Unfortunately, he was more alert than I had expected and noticed my slight hesitation. He spoke in a stern voice as his eyes, shining in the light of ten candles, fixed on mine.
“The truth, Ibn Yakub. The truth.”
I told him.
Twenty-Two
The Sultan declares his undying hatred for Reynald of Châtillon; the death of Shadhi
SALAH AL-DIN WAS NOT a vindictive or cruel man. He did not harbour grudges. He usually counselled against vengeance. I heard him say once that to act purely out of revenge was always dangerous, like drinking an elixir which becomes a habit. It was impolitic and did not differentiate Believers from the barbarians. He expressed these views often, though quietly, but when his commanders or emirs defied his advice and could not control their baser emotions, he never punished them. Instead he would sigh and shake his head in bewilderment, as if to indicate that the ultimate arbiter was not the Sultan, but Allah and his angels.
There was, however, even in Salah al-Din’s case, one remarkable exception. There was a Franj knight, by the name of Reynald of Châtillon, and the time has come to write of this abomination, for we are now not so far from the last battles of the Sultan against the Franj, and we will soon meet this wretch in person.
The Sultan’s hatred for Reynald was pure. It was unsullied by any feelings of forgiveness, generosity, kindness or even arrogance, which might have led to regarding this man as a worm beneath the contempt of Sultans. Reynald was a poisonous snake whose head must be crushed with a rock. I had myself heard Salah al-Din in open council swearing before Allah that, if the opportunity ever arose, he would decapitate Reynald with his own sword. Remarks of this sort always pleased his emirs, who felt much closer to their ruler when he expressed emotions akin to their own. The fact was that ever since the Franj had first arrived and stunned our world with their barbaric customs and habits, our side too had become infected, imbibing some of the worst of the traditional practices of the Franj.
It was the Franj who, over a hundred years ago, during a siege, had roasted their prisoners on an open fire and eaten them to assuage their hunger. The news had travelled to every city, and a sense of shock and shame had engulfed our world. This we had never known before. Yet only thirty years ago, the great Shirkuh had punished one of his emirs for permitting the roasting of three Franj captives and tasting their flesh. The ulema had soon been prevailed upon to acknowledge the practice and denounce it as a sin against the Prophet and the hadith.
The argument that finally settled the issue was a view expressed by the Kadi of Aleppo, who had stated after Friday prayers that eating Franj flesh was repugnant to Believers, since the Franj consumed large quantities of pig-flesh. This meant that their own flesh was polluted. Curiously enough this statement had a much greater effect in curbing the practice than all the pious references to the hadith and the convenient discovery of new traditions just when they were needed.
I had never been told of the reasons that lay behind the Sultan’s revulsion for Reynald. It was something that was just accepted, like the landscape. One day I ventured into the library of Imad al-Din and stayed waiting for the great man to arrive. His first reaction on seeing me was to frown, but his face changed rapidly as he donned a mask exuding good will.
“I am sorry to intrude in this fashion, Master, but I wondered if you could spare me a tiny portion of your precious time?”
He smiled with his lips, but his eyes remained hard.
“How could I refuse any request from the Sultan’s personal scribe? I am at your service, Ibn Yakub.”
“You honour me, sir. I will not take up too much of your time. Could you perhaps enlighten this ignorant scribe on the reasons for the Sultan’s burning hatred for Reynald of Châtillon?”
Imad al-Din laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle which was completely genuine. He was delighted at my ignorance and only too pleased to enhance my knowledge on this as on any other subject.
“Good friend, Ibn Yakub, you have begun to understand the ways of our Sultan, but even I, who have been with him much longer than you, am sometimes surprised at the way he arrives at a decision. For me, the method is all-important, but for him it is always instinct, instinct, instinct. If my method and his instinct coincide then all is well, but there are occasions when the two are opposed. Then his instinct triumphs and, as a loyal counsellor, I bow before his will.
“How should we deal with the Franj in the course of the jihad? This is a subject on which we have never disagreed. There were some hot-headed fools for whom the jihad meant a state of permanent war with the Franj, but Salah al-Din was never sympathetic to such a view. He understood that the enemy, like us, was usually divided. Just as our belief in Allah and his Prophet never stopped us from cutting each other’s throats, so, in the same fashion, the Franj, despite their worship of idols and their loyalty to their Pope, were rarely able to rise above petty disputes with each other.
“The Sultan now rules over Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo and Mosul. From the Nile to the Euphrates there is one authority, except where the Franj rule. No other ruler is as powerful as he is, yet despite our strength, he agreed a truce with Amalric’s boy, Baldwin the Leper, who rules in al-Kuds. Baldwin may have been weak in body, but his mind was strong. He knew that the Sultan kept his word and the peace was helpful to him as well. The result of the truce was that our caravans travelled freely between Cairo and Damascus, often stopping at Franj villages to sell their wares.
“Four months ago, as you know, the poor leper-King died, insisting that his six-year-old son be placed on the throne as Baldwin the Fifth. Our spies send us weekly reports from that city which, Allah willing, will soon belong to us again.
“The Sultan is well informed. He knows that there are two major factions within the Franj in al-Kuds. One of these is led by the Count of Tripoli, Raymond ibn Raymond al-Sanjili, descended from Saint-Gilles. To look at him he could be an emir from Damascus. His complexion is much darker than the Sultan’s. He has a nose like a hawk and he is fluent in our language.
“The Sultan is very fond of him and would like him to win the struggle for power. Were you aware that in order to help him we freed many knights from Tripoli who we had captured at different times over the last few years? That is a measure of the seriousness with which the Sultan regards the outcome of the factional struggle in that city. A battle which is taking place even as I speak with you, Ibn Yakub.
“Now I come to the question which you asked me earlier. Reynald of Châtillon! A more bloodthirsty monster was never born, not even in the world of the Franj. He was captured by Nur al-Din, and spent twelve years in the prisons of Aleppo. He was only released after Nur al-Din’s death. The Franj paid a large ransom to obtain his freedom. Better instead that his head had rolled in the sand.
“He is a man who enjoys killing for its own sake. He takes special delight in killing your people, Ibn Yakub. He believes that Isa was sold to Pilate by the Jews. We come second in his hatred. I am told that he specialises in disembowelling all Jewish prisoners and feeding their insides to his dogs. I say all this so that you can appreciate that, even if he had not directly offended the Sultan, he would still be a figure who inspired hatred. But he did upset Salah al-Din by breaking the terms of the truce that had been agreed with Baldwin the Leper.