Morton - The Field of Blood : the Battle for Aleppo and the Remaking of the Medieval Middle East.

T HE SCREAM RANG out across the barren wilderness, the sound of a man in mortal agony. Corbaran, the Turkish ruler of Oliferne, sprang up at the sound, calling for his advisers and his crusader captives. He demanded that they listen in case the man should scream again. Corbaran did not know who had made such a cry, but the strangers evident distress filled him with pity. Then Baldwin of BeauvaisCorbarans prisonerspoke up. He had recognized the voice. It was his brother Ernoul. The brothers had been taken captive a long while before at the disastrous Battle of Civetot, during the First Crusade, but even their long separation could not make him mistake his own kin. The dying mans screams became more plaintive and more distant, as though he were being dragged away. Ernoul was calling on Saint Nicholas and the Virgin Mary before his words were suddenly cut short.

Even before they heard those distant cries, it had been a strange day. Corbarans Turkish army, along with its small band of captive crusaders, had not intended to be here. They had strayed into this stark land, which lay somewhere on the slopes of Mount Tigris, when the wind had flung a blizzard of dust into the air, disorienting them and causing them to mistake their road. It had been achingly hot, and they had made camp in a small orchard. Neither the Turks nor the Franks knew where they were, but they all feared that they knew what was causing the distant knight such distress. It was the great dragon Sathanas. They had tried to avoid its lair but had instead strayed directly into its hunting grounds.

Overcoming his terror, Baldwin demanded that his captor permit him to save his brother. Corbaran refused. He warned Baldwin that deep in the mountain was an ancient city that the dragon had ravaged long ago. Now it was deserted, save for the beast, and no man in his right mind would seek to enter those crags to confront him.

Still Baldwin would not be dissuaded, and Corbaran reluctantly yielded, granting his captive and friend the weapons he needed. The Turkish lord invited Baldwin to pick his own arms, and he selected a white chain-mail hauberk, a helmet, a shield, two swords with silver hilts, and a javelin. Then he confessed himself to his fellow captive, the bishop of Forez, who appealed to God that Baldwin might live to see Jerusalem. He set off on foot up the mountain, leaving both Turks and Franks grieving for him as though he were already dead.

Baldwin proceeded cautiously up the ruined road into the mountains. He climbed for many hours into the high places, feeling the weight of his weapons and sweating profusely. Nothing but toads, worms, and snakes lived in those desolate crags. By the time he reached the summit, he was reduced to crawling on his hands and knees. At the peak he commended himself to Christ in preparation for the coming battle and called out boldly to the dragon, challenging it to come out and fight. Then, rounding a boulder, he came upon the beast. It was asleep, having gorged itself on Ernouls corpse; only the poor knights decapitated head remained.

When Baldwin approached, Sathanas awoke and reared up, displaying the full length of its great scale-armored body. The spines on its torso bristled, and it raked its vicious talons against the rocks. Baldwin made the sign of the cross and, calling upon Christ and the saints, flung his javelin at the beast. It was a valiant throw, but it made no impression at all on the demon-possessed monster, and the shaft snapped. The dragon bellowed in rage. Far away Corbaran and the French knights heard the roar and, summoning their courage, determined to climb the mountain to aid Baldwin.

Baldwin and Sathanas flung themselves into combat, talon against sword, in a mortal struggle. Baldwin raised one of his swords, inlaid with a silver cross, but the beast seized it in its jaws and broke it in two, swallowing the fragments. But God caused the broken blade to grow in the dragons chest so that it nearly burst out, causing the beast to writhe in pain.

Baldwin thrust his second sword into the serpents mouth. Sathanas lurched, and the Devil flew out of the beast in the guise of a raven. Convulsed with agony, Sathanas battered at Baldwin, knocking his helmet from his head, leaving him bloodied. Baldwin then swung his blade down hard on the dragons head, but it simply rebounded

The great duel between Baldwin of Beauvais and the dragon Sathanas forms part of a dramatic tale known as the Chanson des Chtifs, which tells the story of a brave group of crusaders imprisoned during the First Crusade who had to fend for themselves in distant lands under their Turkish captors. The earliest version of the story was commissioned in the mid-twelfth century by Raymond, prince of the crusader Principality of Antioch (a large and well-fortified territory situated in the coastal region of northern Syria). The Chtifs is a work of fantasy, yet, like most fictional tales, it communicates a great deal about its intended audience.

This was the kind of story that would have been recited at feasts, when the guests had eaten their fill and were ready to set aside their cares to hear songs of war, heroic knights, mythical beasts, and beautiful maidens. Although the assembled dignitaries of the Antiochene court would undoubtedly have enjoyed the escapism of the dragon slayingpresumably shouting their approval and banging the table as Sathanass body crumpled to the groundthere was nonetheless a great deal in this tale that spoke profoundly of the realities of their own lives on the frontiers of the known world.