The Horns of Hattin -- An Excerpt from "Defender of Jerusalem"

On July 4, 1187, the Sultan of Cairo and Damascus, Salah ad-Din (Saladin) crushed the feudal army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem under the command of King Guy. It was a devastating defeat that led to the complete collapse of the entire kingdom. But it was the decision to leave the springs at Sephorie on the night of July 2 that had decided the battle. Despite the fact that Saladin had captured the important town of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, the barons of Jerusalem almost unanimously advised King Guy against marching to the relief of the beleaguered citadel of Tiberias because they recognized that this would be fatal. King Guy appeared to accept their advice, but in the middle of the night he changed his mind and ordered the advance. His change of heart is attributed to a night encounter with the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Gerard de Ridefort. No one knows now what was said in the king's tent on the early hours of July 3, 1187, but what follows is a fictional hypothesis from Defender of Jerusalem:

Guy was finding it hard to sleep. An army of this size was never entirely quiet. Sentries paced, horses nickered, men moved back and forth to the latrines on the edge of the camp …. Guy was annoyed and wanted to shout at everyone to be quiet. He needed his sleep.

But even if they had all been silent, the camp bed was uncomfortable. The air was still and oppressively hot. It stank too — of smoke from the camp-fires, horse manure, the pork fat that his squires had used to oil his chainmail, garlic from someone’s dinner, and urine from some sentry too lazy to go the latrines. Guy kicked off his sheet and tried to make himself comfortable on his belly, but a mosquito was soon tormenting him. Exasperated Guy sat up, swatting furiously at it.

“Annoying, aren’t they?” A voice said out of the darkness.

“Who’s there?” Guy challenged in alarm, his heart pounding. He was the King! People were not supposed to enter his tent unannounced. He had two knights posted outside to prevent this.

“It’s just me. Rideford,” came the answer.

Guy did not see why the Templar Grand Master should have been allowed into his tent any more than anyone else. He frowned, determined to reprimand his knights at the first opportunity. Right now he had to deal with the Templar Master, who had moved closer to stand directly over his bed. “We need to talk,” Rideford announced.

“Now? In the middle of the night?” Guy challenged him petulantly.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you cannot let the decision made in Council stand. It is dishonorable, dangerous and discrediting.”

Guy was in no mood for this lecture. They’d argued for hours and no matter how vigorously Oultrejourdain and Rideford had presented their cases, the overwhelming majority of the barons had sided with Tripoli.

Rideford sank down on his heels to be at Guy’s eye level. He kept his voice very low. “Tripoli is a traitor. Everything he says is to Saladin’s advantage.”

Guy rolled his eyes and groaned slightly. “Stop it, Rideford. I know you hate him, but he has paid homage to me and he has brought his troops here. I’m tired of you nagging at me all the time just because you want your revenge on Tripoli for some girl! It discredits you not me.”

“Alright. Don’t believe me, but how can he be so certain no harm will come to his lady, if he didn’t arrange all this with Saladin in advance?”

Guy shook his head to indicate this argument convinced him no more than the rest. “No one thinks the lady herself was in great danger. Even her sons conceded that.”

Rideford shrugged. “Perhaps, but that’s not really what’s at stake here is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the Lady of Tiberius, the Countess of Tripoli, is one of your vassals and you are honor bound to assist her if she is in need, so it really doesn’t matter what will happen to her personally if you don’t — your inaction reflects poorly on you. It was your inaction four years ago, remember, which made King Baldwin take the regency away.” Rideford had hit a nerve, and he saw Guy stiffen in the darkness. He pressed his advantage.

“You’re the king, aren’t you? Why do you let your barons tell you what to do?”

“Every king has a council,” Guy retorted irritably.

“Yes, and they listen to the council — but then they make their own decisions. They don’t let their barons dictate what is to be done.”

 “I’m not letting anyone dictate to me!” Guy retorted defensively, and Rideford smiled in the darkness.

“No?” The Templar Master asked.

“No!” Guy insisted.

“But what did you want to do when you received that messenger from the Countess of Tripoli?” Guy had jumped up, full of chivalrous energy. He’d been on the brink of ordering the army to march at once, through the night, to reach Tiberius. Now he frowned, remembering that, although he said nothing. “Your instinct was to relieve Tiberius, wasn’t it?” Rideford pressed him.

Guy still didn’t answer but his scowl was deeper.

“You are the King,” Rideford repeated. “Don’t make the same mistake twice. Don’t lose everyone’s respect by inaction. Do what your instincts tell you to do. Take this army to Tiberius and crush Saladin!”

“His army is bigger than ours,” Guy complained, still uncertain.

“But we have God on our side. We have the True Cross with us. How can you doubt our victory? Do you not think Christ is intimidated by the hoards of Mohammed?”

Guy caught his breath.

“Lead this army to Tiberius, your grace, and with the Grace of God you will win a great victory! You will forever be remembered as the Savior of Jerusalem! Your name will eclipse that of Godfrey de Boullion and Henry Plantagenet. Why, if you shatter Saladin’s army, what is to stop you from taking Damascus? Or Cairo? Or both?”

“We march at dawn!”

Defender of Jerusalem describes the events leading up to Hattin, the battle itself and the immediate aftermath, including the fall of Jerusalem.

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The Road to Hattin: An Excerpt from "Defender of Jerusalem"

The shift in direction, however, meant that the Christian army left the road and started cutting across country. That made walking much more difficult for the infantry, as there were frequent gullies, rocks, and thorns. That was bad enough for men just walking forward; it was much harder for men trying to stay in formation under unrelenting attacks. As a result, the rear guard was slowed down even more, and a gap threatened to open up between the main body of Christian troops and the rear guard. It was a gap the Saracens were bound to exploit—and if they did, the rear guard would be surrounded and cut to pieces.

As that threat loomed larger with each excruciating step forward, Ibelin rode over to consult with Gerard de Ridefort. The latter proposed charging the enemy to drive them back, but Ibelin angrily rejected the plan. It was too obvious that the enemy would simply fall back before the heavy cavalry, and then attack again as soon as the charge was spent. 

“That’s a waste of energy,” Ibelin told the Templar Master bluntly.

“You’re just afraid to charge!” Ridefort retorted hotly.

“Don’t try that crap on me, Ridefort. I’m not a frightened dandy like the King you made! Charging light Turkish cavalry is idiocy—and if you do it, you do it alone.” Ibelin let his eyes sweep the Templars around the Master, hoping to find a man like Jacques de Mailly, willing to challenge their Grand Master and support him. But the men with Ridefort today only dropped their eyes and would not look at him.

“God is on our side!” Ridefort barked belligerently, making his own men sit up straighter in their saddles.

“Really? As he was with you at Cresson?” Ibelin shot back.

“Do you doubt Christ is with us?”

                       

“It is blasphemy to confuse your own will with the will of God.”

“We charge!” Ridefort spun his horse on its haunches and spurred it forward, ordering the Templar standard-bearer to fall in beside him.

Ibelin rode back to his own knights and announced grimly, “The Templars insist on charging.”

“That’s madness!” Sir Bartholomew protested, and Balian noted how haggard the old man looked. His eyes were sunken in his skull, all but lost in shadow in the depths of his helmet. He shouldn’t be here, Balian registered. He should be enjoying his old age in peace on his manor, not facing certain death. Then again, he had only daughters, and the feudal duty fell next to his eldest grandson, a boy just thirteen years old. So on second thought, the old man was probably prepared to die to save that boy and his younger brothers.

Out loud, Ibelin retorted curtly, “This whole march is madness!” and added before anyone else could protest: “We hold formation, and take advantage of the relief the Templars will temporarily give us to jog forward as far and as fast as we can.”

Then he reached down, unfastened his goatskin, and took several gulps of water before demonstratively pulling Rufus’ head around to offer the water to the chestnut palfrey. Rufus gratefully closed his lips around the spout of the goatskin, and Balian upended it so that the water flowed into his horse’s mouth until the skin was about half empty. Then he took it away, closed it, and tied it again to his saddle. Around him, his knights followed his example of sharing their water with their horses, while the infantry drank deeply. While they drank, the Templars burst through their infantry protection screaming “Vive Dieu St. Amour!”—head-on into the next Saracen attack.

The Saracens just wheeled their horses around and galloped away like the wind. Their fleeter horses, with lighter gear and riders, easily outdistanced the Templars. The latter, armed only with lances and swords, could not hope to inflict the slightest damage and soon drew up, turned, and began to trot back to Ibelin’s division, which was jogging as fast as the tired limbs and dehydrated bodies of the infantry would let them. Only Ibelin remained immobile, his horse facing backwards, his eyes squinting against the sun as he awaited the next attack. It came even before the Templars had rejoined the rest of the rear guard. Ibelin shouted a warning, and Ridefort wheeled his knights around and charged again.

This repeated itself four or five times, until the Templar horses were swaying from exhaustion, the sweat dripping from their bellies, their heads hanging in utter dejection. Only then did Ridefort recognize—but not acknowledge—that Ibelin had been right. Furiously, he ordered Ibelin to send one of his knights to the King to demand that the main army wait for the rear guard.

“No,” Ibelin answered.

“They must wait for us! If they don’t, we’ll be cut off and slaughtered! If we’re slaughtered, the army doesn’t stand a chance. A third of our forces are right here!”

“I agree, but you’re the one who brought us here, so you’re going to be the one to tell your puppet King that you were wrong! You tell him to stop before he reaches water! You tell him we can’t make Tiberias tonight! You tell him the entire Christian army is trapped in the middle of a wasteland with no water and completely surrounded by the enemy. You tell him!”

They stared at one another, and for the first time something like doubt crossed Ridefort’s eyes, but he blinked it back. “I don’t have a horse that can trot, let alone canter. You must send one of your knights.”

“Oh, I’ll lend you a horse,” Ibelin answered, “but only you! Not one of your sacrificial lambs,” he gestured toward the silent Templars around them. Balian had never been so acutely aware of how young many of these bearded men were. Behind their beards and their tonsures, behind the façade of their white robes, half of them were little more than boys! He noted with poignancy that many of them had faces the color of cooked crabs and peeling skin—clear indications that they were newly come from countries with cool, rainy summers. Why, many of them might have arrived only weeks or days ago, replacements for the men lost at Cresson. They were, he knew, suffering more in this heat than any of the men from Ibelin, Ramla, or Nablus. He could sense that they were frightened, too. They had believed in their cause, their virtue, and their invincibility. And they were starting to ask themselves what had gone wrong.

“Damn you, Ibelin!”

“What for, Ridefort? For pushing your nose in your own shit? You made this King, and you made this catastrophe. Tripoli warned you. I warned you. By God, half the barons of Jerusalem warned you. But you thought yourself cleverer than all of us together. This is your dung heap, and you are going to lie in it! I only pray to God that He will not punish the rest of us for your stupidity, arrogance, and hubris!”

“I’ll kill you, Ibelin!”

“You already have, Ridefort. You’ve killed all of us. Now, do you want my stallion or not?”

Ridefort’s eyes flashed with hatred so intense that he refused. Dragging his own poor, tired mount around, he dug his spurs into its flanks, forcing it to lumber forward in an exhausted, miserable lope.

Ibelin let his eyes sweep across the faces of the remaining, still-stunned Templars and shook his head. Then he rode back to his own men to face the next Saracen onslaught.

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A Destrier's Tale Part XIII: The Horns of Hattin

A Destrier’s Tale

Balian d’Ibelin’s Destrier “Centurion” Tells his Story

Part XIII: The Horns of Hattin

They woke us up in the middle of the night. That had never happened before. And the mood among the humans was like none I’d known before. Worst of all, Lord Balian was angry. I mean boiling mad. Not that he shouted or lashed out at people like the Black Knight had done when he was angry, but you could tell he wanted to bite someone. His eyes were narrowed and his jaw set and no one wanted to cross him, even for a second.

The next strange thing that happened was that Thor and I were saddled up and laden with the long, transport waterskins like the ones the Saracens tie to camels. They were not made for horses — much less destriers. I was insulted and indignant at such a burden, but Ernoul smacked me hard when I tried to protest by nipping him from behind and told me: “Lord Balian’s orders! You’ll do as you’re told, just like the rest of us!”

Hm.

We set out in three divisions. Thor and I, led by Gabriel and Ernoul respectively, were with the middle division around the wagons, carts, and supplies. Ahead of us were knights and infantry led by strangers, while Lord Balian  was behind us with the Red-Crosses. We could only progress at the speed of the slowest, of course, and the sun was hot. The horses of the first division kicked up a lot of dust on that dry road and I was looking forward to a drink long before noon. But when we reached the springs several hours later they were poisoned! I put my nose down to drink and smelt it immediately. I snorted in disgust and stepped backwards. We were all doing that, and the humans understood too. They were really in a tizzy now, running about like a bunch of headless chickens.

I kept looking over my shoulder for Lord Balian, wondering why he wasn’t here to sort things out, but he seemed to have been delayed. There was no sign of him. Ernoul gave me a drink from one of the water skins I’d been carrying myself. The water was almost too hot to drink and not very refreshing, but better than nothing. Thor, however, was still being silly. He wanted his water in a bucket, not out of a skin. I told him he better take what he could get, and he answered that he was a “stud” and didn’t drink “like an unweened foal.” “Suit yourself,” I told him with a snort and drank his share too.

Eventually we set out again, this time striking off the road which made the going very rough for the wagons and carts. They lurched over the uneven terrain, often getting a wheel stuck in a gully or stopped by a rock. The humans were cursing and sweating, smelling even worse than usual, and I could tell they were unhappy. At no earlier muster had the mood been like this, not even at that first one with the Black Knight. The humans were acting like they were scared, looking around like frightened rabbits and they kept looking at this one wagon with a tall gold cross mounted on it and surrounded by Black-Robes. I guess it was something important to them and they seemed afraid of losing it.

When darkness fell we were in the middle of nowhere with no shelter and no water. Now Thor was starting to regret his foolishness. He kept sniffing the barren, dusty ground and pawing it, as if he thought he could dig down deep enough to find the water under the earth. When Gabriel offered him water that night, he didn’t make any stupid remarks about not being a foal and drank from the goat-skin just like I did.

Water or not, however, I was really getting nervous because there was still no sign of Lord Balian. The humans were kneeling in front of the wagon with the big gold cross, and knights were scurrying this way and that in obvious agitation because in the darkness around us other humans and horses were gathering like a swarm of flies at a dung-heap. It could only be Horse-Haters and in greater numbers than ever before. As darkness fell, they howled and yowled like wolves at a full moon, and then lit fires as numerous as the stars over our heads.

Finally, Lord Balian dragged in. That was really the only word for it. Rufus was at the end of his strength and crashed to the ground beside Lord Balian as he dismounted. Ernoul rushed over to give him water, but he was finished. So were the horses of the other knights, while the knights themselves were bristling with arrows. The foot soldiers were in even worse shape — and there were half as many as had been left behind. After Rufus had revived a little, I asked him what happened. “They attacked us all day long,” he gasped out tucking his feet under him to half sit-up. “Mounted archers,” he explained.

“They’re all around us,” I noted nodding toward the surrounding hills.

“We’re finished,” Rufus concluded in utter despair. “Lord Balian kept us behind the footmen, but the Red-Crosses charged them several times. All they got was dead horses! It was as if they didn’t care about their horses at all. As if they were fighting for something else than our safety. Don’t trust the Red Crosses,” he concluded and then his eyes rolled back into his head and he sank into a miserable sleep.

The morning brought the smoke of brush fires from the west and the hot air became almost unbreathable. The army stirred, but it was the stirring of turtles stranded on the beach. Neither horse nor human had any energy after the dry, sleepless night. Only the relentless approach of the fires forced us to advance toward the rising sun.

But there, spread out across two hills that loomed up like two horns on either side of an arid valley was the host of Horse-Haters. They were as numerous as the sand on the shore of the great sea, as numerous as grass in the pastures of Ibelin. We were like a herd of lost lambs surrounded by wolves.

Lord Balian took Thor. It broke my heart. I could see it on his face that he expected to die that day — and he chose to die with Thor rather than me. I protested. “I’m your destrier!” I called to him. “Me!” But he didn’t even look over at me. His face was closed. His thoughts and emotions locked inside.

So I was left with the palfreys, pack-horses and draught horses around the baggage train. It was the ultimate humiliation! The others, even Rufus, were too exhausted and thirsty to take an interest in anything, but I couldn’t ignore what was happening only half a mile away. The Saracens used arrows first, as always, and there were so many of them that they overwhelmed our armor — finding the weaknesses, breaking the links.  Men and horses were sinking down under that deadly hail. The Christians tried a charge, but they were too weak. After initial success, they lost momentum in that hoard of Horse-Haters. Meanwhile, the Christian footmen had had enough. They were no longer willing to die for us. They retreated up the slopes of those hills and left the horses almost completely exposed.

At this point, even the humans realized that there was no hope of fighting the Horse-Haters, we had to try to escape. Some Christian knights made a desperate charge that broke through the enemy, but Lord Balian wasn’t with them. When I couldn’t find him among the knights escaping, I tried to find Lord Balian in the shrinking cluster of knights left behind, but he was gone! Just gone! I was still looking, when Ernoul emerged out of nowhere.

The boy was in bad shape. He stank abominably, as only humans do when they’re scared shitless. He was shaking too, but he jumped down from his rather dazed castrate and started saddling me up. Only then did I grasp what had happened. Thor was dead and Lord Balian needed me! The younger horse had failed him!

When I was tacked up, Ernoul remounted his castrate and led me onto the battlefield right up to the corpse of Thor. He didn’t have a wound worth talking about on him; he had collapsed from thirst!  Lord Balian was pretty exhausted too. It took him two tries to mount.

By the time he had mounted, the break in the enemy lines had closed again and we were all trapped. One of the other knights still trapped on that bloody field was suddenly beside us pointing at the infantry cowering on the hill to our right around that wagon with the gold cross. He was pointing toward it and saying we had to go up there, behind the foot soldiers. I didn’t think much of that suggestion. They’d abandoned us once before; they would surely do it again. I preferred the idea of trying to break out.

So did Lord Balian. He pointed at the enemy and the other knight backed down. Lord Balian couched his last lance and all the horses still with him, even the squires on their castrates, clustered around. We got as close together as possible, seeking protection and courage from each other. Then we charged.

He killed two men with his first charge — one with the lance and the second when the first fell backwards and knocked his companion off his horse. After that we were a single killing machine — he with his sword and me with my teeth and hooves. I had no idea how far we were from escape. I certainly couldn’t see the end of the Horse-Hater’s ranks, when something smashed into us from the left. It must have been a whole herd of horses because they knocked several of my comrades down completely and I was staggered. I lost my footing and stumbled so violently that Lord Balian lost his stirrups. He started to fall off, and grabbed my mane desperately to stay on my back. I had recovered my footing and knew that we had to get away from whatever had hit us. It was pure instinct. All of us together were running in the opposite direction which was strangely open.

It was a stampede and the humans had nothing to do with it. Lord Balian was struggling to get back into the saddle and stay with me, and I was determined to get him — and me — out of there! Off that field. I hadn’t reckoned with Lord Balian’s skill, however. He somehow managed to get his seat back in the saddle, pick up the reins and start checking me.

OK. I know I said I’d learned to trust him, but flight was the only thing that made sense in this situation and I wasn’t inclined to listen to him. I guess I did slow down a little, however, out of respect and habit. It was a good thing I did because the next thing I knew we were crashing over the edge of that valley between the horn-like hills and the slope on the far side was so steep we began all slipping and sliding and scrambling.

I sat on my haunches and tore the skin off my hocks as we skidded down that slope, dirt, stones and rocks rolling with us. We crashed through the underbrush and tore up the thorns and bramble as we descended. Lord Balian flung himself off my back and tried to steady me, but he lost his own footing in that rock-and-flesh slide and we only stayed together as we slid down hill because he didn’t let go of my bridle.

Gradually we slowed down and were able to walk side-by-side down a gravel gully. Around us were the other knights and squires of Ibelin and Nablus, and even some of the foot soldiers. With each step we were farther from the battle that still raged, the sounds of it grew ever fainter behind us.

Ahead was a great lake. You could smell the sweet water on the warm, afternoon air. We walked straight into it until the water lapped around my belly, then I put my head down and drank and drank and drank.

There were no more than a couple hundred horses and ten-times that many foot soldiers, but Lord Balian and I were safe. Or so I thought.

The Battle of Hattin is described from the human perspective in:

A divided Kingdom,
      
                          a united enemy,

                                        and the struggle for Jerusalem!


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The first book in the series, Knight of Jerusalem: A Biographical Novel of Balian d'Ibelin, is a B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree and finalist for the 2014 Chaucer Awards for Historical Fiction.

A landless knight,

                           a leper king,

                                                and the struggle for Jerusalem!

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