And if the Pope, the German emperor, and the constantly bickering kings of England and France could not agree on a new successor, power would remain with the regent, Count Raymond for a long time.
So it looked as though the brave little king in his litter had managed to save the Holy Land after all; it was his last accomplishment in this life.
On that night in Jerusalem there was no other apparent possibility, no cloud in the sky despite the fact that all the men among Arn’s guests were far more experienced in the struggle for power than he was. Not even Agnes de Courtenay or her treacherous brother Joscelyn could do much to counter the unanimous oath given before God by the High Council.
For almost an hour they tried to imagine what possible or impossible intrigues the evil woman, her patriarch lover, and incompetent brother might dream up in their desperate situation. But Outremer’s most experienced knights could see no way out for her and her cronies.
Therefore they turned to the wine, which always runs more lightly down merry throats than gloomy ones, and the guests spent the rest of the night telling wild tales.
Prince Bohemund of Antioch knew everything about the man who more than anyone else threatened the peace: Reynald de Châtillon. Reynald was a man who carried destruction within him, like the genie in the bottle, Bohemund recounted. Reynald had come to Antioch from somewhere in France. He took service with Prince Bohemund’s father and proved himself so skilled on the battlefield that after only a few years he was rewarded with the hand of Bohemund’s sister Constance in marriage.
A wise man of normal ambition would have stopped there: prince of Antioch, wealthy and protected. But not Reynald, whose appetite had grown to insatiable proportions.
He wanted to go out on expeditions of conquest and plunder but did not have the money to do so, so he ordered the patriarch Aimery de Limoges to be bound naked to a stake under the blazing sun and smeared with honey. After a while the patriarch could no longer stand the bees and the sun, and he agreed to lend the rogue Reynald all the money he demanded.
With the funds of a war chest, all he needed then was to locate good plunder. And Reynald chose Cyprus, which was a province in the realm of the Byzantine emperor Manual Komnenos. Cyprus was harried more cruelly than ever before by Reynald de Châtillon. He had the noses of all Christian priests cut off and ordered all the nuns to be raped; he plundered all the churches, destroyed all the harvests, and returned to Antioch with riches. But not with honor.
Emperor Manual Komnenos flew into a rage and sent the entire Byzantine army against Antioch. It was of course unthinkable for Antioch to go to war with the emperor for the sake of a single fool, no matter that he was married to one of the princesses.
Strangely enough Reynald gained the emperor’s forgiveness by returning all the plundered goods still in his possession.
But he had not learned from his experience, and only two years later he set out on a new plundering expedition against the Armenian and Syrian Christians, who naturally did not expect to be attacked by fellow believers. There was ample rich booty to be had. And many Christians ended up dead.
Heavily loaded with loot on his way home to Antioch, Reynald was captured by Majd al-Din of Aleppo. And finally he landed where he belonged, in one of Aleppo’s dungeons.
Since everyone agreed that it was much safer to leave him there, and nobody would ransom the criminal, the story should rightfully have ended happily there.
Prince Bohemund now paused in his account, toasted his friend Count Raymond ironically, and explained that the rest was actually Raymond’s fault.
Count Raymond laughed and shook his head, ordered more wine which Arn supplied at once, and said that assigning the blame was probably both right and wrong.
It all happened during the war ten years before, he told them. Saladin was still far from uniting the Saracens, and in that respect it was important to throw as many poles into the spokes of his wheels as possible. At that time, in 1175, Saladin had an army outside the walls of Aleppo and another one outside Homs. The problem was to ensure that the two cities did not fall into his hands. Count Raymond had therefore sent his army from Tripoli to break the siege at Homs, forcing Saladin to release his grip on Aleppo and rush toward Homs. In this way Aleppo was spared Saladin’s power for several years.
So far everything had gone as they had hoped, Count Raymond said with an exaggerated sigh. But Gumushlekin of Aleppo now wanted to show his goodwill toward the Christians and decided to release a number of prisoners. He couldn’t have done the Christians a greater disservice. Or a greater favor to Saladin, for that matter. Among the prisoners that were now released were Reynald de Châtillon and Agnes de Courtenay’s incompetent brother Joscelyn!
The guests now doubled over with laughter when they heard what a misguided favor the atabeq of Aleppo had done his Christian friends.
Well, they all knew the rest of the story, Count Raymond went on. The now impoverished Reynald de Châtillon, deeply despised by all honorable men, accompanied Joscelyn de Courtenay to Jerusalem, and everything soon fell into their undeserving hands. First King Amalrik died, so that Baldwin IV became king, although still a child. Then his mother returned to the court, after years of being forbidden to show her face there, for reasons known to everyone. Her brother Joscelyn soon came into favor, and Reynald was able with the evil Agnes’s help to find a rich widow, namely Stéphanie de Milly of Kerak and Montreal in Oultrejourdain. And so the villain was a fortress master and wealthy once again!
The only question was: Who had benefited more from this play of caprices in life, the Devil or Saladin?
Both had reaped equal benefits, they all were quick to agree.
Furthermore the conspirators gathered in the Templar quarter believed on that night that they now had Reynald under control. Fortunately the sickly King Baldwin had mustered the strength to intervene against Reynald’s constant breaches of every peace agreement, and Guy de Lusignan, during his brief time as regent, had shown himself to be utterly incompetent. Count Raymond, much enlivened, assured them that with him as regent things would be very different in Jerusalem.
Now that they were speaking of incompetents, the question remained where Gérard de Ridefort had gone. Arn replied that the blessed Grand Master, Arnoldo de Torroja, had made Brother Gérard the fortress master of Chastel-Blanc.
Count Raymond then frowned and opined that that was a rather elevated position for someone with so little time in service. Arn agreed, but explained that as he understood the matter, it was the price Arnoldo de Torroja had been willing to pay to keep Gérard de Ridefort as far from Jerusalem as possible. Gérard was thought to have acquired some unsuitable friends at court, and it might be wise to keep him away from such people.
The lively conversation continued until it began to grow light outside, and that night it looked as though the Holy Land could be saved from the misfortune that bunglers, arch-sinners, and intriguers had done their best to bring about. King Baldwin IV died soon afterward, as everyone had expected. Count Raymond then took up his office as regent of Jerusalem. Soon peace prevailed in the Holy Land, pilgrims began to stream in anew, and with them came the longed-for income.
It truly did look as though everything had taken a turn for the better.
Then the new Grand Master of the Order of the Knights Templar, Gérard de Ridefort, came ashore at Saint-Jean d’Acre. He came by ship from Rome, where the Knights Templar had convoked a conciliumwith a sufficient number of high brothers present, including the Master of Rome and the Master of Paris.