Blood on the Sand - Tales of OutremAAR (HIP)

"I put no stock in religion. By the word religion I have seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the will of God. Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, and goodness. What God desires is in your head and in your heart, and what you decide to do every day, you will be a good man - or not."​

His successor does not know his place

With my family fully established in the Holy Land, I turned my attention to our future. The city of Jerusalem laid at the heart of Christian Outremer, and while I was able to elegantly minuet around any peril large enough to endanger the Kingdom's security there was no guarantee that this would remain the case going forward - or that my sons and daughters would prove as adept despite my training. To that end I ordered an expansion of Jerusalem's walls to be completed by the new year, hiring labourers from as far away as Jaffa and Hebron to ensure its completion. This taxed our finances admittedly, but the healthy economy I had spent my reign growing and developing throughout my domain was well able to support it. So it was that I was entirely surprised when my heralds told me that the Mayor of Bethleem had come to speak with me. For a moment I was taken back to that day twelve years past that another Mayor of Bethleem had come to my halls only for each of us to grow entirely carried away from our business that day. When he arrived and it proved to be a shorter bearded man with sallow features my glare must have pierced him to the core. Amaury was not my lover, and his importunate pleas for financial relief for his town met a cold reception from me. Still my memories of Onfroy stayed with me and rather than rebuke him for his lack of loyalty I spun a tale of the high regard with which all the realm viewed the good burghers of Bethleem whose silver was the lifeblood of the Kingdoms. He went away bemused, but surprisingly pleased with my diplomatic refusal.

Reflective, I retired to the upper chambers of the Tour de David to study. I felt more and more distant from Manfred every day; age had brought only strangeness to him, and when he passed in the first days of winter of the brain fever I was not altogether surprised. The tower servants had taken to nodding respectfully at his commands to paint the walls blue or wear only one shoe on Fridays only to ignore them the moment they left his chambers. With his passing the county of Ghutah joined the three already under Andre's care, and I gave Payen and Evrard counties also; while Ebbon had ties outside of Outremer, my other sons deserved more responsibility in preserving the Holy Land under the hand of the de Boulogne dynasty. Did I mourn? Of course I observed all the proper rituals of remembrance and donned my widow's weeds yet the marriage was one of state. While we had grown friendly over the years, so too had we drawn apart and recently had been very much living our own lives. I would miss having him to speak to though and spent ever more time with my books and my surviving family.


My grandson dreams of one day journeying to Hindustan in the far east

We had many travelers guesting with us in the peaceful year that followed, and most memorable of all was the visit of Teodor the Fat; as was our custom we welcomed him to dine with us and though his appetites threatened to drive our cooks to distraction the tales of his travels were well worth the expense to my mind. He spoke of the open trackless steppes beyond the great desert to the east of Jerusalem. Though these lands already seemed incredibly foreign to those of us born in the west, he spoke of other seas, other lands open and flat where the sky went on... forever. My ten-year old grandson Bernard was especially fascinated by his tales of half-mythical Hindustan, where great striped lions and leathery grey beasts as large as houses roamed the jungles. Evrard - at fifteen - asked if they were good Christians there and Teodor assured us that the Church of St Thomas was alive and well there, bringing Jesus' word to the unbeliever. Bernard said he would travel there one day; I smiled across at Andre and said I was sure he would too; but it would fall to his father to prepare the ground for him.

Sheikh Ilyas al-Fatimiyyun died comatose in his bed in March 1158, preceded to the grave by his only son. With the direct male line descending from the Shia Caliphs of Egypt extinguished, no longer did we live under threat of an ambitious scion of that house leading a great army of mercenaries and landless adventurers to steal it back into darkness. With that reassurance and the castle walls at Jerusalem complete, I next directed the construction of a new, modern keep in Ibelin. Dinner after Manfred's death was a much less formal affair, and I was dining with but a dozen of my court when Andre hastened in and said something about the Empire of the Greeks and a call to arms. In truth I had noticed my hearing was beginning to go though I'd never admit it. It wasn't that I couldn't hear whatever I chose, it was more that I had to focus to pick one voice out of the surrounding conversation. When I asked him to repeat himself the situation became clear; he hadn't taken it upon himself to call the Byzantines to aid us on some military adventure, my daughter's father-in-law was calling on us to send him aid against the Lombards in the west as well as a separate host besieging Constantinople under the command of a mad Englishman by the name of Herbert. As best I could see we were hardly required as there were already eight thousand men under the command of my son-in-law marching west through Trebizond to that city's relief. I asked Andre to send our assurance that we would come where and when we were required, but to keep our forces at home until such time as we were.

As it turned out, this decision would probably prove to be for the best.


The Great Seljuk declares war against the Twin Kingdoms

The young and dynamic Sultan of the Seljuks had determined to complete the task his father had failed to complete in the Sunni Jihad and defeat the forces of Christian Outremer. While some argued that God had been on our side and ever would be, to my mind our victory had been more to do with the sheer fortunate chance that had brought the Caliph into our captivity in time to force his submission before the full might of Islam could be brought to bear against us. We would be unlikely to be so fortunate again, and though he was not the Caliph, the Seljuk had more than enough prestige to carry the lesser states of the East along with him. Our prominence had been making enemies, and who would not prefer to stand with the second mightiest nation in the known world rather than allow us to slowly grow in strength and power? With over forty one thousand men sworn to the Sultan's service we were in dire need of my son's strategic nous to preserve our state - still more so given the Holy Roman Empire, France and the Empire of the Greeks were all in debt, at war or both. I send word to our allies in Edessa, Cilicia Pedas, France and Byzantium that Christ's Kingdom was once more in danger - regardless of their zeal, their dynastic loyalties alone should oblige them to support us.

We were at war again, and so once more I found myself relegated to the background while the realm's nobility answered to Andre's dictates. The one service I was able to do him at that time was when the treacherous Roubaud of Beirut sought to take advantage of the realm's urgent need and my sense of duty to extort the Principality of Galilee from the Crown. Would we never be done in trying to inculcate a sense of obligation to the realm in our vassals? Each and every man seemed after nothing so noble as his own aggrandizement. Giving him my sweetest smile I lulled his suspicions with honeyed words and diplomatically compared his brains to those of a turnip. Did he think the Turk would give his ambitions any more credence? We were fighting for his right to hold onto the land he had already, and if he was fool enough to stand with the infidel and against his Christian brothers he would deserve the traitor's death he would receive. I may have waxed lyrical on some of the tortures he could expect for, pale and sweating, he soon made his excuses and went to raise an extra levy to fight in Andre's war.

While occupied with his own affairs, the Emperor of the Greeks assured us that he would march to our aid as soon as circumstances would permit. The Armenians and Edessans too assured us of their support, but unfortunately the French were not so sanguine. Louis Capet had fought two major civil wars in the past decade, and to that end he regretted to inform us that he would not be able to spare any men for our defense. But where the Lord taketh away, so too he giveth in good time - the Holy Roman Emperor offered his support and we gladly accepted. Undoubtedly ashamed and possibly feeling his hand forced by noble and church outcry Louis sent us a belated offer of support two weeks later. While I may have indulged in some pointed comments on his tardy sense of friendship and loyalty I had too great a sense of the peril looming over us to disdain any aid, however little I trusted the man proffering it. All of Western Europe was mobilizing to our aid, it only fell to Andre to stave off the Turk for the time being.


A call to arms across the West

While Jerusalem had called her allies, so too had the second most powerful state in the world. Both rump-Dimasq and Qinnasrin took up arms against us, along with countless small principalities beyond the ken of good Christian men and women. Andre decided that if we had a chance to hold off the greater numbers we had aligned against us we must concentrate our levies, Household and Orders Militant in the old Beylerbeylik of Dimasq. While the Edessans and Armenians kept the men of Qinnasrin busy in the north, he set about the systematic destruction of Dimasq's forces before any further support could arrive. I grew accustomed to the regular bustle of men in tabards in and out from the lower levels of the Tour de Cecile which had been entirely taken over by Andre and his petty council. At the Battle of Mu'tah the Kingdom's host outmatched the Damascene remnant by some ten to one, with both Holy Orders prominent in the leading ranks of the battle. This was what they lived for, after all! Soon therafter we heard that the extant Byzantine wars were over and that the Imperial host would soon be marching south under one of the Emperor's sons. Gone were the days of the Edessan and Armenian armies getting cut apart by overwhelming forces on the march to aid us, as they seemed perfectly able to hold the army of Qinnasrin at bay in the rugged mountains along their border - while the Greeks marched to relieve them.

In February 1159 the war too a new turn as the six-thousand-man army of Qinnasrin cut loose from the armies that opposed it and headed south at a brisk march. Meanwhile word reached us of a second great force forging across the desert - near nine thousand men, with better than seven thousand elite light cavalry under the Sultan's only remaining brother and heir, Prince Berkan. Prince Berkan had long been the Sultan's chief commander in the field as well as a religious zealot and there was some muttering comparing his conduct to Prince Andre's. I had no qualms about backing Andre's course of action to any fool enough to bring it up with me of course; regardless of his personal issues, as the greatest commander the Kingdom had from the Crown or Aristocracy his place was in the Tour de Cecile directing the war, not as arrow fodder in the leading ranks of our armies. Andre took just long enough to warn me he suspected the Chancelier Anthinos of leaking military secrets to the Turk before giving the order for our forces to converge at Amman in a bid to defeat the Seljuk army before those of Qinnasrin could arrive to boost their numbers to something that might be impossible for us to decisively defeat.

Prince Berkan's host had only been able to survive the long journey along the caravan trail through the desert with a large supply train and several caches stored along their way in advance - but they had only just enough to get there. When the long columns snaked wearily out into the less barren lands west of the desert, they found somewhere over five thousand men waiting for them under the golden cross of Jerusalem. There was no turning back for the Turks, and really why should they? Regardless of not having had time to unite they held a decisive advantage and there was no turning back without supplies they needed to reach the Kingdom's warcamp to loot. They just needed time. Time to rest their mounts, time to deploy into battle formation, time to ready themselves for a battle they had not expected for weeks - and time the Christian host was all too ready to give them. Three days after decamping from the desert, Prince Berkan gave the order for the attack and the Battle of First Amman commenced. The Seljuk army had an unusually small contingent of archers, but this was more than made up for by the thousands upon thousands of elite light horse. On the barren plains outside of town there was scarce a wrinkle in the land, let alone defensible terrain features; the Christian host drew together and did its best to avoid exposing detachments to being cut off from the main body.


Battle of First Amman

Finally when Berkan judged the Christian host was sufficiently worn he directed his men to the attack in a great inverted crescent that swept around both flanks of our army and forced it back into an outward-facing circle. The army of Jerusalem was surrounded and imperilled - and that was when Andre's plan sprung into effect. For if the Christian army was trapped there, so too was the Turkish army spread around it and in the past few days the Hospitaller order had arrived and been kept hidden in the one place they could be; Amman itself. All morning they had stood in close ranks behind the city gates and at the horn call from my son's man on the city walls both gates swung wide and the holy warriors came out and crashed into the rear of the enemy host, riding through them time and again. While the Turkish light horse was more maneuverable than our knights in the open field, while pinned against close ranks of heavy spearmen they were hopelessly outmatched and many were caught at the halt; a fatal mistake for them. The Battle of Amman ended in a decisive victory for the Twin Kingdoms, with Prince Berkan captured and two of his subcommanders dead on the field. The tattered remnants of his host scattered back into the desert and Andre set the bulk of the host to hunt them down in the desert.

In the meantime fresh levies had come up from Egypt and southern Jerusalem, while the Kingdom's European levies had arrived on the Hospitaller fleet. With the Templar Order and the Household, the main host of the Twin Kingdoms swung north along two axes to trap the armies of Qinnasrin at the Battle of Azraq in an entirely one-sided battle as the Armenians and Edessans arrived to cut off their retreat. Our bloodied army in the south pursued the starving Turkic remnants to the Springs of Cresson, and though they weren't able to compel them to stand and fight they were able to drive them away from the food and water that would have allowed their recovery. Instead they began to take the local Qasbah under siege, only to receive news from the taunts of the locals that sent a chill down their spine. The great army under Prince Berkan that the forces of Jerusalem had so barely turned back before it could unite with the Qinnasrini? It was but a vanguard, and a far greater host was already bearing down on the oasis from the east, giving the Hospitaller-led army no time to make their escape - or be reinforced. Andre swore in my hearing for the first time since his teen years and sunk into despondency as he frantically directed all available forces to gather at Amman.

Where in the Lord's name were our allies?


It's a trap!​

"In the center of the kingdom of God, you do not find a gargantuan palace inhabited by an unapproachable king. No, in the center of the kingdom of God is a bloody cross, on which hung a broken King, who welcomes us as we are."​

Second Cresson proves a debacle

The second battle of the Springs of Cresson was against the same foe as the first - and, if possible, proved even more disastrous a defeat. In the days before the vast Turkic host descended upon the oasis' defenders a second column of the Kingdom's brave defenders joined the first. Near three thousand heavy infantry and twelve hundred knights now stood at the core of an eight thousand man army defending the pool; yet the greater host of twenty five thousand could not be denied. Arrows fell like rain while the defenders drew in closer and closer behind a desperate shieldwall. One band of knights rode out and tried to put an end to the deadly hail, but the last of them fell to the fire of the unbelievers twenty five yards before their line. After the last destrier fell the defenders drew their bodies in to form a barricade. The Seljuk Sultan had come to avenge his younger brother's defeat, and he had brought whole camel trains loaded down with bushels of arrows. All through the long hot day the defenders slowly dwindled until at the last, two hours shy of sundown, the Great Seljuk ordered his armies to charge. The fight was brief and bloody; the lucky died fighting, while the less fortunate lasted for hours under the knives of the Turk's torturers.

With the Sultan's armies approaching like the knell of doom, Andre feverishly directed the mustering of every last man the Twin Kingdoms could muster at Amman. Though the Springs of Cresson carried with them the connotations of our earlier defeat, the field of Amman had seen our all-too-recent victory. Could we not turn back the enemy once more and drive him into the sandy wastes? In light of the critical situation, Andre persuaded me to place the crown four hundred gold in lien to local Jewish moneylenders in order to fund the hiring of the famed Norman Company. Soon its four thousand heavy horse were in movement as well, riding to join the great assemblage where the desert trail disgorged into the eastern Kingdom. When the Turks at last emerged onto the plains of Dimashq the fight actually appeared mostly even, with thirteen thousand men a side. Our men were steadier, more heavily equipped and despite our losses at Cresson still downright lethal at close quarters - yet the Turks were lighter and more maneuverable and showed no particular eagerness to close. Our generals were fine with this, for the Norman Company was still approaching and would have proved decisive upon their arrival - at least, had the Sultan not had another trick hidden up his voluminous sleeve. Another eight thousand fresh Turks emerged from the desert and came crashing into the weakened center of our line, throwing Jerusalem's defenders into fatal disorder.


Outremer overrun by the Seljuk's armies

After Second Amman the Twin Kingdoms were in dire threat; scarcely a thousand men were left under my colours, for the European levies had made it to the Levant in time to join in our stand at the edge of the desert. The Seljuk armies divided and set off in the inevitable pursuit. The survivors of the battle were caught and cut down on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, while the Sultan's outriders beat our messengers to the Norman Company. All unsuspecting, they rode into a great trap near Krak de Moab full four thousand strong. Not one rode out, their bodies left heaped upon the sand for want of wood to burn them. In the wake of these successive disasters the Twin Kingdoms were left with nary a man to call upon in her defense. To compound our crises we were vastly in debt and all our most experienced generals lay dead among their men - for the Sultan disdained taking captives from outside his faith. Where in God's name were my allies? We received plenty of missives of support from the French King, the Emperor of the Germans... but that was all we received. Words would not save my people from the blazing crescent from the east!

A third and fourth Turkic host crossed my borders, now roaming freely through eastern Outrejordain and reducing several of the Kingdom's strongpoints in quick succession. All of the east was ablaze, while the handful of knights surviving from the Orders Militant who had missed both battles (perhaps a dozen men in all) gathered within the fortified northern port of Tyre to send messengers throughout Europe calling on cousins and younger sons to take up the bloodied cross beneath which the fallen had battled. One massive infidel host saw to the utter defeat of our Armenian and Edessan allies in the north, while another under the personal leadership of the Sultan began occupying the castles in al-Urdunn, fanning out from the cursed desert road that had brought such iniquity upon Christian Levant. I met with my councilors for a day and a night and a day again, and at last when all arguments were exhausted I met my eldest son's gaze.

"I know what I'm asking of you Andre, and you know I wouldn't ask it of you if there were any other choice... but there is none." He shifted uncomfortably, yet could hardly look away. "I know that, your Majesty. Mother. I just- surely there are other things we could try. Better men for the task you have in mind." I shook my head in turn, leaned back wearily in my chair. "No, Andre. You are the only man for this task - and if you consider it, I am sure you will see why." I paused, held his gaze, saw past the flicker of uncertainty to the growing flame within and finally nodded. "Go now, my son. We have received word that the infidels are beginning to travel this way; I put the fate of the Twin Kingdoms in your hands." He knelt on the chamber floor, clasped his hands to mine and stared intently up at me. "I will return, Mother - and I will not fail you." He strode from the chamber and soon rode out from the tower on the long journey south.

The Sultan's vanguard arrived outside Jerusalem before sundown. All roads out were sealed by morning.


Jerusalem in the shadow of the Turk

Andre's mission took him into the south of the Kingdom, to El-Arish on the Egyptian border. Messengers had been sent out all across the realm, scraping up every last man that my lords could spare, and a number that were only released out of pure desperation - the young, the old, every man who could carry a spear, see lightning and hear thunder. They were all to come to El-Arish, many of them by sea when the roaming Turkish armies threatened to cut them off. The Hospitaller fleet did valiant service in those times, running along the Mediterranean coast in support of Andre's plan. Still more so when they took the long journey west to Provence. A second slenderer draft of our European levies had been called to arms, marching briskly past those of our more sluggish allies. When at last they too arrived at El Arish, Andre took his place at the head of our scraped up army and marched to Jerusalem's relief, ten thousand strong.

They arrived scarce in time, for the five thousand men already before the walls were in danger of overwhelming our garrison. The Last Army of Outremer made substantial early gains, sweeping the Turks back from the walls to the east; but there they stood, reforming around a fresh body of eight thousand of the Sultan's finest men. The so-called Battle of Blanche Garde would prove to be the mother of all meeting engagements beneath the bloodied walls of an ancient city. Andre's army slowed, then held and dug in its heels stubbornly as further Turkic forces gathered until all the Sultan's forces in Outremer pressed against him, over twenty thousand strong. From my vantage point atop the Tour de David it seemed the situation was hopeless, yet Andre still had more cards to play. Eight thousand Byzantines landed at Ascalon in the week before the battle, and seeing them advance onto the field beneath their swaying Imperial banners was almost as effective a deterrent as their actual martial might. The Turks fell back and allowed them to unite with Andre's battle line, but when both armies had reformed it was clear that the Sultan's army yet retained the upper hand. As battle was re-joined, Andre was reinforced by small detachments of Armenians and Frenchmen. The fighting became a bloodbath, the fate of the Christian Levant hanging in the balance... and at long last a three thousand man column of French soldiers arrived, with ten thousand Germans close behind. I watched from the walls as the tide turned against the invaders. I saw the inexorable advance of the Christian banners, French, German, Armenian and Jerusalemite alike. I saw the Sultan flee once the battle was clearly lost - and I saw my son conquer his fear upon the field of his triumph.

Fifty seven thousand men did battle outside the walls of Jerusalem. Thirty thousand died upon that field of blood and seven noted noble commanders; but twenty seven thousand walked - or ran - off alive. Following the Battle of Blanche Garde, it was Outremer's turn to send fast cavalry in pursuit. Within two weeks not one infidel under arms remained within the borders of the Twin Kingdoms. Within three months all our castles and cities were returned to the authority of the Crown. Captain Bertil of the Varangian Guard fell at the Battle of Jericho to an unlucky blow from a desperate Turkish spearman who had seen less than fifteen summers. Prince Berkan, the Seljuk heir, was taken by a detachment of Edessan warriors owing their allegiance to Comtesse Bourguigne de Boulogne. But try as we might, we were unable to take the Sultan before he fled back across the trackless sands. Before long thirty seven thousand men under the banners of the Holy Roman Empire rode gaily across our lands, petty German princes cutting down Turkish stragglers so that they could return home and proclaim that they too had fought in the great holy war against the Turk.


The tide has turned in Outremer

The slaughter had long since begun to sicken me by the time Andre and his allies swept out from the Kingdom's borders into hostile lands. Before they could get far though, the Sultan saw the writing on the wall and sent his emissary to sue for peace. While some - particularly among the Germans - urged a continuation of the war, in this Andre and I were in agreement. Victorious or not, the Twin Kingdoms were in no shape to turn the tables upon our enemies. We were vastly in debt, and we had lost a whole generation of our young men to the slaughter. Any reasonable peace offer would surely be accepted, though our diplomats would surely hint that if I were not suitably appeased then all the legions of Christendom would march upon the Sultan's homeland. As it transpired, God smiled upon our endeavours and the Sultan's will crumbled before that of my Chancelier. When he returned to me in Jerusalem and set the signed agreement before me, I could scarcely hide my surprise; the Sultan was compelled to sign an agreement to a kingly indemnity that would go a long way toward reconstructing the Twin Kingdoms, 1143 gold in all.

For as it stood, we were perilously weakened - and there were other threats than the Turk.


The Crown's authority was vastly weakened.

The same day that the Sultan's treasure arrived at Jerusalem I directed that our debts to the moneylenders be repaid and called all Lords of Outremer, France, Armenia, Edessa and the Holy Roman Empire alike from their disbanding hosts to celebrate our victory in David's great hall. The feast was lavish and lasted for thirty days and thirty nights; bells were rung in thanksgiving throughout all the shrines and churches of the Twin Kingdoms and more marriages and ties of alliance were formed over that month than in most decades. Indeed, suddenly the Kingdom of Jerusalem was staggeringly wealthy though not as I had planned. I had secured my ambition to refill its coffers for the time of my son's ascension - yet there was more work to be done in order to restore our security. After the horrific losses of the war, our levies were simply too few to cow our more rebellious vassals - and the Household Knights were utterly destroyed, for the second time in as many generations. I spoke to Andre about this, and asked him if there was aught he would do differently when the crown passed to him. He had an idea that intrigued me greatly, though it was nontraditional to say the least; rather than a spearhead of lances made up of the younger sons of the Twin Kingdom's nobility, it would be a disciplined body of full-time soldiers who trained when their predecessors were carousing, and would be free of the aristocratic ties that might cloud their loyalties. The Crown Legion was born.

However while these seeds were being laid down to ensure our future security, there were yet threats in the present that I needed to prepare for; the young Duc de Lorraine had sired a daughter with Princesse Alix, named Blanche de Boulogne in honour of me. Though I was not naturally proud, yet this pleased me... but not enough to overlook the fact that my son-in-law was already plotting against me. My agents caught wind of his conspiracies, and that he was whispering to his colleagues that it was my mismanagement of the war that had led to so much death and loss. I could have argued the matter openly of course... yet it was not my way to own to him what I knew, and where my agents were, always listening. Perhaps I was foolish not to set my knives on him at once, yet he was my daughter's husband and so I simply sent my spymaster to caution him quietly that I knew of his treasonous plots and would as lief not be forced to take action... so long as he stopped. At once. Simultaneously I at last took a step that my father never had, and put forth the legislation that would allow the crown to call on more vassal levies in time of need.

Sure enough, the mercy and patience shown to the young Duc de Lorraine was repaid with open defiance and the raising of his banners in open revolt. He and his associates challenged me, demanded that I grant them their independence... or else face their might in battle. Really? My throne may presently rest on sand, but regardless of my sex what in all the years of my rule gave them reason to believe that I would shy from open challenge - or that Andre was at all incapable of crushing any revolt in my name? Sure enough I rejected his threat and instructed that those loyal to me gather their forces beneath Andre's banner; the rebels were primarily those European lords owing allegiance to the crown, although the stubborn unbeliever ruling Toron was foolish enough to stand against us as well. Though fighting a campaign across the seas might prove as challenging for Andre as it did my father, quelling the old infidel would prove straightforward enough. In the shadow of open revolt, there was a sudden upswell of support for my proposed increase in levies owed the Crown; for who would risk opposing it and perchance be tarred with the brush of disloyalty?

With our numbers bolstered, Andre cornered the rebels of Toron at Arsour where he led the first cadre of the Crown Legion into battle for the first time. There they fought against a greater number of the rebels, and through their steadfast discipline proved victorious. Though the Kingdom of Jerusalem had been tried sorely over the past few years, I could see the future - I could see the new path we were taking, and caught a faint glimpse of where it would lead us; a Kingdom of Heaven indeed, if not precisely as my father had imagined it. All loyal forces from the Twin Kingdoms converged on Toron to reduce the rebel strongholds in Outremer and prepare the ground for pursuing the war into Western Europe. After the heavy demands we had laid upon them, I saw no need to call upon our allies in this little war. But in in late September 1161 word reached us of the death of Duchess Shoushanig the Wise of Armenian Cilicia. Prince Ebbon was become a widower, and the duchy passed into the hands of young Simon de Boulogne.


The Armenian Succession​