The Dream and the Tomb (30 page)

Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Damascus, drawing his troops from all over the Arab world, with a vast army of Egyptians, Turks, Nubians,
Kurds, Sudanese and even Ethiopians, fled before two hundred knights and a leper king. The victory seemed to be a gift from God. Had the king not dismounted from his horse and thrown himself down on the ground before the True Cross, pleading for divine intervention, while tears ran down his face? His soldiers had been moved to tears by the sight of the king prostrate before the Cross. Later some of them would say that they had seen the Cross glowing above them, so huge that it touched the walls of heaven, and there were some who said they saw St. George fighting at their sides. The king was now seventeen years old, wasted by disease, his face white and corpselike, and he fought in the vanguard.

Saladin was well aware that he had suffered a major defeat. He wrote a famous poem to his brother Turanshah in Damascus:

I thought of thee, amid the thrusting

of their spears,

While the straight browned blades

quenched their thirst in our blood.

He went on, “Again and again we were on the verge of destruction; nor would God have delivered us save for some future duty.”

Three months later, he was at the head of his army in Syria. There were a few raids, but the main fighting was now localized around Banyas and a place called Jacob's Ford on the Upper Jordan, between Lake Huleh and the Sea of Galilee, where the king had built a castle on an eminence. The castle commanded the road that runs from Tiberias to Qoneitra, although there was an unwritten understanding that the Christians would not build a castle there because Muslim merchants often traveled along this road. The castle was, therefore, an affront to Saladin, as the king well knew.

When the fortress was completed, the king learned that some Muslims, searching for new pastures, had incautiously led their flocks and herds into a forest near Banyas. He ordered a night march, and in the morning the sheep and cattle were captured. It is possible that the booty was the bait, for suddenly the Christians who found themselves in a narrow space were being shot at from all sides. The king was in great danger, and was saved only by Humphrey of Toron, the Constable of the kingdom, an elderly man, who threw himself in front of the king and saved his life at the cost of his own.

Saladin then turned his attention to the great fortress built at Jacob's Ford, which was very nearly impregnable. Arrows fell like rain on the fortress. There were massive assaults on the walls. The Christians held firm, and one of the chief emirs was killed, with the result that the Muslim army panicked and fled in confusion.

Leaving the River Jordan, Saladin decided to destroy the harvests between Beirut and Sidon. The king quickly learned that farms and villages
were being put to the flames, marshaled his army at Tiberias, and set off in pursuit of the raiders, catching up with Saladin's main army when they themselves were exhausted after a long march. Saladin's army swooped down on them. In the first engagement the Christians were victorious, but a second engagement showed that Saladin had not lost his mastery of his troops, and he hurled the remnants of his beaten army against the Christians with devastating effect. The Christians fled, lost themselves in a defile with steep cliffs on either side, and were butchered by the pursuing Muslims. There was worse to come, for Saladin advanced on the castle of Jacob's Ford, now defended only by garrison troops, captured it, massacred everyone in it, and razed the castle to the ground.

These Christian reverses—the great battle near Banyas and the loss of the castle of Jacob's Ford—might have been more damaging if Saladin's forces were not also suffering from exhaustion. On both sides there were heavy losses. So it happened that Saladin and Baldwin IV concluded a two-year truce, confirmed by solemn oaths and seals. Hunger was stalking the Muslim lands; bad harvests and drought were sapping Saladin's strength. He needed a period of rest, and the dying king also needed to rest. But the truce signed in the summer of 1180 provided only a brief hiatus before the most disastrous battle fought by the Christians in the Holy Land.

In a church, Peter the Hermit and Arnous, chaplain of the Duke of Normandy, preach the Crusade while men go to confession.
(Bibliotheque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 5594, f. 91vo)

Egyptians and Turks taken prisoner by the Crusaders at a port.
(from
Livres des Passages d'Outremer,
15th century ms., Bibliotheque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 5594, f. 143vo)

The 1390 Genoese and French expedition to Barbary.
(The British Library Board, Ms. 4379, f. 60b)

The Turkish siege of Constantinople (1453).
(Bibliotheque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 9087, F. 207vo)

Crusaders approach Nicaea and bombard the city with the heads of their captives. (
From
Les Histories d'Outremer,
13th century ms., Bibliotheque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 2630, f. 63v, 38v, and 22v
)

The King of France's departure from the west for the crusades.
(Bibliotheque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 908 7, f. 9)