A moment later, the knights ahead parted to let Reginald de Sidon through. He rode straight to the King, who stopped to wait for him. “Your grace, we are clear of the city. The road ahead is free.”
“Then let us make for the rendezvous with the Templars,” Baldwin answered, and he sent Misty cantering forward to take his place at the head of his knights.
They reached the rendezvous before dawn, and most men dismounted, stretched out, and tried to catch some sleep, while the squires watered the horses from the well, one creaking bucket at a time. Balian dismounted to give Gladiator some rest, but found it impossible to sleep on the wet ground. Instead he stayed beside Baldwin, who sat staring at the road leading southeast: the road the Templars would take to join them.
Ibrahim was hovering nearby, and once he whispered to Balian, “My master needs his bandages changed and his feet cleaned. It is not good for him to go so long without washing his feet and hands or putting on fresh bandages.”
Balian shook his head. “This once, he must.” Balian did not want the King’s increasingly discolored hands and arms exposed to the knights around him; he feared the sight would dishearten them. Better they saw him only in his beautiful leather gloves and gleaming chain mail.
The sound of Balian and Ibrahim speaking together pierced Baldwin’s consciousness, and he spoke in a low voice into the murky grey of dawn: “My sister is due any day now, and the Count of Flanders wants to impose his own candidate as her next husband.”
Balian was not surprised. The Count of Flanders had come out to Outremer with several hundred knights and the blessings of the Kings of France and England. When he discovered that the Marquis de Montferrat had died unexpectedly, he immediately started scheming to put someone “suitable” into Princess Sibylla’s bed—and onto the throne of Jerusalem. “What does Princess Sibylla say?” Balian asked cautiously.
Baldwin shrugged eloquently, adding, “She does not like Flanders.”
That did not surprise Balian. Although he had not met the Count, Zoë had described him as prim, finicky, self-important, and scheming. She claimed he had refused to lead the combined armies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Greek Empire, and his own substantial force of crusaders into Egypt unless he would be made King of Egypt. The Greek Emperor and the King of Jerusalem, however, naturally felt that since they were providing the bulk of the troops and supplies, they, not Flanders, should gain from any new territories conquered in the course of the campaign.
“He’s not very good-looking,” Baldwin noted, reminding Balian that Sibylla was a very different woman from Zoë—and her reasons for disliking the Count equally different. “And he does not have much respect for me or my Kingdom,” Baldwin added, with a depth of dejection that made Balian stiffen with protectiveness. How dare a Count of Flanders look down on a King of Jerusalem?
“The Templars don’t have much respect for the Kings of Jerusalem, either,” Baldwin continued, in a voice laden with discouragement. “They murdered men to whom my father had given a safe conduct.”
“And they have vowed on the surety of their souls to defend the Holy Land and all Christians,” Balian countered, alarmed by the King’s despondency and his doubts about the Templars—particularly since they echoed his own.
An eloquent snort of disgust came from Reginald de Sidon.
“If they do not come,” the King announced, taking a deep breath and pulling himself upright, “we will follow Salah-ad-Din’s army anyway.”
No one contradicted him. They were committed now. There was no going back.
Balian’s eyes were falling shut, and he started walking to keep himself awake. He paced around their makeshift camp once, twice. . . . As the sky lightened, the horizon became a smudge of gray to the north and west. That seemed odd, his tired brain thought, and then he shook himself awake. That was smoke!
“Your grace!” he turned and called over his shoulder, but Baldwin could spare him no attention. The King was standing and looking toward something in the east, shading his eyes against the sun that had come over the horizon like a blazing chariot. Balian followed his gaze and thought he saw it, too, but he wasn’t sure. Motion? Dust? The glint of sun on chain mail?
“The Templars!” the King decided, with so much relief in his voice that it made the men around him smile, weary as they were.
The men who had been lying down stirred, dragged themselves to their feet, and shaded their own eyes. After another moment, other men started to nod and grunt agreement. Something was definitely coming toward them on the road, but it was too soon to be sure it was the Templars.
Balian went to stand beside Baldwin and remarked softly, “It will be easy to follow Salah-ad-Din’s army.”
Baldwin looked over at him. “What do you mean?”
“It’s burning its way north—and not straight for Jerusalem, either.”
Baldwin absorbed the intelligence calmly, but his face tightened as if he were in pain. After a moment he remarked: “Then it will be slower than we are.”
“It is the Templars, God love ’em!” Reginald de Sidon declared, as if he had not really believed it until this moment.
Balian looked back down the road, and it was now clear: the approaching horsemen were wearing plain white or black surcoats, and the banners fluttering from the raised lances of the bannerets were likewise devoid of color. No Saracen force would have been this sober.
The King gave the order for his knights to mount up, and Balian collected Gladiator from the field where he was grazing hobbled. He untied the hobble, tightened the girth again, and mounted. By the time he returned to the King, it was possible to see that a lone rider was out of formation: Mathewos was riding with the Templars, Balian noted, surprised how glad he was to have the Ethiopian with him again.
Meanwhile the bearded faces of the leading Templar knights were recognizable, and Reginald de Sidon declared, “By all the saints, your grace, that’s Odo de St. Armand himself, the Grand Master. He must have taken reinforcements to Gaza.”
Balian’s encounters with the Grand Master up to now had been brief and not particularly cordial. The Grand Master of the Knights Templar did not think the younger son of a local baron, much less the riding instructor of a leper prince, was a personage of note. St. Armand had always treated Balian as an object, rarely meeting his eyes when they spoke, and dismissing him as he would any other lesser being. But even Balian had to give the Grand Master credit for the immaculate turnout and perfect discipline of the troops he brought to the rendezvous. They trotted forward, four abreast, in perfect blocks of twenty, blocks of knights alternating with blocks of sergeants. Their formation made it easy to count: the Templars had brought two hundred twenty knights and three hundred eighty sergeants, a total of exactly six hundred mounted fighting men. The King now had a force of almost one thousand heavy horse—and, counting the squires, nearly fifteen hundred mounted men-at-arms. Balian felt considerably better about their prospects of survival.
Chapter 10
Ibelin, November 24, 1177
CONTRARY TO EXPECTATIONS, AS BALIAN HAD foretold, Salah-ad-Din had not made straight for Jerusalem. Instead his army had continued north, ravaging a wide swath of land as it advanced. By nightfall it was clear that Ibelin was burning. Balian had no idea where his brother was, but he presumed he was at Ramla, so he asked Baldwin for permission to take some knights to relieve his birthplace. Over the objections of St. Armand and Edessa, who argued that Jerusalem’s forces were too small to split up, the King detailed fifty knights with their squires to go with Balian and see what they could do.
Halfway there, a short rain shower doused the fires ahead and soaked the relief force to the bone. The rain made the road slippery, and the horses were tired after thirty-six hours without proper feed or rest. Gladiator hung his head and snorted repeatedly to indicate he thought he was being abused.
When they reached the town, the smoldering fires indicated it had been overrun by Saracen troops. This was hardly surprisin
g, since the town was not fortified, only enclosed by an earthen wall about ten feet high. This could easily be scaled, since it was not crenelated or supported by flanking towers. It was clear that the enemy had forced the eastern gate, which hung on its hinges, half shattered; beyond this, the eastern portions of the town were smoldering ruins. Deeper into the town, however, the rain had come soon enough for the buildings to remain standing, and from the sounds coming from the city it was evident the Saracens were plundering the houses, dragging furnishings and bedclothes out into the streets, chasing chickens, and smashing barrels, casks, and chests open.
There was no evidence of armed resistance at this point, nor any screams of terror, but Balian could not know if this was because all the inhabitants had already been subdued, or because they had managed to take refuge in the castle.
The castle occupied the northwest corner of the town and had been built on a slight rise that elevated it above the town, which lay on the flat plain at its feet. North and west of the castle the dunes stretched as far as the eye could see except on a very clear day, but east and south of the town lay a fertile valley fed by underground springs. This valley had been turned into a garden by the settlers brought in by Balian’s father, and so the town lay surrounded by olive, pomegranate, and citrus orchards that gradually gave way to vineyards and then wheat fields, now laying fallow.
Lacking a natural escarpment on which to locate the castle, the builders had followed a simple, functional design: a dry ditch surrounded a quadrangle with four corner towers and a main gate facing south, reinforced by a barbican. A drawbridge led across the dry ditch to an outer gatehouse that protected the drawbridge landing, while within the outer wall a square keep loomed up fifteen feet higher than the walls themselves. To Balian’s relief, the keep was still flying the banners of Ibelin. Furthermore, the tall, square bell tower of the basilica of St. George, beside the main market square, was still crowned by a cross. Either the Saracens hadn’t taken the time to tear it down yet or, just possibly, its solid stone exterior and heavy wooden doors were still sheltering those townspeople who had not made it to the castle.
Balian hardly had to give the order. Around him the knights were reaching down to tighten their girths, pulling their helmets over their soggy arming caps, and signaling for their squires to bring up their lances. They had been following Salah-ad-Din’s army for nearly twenty-four hours, and they might be tired, wet, and hungry, but here at last was a chance to hit the enemy—and hit him at almost no risk to themselves. Even the squires were tightening their girths and donning their helmets.
Balian pulled out ahead of the others and waited until the knights stopped fidgeting with their equipment. When they sat still and attentive, he turned back toward Ibelin and raised his arm as he urged Gladiator to a weary jog. When they were roughly five hundred yards from the shattered eastern gate, he dropped his arm and took up a slow, comfortable canter. Behind him the others followed, their horses reviving in the pleasure of the run.
While Balian rode straight for the shattered eastern gate, some of the knights and squires peeled off and rode along the southern wall of the town, making for the south gate. Balian rode through the eastern gate, past buildings little more than charred skeletons with macabre twisted forms inside that might or might not be corpses, past the basilica of St. George, standing like a rock amid the wreckage strewn around it, and then on to the intact part of the city without raising a shout.
The surprise was absolute. One moment the Saracen troops were happily squabbling over the spoils, flinging wine down their throats, and stuffing their tunics with stolen goods—and the next instant, straight out of the smoldering and smoking ruins of the eastern town, massive horses bearing armed men rode them down. Before they could run, lances skewered them. The knights killed with such devastating ease that many lances could be reused twice or even three times. When their lances eventually broke, the Christian knights drew their swords and kept riding, slashing downwards: right, left, and right again.
When the Saracens tried to run out the southern gate, they were met by more mounted Christians with leveled lances. When they tried to seek refuge in the narrow alleys between the houses, thinking the knights would have no room to swing their swords, the Christians’ horses trampled them down with malicious intent. When they tried to hide inside the houses they had plundered, they discovered that the squires had dismounted and were ready to hack them to pieces as they cowered on the beds where—so short a time ago—they had taken delight in raping the girls they found. If any of them escaped, it was by slipping silently out of the still-open gates and hiding in the surrounding orchards until there were no more mounted men scouring the town for prey.
Balian left the mopping-up to the others and returned to the basilica of St. George. He jumped down and hammered on the door with his mailed fist, shouting: “This is Balian d’Ibelin. The town is cleared of Saracens.”
He was greeted by a loud, inarticulate murmur and then the sound of heavy objects being dragged away from the doors. At last the doors swung open and a priest fell on his knees in front of him. “Christ has heard our prayers! Truly, my lord, you are sent from Heaven!” The priest was staring up at him as if he were an angel.
Embarrassed, Balian pulled him to his feet, shocked by how much the parish priest had aged since the last time he had seen him. The priest, who he remembered being a vigorous forty-something, had gone completely white. Balian could not know that it had happened in the last few hours. “We saw the fires, Father Vitus,” he explained simply as the priest embraced him, terror still shaking the older man’s bones. Balian tried to calm him with the firmness of his own clasp. “You’re safe now,” he assured the priest, who had taught him his catechism as a child.
From the interior of the church, townspeople were spilling out into the cool, damp air of the pre-dawn day. The terror of the last hours was still naked on their faces, and one after another they tried to kiss Balian’s hands—or if they could not reach them, the hem of his surcoat. Yet even as they thanked him for their rescue, the sight of the shambles of their town made many break out into tears or cries of lament.
Balian was disquieted by how many were here in the church, which at best offered only temporary refuge. The church had solid, sheer stone walls and only very narrow, high windows, but it housed neither water nor food, and the Muslims were known for setting churches on fire and burning alive those trapped inside. Pulling gently but firmly away from the Syrian women who were still trying to kiss his hands, Balian directed them toward the castle. He remounted and guided Gladiator in the same direction, wondering again where his brother Barry was while his town burned. Hugh and his father, he thought, must be clawing at the roofs of their tombs trying to get out!
Although the Ibelin arms were flying from the keep and the drawbridge over the dry ditch was raised, Balian saw no evidence of defenders on the walls as he rode up to the outer gatehouse that protected the drawbridge landing. This gatehouse was a modest stone building with a flat crenelated roof. As Balian drew up in front of it, a head leaned over the parapet to call down to him, “Who goes?”
Balian recognized the voice of the old gatekeeper and looked up. “Arnulf?”
“Lord Balian? Can it be? Is it really you?”
“Yes, Arnulf, it’s me.”
“Christ be praised! Christ be praised!” The old man at once began waving a torch over his head, and within minutes his signal was answered by the creaking and clanking of the drawbridge being lowered from the barbican opposite. Meanwhile, Arnulf ran down the stairs and came out to grab Balian’s stirrup—saying again, as he held the young knight’s leg in his hands, “Christ be praised!”
“Are you alone in the gatehouse?” Balian asked.
“Of course,” Arnulf answered. “We had to concentrate the men capable of fighting in the castle.”
“Where’s the garrison?” Balian answered.
“My lord Barisan called most of them to muster at Ramla, sir.
He left only ten men here—and they are not the youngest.”
Balian frowned. It was true that Ramla was even less defensible than Ibelin, but no castle could be held without an adequate garrison. Even the highest and sheerest walls could be scaled if there were no one on the ramparts pushing the ladders back, hurling missiles and boiling oil on the besiegers, and ready to meet the assailants with sword, ax, and mace if they made it the top.
“Who’s commanding?” Balian asked next.
“Well, officially the Lady Richildis, of course—”
“Lady Richildis is here?” Balian couldn’t fathom it. His brother had left his wife undefended? He knew Barry and Richildis had become increasingly estranged over the last several years, but it went beyond his comprehension that any nobleman would leave his lady defenseless.
“Yes, my lord—” The drawbridge banged into position, distracting both Balian and the gatekeeper.
Balian leaned down and clasped the old man’s shoulder. “I’ve brought a hundred men and we’ve cleared the town of Saracens, but much of the town is in ruins. The people will need to take refuge here.”
Arnulf nodded. “Of course, my lord. I’ll let them in.”
Balian refrained from pointing out that they should have been let in before the Saracens had destroyed their homes and shops—because whoever had made the decision to raise the drawbridge before the bulk of the townspeople had been given refuge, it was not Arnulf. Balian found it hard to believe that Richildis had given such an order, either. . . .
Balian crossed the drawbridge and rode through the barbican into the ward of Ibelin castle. Here he was met by a crowd of men, many wearing linen aketons and the brimmed metal “kettle” hats of the infantry, although others wore only leather jerkins and were armed with nothing more than clubs and butcher’s knives. They were cheering him and holding their weapons triumphantly in the air as if they had just won a great victory. He cast his gaze farther afield and realized that women and children were pouring out of the outbuildings abutting the outer walls to join in the cheering.
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