I was impatient with them, with the world and most of all with the cruel fate which had married me to Louis and deprived me of my lover.
Having reached Jerusalem, Louis was in no hurry to leave it. He was in his element visiting the shrines, spending hours at them on his knees. But he must render some service to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Even Louis realized this. There were conferences with Melisende, Baldwin and Conrad, and it was decided that they must make an attack on one of the cities of the Mussulman princes who were harassing Christians on their way to the Holy City.
They decided to lay siege to Damascus.
The largest and one of the most beautiful cities in Western Asia, Damascus was prosperous and set in a plain bounded by the Black Mountains in the south and the Anti-Libanus range in the northwest. They chose it because to capture that town for the Christians would redound to their credit throughout Christendom.
Louis needed such a victory. The crusade had shown little but disaster so far—but then I had a feeling that anything he undertook would end in disaster.
I scarcely listened to their plans for conquest. My heart was in Antioch. Every morning when I awoke I would wonder what Raymond was doing and whether he was thinking of me as I was of him. What had his feelings been when he arose on that morning and discovered that I had been taken away from him?
How could I be interested in this foolish dream of conquest which these little men were concocting?
They had an initial success and were soon encamped about the walls of Damascus, calculating how long the inhabitants would be able to hold out without food and water.
How trusting Louis was! He believed that those about him who professed to be Christians were as guileless as he. He was no warrior. He was fully aware of this, as he hated war. But this venture, he would assure himself, was in the name of Christianity. The truth was that he could not bear the thought of returning home with his depleted army and nothing achieved except prayers at the shrine of Jerusalem and the expiation of his own sins. His people would say he was saving his soul at the cost of all those lives which had been lost on the way. Wives and mothers would revile him for taking their men away from him. All those fine words, all that waving of crosses ... what was that now? He had to have a victory to make the project worthwhile and to make those at home proud of their country.
Alas, poor Louis. He was surrounded by dishonest men. None of them appeared to have any heart for the battle. We learned afterward that young Baldwin himself accepted bribes from the governor of Damascus for messengers to be smuggled out of the besieged city who could reach Nureddin, the Emir of Aleppo and Mosul. Nureddin was a fierce fighter; his name was dreaded throughout the area; he was a legend, as fanatical a Mohammedan as Louis was a Christian, as determined to maintain his religion throughout the land as the Christians were to uphold theirs. He was even more dedicated than his father, Zengi, and his had been a name to strike terror into his enemies.
Word came to the men who lay outside Damascus: “Nureddin is coming.”
The thought of the bloodshed which would inevitably ensue was too much for the besiegers. They decided to return to Jerusalem and ignobly retreated and when the people of Damascus saw that they were retreating—frightened at the mention of Nureddin’s name—they sent out cavalry to chase them away.
And so ended the attempt to take Damascus.
A feeling of lassitude spread through the ranks. What was left of the army had lost its enthusiasm for the crusade. The men were nostalgic for France. Of what use was it to stay in Jerusalem? They could not spend their days visiting shrines. How many times had they traversed the Via Dolorosa, halting where Jesus had halted with his cross, praying, singing hymns of praise. They had done it—and they wanted to go home.
Many of them left, Conrad with them. He had lost his army and was nothing but a humble pilgrim now.
I said to Louis: “It is time we left.”
He nodded gravely, but he made no attempt to leave. Each day he was at the holy shrine; he said he found great contentment in prayer.
I wondered whether he had no wish to return home because he would return defeated. Moreover he knew that I was waiting to take up the matter of our consanguinity. Perhaps he feared to return to a people who might despise him—a poor king who had lost an army and was on the point of losing a wife.
Months were passing and still Louis would not go home. Few of those who had come out with him remained.
I was relieved when letters came from Suger urging him to return, reminding him that he was a king with a kingdom to govern.
I saw the letter he sent back to Suger. “I am under a bond,” he wrote, “not to leave the Holy Land save with glory and after doing somewhat for the cause of God and the kingdom of France.”
“How,” I demanded, “are you going to achieve these feats of glory when you have no army now?”
“I must do something. We should have taken Damascus.”
“You should have taken Constantinople when you had a fine army. You could have done that with ease. But you did not see that and so ... you have lost your army and what have you to show for all the expense paid for in taxes by the people of France and Aquitaine? Nothing! Nothing at all.”
He covered his face with his hands and I knew by the way his lips were moving that he was praying.
I wanted to castigate him with words, but somehow I could not do so. He was such a pathetic figure.
Suger wrote again. “Dear Lord and King. I must cause you to hear the voice of your kingdom. After having suffered so much in the East and endured such evils, now that the barons and lords have returned to France, why do you persist in staying with the barbarians? There are those who would ravish your kingdom. We invoke your piety, your majesty and your goodness. I summon you in the name of the fealty I owe you to tarry no longer. If you do, you will be guilty in the eyes of God of a breach of that oath which you took when you received your crown.”
I think that letter of the worthy Suger really shook Louis out of his complacency and brought home to him the fact that he must delay no longer and begin the journey home.
He wrote to Suger: “I am coming now.”
It was a relief to me to take some action at last. We had been more than a year in Jerusalem—a year since I had seen Raymond. I still thought of him constantly, remembering so much that was precious to me, reliving those enchanting moments, wondering if I should ever again set eyes on his dear face.
Easter was celebrated with much ceremony in Jerusalem and when it was over we were ready to go. It was two years since we had left France—two years during which I had faced hardship such as I had never imagined, and ecstasy too. They were the strangest and most illuminating years of my life so far, and I was quite different from the young woman who had left France at the head of her Amazons, setting forth on the great adventure.
I remembered that time when our depleted army had prepared to leave for Antioch. What had happened to those who did not sail? I could not bear to contemplate what the answer might be. But how tragic it was that now we needed only two ships, for there were no more than three hundred people left of that great assembly which had set out two years before.
I chose which ship I should sail in and ordered that the baggage be put aboard. I had some beautiful Eastern silks and brocades. All the wonderful garments and jewels which Raymond had given me had been left behind when I had been abducted, and everything else had been picked up later. Some of the fashions interested me, and when I was in Jerusalem I had had to do something so I searched for attractive items.
There was a question of how we should divide ourselves, and I told Louis that I refused to travel in the same ship with Thierry Galeran. I could not endure the man and he had shown me so clearly that he was my enemy. I knew that he would be close to Louis all the time, that Louis listened to him, took his advice and relied on him.