Countess Adelaide sailed to Acre most grandly, her entrance unmatched since Cleopatra came to visit Mark Antony. Latin narratives describe the beak of her galley as plated with silver, a carpet of spun gold beneath her throne. In her wake numerous vessels bearing precious fabric, engraved suits of armor, coins, gems, whatever wealth Sicily could provide. Arabs in handsome white robes looked out for pirates.
King Baldwin met her at the port, he and his entourage dressed in costly silk. The streets had been carpeted, purple banners hung from balconies, mules and horses draped with purple and gold. And people rejoiced throughout the Holy Land. Yet some whispered that Countess Adelaide was tricked, not knowing about King Baldwin’s other wife. They declared he should first have divorced the Armenian. Still, the patriarch of Jerusalem united them. Three years afterward King Baldwin wearied of the countess, having spent the treasure, and ordered her back to Sicily. Almost alone she embarked, impoverished, humiliated.
Tancred refused to acknowledge Baldwin as king, mistrusting so much authority vested in such a man, nor would he consult him except on the banks of a stream called Nahr al-Aiya while water flowed between them. Yet few could be more dissembling and ruthless than this Norman from Sicily who boasted that one day he would pierce the walls of Baghdad with a lance, who fancied himself Islamic and wore a turban, styled himself Emir Tankridos, issued coins with his own likeness, dreamt of a principality in the Orient. Sooner than most he passed from view, aged thirty-six. His remnant they bore to the cathedral of Saint Peter. Greatest of the faithful, according to Matthew of Edessa. Otherwise, not many wept.
Five years after Tancred gave up the ghost a plague of locusts swept across Jerusalem. Vines, leaves, crops in the field, all devoured. As if they had agreed upon it in council these insects approached, hopping, creeping, others flying. When they had feasted on everything green and chewed the bark from trees they moved along by companies. And each day like pilgrims they came to rest. So does the Creator admonish and instruct us, reproach us through merciful lessons. Now, on the fifth night of December all observed the sky suffused in reddish light from the center of which streamed white ribbons. What this signified, no one could say. All wondered, expectantly awaiting the dispensation of our Lord. His Holiness Paschal soon ascended to glory, as did the patriarch of Jerusalem, the Armenian wife of King Baldwin, and Emperor Alexius Comnenus. Each assumed his place in the covenant of things.
Princess Anna with deep sorrow wrote about the illness afflicting her father, of the pain he experienced while breathing. Also, he was seized by fits of yawning. What troubles me? he would ask the empress. The ablest physicians were summoned. Nicolas Kallicles, Michael Pantechnes, and Michael the eunuch. They felt his pulse, conceding that they found irregularity at each motion but could not assign the cause. He ate frugally, moderately, hence there could be no aggregation of humors from rich food. They thought his heart inflamed by incessant worry, by concerns of government, therefore excess matter accumulated from the rest of his body. He could not lie on either side, but had to sit upright. The illness choked like a halter, giving him no respite. They cut his elbow, which did not help. They gave him pepper to swallow, which dispersed the humors but afterward forced them into cavities of the arteries so his belly puffed up, as did his feet. The disease invaded his mouth, obstructing his throat. Anon, the movement of blood stopped. Then suddenly the empress uttered a frightful shriek, took off her purple shoes and laid aside her imperial veil. She cut off her hair with a razor, asked for black sandals and a dark veil. The soul of Alexius had gone to God. Thus does inimitable order embrace the universe.
Tancred’s nephew, Roger, succeeded as governor of Antioch. Chronicles assert that he was lecherous and quick to fight. Before long he subdued the enemy strongholds of Marqb, Azaz, and Biz’a. Looking to further conquest he marched against Aleppo with seven hundred knights and four thousand sergeants. These proud Franks, imagining themselves braver than lions, pitched their tents at al-Abat, which afterward was called the field of blood, Ager Sanguinis. Pagan spies pretending to be merchants eased into camp, so the Turk, Ilghazi, kept himself informed. Eight days he loitered, waiting until hunger and thirst weakened Roger’s men. Then at night he surrounded them with forty thousand Turcomans. At daybreak the Franks understood they would not see Aleppo except in chains, if ever. The archbishop of Albara preached to them, confessed Roger privately in his tent, granting absolution for manifold sins of the flesh. Soon enough Turkish arrows began to fly. Kamal al-Din declares that Muslim arrows darkened the sky, stiffened the morning. Walter the Chancellor tells how these doomed Franks brandished lances, drew their shields in close, set spurs to their mounts and charged. Many Turks crushed by the timber of death hurtled into lower regions, but the forces of Ilghazi assembled like wasps and like wasps could not be contained. Roger’s pilgrims were mutilated in different ways, beaten with stones, pierced by javelins and arrows, which delighted the Turk. And when it ended Ilghazi ordered those clinging to life brought out for destruction. Five hundred or more he had bound like dogs with iron chains, naked, hands cruelly twisted behind their backs. Some felt the skin flayed from their faces. Ilghazi commanded others to be led half a league through bramble and thistle to the vineyard of Sarmedan where they fell down eagerly, biting at grapes in the dust. So, according to the
