Helena P. Schrader's Blog, page 50

Clash of Queens: An Excerpt from "Defender of Jerusalem"

A page rushed ahead of the Dowager Queen to announce her, but she was too close on his heels for the Queen Mother or Princess Sibylla to do anything more than look up in astonishment. After all, she had lived in this palace seven years and she knew exactly where she was going, even if she had avoided it since the disastrous Easter court two years ago when Sibylla had married Guy de Lusignan. Certainly she had not set eyes on Agnes de Courtenay since the Queen Mother had connived to steal Isabella away from her.Maria Zoë had no doubt whatever who had instigated the theft of her child. She knew that the King was not really the originator of the idea, and she was convinced that neither the King nor even Balian, good man that he was, fully understood what was at stake. They both saw in Isabella a potential contender for the throne of Jerusalem who needed to be “controlled” —but Maria Zoë recognized that to Agnes de Courtenay, Isabella was a threat to her children. While Maria Zoë was certain that Baldwin meant his half-sister no harm, she remained convinced that Agnes was plotting Isabella’s death behind her son’s back.
Maria Zoë had made no less than five trips to Kerak in the last two years, but on the last two occasions she had been told that Isabella was “away”—allegedly on pilgrimage in one case and at Montreal on the other. Maria Zoë believed none of it. If it hadn’t been for Dawit’s regular reports on Isabella’s physical health and fierce determination to survive her imprisonment, she would have been frantic enough to take desperate measures. What measures, she didn’t know, but she knew she was capable of doing things no one expected of her.
One of them was walking straight up to the King’s mother and sister and holding out her hand for them to kiss her coronation ring. It was a gesture so haughty that all the ladies in the garden gasped. Maria Zoë knew at some level that such gestures did not make her popular, but she was in no mood to seek the approval of others. This was the ring of Jerusalem that had been placed on her finger at her coronation. She was an anointed queen—something neither Agnes de Courtenay nor Sibylla could claim. Agnes was a baroness, Sibylla Countess of Jaffa; Maria Zoë outranked them both.
Flushing with fury, Agnes just stared at her, while Sibylla threatened, “I will tell my brother about this.”
“Please do!” the Dowager Queen answered, turning to look at her coldly. “King Baldwin understands the significance of being an anointed monarch. He will not be pleased by your insult to his Crown.”
Agnes choked on something she wanted to say, and Sibylla leapt up and ran away from this woman, who always made her feel so inadequate, worthless, and small.
That suited Maria Zoë. She was now face to face with her hated rival. “So, madame, whose child are you planning to steal today?” Maria Zoë asked. Agnes turned even redder, but still could not seem to find her tongue. “If it is my niece’s unborn child,” Maria Zoë continued with only the barest glance in Eschiva’s direction, “think again. Aimery de Lusignan is not as susceptible to your poisonous whispers as your poor, pious son. Oh, but then you must knowthat—since you knew Aimery so verywell.”
“How dare you?” Agnes de Courtenay had found her tongue at last and jumped to her feet in outrage, her fists clenched.
“How dare I what, madame? Draw attention to your morals? But they are common knowledge.” Maria Zoë made a gesture of innocence that included all the other ladies, who gawked at them in shock. Then she added in a voice as hard as steel, for all that it was barely more than a whisper: “Everyone knows you have as much virtue as a bitch in heat.”
Agnes tried to slap Maria Zoë across her face, but Maria Zoë was faster. She caught the Queen Mother’s arm before she could strike and held it, her fingers digging into her Agnes’ wrist until she whimpered in pain. “Let me go!”
Maria Zoë dropped Agnes’ arm, and they stared at one another. “Don’t think you have won,” Maria Zoë warned. “Isabella may be a child, but she has friends far more powerful than you and your vultures.”
“You can’t mean my ineffectual brother-in-law,” Agnes sneered.
 “No, of course not,” Maria Zoë answered, refusing to be provoked. “We both know my husband is too honorable for the games you play.” Maria Zoë was bluffing about having powerful friends. Her great-uncle was dead, her relatives murdered or chased into exile, but she could see the fear that suddenly shot through Agnes’ eyes, and that was satisfying enough for the moment.
The fear, however, made Agnes bluster, “You are not welcome here. I order you to leave at once.”
“I’ll leave when I want to,” Maria Zoë countered. “And don’t think your son’s guards will lay a hand on me! They know the difference between an anointed queen and a king’s whore—”
“Get out of here!” It was Sibylla who shrieked this, coming back to defend her mother at last. “With pleasure,” Maria Zoë answered. “I do not like the company of sluts—or fools.” The latter remark was directed at Sibylla.
“Baldwin will hear of this!” Sibylla shrieked, louder than ever.
“I wonder whose side he’ll take?” Maria Zoë answered evenly. It was not so much that she seriously believed Baldwin would approve of her calling his mother a whore—much less a bitch in heat—but she was, in fact, so furious with him for letting his mother steal her child that she wanted to hurt him. And perhaps, just perhaps, if he learned what she had done, he would be shocked into understanding just how deeply she had been hurt and how dangerous a mother animal in fear for her young was. Maybe, just maybe, he’d begin to see that his mother was not his best adviser, and that engendering the hatred of those who had loved and served him best was stupid—and could be very dangerous as well.

With this thought she turned to a pale, wide-eyed Eschiva and ordered, “Come with me, child. You’ll be far more comfortable at the Ibelin residence, and I’ll be with you until your time has come and you are safely delivered of the child in your womb.” 

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The Peculiar Custom of Electing Kings - The Kingdom of Jerusalem 1099 - 1197.

Medieval Manuscript Illustration of the Election of Baldwin V of Jerusalem
When we think of kings, we generally don't think of elections. Monarchies are usually hereditary, after all, and changes in dynasty most often came about through bloodshed -- assassinations, invasions, and the like. The concept of a king being "elected" is almost unthinkable, at least in the high and late Middle Ages. Yet in one kingdom it was the norm: namely in the Kingdom of Jerusalem between 1099 and 1197.
Not, of course, that these were democratic elections in the sense of "one-man,one-vote" (let alone one-man or one-woman, one vote), but the kings of Jerusalem were for the first hundred years elected by their peers, i.e. the nobles, secular and sacred, of the kingdom.
It all started with the First Crusade. To the bewilderment of the Byzantine Emperor and the various Sultans, Emirs and Caliphs in the East, the First Crusade did not have a single, all-powerful leader. It was led by a motley band of noblemen with a variety of titles from duke on down, and not one of them was recognized as more senior or regal than the rest. Raymond de Toulouse was perhaps the wealthiest of the band, and Hugh de Vermandois was perhaps the best connected as the brother of the French king, but, by the time the remnants of the crusaders had reached Jerusalem, military prowess and piety had come to mean as much a bloodlines and money to the participants. 
Medieval Manuscript Illustration showing Godfrey de Bouillon leading the First CrusadeIn any case, after capturing Jerusalem in July 1099, the leaders of the First Crusader were confronted with a situation not unfamiliar today: post-conflict reconstruction. It seems, that the leaders of the crusade had set out on their almost impossible mission without a clear plan for what they would do with Jerusalem and environs if they succeeded.
The fact was, the vast majority of the crusaders (or armed pilgrims as they were called at the time) had come to liberate the Holy Land and the sites of Christ's passion -- but not to live there. Mission accomplished, they wanted to return home to their families, their lands, their trades. (Historians now estimate that no more than one sixth of the crusaders remained in the Holy Land after completing their pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulcher.) 

It was obvious to the leaders of the crusade, however, that if they all went home, the Holy Land would immediately be reoccupied by the vastly more powerful and populous Muslim states surrounding it. They agreed that a Latin Christian state had to be established that would protect the Holy Land, and being the products of feudalism they really couldn't imagine any other form of government beyond a monarchy. So they "elected" from among their number the man they considered most capable and suitable to rule the new kingdom they had created .
To his credit, the man they elected, Godfrey de Bouillon, refused "to wear a crown of gold where Christ had worn a crown of thorns," and he officially only carried the title "Advocate of the Holy Sepulcher." He died, however, within a year, and the remaining crusaders faced the same dilemma as before: they needed a ruler. 
Admittedly, the franchise was again very limited (the few Latin nobles and prelates still in the Holy Land at the time), but importantly it was not uncontested. The patriarch of Jerusalem at the time seemed to think the Holy City should be held by the Church (namely him) rather than a secular lord. Furthermore, by the right of primogeniture Godfrey's successor should have been his elder brother Eustace. The latter, however, was back in France and it seemed risky to send for him. So the men with anything to say in the kingdom, elected, Godfrey's younger Baldwin. The latter, by the way, had no scruples about wearing a "crown of gold" and allowed himself to be crowned with such in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
When Baldwin I too died without children in 1118, the secular and sacred leaders again gathered to decide on who should be his successor.  By now, as you can see, a precedent had been set and solidified. Thereafter, at the death of each king, the tenants-in-chief (both sacred and secular) met to decide who would succeed. While they always showed a strong bias in favor of a close relative of the previous monarch, they were by no means a mere "rubber stamp." Debates could be heated, and conditions could be set -- such as divorcing an unworthy wife, for example. Furthermore, this council of leading churchmen and barons was by now institutionalized as the "High Court" of Jerusalem. It had acquired a number of other significant constitutional functions above and beyond determining the next king after the death of the last -- but that is beyond the scope of this essay.
The importance of the High Court and the notion of consent by the subjects (well, the tenants-in-chief) can best be illustrated by the case of Queen Sibylla. When Baldwin V died still a child, his closest relatives were his mother, a daughter of King Amalric I by his first wife, and his aunt Isabella, the daughter of King Amalric by his second wife. Since Sibylla was the elder sister, she appeared the most logical candidate for successor. Unfortunately she was married to a wholly unsuitable man, who had managed to alienate virtually the entire nobility of the kingdom. The High Court was divided between a minority that was prepared to crown Sibylla on the condition that she divorce her husband and replace him with someone more suitable, and a majority that inclined to crowning her half-sister Isabella. Sibylla opted to ignore both. She had herself crowned with the support of the minority, and then broke her promise to them by not divorcing the unpopular and despised Guy de Lusignan but crowning him as her consort instead.
Queen Sibylla and Guy de Lusignan in the Hollywood Film "The Kingdom of Heaven"The High Court, effectively circumvented, considered crowning Isabella as a rival (and tearing the country apart), but her husband was unwilling to play along and so the bulk of the nobles capitulated and accepted Sibylla as their queen. End of the elected kingship, you say. 
No, not quite.
Sibylla's claim to the throne remained flawed by the lack of HIgh Court consent, but because she had the best claim she was tolerated. Not so her husband. As soon as Sibylla died, the High Court took its revenge. Isabella (long the preferred candidate of the High Court) was pressured into deposing her ineffective husband (who had betrayed the High Court earlier), and marry a man of the High Court's choosing (Conrad de Montferrat). Henceforth the nobles of the kingdom viewed Conrad (who was not anointed) as the rightful king of Jerusalem rather than Guy (who was anointed).
Admittedly, at the time all this was happening the Kingdom of Jerusalem had ceased to exist. Guy had lost the entire kingdom in a disastrous battle in 1187, and all that remained was the city of Tyre (controlled by said Conrad) and a siege army around the city of Acre (led by Guy). Acre itself was in the hands of some of Saladin's elite troops, while Saladin himself commanded the army surrounding Guy siege force; in short, the besiegers were themselves besieged and would have been wiped out if they hadn't periodically received reinforcements and supplies by sea. 

The situation was soonfurther complicated by the arrival of the Third Crusade, led by Richard I of England, who staunchly backed his vassal Guy against the claims of Conrad, and Philip II, who backed his distant relative Conrad.  Unfortunately for Conrad, Philip soon packed up and went home, and he was left with the Lionheart.
Yet even the famous Lionheart could not force or persuade the High Court of Jerusalem to forfeit their right to elect their ruler. In a famous and telling episode, Richard called together the leaders of the entire crusade but most especially those men from the former Kingdom of Jerusalem that would remain behind in the Holy Land to defend it after the crusaders like himself had returned home. He asked them who should be king, and -- allegedly to Richard's surprise -- they unanimously chose Conrad. At which point, the Lionheart capitulated and recognized Conrad.
Nor was that the end. Shortly afterwards, Conrad was assassinated. Now, according to Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi (a pro-Richard source) "the people...elected [Henri de Champagne] their prince and lord." This language is particularly opaque and cannot possibly mean what we understand today by "the people" or "elect," but it is clear that Henri de Champagne was the choice of someone other than Richard of England. On the contrary, Richard advised Henri against marrying Isabella! Henri, however, ignored his uncle, married the heiress, and became de facto (though not de jure) king of Jerusalem for the next five years.
When Henri died in a freak accident, it was back to the old rule. The High Court of Jerusalem selected Isabella's husband for her because her consort would be the next king. They chose Aimery de Lusignan, who was duly "elected" King of Jerusalem in 1197.
Sibylla's usurpation of the throne is a key event in:
A divided kingdom,

                          a united enemy,

                                             and the struggle for Jerusalem!


Defender of Jerusalem

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An anthology of essays from the second year of the English Historical Fiction Authors blog, this book transports the reader across the centuries from prehistoric to twentieth century Britain. Nearly fifty different authors share the stories, incidents, and insights discovered while doing research for their own historical novels.

From medieval law and literature to Tudor queens and courtiers, from Stuart royals and rebels to Regency soldiers and social calls, experience the panorama of Britain’s yesteryear. Explore the history behind the fiction, and discover the true tales surrounding Britain’s castles, customs, and kings.

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The Leper King's Vision: An Excerpt from "Defender of Jerusalem"

“Look,” Daniel coaxed. “Doesn’t it make even me look comely?” He held the silver mask over his own face and confronted the King, who was lying in bed, propped upon pillows.
“You’re always comely, Daniel,” Baldwin replied, with a weary smile that only made his deformed face more hideous.
“Your grace, your hands and feet are covered with bandages and clothes; why shouldn’t we cover your face as well? If you don’t like this particular mask, we can commission another one. You can choose whatever visage you like—you could even change it from day to day!” Daniel suggested eagerly.
Baldwin sighed. “The only face I want is the one I had before ….”
“We asked the silversmith to try to reproduce it,” Daniel admitted, looking down at the mask in his hand, “but he wasn’t skilled enough. Or maybe he just couldn’t remember what you looked like before ….”
“I’ll wear it if you can’t stand the sight of me anymore,” Baldwin offered, “but otherwise, now that I’ve turned over the affairs of state to my brother-in-law, why do I need to hide?”
“It’s not for me,” Daniel hastened to assure him. “It’s just that your sister thought …” Daniel looked nervously down at the mask again. The Countess of Jaffa had charged him with making Baldwin wear this. She’d told him she couldn’t bear the sight of her brother’s face another day. Daniel knew she would blame him for failing to convince the King to wear the mask, and Princess Sibylla could be hell on earth when she was displeased.
Baldwin caught his breath at the mention of his sister, and after a moment he repeated slowly and deliberately, “My sister.” It wasn’t a question by the time it came out of his mouth, because now that it was out in the open, it was so obvious. His sister was somehow ever present—yet never really at hand. His mother had repeatedly assured him she was here, but she had never come close enough for him to see her with his dimming eyes.
“My sister wants me to wear the mask,” he concluded.
Daniel nodded vigorously. “She—she says she loves you too much to see you like this.”
“Yes,” Baldwin said stoically. “Too much.”
Sibylla had always been attracted to beauty, he reminded himself, striving for the thousandth time to find an excuse for his sister. But the words rang falsely even in his own head. If she loved him so much, then surely she would see beyond his deformed face to his heart and soul? Surely she would care more about what he was feeling than what she was seeing? Like Ibrahim.
Baldwin suddenly realized he had not seen or heard from Ibrahim in days. The thought distracted him from his sister’s pseudo-love. “Daniel, where is Ibrahim? He hasn’t been with me for days. He hasn’t fallen ill, has he? He didn’t catch the fever, did he?” Even as he spoke, Baldwin was seized with fear that Ibrahim might be dead. Old people, like children, were the most vulnerable to fevers, and Baldwin could distinctly remember Ibrahim at his bedside during the worst stage of his fever, when he had been half mad and had thrashed around in the bed trying to escape his worthless body. Ibrahim had come and calmed him, cooing to him in Arabic.
Daniel looked up in alarm. This was the first day in a month that they had been alone together. It was the first time Daniel had seen the King lucid and completely free of fever. “Didn’t …” Daniel started.
“Didn’t what?” Baldwin asked.
“Didn’t the Countess of Jaffa tell you?”
“He’s dead?” Baldwin asked, rearing up from his pillows in alarm, his grief so great that it gave him strength.
Daniel shook his head vigorously.
Baldwin sank back onto the pillows, exhausted from even this little rush of adrenalin. “Christ be praised for that. But where is he, then? Is he ill?”
“No,” Daniel admitted, “no, the Countess of Jaffa complained that he only got in the way and underfoot—”
Baldwin was sitting bolt upright again. “She didn’t—she couldn’t have said that!” he protested, yet his tone and expression belied his words. It was as if he were hearing these very words again in his memory, as if he had recorded them in his subconscious and they were echoing now in his conscious mind.
Daniel could not meet his eye, because he was ashamed he had not done more to defend Ibrahim at the time. He muttered, “She said he’s too old to serve, and sent him away.”
“What?” Baldwin protested in shame and outrage. “Sent him away? Without my consent! And where? Where is he now?” Baldwin demanded.
“I don’t know, your grace,” Daniel mumbled shamefacedly.
“But how could you just let him go?” Baldwin wanted to know. Reproach was in the King’s words, making Daniel realize that his lord knew how jealous he had been of the love the King showed the old Muslim slave.
“I—I was too concerned about you at the time, your grace,” Daniel defended himself lamely. “We all thought you were about to die.”
“All the more reason to ensure poor Ibrahim was not thrown out! He has no family like you have, Daniel. He has no one in the whole world. No where to go. You must find him. You must go—” Baldwin had been about to order Daniel to go to the hospice of the Hospital—but then he realized Ibrahim would never seek solace in a Christian institution, and there was no mosque or Muslim community in Jerusalem either.
“I think he might have gone to Ibelin,” Daniel ventured. “He said Lord Balian had promised to take him in ….”
Baldwin leveled reproachful eyes on Daniel. “Ibelin is fifty miles away! How is poor Ibrahim supposed to get there? He’s at least seventy years old!”
Daniel looked down at his feet.
“Daniel, I hold you responsible for Ibrahim’s welfare. You must send a man to Ibelin at once to see if Ibrahim is safely there. If Balian has given him a home, then we will let him be—but in the name of the Virgin Mary, if he is not there, I will not let you rest until we have found him and brought him back to me.”
“Yes, your grace,” Daniel muttered.
“Leave me,” Baldwin ordered, lying back on his pillows and closing his eyes.
“But, your grace—” Daniel protested, knowing that without Ibrahim there was no one but himself to help the King do anything, now that he had lost the use of all his limbs and was almost blind.
“Wait outside the door. I’ll call if I need you,” Baldwin insisted, without opening his eyes or stirring until he heard the door close behind Daniel.
When he was alone, Baldwin tried to sort out his thoughts.
It had seemed so natural to give up the burden of ruling when he was ill. It had been such a relief. “Yes, Guy can be Regent,” he had told his mother—anything but the smothering sense of a duty he could not fulfill. He had just wanted to rest, to die in peace, without the guilty conscience of leaving the Kingdom ungoverned.
“You’ll retain Jerusalem, of course,” his mother had promised. “And an annual income of ten thousand pieces of gold.”
What did he want with an income of ten thousand gold pieces when he was dead? And of course he would retain Jerusalem, because he would be buried beside his father and uncle in the Holy Sepulcher.
Only he wasn’t dead yet. He drew a deep breath. The room smelled slightly foul—from unchanged sheets, a dirty garderobe, and rotting bandages. Ibrahim had never left his bandages lying around, nor let the garderobe get dirty, either. Daniel—Daniel was strong still and devoted to him, but he hated cleaning the garderobe and, not unnaturally, he hated touching the used bandages, too.
How could it have taken him this long to register that Ibrahim was missing? Baldwin reproached himself. How long had it been? A week? Two? Even three? Christ, forgive me! He squirmed uneasily in his guilt, and then went still with a paralyzing sense of fear.
He was alone. Utterly alone. Everyone who truly loved him had been chased away. The Archbishop of Tyre, after being passed over for the post of Patriarch of Jerusalem to make way for his mother’s lover, had resigned as Chancellor in offended outrage. Tante Marie had been turned into a bitter enemy because they’d taken her little girl away from her—to please his mother. Balian had been alienated first by the insult to his brother, and then by the loss of his stepdaughter. And now poor, harmless Ibrahim—thrown out in his old age without so much as a pension.
Baldwin felt cold, but he could not pull up the covers on his own. He lay on the bed feeling the chill gnawing at his rotting bones, but he did not cry out for Daniel, because he felt God’s wrath in the cold around him.
“You have created this cold by your own faithlessness,” God said in his conscience. “You have replaced those who loved you with those who love only the power they derive from you. You have turned your back on love and basked in its counterfeit.”
Baldwin felt the urge to cry, but he had long since lost the ability to shed tears. Instead he began to writhe in silent agony. With a clarity and vividness that only existed in his mind, he remembered how Ibrahim had come to put him to bed the day the doctor suggested he had leprosy; the other servants were all in hiding or had run away altogether, but Ibrahim had smiled at him and tucked him into to bed. Next he remembered the day Balian had come into his life and put his arm around his shoulders—risking his own health and life to give comfort to a frightened child. He remembered, too, the day his father died and he had been so terrified of becoming king, but Balian had knelt and offered him fealty, telling him he could be king without the use of his hands. “You will be king by the force of your mind and the courage of your heart,” Balian had said. Even when the leprosy had attacked his face, Balian had helped carry him—with Ibrahim. They lovedhim. They would not have asked that he hide behind a mask.
Baldwin was racked with dry sobs as he thought next of Tante Marie. She had kissed his hands the day she returned to court, making his mother and sister gasp because theyhad not dared. She had brought little Isabella to him, while Sibylla insisted she could not risk her son’s life in his presence. And how had he rewarded Tante Marie? By taking Isabella away from her.
Baldwin’s writhing was becoming more violent, and his breathing came in gasps. How could he have done that? How could he have let his mother and Sibylla talk him into such an act of cruelty? What were Tante Marie and Balian going to do to or with Isabella that was so dangerous to him? Nothing! They loved him.
Maybe it was good to marry Isabella to Humphrey before she was old enough to be driven by sexual desire like Sibylla, but why hadn’t he ordered Humphrey to go to live with Balian and Maria Zoë, rather than tear poor little Isabella away from the people she loved and who loved her? How could he destroy a family after suffering so much from the destruction of his own?

The voices of his mother and sister seemed to be everywhere around him—chattering, nagging, vowing their love to him while cooing poisoned advice and begging him to reward their lovers. Guy, Heraclius, Guy, Heraclius. He had made their men the most powerful men in the Kingdom: the head of the State and the Church respectively. And where were they now? Probably in bed with their lovers, while he lay here alone in the growing stench of unchanged bandages and linens and a dirty garderobe. He was starting to shiver and his teeth began to chatter—but he still did not call to Daniel, because he had brought this upon himself. God was right to punish him.


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Beauty and the Beast: A Excerpt from "Defender of Jerusalem"

“Humphrey! You’re 15! You’re grown up!  You don’t have to put up with this anymore!” Isabella argued furiously with her future husband.
“If I don’t do what Oultrejourdain says, he’ll break my face in!” Humphrey countered, just as angrily.
“He doesn’t have the right to do that! You’re his peer!” Isabella insisted indignantly. “You’re the Lord of Toron!”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Humphrey wanted to know. “It’s all very well for you to talk about my rights,” Humphrey sneered, “he’s never laid his fists on you!”
“Because he wouldn’t dare! Don’t you see, Humphrey? You have to make him respect you!”
“Why the hell should he respect me when he’s so much stronger than I am?  I’m not even a knight!”
“The King has never been knighted either,” Isabella pointed out. “But people respect him, don’t they? Even Oultrejourdain respects him. And you can’t say he’s stronger than Oultrejourdain either. They say he can’t even walk anymore.”
“But he’s the King,” Humphrey pointed out in exasperation.
“And you are the Lord of Toron! If you don’t remind Oultrejourdain of that and insist that he treat you according to your rank, we’ll never get out of here!”
Humphrey stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Do you want to stay here forever?” Isabella demanded. “You are Lord of Toron! We should be living in Toron as lord and lady, not imprisoned here!”
“Oultrejourdain says I’m not ready,” Humphrey conceded, red with shame.
“Because he likes having your income! He’s never going to willinglygive you your inheritance. You have to makehim give it to you!”
“You make it sound so easy!” Humphrey protested. “If you think it’s so easy, you tell him!”
“Alright, I will!” Isabella decided, and with clenched fists she turned and started striding toward the Great Chamber where Oultrajourdain was consulting his household officials.
Humphrey ran after her. “Isabella! Don’t!”
“Why not?”
“We don’t know what he’ll do to you!”
Isabella could see real fear in Humphrey’s flushed face and she knew he was genuinely afraid for her. She appreciated that, but she was convinced that sometimes you had to be brave. She had had enough of being a prisoner. She was not prepared to wait for her freedom any longer. “I don’t care what he does to me,” she told Humphrey stubbornly. “I’m going to confront him!”
“Isabella! I’ll tell him about Dawit!” Humphrey used the threat that had worked before.But Isabella was beyond being blackmailed. Her step-father had reminded her that she was not a helpless child, she was a Princess of Jerusalem and she had more right to the throne than did Sibylla, the daughter of a bad woman. It was because people were afraid of her, that she was kept imprisoned here.
Isabella swept into the Great Chamber with Humphrey in her wake, but the adults paid no attention to her. Humphrey seized the chance to try to pull her back, whispering loudly for her to come with him.  Isabella broke free of his clasp angrily and burst out in a loud, demanding voice. “I want to speak to you, my lord of Oultrejourdain!”
“I’m busy.” He retorted without even looking up from the document he was reading. “Later.”
“No, now!”
Humphrey gasped and the men of the household snorted.
“You’ll do as you’re told!” Oultrajourdain growled, looking up and frowning threateningly.
Isabella stood her ground. “I’m Isabella of Jerusalem and you can’t order me around!”Oultrajourdain burst out laughing and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest in bemusement.  The fact that a chit of a girl, barely eleven years old, was willing to stand up to him like this amused him. Of course, he could have brushed her aside with a single back-handed flick of his wrist. He could have picked her up with one hand, and dumped her in the deepest and vilest of his dungeons, and left her there without food and water until she begged his forgiveness, or he could simply hit her until she was broken and streaming tears. But what was the point of demonstrating his power over someone so weak? He used his strength to keep strong men from challenging him and to make weak men stronger, but he saw no point in employing brute force against girl who would never be strong and never be a threat to him — at least not physically.“So Madame de Jerusalem,” Oultrajourdain asked with an amused smirk, “just what is so important that we have to discuss it now?”
“My husband — my future husband — turned 15 last month.” Isabella told him, starting to feel afraid now that she was face to face with Oultrejourdain and he was staring at her so intently. His eyes seemed to communicate a mixture of malice and amusement.
“Did he?” Oultrajourdain asked back, feigning surprise. Then he turned on Humphrey and asked as if he could not believe it. “Is that true, boy? Did you turn fifteen?” Before Humphrey could answer, Oultrejourdain continued in a tone of utter contempt, “I never would have guessed. You act more like fivethan fifteen!”
“But it’s true!” Isabella insisted. “He’s fifteen and so he is an adult! He is now Lord of Toron.”
“A lord who needs an eleven year old girl to speak for him!” Oultrajourdain countered sharply, shaking his head in a mixture of disbelief and scorn. “When he’s man enough to argue his own case, Isabella, I’ll hear him out. For now, go back to your nursery and take the little boy with you!”
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Return from Hell: An Excerpt from "The Defender of Jerusalem"

Balian had escaped from the great hall where the drinking had started in earnest and cautiously followed the vaulted passage that ran north from the chapel to the underground postern. Part of it was curiosity, for he was interested in the defenses of every castle he visited, but mostly he was seeking solitude so he could think.  Isabella had been sent to bed long ago, before the entertainment became too crude, but the touch of her lips on Balian’s cheek as he said good night still lingered like a reproach. She knew he planned to depart without her on the morn, and although she had said she understood, it was hard to leave her here after three days “enjoying” the Lady of Oultrajourdain’s hospitality.
Furthermore, previous visits had also been before the Red Sea raids, and Balian knew that many of the men sitting at the tables and sharing their meals with Isabella were mercenaries capable of all the atrocities attributed to the raiders.  Like Oultrejourdain, Balian and Maria Zoё had their informers. Greek traders with strong ties to Alexandria had provided them with some very gruesome details of both the raids — and the fate of the survivors. The reports had all spoken of “mercenaries” and sailors from the gutters of the Levant — led by a blond knight of great height and strength with a nose that hung straight from his forehead like the nosepiece of a helmet.
Height and strength were always attributed to an opponent that was difficult to subdue, it increased the prowess of the victors in the end, and most Franks were considered “blond” by their Arab foes, but the detail about the nose was what had led Balian to believe Henri was the leader of the raid. Barry and Henri both had a nose like this, but it was most pronounced in Henri’s case. Barry’s face was otherwise harmonious and attractive so the dominant nose didn’t jump out at you as much; Henri’s hunger for land, fame and fortune had carved out his cheeks and left his nose more prominent than ever.
Out of the darkness that face emerged to confront Balian. It was blackened, however, as if burned, and encased in a Bedouin headdress. Balian caught his breath and stepped back, certain he was facing a ghost.
The ghost, however, laughed. “Afraid of your own brother, are you?”
“Henri! Where have you come from?”
“Hell.” Came the simple answer.
The answer seemed to corroborate that this was his brother’s soul, but at the same time the image seemed far too substantial. Dust soiled and weighed down the hem of the Bedouin robes, and the smell of sweat — thick and masculine —oozed from his brother as he blocked the passageway. Surely ghosts wouldn’t smell.
“Chatillon tells me you went voluntarily,” Balian ventured.
His brother laughed harshly. “Oh, that I did, and the Heaven part came before the Hell. Ever make love to harem slaves? I assure you, it’s like nothing else in the world!” He laughed again. “And they have wine in Aden, Balian, like the nectar of lotus that drove Ulysses’ men mad. You can’t imagine what it’s like to lick that sweet wine from the thighs of dancing girls. And the treasure, Balian, the treasure was more than we could carry. The men started paying their whores with ruby rings and ivory bracelets. I could have bought Ibelin ten times over with what I had in my sea chest alone.”
“Ibelin is not for sale,” Balian replied, certain now that this was no apparition but his brother very much in the flesh, who had somehow managed to disguise himself as a Bedouin and escape the vengeance of the Egyptian authorities.
“No? I’m not so sure. Even our saintly, little leper might have been tempted by the treasure I could have lain before him. It was surely enough to build a wall all around the Kingdom of Jerusalem — or pay a thousand knights from the West.”
“He might have been tempted,” Balian agreed, “if you had managed to keep it and bring it here.”
“They trapped us, Balian,” the tone of voice changed from triumph to bitterness. “We were betrayed! I killed a dozen of the Pisan bastards — just to set an example, but it was too late. We had to abandon all we had — the ships, the treasure, the girls — and headed inland.  But the Bedouins led us into a ravine with no escape and then tried to disappear among the rocks. I chased after them while the rest of the fools fought off our pursuers. The rock crevices were so sharp, they cut like the edge of a knife.” He opened his hands and looked down at the scars on them as if amazed by the jagged, scabbed lines that now deformed them.
Balian waited, torn between shock and sympathy.
“I finally brought one of the bastards down, cut his throat and took his robes. I dressed his corpse in my armor and kicked it over the edge of the cliff. It rolled its way back into the ravine to land at the feet of the Egyptian troops, the face so smashed and ravaged by the rock edges that they never even suspected the deception. When they looked up, I waved back to them, clenched my fist over my head and shouted “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” The idiots answered with similar shouts and never even tried to come after me.”“I’m surprised the Bedouins didn’t get you,” Balian observed, still trying to sort out his feelings; he was glad Henri was alive, and yet ashamed of what he’d done.
Henri just laughed. “So am I. Of course, I still had some gold in my purse that helped with some of them. The others I had to kill.”
“You have a lot to confess, it would seem,” Balian concluded. After all, it was not his place to judge his brother; that was for God to do.
“Don’t preach to me, Balian. You haven’t been where I was.”
“No, and I hope I never am.”
“Barry always said you weren’t ambitious enough.”
“I’m a Baron of Jerusalem and an honorable man. That’s good enough for me.”
“Yes, I know. But not for me. Did Chatillon tell you about the little girl he’s going to give me?”
“Yes, with a fief worth more than Ibelin, I know. You’re welcome to it, Henri, because you are right: I would not have done what you have done to get it. May God have mercy on your soul.”
“That sounds rather like you are washing your hands of me.”
“Does it?”
“Yes.” Something in Henri’s tone sounded distressed, as if some last, flickering remnant of decency or maybe just affection had flared up in him.  Or maybe he was just suddenly afraid of losing Balian.
Balian heard it, but it was too faint to sway him. “You are beyond my help, Henri. Go collect your earthly reward from Chatillon, and see that you enjoy it for the Day of Judgment will not be far behind, and I do not want to be in your shoes.”
Balian turned and walked back in the direction of the chapel.
Henri called after him. “Nor I in yours, Balian! Nor I in yours! For all you goodness will not help you when Salah-ad-Din comes!”
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The Forgotten Bride: A Excerpt from "Defender of Jerusalem"

“Does your lady always keep you waiting this long?” Aimery asked, drumming his fingers impatiently on the linen-covered high table.
“Actually,” Balian remarked, leaning back in his chair and turning the goblet between his fingers, “never. She’s a very punctual woman, but we didn’t give her much warning.”
“Dinner is ready,” Aimery retorted, indicating the ushers and pages and cooks already in position. The tables behind the screens were groaning under the burden of platters piled high with roasted geese, stuffed hens, and grilled goat, not to mention the beans, peas, carrots, and lentils in various sauces, and the bread piled high in baskets. The meal was ready, and the squires had already had a healthy share of it in the kitchens before taking up their stations behind their lords, ready to pour wine and water and serve. But the lady of the house was absent.
“Have some more wine,” Balian replied, signaling Dawit forward to pour for their guest.
Even as he spoke, however, Maria Zoë emerged from the screens and stood at the far end of the hall facing them. Since she had been in the bedchamber, to get to the screens meant she’d actually gone down into the ward and taken the outside steps, which at first puzzled Balian. Then he realized she was waiting for someone else. A moment later a lovely young lady stepped out of the screens, and Maria Zoë looped her arm through the other lady’s elbow as they started forward together.
“Who’s that with your wife?” Aimery asked, staring.
“Your wife,” Balian answered, amused, although he too had had to look twice before he recognized his niece.
“That’s what I thought; I just wanted to be sure before I did or said something inappropriate,” Lusignan answered, admitting after a pause, “I wouldn’t have recognized her in a different setting.”
Balian couldn’t resist commenting, “Well, whose fault is that? You were always welcome to visit more often.”
Aimery just grunted in reply and touched his face with his hand, feeling the four-day beard. Without taking his eyes off his approaching bride, he asked urgently under his breath, “How do I look?”
Balian laughed. “You look like you’ve been campaigning for a fortnight, and smell like you haven’t bathed in a month.”
Aimery frowned and leveled an annoyed look at Balian. “You don’t exactly smell like a bed of roses, either!”
Balian only had time to laugh before he pushed back his chair and welcomed his lady to the dais. After kissing her on both cheeks, he turned to Lusignan and announced with relish, “My niece, Eschiva de Ramla and Mirabel,” as the latter fell into a deep curtsy before the Constable, her husband.
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"It's rare to see the Templars arrive late for a battle...": An excerpt from "Defender of Jerusalem"

“It’s rare to see the Templars arrive late for a battle,” Sir Walter noted with a short laugh, pointing to a Templar galloping on to the field from their left. They all turned to watch with bemusement. The Templar pride at always being first in battle grated on their nerves to some degree. As they watched, more Templars appeared, also at a full gallop but not in any kind of formation. At almost the same instant, they collectively realized these Templars weren’t attacking: they were fleeing.
Ibelin automatically looked left to see what the Templars were fleeing from, and gasped: “Holy Cross and St. George!” A wide, deep line of Saracen horse had crested the hill with all their banners fluttering. Salah ad-Din’s banner was the largest, in the middle of the host.
Ibelin jammed his helmet on his head, pulled his shield back onto his left arm, then grabbed up his reins as he put his spurs to his stallion. Around him his knights frantically did the same without being ordered. It didn’t take a genius to recognize the danger they were in: the Christian army was scattered all over the field. Ramla was across the river; Tripoli and Lusignan had been lured fully two miles to the north in their maneuver to cut off Farrukh-Shah’s escape. And even those knights still on the battlefield were, like Ibelin and his hundred knights, dispersed and partially spent.
Fortunately, Centurion had been refreshed by the drink and the soothing coolness of the running water on his legs and belly. He responded with alacrity. Once he was out of the river and onto the firmer ground of the plain, Balian stood in the stirrups and leaned forward, urging him onwards. Soon the stallion was going flat out, leaping over the bodies of man and horse in a mad dash to rejoin the King’s forces.
On his right, Lusignan and his knights were also racing back to rejoin the King, while Tripoli took charge of the valuable prisoner and with a handful of his knights rode west for the coast.
The sound of the approaching Saracen charge became an increasing rumble. The Saracens could see their foe spread out and vulnerable before them—and could see Ibelin and Lusignan rushing to regroup. They, too, spurred their mounts forwards. Neither army had mustered infantry for what on the Muslim side had been a raid, and on the Christian side a counter-raid. Nor did Salah ad-Din appear to have the usual contingents of mounted archers; they had apparently been deployed with Farrukh-Shah. The Saracen horse thundering down toward the scattered Frankish forces were heavy cavalry armed with lance and sword. They shouted battle cries, the wind fluttered the pennants on their lance tips, and the sunlight caught on their raised swords. Centurion laid his ears flat back on his head as he raced, determined to escape the onslaught from his left.
But they weren’t going to make it. The enemy was advancing too fast.
They could not risk being run over from the side.
Ibelin flung out his left arm toward the enemy to indicate they had to turn into the attack. He could not take the time to look over his shoulder to see if his knights understood him. Instead, he reached forward and with his left hand took hold of the bridle directly behind the bit. Then he leaned with all his weight on his shield arm and pulled Centurion around—more by the strength of his will than his arm. He barely managed to sit back in the saddle before the lines of horses clashed.
Centurion was thrown on his haunches by the impact from the first lance, and Balian felt blows raining down on his shield, helmet, forearms, and thighs. As the enemy swept past him, each Saracen within range tried to kill him without actually stopping.
That was what saved his life. After their lances shattered, the slashing strokes of the Saracens’ swords as they swept by could not penetrate his chain mail. It took a direct, piercing blow to penetrate the linked steel rings, and none dared slow long enough to deliver that kind of thrust.
Ibelin huddled behind his shield, his head down to protect his face and eyes, making no attempt to fight until Centurion recovered his balance and began staggering and stamping his way forward, with a dogged determination that testified to the stallion’s own will to survive. At once Balian straightened, and screaming to reawaken his own courage, he started fighting—even if this consisted of little more than warding off the blows still directed at him, using both his shield and his sword.
Finally the wave of Saracen cavalry rolled over them, and the knights of Ibelin and Nablus emerged from the clouds of dust billowing up behind the enemy. Like islands in the swirling dust, clusters of mounted fighting men emerged. They were scattered across three hundred yards. Immediately beside and behind Balian, the knights of Ibelin still made up a coherent body of men, while the knights of Nablus formed a half-dozen distinct clumps.
But there were also a score of unhorsed men staggering out of the clouds of dust, stumbling, coughing, holding their hands to their bleeding wounds or cradling broken wrists, dislocated elbows, and wrenched shoulders. As the dust settled further, the trampled corpses of horses and a half-dozen other men emerged, while the piercing screams of a wounded stallion struggling to get to his feet despite two broken legs blotted out all other sounds.
Dawit was down before Balian could stop him. He personally put the injured horse out of his misery with a quick slash to his jugular. This action brought Balian to his senses. Behind them the Saracens had fully engulfed the King and his body of knights. This was no time to sit around staring.
“Get those men mounted!” Ibelin ordered, gesturing for the dazed squires behind him to pick up the unhorsed men. “All of them! Take them back to camp!”
“Wait!” Sir Bartholomew countermanded, laying a hand on Balian’s arm. The gesture had a calming effect, and the older man’s troubled eyes met Balian’s. “Have the wounded that still have horses take the unhorsed men. We need every unharmed fighting man we have—even the squires.”
“Yes,” Balian recognized the wisdom of the older man’s advice and smiled his thanks. “Any of you not fit to fight, take a rider behind you and return to the camp. Everyone else, form up!”
As the remaining fourscore knights and their squires formed a conroi around him, Ibelin saw Lusignan arrive from the northeast and start fighting his way through the enemy to reach the King. They would have to do the same thing. “A Ibelin!” Balian roared as he asked the now drooping Centurion for yet another charge.
Around him they answered “A Ibelin!” and “A Nablus!” even “Jerusalem!” and started forward at a lumbering, weary canter.
If they’d had lances, it would have been comparatively easy. The Saracens were focused on the King and Lusignan, not expecting cavalry to attack them from the rear. But without lances they could not cut a swath through the enemy; they had to fight their way through. The only good thing was that they were fighting cavalry; there were no Saracen foot soldiers stabbing at the bellies of their horses or trying to drag them down. Ibelin and his knights could drop their reins and urge their horses forward with their legs as they used their shields and swords to clear a path through the enemy to the compact body of knights around the King.
It seemed to take forever to kill their way forward, but they had almost made it. No more than two or three Saracens still separated Ibelin from the King when one of the Saracens, an exceptionally large man, stood in his stirrups and brought his sword down on Sir Tancred’s head so hard that it sliced open the helmet. Blood spurted like a fountain, coating and temporarily blinding his assailant, but as Sir Tancred’s heavy body fell sideways off his horse it fell upon the shoulder of the King’s stallion, causing him to rear up and spring sideways just as he had done in the last engagement.
Balian saw the King lean forward in an attempt to stay seated, but now the enemy was stabbing Lightning in the belly and the stallion flailed out with his front hooves, squealing in pain and terror. The King didn’t stand a chance; he lost his stirrups and fell backwards onto the ground.
The knights of Ibelin and Nablus burst through the enemy and turned to face the Saracens to shield their lord as he jumped down and dragged King Baldwin into his arms. “We’re lost!” Baldwin gasped, dazed and bewildered.
“Not yet, we aren’t!” Ibelin answered stubbornly. He pulled Centurion close and urged the King to mount. Baldwin, however, could grab neither the reins, the stirrup, nor the pommel with his lifeless hands, and the blood-mad stallion danced away from the strange rider again and again.
Ibelin was aware of men around them grunting, cursing, killing, and dying. Young Sir Adrian let out a blood-curdling scream as a Saracen sword gutted him. Blood spurted and then spilled in a stinking gush over Ibelin and the King. It was only a matter of seconds before their protection would be slaughtered. Balian had to get the King off the field, but he could not hold Centurion still and lift Baldwin up at the same time.
Suddenly Daniel was beside him on the ground. “I’ll carry him off!” the squire shouted. Ibelin didn’t have time to think, much less contradict. Daniel was pulling the King’s lifeless arms around his own neck and hooking his arms through the King’s knees. Then he jogged away in a crouch, slipping almost unnoticed between the horses as the horsemen struggled with one another.
Balian grabbed Centurion’s reins, pointed his foot in the stirrup, and hauled himself back into the saddle, but he’d lost his shield in his efforts to help the King. The next instant he looked death in the face as a turbaned horseman charged at him, pointing his sword at his unshielded chest.
Then the hand holding the sword spun through the air with the longsword still in its grasp. The bleeding stub hit Balian in the chest before the rest of the body slumped down and fell between their horses. The knight who had saved him wore Sidon’s livery. Sidon had been left holding his castle of Sidon. If he was here now, it meant he had reinforced the Christian forces with fresh knights. Indeed, Sidon’s knights, most of whom still had lances, were pushing the Saracens back, giving the exhausted men of the King’s bodyguard―and Ibelin―a chance to escape.
Ibelin had no illusions about his ability to fight effectively any longer. He had no lance, no squires, and no shield. The best he could do was live to fight another day, and as he turned a weary Centurion away from the battle, he was followed by what remained of his troop: some threescore knights and less than half a hundred squires.


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A Destrier's Tale, Part XVII: Surrender

A Destrier’s TaleBalian d’Ibelin’s Destrier “Centurion” Tells his StoryPart XVII: Surrender


Incredibly, Lord Balian tried a second night sortie just a few days later. But this time the Horse-Haters were waiting for us. No sooner were we across the bridge, than they swept down on us from all sides. There was literally no way to escape them — except to get back inside the city.
The horrible thing was that the Horse-Haters seemed to be concentrating on Lord Balian rather than me — trying not so much to kill him as to drag him out of the saddle. By now, I was pretty confident that I could defend myself. I could bite and trample and kick viciously enough to make the Horse-Haters back away long enough for me to spin around and run for safety behind the walls. (In the dark there were no archers.) But I wasn’t going to leave Lord Balian to those murderers! Behind us the knight-colts were breaking and running, and only Gabriel was still with us it seemed. He pressed in to try to come between the Horse-Haters and Lord Balian. His intervention enabled me to swing on haunches and start back for the draw-bridge. Gabriel and his stallion were right behindw me.
We had just made the drawbridge when Gabriel’s stallion Gypsy gave a blood curdling scream and reared up. I don’t know how they did it, but they brought him down just yards from safety.  He tumbled right off the side of the bridge into the ditch, tossing poor Gabriel through the air. Horse-Haters pressed forward, hot on our heels. They were on both sides of us, yelling their curses and grabbing for Lord Balian. One came up so close on our left that he grabbed for my bridle, apparently intent on pulling me around and into their camp.
The only thing I could think to do was to leap up and kick out with my hind legs. I landed that kick with so much force that the attacker’s mare crumpled up and fell into the ditch with a piercing whinny — chocked out when she broke her neck as she hit the bottom. I was now through the gate, however, and although some of our pursuers came in with us, they were quickly slaughtered by the Christian infantry.
In fact, the Christians were so frantic by now that they killed the slave horses as well as the Horse-Haters. Just swarmed over them hacking, stabbing, jabbing and screaming in fury.
On my back I felt Lord Balian crumple up, falling forward on my neck. I was sure he was wounded, maybe mortally so, and was grateful when a half dozen humans rushed over to him, calling “My lord! My lord! Are you alright?”
“They were waiting for us! We rode straight into a trap!” He gasped out, righting himself again with a groan and adding in a voice laden with pain and grief. “We lost Sir Gabriel.”
“You did the best you could, my lord.”
When I got back to the stables, Georgios untacked me, checked me over for wounds, and made sure I had fresh water and hay, but I was exhausted. What was more, I could tell the situation was hopeless. In the first sortie, we’d managed to destroy those terrible giants that threw rocks and flaming balls at us, but within two days the Horse-Haters had recruited even more of them. The bombardment was worse than ever, and now we couldn’t sortie out anymore either. Our situation was absolutely hopeless.
I guess I went to sleep eventually, but so late that I was still groggy when Georgios led me out after daybreak to brush away the sweat stains of the night before. He wasn’t even finished, however, when suddenly Mathewos ran into the yard yelling for Georgios to tack me up. Again? I thought. I have to admit that for a moment I was genuinely reluctant and snapped irritably at Mathewos and Georgios.
But then Lord Balian appeared and he had fixed himself up. He was in a surcoat with gold trim and his hair was brushed, his face shaven. He was going to face the enemy! And there was no way I could let him down. I pulled myself together and arched my neck to show him I was ready too. If we were going to die, it would be together — fighting. I nickered my readiness to him.
But he didn’t call the remaining colt-knights together. Instead he took only Mathewos and he carried an all-white banner, rather than the one with the arms of Ibelin. We rode again to the Jehosaphat Gate and the streets were completely empty, apparently abandoned, but I could hear the distinct sounds of battle raging to our left. Men were screaming, shouting, cursing and the clang of metal was audible too. Those sounds, I realized with horror, couldn’t have come from outside the walls. Somehow the Horse-Haters had gotten inside the city!
Lord Balian ordered the men manning the gate to signal to the enemy. They started waving banners and blowing horns until they reported they had the enemy’s attention. Only then did Lord Balian ordered them to open the gate.
We rode straight out at a sedate walk. I wanted to charge. I feel stronger charging, but Lord Balian kept me to a walk. So I pranced and danced my way forward with my nose tucked in and my tail up. We rode like that all the way to the large church set among olive trees before the Horse-Haters swept down on us and blocked our way about 30 yards ahead of us. They didn’t attack us though. It was like back at the city-by-the-sea. Somehow the Horse-Haters knew Lord Balian had come to talk not fight.
Lord Balian ordered Mathewos to remain where he was and advanced until we were just 10 feet apart. The humans exchanged words in the language of the Horse-Haters, and the tone was harsh and threatening. Then another Horse-Hater appeared in magnificent robes with a jewel-studded turban and he rode a stallion that was almost as big as me. When he spoke the others backed away and Lord Balian and he were then alone but about 8 feet apart with my head level with his stallion’s tail and vice-versa.
They seemed to talk for a long time and the emotions were raw in both voices, though I couldn’t understand the words. First one then the other raised his voice, then they both grew more reasonable but still sharp. Until, abruptly, it was over. The Horse-Hater turned and started to ride away. Lord Balian called something after him. He paused, looked back at us with fury in his eyes, but then nodded and rode away. At last Lord Balian turned me back toward the city.
We reached Mathewos. “I have surrendered Jerusalem,” Lord Balian said. He did not sound very happy about it, although after they had talked a bit more Mathewos exclaimed “This is a miracle, my lord!”
Lord Balian clearly didn’t think so, he drew up and questioned Mathewos further, but then we continued together toward the city. We hadn’t even reached the bridge before people started streaming out and surrounded us. Some were cheering, others weeping, still others singing. They completely enveloped us just as when we’d first arrived in the city. I didn’t understand it at first, but then I realized that the giants had stopped hurling things at us, the archers had stopped shooting at us and the sound of combat had died away. Whatever it was Lord Balian had said, he’d convinced the Horse-Haters to let us live — at least for another day.


The siege of Jerusalem is described (from human perspective) in Book II of my Biographical Novel of Balian d'Ibelin:

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The three part biography begins with:



A landless knight,                       a leper king,                                                                                          and the struggle for Jerusalem!




Knight of Jerusalem: A Biographical Novel of Balian d'Ibelin,  Book I, is a B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree and finalist for the 2014 Chaucer Awards for Historical Fiction.

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A Destrier's Tale Part XVI: Siege & Sortie

A Destrier’s TaleBalian d’Ibelin’s Destrier “Centurion” Tells his StoryPart XVI: Siege and Sortie



I wasn’t given much time to enjoy that victory though. Just a couple days later the largest host of Horse-Haters ever seen was attacking Jerusalem. At first they just charged at the walls, but the Christians — men and mares both — fought them back. The Christian archers were on the walls all day firing at the Horse-Haters, and Lord Balian rode me around and around the city so he could tell the humans what to do.
But then the Horse-Haters found giants willing to throw boulders and flaming balls over the walls and into the city itself. Those rocks were so huge they made the earth shake when they struck they smashed anything that got in their way — masonry or flesh. Most of the horses had been taken out of the city, of course, or were protected in stables, but I didn't like those boulders roaring through the air. Worse, however, were the flaming balls. They set the shops and many a roof on fire and I saw one person go up in flames too. After a couple days of this the whole city seemed to be on fire.
That night Georgios, who had replaced Gabriel as Lord Balian’s squire, woke me up. Dawit and Mattheows were there too, tacking up their own horses, and as soon as we were ready, Lord Balian mounted me and we all rode to the Postern of Mary Magdalen. Here we three were joined first by three strangers in funny clothes, and then by a pack of about two score of those colt-knights that had panicked so badly in the last fight before the siege started. They were riding their horses, who were nickering among themselves and generally behaving badly.
Lord Balian ordered everyone to be silent, then he closed the chainmail flap over his mouth and chin and took a lance in hand before leading that pack out of the postern into the night. Just beyond the postern, Lord Balian pointed me not at the bridge but the ditch. I hesitated, but he urged me forward and so we descended into the dry ditch surrounding the city and walked along the bottom of that ditch along the north side of the city. The ground was very uneven and there were rocks littered around down there too so you had to be careful about your footing. Lord Balian trusted me and gave me a long rein so I could find my way but progress was slow.
Eventually, however, Lord Balian signaled a halt and jumped down. He flung the reins over my head and led me up the steep bank out of the ditch. We emerged just beside the Leper Pool, and here he remounted. Then we just sat there doing nothing. It was hard to see in the dark, but I was pretty sure there were Horse-Haters up to the hill to our right and they appeared to be guarding the terrible giants that flung the stones at us. But there were Horse-Haters on our left too. They were crowded around the giants that were leaning right up against the corner tower of the city.
Suddenly there was a lot of shouting from that direction, and several of the young colts behind me shied at the noise. You could hear the clang of metal and then screams of pain. Lord Balian wasn’t happy at all. His muscles tensed and although he wasn’t telling me what he wanted, I could sense that he wanted action of some sort. I stamped and slapped him with my tail. I even flung my head up to try to make him pay more attention. The next thing we knew a huge flame shot up into the air with a roar. We all jumped and some of the younger colts bolted in panic. Lord Balian seemed oddly relieved, and with a shouted “now” he tightened his calves on my sides. I didn’t need any more urging than that. We started charging up the hill toward the sleeping giant.
Unfortunately some of the Horse-Haters who had been rushing to put out the fires behind us, now turned and starting running to take us in the flank. Lord Balian saw the danger the same time I did, and he turned to face them while some of the other knights continued toward the sleeping giants. There were no mounted Horse-Haters and we ran these footmen down pretty easily.
But then somehow that sleeping giant went up in explosive flame too. When that went up, we all bolted and soon we were just racing back for the comparative safety of the barn. Along our left flank, however, the camp of the Horse-Haters was alive with shouts of alarm and anger. Soon they started charging down at us, firing their arrows blindly. Fortunately, the Christians were manning the wall to our right and returned fire. I knew we had to let the archers fight it out and just stretched out my neck to flatten my stride and make us a smaller target.
Galloping across open countryside in the dark is pretty risky. A wrong step will break a leg and as we turned the corner to get around to the eastern wall, one of the horses did just that. Even in all the noise of the stampede you could distinctly hear his leg snap. Then he crumpled up, flinging his rider off as he fell, but we just kept going. We didn't have a choice.
I could see ahead of us the bridge to the Jehosaphat Gate was down and the gates were open. Humans were lining the wall cheering us on. Some of those younger stallions were trying to get ahead of me in their panic, but I shouldered them out of the way. Lord Balian had led this sortie out, and Lord Balian would lead it back! We thundered over the bridge in a pack and into a city that was wild with jubilation: cheering men and women, singing black-robes, and children jumping up-and-down and screaming with excitement. 


The siege of Jerusalem is described (from human perspective) in Book II of my Biographical Novel of Balian d'Ibelin:

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The three part biography begins with:



A landless knight,                       a leper king,                                                                                          and the struggle for Jerusalem!




Knight of Jerusalem: A Biographical Novel of Balian d'Ibelin,  Book I, is a B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree and finalist for the 2014 Chaucer Awards for Historical Fiction.

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A Destrier's Tale Part XV: Encounter at Bethlehem

A Destrier’s TaleBalian d’Ibelin’s Destrier “Centurion” Tells his StoryPart XV: Encounter at Bethlehem



There were more horses in the stables than I’d ever seen. All the horses from Ibelin were there — except poor Rufus, of course, and the others who had been killed on that horrible battle on the barren hills above the lake. Amira was there and Ginger too, and they were amazed to see me. But I knew things were bad when Lord Balian sent all the mares, colts and fillies away, horse and human both. The younger colts and fillies, who hadn’t been broken to the saddle yet were laden with panniers like common pack horses, and the older horses all had riders. All that were left in the stables after they went were old Spirit, Lord Balian’s old palfrey, myself, a couple of castrates the squires used to ride along with a half dozen pack-horses. I don’t know what had become of Gladiator, but he wasn’t with us anymore.
At first I rather enjoyed having so much peace, quiet and space. Furthermore, unlike at the city-on-the sea, Lord Balian took me out every other day or so. We would leave Jerusalem by one gate or another and ride about until we found an abandoned herd of animals, then we’d chase them back to the city. Once or twice we stopped to harvest apples, pears and plums that were ripening on the untended trees of the surrounding orchards.
But the mood was bad and Jerusalem itself was overflowing with people. At least it was a bigger city with more gardens than in the city-on-the-sea, so the stink wasn’t quite so bad, but it still wasn’t normal. There were too many people, and most of them were human-mares and human-foals. Far too many of the latter. Lots of black-robes too. I’ve never figured out what use these humans have. They didn’t seem to like horses at all and usually ride mules. They certainly never carried weapons and couldn’t defend themselves let alone us, but Lord Balian was always polite to them. I don’t why.
The weather was turning a touch cooler, when we went out in a hoard of knights and horses all the way to a town about five miles south of Jerusalem. It sat white upon the yellow-brown landscape, with orchards now laden with rotting fruit, at its feet. Lord Balian was leading a troop of about 80 knights and we rode into the very heart of the little town without seeing a single living soul — unless you count stray dogs.  In the large cobbled marketplace, Lord Balian jumped down, turning my reins over to Dawit, and entered the tall building flanking the square. The rest of just waited there in the hot sun swatting and stamping at flies.
Two of the knights apparently got bored and rode off on their own. Dawit told them not to, but they ignored him, saying something about water. I thought water sounded like a good idea, and was beginning to get annoyed with standing around in the heat, when those two horses came crashing back into the square at a full gallop. “Saracens! Saracens!” One of the knights was screaming in terror.
And sure enough, there were Horse-Haters right behind them. Hundreds of them. They came clattering into that square with their swords drawn and the ties of their turbans flying. They were hooting and shouting in triumph — until they saw how many of us there were. Then they sat back and tried to stop their slave-horses. That’s not so easy on pavement, and the slave-horses were soon skidding and scrambling. Half lost their footing and the others were nearly knocked over by the horses behind them running into them.
Meanwhile, Gabriel had drawn his sword and started shouting. The knights around me followed his lead and within a moment they were rushing at the Horse-Haters but not in an organized, proper charge. A bunch of amateurs! Furthermore, half the horses were screaming and trying to run away rather than putting their heads down and helping their riders fight. The slave-horses weren’t helping things, because they were screaming too, and in all that confusion, horses couldn’t find their footing on the cobbles.  I flattened my ears and stamped my feet, snorting at the idiots to close ranks and fight properly, but no one was paying any attention.
Fortunately, Lord Balian came out of the building and seeing what was happening just grabbed my saddle from the off-side and hauled himself into it. The minute his seat hit the saddle, I turned toward the enemy like a bat out of hell. Ears flat and teeth bared I aimed at the nearest Horse-Hater, confident that Lord Balian would have his sword out in time to support me.
He did. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever seen him fight the way he did that day. It helped that there were no archers, of course, and no infantry either. It was just us against those Horse-Haters on their slave horses, but the other knights were a bunch of colts, really, none of them old enough to grow a beard and you could see how panicked most of them were. Their horses, sensing their fear, weren’t feeling very confident either. So it was up to me and Lord Balian to show them how it was done.
Suddenly this Saracen in a gawdy coat that glittered gold in the sunlight came charging at us on a white stallion. Now, he was no slave! He was scrambling on the cobbles in his eagerness, and he had a look of hatred in his eye as he came at me. I knew it was him or me. Lord Balian seemed to understand that. He spurred me forward for the first time in years, and even as I tore off half that stallion’s neck, the top half of that Horse-Hater fell over onto the bloody cobbles while the lower half of him bobbed away on the back of his bleeding stallion. That bastard then showed his real worth by fleeing from me abjectly.
When the other slave-horses saw their stallion run away, they turned and followed him without a thought to what their riders wanted. They were racing each other to get away from me, but I wasn’t surprised that  Lord Balian sat back and signaled “no pursuit.” What was the point of chasing a bunch of terrified mares and castrates? I’d shown the stallion which if us was better!
Lord Balian re-sheathed his sword and gave orders to the other knights to collect the dead and wounded. As he turned back to the frightened black-robes crowded in the building on the side of the square, he reached down and patted me on the side of the neck. “Well done!” he told me in a low voice. “Well done.”
That was even more satisfying that defeating that arrogant Saracen stallion, and I snorted my thanks and pranced with pride.


The Battle of Hattin and its aftermath is described (from human perspective) in Book II in the series:

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                                                                                                       or Kindle!
The three part biography begins with:



A landless knight,                       a leper king,                                                                                          and the struggle for Jerusalem!




Knight of Jerusalem: A Biographical Novel of Balian d'Ibelin,  Book I, is a B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree and finalist for the 2014 Chaucer Awards for Historical Fiction.

Buy now!