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Sybilla, the other he placed on the altar.
When the lady was crowned, the Patriarch said to her that as she was a woman it was fitting that she should have someone to help her govern the kingdom, and that this person should be a male.
"Here is a crown. Take it and give it to such a man as can help you govern your kingdom and knows how to govern."
The new queen took the crown and summoned Guy of Lusignan, saying:
"Sire, come, receive this crown, for I could not use it better."
And then she placed the crown on his head, creating the last and least worthy of Jerusalem's kings.
In this she was aided by Gerard of Ridfort, who acted with the worst of motives. As she placed the crown, Gerard guided her hand, declaring that this crown compensated for the Botrun marriage. After a decade of waiting, he was having his thirst for vengeance slaked.
And then the Patriarch anointed the new rulers of the doomed land.
The barons waiting at Nablus were outraged by the news. Baldwin of Ibelin swore he was leaving the kingdom immediately, for he knew that Guy was mad and bad enough to lose the kingdom in a year.
And so it proved.
But Raymond was not yet finished. He had another ace yet to play.
Amongst the barons was Isabella, step sister of the old king, and her husband Humphrey of Toron.
Raymond proposed that they should be crowned as rivals to the upstarts in Jerusalem, and he would make a truce with Saladin, who he was sure would even come to his aid.
And so it was agreed. Humphrey and Isabella would be crowned on the morrow.
Alas, they reckoned without Humphrey's tender personality, which was made of less stern stuff than his sister in law.
During the night, unable to bear the strain of his proposed role, he rode secretly to Jerusalem.
He went immediately to the presence of the new queen, and greeted her.
She, however, kept silent, regarding him disdainfully, because he had been in the party opposed to her and had been absent from her coronation.
Humphrey, like an overgrown child before a headmistress, began to shuffle and scratch his head, blurting out at last:
"Lady, I don't know what to do, for they wanted to make me king by force."
Relenting a little, Sybilla forgave him, providing he immediately did homage to the king.
Humphrey thanked the queen for her mercy, and performing the act of vassalage, stayed in Jerusalem.
Sybilla thus delivered the check mate to Raymond's hopes. When the news of this latest double cross arrived, he was nonplussed. He dismissed his barons, telling them merely to keep their word, for what that was worth.12
Like an animal caught in the jaws of a steel trap, the kingdom awaited its death blow.
It was to come at the hands of the greatest leader the heirs of Mohammed were ever to engender: Saladin.
Saladin was a mortal man, and thus fallible. But compared to his adversaries he was all but god like. Where the Crusaders were constantly foolish, he was wise. Where they were ignoble, he behaved with natural courtesy. Where they were greedy for power without purpose, he exercised power only to achieve his purpose, even at great personal cost.
Saladin was of Kurdish origin, educated at university in Damascus, a fervent believer in Islam, general of all the armies of the east, which he had united beneath his banner, and the inveterate enemy of Reynald of Chatillon, the Templars and the Hospitallers.
Yet despite a youth spent as a slave to the Christians, he was capable of a courtesy and a chivalry that was utterly rare amongst his spiritual enemies.
This had been demonstrated at the wedding of Isabella and Humphrey of Toron that had taken place at Kerak in Moab in November 1183.
Isabella had been affianced to Humphrey since she was eight. By 1183, it was time to formalise the marriage. Throughout the late autumn, guests from throughout the kingdom began to assemble at Kerak, the castle of Humphrey's mother Stephanie and her husband Reynald of Chatillon.
The castle of Kerak lay at the south west corner of the kingdom, dominating the route between Damascus and the Nile. It was from there that Reynald of Chatillon had launched a murderous attack on Islamic pilgrims in the Red Sea, and it was from this castle that he threatened to divide Saladin's forces.
The wedding festivities had barely begun when Saladin approached the castle with a mighty army on November 20.
Soon the castle was crowded not only with wedding guests in their finery, but also Syrian settlers from the surrounding countryside, together with their herds of animals.
The Franks were not to be cowed by the siege, however, and the dancing and singing continued while Saladin's siege machines flung rocks against the walls of the citadel.
At last, Stephanie prepared dishes of bread, wine, beef and mutton for Saladin, which she sent to him with a greeting, reminding him how he had often carried her in his arms when he was a slave in that very castle, and she was a child.
Saladin was reportedly delighted by the gifts, expressing his thanks openly. He asked which tower the wedding couple occupied. When it was pointed out to him, Saladin had it cried throughout his army that none should be so rash as to shoot at that tower or attack it.13
Isabella's honeymoon was one of the strangest on record. Married at eleven to her handsome, delicately sensible husband - vir feminae quam viro proprior - the forecourt of her bridal bower was crowded with lowing cattle and shaggy farmers, and the music that punctuated her happy hours was the throb and thunder of monstrous siege mangonels threatening to beat down the walls of her new home.
The threat was withdrawn on December 4 when King Baldwin arrived from Jerusalem with a relieving army.
But the wedding party was not in any case a happy one, for mother-in-law Stephanie disliked Isabella's mother Maria, as did Reynald and the Lady Agnes. Stephanie forbade the bride from seeing her mother in future: she was indeed a stranger in a strange land, and her husband was to be her only comfort.
Meanwhile, Saladin was waiting for the right moment to strike at the heart blood of the
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