Writing Biographical Fiction: Saladin

I'd like to close this series on Writing Biographical Fiction with a look at one of the  most challenging characters I had to deal with: the heroic and famous Sultan Salah ad-Din, known in the west as Saladin.

When writing about Saladin in a novel one is always confronted by the fact that he has long been viewed as the epitome of Saracen “chivalry.” Indeed, in the last century it became common to suggest that, while the crusaders were treacherous barbarians, Saladin stood out as a paragon of virtue and honor, a shining light of decency and chivalry in an otherwise brutal age.  This is the view of Saladin that dictated the highly sympathetic portrayal in Ridley Scott's film “The Kingdom of Heaven.” It is the image that dominates the mind of most readers coming to a book about the crusades.

Yet, as Andrew Ehrenkreutz catalogues in his meticulously documented and detailed biography of Saladin published in 1972, Saladin frequently used deceit, hypocrisy, propaganda, bribery, extortion, murder and, ultimately aggressive war to establish an empire in the Near East.  Ehrenkreutz also notes that Saladin spent much more time and money fighting (and killing) fellow Muslims than he did fighting Christians; Saladin was responsible for the loss of many more Sunni Muslim lives than Christian ones.

A depiction of Saladin based on Ehrenkreutz would be too extreme -- and certainly too much to swallow for readers raised on the Kingdom-of-Heaven Saladin. That isn't what I wanted. However, it was important to me that I didn’t simply serve up the legend without any acknowledgement of historical reality.  Thus, in developing the Saladin of my novels, I sought to balance the two views of Saladin and focus on portraying him not as “good” or “bad” but rather as a highly effective political leader. I wanted a “worthy adversary,” for Balian and the crusader states, but not one who was a caricature of either virtue or villainy. I sought to create a man who was ambitious and ruthless in attaining and maintaining power, but also capable of generosity and magnanimity -- when it did not run contrary to his interests. Likewise, I sought to explain Saladin’s behavior by analyzing possible motives.

A particularly good example of this is the famous instance in which Saladin gave Balian d’Ibelin a safe-conduct to cross Saracen-held territory to enter Jerusalem and remove his wife and family after the Battle of Hattin but before the fall of Jerusalem. Not only was this a magnanimous gesture to a Christian lord and a foe, it was topped by Saladin sending some of his own personal body-guard to escort the Lady of Ibelin to safety after her husband broke his word, and — ceding to immense pressure from the Christian population in Jerusalem — agreed to take command of the defense of the Holy City. But the “chivalrous” character of these gestures is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the Lady of Ibelin was also a Byzantine princess and a relation of the ruling Greek Emperor Isaac II Angelus, with whom Saladin had just concluded a treaty of alliance. It was still a generous gesture since Maria Comnena, Lady of Ibelin, was not a close relative of Isaac II, but Saladin’s decision was certainly salted with a pinch of self-interest.

Equally important to me in my portrayal of Saladin was his unbending hostility to Christianity and his commitment to jihad. This has nothing to do with whether Saladin was “good” or “bad” (I’m not trying to make him a medieval ISIS leader), but it is essential to understanding what options were available to the Christian leaders. It is, as Israeli governments can testify, impossible to make peace with people who do not recognize your right to exist. Too many histories and novels are written on the premise that the crusader states could have co-existed with their Muslim neighbors indefinitely. This is simply not logical. Jihadist Islam requires good Muslims to spread the religion ― including by the sword ― and recognizes the right of select other religions to live under Islamic rule only under humiliating and burdensome conditions.

Last but not least, the Saladin of my novels is a man of his age and culture, and I have drawn on Arab chronicles and Islamic writings to depict his probable attitudes toward, above all, women. Muslims in this period found the presence of women in public life (such as queens, castellans etc.) not only incomprehensible but disgusting. The very fact that women had names and faces known outside of the family circle was viewed as immoral and dishonorable. The fact that women had a voice in political affairs, could control wealth, influence politics, and even command men was even more offensive. The differing attitudes toward women was one of the most crucial differences between Christendom and Islam in the 12^th century. As a novelist with strong female characters, it would be nothing short of negligent not to highlight this fact.

Likewise, the dependence of 12^th century Syria and Egypt on slaves is fact that I had no wish to gloss over or ignore. Particularly in the third book of the series, the contemporary attitudes toward slavery is an important issue and plot-line. Although I use the historical figure Imad ad-Din most directly to address this theme, quoting directly from his own works, Saladin too is consciously used as a representative of the world from which he came. In this sense, Saladin in my novels is both a character and a symbol ― but then so is Balian.

Saladin plays a significant role in the second two books of the Jerusalem trilogy.

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Chivarly and Balian d'Ibelin: Honor

The code of chivalry required that knights be honorable or conduct themselves in an honorable manner. The concept is vague and rooted in societal norms that change over time. What was honorable in the 12th century might not be considered so today and vice-versa. Essentially, it boils down to "doing the right thing" -- i.e. the morally correct behavior even if that is at odds with one's self-interest. At a minimum, however, honorable behavior entailed being honest and trustworthy.  

The best evidence that Balian d’Ibelin was viewed by his contemporaries as a man of honor comes from no one less than Saladin.

Having fought his way out of the debacle on the Horns of Hattin, Balian found himself in the comparative safety of Tyre, but his wife and children were in Jerusalem. The Holy City was by this time denuded of defenders, but flooded by refugees. Furthermore, Salah ad-Din had vowed to retake Jerusalem for Islam, and a siege was immanent. In these circumstances, Balian requested a safe-conduct from Saladin to fetch his wife and children out of the endangered city and bring them to the comparative safety of Tyre. The Sultan granted the safe conduct on the condition that the Baron of Ibelin go unarmed and stay only one night; Ibelin took an oath to do exactly this.

On arrival in Jerusalem, however, the tens of thousands of Christians trapped in Jerusalem (reportedly between sixty and a hundred thousand) desperately pleaded with Ibelin to stay and take over command of the defense. The Patriarch explicitly told Balian that it would be more honorable to break his oath to Saladin than to keep it -- a clear indication that "honor" had more to do with doing what was "right" (by the standards of the day) than merely keeping one's word.

But what was the honorable thing for an Christian lord to do in such a situation? Keep his word and abandon tens of thousands of Christians to a hopeless siege that could only end in the slaughter or enslavement of them all? Or break his oath (his word of honor) and try to provide the disorganized refugees with military organization, leadership and expertise?

Ibelin saw his duty in defending the helpless -- despite the fact that this entailed condemning his own wife and family to remaining in the threatened city rather than taking them to safety. Unlike contemporaries like Guy de Lusignan and Reynald de Chatillon, however, Ibelin did not considers oaths to the Saracens  meaningless. Instead, he wrote to Saladin, explained the situation, and effectively requested that Saladin absolve him of his oath.  

The fact that Saladin not only did so, but also sent some of his own body-guard to escort Balian’s wife and children out of Jerusalem suggests that Saladin did not view Balian d’Ibelin’s action as dishonorable or as a betrayal. Furthermore, Saladin latter negotiated with Richard of England through Ibelin, again suggesting faith in his trustworthiness. Indeed, the tone of contemporary Arab chronicles in referring to Balian d'Ibelin (Ibn Barzan) testify to the degree to which Ibelin was held in high regard even by his enemies -- not because he was sympathetic to them but simply because he was "a man of honor."  

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Cast of Charaters 9: The Chivalrous Saracen Saladin

Today I continue my series of short biographies featuring the historical figures who play a role in my biographical novels about Balian d'Ibelin. Today I focus on the man who made Balian a historical figure: the Sultan Salah ad-Din or Saladin.

Saladin as Portrayed in the Hollywood Film "The Kingdom of Heaven"

Salah ad-Din, or Saladin has he is more commonly known in Western literature, has long been viewed as the epitome of Saracen “chivalry.” Indeed, in the last century it became common to suggest that, while the crusaders were treacherous barbarians, Saladin stood out as a paragon of virtue and honor, a shining light of decency and chivalry in an otherwise brutal age.  This is the view of Saladin that dictated the highly sympathetic portrayal in Ridley Scott's film “The Kingdom of Heaven.”

This positive view of Saladin in Western literature evolved slowly, starting in 13th century  attempts to explain away a shameful defeat by making the adversary more worthy and more "like us" (see John France's excellent summary of this process in his book Hattin), and culminated in a biography of Saladin published by Stanley Lane-Poole in 1898. While Lane-Poole made a major contribution to Western scholarship by drawing upon Arab sources for his work, he unfortunately did so uncritically, adopting without scruple or embarrassment the purely adulatory descriptions of Saladin penned by the Sultan’s court biographers. The result is a work in which Saladin is described as a man “whose chivalry and generosity excited the admiration of the Crusaders.” More disturbing to the historian, Lane-Poole is so completely under the spell of his Arab sources that he claims: “...civilization, magnanimity, toleration, real chivalry, and gentle culture were all on the side of the Saracens.”

While the latter statement alone discredits Lane-Poole as a serious historian of the crusades, other historians uncritically followed his lead. The British Orientalist, H.A.R. Gibb, claims that Saladin inspired his followers “not so much by the example of his personal courage and resolution — which were undeniable — as by his unselfishness, his humility and generosity…. He was no simpleton, but for that an utterly simple and transparently honest man…Guileless himself, he never expected and seldom understood guile in others.”

Yet, as Andrew Ehrenkreutz points out in his biography of Saladin published in 1972: “The political, social and economic climate prevailing in the Near East in the second half of the twelfth century was not conducive to seeking power through the exercise of tolerance, magnanimity, chivalry or any altruistic behavior.”  Ehrenkreutz goes on to catalogue in his meticulously documented and detailed biography the number of times Saladin used deceit, hypocrisy, propaganda, bribery, extortion, murder and, ultimately aggressive war to establish an empire in the Near East.  He notes that he spent much more time and more resources fighting (and killing) fellow Muslims than he did fighting Christians, and that Saladin was responsible for the loss of many more Sunni Muslim lives than Christian ones. Ehrenkreutz concludes that: “Most of Saladin’s significant historical accomplishments should be attributed to his military and governmental experience, to his ruthless persecution of political opponents and dissenters, to his vindictive belligerence and calculated opportunism, and to his readiness to compromise religious ideals to political expediency.”

The real Saladin probably lies somewhere between these two extreme portrayals of his character, but what Ehrenkreutz makes abundantly clear is that even in those well-documented cases of Saladin’s apparent magnanimity, we need to look closer at his the motives.  One case in point is the return of the fortress of Azaz to the ruler of Aleppo.  In June 1176, during one of Saladin’s several attacks on the  legitimate successor regime of Nur al-Din in Aleppo, his army captured the fortress of Azaz. The rest of the campaign against Sunni Aleppo, however, proved less successful, and Saladin was forced to sue for terms. Eventually a treaty was negotiated. Then according to Lane-Poole: “When the treaty was concluded, there came to Saladin a young girl, the little sister of es-Salih [i.e., the man whose place Saladin had usurped and driven from Damascus].  He received her with honour and asked her: “What is thy wish?” “The castle of Azaz,” she said. So he restored the castle to its old owners, loaded the princess with presents, and escorted her back to the gate of Aleppo at the head of his staff.” Now quite aside from the improbability of a Muslim maiden ever setting foot outside the haram of her home (in this case her brother’s home), had she spoken to a man not her relative (Saladin) she would have dishonored her brother (the Sultan of Aleppo) and so most probably would have been stoned to death.  In short, Lane-Poole’s entire story can only be fiction on the same par as an opera and utterly lacks understanding of Islamic culture in the 12^th century. Furthermore, as Ehrenkreutz points out, the return of Azaz was quite simply one of the terms of the negotiated treaty. No “princess” had to plea for its return at all. Saladin surrendered it diplomatically because it was virtually impossible to hold militarily after the rest of his campaign collapsed.

Another example is the apparent generosity of Saladin in providing Balian d’Ibelin with a safe-conduct to cross Saracen-held territory to enter Jerusalem and remove his wife and family after the Battle of Hattin but before the fall of Jerusalem. Not only was this an apparently magnanimous gesture to a Christian lord and a foe, it was topped by Saladin sending some of his own personal body-guard to escort the Lady of Ibelin to safety after her husband broke his word, and — ceding to immense pressure from the Christian population in Jerusalem — agreed to take command of the defense of the Holy City. But the “chivalrous” character of these gestures is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the Lady of Ibelin was also a Byzantine princess and a relation of the ruling Greek Emperor Isaac II Angelus, with whom Saladin had just concluded a treaty of alliance. It was still a generous gesture as Maria Comnena, Lady of Ibelin, was not a close relative of Isaac II, but Saladin’s decision was certainly salted with self-interest.

Likewise, the many instances in which Saladin treated former Sunni foes with leniency, often awarding them new lands and titles within his growing empire, demonstrates not so much his “gentleness” and “chivalry” as his cynical opportunism. If fighting men, particularly the commanders of contingents of troops that offered effective armed opposition to Saladin, could be bought with the promises of riches and titles, then why fight? After all, the alternative (killing or enslaving his opponents on capture) would only have increased the tenacity and fervor of his opponents, and Saladin had a hard enough time subduing them as it was. His mild treatment of defectors is not so much a mark of “gentleness” and “chivalry” as of opportunism that was particularly effective against the fragmented and jealous feudal lords in northern Syria.

Against these documented cases of apparent “gentleness” and “chivalry” are a number of equally well documented incidents of ruthlessness, brutality, duplicity and vindictiveness that are incompatible with the Lane-Poole/Gibbs image of Saladin. To name only a few, Saladin played a key role in eliminating the Egyptian vizier Shawar, even if the actual murder may have been carried out by someone else on the orders of the Fatimid caliph. (Shawar’s head and later that of his son were delivered to Saladin’s uncle in a silver container; no doubt it was the use of silver for transmitting the heads of murdered men that made Lane-Poole conclude that “civilization” was always on the side of the Muslims.) 

Then, having won the confidence and trust of the Fatimid Caliph, who appointed Saladin his vizier, Saladin worked systematically to undermine his regime and carried out a bloody coup d’etat against the Fatimid elite as soon as the Caliph conveniently died. While it might be argued that this was justified by repeated Fatimid conspiracies against Saladin or by Sunni orthodoxy’s hostility to Shiism, the same cannot be said of the slaughter of the unarmed women and children of the Sudanese guard that the “gentle and chivalrous” Saladin ordered burned alive in their homes. And if that weren’t enough, Saladin ended the rebellion of their men by agreeing to spare their lives if they left Cairo — only to break his word and slaughter them after they had laid down their arms.

Saladin next distinguished himself by waging war against the heir of his feudal overlord Nur al-Din, the eleven-year-old al-Salih. First, however, he sent a letter swearing humble and abject submission to al-Salih, ordered the young sultan’s name invoked in the mosques of Egypt and minting coins in his name, evidently with the intent of luring him into a sense of security.  While vowing his allegiance to al-Salih, Saladin also wrote to the under-aged Sultan’s regency council with the absurd claim that: “if death had not prevented him, [Nur al-Din] would have bequeathed to none other but me the guardianship and upbringing of his son.” (Ehrenkreutz, p. 123). In fact, Nur al-Din allegedly said on his deathbed that “Nothing makes me so sad except the thought of what will befall my family at the hands of Yusef, the son of Ayyub [i.e. Saladin].” 

Claiming a position he had been neither formally nor informally granted by Nur ad-Din, Saladin set out to gain control of Syria by force, using the resources he had accumulated by his seizure of power in Egypt.  The young Sultan’s legal guardians fled to Aleppo and Saladin gained control of Damascus without bloodshed, but the Turkish commanders and lords around the young Sultan flatly refused to acknowledge Saladin’s bogus claims to be the “true” guardian of the young Sultan. So Saladin marched his army against Aleppo. In northern Syria, Saladin met with real resistance and was ultimately repelled — with a little help from the Christians, who attacked his lines of communication, and the assassins, who made an attempt on Saladin’s life. Saladin returned to Damascus, where he gave up his pretense of serving the interests of al-Salih, and demanded patents for his position as Sultan of Damascus from the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad. He also issued coins in his own name. He then spent the better part of the next ten years fighting bitter campaigns against the family of Nur al-Din and their supporters based in Aleppo and Mosul and all across northern Syria.

Throughout this bloody, exhausting and bitter struggle for complete supremacy in Syria, Saladin used the excuse of needing to unite Islam for jihad against the crusader states. Ehrenkreuz notes: “…the overly long and bloody conflict in the Muslim camp had been caused, not by Saladin’s ambition to build a united front against the Crusaders, but by his opponents’ realistic refusal to recognize his claims for other than they were: an adventurous and unscrupulous policy of personal and territorial aggrandizement.”

Which is not to say that Saladin did not fight the Christians too. In fact, Saladin undertook a number of campaigns against the Christians including the invasion of 1177 that ended Saladin’s complete humiliation at Montgisard, the invasion of 1179 that ended in the routing of the Templars and the capture of nearly 300 Christian knights and nobles on the Litani. The siege of Beirut in the same year, the campaign that ended in the draw at Le Forbelet in 1182, the equally indecisive campaign of 1183, and the sieges of Kerak in 1183 and 1184. This may sound like an impressive track record, but given Saladin’s overwhelming strategic advantages, and the fact that the Kingdom of Jerusalem was led by a youth slowing dying of leprosy, his lack of success suggests either strategic and tactical incompetence or anemic motivation.

Not that Saladin didn’t demonstrate his hatred of the Franks.  When in August of 1178, less than a year after Saladin’s scalding defeat at Montgisard, Christian prisoners fell into Saladin’s hands he had them summarily executed, one by one, by members of his retinue. Aside from it being against Sharia law to kill men who had surrendered, it was hardly a demonstration of “chivalry.” Nor was it an isolated incident. When the Christians involved in the Red Sea raids were finally run-to-earth and captured, Saladin again ordered their execution. According to Bernard Hamilton in his excellent work The Leper King and His Heirs, the Christian prisoners were “taken to Mecca where, during the great annual pilgrimage, they were…slaughtered ‘like animals for sacrifice.’” Clearly these men were mercenaries and they had killed Muslim pilgrims and captured Arab shipping so perhaps they were not worthy of mercy, but the same cannot be said of the “unlucky common Christian soldier whom the sultan had slain when he noticed a minor facial scratch his son al-Afdal [by then in his late teens] sustained in the battle of Arsuf.” (Ehrenkreutz, p. 228.)

Last but not least, no discussion of Saladin would be complete without reference to the brutal execution of the Templars and Hospitallers taken captive at the Battle of Hattin. On July 6, these knights and sergeants, bound and helpless, were beheaded in public. Bartlett describes the scene in Downfall of the Crusader Kingdom as follows: “Saladin gave the task…to a group of religious Sufis, holy men largely untrained in the arts of war. Some of them took six or seven attempts to sever the heads of their victims…However justified the death of these men might have been in military terms, the cruelty and indignity of their death did Saladin no credit whatsoever. It was an act of violence, almost barbarism, which Saladin’s apologists have all too frequently glossed over.” (Bartlett, p. 204-205.) It is important to remember that this massacre preceded — and may indeed have helped instigate — the slaughter of the Muslim garrison of Acre by Richard the Lionheart four years later.

Saladin in a character in Book II of my three part biography of Balian d'Ibelin.

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

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A Destrier's Tale, Part XVII: Surrender

A Destrier’s Tale

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

Part XVII: Surrender

Incredibly, Lord Balian tried a second night sortie just a few days later. But this time the Horse-Haters were waiting for us. No sooner were we across the bridge, than they swept down on us from all sides. There was literally no way to escape them — except to get back inside the city.

The horrible thing was that the Horse-Haters seemed to be concentrating on Lord Balian rather than me — trying not so much to kill him as to drag him out of the saddle. By now, I was pretty confident that I could defend myself. I could bite and trample and kick viciously enough to make the Horse-Haters back away long enough for me to spin around and run for safety behind the walls. (In the dark there were no archers.) But I wasn’t going to leave Lord Balian to those murderers! Behind us the knight-colts were breaking and running, and only Gabriel was still with us it seemed. He pressed in to try to come between the Horse-Haters and Lord Balian. His intervention enabled me to swing on haunches and start back for the draw-bridge. Gabriel and his stallion were right behindw me.

We had just made the drawbridge when Gabriel’s stallion Gypsy gave a blood curdling scream and reared up. I don’t know how they did it, but they brought him down just yards from safety.  He tumbled right off the side of the bridge into the ditch, tossing poor Gabriel through the air. Horse-Haters pressed forward, hot on our heels. They were on both sides of us, yelling their curses and grabbing for Lord Balian. One came up so close on our left that he grabbed for my bridle, apparently intent on pulling me around and into their camp.

The only thing I could think to do was to leap up and kick out with my hind legs. I landed that kick with so much force that the attacker’s mare crumpled up and fell into the ditch with a piercing whinny — chocked out when she broke her neck as she hit the bottom. I was now through the gate, however, and although some of our pursuers came in with us, they were quickly slaughtered by the Christian infantry.

In fact, the Christians were so frantic by now that they killed the slave horses as well as the Horse-Haters. Just swarmed over them hacking, stabbing, jabbing and screaming in fury.

On my back I felt Lord Balian crumple up, falling forward on my neck. I was sure he was wounded, maybe mortally so, and was grateful when a half dozen humans rushed over to him, calling “My lord! My lord! Are you alright?”

“They were waiting for us! We rode straight into a trap!” He gasped out, righting himself again with a groan and adding in a voice laden with pain and grief. “We lost Sir Gabriel.”

“You did the best you could, my lord.”

When I got back to the stables, Georgios untacked me, checked me over for wounds, and made sure I had fresh water and hay, but I was exhausted. What was more, I could tell the situation was hopeless. In the first sortie, we’d managed to destroy those terrible giants that threw rocks and flaming balls at us, but within two days the Horse-Haters had recruited even more of them. The bombardment was worse than ever, and now we couldn’t sortie out anymore either. Our situation was absolutely hopeless.

I guess I went to sleep eventually, but so late that I was still groggy when Georgios led me out after daybreak to brush away the sweat stains of the night before. He wasn’t even finished, however, when suddenly Mathewos ran into the yard yelling for Georgios to tack me up. Again? I thought. I have to admit that for a moment I was genuinely reluctant and snapped irritably at Mathewos and Georgios.

But then Lord Balian appeared and he had fixed himself up. He was in a surcoat with gold trim and his hair was brushed, his face shaven. He was going to face the enemy! And there was no way I could let him down. I pulled myself together and arched my neck to show him I was ready too. If we were going to die, it would be together — fighting. I nickered my readiness to him.

But he didn’t call the remaining colt-knights together. Instead he took only Mathewos and he carried an all-white banner, rather than the one with the arms of Ibelin. We rode again to the Jehosaphat Gate and the streets were completely empty, apparently abandoned, but I could hear the distinct sounds of battle raging to our left. Men were screaming, shouting, cursing and the clang of metal was audible too. Those sounds, I realized with horror, couldn’t have come from outside the walls. Somehow the Horse-Haters had gotten inside the city!

Lord Balian ordered the men manning the gate to signal to the enemy. They started waving banners and blowing horns until they reported they had the enemy’s attention. Only then did Lord Balian ordered them to open the gate.

We rode straight out at a sedate walk. I wanted to charge. I feel stronger charging, but Lord Balian kept me to a walk. So I pranced and danced my way forward with my nose tucked in and my tail up. We rode like that all the way to the large church set among olive trees before the Horse-Haters swept down on us and blocked our way about 30 yards ahead of us. They didn’t attack us though. It was like back at the city-by-the-sea. Somehow the Horse-Haters knew Lord Balian had come to talk not fight.

Lord Balian ordered Mathewos to remain where he was and advanced until we were just 10 feet apart. The humans exchanged words in the language of the Horse-Haters, and the tone was harsh and threatening. Then another Horse-Hater appeared in magnificent robes with a jewel-studded turban and he rode a stallion that was almost as big as me. When he spoke the others backed away and Lord Balian and he were then alone but about 8 feet apart with my head level with his stallion’s tail and vice-versa.

They seemed to talk for a long time and the emotions were raw in both voices, though I couldn’t understand the words. First one then the other raised his voice, then they both grew more reasonable but still sharp. Until, abruptly, it was over. The Horse-Hater turned and started to ride away. Lord Balian called something after him. He paused, looked back at us with fury in his eyes, but then nodded and rode away. At last Lord Balian turned me back toward the city.

We reached Mathewos. “I have surrendered Jerusalem,” Lord Balian said. He did not sound very happy about it, although after they had talked a bit more Mathewos exclaimed “This is a miracle, my lord!”

Lord Balian clearly didn’t think so, he drew up and questioned Mathewos further, but then we continued together toward the city. We hadn’t even reached the bridge before people started streaming out and surrounded us. Some were cheering, others weeping, still others singing. They completely enveloped us just as when we’d first arrived in the city. I didn’t understand it at first, but then I realized that the giants had stopped hurling things at us, the archers had stopped shooting at us and the sound of combat had died away. Whatever it was Lord Balian had said, he’d convinced the Horse-Haters to let us live — at least for another day.

The siege of Jerusalem is described (from human perspective) in Book II of my Biographical Novel of Balian d'Ibelin:

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The three part biography begins with:

A landless knight,

                       a leper king,                                                                                          and the struggle for Jerusalem!

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

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