The Book of Saladin (10 page)

Naturally, I was upset, but what could I do to ease my pain? I could not discuss the matter with anyone because, in the dream-world that I inhabited at that age, I thought nobody else knew. It was our secret.

So I rode back to Damascus in a jealous rage, weeping tears of anger and of sadness. So preoccupied was I that I did not notice anything. I went home and changed, and dragged my brother out of bed. We went to the only tavern in the city which opened before the midday meal. It was run by Armenians in the Christian quarter. Not only did they ask no questions, they also served some of the best wine in Damascus. This was not brought by traders from the lands of the Franj, but made from Taif grapes, grown in the mountain vineyards in the highlands just above Mecca. It is said that the wine of Taif is so potent that it can transform dwarves into giants.

When Adil and I arrived, the tavern was virtually empty. A few eunuchs who had come to recover after a hard night somewhere in the city were too intoxicated to bother about us.

We began to drink the wine which is forbidden by our Holy Book. Adil could see that I was upset, but dared not ask the reason. He stole occasional glances at me, and would press my arm to comfort me. He knew. It was instinct, just as I knew that he went to male brothels and had set his heart on a young flute-player. He may not have known the exact reason for my sadness, but he could tell I was nursing a wounded heart.

Slowly the wine took its effect. The serving-woman carrying the flasks began to change shape in front of my eyes. Was it a gazelle? I became blind to the world outside. Soon we were singing impromptu songs about women who betrayed their lovers, about the lover’s revenge and the kadi’s displeasure. Food was placed before us and we ate without knowing what it was that we were eating. Then we sang some more, and this time the eunuchs joined us. I cannot recall now how long we were there, but I can remember Shadhi, my guardian angel Shadhi, shaking me firmly by the arm to wake me up. If I shut my eyes I can still see his worried face, and hear his voice whispering: “Yusuf Salah al-Din. Yusuf Salah al-Din. Time to come home.”

The thought still makes me shiver with shame. You know why, Ibn Yakub? That was the day that our great Sultan of Aleppo, Nur al-Din, the oldest son of the slain warrior, Zengi, was outside the gates of Damascus. He wanted to take the city, and at his side was my uncle Shirkuh. Inside, commanding the armies of his enemies, the rulers of Damascus, was my father Ayyub.

My uncle had sent a secret messenger two weeks prior to that day to alert my father. Both men knew they would never fight against each other. My father’s main concern, as always, was to avoid bloodshed. He negotiated a settlement acceptable to the ruler of Damascus. No blood stained our streets that day. Nur al-Din took the city unopposed. All this took place while I was in my cups, feeling sorry for myself.

I arrived in time to see Shirkuh hugging my father on the ramparts of the citadel. At first I thought it was an apparition, but then my uncle lifted me off the ground. He hugged me with such force that my stomach turned and the Taif wine let me down badly. I vomited at his feet. All I can remember is the horrified look on my father’s face, and Shadhi’s roar of laughter.

Nur al-Din was the first ruler who had a plan for uniting the Believers and driving out the Franj. He believed that until there was one Caliph as the fount of all authority, the Franj would always play on our weaknesses and rivalries. Nur al-Din could not have been more unlike his illustrious father, Zengi. Where Zengi allowed his instincts to determine his strategy, his son took advice from his commanders and emirs. He examined every detail, weighed every option, and closely studied the special maps prepared for him, before ever reaching a decision. Unlike his father, he never permitted even a drop of wine to taint his lips.

Nur al-Din was determined to conquer their Kingdom of Jerusalem. In order to achieve this aim he needed a powerful and reliable Misr, whose ruler was strong enough to resist Franj attempts to take Cairo. Misr was possessed of great wealth and weak rulers. A beautiful bride waiting for a husband.

I remember the Sultan often asking my uncle Shirkuh: “Any news from Misr?” and Shirkuh would shake his head with a strange expression on his face. “Do not expect any good news from there, My Lord. Their Caliph, the pretender al-Adid, is addicted to
banj
and brothels, and surrounded by mothers and grandmothers who scheme and plot each minute of the day. It is the vizir who rules, and his successor is usually his assassin.”

One day there was news from Misr. It was the summer of 1163 and there was excitement in the palace. It was announced that Shawar, the most recently deposed vizir, had escaped with his life and arrived in Damascus. A few days later, a more official messenger arrived from Cairo, carrying a letter from Dirgham, the new vizir. He brought with him a large ivory box inlaid with gems, containing some of the most flawless diamonds to be viewed in our city.

Nur al-Din smiled and handed the box to his secretary, with instructions that it should be placed in the great treasury of the state. The accompanying letter offered other inducements, and pleaded with the Sultan of Damascus to abandon Shawar. Nur al-Din called my father and uncle to his council chamber.

“I think we shall take Misr. Can you imagine the state of a country whose rulers plead with us to back them and not a deposed vizir? They will make similar offers to the Franj. It is imperative that we reach Cairo and Alexandria before the enemy. Shirkuh, you will lead our soldiers with the bravery of a mountain lion.

“Treat Shawar as one would a juicy date on a long march through the desert. Once his usefulness is over, spit him out as you would the seed. Do not delay. He has promised us a third of the grain revenues of Cairo. Hold him to his word.”

Shirkuh insisted on taking me with him. I was reluctant. It was not that I disliked the thought of combat. The fact was that I had grown accustomed to meeting a group of friends on most evenings, and we would think heretical thoughts, and recite and discuss poetry. On some nights I would go to a secret assignment near the public baths, to exchange glances and sometimes a little more with a young woman whom I was not permitted to marry.

I was slightly upset at the eagerness with which my father agreed to his brother’s request. I had no time for farewells. Shadhi was sent to keep an eye on me. Within three days of the decision being made, we were on our way to Cairo. The combination of Ayyub and Shirkuh was formidable. The “mountain lion” was indomitable, impulsive, incautious and injudicious. My father was crafty, but careful. He was a brilliant organiser of supplies. It was thanks to him that the sword-makers and the tent-makers had been alerted to Shirkuh’s needs. He made sure that they had the raw material to provide our expedition with everything needed.

Thus began the journey which finally ended in this palace. If, at that time, a friend had joked that I would one day end up as the Sultan, my uncle and Shadhi would have laughed all the way to Misr.

We are never fully in command of our own biographies, Ibn Yakub. Allah pushes us in a certain direction, the courage and skill of our commanders can change the course of a battle, but ultimately a great deal depends on fate. To a large extent it is who lives and who survives on the battlefield, or on the track to where the fight will take place, that determines our future. I learnt this elementary fact during my first campaign.

We rode for twenty-five days, following the paths of the old wadi to Akaba Eyla on the Red Sea. This was to be our longest stop before the march to Cairo.

It is not easy, Ibn Yakub, to march with over nine thousand men, and the same number of horses and camels, from Damascus to Cairo, avoiding marauding detachments of Franj. We could have defeated them, but it would have been a distraction that would have delayed our mission.

Our Bedouin guides knew all the routes through the desert; there were twenty-five of them attached to our army. They needed neither maps nor stars in the sky to guide them. They knew the location of every oasis and even the tiniest watering holes did not escape their notice. Without this knowledge, it would have been impossible to refill our goatskins. All soldiers rightly fear thirst more than the enemy. It is tedious now to recall or describe every detail, but it is during such marches that good commanders discover many truths about the men who will fight under them. The men even learn to detect the moods of their horses.

Shadhi it was who taught me how to look after horses. To this day he can tell when a horse gets dizzy, and sees the world whirling in strange circles before his dimmed eyes. Imagine if that happened in the heart of a battle! Why, the rider would become even more disoriented than the horse. It was the same Shadhi who taught me how to draw sweet and frothing milk in abundance from the firm teats of a mare.

During the night we would light a fire and sing songs to keep our spirits high. Like most of the men, I slept in a tent, but I envied the Bedouin guides and the soldiers under their influence, who covered themselves in blankets, lay on the sand, drank date wine from flasks made of camel hide, and told each other stories about the desert before the victories of our Prophet. They went to sleep with the starlight shining on their foreheads.

We had been on the march for fifteen days before we reached our target. The partisans of the Cairene vizir, Dirgham, were waiting for us at Tell Bastat, half a day’s march from Bilbais. My good uncle Shirkuh was always reluctant to lose the life of any of his men without good reason. He suggested to Shawar that since this was primarily a Misrian question, it should be Shawar and his followers—as the claimant—who should give battle. He, Shirkuh, would intervene only if it became necessary. Shawar won. The Caliph in Cairo abandoned Dirgham. Shawar entered the city through the Bab al-Zuweyla and was reinstalled as vizir. Only then did what Nur al-Din had shrewdly suspected begin to come true.

Once in power, Shawar grew nervous of our presence. He would have been better advised to fulfil his side of the bargain. This would have made it difficult for Nur al-Din not to recall us to Damascus. Instead, foolish and vain as a peacock, Shawar thought he could form an alliance with the Franj to defeat us. He sent a message to King Amalric of Jerusalem, a man who had previously been engaged in numerous intrigues with the ill-fated Dirgham. At the same time, he constructed a veritable pyramid of excuses to demonstrate why our forces should not enter Cairo. Shirkuh, compelled to kick his heels at Fustat, was livid.

His instinct was to defy military logic, to raid the city, and to capture Shawar. But the logistics of such an operation were daunting, and our casualties would be high. His emirs resisted the adventure. In desperation he looked at me.

“What do you think, Salah al-Din?” he asked me.

I was torn between family loyalty and good sense. I thought hard and finally came down against him. To my surprise, he was not angry at all. If anything, he was impressed with my reasoning. Even as we were talking, a messenger brought news that a Frankish force under the command of Amalric was heading towards Bilbais.

Like Nur al-Din, the Frankish King had understood that if he did not take Misr we would, and that would be the end of his Kingdom of Jerusalem. Of all our sultans and emirs the Franj feared no one as much as they did Nur al-Din. They were not wrong. He was single-minded in his resolve to drive the Franj out of our lands. The passion that raged in his heart almost made you feel that he regarded the occupation as a personal affront.

Shawar did not keep his side of the bargain. Shirkuh instructed me to take half our force and occupy Bilbais. I did as I was asked. Shawar appealed to Amalric for help, and Shirkuh joined me with the remainder of our army. For three whole months, Ibn Yakub, we kept the Franj outside the city. Three whole months in Bilbais. It was not my idea of a good life. Then Nur al-Din, realising we could not resist for much longer, took the Franj by surprise, and confronted them outside the fortress of Harim, near Antioch. It was a famous victory. The Franj were crushed, losing ten thousand men. Their leaders, Baldwin of Antioch and the Count of Tripoli, were captured. The news of this defeat frightened Amalric. He sued for peace. We did not lose face. The mountain lion led us back to Damascus.

Before this I had no idea of what a war entailed. Having observed Shirkuh in command of an army, I had learnt a great deal, but I was totally exhausted. For the first week after my return I spent most of my days in the baths, being rubbed with oils. In the evening I went to enjoy poetry and wine in the tavern. Then, you know, Ibn Yakub, something strange happened to me. I became restless. The aimlessness of my daily existence began to nauseate me, and I yearned for the comradeship of the battlefield. I had seen the Franj face to face, and now, suddenly, all the childhood stories I had heard of the time when they first invaded and occupied our lands came back to me. How fate had smashed us as if we were tiny pieces of glass. The shards had scattered.

I remembered Shadhi’s voice descending into a frightening whisper: “Sons of Ayyub, do you know what the Franj did in Ma’arra? They captured Believers and placed them in cooking-pots filled with boiling water. They roasted little children on spits and ate them grilled. These are the wild beasts who have devoured our country.”

To tell you the truth, I never really believed Shadhi. I thought he was making all of this up to frighten us, so that we never missed a riding lesson, but it was the truth. The pure truth, unadulterated by invention. I have read the manuscripts of the infidel chroniclers. You have as well? Good. Then you understand the anger that expanded my chest when I first caught sight of the Franj in Misr. This anger was not mollified by women rubbing oil on me or the joys of the Taif grape, not to mention the delights of fornication. I felt that all of this was as nothing compared with the tasks that lay ahead.

Before Nur al-Din took Damascus, there was no sultan who understood the burning need to drive out the Franj, to recover the Dome of the Rock and the Temple of Solomon for the People of the Book. Before Nur al-Din, our emirs and sultans were happy to make their peace with the enemy. “Kiss any arm you cannot break,” as they say, Ibn Yakub, “and pray to Allah to break it.” But that was not the attitude of our Prophet. Did he not say, “Pray to Allah, but make sure you have tied your camel first!”