Chronicles of the Golden Cross

@ General_BT: Thanks! I always appreciate your input. The graphics and their borders are from Medieval II: Total War. I simply composited the graphics together for the AAR.

@ canonized & stnylan & Murmurandus: Thanks, friends! It was a lot of fun to make, so I'm glad it was enjoyable to read as well.

@ Kurt_Steiner: Oh, I can promise you'll be seeing more of God's Own Catapult, along with a nice little siege engine I like to call "Bad Neighbor."

@ Qorten and Estonianzulu: Thanks. The GOC is Guy's favorite toy. It's ironic too, being a gift from Richard the Lionhearted and all.

@ Deamon: Glad you enjoyed it. Yes, the graphics are from M2TW.

@ English Patriot: You'll be seeing more Varangians -- they're a cult favorite.

@ Enewald: The last reference that I could find for the use of Greek Fire in battle was 1103.

The way I figure it, at least for the purposes of this AAR, Greek Fire was either lost in the destructive Fourth Crusade (which incidentally hasn't happened yet in-AAR) or in the many dynastic struggles which marked the end of the Komnenid dynasty and the entirety of the Angelids'. For my AAR's purposes, the recipe is one of the Komnenos family secrets.

THE REIGN OF GUY DE LUSIGNAN (1186-1213)​

“I don’t care!” roared Guy de Lusignan, “Can’t you see? It just doesn’t matter anymore!”

“But sire,” said the courier, “You are the only one with the authority to make a decision in this matter!”

“Oh, very well!” said Guy, yielding to the persistent young man, “Must I do everything myself?” He clambered to his feet and followed the courier out into the camp.

Guy's army had encamped in the ruins of Baghdad for weeks now, unable to make any further progress into Abbasid territory. The restless soldiers were already quite familiar with King Guy’s own trademark rants, but in recent days the King’s disposition had deteriorated to a never-before-seen level of irritability. Most attributed Guy’s perpetual bad mood to an onset of guilt over the slaughter at Baghdad, or the loss of his brother Geoffrey. Others, such as Conrad, claimed that the recent debacle had given the King an unnerving epiphany, namely that he was the sole cause of all of the turmoil and strife that had beset the Kingdom of Jerusalem over the last two decades. The veracity of this revelation was immaterial -- what mattered was whether Guy himself believed it.

Regardless of the cause of his ill temperament, the King was growing lethargic and somber, which proved most uncomplimentary with his usual impulsive fury and impatience. Even important affairs of state seemed pointless and trivial, and the nobles had resorted to sending couriers so that the King’s rage would be directed at some hapless youth rather than themselves.

Indeed, the current issue provoking the displeasure of Guy de Lusignan was a matter of no small significance, yet the King remained disinterested. His daily activities now consisted solely of slouching on a pile of cushions and drinking wine from the nearest flagon, and he was annoyed whenever life got between him and his bottle.

“Ah,” said Conrad of Montferrat as the King drew near, “Sire, it is good to see you up and about.”

Guy simply grunted and frowned at his Marshal’s greeting.


“I assume the messenger has explained our situation to your Majesty?” continued Conrad, “In short, we do not know what to do with the prisoner here.” At the Marshal’s gesture, a handful of sergeants pulled a Saracen man out of a nearby tent. The prisoner was bound in heavy iron chains, and struggled against the firm hands of his captors.

“So this is the son of the great Saladin?” Guy grumbled, “The apple has fallen far from the tree indeed.”

The enchained Mas’ud ibn Yusuf winced at the insult and, drawing back his head, spat full force into the King’s face.

“Saracen pig!” shouted Guy, backhanding the prisoner, “I ought to slit your throat from ear to ear!” As Guy moved to draw his sword, Conrad grabbed his wrist, holding him fast.

“Unhand me!” Guy ordered, “Or I’ll be forced to give my daughter cause to grieve!”

“Your Majesty!” urged Conrad, “You must not act rashly!”

Guy rolled his eyes. “Fine!” he relented, throwing his hands up in the air, “It looks like I forgot who was King around here.”

“I don’t presume anything so bold, sire,” said Conrad, “I have only the best interests of the kingdom at heart.”

“I’m sure you do,” said Guy contemptuously, “You have your sovereign dragged from his tent to make some supposedly important decision, and then countermand him as soon as he makes up his mind!”

Ordinarily Guy would have been dangerously angry over being contradicted, but now he was just weary of the struggle. In fact, Guy barely listened at all as the tall Marshal presented his complicated ideas to him. The man was a military genius, but my, how tedious he could be at times.

“After the Third Crusade, Mas’ud swore an oath to you renouncing his claim to his father’s lands,” continued Conrad, “Which as a man of honor nullifies any threat he could pose to your Majesty.”

“Oh?” interrupted the wounded Amaury, the King’s surviving brother, “Why did he attack us then? I didn’t get these from a flock of sheep!” He indicated his own bandaged head and the sling in which his left arm hung.

Conrad ignored Amaury’s objection, anxiously continuing his own argument, “Think about it, sire! He’s not just any Muslim, he’s the son of the famous Saladin! Think how useful he could be!”

“You seriously expect me to trust the son of my nemesis?” Guy finally asked, “He was the Caliph’s jackal!”

“Do not forget that it was the Abbasid betrayal that caused him to lose the Sultanate to begin with. He could just as easily be our jackal--”

At last Mas’ud spoke up, in lightly accented French, “You do realize that I can understand all of what you’re saying?”

The gathered knights and lords of Jerusalem all turned to stare at the Saracen prisoner, who had heretofore been ignored throughout the entire exchange.


Conrad cleared his throat. In his enthusiasm he had forgotten that Mas’ud was even there, and he certainly hadn’t expected him to speak French. “So, uh,” Conrad said sheepishly, “What are your thoughts on all of this, Son of Saladin?”

Mas’ud looked rather pleased with himself. “I do believe that we can reach an agreement.”

“And what did you have in mind?” asked Conrad.

“Well, first,” continued Mas’ud, “We would need to get rid of these.” He rattled his chains loudly. “After that, I imagine that just about anything is possible.”


Renaud de Vichiers was beginning to wonder if he had gotten himself in over his head. He and a small band of trustworthy Templars had followed the mysterious stranger towards the distant light for hours before reaching their presumed destination. Someone had unearthed and rebuilt much of the core of an ancient city -- strange temples and towers in an unfamiliar style. There was even scaffolding on a great ziggurat that appeared to be in the process of being restored.

As they passed through a huge ruined gate, Renaud gazed slack-jawed at the amazing masonry. The stones were actually colored blue, even after centuries of disrepair, and golden lions and other beasts were carved into them.


“What is this place?” asked Renaud as he marveled at the ancient craftsmanship, the likes of which he had never seen in all his life.

“As I told you before,” said the cloaked figure, “This is Babylon.” Renaud had assumed that the man was speaking metaphorically earlier. Now that they were drawing near to the ruins of the famed city, he saw just how wrong he was. Babylon wasn’t just a figurative term, the actual city still existed to some extent, and it was being rebuilt. But by whom?

“Who are you?” Renaud asked the mysterious stranger, his mind racing.

“My name is not important,” the man responded, “Suffice it to say that I am one of many.”

“One of many?” asked Renault. “That is no answer. What are we supposed to call you? Surely you do not expect us to follow a complete stranger into the unknown?”

“We are the Illuminati,” said the man, without turning to look at Renaud, “We have lingered for millennia to fulfill our purpose. I suppose that will suffice if you must have a name -- you may call me Illuminatus.”

Thunder echoed overhead, and it gently began to rain. The cool raindrops felt refreshing against the knights' sunburned faces, yet it was quite unnerving to be in the middle of a desert thunderstorm, especially given their current surroundings. Precipitation was so unusual in that part of the desert, it felt unearthly.

“Why have you brought us here?” asked Renaud.

“Now that is a most foolish question,” said Illuminatus, “For you have brought yourselves here by choosing to follow me, have you not? So enough questions for now! There is much to do and so very little time. Follow me deeper into the city, to the very heart of Babylon!”

Renaud and his Templars could do little but obey.


“Where are you going?!” shouted Godfrey as he ran to keep up with the swiftly departing procession. After three raucous days in Tiberias, Frederica and her retinue were returning home to Egypt. “Why are you leaving?”

“Halt,” said a soft voice inside the Queen’s litter, and the brawny Nubian bearers stopped instantly.

Godfrey ambled up to the side of the litter, gasping for air. Frederica stuck her head out to look at the crestfallen Prince, who had obviously exerted a great deal of energy trying to catch up with her.

“Oh, dear,” said the red-maned Queen, putting on a rather condescending pout, “It’s hard to say goodbye, isn’t it? We’ve had a lot of fun together over the past few days, haven’t we?”

“But…” panted Godfrey, “Why are you… leaving? I thought…”

“All good things come to an end eventually,” said Frederica, nodding her head with exaggerated emphasis, “We’ve had our pleasure, and now it’s over. You shouldn’t delude yourself into thinking something was there that wasn’t. Run along now, there’s a good boy.” She waved him off as if her were just another one of her slaves, and not the Crown Prince of the most important kingdom in the entire Levant.

“Are you ever coming back?” he asked quickly as the Nubians began again to carry the royal litter away.

“Stop making a fool of yourself!” she hissed, “Don’t make a scene! Just go away!”

“Wait!” called out Godfrey, waving his arms as the litter was carried farther away, “I don’t understand!”

Frederica seemed not to hear him. “Farewell, my dear Prince,” she called out lustily, waving very theatrically for the crowd’s benefit.

The young Prince lost sight of his lover’s litter as a heavily decorated elephant lumbered past him. He frowned. This was definitely not how things were supposed to happen.


In the al-Aqsa Palace at Jerusalem, Queen Sibylla held her head in her hands, her long dark tresses falling into a tangled mess. Once again, her idiot of a husband had left on another damn-fool idealistic crusade, leaving her to deal with the countless problems of running the kingdom. Then her naive son Godfrey had gone and slept with the most disreputable woman in all of Christendom, who also happened to be the most dangerous. And now she had received word from Cilicia that her own daughter-in-law, so recently spurned by her foolish son, stood accused of the murder of her own half-brother!

The dam finally burst. “Aaaaah!” shrieked Sibylla, jumping up from her seat and flailing her balled fists aimlessly.

“Your Majesty!” cried a handmaiden running to her aid, “Are you alright?” Sibylla was usually so perfectly composed that her servants weren’t quite sure what to make of her emotional breakdown.

The Queen began to pace, pulling at her long hair in anxiety.

“Your Majesty?” the girl asked again. A small crowd of handmaidens was gathering, though they kept their distance.

“No,” said Sibylla, at last slumping against the wall and allowing the tears to fall freely. “It’s just… what the hell am I going to do?”


The retreating Muslims held their shields over their heads as the flaming crusader projectiles flew past them. The Jerusalemite archers continued the barrage, but only half-heartedly. Over-shots meant the surviving Abbasids were being allowed to escape with their lives. There were only a few casualties from this latest skirmish, but the men were growing tired of defending a smoldering ruin from desperate, constant attacks.


Back at the main camp, King Guy was making a mess of his tent, throwing pillows and overturning tables. Some of the more eager nobles tried to plead with him to listen, while Mas’ud ibn Yusuf stood and simply watched the spectacle, his face a stoic mask as usual.

“That’s the fifth attack on the camp this week!” roared Guy, “Why do they throw their lives away so stupidly? They can’t retake the city, there’s not even a city left for them to retake!”

Mas’ud folded his hands behind him and blinked.

“And what are you looking at, boy?” Guy shouted, “Have you gone stupid? God knows, I should have killed you when I had the chance!”

“I think if his Majesty would cease the destruction of his worldly possessions for a moment and would actually open his ears, he might hear something of interest,” Mas’ud said softly.

“And what could you possibly have to say with that lying Saracen tongue of yours that would be of any interest to me whatsoever?” thundered Guy, spittle flying from his jaws.

“I believe that in our current situation,” said Mas’ud, his voice a low whisper so that Guy would have to listen carefully in order to even hear him, “Discretion is most definitely the better part of valor.”

When Guy looked at him incredulously instead of resuming his tantrum, Mas’ud continued to speak. “Think, sire. They cannot oust you, they are not strong enough. You cannot continue your campaign, for you are not strong enough either. Too many lives have been lost on both sides. Regardless, they will continue to assail you, because no matter what, they still want us gone.” The word “us” seemed to stick in Mas’ud’s throat, as though it were especially galling for him to pair himself with the crusaders.

“Baghdad is destroyed, utterly,” Mas’ud continued, “And so is any hope of holding it. Let us return to al-Quds and put this war behind us.” Guy wrinkled his nose at Mas’ud’s use of the Arabic honorific for Jerusalem.

“A truce!” Conrad interjected, “Of course! The lad’s right. It’s the perfect opportunity, sire. It’ll be a strategic redeployment, not a retreat –- we wouldn’t lose face. We can’t possibly continue this campaign anyway. Our line of supply is ridiculous!”

King Guy turned away from his overzealous advisors to think. He hated to withdraw before the enemy was broken, yet perhaps it needed to be done. He was growing tired of the wars anyway –- they had claimed the life of his brother, might they not also claim his own?

Guy sighed. He hated taking advice, it felt so… undignified. He looked over his shoulder at the cluster of advisors waiting for his decision. Whatever he decided would be obeyed to the last letter; he was the King after all.

“Do it,” he grunted.


“Ah, this is the place,” rasped the man known only as Illuminatus.

“The place?” asked Renaud.

“Yes,” Illuminatus answered. Freeing his hands from their heavy sleeves, he then gave three loud claps. Slowly, a dozen similarly cloaked figures emerged from the shadows, bearing bright torches above their heads. Renaud looked around cautiously, studying the new arrivals. He and his Templars were surrounded.

“Come,” said Illuminatus, “Let us enter the tomb.”

“The tomb?” asked Renaud.

“Yes!” hissed Illuminatus, “What is it with you Franks that you always have to repeat the last thing I say? Now come on!”


Princess Anastasia waited patiently in her room in the Palace of Sis. She was given every comfort merited by her station, but the guards had made it very clear that she was not to leave her quarters.

“If only that imbecile cousin of mine hadn’t stumbled along when he did, none of this would have happened!” she thought to herself, “Stupid, drunken fool-of-a-teenager…” It wasn’t as though Alexios had actually accused her. In fact, the opposite was probably true. It was such a dreadful crime that he seemed convinced she couldn’t have done it. Yet all the evidence seemed to point squarely at her. It was just typical of the way her life had been the past couple of years, absolutely typical.

And why hadn’t Godfrey responded to her last letter? She was his wife, for God’s sake! Didn’t he care at all about all the mess she was in? Typical. Men!


Anastasia didn’t like to admit it, but for the first time in years, she was afraid.

She was startled out of her introspection by an abrupt knock at the door. It was one of the palace guards. “Please come with me, Highness,” he said curtly. So the time had finally arrived. They had come to take her away, back to Jerusalem… for her trial.


Full-grown men hid their faces in shame as Leon Rubenid, Prince of Cilicia and Lesser Armenia, Lord of the Mountains, wept like an infant and babbled like a sick child. The messenger from Sis had arrived in the camp that morning, bearing the awful truth of his young son’s murder. The message had been brief; the courier had been sent before any of the particulars of the boy’s death had been ascertained.


“I swear,” said Leon, crumpling the offending note in his fist, “Upon my mother’s grave, I will personally wring the life from whatever impudent wretch is responsible for my son’s death! Let the murderer’s torment in hell begin with my revenge! By Christ, my son’s guiltless blood will be avenged, a thousand times over!”


The Illuminati had led the bewildered Templars down several flights of stairs, all half-filled with rubble and debris, down corridors covered in the grime of ages, and at last to a large, dank chamber.

“Now that we’re here, wherever ‘here’ is,” said Renaud, “Methinks you have some explaining to do.”

“As you wish,” said Illuminatus, “Now that we are at last safe from the prying eyes and ears of our enemies.”

“So who are you really?” asked Renaud, “I’ve had enough of your secrets.”

“We are the Illuminati,” said their cloaked guide, as if that name should mean anything to them, “The Enlightened Ones. We are the descendants of the last priests of the magnificent patron God of Babylon, Marduk the Omnipotent. At this very moment, you are a great distance underneath his glorious temple, buried in detritus for generations, and now at last unearthed by us, its true custodians. And this place, this… tomb, where we now stand, is the final resting place of our greatest master… Nebuchadnezzar, Scourge of Jerusalem!”

Renaud gasped. One of his knights actually dropped his shield on the ground in surprise, causing a loud clatter.

Illuminatus looked annoyed by the distraction. “Do not wet yourselves just yet, my dear Christians. The day of destruction perished many centuries ago with our ancestors. Now a new time is upon us, and new enemies have reared their heads. The time has come to return what is most precious to your city, that which has been separated from it for generations. Open the sarcophagus!”

“Never!” shouted Renaud, “I’ll not exhume your fiendish king!”

Illuminatus shook his head in derision. “Twit! The King of Kings has long slumbered for centuries in this place, and it would be the greatest sacrilege to disturb his eternal rest! No, you are to open the receptacle of Nebuchadnezzar’s greatest treasure, captured from Jerusalem in the last year of the reign of Zedekiah! It was of the utmost value to our great King, so much so that he ordered it laid to rest in his own grave. Now he returns this matchless treasure to you, the latest guardians of the City of David, to be returned to its rightful home. Now, open the sarcophagus! I will not tell you again!”

Mustering all their courage, Renaud and his bravest knights slid the heavy lid off of the large stone box, and were immediately dazzled by what they beheld.

“Impossible!” cried Renaud.

“It can’t be!” gasped one of the Templars.

“Careful!” Illuminatus called out to them, “Do not touch it directly! Lift it only by the poles or you risk your own destruction!”

Awestruck, the handful of Knights Templar gingerly lifted the ancient relic out of its long-forgotten hiding place. As the torchlight fell upon the sacred artifact, the dark tomb was instantly illuminated by the shimmering gleam of the purest gold.