STRONGHOLDS
1186
Having obtained a respite from the fighting, it was now time to take advantage of the years of peace -- and thus prepare for the inevitable return of war.
I did not expect Saladin to allow Jerusalem much of a reprieve, and there were also other nearby Muslim hostiles that could attack at any time: the Seljuk Turks of Rum, the Caliph in Baghdad, the independent Emir of Aleppo, and of course the dreaded Hashishin in Masyaf.
The truce with Saladin had put an abrupt end to much of the intermittent fighting that had taken place over the past several years. The armies were all dispanded: the levies to tend their fields, and the knights to malinger on garrison duty. As the consummate man of action, Richard was not one to sit idly by and watch the world pass around him. Being out of the saddle for months on end soon made the king restless. He needed a diversion. Luckily, since Richard was now able to spend much more time at home, the fair Queen Sibylla was able to divert his attention to some equally compelling pursuits.
The sumptuous chambers of the royal palace made for a captivating battlefield, and Richard turned his attention once more to his most important act of conquest. It was only a matter of a few short weeks before Sibylla was once again with child. With the promise of a second heir on the way, it was time for the monarchs to devote their energy to ensuring that their children would have a kingdom to inherit at all.
The most important task would be to acquire a substantial nest egg for the support of the kingdom in times of extreme duress. My usual strategy is to keep around 300 to 400 gold on hand in case of emergency expenditures. (I don’t know what the real life analogue of these monetary numbers amounts to. The most reasonable assumption I’ve heard is that the number given in the game is equivalent to the number of thousands of coins you have; so if I have “300 gold,” then that means I have three hundred thousand golden bezants in my coffers.) This cash reserve is basically a slush fund for hiring mercenaries in a pinch. But since the Kingdom of Jerusalem is unable to rely dependably on mercenaries for military aid, in this instance my backup fund would be used primarily for paying indulgences to the Pope. That in turn would earn a piety boost large enough to recruit the holy orders, which would triple the size of the army whenever necessary.
So I set Sibylla’s ambition to “Amass Wealth.” Having sufficiently buttered up the barons, bishops and bürgermeisters, this task would not prove to be terribly difficult. Of course some of the money would be needed for building improvements and bribing underlings. However, on this occasion, I had bigger plans, so I would need much more cash on hand.
It was time to really go medieval.
It was time to build King Richard his own castle.
In CK2, building a castle is not a task to undertake lightly; it costs around 700 to 800 gold and takes almost two years to complete, so it is not a task that can be rushed. It is a large investment. Moreover, new castles, cities or churches can only be built in a province’s empty slots. Some of my territories were already full, but some had one or even two open spots available. However, given the relatively high cost of establishing new settlements, it would not be prudent to construct more than one at this time.
King Richard selected the pivotal county of Acre to be the site of the new fortress. Acre lay at the crossroads of Outremer, in the narrowest portion of the kingdom, halfway between north and south. It was an important port city, and all of the major mercantile traffic of the Levant passed through there. If Saladin were able to capture Acre, he could sever the connection between Tripoli, Antioch, the lands of Lebanon and Jerusalem proper.
While Acre already possessed some modest defenses in the form of thick city walls and a harbor citadel known as the Tower of Flies, the presence of a nearby castle could make the province impenetrable. More importantly, a new castle at Acre would make for an excellent base for Richard. From their new stronghold, Richard’s warriors could both guard the King’s Road and gain rapid access to any part of the kingdom in a matter of days.
Therefore, once the requisite funds became available, construction immediately began on the edifice that would be known thereafter as the Château du Lion.
The Krak du Lion.
***
1187
The next year began with a treat for King Richard: the Saracen peasants of Irbid revolted against their Christian rulers and had to be put down. Richard gladly called up the royal host and put every rebel to the sword. The few weeks of plundering this provided did wonders for the King’s malaise.
Meanwhile back in Jerusalem, Sibylla undertook several additional construction projects as the funds became available, though none was as ambitious as Richard’s new castle. The royal castles of Mirabel and Ramla were to be strengthened with additional defensive bulwarks and moats. Since these two strongholds were the key to the defense of Jerusalem itself, strengthening them was a very important concern. But military improvements were not the only priority. Markets and ports were improved or constructed at Jaffa, Ascalon and Acre to substantially increase royal revenues and ensure that all the kingdom’s profitable ventures were unrestrained. Lastly, Jerusalem’s many churches, shrines and holy sites were plentifully enriched by the crown to ensure that the mutual friendship Queen Sibylla enjoyed with the church would be prolonged (along with its accompanying wealth).
As I watched the kingdom’s income swell to never-before-seen quantities, I learned that peace can indeed be very profitable. Where war invites the prospect of defeat, peace invites prosperity. In real life, 1187 marked a major watershed for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, being the year in which Guy de Lusignan lost everything to the Saracens. But that worthless imbecile had no place in Sibylla's reinvigorated realm, and so the date of the Horns of Hattin came and went, and Jerusalem still thrived. The only question was how long the prosperity would continue to last.
To the north, Raymond of Tiberias was once again experiencing troubles with the neighboring Hashishin. It seemed as though they had never actually made peace at all, maintaining an on-again-off-again conflict as their numbers were in turn replenished and then once more depleted.
In-game, this conflict was actually quite puzzling to watch. Tiberias had enough levies to initially defeat the smaller Hashishin army, but by then his numbers were so depleted that when it came to besieging the Hashishin citadels they were unable to do any damage. What was more, the Hospitaller fortress of Krak des Chevaliers was actually within the boundaries of the province of Archa and could act as a base for their operations against Masyaf. Yet Raymond would take a holding from the Hashishin and disband his depleted levies, and then the Hashishin would stir up an enormous rebellion among the locals and take back everything Tiberias had captured.
The AI also did some really bizarre things. After having actually subdued all the enemy settlements in Archa, Tiberias’ army set out to besiege the Hashishin’s other primary holding, which was at Alamut… in the heart of Persia. To do so, Raymond’s army had to march across hundreds of miles of hostile enemy terrain belonging to the Caliph: in short, the entirety of Mesopotamia. That move on the part of the AI is so stupid that it should not have even been able to happen. The Caliph's territory was vast and his armies were vigilant: Tiberias' men should have been confronted at the border. Bah.
Suffice it to say there was never enough left of Raymond’s levies to accomplish anything of note at Alamut, which remained perpetually unscathed. Meanwhile, the armies of both Raymond and the Hashishin remained perpetually depleted, and any gains by either group were soon undone by inevitable rebellions.
I had wondered why Tiberias’ levies were so low at the last mustering. Yet throughout that whole fiasco, Tiberias never once petitioned the crown for aid. Maybe it was his pride or his disdain, but more than likely he simply wanted to take Archa for himself and did not want to risk Richard seizing it as a royal possession.
Regardless, I could not continue to abide having a perpetual conflict on my northern border, not while I was trying so hard to build up the kingdom’s defenses.
So it was time once again to sheathe the sword and unsheathe the dagger.
This was going to be a deadlier game than what I was used to, for the Hashishin Grand Master was the infamous Rashid ad-Din Sinan, known to many only as “the Old Man of the Mountain.”
Crossing blades with this shadowy master of murder would put Jerusalem at extreme peril, for Sinan had earned every last drop of his notoriety.
In the year 1176, Sinan even put an end to a siege laid against him by the mighty Saladin, and what was more, he did it singlehandedly. With a small dagger he pinned a threatening note to a stack of pastries and left it next to Saladin’s bedside… while the Sultan was lying there asleep! If this man could strike terror into the heart of the fearless Salah ad-Din with a handful of scones, then did I really have any business toying with him?
Oh, the follies of youth and ignorance. I should have known better.
All feared Sinan; that was why Masyaf was so impregnable. Even fools and beggars knew that to provoke the Old Man of the Mountain's ire was to unleash a nightmare of undying suspicion and bloodshed.
Raymond acted first, sending his Chancellor and Spymaster to Masyaf to respectively sow dissent and uncover hidden plots. Soon after, both men turned up dead: one poisoned by a serpent left in his bed linens, and the other stabbed to the heart in a back alley. Sibylla sent her own spymaster to bolster the kingdom's efforts in this war of knives by establishing a spy network. He too died almost immediately under mysterious circumstances, aged only in his thirties. I did not know for certain whether the Hashishin were to blame for his untimely death or not.
But could there really be any doubt?
***
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My congratulations !
