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truce shattered.
In the cool weather at the end of 1186, a vast caravan was unsuspectingly tramping the road between Egypt and Damascus. A spy galloped up to the walls of Kerak, and soon afterwards out cantered heavily armed knights, with red headed Reynald in their lead.
The small guard of Egyptian soldiers was bowled over in a moment by the tank like Franks, and all the merchants and their families, together with an unprecedented amount of loot, were driven back to Kerak. When the captives protested their treatment, Reynald scornfully suggested that they should wait until their Mohammed came to release them.
Amongst the prisoners was Saladin's sister.
This may have been Sitt es Sham, also known as the Lady of Syria. A legendary tale has it that she financed Saladin's reconquest with her own money after he had given away all of his own.1
The news of the slaughter of the migrant train and the capture of his sister, above all else, caused the final hardening of Saladin's heart against his enemies and allies in the Frankish kingdom. He immediately demanded of Guy that his caravan and his sister should be released, protesting even now that he did not wish to break the truce.
Reynald scorned the puppet king's orders to return his hostages, arrogantly proclaiming himself lord of his own land, just as Guy was in his. He, Reynald, had made no truce with Saracens.2
Early in the following year, Saladin's army began to move. He marched from Syria to lay waste to Reynald's territory around Kerak in Moab. Meanwhile, Saladin's son attacked Acre in the north. After successfully plundering the scattered Christian territories, Saladin took muster and estimated his cavalry at 12,000 men. He had a well equipped army ten times the size of the best the Christians could hope to assemble.3
The kingdom was in a parlous state, made worse by the insane behaviour of Gerard of Ridfort.
Despite a day long local truce, he insisted on attacking a Saracen army as it moved near Nablus. Gerard went into battle at the head of ninety Templars and Hospitallers. It was all over in minutes. Gerard was the only survivor of the debacle which in a moment had blunted the edge of the Christian army by sacrificing its best trained, most fanatical cavalry.
Balian of Ibelin who was nearby was the first to hear the news. He immediately sent a sergeant to Nablus to his wife Maria, the former queen, to give her the news and tell her to send his knights at Nablus to join him at Nazareth.
Raymond, by now openly siding with Saladin, was brought back to the fold by the disaster as well as threats of excommunication by the Patriarch and of the annulment of his marriage to Eschiva of Bures. 4
The Lady Eschiva had brought to the marriage the county of Tiberias, focussed on a fortress city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. She had been the second richest heiress in the kingdom at the time of their marriage, which occurred shortly before 1174. She was the widow of Walter of Saint-Omer, and in 1179 had been able to pay 55,000 dinars for the ransom of her son Hugh of Galilee. This sum was about one third of a king's ransom.5
Eschiva and Raymond had no children of their own: she had a daughter Margaret - who had married Hugh, former head of the Ibelin clan, William, who had previously married Maria of Beirut, widow of Baldwin of Ibelin - and two other sons.
Eschiva's marriage would appear therefore to have been one of economic and political consideration for Raymond, moreso than one with a dynastic intent, and perhaps least of all a matter of compatability.
As disaster piled on disaster, Raymond remembered his initial allegiances, and hurried from Tiberias, along with his step sons to Jerusalem, where he made his obeisance to the king.
Shortly after, on July 1, Saladin moved around the southern end of the Lake and attacked Tiberias. The lower town soon fell: Eschiva took refuge in the citadel and sent urgent messages for help to Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, she led the forces holding out against the largest army Saladin had ever brought into the kingdom - some estimate it at 80,000 in total, perhaps more like 18,000, and in any case, substantially more than the Crusaders could summon.
In Jerusalem, Guy prepared his meagre forces.
In utter desperation, the True Cross - the fragment sold to the Sepulchre by the impoverished Queen of Georgia? - was brought up from the depths of the Holy Sepulchre.
The Patriarch Heraclius, ordered to bring the Cross before the army, made his excuses that he was unwell.
Others whispered that he feared to leave the arms of his Patriarchess. In any case, he sent the Cross in the care of another, his Prior.
The army assembled at Acre where a council of the barons planned the miniscule force's strategy.
Attention now focussed on Raymond, who was the most able and respected of all the Christian leaders, if also the man suspected of being a traitor.
His advice was suspiciously ambiguous.
According to the Estoire d'Eracles, the hawk faced, tall yet stooping baron announced that any damage done to Tiberias was his affair, and fell on no other, for his wife and children were there, and he would not for anything in the world that harm should come to them. So he had advised the garrison, if they thought that Saladin was too great for them to withstand to go aboard their ships and set out on the lake of Galilee.
But, continued Raymond, if the king insisted on fighting, he advised them to go to Acre, so that they could call on its aid if things should go ill. For he knew Saladin as too proud a man to resist an offer to fight, even if it meant fighting in enemy territory.
The Master of the Temple replied enigmatically:
"I spy treason."
Raymond was more direct in his advice not to flinch from fighting overwhelming odds:
"...a large load of fuel will be good for the fires of Hell...
There are curious omissions in the accounts. For one thing, Raymond had no children by Eschiva. Her sons were said to be with Raymond on campaign. Perhaps he was referring to his step daughter, or more probably the account of his speech is a compilation of two or more speeches given on separate occasions, including a time when his step children were indeed with their mother.6
The other curiosity is his apparent reluctance to ride to his lady's rescue, as behoved a
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