Sir Bartholomew nodded dazed. They’d docked with the morning tide and it had not yet struck Terce, so it made sense that his grandson was at his lessons with Lords John, Philip, and Balduin.
Sir Bartholomew mounted the stone stairs that clung to the wall of the interior courtyard leading to the screened passage before the great hall, and then climbed the interior wooden stairs to the second floor. He followed the sound of children’s voices competing with one another for attention, and heard the low voice of Father Michael admonishing them to speak one at a time. Outside the door to the improvised schoolroom, he paused and took a deep breath, but his heart was racing and his breathing was shallow. He reached for the handle and only slowly depressed the grip. He gently pushed the door inward, holding his breath unconsciously. As the crack opened, it revealed first Margaret sitting with her arms around her knees, looking rather bored, and then Philip, waving his arm in agitated insistence on attention. Then—it was Joscelyn!
Sir Bartholomew could restrain himself no longer. He burst into the room, his eyes fixed on his grandson as he called out, “Joscelyn!” Joscelyn was big and strong and healthy! He was beautiful! He was perfect! He was alive and free!
And he was staring at his grandfather in fright.
“Joscelyn! Don’t you recognized me? It’s Grandpapa!”
Joscelyn got respectfully to his feet, but there was no joy on his face. He just stood with his hands at his sides—trembling.
Ramla, December 12, 1191
The Sultan had withdrawn toward the north, disbanding much of his army. What he left behind was sheer wreckage. Ibelin had almost not been able to identify which pile of rubble had once been his brother’s lovely house. Only the marble paving stones of the entry hall and the first three steps of the stairway remained in place. The steps led to nothing but broken masonry, shattered tiles, and glass. The wreckage smothered all that had once lived here in rubbish, dust, and ruin.
Rather than living in his brother’s home as he had expected to do, Ibelin and his men were forced to strike camp on the plain to the east along with the rest of the Frankish army. Here he encountered outright hostility from the English and Normans nearest the town. Someone called out, “There goes Balian d’Ibelin, as treacherous as a gobelin!” The English and Normans laughed, while a mutter of anger spread through the ranks of his own men. Ibelin was shocked by the hostility of King Richard’s men and wondered if he was really welcome. He led his men to set up their tents beside the Templars instead.
They found themselves in what had once been an orchard. The Saracens had chopped down the trees, leaving the stumps. That made it hard to find a level place to erect a tent, much less a place to lie down. Furthermore, because of the recent rains, the plain was a morass of mud, made even more unpleasant by temperatures that hovered only a few degrees above freezing. Men and horses were miserable, the days dark and dingy, and morale mirrored the heavens that sporadically spat snow flurries on them.
Ibelin’s tent offered only moderate protection against the wind, and the fire inside struggled in the drafts, blowing the smoke first in one direction and then the next. All his twenty-eight knights and their squires were crowded inside, as much for the warmth of huddling together as for any camaraderie or comfort. They had broken into a new cask of wine, and the squires were squirting the wine into one mug after another and passing the mugs around.
“What’s the point of camping here and freezing our asses off?” Sir Galvin growled generally.
“Now that Salah ad-Din has disbanded most of his army, isn’t it the moment to strike?”
“In this weather? You’ve gone soft in the head!”
“My lord!” It was the sentry at the door.
“Yes?” Ibelin roused himself.
“There’s a monk here looking for you.”
“Send him in.”
“He says he doesn’t want to come in, my lord.”
With a sigh, Ibelin got to his feet and weaved his way between his men, stepping over their outstretched legs to reach the exit. It was close to sunset, and the sky to the west burned an ominous blood red as the sun shot rays through a brief rip in the cloud cover. Ibelin looked around, bewildered, before the sentry pointed to a hooded figure hovering a few yards away.
“Brother?” Ibelin addressed him as he approached the monk.
The man turned, his face still shrouded in the shadows of his hood, and Ibelin felt an instinctive sense of alarm. The monk stood with his hands and arms stuffed up the opposite sleeves. It would be so easy for one of those hands to hold a knife.
“It’s me, Balian.” The deep voice of Sir Bartholomew blew out of the folds of his hood with a billow of freezing breath.
“Merciful heaven, Bart! What are you doing here still in the robes of a monk? You’re welcome to join us anytime, if you want to take up arms again—” “That’s not why I’m here. I’ve brought you intelligence,” Sir Bartholomew interrupted, “but it is something I prefer to share with your ears alone. Will you walk with me?”
Ibelin could think of many things he would prefer to do at dusk on this dreary winter day, but if Sir Bartholomew had come all the way from Acre to tell him something, he had no right to deny him an audience. Ibelin nodded stiffly, and Sir Bartholomew indicated with an inclination of his head that they should walk toward the periphery of the camp. Ibelin fell in beside him, and they did not speak until they had put the last of the tents and campfires several yards behind them.
“Did your lady write about my grandson?” Sir Bartholomew asked at last.
Ibelin hesitated. “My lady did mention in her last letter that a boy claiming to be your grandson—”
“Oh, it’s him . . . and by all that is holy, I wish it weren’t!” Sir Bartholomew cried out in anguish.
That startled Ibelin, and he protested, “But Maria Zoё said he looked healthy and strong. No trace of ill treatment.”
“No,” Sir Bartholomew admitted. “No, they did not abuse him. They bought his soul with flattery and kindness instead.”
So Maria Zoë had been right, Balian thought. “He’s a Mamluke?”
“Lord Balian! You should have heard him! He called his mother a whore! A ‘filthy Christian pig’—and he told me he never wanted to see her again—or me.”
Ibelin heard the misery in the old man’s voice, and he felt helpless. He opened his arms and drew the old man into his embrace, but Sir Bartholomew remained stiff, cold, and unresponsive. Balian released his hold, since it was bringing no comfort, and took a deep breath. “If he wanted nothing more to do with you, why did he run away?”
“He didn’t. He was sent by al-Adil.”
Ibelin drew a sharp breath, Maria Zoë’s warnings in his ear. “To kill me?”
“No, just to spy on you—at least for the time being. Who knows when new orders might have come in later?”
“How did you get that out of him?” Ibelin asked, startled less by the content of his words than the fact that he had gained the intelligence.
“Jesus wept!” the old man cried out, loud enough to carry to the edge of the camp, and some of the Templars turned to look at the two cloaked figures silhouetted against the last remnants of the dusk. “He’s only ten! They sent a boy to do a man’s job, and he got so wound up telling me how important he was and how much better off he was. He scoffed at his older brothers, sneering at them for being slaves—as if he weren’t! In his eyes, he—Joscelyn—is going to be a great emir, while his brothers, he said, got what they deserved, as slaves to a carpetmaker and a farrier respectively. He said that was the best they could ever be, because they were “idiots” believing in “idols” and “worshiping vile women!” Balian, he called us all fools for being “polytheists,” while he has found the True—” Sir Bartholomew’s brittle composure broke and he doubled over, clutching his stomach in agony.
This time when Balian took him in his arms, he sagged into them, shaking with silent sobs. Balian held him, while the wind whipped their cloaks in
the gathering gloom, and then he slowly led Sir Bartholomew, still doubled over in pain, back toward the camp.
Before they entered the Ibelin tent, however, Sir Bartholomew righted himself and balked. “No. I’m not going in there. I can’t face the others.”
“You can’t stay out here!” Balian protested. “You’re half frozen as it is! You need to sleep by a fire and have a hot meal and wine. I can have Georgios mull some wine over the fire for you.”
“Balian.” The old man dropped all titles, and Balian remembered when he had been more a mentor than a vassal. “What are we fighting for? Don’t you see there’s no point anymore? Look around you! This was the most fertile of Barry’s estates. Now it’s a wasteland. Everything from Beirut to Ascalon is a wasteland! The sand dunes are seeping inland from the sea, and the desert is spreading down from the mountains. We built a kingdom on sand, Balian, on sand and dust! In just four years, there is hardly any trace of us ever being here!”
Balian didn’t agree. He couldn’t afford to. “Bart, I understand how you feel, but your grief is blinding you. Nothing has been destroyed that cannot be rebuilt. We can irrigate again. We can drive back the desert. The trees have been cut down, but not uprooted. They will bear fruit again. We can make these valleys bloom again.”
Sir Bartholomew just stared at him with dull eyes. “Maybe—but you can’t give my daughters back their dignity, my granddaughters their virtue, or my grandsons their innocence and faith. This is a futile war, my lord. A futile waste of good lives. I hope you don’t lose yours fighting it, for I know you are a good man. When you next write to her, give your lady my best regards as well. Now I will bed down with the Templars. They will give a monk food and shelter without asking questions.” He turned and retraced his steps for several yards before heading back toward the Templar pickets. Balian watched him go, feeling chilled to the bone. By the time he started for his own tent, he had numbed feet.
Beit Nuba, Palestine, January 1192
They waited almost six weeks outside of Ramla, while King Richard rounded up stragglers and deserters and (more important) collected supply wagons and supplies. Throughout those weeks the Saracens harassed them relentlessly, particularly anyone who dared to forage for their horses. Various skirmishes developed and there had been steady casualties, but what distressed Ibelin most was the deteriorating weather and the state of the horses. There was inadequate fodder and the horses, particularly the draft horses, were slowly starving to death.
Shortly after Christmas (celebrated in damp misery outside of Ramla), the army received the order to pull out and advance toward Jerusalem. The effect on morale was astonishing. Suddenly the masses of common soldiers took an interest in their clothes and equipment again. Chain mail that had been rusting for weeks was scrubbed clean, leather cuirasses were oiled and waxed, quilted aketons were brushed, and swords sharpened, bows restrung. They even managed to form up in a semblance of order, and they marched that day with purpose and pride, often bursting spontaneously into hymns.
Their high spirits lasted until the next torrential rainstorm hit. This broke over them with so much violence that it swept some of the wagons right off the road, while others became helplessly mired. Horses and mules broke their legs in the chaos and had to be put down. Even men sometimes became so mired in the mud they could not pull themselves free, and lay whimpering in misery until their comrades freed them. Many of the supplies were lost or simply ruined by the rain. As night fell, the rain turned to sleet. The ice storm that night killed hundreds of the already weakened pack and draft horses, and scores of men as well.
As dawn broke, a strong patrol of Turkish cavalry attacked the already lamed army. The Earl of Leicester counterattacked and enjoyed initial successes until the Saracens were reinforced. At that point the Earl of Leicester was unhorsed and many of his men could fight no longer. Fortunately, Andrew de Chavigny rode to his relief, and the Saracens were at last driven off. The English celebrated a victory, but the draft horses were still dead, the supplies soggy slops, and the weather showed little sign of improving.
The humble size of his company and the fact that it was made up of natives were clear advantages for Ibelin. To be sure, they lost one of the destriers in the ice storm when he panicked at a loud noise, fell on the ice, and shattered his knee. They lost two draft horses when the wagon ahead of them abruptly broke an axle and casks of wine crashed down on them, crushing one outright and injuring the other so badly he had to be put out of his agony. But they lost no men, because the natives from Outremer knew Palestinian winters and had come prepared with boots, mittens, and vests lined with sheepskin, as well as woolen shirts and hose. Ibelin had also had the foresight to bring horse blankets, and these had prevented the exhausted draft and packhorses from freezing to death during the night, while keeping the worst of the sleet and rain off their provisions as well.
Despite the lack of casualties, however, morale had reached a low point, and Ibelin heard more and more of his men murmuring about the campaign being pointless. Men also wanted to know where King Richard was; the fact that he was “raiding” and occasionally brought cattle or camels back as loot no longer satisfied anyone.
The bulk of the army straggled into Beit Nuba on the last day of 1191. The Templars had a commandery here, occasionally known as the Castle of the Baths or just the Castle of the Templars. It had been built on the foundations of a Roman fort and was square and regular in plan, with an extensive bath complex that had been restored and well maintained by the Templars. The Saracens had evidently used it as their command post, and it had not been damaged. Because the Templars had formed the vanguard of the army, they had already reoccupied their commandery and had been at Beit Nuba when the sleet and ice storm hit; they suffered no casualties.
Grand Master Robert de Sablé was both shocked and horrified by the state of the main army as it limped, staggered, and dragged itself into Beit Nuba. Catching sight of Ibelin among the other native contingents, he hurried over to speak with him. “What has happened?” he asked anxiously.
Ibelin told him.
“Please. As soon as you have settled in, join me at the commandery,” he urged, and Ibelin nodded glumly.
An hour later Balian was being served hot mulled wine, spiced with cinnamon and cloves and thickened with prune pulp, by a Templar brother. A fire was thundering in the large fireplace, consisting of what looked like the trunk of a tree lying on a base of substantial branches, while twigs and pine cones crackled in the cracks, throwing flames upward. The windows of the room were glazed, and the shutters had been closed over them to help keep the heat inside. As a result, the room was cozy. To Ibelin it felt like the first time he’d been warm in six weeks.
“My lord, thank you for coming. I’ve asked Garnier de Nablus to join us as well,” Sablé announced. Nablus was the Master of the Hospital. Ibelin nodded warily, wondering what this was about.
He did not have to wait long. Nablus arrived, looking chilled through. He removed his wet cloak and handed it to an attentive Templar brother, then went to warm his hands over the fire. The hair fringing his tonsure was turning gray, Ibelin noted, thinking that he didn’t remember it that way.
“King Richard has intelligence that Salah ad-Din has occupied Jerusalem with a strong body of troops, presumably his own Mamlukes.”
“So it’s true,” Nablus muttered, looking grim.
“Yes. He’s taken firm control of the city and is preparing for a siege. My lord of Ibelin, no one knows better than you how defensible Jerusalem is. Can you give us your assessment of whether Salah ad-Din can hold Jerusalem against this army?”
“As we are now?” Ibelin answered a little incredulously.
Master de Sablé nodded solemnly.
“Of course he can!” Ibelin answered conclusively. “Even if he has only his personal bodyguard and that of his brother, that’s close to five thousand crack, battle-hardened fighting men, absolutely devoted to him. That’s five thousand more than what I had!�
�� Ibelin added, on the brink of sounding bitter. He swallowed down his emotions and tried to be more objective. “Furthermore, there are no refugees in the city. My understanding is that Salah ad-Din only partially resettled the city, mostly with religious scholars in his new madrassas. Some Syrian Christians have also returned and resumed their trades, but it’s a ghost town for the most part. That means he doesn’t have a lot of useless mouths to feed, he’s got ample supplies of water as these rains replenish all the cisterns, and unless he’s been totally negligent—which Salah ad-Din is not—he’ll have packed the storerooms with food, weapons, and ammunition. Ever since the King of France landed last spring, he’s known we would eventually make for Jerusalem. He will have prepared carefully and well for a siege.”
“Are you saying we have no chance of taking Jerusalem?” Sablé asked, shocked. He had wanted to hear Ibelin’s opinion, but he had not expected an assessment as negative as this.
Ibelin shrugged. “We are in God’s hands. If He so chooses, we can still take Jerusalem. Plague might break out, or the Sultan could fall ill of a fever and die. Maybe there will be a revolt in Egypt, and Salah ad-Din will decide to sacrifice Jerusalem for Cairo. I’m not a prophet, my lord.”
Sablé turned to his fellow Grand Master. “And you, Garnier?” he asked, in a tone that suggested the men had become friends over the last months.
Nablus took a deep breath, looked hard at Ibelin with an expression that was anything but kindly, but nodded and admitted, “Ibelin’s right. Short of a miracle, we cannot take Jerusalem—certainly not with that rabble out there. Most of those men have come to pray at the Holy Sepulcher and then go home! Let’s suppose for a moment that we actually succeeded; what then? Nine-tenths of the men out there will say their prayers at the grave of Christ, and then rush back to Acre and Tyre to spend the rest of the winter with whores before taking the first ships out come spring. The only men who are going to stay here and defend Jerusalem, should it ever be taken, are represented here in this room: the Hospitallers, the Templars, and the men of Outremer.”
Envoy of Jerusalem Page 51