Arnau leaned forward once more to peer around the corner. Bochard was sitting by the gate, but his eyes were lifted to the tower’s top, and he gave a small nod. Arnau’s gaze slid upwards, just in time to see a figure backing away from the parapet, no more.
‘He’s up to something, Ramon. Something I don’t like the look of.’
Moments later the lead elements of the army were past and the gate groaned open ponderously. The icon with its holy and military escorts fell in behind Doukas and his party, in front of the bulk of the army. Arnau’s professional eye roved across the force as it thundered from the city through the gate in the walls. Doukas and the Laskaris brothers had been wise in the army’s composition. There may be cavalry, infantry and archers here, but there was not a slow man among them. The heaviest infantry were mail clad and bearing shields. They could move at speed for a short distance. The entire column would be highly mobile for a short time.
Arnau waited, tense. Ramon sat, quiet and apparently calm. Finally, at the back of a column perhaps two thousand strong, the rearguard of a hundred Warings passed by. Peering around the corner once more, they saw Bochard step his horse forward. The preceptor fell in at the absolute rear of the column, following along perhaps twenty paces behind them all. Arnau started to move, but Ramon held his hand out again, and began counting quietly. When he reached fifty, he nodded and gestured to Arnau. They rode softly out from their side street and towards the gate.
The army having now fully departed and being out in the grasslands beyond, the soldiers were busy closing the great timber doors, and the pair had to pick up the pace and call for them to hold the gates. The soldiers did so, and Arnau and Ramon emerged into the open land outside the city for the first time in many months.
Being out of the city felt at once liberating and very odd. They had been closeted within the city since the day they arrived, and had become more used to the urban life than they had expected, yet for months they had been lobbying to flee Constantinople, and right now they were outside. They were free. All they had to do was angle their horses west and ride for Achaea.
Instead, they fixed their gaze on the army.
They were making for a foraging force of Franks in the hope of overwhelming them and winning the first real victory for the city. If rumour held true, they would outnumber the Franks perhaps two to one, and success should be assured. There were other Franks in a position to come to their aid, but only with adequate warning. They would not have that warning. While no one could miss the thunder of hooves and feet, nor the cloud of dust and steam rising into the winter air – the foraging army would see them coming – they would have far too little time to do much about it other than brace themselves.
The Byzantine army suddenly broke into a run, yelling, horns blowing. Bochard turned his mount aside. Arnau frowned as the preceptor rode to a small hillock and sat there, watching. On one level, the young Templar was relieved that Bochard was up to nothing more underhand than watching the battle, but on another he was a little disappointed to discover this was the case. He’d felt certain Bochard was up to something.
Realising that they would shortly catch up with the man, he turned at Ramon’s signal and made for a similar rise, a little further back. The view would not be as good, but they would be behind Bochard and not likely to attract the attention he kept riveted upon the battle.
They found their rise and crested it, then turned and reined in.
The battle was about to be joined.
Arnau’s heart suddenly thundered. Whatever Doukas had been expecting, this could not be it. The force they faced was larger than their own, not smaller. As the Byzantines raced at the Frankish knights, the enemy horses shifted fractionally and crossbowmen stepped out in front, each with the bolt already in place, string taut and weapon lifted.
Arnau swore under his breath as the crossbowmen released their dreadful barrage and then disappeared back between the heavy knights. Arnau saw a dozen horsemen or more in the front of the charge go down, hurled from their steeds or simply disappearing beneath a charge in which those behind were forced to jump their horses over their fallen comrades.
He had to give it to the new leaders of Byzantium. In every engagement the previous year, the moment the enemy so much as bared their teeth, the Byzantine forces had fled or withdrawn. Instead, here, faced with superior odds and a force that was unexpectedly prepared for them, the Laskaris brothers instead drove their men on to greater speed and savagery.
Arnau could see little in detail, but managed to take in a general sense of events. The battle could go either way as far as he could tell. The Crusaders had the numbers and seemed more prepared than they should have been, but the ferocity of the Byzantine attack would make a difference, spurred on as they were by their respect for their commanders and the knowledge that drawn by her icon, the ‘Theotokos’ Mary was watching over them all.
For several moments Arnau thought the Byzantines were about to rout the enemy. They had hit the Franks so hard and so confidently that they were truly carving pieces off the Frankish force and spreading panic among them. He watched as the Crusaders, unable to charge or use their long lances in the press, discarded their primary weapons and drew short blade sand daggers, stabbing around them at the savage Greeks who fought with the ferocity of polecats.
But the Franks had one more surprise waiting.
As the Byzantines committed their entire force, suddenly the rear of the Frankish army moved out to the sides, flanking the imperial force, almost enveloping them. Hidden behind the knights had been a force of highly mobile light infantry, who now enfolded the Byzantines in a square of sharpened steel, hacking and maiming. Arnau turned his face away.
‘Disaster,’ muttered Ramon. ‘They have to withdraw or they’ll lose everything. How could the Franks be so prepared? How could they have known?’
Arnau exhaled miserably. ‘They had prior warning, I fear. As we left, I saw Bochard nod to someone atop the gate. I can’t say what they did, but it is conceivable that someone on the gate house could signal the Franks, if they knew what to look for – as if they were expecting it.’
Ramon’s lip curled. ‘I hate to think that Bochard would be that devious.’
‘I tell you, Ramon, he’s a bad seed. We need to overrule him and leave.’
Ramon shook his head. ‘He’s done nothing wrong. I mean, the emperor would tear the flesh from his back if he found out about this, but nothing he’s done would even get him a dressing-down in Acre. We might not like it, but we can’t defy him unless he breaks the Order’s Rule.’
‘The seething, avaricious bastard just sold out the emperor and his army. And for what?’
‘For that,’ Ramon said, his arm suddenly reaching out, finger pointing away to the north.
Arnau followed the gesture. The Byzantines had clearly come to the same conclusion as Ramon. Signals to withdraw had gone out and the imperial army was already breaking into a retreat. Arnau bit deep into his lip as he watched whole regiments of imperial soldiers fall, swamped by howling Franks. The cavalry were the first out, but it was neither the massacre of the army, nor the flight of the cavalry to which Ramon had drawn his attention.
Out ahead of the retreat one unit raced back for the city at full pelt. Just a dozen men on horseback, they consisted of a senior officer, two cataphractii, three priests and a handful of Waring guardsmen. The icon of the Virgin flapped and rippled in the wind as they rode.
Arnau’s suspicious gaze slipped to the figure of Bochard on the next summit. The man had not moved. His hands remained on his reins. Yet somehow, Arnau knew there was more to come.
He did not have to wait long to discover what.
The small party accompanying the most sacred relic of Byzantium, the icon that defended the city in the eyes of its people, crested a low rise and slammed straight into a small party of Frankish knights coming the other way. Now Arnau knew the whole thing had been engineered. There was nowhere for those Franks to have come
from by accident. They couldn’t have been there as the army passed on the way out. They had to have circled around the periphery as the fight began and come far behind the Byzantine lines solely for an opportunity like this. Possibly they meant to capture any fleeing officers, of course. That made plenty of sense. Yet deep down, Arnau knew it was not the case. He knew the force had been dispatched with the sole purpose of capturing that small group. And he knew that somehow Bochard was behind it.
He cursed under his breath again. Ramon might consider his vows too important to consider challenging the preceptor without adequate cause, but Arnau was close to breaking point. He gripped his reins until his hands hurt, observing, forcing himself to obey and not race to intervene.
He watched in disgust as the Franks dealt with the icon’s escort. They knew precisely what they were doing. Two groups broke left and right and engaged the Warings, drawing them away so that the remaining third could ride directly into the centre and butcher the officer and the priests.
The Warings were good, and they put up an impressive fight, but they were outnumbered and facing fresh men. The only advantage the Byzantines could claim was the two cataphractii who were hard to take down, so heavily armoured were they. For a heart-stopping moment, it looked like they were going to make it. The Warings were keeping the bulk of the ambush busy, and the two cataphractii forged their way through to the priest with the icon and escorted him forward amid swinging maces. Then, finally, the Franks got the better of one of the armoured Byzantine horsemen. It took three knights and all their strength and fury to batter the cataphract rider from his horse and keep him down.
The priest fell a moment later, and Arnau felt his gorge rise. How could these Crusaders call themselves soldiers of God, butchering a priest carrying an icon of the Blessed Virgin? He silently prayed that the Lord would open the gates of Hell this very day beneath the hooves of the Franks. His prayers went unanswered.
There was a cry of dismay as the icon fell to the dirt. The other cataphract rider tried desperately to sweep down and gather it up, but the move opened him up to attack and, as his fingers touched the staff holding the blessed relic, he was smashed across the back with an axe. The mail prevented the drawing of blood, but Arnau knew what had happened at that angle. The heavy axe blade would have shattered the Byzantine’s spine right through the chain shirt.
It was over in moments. Only four Franks remained unharmed, two more sagging, badly wounded in their saddles, but they swept the icon up from the ground, whooping with victory, and began to ride off to the north, away from the main fight. Bochard watched them, and Arnau’s lip curled in disgust. He couldn’t identify the knights that had taken the icon – at this distance, their crests were a blur – but at least two were in red and white. He would have been willing to wager a good sum that the men even now riding back to the Frankish camp were Bochard’s friends, de Charney and de la Roche.
He felt certain the icon would somehow find its way onto a Venetian ship bound for Acre by nightfall. What had the Franks taken in payment for securing Bochard’s greatest prize, Arnau wondered bitterly? Perhaps it was simply adequate warning to ensure they won the first engagement in which the Byzantines had really stood a chance? Perhaps the chance to capture the leaders of the city?
That realisation suddenly broke through his misery, and Arnau turned, frantically scanning the fight.
The main battle was all but over already, though a group of men raced for safety, and Arnau could see the standards of both Laskaris brothers and the emperor himself among them.
Groups of men, both horse and foot, were fleeing now in ragtag bands, racing for the gate of the Blachernae, pursued by howling Franks. It was a disaster of almost epic proportions. Most would reach safety, for the Franks were far from foolish enough to pursue the routing forces within the range of the artillery on the wall top, but a force of men raced after the emperor’s party, and Arnau noted with distress a pair of figures rising from the scrub nearby, bows in hand. Another ambush!
Suddenly Bochard was moving. Ramon grabbed Arnau’s arm and pointed, and the younger knight turned to see. The preceptor rode hard down towards the imperial party, and Arnau stared. He simply could not believe that Bochard might intervene so directly.
The preceptor raced down the slope, yelling something, though it was impossible to hear over the general row. The Warings momentarily turned as if to face him, but realised just as Arnau did that the preceptor’s weapon was still sheathed. He was not coming in for the attack, but rather seemed to be yelling urgently.
Arnau watched with a maelstrom of conflicting feelings as Bochard made a desperate lunge forward in his saddle, throwing out his shield. An arrow struck it with a thud, punching right through. A second thumped into the emperor’s horse, and Arnau realised that Bochard had almost certainly just saved Doukas’s life. The archers were running now, their ambush foiled, though they made it little more than a hundred paces before snarling Warings reached them, pulverising both with half a dozen killing blows apiece.
Free now of danger, the emperor’s party hurtled on towards safety. The emperor’s horse was wounded and fought against him until one of the Warings with incredible strength and deftness reached across and dragged Doukas from his saddle onto his own horse.
The party raced for the gate, now well ahead of pursuit, the emperor’s wounded horse running off at a tangent on its own.
‘Come on,’ Ramon said. ‘I don’t think we want to risk getting left out here.’
They turned and raced their steeds back to the Blachernae’s gate. They overtook several bands of fleeing men and were grateful as they reached the gate that their red crosses had not marked them as enemies for the fleeing Byzantines.
As they passed beneath the gate and rode into the heart of the world’s best defended city, they reined in and slipped into a side passage once more.
‘Bochard sold them out. All for the sake of an icon,’ Arnau snarled.
‘Yet he saved the emperor’s life,’ Ramon reminded him.
‘Convenient, eh? He ruins the emperor’s chance of success, rips the city’s most sacred protective icon out of their hands, is responsible for the deaths of hundreds and hands success to the Franks. And what will be his punishment? He saved the emperor. He will be a damned hero, Ramon. It makes me sick.’
Ramon nodded. ‘Certainly there will be no stopping him now. And he managed to do it all without once drawing a blade against any of them. He remains, essentially, clear of guilt.’
‘Maybe in your eyes,’ Arnau spat, ‘but in mine he just earned a spiked and flaming seat in the pit of Hell. And I suspect God above will consider him guilty enough to send him there.’
Ramon sighed. ‘I fear that is the last sortie that will be made. Byzantium will now withdraw within the walls once more.’
Arnau nodded. A siege, then.
Chapter 19: The Great Siege
April 9th 1204
Bochard frowned and the two knights folded their arms.
‘Do you intend to “save” each and every relic in the city?’ Ramon asked, a touch of acid creeping into his tone.
‘Do not needle me, de Juelle. This is the city of a thousand relics. It is our duty to preserve what we can. I have done an excellent job thus far, and regardless of your constant reminders, I am fully aware of the increasing danger. However, the defenders of the city know we are not their enemy, and as long as we do not place ourselves in peril with the ordinary citizens, we need fear no trouble from within. I have made certain arrangements to secure our safety among the Crusaders and their Venetian allies should they master the city. We will come to no harm there. We are effectively under the protection of both sides, and are officially not part of this conflict in any way. All that remains is to keep ourselves out of the line of danger, and we should come to no harm.’
‘That sounds more reasonable than it is. The Venetian ships are readying to sail. You must have sent a hundred treasures to Acre already. Where will you dr
aw the line? When will it be enough?’
Arnau snorted quietly. He knew just how many treasures still awaited shipment in the man’s room, and until Balbi’s ship could dock safely, they would likely remain there, too.
‘I do not intend to save every relic, de Juelle. Even if the locals were willing to relinquish their treasures, which many still are not, we simply do not have the resources and time to do so. But I have made it my business to secure the most important and sacred items.’
‘Of that we are well aware,’ grunted Arnau, his face folding into disapproval and earning a sidelong look of warning from Ramon, who added, ‘What artefacts could possibly be worth this danger?’
Bochard’s face twisted as though struggling with himself over something. Finally he bit his lip and planted both fists on the table, fixing the pair with a level gaze.
‘All right, since you seem unwilling to simply take the word of a man whose word is untarnished and under oath of truth. There are two treasures remaining that must be saved from the coming disaster, and it is for them that we must remain.’ He sighed and looked about conspiratorially. ‘At the Holy Apostles lies the shroud of Our Lord, and in the Mangana monastery the spear of Longinus.’
Arnau blinked, remembering that time in the first few days in the city at Holy Apostles when Bochard had asked about those very relics and been told where they were kept. He intended, then, to remove two of the most important relics in all the world from this city. Bochard’s determination was clear. The young knight could still not place their acquisition above the expediency of departure, but the preceptor’s reasons were a little more transparent.
‘I see you understand now,’ Bochard murmured. ‘Naturally the keepers of these relics are loath to part with them, but every day of this worsening situation shakes their resolve a little. I shall secure both. Indeed, I am on the cusp of doing just that. I give you my word that when I have those treasures, we will depart with no further fuss.’
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