Writing Biographical Fiction: Conrad de Montferrat

19th Century Depiction of Conrad de Montferrat Of all the historical characters in my Jerusalem trilogy, Conrad de Montferrat is the one other writers unanimously paint as the villain par excellance. Even Andrew Latham, an otherwise meticulously accurate historian, found it convenient to cast Montferrat as a diabolic evil monster obsessed with this own power in The Holy Lance.

It’s easy for novelists to fall into the cliché because one of the surviving primary sources, Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, delights in heaping abuse on the man who dared to defy Richard the Lionheart. The Montferrat of English legend, therefore, was a man who shot a cross-bow at his own father, killed his doctors, abducted a princess, bribed bishops, intentionally withheld food from crusaders, undermined all efforts by Richard of England to defeat Saladin, and finally met his just end at the hands of an assassin. It would have been easy to follow the tradition of making Montferrat into a sort of medieval Darth Vader.

But I don’t like cartoon characters in my novels. I wanted a more nuanced and comprehensible man for my books. Turning to less biased, particularly German sources, I discovered what I was looking for: a man of “many parts” with a wealth of positive characteristics and achievements to balance the negative portrayal of the Itinerarium.

Conrad de Montferrat, born about 1145, was a first cousin of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa and of the French King. His older brother, William, married Sibylla of Jerusalem.  Conrad’s younger brother, Rainier married Maria Comnena, the daughter of Emperor Manuel I. In short, Conrad de Monteferrat was closely related to the Holy Roman Emperor, the Emperor of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, the King of France, and the ruling Queen of Jerusalem. Conrad de Montferrat was not — as some modern novelists would have you believe — an “adventurer” or a parvenu.

Furthermore, Conrad was a very well-educated, well-traveled and militarily experienced nobleman. He supported his father in his wars and in 1179 prominently defeated the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor taking the Imperial chancellor captive. He subsequently went to Constantinople, where he was greatly admired for his good looks, charm and military prowess. Although he wisely departed Constantinople after Emperor Manuel I's death -- and shortly before his younger brother and sister-in-law were murdered by the usurping Emperor Andronicus, at the invitation of Emperor Isaac Angelus Conrad returned in 1186 to marry the Emperor’s sister Theodora.  Conrad was raised to the rank of “Caesar,” and put down a rebellion led by the popular general Alexios Branas in a battle where he demonstrated exceptional personal courage. His success led his brother-in-law to look on him with jealousy and suspicion, however, and Conrad soon feared for his life (his brother, after all, had been murdered in Constantinople only five years earlier). He fled Constantinople, and took ship for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, arriving there only days after the catastrophe of Hattin.

Conrad sailed into the harbor at Tyre when it was already invested by land by the Sultan’s army. Negotiations for the surrender were allegedly already underway, whether as a ruse or in earnest. Conrad immediately and forcefully advocated defiance. With so many other cities ripe for surrender, Saladin chose not to fight for Tyre, but withdrew to capture Sidon, Beirut, Caesarea, Jaffa, etc. Meanwhile, the people of Tyre, which included not only the usual residents but the survivors of Hattin and refuges from across the north of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, swore allegiance to Montferrat. 

When Saladin returned to finish off Tyre in November 1187, he brought with him Conrad’s father, the aging Marquis de Montferrat, who had fought and been taken captive at Hattin. Saladin offered to release the Marquis in exchange for the surrender of Tyre. The chronicles tell a dramatic tale in which Conrad pointedly refused the deal, saying his father had “lived long enough already” and fired a crossbow in his direction (probably intended to miss or to kill one of his Saracen escort). Much has been made of this as proof of Conrad’s perfidy or callousness. Yet,  the chronicles agree that Conrad’s father called out something to the effect of “well done” when Conrad refused to surrender. The old Marquis of Montferrat, who had fought long and hard for the Holy Land, did not want to see the last remaining bastion of the kingdom surrendered. I found myself liking Conrad for his iron nerves!

In addition to the old Marquis, Saladin had brought another means for reducing the city: the Egyptian fleet. Tyre was now truly besieged and crammed as it was with refugees and cut off from resupply the situation rapidly became critical. Montferrat devised a trick: he led the enemy to believe that people were rioting and some of the wealthier residents were going to attempt a breakout. The chain across the harbor entrance was lowered as if to let the ships escape.  The Saracens took the bait. They shot into the harbor, thinking they were about to take the city by the back door. Instead, they found themselves attacked by the Pisan vessels in the harbor and fired on from the surrounding walls, towers and buildings. The very next day, January 1, 1188, Saladin ordered his army to disperse and withdrew.

All of the above reflects well on Conrad de Montferrat’s capabilities as a determined, resourceful, and clever commander. But it was his political actions that generally draw approbation and they started a year and a half later when, out of the north, a small Frankish army led by none other than the architect of the disaster at Hattin, Guy de Lusignan, appeared before the gates of Tyre. King Guy ordered the gates of the last free city of his kingdom opened to him. Conrad de Montferrat refused. Again, I can’t say that I blame him.

Guy continued south to lay siege to Acre, which was now held by a Saracen garrison. Thus, when the crusaders started to arrive in increasing numbers in 1190 and 1191 most of them joined the siege of Acre because it was the only active fighting available. While this should have increased Guy de Lusignan’s stature, in fact, the arriving contingents of troops tended to recognize their own leaders rather than Guy. Then in November 1190 Guy’s position was fatally undermined by the death of his wife and both his daughters. Guy, always unpopular, widely viewed by the barons of Jerusalem as a usurper, and discredited by Hattin, lost his last vestige of legitimacy with his wife’s death. The High Court of Jerusalem recognized Sibylla’s younger sister Isabella as the rightful ruler of Jerusalem after Sibylla’s death.

Only there was a problem. The Constitution of Jerusalem recognized the rights of women to rule in their own right, but only if they had a male consort capable of leading the army of Jerusalem. Isabella’s husband Humphrey de Toron had already betrayed the High Court when the High Court was trying to oppose Guy’s usurpation of the throne in 1186. The High Court was not prepared to recognize Humphrey as king. That meant that Isabella had to be separated from him and married to a man more acceptable to the barons of Jerusalem. The details of this are described in The Abduction of Isabella. For now suffice it to say that Conrad was the man they chose.

The Itinerarium and most subsequent sources portray Conrad as the driving force behind his marriage to Isabella. He is described as scheming and bribing, as unscrupulous and duplicitous. These portrayals, however, completely ignore the essential fact that it was the High Court of Jerusalem that decided on the marriage of a female heir and the fact that the High Court consistently supported Conrad over Guy. The overblown outrage of the chronicles likewise obscures the plain fact that Isabella was below the age of consent at the time of her marriage to Humphrey (she was 11) and the marriage was without question invalid according to contemporary canon law. While it is also highly probable that Conrad was ambitious and coveted the crown, it is absurd to portray his marriage to Isabella as a travesty of justice or an act of moral depravity. In my novel, therefore, I emphasize the role of the High Court, while nevertheless depicting Conrad as very ambitious and eager to gain the favor of the High Court.

By the time the Kings of France and England arrived in the Holy Land, there were two rival claimants to the (largely fictional) throne of Jerusalem: 1) Conrad, supported by the High Court and deriving his claim through the legitimate heir, Isabella, and 2) Guy, clinging to the title he had from his now dead wife because he’d been crowned and anointed. Their rivalry immediately became a proxy war between Philip II of France, who backed his kinsman Conrad, and Richard I of England, who backed his vassal Guy. Unfortunately for Conrad, Philip II soon tired of crusading and sailed away, while Richard I remained and recaptured much of the fertile coastal plain although he was unable to regain Jerusalem. In my novels, it is this conflict that initially puts Balian and Richard on opposing sides and so in conflict with one another.

During the critical eleven months from October 1191 to September 1192, Richard I periodically sought a negotiated settlement with Saladin. Not surprisingly, Conrad feared that Richard would negotiate a deal that left him high and dry, and so he tried to cut a deal of his own. This has been portrayed as the height of infamy by the supporters of Richard, but it is hard to see why it was legitimate for Richard to negotiate with Saladin but not for Conrad. Saladin, meanwhile, had a strong interest in playing Conrad and Richard off against one another and sowing dissension in the Frankish camp. However, it appears that Conrad was so desperate (or determined) to get a little kingdom (or county) of his own that he was prepared to fight his fellow Christians, and this seemed to me very telling. Conrad was resourceful, brave, and clever, but he was also ruthlessly ambitious.

In fashioning the Conrad de Montferrat of my novel Envoy of Jerusalem I tried to do justice to him as a complex character full of charm, ambition, talent -- and opportunism. I believe he would have used his charm very judiciously and intelligently to win over the heiress of Jerusalem – even before the succession crisis. She was after all, a guest in “his” city of Tyre, which makes my version of events diverge from the usual portrayal of Isabella as abducted and abused by a man she hates. His ambition and talent are depicted in his defense of Tyre, his refusal to admit Guy, and bid his for the crown.  However, on the assumption that a man with so many enemies was not always pleasant and congenial, I have also made him arrogant, self-willed, immune to advice and at times unscrupulous.

The Conrad de Montferrat is a major character in  Envoy of Jerusalem. 

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Writing Biographical Fiction: Isabella I

Although Isabella was born a princess and reigned Jerusalem for twelve years, she is most often portrayed in history books and literature as a pawn. She was married four times, divorced once, and widowed thrice. She was the mother of six daughters and a single son, who died before her. She had been besieged by Saladin on her first wedding night, was the object of a coup attempt, and endured the hardships of a siege camp during the Frankish siege of Acre 1189-1191. One husband spent more than year in Saracen captivity, another died in her arms after being struck down by assassins, and her third husband died at the age of 33 in a bizarre accident. Isabella died at the age of 32.

Yet while Isabella’s life was short, eventful and tragic, writing Isabella off as a pawn of the men around her does no justice to a woman who played such a significant role in the history of the Holy Land. Thus one of my principal goals as a novelist when developing the character of Isabella was to show her as human being with a mind and a will of her own.

Trying to understand Isabella started with recognizing that her father died when she was only two years old, and that made her the only child of a young widow ― who also happened to be a Byzantine Princess. Furthermore, from the age two to seven, she lived with that widowed mother, the immensely wealthy Dowager Queen of Jerusalem, in her mother’s dower barony of Nablus ― a pretty good formula for being a very spoiled little girl!

It was probably a terrible shock to Princess Isabella when her mother remarried in late 1177. Suddenly she was no longer the center of her mother’s attention and, indeed, she would have been expected to show respect and obedience to a strange man, which may not have come easily. She also probably had to spend some of her time away from her familiar environment in Nablus, and go with her mother and step-father to Jerusalem and Ibelin, where her step-father had property.

From there, however, things only got worse. Three years later she was completely removed from her mother and step-father’s care and sent to live among strangers in the barren border fortress of Kerak under the care of one of the most notoriously brutal men of the age: Reynald de Châtillon. (See earlier entry.) Worse: she was effectively imprisoned, denied the right to even visit her own mother. Allegedly, this was so she could grow up with her future husband, Humphrey IV of Toron. 

Humphrey was only a few years older than Isabella, and also a minor living with his mother and stepfather. Later in life he was described as more like a girl than a boy, with a stutter, and cowardly. This was probably the result of being intimidated (not to say brutalized) by his step-father Châtillon, his mother’s third husband and his second step-father. Isabella was later to show great devotion to Humphrey, which led me to hypothesize that the two little children, already promised to one another by their guardians, became friends in a hostile world.

Isabella’s release from Châtillon’s clutches came in a dramatic way. When still only 11 years old, she was “married” to Humphrey in the midst of a siege. (Note: this marriage was illegal because Church law required girls to be at least 12 years of age, unless there was a papal dispensation.) Contemporary accounts claim that the Saracens had already taken the town and the castle itself was under bombardment from Saladin’s siege engines during the wedding. But the castle held out until the army of Jerusalem, led by Isabella’s half-brother King Baldwin IV came to the relief of Kerak.

Humphrey, having presumably reached his majority (age 15 in the Holy Land at this time), and Isabella thereafter set up their own household. Although the details of Humphrey’s estate are vague, a variety of charters demonstrate that Humphrey’s “loving” guardian (Châtillon) had in fact bartered away his hereditary fief (Toron) to the king’s maternal uncle, Joscelyn of Edessa, leaving Humphrey with substantial cash income but no land―something that would have been intensely humiliating since Toron was a great barony and his grandfather had been Constable of the kingdom and one of the most respected noblemen of his age. (Humphrey’s own father died very young and before his grandfather did.) Isabella too, much as she apparently loved her childhood friend, as a princess would have found the lack of any kind of landholding insulting. This state of affairs was clearly the work of the queen mother, Agnes de Courtenay, and intended to check-make Isabella’s ability to raise her legitimate claims to the throne of Jerusalem -- and troops to support that claim. At 11 and 12, Isabella may not have understood this, but her mother and step-father certainly did, and after she was released from Kerak she had contact with both of them again.

In fact, after the death of Baldwin V, Isabella was at Nablus with her mother and step-father when the news came that her half-sister Sibylla had illegally seized the crown of Jerusalem and also crowned and anointed her detested husband Guy de Lusignan. The majority of the barons and bishops of the kingdom, meeting at Nablus, agreed to crown Isabella as a (legitimate) rival to her sister. But that same night her husband, Humphrey, secretly went to Jerusalem and did homage to Sibylla and Guy, check-mating the baronial opposition to the usurpers. Isabella must have felt betrayed, insulted and humiliated by Humphrey’s actions. Her mother and step-father (and the majority of the barons and bishops) had seen her as the rightful queen, yet her own husband did not; such a bald betrayal must have been lacerating to Isabella. I do not believe any marriage would have survived a break of this kind without damage.

We do not know for certain where Isabella was when one year later the news came that the army of Jerusalem had been annihilated at the Battle of Hattin and her husband, along with the king and most of the other noblemen present, had been taken prisoner by Saladin. However, we know that her mother and maternal half-siblings were in Jerusalem. Her step-father received a safe-conduct from Saladin to go to Jerusalem and remove them from harm’s way. We know, furthermore, that Isabella’s paternal half-sister (Queen Sibylla) was also in Jerusalem, because Arab sources write that Saladin did not want her in Jerusalem when he assaulted it. I think, therefore, it probable that Isabella was with her mother in Jerusalem and went with her to Tyre.

On Humphrey’s release from captivity, he joined the Frankish siege of Acre and Isabella went with him. Medieval sieges were not picnics, and this one was particularly horrible. The Frankish forces were completely hemmed in by the Saracens by land and dependent on supplies by sea that could be cut off by enemy action or weather. There was frequent skirmishing, hunger, and disease. Thousands, if not tens of thousands, died in this siege ― including Queen Sibylla and her two daughters.  So Isabella, I am forced to conclude was either there by force or she must have still loved Humphrey a great deal, despite his betrayal at Nablus in 1186. Maybe the nearly two years of separation caused by his captivity had made her forgive him and long for him?

At all events, Isabella was sharing Humphrey’s tent in the siege camp when men loyal to the King of France forced their way in, dragged her from her husband’s bed and took her into church custody, while the legality of her marriage to Humphrey was investigated by an ecclesiastical tribunal led by the papal legate. Much has been written about this “abduction” and I refer readers to my own short essay “The Abduction of Isabella.” The gist of the story is that while Isabella initially resisted the thought of divorcing Humphrey “because she loved him,” she changed her mind within a couple of days after her mother made it clear to her that she could not become Queen of Jerusalem unless she agreed to set Humphrey aside. Isabella chose the crown.  This is usually portrayed as weakness, a girl being “badgered and brow-beaten” into giving up the man she loved. I doubt that version. Here's why:

First, there were suggestions that the marriage had never been consummated -- after seven years and with both principals both in what should have been sexually active ages. Second, during the investigation of her marriage, Humphrey’s testimony that Isabella consented to their marriage was challenged by a witness. This man called Humphrey a liar and threw down a gauntlet, challenging Humphrey to defend his word in combat. Significantly, Humphrey did not pick it up. In short, the young man who was according to a contemporary, firsthand account (the Lyon Continuation of Tyre based on the lost chronicle of Ernoul) “cowardly and effeminate” was not willing to fight for his wife. Where did that leave Isabella? She had been married to him as a little girl, and she had lived with him for seven years, but first he betrayed her and prevented her from being crowned queen and now he refused to fight for her. I think that while Isabella had clung to Humphrey as her only friend when an imprisoned child at Kerak, she was by the age of 18 tired of a pretty, stuttering youth who was patently unwilling to recognize her as a queen or even defend his own rights. She dumped him. Her sister Sibylla had stuck to her man and lost her kingdom, Isabella shrewdly made the other choice, she dropped her  man and gained a kingdom.

Her next husband, Conrad de Monterrat, despite the slander heaped on him by the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi and most modern novelists, was not a monster. He was very well-educated, well-traveled, and an allegedly handsome man, who had charmed the court at Constantinople. He was also ambitious, decisive, opportunistic, courageous and audacious. There is no reason to think Isabella disliked him. Indeed, after the weak and ineffectual Humphrey, who had stood in her way of becoming queen, the virile and ambitious Conrad might have literally swept Isabella off her feet. That is a matter of pure speculation, of course, but it is every bit as legitimate as the usual portrayals of her being miserable with him. Why should she have been? She finally had a man who was willing to fight for her and her rights to the crown.

Unfortunately, however, even Conrad ran into insurmountable opposition in the form of Richard the Lionheart. Richard, for reasons of his own, backed the former King Guy, saying that because he was an anointed king he should rule until his death, after which Isabella and Conrad would be his successors. It must have been intensely frustrating for Isabella to have her claims to the throne sabotaged a second time, but at least this time it wasn't by her own husband. 

Eventually Richard of England recognized that Guy was never going to be recognized by the his former subjects, and capitulated. He dropped Guy and recognized Isabella and Conrad as the rightful queen and king of Jerusalem. There was wild jubilation in Tyre -- that turned almost at once to outrage and grief when Conrad was attacked and lethally stabbed by two assassins. Dying, he was brought to Isabella, and bleeding from the well-placed wounds he died in her arms. The experience would have been traumatic no matter what her feelings for Conrad had been.

Isabella had no time to grieve. She was recognized as the Queen of Jerusalem at last, but constitutionally she needed a consort and politically, with Saladin still in occupation of most of her kingdom and the Third Crusade already disintegrating, she needed a consort capable of defending her fragile kingdom. She knew that ― just as she knew that it was not her choice. The High Court of Jerusalem would decide her next husband. Within just days they chose a 24-year-old Frenchman, the grandson of Eleanor of Aquitaine and nephew of Richard of England: Henri de Champagne. Isabella and Henri married just eight days after the assassination of Conrad.

And what did Isabella feel about it all? We don’t know but there is one account that says that Isabella personally came to a reluctant Henri de Champagne to assure him that she was in agreement with the marriage. He was allegedly so charmed by her that he abandoned all his scruples and reluctance to take up the burden of Jerusalem.

In summary, my Isabella was spoiled in her early childhood but tempered by extreme hardship and cruel disappointments into a woman who identified with her kingdom. She repeatedly demonstrated her willingness to subordinate her own feelings to the best interests of her kingdom. In this, I think she was very much her mother’s daughter, imbibing with her mother’s milk a strong sense of imperial dignity and destiny. I think Isabella’s ties to her mother were very strong, albeit tested by the breaks, and probably stormy as I see them as both very strong personalities. As for her relationship with her husbands, I think she loved Humphrey as a child but felt betrayed by him and frustrated by his apparent homosexuality. I think she was at first a little infatuated by Conrad, because he was so different and so forceful, but that she would likely have found him overbearing and difficult very soon; he was not the kind of man to be considerate of others, not even his wife. (He'd had two already, after all.) In Henri, however, I think Isabella found a young man she could truly love.

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Sneak Preview 4: An Excerpt from "Envoy of Jerusalem"

After the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin, the residents were given 40 days to raise a ransom. At the end of this time, Balian d'Ibelin and his knights escorted some 15,000 civilians to the coastal city of Tyre, the only city of the former Kingdom of Jerusalem still in Christian hands. This scene describes their reception.

Georgios had been serving the Baron of Ibelin for roughly three months now, and he had never seen him look so grim. But now, with the city of Tyre at last in sight, Ibelin looked as if he had turned to stone.

Georgios cast him a nervous side-long glance. His cheeks were hollowed out and his eyes sunken in his skull. His hair which had been a dark, lustrous brown before Hattin now had white strands that started at his sideburns, and another that originated on his forehead. His lips were badly chapped, and his face unshaven.

“Damn him!” Ibelin spat out making Georgios jump. “He’s not lowering the drawbridge.”

Georgios looked back toward Tyre and at last noticed what the baron had seen moments earlier. The city was maintaining its vigilant stance as if the approaching 15,000 people were an enemy army rather than Christian refugees. Over the deepened and widened moat that now effectively turned the peninsula on which Tyre stood back into an island were firmly raised the bridges were firmly raised; the gates were shut. The ramparts were manned and the late afternoon sun glinted on the helmets of the soldiers on the wall-walk.

Without a word to his squire, Balian put spurs to his aging palfrey and sprinted forward leaving the slow-moving, lumbering column of refugees in his wake. Georgios was left kicking his less agile gelding to try to catch up. Ibelin galloped to the very edge of the moat and drew up sharply, shouting up at the walls even before his horse had come to a complete halt. “This is Balian d’Ibelin! I have some 15,000 Christian refugees from Jerusalem. I demand that the gates be opened at once!”

Silence answered him, although Georgios could see men scurrying this way and that, apparently seeking instructions.

Ibelin was cursing under his breath in a steady stream, threatening Conrad de Montferrat with various kinds of torture, mutilation, slow-death and damnation. Finally a voice called out from the walls of the city, “Just a moment, my lord! My lord of Montferrat will be here shortly!”

Ibelin swung his horse on forehand to look back at the column of refugees he had been commanding for eleven days. It was still far behind, moving at its snail’s pace, but very visible to the men up on the walls of Tyre.

“He knows exactly who we are and what we want,” Ibelin snarled to his squire without looking at him.  “He’ll have had spies out watching for us ever since he learned the terms of the surrender.”

“Ibelin!” The call came faintly from the closest gate tower.”

“Montferrat?” Ibelin answered, narrowing his eyes against the sun and trying to identify the man who had addressed him.

“The same. I’m lowering the foot bridge. You may enter alone.”

“I’ll tear out his jugular with my own teeth!” Ibelin answered under his breath to Georgios, his eyes fixed on the gate opposite. As they watched, the narrow wooden bridge from one of the posterns started to jerk slowly down from its upright position to the horizontal. Ibelin jumped down from his horse and flung the reins over its head to hand them to Georgios. “Wait here!” He ordered unnecessarily as he strode off in the direction of the bridge that had just settled on the dusty soil this side of the moat.

Ibelin was wearing helmet and chainmail hauberk, but his legs were encased in over-the-knee suede leather boots rather than the heavy and uncomfortable chainmail chausses he wore for battle. His short-sleeved surcoat was particolored: red on the right and bright marigold on the left, and it was studded with crosses in contrasting color. Made of fine Gaza-cotton it rippled and flowed as he strode angrily toward the bridge.

When he reached the far side of the bridge, a man emerged from the narrow, arched door of the postern. Georgios could see only that he was wearing a purple surcoat with what looked like gold, satin trim and black fur edging. Ibelin, who was now much closer, recognized the well-formed and attractive face of Conrad de Montferrat.

The latter bowed (a little mockingly Ibelin found) as the former left the narrow foot-bridge and covered the last several yards to the postern. Ibelin did not return the courtesy. Instead he roared in a harsh, strained and raw voice, “What the hell do think you’re doing keeping your gates shut! I have 15,000 refugees, who have lost practically everything they owned and have been on the road eleven days. They need to get inside these walls before dark so they don’t have to camp out another day! We only have a few more hours of daylight as it is! You shouldn’t be wasting time with whatever goddamned formalities these are!”

“If you’re finished?” Conrad answered with raised eyebrows and an air of superiority.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ibelin snapped back.

“I’m simply asking if you’re done ranting, so I can get a word in edgeways?”

“What the hell is there to say? Lower the goddamned bridge and open the gates!”

“No.”

For all his bluster, Ibelin had been expecting exactly this answer from the moment he realized that Tyre was remaining on the defensive even after his column of refugees had been sighted. It was anticipation of Montferrat’s refusal that had ignited Ibelin’s rage. He was not surprised, therefore, by Montferrat’s “no.” Rather the confirmation of his suspicions had a chilling effect.

Balian d’Ibelin was an exceptionally tall man. He took two steps closer to Montferrat to stand towering over him. “Say that again!” He ordered in an ominously soft voice.

“I obviously don’t need to,” Montferrat answered, backing up a step so he was not so directly under Ibelin’s glare — and nose. “You heard me the first time and you understood me. This city is already over-crowded and at any moment the Saracens may decide to resume their assaults. We’re under siege in any case, cut off by both land and sea. We cannot — I repeat — cannot admit 15,000 more refugees, most of whom are women and children.”

“You’re saying you intend to deny women and children refuge after all they have suffered already?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Unless I have been misinformed, the terms of the surrender of Jerusalem was that those who could raise their ransom would be free to depart Jerusalem with what goods they could carry and proceed unmolested to Christian territory.” Ibelin noted that, as suspected, Montferrat was very well-informed indeed. “Well,” Montferrat made a flippant gesture with his hand in the direction of the north. “Let them proceed to Tripoli! Tripoli is not under siege!”

“Tripoli is damn near 100 miles away! These women and children have already traveled that distance to get here. They are exhausted — emotionally and physically. They need rest and security.”

“They would have neither in Tyre,” Montferrat answered bluntly. “Salah ad-Din is close on your heels. According to my scouts, he is no more than two days behind you with his whole army. He plans to finish the job of conquering the Kingdom of Jerusalem by capturing this city — the last in the entire kingdom to hold out. The battle for Tyre will start at the latest three days from now, and anyone inside this city will be subject to the dangers of siege engines and assaults — neither of which are my definition of peace and security. Furthermore, the longer we resist the assaults the lower will be our supplies. Even without your 15,000 refugees, we will run short of food within as little as three months! With your 15,000, it will be more like three weeks. I can’t — and won’t — take that responsibility!”

They stared at one another. Two hardened veterans of battles and siege warfare, and they recognized that they were well-matched equals. Ibelin had fought at Montgisard, on the Litani, at La Forbelet, the sieges of Kerak and finally at Hattin before taking over the defense of Jerusalem. Montferrat had a reputation from the interminable wars between the Holy Roman Empire and the Holy See. More recently, he had almost single-handedly won the decisive battle that defeated Alexios Branas’ rebellion against the Greek Emperor, and then brought fire and determination to the demoralized city of Tyre, saving it for Christendom. Montferrat had formed a low opinion of Ibelin on his arrival in Tyre, however, because of his obsession with returning to Jerusalem to save his wife and family. After meeting the Dowager Queen and her daughter, and then hearing about Ibelin’s ferocious defense and miraculous treaty at Jerusalem, he’d been forced to revise his opinion. As they faced each other now, it Montferrat who softened his stance first.

“You have been in my shoes, my lord. You know what I’m talking about. The commander of a city under siege sometimes has to make hard decisions—decisions that seem heartless and cruel to clerics and chroniclers far from the din of battle. But you are a fighting man, Ibelin. You know what I’m saying is absolutely true. I cannot afford to admit 15,000 women and children to this city so long as I am blockaded by sea and invested by land. I cannot reduce the fighting capacity or chances of holding this city as long as all hope of regaining the Holy City for Christendom depends upon our ability to hold Tyre long enough for reinforcements to arrive from the West.”

Ibelin knew that Montferrat was right. He recognized it both intellectually and in the marrow of his warrior bones. Montferrat was right, but how could he go back and tell the people he had led here that? He found himself arguing extraneously, “Not all those 15,000 refugees are women and children. There are over 300 men among them, who helped hold Jerusalem. Men who stood in the breach when the walls came down and fought Saladin’s thousands to a standstill.”

“And they are welcome in Tyre!” Montferrat was quick to agree. “Anyone who can contribute to the defense of this city — first and foremost yourself — are welcome. But I cannot and will not admit non-combatants.”

“Most men — or should I say honorable men — fight for their wives and children not for pay or glory.”

“The fighting men may bring their wives and children into the city,” Montferrat made another concession, “but not their sisters, brothers, parents and cousins. Fighting men and their immediate families only — and, of course, your household.” He smiled as he said this, hoping it would mollify Ibelin.

Ibelin just stared back at him with a look between hatred and despair. Then he nodded and turned away.

My three-part biographical novel is dedicated to bringing Balian, his age and society "back to life."

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