The Land Beyond the Sea

by Sharon Kay Penman

  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 Salāh al-Dīn’s men had withdrawn to their tents and their siege engines were not well guarded, for none of them thought civilians would dare to venture beyond their protective walls.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 r
eached 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 Nablu
s 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.