Chapter XLIX
Five days later we arrived at Banias where we camped in the valley beside a clear stream that was the beginning of the Jordan River. As we pitched camp one came down from the hills above us to say that in the distance to the north he had seen many fires.
"The Sultan!" we all exclaimed when we heard it.
"I suspect it is," Sid Guy said. "We'd better be sure, however. Fuad, can you and Babrak go out and investigate in the morning?"
Babrak and I talked long into the night, discussing how we should go. I suggested that we should leave our weapons behind and pretend to be shepherds or travellers, he insisted that if we behaved like spies we deserved to be treated like spies and in the end his words prevailed. In the morning we took our weapons and shields and such armour as we possessed and rode north openly as soon as we had eaten.
It was mid-morning when we came over a rise and saw a couple of men on horseback, accoutred like ourselves, coming towards us. We reined in and waited for them, but they also drew rein and stopped a slingshot from us.
"Salaam aleikum," Babrak called.
"Aleikum asalaamat," one of them replied.
"Keef halak?" Babrak responded.
"Al-hamdu-lillah," they called back and rode slowly towards us.
"Where are you from, brothers?" the man on the right asked as they halted again only a short distance away.
"We are from the Nasrani army," Babrak replied. "You are with the Sultan, God protect him?"
"Naam - yes," the man replied. "We have come from the capture of Aleppo."
"Al-hamdu-lillah," we both responded.
"Are you of the party of Islam?" the man on the left interrupted.
"We are in the service of Sid Guy d'Orleans," Babrak replied. "We have come to make sure whether it was the Sultan's fires we saw last night or not and to take word back to our lord."
The man on the right laughed. "And we have come on the same errand for the Sultan, may God prosper him."
"Then tell him that the whole strength of the Nasranis is before him," Babrak said. "There is not a man left in the kingdom; all are here ready for battle."
"And tell your lord that the Sultan's army is beyond counting, well supplied with food and weapons, and even more ready for battle because of our success against the Nasranis of Aleppo."
We grinned at each other and I called out, "Will there be a battle, brothers?"
The man on the right shrugged. "Who can tell? Only God knows the future."
The man on the left scowled at us. "Come and join the party of God," he urged.
"We wish you success," Babrak replied, "but we will be true to our bread."
"How can you serve those enemies of God?" the man challenged us, shaking off his companion's hand.
"Because our lord seeks peace," Babrak replied. "He is not of the party of war."
"And if there is war?" the man on the right raised his eyebrows.
"Our lord will fight, of course, and he is a ghazi, skilled in battle and worth a dozen of the Sultan's men. Nonetheless he always seeks peace - and I think the Sultan, may God grant him success, is also a man of peace. Let us hope that wisdom prevails."
The man on the right lifted his hand in salaam. "Mashallah," he said. "Peace with honour is always better than fighting." He turned to his companion. "Come, Abdul. These men have saved us another couple of hours riding. Let us be the first to take the news to the Sultan and claim the reward."
"Go in peace, brothers," we called as they turned away.
"And on you peace also," they replied.
We rode back to the army, which had not moved, and reached them in time for the mid-day meal. We went straight to Sid Guy and he, in his turn, went immediately to Guy de Lusignan.
"Well done," he said on his return. "Now we just have to wait."
And wait we did, as the Sultan's army approached and set up camp a short distance to the north. Every day raiding parties from the Sultan's army went out and came back laden with loot. Some said that these parties went as far as the plain of Jezreel and that burning farms could be seen from Nazareth. We scouts, however, merely watched one another and though some of the more hotheaded on both sides skirmished and every day there were wounded and even one or two dead, we kept our distance and just waved at each other.
Several times the Sultan's army marshalled as if for battle and there was shouting and bustle in the Crusader camp as we made ready to receive them, but each time nothing happened. After one of these alarms Babrak and I were standing around with some squires in the service of another Frankish knight and they were all very angry.
"Why don't we attack?" one of them demanded. "Why do we sit here and wait while they devastate our lands?"
"That Guy's a coward," another snapped.
"Who?" I asked, ready to do battle if Sid Guy was being slandered.
"Guy de Lusignan," the man explained. "He dithers about, getting us into battle array and then standing us down again, just because he's afraid of the Sultan and his rabble - thinks he might get his fancy clothes ruined if he has to fight."
"We could easily defeat those Saracens," his companion declared. "Look at us: he'll never get as many men into the field again and we're all eager to do battle."
"I overheard Gerard de Ridefort of the Temple saying that it was our duty to attack," the first man confided. "Look at the damage those raiders are doing while we stand idely here. Anyway, Gerard says that it is God's will that we destroy these infidels utterly."
"And I'll bet there are hot heads in the Sultan's camp who are saying exactly the same thing," Sid Guy sighed when I reported this conversation to him. "All these people can think of is brawling, as if their lives and the fate of the kingdom were of no more consequence than a couple of coins to be thrown away in a game of chance."
He sighed again and shook his head wearily. "What they don't realise is that if we can just hold on here without fighting for another week or so, we will have won, for the Sultan can't keep his army in the field indefinitely. He must either attack or return to Damascus - and if he leaves, then we will have peace for another year. In any case, Guy has done better than Baldwin so far."
"What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled.
"Well, four years ago Baldwin and the army were up here making a show of force along the border near Banias and they were so over-confident that they didn't set a proper guard with the result that Saladin's nephew caught the camp by surprise. Baldwin only just got away with his life and the result was that Saladin was able to sweep across the whole of this region virtually unopposed. He devastated the whole of Galilee and right up to the gates of Beirut."
Soon those who wished to grumble had something else to occupy their attention, for the next day the sky was covered with clouds and the following day the sun could not be seen and a cold wind blew down the valley from the north. Men shivered and looked apprehensively towards the invisible summit of Mt Hermon.
Then the rain came, not heavy but persistent. By evening the tents were soaked and I discovered that if one brushed against the cloth, the rain immediately began to drip through onto the ground beneath. The only cure, shown to me by that same Karl, was to run one's finger down the cloth to the ground so that the water followed the line and ran down to the bottom of the tent.
By the next day the ground was churned up into mud and Hilmi humorously suggested that we should take advantage of the opportunity of all this free labour and make bricks that we could sell when the sun came out and dried them next summer. He and I were sitting on our horses looking down on the Sultan's camp when he said this and we both laughed so hard that the Sultan's scouts, who were sitting nearby keeping watch on our camp, called over to discover the reason for our merriment.
"By God, that is a good idea!" one of them exclaimed when we told them, and his companion suggested that the camels presently employed in bringing supplies to both armies could carry the bricks back to ash-Shams, where there was great need for building materials to house all the soldiers gathered by the Sultan.
"How long will you stay here?" the first man asked when we had exhausted the joke.
Hilmi shrugged. "It's up to you. Guy de Lusignan has declared that he will stay here until the Sultan departs."
"And have you enough food?" the man asked.
"Enough and to spare," Hilmi replied. "And our warm clothes have been sent for and will arrive in the next day or two."
"I can't wait for those warm clothes to arrive," I said to him as we rode back to the camp. "I'm freezing."
Hilmi laughed. "What warm clothes?" he asked.
"But you said . . ." I protested.
"I know what I said," Hilmi grinned. "I doubt that anyone in the camp has the intelligence to think of such things, but that news will be reported to the Sultan and who can tell what may be the result?"
"Wallah!" I breathed. "You think he might become discouraged and go away?"
"Inshallah," Hilmi shrugged.
Whether it was Hilmi's clever words or some other reason, I do not know, but the next morning Babrak and Hamed reported much activity in the Sultan's camp and in the afternoon the Sultan departed, a long line of men and animals winding up the steep ridge towards ash-Shams. I stood with Sid Guy and watched the tiny figures disappear over the crest.
"That's that," Sid Guy sighed. "Now, perhaps, we can all go home and get dry."
In fact Guy de Lusignan kept the army there for another two days until scouts reported that the Sultan had entered Damascus and his army was dispersed to its winter quarters. Only then did the order come to break camp and return to al-Quds. I got soaked taking down our tents and folding and rolling the sodden material and was not dry again until Jerusalem.
All order disappeared on the march back, for no one could think of anything else but getting home as soon as possible. The cavalry disappeared on the first day, but Sid Guy and we of his household remained behind with the foot soldiers and finally, as they too went ahead, with the baggage carts.
"But we have horses," I complained to Hamed. "Why don't we ride ahead with the others and get back sooner?"
"This is why," Hamed replied, pointing to a group of twenty or thirty men standing by the side of the road watching us. "If we weren't here, they'd be down on those carts and plundering them as quick as winking."
"Are they not Nasranis?" I demanded in surprise.
"Poverty comes in and religion departs," Hamed quoted the proverb. "They may be Nasranis, but they are also poor and these carts, filled with rubbish though they be, are riches to them."
