The siege of Jerusalem and my next book

On September 20th, 1187, The Sultan of Egypt, better known to posterity as Saladin, began the siege of Jerusalem. It would last for 13 days, Jerusalem yielding to him on October 2nd after Balian d’Ibelin had persuaded him to allow the city to surrender peacefully rather than be taken by storm, as Saladin had intended. Balian accomplished this by promising to ransom the citizens, paid for with the money that Henry II had given in support of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and by threatening to destroy all of the Muslim holy places in the city if they had nothing to lose. This, by the way, is the only thing that the epic but inaccurate film, Kingdom of Heaven, got right in its fanciful depiction of Balian’s life. He was indeed the savior of Jerusalem. He was not, however, an illegitimate blacksmith living in France or the lover of Queen Sybilla. I am a bit protective of Balian and I hope to do him justice in my next novel, The Land Beyond the Sea, which has now gotten the green light from my publisher.
So once A King’s Ransom is handed over to my editor’s tender mercies, I will be returning to the Holy Land with Balian as my guide. He will be sharing center stage with Henri, the young Count of Champagne, which means that the Angevins are likely to infiltrate this book, too. Henri’s mother was close to her half-brothers, Hal, Geoffrey, and Richard, and knowing them as I do, they are sure to crash the party whenever I do a scene with Henri back in Champagne. And of course in the part of the book that deals with the Third Crusade, Henri’s Uncle Richard will probably make a few appearances. Aside from Balian and Henri, the cast will also include Saladin, his brother al-Malik al-Adil, the ambitious adventurer Conrad of Montferrat, the tragic young leper king, Baldwin, and three Queens of Jerusalem—Baldwin’s sisters Sybilla and Isabella and Balian’s wife Maria.
September 20th is also the birthday of Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York’s son Arthur, born in 1486. It has sometimes been suggested that the name Richard is an unlucky one for an English king, since the three men who bore it all died prematurely and violently. But Arthur is not a lucky name, either. In 1202, Arthur of Brittany was captured by his uncle John at Mirebeau and was never seen alive again. And Arthur Tudor would also die young, a death that would drastically change English history.