm. “No matter, my lord. I will see him all the sooner—should God grant me grace to join him in heaven.” He then crossed himself and pulled on his helmet before shouting at his men to move closer to the breach in the wall. He commanded the troop before the breach and he diligently dressed the lines of the crossbowmen and archers in preparation for the first assault of the day.

  Balian took a deep breath and prepared to put on his helmet as well.

  Someone caught his arm. Annoyed, he turned to see who it was.

  The Patriarch of Jerusalem was beside him. Heraclius might not look as exhausted and filthy as the soldiers, but he had deep, dark circles around his eyes, his lips were chapped, and he looked thinner than a week ago.

  “Your eminence?” Ibelin asked in a tone bordering on mockery. The Saracens were already shouting their battle cries and beating their drums. The first assault wave of what was sure to be many was about to come over the crest of the ruined wall. This was no place for the Patriarch to be, and no time for a discussion.

  “My lord—you must negotiate with Salah ad-Din!”

  “It’s too bloody late!” Ibelin snarled. “You could have negotiated in July! You could have negotiated in August! You could have negotiated ten days
ago! But not now! Not after Salah ad-Din has suffered thousands of casualties and broken down the walls!” Ibelin could not understand how Heraclius failed to grasp this simple fact.

  “Try,” was the churchman’s answer.

  “Try what?”

  “Try to negotiate! Not for my sake, my lord. Nor for the innocent women and children.” He made a dramatic gesture that included the women—who had, strangely, come out again today in force, apparently determined to share martyrdom with their menfolk rather than face a lifetime of sexual abuse, humiliation, and contempt. “Do it for the Holy Sepulcher! Do it for Christ! If they take this city in fury, they will not stop at razing the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. They might very well destroy the Grave of Christ itself!” The churchman’s horror was real. He was shaking with emotion, and his voice was so strained it broke. “Save the Holy Sepulcher from destruction!” he pleaded.

  Ibelin stared at him. Then he crossed himself as he thanked God. Without a word to Heraclius, he turned and started running, gesturing for Sir Mathewos to follow him. They plunged into a side street just as the first wave of Saracens came charging over the pile of rubble.

  “My lord?” Mathewos called, trying to catch up with him. “What is it?”

  “Have Georgios tack up Centurion and a horse for yourself while you secure a large white banner and attach it to a lance.”

  “You’re going to try to negotiate?” Mathewos asked, amazed.

  “Yes! We exit by the Jehoshaphat Gate.”

  Mathewos started running faster, motivated.

  The Ibelin palace was only around the corner, and conditions in the palace were chaotic. It was in range of some of the mangonels, so the staff had set up buckets of water in the courtyard and on the roof to be ready to fight any fires that started. However, only half the staff was still here. Most had joined the defenders, although for the first time Beth was not among them. Beth was trying to comfort Tsion for the loss of Gabriel, and the Ethiopian girl’s keening penetrated to the farthest corner of the house.