Chapter Text
Prologue
24 December, 1144
The night air smelt like jasmine and roses. It was heavy with the waft of the vegetation surrounding the castle, short, fat bushes and tall palm trees that grew in between the rocky terrain. The moon shone in a sickle up in the sky, pale and translucent, surrounded by a bevy of stars, a carpet of pinpricks against blue velvet. Moon-beams fell upon the ancient construction in front of them, and shed upon their summits a silver light that made one think of an Emir's treasure.
Steep slopes unfolded away on every side and overlooked the road leading to the west, to the coast. The stone walls reached the night sky, their might undoubted as they dominated the top of the hill, mastering their surroundings. They were built out of pale limestone bricks held together by mortar, hard to pierce, even with catapults, impossible to set on fire. The towers were circular, crenellated, connected by curtain walls. At intervals arrow slits opened in their mesh. Machicolations crowned the ramparts, providing defenders a platform to lob projectiles towards enemies gathered at the base of the wall. These daises were so cramped archers would have had to crouch inside them, brushing shoulders with their fellow fighters. They weren't the only type of defence however. The great moat, gouged into the rock, which cut it off from the ridge, presented the greatest obstacle to any assailer.
Together walls and moat protected the keep, whose mass loomed in the background. It was tall, squat, more ancient than the outer walls, which had been rebuilt by the Franks after they'd taken Edessa. It was a formidable keep; it was a sturdy pile that would hold against most attacks.
But Imad ad-Din Zengi had come here to see those walls fall to him. He had waited a month to see the accursed Frankish defences crumble. He could now look at the keep with equanimity. It was a hurdle. It decidedly stood between him and his plans. But soon the whole of Edessa would be his. It would be returned to his people. The Franks would be nothing but a dull memory, one that he would erase from the annals of the city.
A trebuchet fired smaller missiles that flew far into the air, whilst the catapult threw larger stones against Edessa's defences. It rained them against the great pale walls and the sealed gates, eroding the tops of the walls day in day out. A ball of burning pitch dissected the sky, the flaming projectile lighting up the night. Another deep, booming sound rent the air.
The horse shied under Zengi and he hardly managed to rein it in, patting its neck once the creature had calmed enough not to throw him. Burkan was used to battle, to having hordes of enemies come at them. But siege warfare was a novelty for it. The loud noises that came with it spooked it.
Zengi was still petting Burkan, speaking soft words to it as one did to a frenzied animal, when one of the engineers came up to him. He was a Kurd, dressed in the garb of his people. He was tall and slim, covered in dust from his work. He seemed not to notice this, his face rather showing signs of concern, a deep seated concentration that could not be shaken. “The tunnel extends into the bowels of the earth, sayyidi,” the engineer said.
“But is it ready?” That was the entire point of the mission he'd assigned his engineers.
The engineer put a hand on his heart. “It is, sayyidi.”
Zengi dismounted and gave the reins to one of his attendants. “Show me these galleries.”
The engineer led him to the entrance of an artificial cave cut out of the defence wall and protected by a system of mangonels. The tunnel was deep and the light of the torches flickering. The aperture was wider than the passage's, but there was enough space for two men to walk abreast. The engineer shone his light up and around.
Dirt walls surrounded them. They were brown, rough, striations of grey rocks changing up the surface with flowstone cementing the surrounding sediments. Reddish pockets also occurred sporadically to vary the uneven surface. Thick wooden beams held up the walls, criss-crossing along the length of the cave, both vertically and horizontally. Tar covered the timbers, which smelt like it.
The engineer waved his men away, diggers and miners with their tools at the ready, and said, “Once we remove the supports and set them on fire a whole section of wall will come crumbling down.”
“Are you certain?.” The success of the siege depended on this man's calculations. Zengi didn't have the same head for construction work, but they couldn't allow themselves any mistake here.
“We have dug out the base of the wall above the bedrock,” the engineer said. “And excavated trenches into the earth and stone banks on which the walls of the town stand. Without the galleries they won't be able to remain up.”
Zengi gestured at the walls around him. “But will they come down?”
There was fear in the engineer's eyes: worry etched itself on his still youthful forehead. Sweat beaded around it and trickled in his eyes, which he dried with the palm of his hand. “Yes, sayyidi.”
Zengi had seen enough. He had enough information. He turned around and stalked to the mouth of the tunnel, his cloak flapping behind him. With a squeak, the engineer followed him.
When they climbed back onto even terrain and breathed the fresh air of the camp, Zengi stopped. He looked back at Edessa's defensive walls. He had camped in their shadow for a month. He had come to know them well. Their shape had loomed over his dreams; they had been a part of his life, a problem to crack, a challenge to be taken on in the name of that which he held most sacred.
He felt it was now time. Those walls had to give way. They had to be a thing of the past. There'd be time to reconstruct them again once they had the venerable city of Edessa.
Zengi turned to the engineer, who stood in the lights of the flambeaux. “I'm satisfied.” He saw relief in the man's eyes; the shoulder lift that squared his shape. “Set the fuses on fire.”
“Sayyidi.” The engineer bowed before disappearing, gone to give orders to his underlings.
Surrounded by his generals, Zengi watched from a distance. The roaring sound came first, louder than that of any bombardment. Then the top of a wall came tumbling down in a cloud of dust. The rest followed. Barriers tumbled down one after the other; the high turrets collapsing in an avalanche of brick and mortar that caved in on itself, before erupting this way and that. As the brickwork cascaded down, the breaches got larger and larger till paths were carved out of debris.
The fine powders released by the walls disintegrating before them tickled Zengi's throat. He placed a strip of his turban before his mouth and unsheathed his muhaddab. “Charge. Charge,” he ordered. “Take the city.”