So many of the townsfolk had made it to the castle after all, he registered, but they appeared completely disorganized and leaderless. With this many men inside the castle, they should have been manning the walls. There were crossbows in the armory for just that purpose. If Roger Shoreham had been in command here, he thought, the walls would have been bristling with defenders discouraging any attack. Under the circumstances, it was a wonder that the Saracens had turned to plundering the town rather than taking the chance to seize the castle. Balian was ashamed to think that Barry had neglected Ibelin to this extent; clearly he had not even given orders to the townsmen about what to do in an emergency. If Hugh had been alive . . . The image of his dead brother trying to escape his grave again flitted through his head.
Someone recognized him despite the darkness and started chanting, “Ibelin! Ibelin! It’s the young lord.” A moment later the crowd pressed in so close that they blocked his way to the keep.
“The town is cleared of Saracens,” he called out to calm them.
“Are the Saracens gone for good?” someone asked.
“God alone knows, but the King is pursuing them with a thousand heavy horse.”
“Praise be to God!” “God bless him!” “God save Jerusalem!” they exclaimed in chorus. But then someone started shouting, “We were betrayed!” and others echoed him: “Aye, my lord! The Muslims opened the southern gate!”
The town of Ibelin had been built at the foot of the castle, and the bulk of the population was composed of Christian settlers. However, the original village around which the town had grown had been a mixture of Muslims and Orthodox Christians. A mosque, near the southern gate, had been allowed to operate for as long as Balian could remember, and the relations between the townspeople had, at least in Hugh’s time, been harmonious.
“If that is true, they will be punished,” Balian promised. “Now let me through,” he ordered, and the refugees parted so he could ride to the foot of the keep.
The entrance was twelve feet over his head, and could only be gained by an external staircase that led to a wooden footbridge in front of the door. This had been raised to cover the door, providing extra protection from arrows, while leaving a six-foot gap between the top of the stairs and the doorstep.
Balian dismounted, turning Gladiator’s reins over to one of the men in the ward, and started up the stairs. Even before he reached the top, the footbridge dropped into place and a voice called out: “Christ in Heaven! Lord Balian! Where did you come from? I thought you were trapped in Ascalon, surrounded by ten thousand Saracen!” The speaker was Sir Giles, one of the ten knights that owed homage to the Baron d’Ibelin. He had served Balian’s father as squire in his time, and must be nearly seventy years of age by now.
“I was. We sortied out of Ascalon, joined forces with the Templars from Gaza, and are now following in the wake of Salah-ad-Din’s army and blocking the road to Jerusalem. Where is the garrison, and why weren’t more townspeople given refuge in the castle?” Balian answered as he reached the top of the stairs.
“They took us by surprise, my lord. We didn’t realize what was happening until they were already in the town—by the southern gate. The gate was either left open by mistake, or someone opened it to them. They cut the whole eastern half of the town off from the castle and we—we were lucky to get the drawbridge up before they swarmed across. I had to think of my lady.”
Balian could hear the panic in the old man’s voice. He believed that if the walls had been adequately defended, the garrison, such as it was, could have provided covering fire to enable many more people to get inside. But he bit off his retort. There was no point in lecturing the old man. Sir Giles should never have been left in command of Ibelin’s garrison. Period.
Balian changed the subject. “Our horses have been without feed or rest for two days. They need both. Go down and prepare to receive the rest of my men. We’re a hundred strong.” Without awaiting an answer, Balian ducked into the great chamber.
The cook and several of the household clerks were just inside the door, manning the footbridge, and they clapped him on the back, thanking and blessing him as he entered. But Balian’s eyes were already searching the far side of the room, where the women of the household were gathered together in an agitated bevy. All the shutters had been closed and there were only a couple of torches, so Balian could not at once identify his sister-in-law. He called for her, “Richildis?”
“Balian? Is it really you?” She broke away from the other women and ran to him. “Thank God!” Richildis was in his arms. “And thank you! It’s twice as far from Ascalon as Ramla!” Richildis was trembling in his embrace, just as Father Vitus had done, but then she gasped and drew back. “My God! Balian! Where are you wounded?” She stared in horror at his drenched surcoat and the smears of blood now down the front of her gown as well.
“None of it’s mine,” Balian assured her.
But the terror and tension broke out of his sister-in-law in a flood of tears. She wiped at her eyes irritably, but her body was racked with sobs. Balian pulled her back into his arms and held her firmly. “It’s all right, Hilde. You’re safe now.”
“It was horrible!” She broke down completely. “We could hear the girls screaming for help, and there was nothing we could do! Screaming and screaming— And we didn’t know when they would get to us, or if help was on the way—”
“Hush. It’s all over.” Balian rubbed her back with his hand as her waiting woman, Gudrun, came up beside her and joined Balian in cooing comfort. Gudrun had been middle-aged when Richildis married Barry, and she was now old enough to be a grandmother. Richildis had been more a daughter to her than a mistress.
Fortunately the old steward, whom Balian had known all his life, had also emerged out of the shadows, and it was to him that Balian now turned, his arm still around Richildis. “I have a hundred men with me, and we need rest and food—as do our horses. The horses first and foremost. Also, half the town is in ruins, and I’ve told the townspeople to come here.”
“Of course,” the steward answered, at once dispensing orders to the cook to prepare a meal for Balian’s men, sending a page down to tell the grooms to look after the horses, and ordering the laundry women to set up an infirmary for the injured.
Gudrun leaned closer to Balian and whispered in his ear. “Forgive her, my lord. It’s her fear for her daughter that has so distraught her. Let me see to her now, and you can come up later.”
“Her daughter?” Balian asked as he let Gudrun gently pull Richildis out of his arms. “You can’t mean Eschiva is here?”
Gudrun nodded, pointing to the ceiling. “Just up there.”
As daylight broke over Ibelin, the townspeople who still had homes worked to remove the dead Saracens and scratch together their belongings. Those without homes took over the task of burying the enemy dead—after removing any valuables they found on the Saracen corpses, of course. The knights and squires of Balian’s party, meanwhile, gathered in the castle for a meal that was still in the making. Their horses milled about in the ward, relieved of their saddles and bridles for the first time in thirty-six hours, while the overwhelmed castle grooms pitched hay out to them by the bale and left them to feed and water themselves. Most of the men had stretched out on the floor of the hall for some needed sleep, while waiting for Ibelin’s cooks to produce something edible.
Balian, however, climbed the interior stairs from the great chamber to the second floor of the keep, where Richildis had taken refuge. At the sight of him, Richildis rose up from the chair before the fire, a strained expression on her weary face. “Balian, forgive me! Please! I know I behaved badly—”
“Hush. I’m not here to lecture you. Surely you know that? If anyone deserves a lecture, it is Barry!” he added, too tired to control his tongue. “How could he leave you—not to mention his only child and heir—without an adequate garrison?” Balian meant it as a rhetorical question—or at any rate, one his brother needed to answer.
&
nbsp; Richildis reacted with the anguished admission, “We—we are estranged.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Balian snapped back. “You’re still his wife, and Eschiva is his heir!” he insisted indignantly.
“And Barry wishes that both were not the case! Surely you know he wants to divorce me?” Richildis answered.
At this news, Balian seemed to feel all the weariness of the last sleepless days, the hours in the saddle, the clearing of the town. With a sigh he sank down on the chest near the door. “What grounds can he possibly find for divorcing you? You have always been a faithful and devoted wife to him,” he pointed out reasonably, indicating she should sit down beside him on the chest.
“Barry hates being associated with losers, and my brother is bogged in a terrible lawsuit and likely to lose half his property,” Richildis answered bitterly. “But mostly he says I can’t give him sons. Though how I should, when he scorns my bed for harlots with pretty faces, I don’t know!” She flung the last words out furiously. Balian winced at her bitterness, but was at a loss for words. After so many years together, Richildis knew his brother well, and what she said was true. Barry had complained more than once about being “sold cheap,” hinting that—as Baron of Ramla, Mirabel, and Ibelin—he deserved a wife with better family connections than Richildis. As for pretty women—bold and blond as Barry was, he’d never had trouble seducing women. For as long as Balian could remember, he’d had his “affairs.” Richildis had known about them, and she’d never complained before.
As if reading his thoughts, she added, “He brought her under my roof this time. Had her installed in the chamber next to his, and told me if I didn’t like it, I could leave.”
“I’m sorry,” Balian told her sincerely, and would have put his arm over her shoulders in comfort, but he felt too filthy. “I could use a change of clothes,” he observed out loud. “Are Hugh’s clothes still in that chest over there, or have you given them away?”
“No, they’re still there.” Richildis jumped up at once, crossed the room, and flung open the heavy cover. As she started pulling out things that had lain there since his brother’s funeral, Balian was given time to digest what he had just learned. Images of Barry “comforting” Princess Sibylla for the loss of Montferrat flashed through his mind. Surely Barry couldn’t be that bold? He couldn’t seriously imagine that the High Court would let Sibylla marry a local baron? Then again, a local baron with an understanding of warfare in Outremer might be preferable to the men Flanders was suggesting, none of whom had ever set foot in the Kingdom.
Balian stood and unbuckled his sword, while Gudrun came to help him out of his damp surcoat, his sand-filled chain mail, and then the stinking gambeson. When Balian had stripped naked, Gudrun sponged the worst of the mud, blood, and sweat off him with warm water from a cauldron over the fire, while Balian wondered silently if his brother would dare to aim so high. He decided he might. Barry had a pretty high opinion of himself, after all.
Absently Balian put on clean underclothes, while Gudrun shook most of the sand out of his chain mail and then helped him back into it. The longer he thought about it, the more convinced he became that this sudden desire to divorce Richildis had nothing to do with him fancying some serving wench with a pretty face; Barry was grasping for the Crown.
Gudrun announced she would get him something to eat and drink, leaving the Ibelins alone. Richildis brought Balian one of Hugh’s surcoats with the arms of Ibelin on it. As she handed it to him, he could see her hands were still trembling. He caught one of them and held it fast, forcing her to look at him. Then he gently pulled her down on the chest beside him again and put his arm over her shoulders. “Barry may like a pretty face, but in the eyes of God you are his wife, and before his peers and his King you are his lady.”
“No,” she shook her head. “Things have changed in the last year—the last six months, particularly,” she said, confirming his worst suspicions: this had all come to a head after the death of William de Montferrat. “He is determined to be rid of me. Maybe he even wanted the Saracens to kill us all!” Richildis insisted, tears breaking free and running down her face again.
Balian pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head, murmuring, “I’m sure that’s not true. Try to calm yourself,” he urged, and they sat in silence together as Richildis tried to absorb strength and peace from her brother-in-law.
Gudrun returned with refreshments, and Balian helped himself to these, ravenous. When he had satisfied his hunger, however, he resisted the temptation to lie down and rest. “I’m going to reorganize the defense under new command,” he told Richildis. “Sir Giles is too old.”
Richildis looked at him with eyes wide with alarm. “You mean it isn’t over? They might be back?”
He drew a deep breath and admitted, “Hilde, until we bring them to bay, they will inflict as much damage as possible.” He didn’t dare tell her that even if they forced Salah-ad-Din to give battle, they might be defeated. If the King were killed and the army destroyed, the entire Kingdom was at risk—because then even the return of the Count of Flanders with Tripoli and Antioch would not be enough to stop Salah-ad-Din.
Montgisard, November 25, 1177
Balian and his raiding force rejoined the King’s army just after noon, to discover that it had been swelled by thousands of infantry. The King had issued the “arrière ban”—the royal summons for every able-bodied man—and from towns and villages all across the lowland plain, they were streaming in with whatever arms they could lay their hands on. Even more important, the Barons of Blanchegarde, Hebron, and Oultrejourdain had brought up mounted reinforcements—and reports that Salah-ad-Din’s forces had cut a swath of destruction through Hebron’s territories and raided all the way to the outskirts of Bethlehem. Balian’s brother Barisan had also arrived from Ramla with forty-three knights and a much larger number of Turcopole auxiliaries to swell the royal army; he insisted that the main body of Salah-ad-Din’s army now lay due east of Ibelin. Given these conflicting reports, Templar patrols had been dispatched immediately to try to find out just where Salah-ad-Din was.
Balian pulled his brother aside and asked him what he had been thinking when he left Ibelin—and his wife and daughter—virtually undefended. “I was thinking of the Kingdom!” Barry retorted sharply. “We need every knight we can get if we are to crush Salah-ad-Din. If we don’t, he will certainly crush us!”
Balian would have liked to point out that his brother need not have left knights to defend Ibelin—a well-organized citizen militia could do that—but before he could open his mouth, Barry continued, “Besides, it wasn’t my idea for Richildis to withdraw to Ibelin. Did she say I’d sent her there? She’s lying. She was the one who insisted on removing herself and Eschiva from Ramla! I told her Ibelin didn’t have a strong garrison, but she was more concerned about not exposing Eschiva to my ‘bad morals’ than about her safety. Maybe this will have taught her a lesson.”
“Eschiva is your daughter—not to mention your heir!” Balian pointed out, determined not to get into a discussion of who was to blame for Richildis being in Ibelin.
“At the moment, yes,” came the icy answer.
“And Ibelin is our heritage!” Balian found himself getting angry.
“Oh, is that why you’re wearing the Ibelin arms?” Barry demanded. “Have you decided, like Henri, that you are owed a piece of my inheritance? That you are the rightful heir of Ibelin?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. My surcoat was soaked, bloodied, and stinking. I changed into one of Hugh’s just to get out of it. The question is: have you forgotten that the people of Ibelin are your responsibility? Their fathers left safe homes in France to settle here at our father’s invitation! You owe them protection.”
“That’s what I’m giving them by being here!” Barry insisted, and turned his back on Balian.
Several hours later, one of the Templar reconnaissance patrols returned with word that they had tracked down Salah-ad-Din. The Ch
ristian army was mustered and Odo de St. Armand declared pompously, “Salah-ad-Din is just three miles away with most of his cavalry, but little of his infantry. His host is making itself comfortable in the valley of Tell Jezer.”
Tell Jezer was a rugged valley with steep slopes and a usually dry riverbed. But the rains had started and there would be water flowing through that riverbed at this time of year, Balian noted, making it a good place to camp.
“They are watering their horses and appear to be preparing to make camp,” Odo echoed his thoughts. “They also appear to have no inkling that we are so near at hand.”
The knights and squires were drawn up in a large semicircle around the Grand Master and the King. Balian automatically glanced toward the sun behind him. It was still high in the sky, albeit past its zenith, and he thought it was early to be making camp. Then again, the Sultan might have realized his troops were widely dispersed and that it was wise to call a halt and collect them again—or perhaps they were just stopping to water their horses.
At all events, there were still a good four to five hours of daylight for the King’s army to go on the attack. Or they could wait until the morrow and attack at dawn. There were clear advantages to that, too, as they would be more rested—but so would the enemy. If they were lucky and routed the Saracens, then a dawn attack would give them all day to pursue the enemy—but it would also mean they could be mercilessly pursued if they were overwhelmed by the superior numbers of their foe. Balian waited to see what the King would decide.
Knight of Jerusalem Page 25