The Dream and the Tomb (28 page)

Without waiting for news from William of Tyre, Amaury marched out of Ascalon at the head of his army and ten days later he was outside the walls of Bilbeis, demanding immediate surrender. The garrison troops refused, Amaury brought up all his siege engines, and three days later he was master of the city. Just as Godfrey of Bouillon had employed terror in order to conquer Jerusalem, the Crusaders employed terror at Bilbeis in the hope of terrifying all Egypt into submission. Men, women, and children were hacked to pieces in the onslaught, and every soldier was free to take whatever loot he wanted. Bilbeis became a desert. Shawar was shocked into making overtures to Nur ed-Din, whom he had regarded until recently as his mortal enemy. At the same time he offered the king a huge indemnity if only he would get out of Egypt. The king was adamant. He marched on to Cairo, set up his siege engines, and erected wickerwork screens so that the inhabitants would have no idea what was happening behind them while fearing the worst. A son and a nephew of Shawar had been captured at
Bilbeis. Shawar offered two million pieces of gold for their release. The king was tempted by this vast sum; the knights were tempted by the promise of loot to be obtained during the sack of Cairo. Only a small part of the money was paid, and the army was never able to plunder Cairo, for on Shawar's orders a large part of the city was set on fire.

A few days later the king and his army returned to Palestine. Immediately after the king left Egypt, another enemy arrived. It was Shirkuh, at the head of a large army, and in his retinue was his nephew Saladin. Thereafter, events happened very quickly. Nur ed-Din, too, wanted to annex Egypt, and within a few days, almost without effort, the annexation took place. Shawar, who had shown himself to be a resourceful general in the defense of Cairo, showed that he possessed some virtues dangerous to himself. He was trusting and generous, and it never seems to have occurred to him that his life was in danger. On January 18, 1169, ten days after Shirkuh's forces had set up their camp outside Cairo, Shawar was invited to accompany some emirs from Damascus in a pilgrimage to the shrine of a local saint. It was an invitation he could hardly refuse; such pilgrimages were holy acts, and it was unthinkable that any harm would come to him. Shawar rode beside Saladin, and they had scarcely set out on the pilgrimage when Saladin leaned over, seized Shawar by the collar, and ordered him placed under arrest and taken to the camp. There Shawar was beheaded.

Egypt, which a few days earlier had almost fallen to the army of the king of Jerusalem, now fell into the hands of Shirkuh and his chief adviser, Saladin. It had been an easy and treacherous victory, and it would never have happened if Amaury had taken the advice of the Templars.

Muslim authority now stretched from the Euphrates to the Sudan; the kingdom was confronted with a disaster of incalculable proportions. There was only one thing the Crusaders could do. They called on the Byzantine empire and all the kings and princes of Europe for immediate help.

But help was slow in coming. The Emperor Manuel Comnenus, who realized the gravity of the situation, took a long time to assemble a fleet for the combined attack on Egypt. About 225 ships arrived at Tyre at the end of September 1169. By this time Saladin had destroyed the last remnants of opposition to his rule in Egypt and was the master of a land with enormous wealth and vast human resources.

This was the testing time: the fate of the kingdom was now being decided in Cairo by a thirty-one-year-old general who said openly, “When God gave me Egypt, I felt sure he intended to give me Palestine as well.” Shirkuh had died. Power streamed out of Saladin's five-bladed hands. By his willpower and his strategies, the kingdom would be tested as it had never been tested before.

The tragedy of the kingdom was that it produced at this time no one who was a match for Saladin. Amaury was slow, dogmatic, fearful unless he
possessed overwhelming forces. Shawar had been too trusting and too confident for his own good; Amaury showed too little confidence and too little trust in his advisers. The Crusaders had decided on a direct attack on Damietta. But when the army had marched out of Ascalon, and the huge Byzantine fleet was patrolling Egyptian waters, and they came in sight of Damietta, Amaury became afraid. He ordered a delay. The admiral of the Byzantine fleet wanted an immediate attack: his own ships were in the Nile, Damietta had been caught by surprise and was not equipped with a powerful defense force, and all the advantages lay with the assault force. But Amaury, looking up at the huge towers of Damietta, counseled caution; and from too much caution Damietta was lost to them. Delay worked in favor of Saladin, who had time to rush troops to Damietta and to concentrate on the defense of the fortress that guarded the approach to Cairo.

Amaury proposed to batter Damietta into submission. A huge tower, seven stories high, was erected overlooking the walls with a clear view of everything taking place in the city. Huge battering rams hammered at the walls; sappers attempted to mine the walls; the bombardment was continual, and it was all in vain. The Byzantine ships were running short of provisions; nor was the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in much better shape. Rain fell nearly every day; the camp became a flooded lake, and the soldiers had to waste their energies digging ditches to drain the floodwaters away. On rainless days, the Damiettans sent fireships—small boats filled with dry wood, pitch, and naphtha—against the Byzantine fleet, with the result that six of their great galleys were burned to the waterline. The king of Jerusalem himself took part in the fire fighting, and he led his troops when the Egyptians made sorties from a postern gate. The Grand Duke Alexius Contostephanos, who commanded the Byzantine fleet, also fought with the army. For about seven weeks the siege continued. Saladin was able to send provisions into the city without any serious interference. The defenders were of good heart. Together, Contostephanos and Amaury made the decision to raise the siege.

The troops who marched back to Ascalon were luckier than the sailors who sailed back to Constantinople. Most of the fleet was wrecked in storms, and the bodies of drowned sailors cluttered the shores of Egypt and Palestine.

In the following year, Jabala and Lattakieh on the coast were almost destroyed by earthquakes. Aleppo, Shaizar, Hama, Hims, and nearly all the fortress towns of Syria suffered. In June, Tripoli was struck with an earthquake so violent that nearly the entire population perished, and the huge fortress towers of Tyre crumbled and fell. Men came to believe that God was speaking to them out of the whirlwind, and for a few months there was a truce between the Christians and the Muslims, while the earth trembled and more towers fell. Then, in December, Saladin led his forces
against Daron, a fortress near Gaza. The king succeeded in relieving Daron, whereupon Saladin attacked Gaza and massacred everyone in the city except the knights who had taken refuge in the fortress. Then Saladin marched back to Egypt, having shown that the southern defenses of the kingdom were more vulnerable than the king had believed.

Once again the king turned to the emperor for help. He decided that the matter was so important that he would go himself to Constantinople to plead for the men, ships, and provisions he needed. He set out from Acre on March 10, 1171, and he was away from his kingdom for nearly a hundred days. The emperor entertained him royally, first at the Bucoleon Palace on the seashore, and then at the Blachernae Palace set in the northern corner of the city. There were urgent affairs to attend to; but Amaury went sightseeing.

Various promises were made, various agreements were signed; and Amaury returned with the feeling that another massive expedition against Egypt with Byzantine help would be far more successful than the last. The documents have not survived, and we do not know what Amaury promised in return. Nor, for the moment, was there any need of Byzantine help. Saladin and Nur ed-Din had quarreled, and to this extent the kingdom was safe again, holding the balance of power between Damascus and Cairo. Nur ed-Din ordered an attack on Kerak of Moab, and Saladin obliged, then raised the siege when he heard that Nur ed-Din was leading his army out of Damascus. Saladin excused himself by saying that his father was dangerously ill in Egypt. This was true, but it was not the whole truth. Saladin by his ambition and scrupulous independence had incurred the enmity of Nur ed-Din. In the spring of 1174, Nur ed-Din died suddenly in Damascus; and in the summer, Amaury died in Jerusalem. The heir to the Crusader throne was a thirteen-year-old boy, the son of Amaury's first wife, Agnes of Courtenay. The young boy stammered a little like his father. He had another defect which is rarely associated with kings: he was a leper.

HE was the bravest, the most intelligent, the most understanding of the kings of Jerusalem, and it is possible to feel for him a respect one has for none of the other kings. He was kindly and solicitous toward others, he understood exactly what was demanded of him, and he was learned about all the affairs of the Levant, but what was most important about him during his brief reign was a certain style, a way of looking at life with eagerness and grace. For most of his life he fought against terrible odds: his sickness, the declining energies of the kingdom, the quarrels within the royal family, the sense that the Arabs were acquiring the upper hand. Yet he knew at all times what he must do, and he was one of the very few who succeeded in cutting Saladin's army to pieces.

Baldwin IV was thirteen years old when he came to the throne, and it is worth noting that, in spite of the fact that Baldwin IV had been suffering from leprosy for at least four years, and this was known to all the nobles at court, there was not a single dissenting voice at his coronation in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He was consecrated and crowned four days after his father's death, and thereafter, as long as he was conscious, he commanded the loyalties of the kingdom.

The historian William of Tyre, who was his tutor, had known the king as a boy, taught him his letters, instructed him in his religious duties, and superintended every aspect of his education. One day when the boy was about nine years old, William of Tyre was told of a strange incident that occurred when the prince was playing with noblemen of his own age. The boys were pinching each other's arms and hands to see which one could bear the pain longest, and they realized to their astonishment that Baldwin could bear any amount of pain, not because he was brave, but because he was insensitive; he seemed to have no nerves in his right arm and right hand. William of Tyre immediately consulted the medical books and found in the works of Hippocrates some words that indicated that lack of feeling was an indication of a very grave and dangerous sickness. King Amaury
had to be told, the best doctors were consulted, fomentations were applied, oils of various kinds were rubbed into his skin, and even more severe medicaments were given to him, including some that contained poisons. But nothing availed. The illness continued on its course, attacking especially the face and limbs. What made it all the more horrible was that the boy was handsome, gifted, and possessed a rare refinement and delicacy of manner. Fortunately, he also had an inner strength, which permitted him to endure his sickness without complaint. William of Tyre says that he resembled his father; even his way of walking and the tone of his voice were exactly like his father's. He had very bright eyes, an aquiline nose, blond hair drawn back from his forehead and reaching to his shoulders, and he laughed quickly and sometimes explosively, his whole body shaking. His father was a man who measured his words; Baldwin IV measured them even more carefully either because he disliked attracting attention to himself or because he wanted to think carefully before he spoke, knowing that as a king his words would have special significance.

The knowledge that the young king was suffering from leprosy made very little difference to the life of the court. It was as though they expected him to recover miraculously; meanwhile the disease was not to be talked about, it was not to be included in their plans, it did not exist. For a few years, until he came of age, he reigned but did not rule. A
bailli
, or guardian, was found. This was Miles of Plancy, the husband of Stephanie of Kerak, a man who relished his high position and had been very close to King Amaury, but was totally ineffective in directing the affairs of the kingdom. William of Tyre described him as a man so proud that he scorned all the other barons. He was lavish in high-sounding speech, and openly admitted that he relied on the advice of the commander of the citadel of Jerusalem to the extent that he blamed the commander for the errors he made himself.

There were many who realized that Miles of Plancy's ineffectiveness threatened the kingdom. One day, in the autumn of 1174, after being
bailli
for only two or three months, he was stabbed in a public street in Acre. The murder took place at dusk and the assailants got away, but not before the body of the proud nobleman had been submitted to terrible indignities. Since William of Tyre was in a position to know everything that could possibly be known about him, and could not decide whether he was assassinated because he was thought to be excessively loyal to the king or because he was himself attempting to seize the throne, the real reason must remain uncertain. What is certain is that Stephanie of Kerak, now twice-widowed, felt that the assassination had been ordered by Count Raymond of Tripoli, who succeeded her husband as
bailli
of the kingdom.

Raymond of Tripoli was a far more impressive character, hard, reserved, efficient, and capable of prompt action. It was remembered of him that he could be generous to strangers when it served his diplomatic purpose, but
was not in the least lavish toward his familiars. He possessed the gift of equanimity. In the feverish court of the leper king, which was full of intrigues, the gift of equanimity was especially valuable. The Arabs regarded him as the ablest Crusader of his time.