Now the Order began to spread in Syria,

where the continued contact with the Crusaders was established.

The warriors of the Cross were in fairly effective control of an area

extending from the Egyptian border to Armenia in the north.

Bahram, a Persian leader of the Assassin cult from Astrabad,

gained control of a mighty fortress in Syria,

in the region known as the Valley of Demons (Wadi-el-Jan),

and from there spread from one fort to another.

The Grand Prior Bahram now moved

to an even more substantial fortified place, Massyat.

Bahram's successor, Ismail the Lash-Bearer,

planted a trained devotee on the saintly Vizier of Baghdad,

into whose confidence he worked his way to such an extent that this Assassin,

now called the 'Father of Trust',

was actually made Grand Judge of Baghdad.

The Crusaders had by now been about thirty years in the Holy Land,

and the Assassins decided that they could usefully form an alliance

with them aimed against Baghdad.

A secret treaty was therefore made

between the Grand Master and Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem,

whereby the Ismaili Grand Judge

would have opened the gates of Baghdad treacherously to the Crusaders,

if the fortified city of Tyre were handed

over to the Assassins for their part in the transaction.

Something went wrong.

The judge had ordered an underling to open the city's gates.

This servant had told the military commander of Damascus,

who lost no time in killing the man,

the Vizier and six thousand people

believed to be secret Assassins within the city.

The Damascus garrison fell upon the Crusaders

and beat them back in a thunderstorm

which the Christian warriors attributed

to divine anger at their unworthy pact,

and the Assassins as an attempt by the powers of Nature

to allow the Crusaders into the city under its cover.