The old knight did not seem at all surprised by the arrival of his lord or his friend. Nor did he stop weeping. Even as Balian laid an arm over his shoulders and Sir Galvin laid a hand on his knee, he did not react in any way. He just kept sobbing, his tears falling on the pavement between his worn boots like heavy drops of rain.
Balian had no idea how long they sat like that. Eventually the tears dried up and the sobs stopped, but Sir Bartholomew did not straighten or lift his head. “I’m nothing but a broken old man,” he told Balian. “A worthless, broken old man.”
Ibelin wanted to assure him that this was not the case, but before he could formulate his thoughts into words, Sir Bartholomew continued. “I intend to stay here, my lord. I don’t want to set foot outside these walls ever again. Maybe if I spend the rest of my days in prayer, I will learn to forgive God what he has done to my daughters and grandchildren. Maybe if I do nothing but fast and pray, I will learn to stop cursing Him. Maybe.”
Ibelin and Sir Galvin exchanged a glance over Sir Bartholomew’s back, and then Ibelin turned to see if the monks had overheard the words.
Instead he heard a loud hammering at the church door and raised voices.
“I’m looking for the Lord of Ibelin!” an imperious voice shouted through the heavy wood as one of the monks hurried by.
Ibelin stood, ordering Sir Galvin to stay with Sir Bartholomew a while longer. “Let him stay the night here, if that’s his wish. We can come again tomorrow or the next day to find out what he really wants.”
Sir Galvin nodded, while the angry man demanding Ibelin pounded more furiously on the outside door.
Ibelin reached the nave of the church as the monk cracked open the door to ask what was going on. “The King of England commands the Lord of Ibelin’s presence at once! I’ve been looking all over for him!” the angry messenger shouted at the innocent monk.
“I’m here,” Ibelin answered, slipping out of the church door and back into the streets. By now there was a lurid light over part of the town, suggesting that someone had set something on fire. The shouting coming from that section of town was both angry and frantic, a combination of aggression and panic.
“We can ride double!” The man who’d fetched him indicated a tethered horse that was already skittish from the smell of smoke and the flickering light rising from the fires to the northwest.
Ibelin did not object. He could well imagine it had taken more time to find him than the King of England expected, and he was likely to be displeased. Fortunately, the horse the messenger was riding was a sturdy and powerful mount capable of carrying two, at least the short distance to the royal palace.
Torches were burning in abundance at the king’s headquarters, and there seemed to be more people coming and going than usual—but that was hardly surprising given the circumstances. Ibelin’s escort was apparently well known, however, for they were readily granted admission and were soon pounding up the shallow limestone stairs two at a time. Ibelin was led down a long corridor, and finally at the end of a hall, double doors were thrown open and he was waved inside.
As was to be expected, the King of England was not alone, but nor was this a council of war similar to the one held in the French King’s tent at the time of the surrender of Acre. There were less than twenty men here, and nearly half of them were prelates. Of the commanders, Burgundy, Champagne, Leicester, and the Lusignans stood out, as well as Sablé, already wearing the robes of the Templar Master, and the Hospitallers’ new Master, Garnier de Nablus, as well. Curiously, Humphrey de Toron was also here, looking like a whipped dog, Balian thought.
As Ibelin entered, the Plantagenet was prowling the room like a caged lion, growling and snarling, while the bishops sat on edge looking even more nervous and ill at ease than the fighting men. At the sight of Ibelin, the Lionheart stopped and fired words at him as readily as he might have fired a crossbow. “Ibelin! We’ve been waiting for you. I want your opinion. Is the Sultan’s claim that he can’t find twenty-five hundred Frankish captives credible?”
“Not in the least,” Ibelin answered without hesitation, and he was gratified to see both Garnier de Nablus and Robert de Sablé nod agreement. “I estimate that more than thirty thousand Franks were taken captive after Hattin. While they will be dispersed across the Sultan’s territories, and some will have been sold to the Bedouins, it should not be difficult to pull together a tenth of that number.”
The King of England snapped at the embarrassed-looking English bishops. “See! Just what I told you! Now,” he swung back on Ibelin, “what happens to the captives if we kill the hostages?”
Taken aback by the abruptness of the question, Ibelin started slightly. He looked around at the other faces; all gazed back at him expectantly. Rather than answering immediately, he asked cautiously, “My lord King? Did I understand you correctly? You intend to slaughter the hostages?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” the Plantagenet growled back. “But it’s a possibility. First of all, I don’t like being treated like a fool who can be cheated, tricked, and mocked. The Sultan needs to learn that Richard Plantagenet is a man he has to take seriously. Second, I can’t waste any more time here in Acre; I need to open the campaign to retake Jerusalem, and that means taking the army down the coast. I can’t spare men to guard twenty-five hundred Saracen fighting men on the march, and leaving them here would be inviting a Saracen attack at my back to free them and regain Acre. Third, there is the small issue of the slaughter of 250 helpless Templars and Hospitallers, which should not be completely ignored as if we did not care about our own men. Fourth, the siege of Acre has cost Christendom heavily. I’ve been told that no less than six archbishops, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, twelve bishops, forty counts, and upwards of five hundred other noblemen, have died in the siege of Acre, while thousands of good Christians of humble birth have given their lives. Last—and most important—because of those losses and the Sultan’s broken promises, those men out there are furious and need an outlet for their anger.” He pointed toward the windows lit up by the orange glow of fire, although it appeared a darker shade now, as if the fires were being put out. “We don’t want the troops to take out their fury on the innocent people of Acre, do we? No, we don’t,” he answered himself, “and we don’t want them killing each other, either. I say the rightful outlet for their anger is the Saracens, who not only pray to a false God but follow a deceitful and duplicitous Sultan. Now, my lord of Ibelin, I want an answer from you: what will the Sultan do to the captives if we kill the hostages?”
After the arguments just listed for the execution of the hostages, Ibelin was amazed that the English King had given any thought at all to the fate of the captives. For that he was grateful.
“Well?” the English King demanded impatiently.
“My lord, the bulk of the captives are women and children, and they are by and large the property of various subjects of the Sultan. He will have had to pay compensation to their respective owners to take away their property. If they have lost their value to him as a means of regaining the hostages, he will be anxious to avoid the expense of paying for them; he will return them to their respective owners.”
“You don’t think he would slaughter them in revenge?”
Ibelin thought hard, knowing how much hung on what he was about to say. When he answered, he glanced at Toron. “I’m not saying the Sultan is not capable of such an act of barbarism. He burned the women and children of his Sudanese guard alive in their homes—and then broke his word to their men as well, slaughtering them after they had surrendered their arms and left Cairo—”
“You say that about a man who treated you so chivalrously!” Humphrey de Toron burst out angrily. “Tell King Richard how he treated you after you broke your word to him!” Toron added challengingly.
The crusaders swung their attention from one “poulain” to the other, evidently entertained by the tension between Ibelin and Toron.
“I doubt the King of England is terrib
ly interested in the courtesies the Sultan showed a princess of the Greek Imperial family,” Ibelin answered evenly. “The point is that the Sultan is capable of slaughtering women and children and of butchering helpless prisoners. But he is also capable of restraint. It depends entirely on where he sees his self-interest in a particular situation. My estimate, my lord,” Ibelin turned his attention away from Toron to again address the English King, “is that Salah ad-Din would rather restore the slaves to their owners and spare his treasury the costs of compensation—but I could be wrong.”
Richard Plantagenet met his eyes and held them for a moment. Then he nodded grimly. “We execute them tomorrow in full view of Salah ad-Din’s army. We’ll need troops to hold back any attempt by Salah ad-Din’s troops to rescue them, and we’ll need volunteers to carry out the executions. I will not order any man to kill unarmed prisoners.” The last remark was directed at his bishops, who were shaking their heads and looking distressed.
The response of the fighting men was more relieved than censorious. “I don’t think you’ll lack for volunteers,” Burgundy remarked dryly, and Leicester nodded agreement.
“And you, my lord of Ibelin, where will you be?” King Richard asked provocatively.
“On my knees praying that I am right, your grace.”
Chapter 15
Coast of the Levant, August/September 1191
THE FRANKISH ARMY, HAVING ASSEMBLED OUTSIDE of Acre, set off in marching order to regain Jaffa on the eve of the feast of Saint Bartholomew. Neither Balian nor Sir Galvin had been able to dissuade Sir Bartholomew from remaining behind in the monastery of St. Sebastian at Acre. He was, after all, over seventy, and he deserved his rest. Balian would have felt easier, however, had he believed the old knight would indeed be happier praying rather than fighting. . . .
The King of England had taken considerable care in the deployment of his polyglot troops. The King’s standard, raised on a mast and set on a wheeled platform covered with iron (to protect it from Greek fire) was guarded by an elite squadron of knights and marked the center of the entire force. The battalions, made up of men speaking the same tongue under their respective bannerets, marched in blocks, with the archers and footmen on the landward (eastward) side, protecting the knights, who in turn protected the baggage train, which trundled along the coastal road with the sea on their right to the west.
This was a sensible modification of the typical marching formation of the Franks. Prior to Hattin, the knights in Outremer rode in the middle of a square, completely surrounded by infantry. But that formation presupposed ready access to provisions at regular intervals and hence no need for a cumbersome baggage train. With the loss of the Kingdom and so the castles and cities at which the army had replenished supplies, they needed to take their provisions with them. This circumstance dictated the English King’s formation, and Ibelin was impressed that King Richard also ordered his fleet to sail down the coast within sight and signal range of the land army.
The Templars and Hospitallers alternated in the positions of vanguard and rear guard. Immediately following the van came the Angevin and Gascon troops of the English King, then King Guy and his brothers with the Poitevins, followed by the English and Normans, who usually defended the royal standard. The Italians and natives of Outremer came next, led by the remaining barons of the lost Kingdom, including Ibelin, Sidon, Haifa, Caesarea, Hebron, and Galilee. The larger part of the second half of the army was composed of the French and Flemings, supplemented by the smaller contingents of Danes, Frisians, Czechs, Hungarians, and what was left of the Germans.
On the second day of the march, the army had to pass through a defile where the mountains pressed in on the road for roughly two miles, narrowing it to the width of a single cart or three knights side by side. Because they were familiar with the route and knew this was coming, the commanders from Outremer interspersed the knights and infantry with the baggage, so that each cart was protected by on average six knights and a two dozen infantry.
They were already several miles beyond this bottleneck when Haifa, commanding the last block of troops from Outremer, saw the French knights following him suddenly reverse direction and start galloping to the north again. He sent word of what had happened to the Normans around the standard, and one of the Norman knights galloped forward to inform the King of England, who was riding with the van. In less than a half-hour, the King of England came galloping past the rest of the army with forty knights of his mobile reserve.
The knights and men of Outremer held to their positions doggedly and continued marching southwards. They were relieved when a couple hours later the English King and his knights trotted back toward the front of the column, looking no less numerous than when they’d galloped north. It was only when they made camp that night that they learned how close the Saracens had come to cutting the army in two. It seemed that the French under the Duke of Burgundy had sent their knights through the defile first, followed by the infantry and then the baggage. The result was that the knights got far ahead of the infantry, and the baggage train, lacking leadership, snarled itself hopelessly. Saracen scouts had reported the situation, and Turkish cavalry had swept down upon the French baggage train. The slaughter and plunder had been going on for some time before the French leadership realized what was happening and sent knights back to extricate the baggage.
Ibelin was not present at the meeting between the King of England and the Duke of Burgundy, but the latter returned to his troops flushed and grim-faced. Thereafter the formation was better maintained, and the army moved forward in short, easy stages. Which is not to say the march was uneventful. They were frequently harassed by small bands of Saracens that darted out from the larger mass of enemy forces shadowing the Frankish host. The main body of the enemy moved at the same pace as the Franks just a few miles further inland, but light Turkish cavalry took advantage of their mobility to launch repeated niggling attacks. They employed the typical Turkish tactic of riding within bow range and firing off their missiles, only to spin about and gallop away if anyone challenged them.
King Richard gave very strict orders not to break ranks, and warned that any knight who disobeyed would be stripped of his horse and spurs and forced to walk with the baggage train. The archers were given permission to return fire, but only if the enemy was well within range and if they could keep up with their troop. This meant that if they stopped to fire, they had to run to catch up again. The result was an army that kept plodding forward with arrows sticking out of the armor of the knights, the trappers of the horses, and the shields of the infantry. From above, it would have looked like a giant caterpillar bristling with stiff hairs.
Of course, some men were poorly armored or unlucky enough to take an arrow in a vulnerable spot. Furthermore, the farther the army advanced, the more the enemy risked coming in close. At times they fired at ranges that could penetrate even the best armor. Casualties started to mount, but King Richard repeated his orders not to be provoked. It helped that he had also provided for mobile first aid in the form of wagons with medical supplies manned by brothers of the Hospital, and that the seriously injured were taken out to one of the galleys that served as a floating hospital.
Ibelin noted, however, that the attacks never came near to the intensity of the attacks on his rear guard during the march to Hattin. By comparison, these were nothing more than annoying attempts at provocation. The great mass of the army was more tormented by marching in the heat of a Palestinian summer than by the Saracens. Quite a few of the crusaders succumbed to heat stroke and had to be carried on the baggage carts until they recovered, often to the derision of the local men. At night, when they camped, it was the tarantulas and scorpions that plagued the army. Once the crusaders discovered tarantulas could be scared away with loud noises, there was never a peaceful night thereafter. The men of Outremer, on the other hand, were much more disturbed by the density of the scrub brush that had grown over the road as they approached Caesarea. Remembering how busy the road h
ad been and the traffic it had once supported, its present state of neglect depressed them.
Caesarea itself was even worse. Unlike Acre, Salah ad-Din had not placed a garrison here, and so there had been no attempt to preserve the substance of the city. On the contrary, the Sultan had demolished the walls and towers and set fire to the houses, leaving them gutted and filled with blowing ashes and charred, collapsed beams. Although the Roman aqueduct that brought water nine miles from the Crocodile River to the city had not been demolished, the harbor had been scandalized, with a large ship carrying stones sunk in the inner harbor to choke it up and close it to shipping. The English fleet had to offload on the back side of the mole.
Ibelin had been skeptical about this operation at first, because the English fleet had a dubious reputation at best. It was common knowledge that it had been late for its rendezvous with the English King (who had travelled over land to Marseilles) because the sailors had run riot in Lisbon while stopping there to take on water. Their rampage had been so excessive and caused so much damage that the authorities had thrown the bulk of the sailors in jail. The commanders had been forced to pay large ransoms to get their crews released.
At Caesarea, however, the English sailors managed to offload supplies from the off side of the quay with remarkable efficiency. This was important because by then the army had been on the march ten days, and men carried only ten days’ rations in their kit. Most men’s rations were thus running short. The arrival of the English fleet with both food and reinforcements met with great enthusiasm, and the bulk of the army crowded the little harbor, tripping over each other in their eagerness to get their share.
Ibelin chose not to take part in that free-for-all, and instead sent his men in search of fresh vegetables in the abandoned gardens beyond the walls. Because of the aqueduct, Caesarea had previously produced a surplus of a variety of vegetables in irrigated fields. Ibelin’s men found that although the gardens had gone wild and were overgrown with weeds, they could still harvest beans, watermelons, and cucumbers.
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