* * *
The tent flap lifted again to admit Julien. “Here is your wine, sire. Shall I pour it?”
Guy nodded. He saw clearly now that he must take action, that he’d let the Count of Tripoli and the Poulain lords lead him astray again, just as they’d done four years ago. Commanding the largest army ever gathered in Outremer, how could he justify doing nothing as Saladin ravaged his kingdom? His knights would want to strike back at the Saracens and his subjects would want vengeance. So would the Holy Father in Rome, the hot-tempered English king, the rest of Christendom. They all expected him to defend the Holy Land. The Templar grand master had shown him that he had no other choice. But it was a great responsibility, having the power of life and death over other men. He wished he was as comfortable wielding it as Gerard de Ridefort seemed to be. Sybilla had assured him that this would come with time. He very much hoped she was right. So far, he’d not found as much pleasure in his kingship as he’d imagined he would.
* * *
Balian was not pleased to be torn from sleep so abruptly, for it felt like the middle of the night; the tent was still so dark that he could barely distinguish the forms of his squires, cocooned in blankets. Sitting up, he heard shouting and then, with a jolt, the sound of trumpets. Jesu, could they be under attack? Almost at once he dismissed that fear, for at Saforie, they had all the advantages and Saladin well knew that. Ernoul had burrowed out of his bedroll, while Brian seemed to be trying to ignore the bedlam outside, pulling his blanket up over his head. Although most people slept naked, no soldier did so on campaign, so they were all partially dressed. Saying he’d find out what was happening, Ernoul opened the tent flap, giving Balian a glimpse of a starlit sky. Telling Brian to wake up, Balian got to his feet, his eyes going instinctively to his scabbard and sword, always kept within reach.
Brian had managed to find flint and tinder to light a lantern by the time Ernoul rushed back into the tent. “The king has changed his mind,” he gasped. “We are going to the aid of the Lady of Tiberias, after all!”
Staring at the shaken youngster, Balian experienced an eerie sensation, as if Jakelin’s ghost were standing at his shoulder, for this was how he must have felt when he was told they were riding out to their deaths at Cresson Springs.
CHAPTER 48
July 1187
Saforie, Outremer
Guy had hoped to depart Saforie before dawn, thus escaping the worst of the coming day’s heat. But his abrupt change of plans had caused so much chaos and confusion that they were still in camp by the time the sun had vanquished the most stubborn night shadows.
Amaury was convinced his brother was making a grave mistake, yet he’d had no more luck than the other barons in getting Guy to reconsider. Their protests had put him on the defensive and, as Amaury knew from past experience, Guy was never as stubborn as when he felt cornered. He’d refused even to discuss the reasons for his reversal, declaring that he need not explain himself to men sworn to obey him. The Poulain lords would have continued to argue, but not all in their army were displeased by the decision to ride to the relief of Tiberias. These knights and soldiers crowded around, loudly making their opinions known, while Reynald de Chatillon, the Marquis of Montferrat, and the Templars were already packing up their tents, ordering their squadrons to arm themselves. When the Hospitallers followed suit, the moment of incipient rebellion ebbed away and the lessons of a lifetime asserted themselves. Warfare was the vocation of men of high birth; to many of them, it would be dishonorable to desert their Christian brethren as they made ready to do battle against the infidels.
As constable, it was Amaury’s responsibility to align the army for a fighting march and, calling for his horse, he and his knights set about doing that. He chose the Count of Tripoli to lead the vanguard, an ironic honor in light of Raymond’s fierce opposition to the rescue mission, but that command was always given to the man whose lands were under attack. Guy and Reynald de Chatillon would take the center division, and for safety’s sake, the True Cross and its caretakers, the bishops of Acre and Lydda, would ride with the king. The Templars would make up part of the rearguard, for that was always the most vulnerable position on marches like this, sure to bear the brunt of the Saracen attack.
When Balian heard his name called, he turned his stallion in a half circle, watching as Amaury rode toward him. “The Templars will be in the rear, for they fight like fiends. But de Ridefort proved at Cresson Springs that bravery alone is no virtue. I fear that if given a chance, he’ll take on half of Saladin’s army. So, I need another commander back there who has some common sense as well as courage. I want you in charge of the rest of the rearguard.”
Getting a brief nod of acknowledgment from Balian, Amaury edged his destrier closer. “Joscelin de Courtenay and his knights will be riding with you.” He paused, knowing he’d saddled d’Ibelin with the company of a man who was no friend of his, hoping he’d not protest.
Balian did not comment, merely nodded again. The expression on his face was a familiar one to Amaury, for he’d seen it on the faces of half the men in camp. Those who’d come to the Holy Land to fight the infidels; those who were unfamiliar with how war was waged in the Levant, like the Genoese sailors and newly arrived pilgrims; those who shared Gerard de Ridefort’s certainty that victory was divinely foreordained—they were all eager to test themselves against the Saracen foe. The others, those who called Outremer their homeland and had grown to manhood fighting for its survival—they looked as Balian did now, their sunbrowned faces gone ashen, jaws clenched to bite back curses, their eyes reflecting thwarted fury and the despair of men without hope, with only courage to sustain them.
Amaury knew what Balian was thinking without need of words, and he realized what a transformation his fifteen years in Outremer had wrought, making him one of the Poulains. He wanted to say he was sorry that it had come to this, that Guy was one of God’s great fools. He could not, of course. But he could share a truth; surely d’Ibelin deserved that.
“I know why my brother changed his mind. I asked his squire if he had any visitors last night after I’d gone off to bed. He had one.”
Balian felt no surprise. “Gerard de Ridefort.” For a moment, his eyes and Amaury’s caught and held, and he found himself responding with a truth of his own. “As much as I grieved for Jakelin de Mailly, I was angry with him, too, for throwing his life away for nothing. I could not understand why he did not just ride away.”
“And now you do.”
“Yes, now I do. He could not bring himself to abandon his men.”
* * *
This was the first real battle for al-Afdal, the seventeen-year-old son of the sultan, and he was both excited and uneasy, some of his confidence undermined by his inexperience and his awareness that so much was at stake. Once they were sure that the Franks were actually going to attempt to cross that arid, exposed plateau between Saforie and the lake called the Sea of Galilee by the Christians, Salāh al-Dīn had been summoned from Tiberias. As soon as he returned to Kafr Sabt, he would take charge of their center and al-Afdal would ride proudly beside him. Until then, he could only wait while his cousin Taqī al-Dīn positioned their right wing along the ridge to the north of the Tiberias road, and his other kinsman Muzaffar al-Dīn led their left wing to harass the rearguard of the infidel army. As the morning dragged on, al-Afdal became more and more impatient to learn what was happening. He was delighted, therefore, when Muzaffar al-Dīn rode into their camp to see if the sultan had arrived from Tiberias yet.
Muzaffar al-Dīn was one of the sultan’s most renowned amirs and al-Afdal’s uncle by his marriage to Salāh al-Dīn’s sister. He was better known as Gökböri, which was Turkish for “Blue Wolf,” for men said he fought like a wolf on the battlefield, as he’d proven at Cresson Springs. Al-Afdal hoped that one day he’d earn such a colorful name for himself. He was intimidated by his brusque cousin Taqī al-Dīn, but he liked Gökböri very muc
h, for the older man had a playful sense of humor and seemed to enjoy tutoring him in the ways of war.
Gökböri proved that now by laughing when al-Afdal began to pepper him with questions. The unbelievers were having a very bad day and it would soon get much worse, he predicted. He’d been sending his horse archers against their rearguard as soon as the fools left the safety of Saffūrīya. Al-Afdal had seen their horse archers in action, so he found it easy to imagine what the Franks were enduring. Their men would race in, aiming their arrows up into the sky in the hope that some would strike the knights’ horses or the infantrymen trying to shield them. Before the infidel crossbowmen could retaliate, the Saracens would retreat, only to come back again . . . and again . . . and again.
“Where are they now, Uncle? How far have they gotten?”
“Well, they’ve passed the village at Tur‘an, which is about six miles from Saffūrīya. I was hoping to be the one to tell the sultan that good news, for he feared they might try to make a stand at Tur‘an, where they’d have water. But, Allah be praised, they did not even stop long enough for their men and horses to drink.”
“Why would they do that?” al-Afdal marveled and Gökböri laughed again.
“I can only speculate, ‘Ȧlī. I am guessing that they are trying to get to Tiberias by nightfall and decided they’d lose too much time if they halted at Tur‘an, for the springs are away from the road, at the end of a narrow wadi. But it was a great mistake . . . as they’ll soon discover.”
* * *
The sky was barren of clouds and bleached of all traces of blue, such a washed-out white that when the wretched men glanced upward, they could think only of corpse candles, bones, and tombstones. They were surrounded by shimmering waves of heat, the road hot to the touch, and the air held so much dust that it stung their eyes, abraded any exposed skin, and sought to trickle down their parched throats. After marching for seven hours under a scorching sun, the infantrymen were so exhausted that they plodded along as if in a trance, soaked in sweat and focusing only upon putting one foot in front of the other. They were already desperately thirsty, for they’d long since drained their waterskins and their supply wagons had been left behind in Saforie, their leaders having decided that heavy water barrels would have slowed them down too much. The knights were somewhat better off, for at least they could ride, but the weight of their armor was pressing down upon them, and if a man carelessly touched any of the metal links not covered by his cloth surcote, he risked burning his fingers. The horses were suffering most of all, for they needed much more water than men, and no matter how stoic a knight was about his own ordeal, his destrier’s obvious distress was harder to accept. The men under the king’s command took what solace they could from the presence of the True Cross in their midst, a comfort denied those in the vanguard. And they all were thankful that they were not marching with the rearguard, for they well knew that those poor souls had been under attack for hours.
* * *
“Here they come again!” The cry ran through the ranks and the foot soldiers and crossbowmen braced themselves for another onslaught. The rearguard shuddered to a halt so their arbalesters could aim their bolts at their flying foes, for these nimble, speedy horses seemed to have wings, so swiftly could they attack and then retreat. The Saracens’ strategy was always the same. They’d sprint toward the Franks, the archers launching their arrows in the span of seconds, then reaching into their quivers for more, all without slackening pace. Having dropped their reins to shoot, they controlled their mounts with their knees, wheeling and galloping away as soon as the Franks retaliated. While their arrows could not penetrate a knight’s armor except at a close distance, they were killing foot soldiers and their primary targets, the stallions. A fighting march was always a great challenge to men whose natural instincts were to strike back, but none of these battle-seasoned soldiers had ever experienced one as terrible as this.
As the sky went dark with the flight of hundreds of arrows, Balian’s men tried to deflect them with their shields. Most emerged unscathed from the assault, but not all. It was a war of attrition and Balian knew that the Saracens were winning. While Balian’s arbalesters were doing their best, by the time their more powerful crossbows were cocked and fired, the enemy was already out of range. As soon as this last Saracen wave receded, Balian urged his men on, for they dared not stop; if they were cut off from the rest of their army, they were doomed.
Seeing a soldier sink to his knees, Balian yelled to the closest men to help, but several of his companions were already hauling him to his feet. He’d not been felled by a Saracen arrow, stricken by an even more formidable foe—the merciless sun. Although he was staggering like a drunkard, he kept moving and Balian turned his attention to another man in trouble, one of his knights, whose stallion had been hit by a Saracen arrow. While the horse was clearly in pain, the wound did not appear life-threatening. His master still chose to dismount and walk beside him, for that was all he could do. He was cursing under his breath and Balian reached down, briefly gripping his shoulder, for that was all he could do.
He was leading the first squadron, followed by Joscelin and his men, then the Templars with the infantry and spearmen forming a human barrier between the horsemen and the Saracens. While horses were still dying, it would have been far worse without the infantry’s protection. Yet they also acted as an anchor. Their army needed to cross this barren sunbaked plain as swiftly as possible, but their pace had to be set by the foot soldiers, and at the rate they were going, Balian knew they’d never reach Tiberias before dark. How long could men and horses survive in such hellish heat without water? Christ help them all, they were going to find out.
The constant din of Saracen war drums was an added irritant. They used noise as a weapon in and of itself; any man who’d faced them on the battlefield would have his future sleep troubled by dreams of that cacophony of sound: drums, trumpets, cymbals. The sudden increase in the tempo of the drums alerted them that another attack was coming. Their column slowed, then came to a halt, despite the shouts of their commanders ordering them on.
Balian’s knights had made several attempts to chase the invaders away, only to have them come back as soon as the Franks withdrew. But he made ready to try again. The infantrymen’s ranks parted to allow the knights to pass through, and they charged the Saracen riders, who promptly spun around and fled. Balian’s men knew better than to take the bait and wearily returned to their own lines, where one of the knights leaned from the saddle and vomited, another victim of the searing heat. And it was not long before their tormentors were on the attack again.
* * *
By noon, it was obvious to Raymond that they’d not be able to reach Tiberias that day. Even though the vanguard had so far been spared the attacks that were overwhelming the rearguard, they were slowed down by the growing fatigue of their infantry, some of whom were showing symptoms of heat prostration. The kingdom’s army was spread out for over a mile and that would only get worse, making it easy for Saladin to separate and isolate the rear, and then the vanguard, from the center. When word finally came from Guy, telling him that the rear had been forced to halt, Raymond realized it was up to him if any of them were to survive this debacle. Summoning one of his knights, he gave him a desperate message for the king.
“Tell him that we will all die if we keep on toward Tiberias. We still have eight miles to go during the hottest hours of the day and we’ll never make it. It is urgent that we find water for our men and horses, and there is only one source ere we reach the lake at Tiberias, the springs at the village of Haṭṭīn. It has enough water for an army and is just three miles away. We can camp there for the night whilst our men recover and resume the march to Tiberias in the morning. But impress upon him the crucial need for speed. Once we leave the main road and turn north, Saladin will understand our intent and send his men to seize the springs. We must get there first.”
* * *
To Raymond’s vast relief and somewhat to his surprise, Guy agreed to follow his advice and head toward the springs at Haṭṭīn. As word spread through the army, the men reacted with joy, and they summoned up their waning energy to follow the vanguard as it swung off the Tiberius road. The new route turned north past the village of Maskana, skirted the western side of the twin hilltops called the Horns of Haṭṭīn, and then led down to the village of Kafr Haṭṭīn and its life-giving springs. But the main road had been built by the Romans and was wide enough for six knights to ride abreast. The Haṭṭīn path was narrower and a logjam soon developed as the men of the center surged toward this precious escape route. Discipline broke down and confusion reigned. Gökböri was quick to seize his chance and moved to cut the rearguard off. Suddenly, the Franks found themselves fighting for their lives.
* * *
The village of Maskana, like those of Kafr Sabt and Kafr Haṭṭīn, was deserted, the inhabitants long since fled. Raymond’s knights had left their infantry behind, and they galloped past the ghost village as if it were not there, intent only upon securing the springs. It was a wild hell-for-leather dash; they were blinded by sweat, choking on the clouds of dust kicked up by their lathered horses, risking falls on the rocky, uneven ground. Despite their heroic exertions, they were too late. The way to Kafr Haṭṭīn and its springs was blocked by Saracen soldiers, the right wing under the command of Taqī al-Dīn, dispatched by his uncle to deny the Franks their only chance of survival.
The Land Beyond the Sea Page 77
