Little Lost Lambs, page 61
In silence Richard heard them. Like a bird of ill omen word had come to him over the sea from England. The prior of Hereford had brought him a letter from William, Bishop of Ely, and he knew that his affairs in England went badly. His brother, the Earl John, had driven out his chancellor and seized upon the exchequer.
He listened to the Crusaders, and dismissed from his mind his own quarrel with Conrad, giving his assent to the election of Conrad and the retirement of Guy. To compensate the unhappy Lusignan, Richard made over to him the island of Cyprus.
Messengers were sent to Tyre to announce the decision of the council, while the Crusaders rejoiced, making ready their scant robes of ceremony and furbishing their arms for the coming coronation. But their rejoicing was silenced within a few days, when a strange power from beyond the mountains intervened in their affairs.
Conrad, riding home from a banquet at the house of the Bishop of Beauvais, was attacked by two young men without cloaks, and stabbed.
The murderers were seized before they could flee. Soon their identity was established—they belonged to one of the secret orders of lslam, the Assassins. Their master, known to the Crusaders as the Old Man of the Mountain, had his headquarters in Alamut—the Eagle’s Nest—within the eastern mountains. Invisible and remote, this Lord of the Portals of Death, as the Arabs called him, ruled over a miniature paradise in his hills. Inflamed by hashish, his youthful agents carried their daggers into the courts of neighboring princes; and by the fear they inspired they won obedience for their master.
Once they had menaced Saladin, who defied them, and now they struck down the marquis before his coronation. In the general consternation many tales were repeated of his death, but the account of the Syrian scholar, Abulfarag, written years later, is the clearest.
“ Two men of the Ismailites clad in the habit of monks rushed upon the marquis who was mounted on his horse. One of them struck him with a knife; the other fled into a church, nearby. In truth, the wounded marquis was carried into this same church by his companions. When the monk who was the companion of the assassin beheld the marquis alive and speaking, he rushed out at him in the middle of the church and struck him again, and straightway he died.
“ These two Ismailites, seized and crucified and tortured by the Franks, said that the King of England had sent them. And because of the enmity which had been between them, the Franks believed the words of these cutthroats. However, it was manifest afterward that the Sidna, chief of the Ismailites, sent them.” *8
The death of Conrad—the one man Saladin feared—healed the long feud that had divided the Crusaders. At Tyre the French called upon Henry of Champagne to take the kingship of Jerusalem.
Far in the south, Richard heard the news of Conrad’s assassination while he was boar hunting, and for a space he was silent in astonishment.
“ Sir Sergeant, this is my word. Let Count Henry take the city of Acre and Tyre,” he said at length, “ and the whole of the land, if it please God, forever. But tell the count in my name to take the field as speedily as possible and bring the French with him.”
And the English king, determined but irresolute as always when the responsibility of a campaign was laid upon him, bethought him of sending envoys to Saladin.
“ Greet the Sultan,” he instructed his messengers, “ and say that the Moslems and the Franks are reduced to the last extremity, and the resources of the two sides in men and material are exhausted.
“ As for Jerusalem, we are determined never to give it up, so long as a single man remains to us. You must return the land to us as far as the Jordan. As for the sacred cross, to you it is a bit of wood without value; but in our eyes it has a very great value. Will the Sultan have the graciousness to send it back to us?” After consulting with his amirs, Saladin answered:
“ Jerusalem is as much to us as it is to you, and has more value in our eyes—for it was the place of the Prophet’s night journey to Heaven and will provide the place of assembly for our people at the Judgment Day. Do not think that we will give it up to you. The land was ours in the first place, and it is you who have come to attack it.
“ If you were able to take it once, that was only by surprise and owing to the weakness of the Moslems who held it then. So long as the war will last, God will not permit you to raise stone upon stone there. As for the cross, its possession is a great advantage to us, and we can not give it up except for some gain to Islam.”
And to his officers the old Sultan spoke emphatically:
“ If we make peace with these people down there, nothing will guarantee us against their bad faith. If I were to die, it would be difficult to get together such an army as this again. The best thing to do is to carry on the holy war until we have driven them out of the shore or until we are struck down by death.”
V
SUMMER came again to the Holy Land. Green were the foothills, where the sentinel poplars stood. Clear the streams that wound between dark cedars and shining rims of marl and red sandstone, down to the lush grass. The herds fattened upon the good grazing and only the figures of the men, alert in their watching, were somber and intent upon the task of war that had been begun long since by forgotten grandsires, but had not yet been finished in this quiet land.
It had become a part of them, as it had been a part of the vanished men of Antioch, and the ghosts of Hattin. It gathered them in the shadow of the high walls and sent them forth at night where no roads led.
Down in the plain the Crusaders said, one man to the other, that a miracle had taken place in the Sepulchre that Eastertide. Saladin had come to the Sepulchre, to sit before the darkened tomb where the dark lamps hung—and a hand invisible had lighted the lamps before the eyes of the Moslems. Surely the lighting of the lamps had been a sign and a portent.
Along the plain rode King Richard and his men. They stormed the fort of Darum, and slew every Moslem within the walls. They rode on, to the gardens of Gaza, among the sand dunes. But there were whispers of messengers that summoned him home across the sea. His followers talked of a wrongdoing in England, of a mutual concession between the Earl John and King Philip by which he would lose England. Some said that he would go away, and others said that he would remain in the Holy Land to the end of the war.
The Crusaders talked among themselves and agreed that, if he went, they would still go on to Jerusalem. They rejoiced at that. Only the king was troubled by his thoughts. He meditated apart from his men, and flung himself alone upon his cot when his tent was pitched. At such a time one William of Poitou, a chaplain, beheld him. The chaplain walked back and forth before the tent entrance, not daring to speak to him, but weeping.
The king called him in and spoke.
“ By thy faith, what grief makes thee weep?”
“ Sire,” said the priest, “ will you pledge me that you will not be angered if I speak?”
Richard pledged his word, and the chaplain mustered his courage.
“ Sire, they blame you. Through the host runs the rumor of your return. May the day never come in which you will leave us. O King, remember what God hath done for you—for no king of this time hath suffered less harm. Remember when you were Count of Poitou, there was no neighbor so powerful your arm did not overthrow him. Remember the Brabagons you discomforted so often, and that good adventure at Hautefort when the Count of St. Gilles besieged it.
“Remember how your kingdom came to you without need of shield or helmet, and how you stormed the city of Messina, and that fine exploit at Cyprus when you put an emperor in chains—and the capture of Acre. How often hath God aided you? Think well, O King, and protect this land of God. All of those who love you say that if you leave it without aid, it will be lost and betrayed.”
Silence fell upon the tent, for those in attendance upon Richard dared not open their lips, and the king uttered no word. Chin on hand, the red haired king meditated, and the chaplain stole away. The next day the Lion Heart summoned his herald, and bade him go through the host, before the gates of Ascalon and proclaim that for no earthly quarrel or any urging would King Richard leave the Holy Land until the coming Easter. And that all should make ready to march on Jerusalem.
And the host exulted, tumultuous as birds at the dawning of day.
“ Now, we shall see the Sepulchre!” men said.
The great lords hastened to put their equipment in order, and the small folk made up packs holding a month’s provisions. A long column set out upon the road, and through the dust helmets gleamed above the shields emblazoned with devices of lions or flying dragons. The marching men made haste to Blanche Garde and the ruined Toron of the Knights, to the foothills and hamlets of Beth Nable where they were joined by the French, at the mouth of the ravine through which winds the road to Jerusalem.
Perforce they halted there, for the Moslem cavalry beset their patrols and attacked the baggage trains coming up from the coast. While the Earl of Leicester and the French engaged the enemy horsemen, the host set to work shaping timbers for siege engines. But Richard found something else to do.
INTO the camp at Beth Nable rode three men in Turkish dress—three men born in Syria and speaking the language like Moslems. They were the king’s spies and they had come from Egypt with news. The first great caravan of the summer was on its way from Cairo into the East. They had watched it winding, an endless stream of camels bound nose to tail, of mounted warriors and laden donkeys—whole families with slaves and goods moving slowly across the dunes of the Jifar, circling far from Ascalon. Thousands of laden beasts, hundreds of armed men, forging along the desert road down to the Dead Sea. By now they would be passing through the bare spurs of the hills south of Hebron.
Richard lost not an hour in setting out. Choosing a thousand riders and another thousand men-at-arms to sit the cruppers behind them, he mounted Fauvel that evening and headed south. A full moon climbed over the bulwark of the hills, and for awhile they rode in the shadow of the heights with a haze of light on the plain beside them. Solitary watch towers gleamed white above them.
But they had been seen. Moslem couriers galloped to Saladin, and the Sultan ordered an escort to hasten down to warn the men of the caravan and to lead it away from the trail out into the blind breast of the desert. His officers outstripped the Crusaders, without sighting them—since they lay hidden in the ruined walls of a town during the next day—and reached the caravan.
But, with no danger in view, the Moslems of the caravan were reluctant to leave the road and its wells. At the end of the afternoon they camped by the well of El Khuweilfa, where the beasts were watered—the escort of warriors going out to pitch their tents a little in advance of the multitude of the caravan that surrounded the well.
At Khuweilfa there was a cistern beside the well, but even with that, it took long hours to water several thousand animals, and the caravan lay passive after its commander gave orders that no one was to start until the following morning.
All this was related to Richard by some friendly Bedawins who had come to the ruined town with their tidings, that evening. The English king thought they were lying, but he decided to go to see for himself. Taking some Turcoples for his only guard, and putting on an Arab headcloth, rings and khufieh, he bade the Bedawins lead the way to the well.*9
Cutting across the hills and riding swiftly, avoiding the watch towers on the trails, they drew near El Khuweilfa after dark but before the rising of the moon. They reined in their horses and went forward slowly, and almost at once they were challenged by Arabs on a hillock.
The Bedawins motioned Richard to be silent, and one of them answered the out post.
“ We went toward Ascalon to see if it was God’s will that we should find plunder. Now, we go back to our place.”
“ Nay,” cried the voice from the darkness, “ ye have come out to look at us—and your place is with the King of England.”
“ Y’allah!” the Bedawin swore. “ That is a lie.”
They did not check their horses, moving on toward the black shape of the caravan. Several men mounted and rode after them, but lost them in the darkness wherein scores of figures moved around the animals. Richard and his companions walked their horses around the bivouac, until they made certain of the size and situation of the encampment. Then they hastened back to the Crusaders.
The raiders fed their horses and ate a little themselves; in the clear moonlight they made their way out of the hills, approaching El Khuweilfa in the murk before dawn. This was an hour that warmed Richard’s heart. He divided his men into companies, bade the French follow on his heels, and the foot soldiers follow the knights. His herald went among them, warning the dark groups not to pause for any plundering.
Headlong they charged into the first tents, which happened to be those of the armed escort, not the caravan.
Egyptians and soldiers alike tumbled out of their sleeping robes and ran for their horses, to be cut down by the long swords of the knights. Some of them were able to saddle their beasts, and drew off toward a height where they held their ground.
Meanwhile it grew light and the Crusaders sighted the main caravan, turning their attention to it at once. The plain became a chaos of swerving horses and running men, frightened camels staggering up roaring, and women screaming. Richard’s Bedawins snatched loot by the armful and the drivers joined forces with them.
Through the mad confusion moved the armored forms of the great English lords, the Earl of Leicester and the knights of Anjou—for the fighting went on stubbornly until the sun rose and the mounted Moslems withdrew. They managed to take away under the eyes of the Crusaders two portions of the great caravan that had camped elsewhere.
But the raiders found wealth under their hands.
Countless mule loads of spice and chests of gold and silver, with rolls of brocade; stands of weapons and any amount of pavilions and fine cloths they seized.
They counted more than four thousand camels, and as many horses, and investigation yielded rare things indeed—suits of silvered mail, and chessboards, medicines and silver dishes. Most welcome of all was the great stock of provisions barley, grain and sugar.
They took five hundred prisoners, and made them lead away the heavy laden animals.
When they returned to the army at Beth Nable they were greeted joyfully, but they heard ominous tidings. Spies reported that the Moslems had destroyed all the wells and filled up the springs around Jerusalem.
All the exultation of the raid left Richard, hemmed in again by these multitudes of men praying to be led toward Jerusalem, while the grim Templars shook their heads. He fell moody again, watching through the hours of the nights when the sluggish face of the moon reared above the black ravine, and the cool night air stirred. Up yonder hidden eyes watched in the shadows and death lay in wait. Up yonder there was no water—by the walls of Jerusalem white in the moonlight.
The very ledges of rock took shape in the night, rising like battlements before him, inanimate and forbidding and terrible.
VI
EVERY move of the Crusaders was reported daily to Saladin by his spies and scouts. He knew that they were assembling at Beth Nable to besiege Jerusalem, and he felt suspense growing among his own men, wearied as they were by the ordeal of Acre and the rout at Arsuf. Without respite he directed the work of preparation for the decisive conflict. In the saddle before sun-up, he watched his masons raising the walls; he divided the circuit of the walls among his amirs, while gangs of laborers hauled up stones for the engines. At times he even dismounted to go among them and carry stones himself.
“ Every one knows,” Baha ad-Din relates, “ that in the land around Jerusalem it is useless to dig wells to find drinking water, the ground being nothing but a mountain of very hard rock. The Sultan was careful to cut off all the waters found around the Holy City, to stop up the springs, to ruin the cisterns, and to break down the wells. There remained not a drop of water fit to drink outside the walls. He also sent the order into all the provinces to hasten troops toward him.”
On the Wednesday after the loss of the caravan the old Kurd called his amirs into council to announce to them his plan for the defense of Jerusalem. They thronged into his pavilion and seated themselves about the carpet, whispering together. Many faces were missing from the circle. Al Adil, the shrewd and resourceful, had been sent to quell a revolt beyond the Euphrates, and Taki ad-Din, who had been the sword arm of the Sultan, had been laid in his grave on the eastern frontier—when Saladin had held in his hand the letter announcing his death, he had sent away all the attendants from the tent, and had wept, fingering the broken seals of the missive.
But El Meshtub, commander of the Kurds, was back again, ransomed. At his coming—who had cost Saladin dear by the harsh terms of his surrender—the Sultan instead of reproaching him had risen from his seat to take him in his arms, saying that he had endured more than any of them at Acre.
Meshtub was seated again with the newcomers—Aboul Heidja, the Fat, who could barely move once he was down on his heels, and the lean Turkomans from the east. Asad ad-Din, the veteran was there, and Baha ad-Din, who, from his master’s side, scanned the ring of faces intently.
Saladin, leaning toward the kadi, bade him speak for a little on the war. And while the learned man was talking, Saladin mustered his thoughts knowing well that these chieftains were balancing between zeal for his cause and dread. For they feared that a siege of Jerusalem would be a second Acre, and they longed to keep to the open country.
What followed is told by Baha ad-Din.
“The Sultan remained silent some time in the attitude of a man who reflects. The amirs seemed to be in the best of moods, but their inner feelings were very different. They said to a man that the presence of the Sultan in Jerusalem would be no advantage, and might be a peril for Islam—that they would hold Jerusalem themselves, while he kept the outer country as at Acre, to surround the Franks. Then he spoke:
