Knight with Armour

by Alfred Duggan

  That Christmas of 1098 was not a bad one, as far as food and lodging were concerned; better than the hungry winter of 1097 and at least as good as that of 1096, which had been spent in well-supplied winter-quarters in Italy. But the pilgrims could not help being dissatisfied. Even if they started back at once they would have been away for three years, while their rights were invaded by both tenants and lords at home; and they seemed to have accomplished very little in return for all the thousands of dead whose graves were scattered from Dyrrhaccium to the Orontes. It was true that a western state had been founded, or would soon be founded if the council could agree, in Cilicia and northern Syria; and the Greek Emperor had won back, with little fighting, a good many towns in Asia Minor. But the Normans of Italy could probably have done all this by themselves, and it seemed a small achievement for the united forces of Catholic Christendom. Although there were triumphant religious ceremonies in all the reconsecrated churches, and solemn processions to bless the walls that now kept out the enemies of God, it seemed that the Christian cause had gone over to the defensive. There was no longer a united army of the pilgrimage, but a collection of followers of different lords, hating their allies, and quite willing to draw the sword to prove it.

  Roger went to the Christmas feast of the Duke of Normandy, and sat among the lesser knights; Anne sat at a different table among the other ladies, who all went home when the serious drinking began. He knew his companions well enough by now, and was not shy in their company, but their talk began to make him home-sick. All were convinced that this was their last Christmas abroad, and they spoke of what they would find when at last they returned. Occasional news had reached them from the Flemish and English ships that had put in to Saint Simeon since it had been in Christian hands, though laymen did not as a rule write or receive letters others than legal documents.

  “I wonder if I have any villeins left,” said one. “My poor old uncle believes anything that is said to him on oath, and they are quite capable of swearing they are all free men.”

  “In that case you should hurry home,” said another, “before next harvest. ‘Three times makes a custom’, and if they dodge their boon-work next year you will never get them back. It isn’t the tenants that worry me, but my lord. I hold from the Archbishop of Rouen, and now we are under King William. You know how the King treats church property, and I may find that I owe service to some promoted soldier from Brabant or one of the more scandalous clerks in the Chancery. Still, if I can get back to my manor, in a decent climate, where there are full rivers and green grass, I shan’t complain whoever is my lord.”

  “Has anybody any news from Sussex in England?” Roger asked. “My father held there from the unfortunate Count of Eu. He was mutilated for rebellion, but they hadn’t decided what to do with his fiefs when I left home.”

  There was no news from Sussex, but the general opinion was that the King would keep forfeited land in his own demesne, unless he was very pressed for money; also that the vassals of a rebellious lord, even though they had refused to follow him in rebellion, would not be trusted by the royal court. Whatever the laws of England, they had certainly failed in their duty according to Norman custom, and so were unworthy of trust. It was not a family history on which Roger looked back with pride, and on the whole he was glad that he would never see Sussex again. Some other knights intended to live and die in the East, and many of these were still landless, but they hoped to be granted fiefs as soon as the Duke began his return journey. The Prince would need a large army for the war with the Greek Empire that everyone was convinced would come soon, and even if he made some sort of a truce with the infidels he could not trust them to keep it; his castles on the eastern frontier would have to be strongly garrisoned. Nobody spoke of going on to Jerusalem; that idea was quite dead among the Normans.

  Roger drank his full share whenever the wine-pitchers came round, and presently he began to feel sorry for himself. After more than two years in the army, he had learnt to withdraw into self-made solitude and forget the companions who pressed against his sides as he sat at table; he could easily be alone with his thoughts in a crowd, a trick every warrior must learn if he does not want to acquire a hysterical hatred of his own side.

  He thought of the future, which was not at all encouraging. His position was lower in the social and military scale than it had been when he set out; then he had been fully armed and well mounted, now with his little Turkish pony he was halfway between a knight and a skirmishing Turcopole. He looked to a future where he would always be just too poor to take his rightful place on the battlefield, and therefore in the world at large. In Sussex they had all been poor, but it had not mattered very much; there were so many other country knights in the same position, and none of them had attempted to live like the great de Clares at Tonbridge. On the pilgrimage, however, counts, barons and simple knights were thrown together, and subsidies from the Greek Emperor and plunder from the captured towns had sent up the standard of living. He saw that this perpetual nagging worry about the future must always be the lot of landless men; if you had a fief, though you might be poor the land was always there, promising a better harvest next year; and even the poorest free landholder had a position in his lord’s law-court. He must get hold of land soon. Well, the next campaign would solve that problem one way or the other. A page came round with the wine-jar, and he roused himself to get his cup refilled.

  Different songs were always being started up in various parts of the hall, but the trouvères had finished the formal singing to the whole company, and these verses, most of them newly-composed and not yet widely known, were not taken up by the whole body of feasters. There was a great deal of shouting and gesticulation, but no one had yet quarrelled to the point of fighting, and it was unlikely that they would as long as the Duke remained in his place; for a man who drew sword in his presence could lawfully be mutilated on the spot.

  Further down the table, where he could not hear all that was said, a tipsy clerk was boasting about the new benefice he had been given.

  “It’s a fine square stone church with a roof that reaches to the stars, I tell you,” he shouted, “and it was stocked with gold and silver chalices. Of course, all the ornaments had been used in schismatical services, and I don’t know how you are supposed to go about reconsecrating them; so I sold the lot for a very good price, and told my flock that they must buy me proper Catholic ones. Otherwise I shall make sure that their oaths are not valid in the Prince’s new court. You can’t have schismatics and heretics taking oath against honest Christians, can you? Well, I decide who is an honest Christian, and who is unworthy of belief, and I shall see that I am well paid for my services. I am in a more responsible position than the new lord, whoever he will be; for I must tame the souls of these Greeks, while he only keeps their bodies in order.”

  It was not very edifying, but Roger reflected that it was true. The pilgrims would not be able to found an enduring state unless they got the support of the native Christians, and the only way to do that was to make good Catholics out of them. That priest at the lower end of the table (a lower place than his, he noticed with pleasure) might not be the best type of missionary, but the natives would soon come to heel if they found their oaths weighed nothing in the Prince’s court.

  A tough-looking, middle-aged knight sitting opposite listened and guffawed.

  “That drunken old clerk seems to have the right idea, eh, Messer Roger? If these blasted Italian freebooters take all the best fiefs, and I expect they will, damn me if I don’t get myself tonsured and look out for a nice fat job in the Church. That is where the best pickings will be. You’re landless too, aren’t you? You ought to do the same.”

  Roger made some civil reply and returned to his private thoughts. Taking orders would be an obvious solution of his difficulties, for when the pilgrims went home there would be a shortage of Catholic clergy. It might not be a bad sort of life, with plenty of fighting as well as prayer. Then he remembered Anne. Of course,
his marriage made any such scheme impossible. He had drunk enough to be full of self-pity, and for the first time he wished, rather hazily, that he was still a bachelor. His wife was very desirable, but always he must plan for her comfort, when he should be thinking of his own future. Everyone was against him, and he began to cry softly to himself, with mingled home-sickness and general despair.

  After another two cups his mood changed from sorrow to anger, but there was no way in which he dared to show it. He sat hunched up on the bench, twirling the empty cup in his hands, while he silently hated everything; he hated the whole of Christendom, more especially the pilgrimage, the Duke, and all his companions in arms; he even hated his wife. If the Duke was far above his reach, and it was impossible to draw sword in his presence to attack any of these disgustingly cheerful and prosperous knights, he could at least teach Anne a lesson. He cheered up a little when he thought about the row he would have with her as soon as he got back to his hut.

  The drinking continued, and presently all who were still conscious joined in the chorus of the song about Roland at Roncesvalles, which they all knew. At last Roger staggered out into the cold night, after a Christmas party that was long remembered in Syria and Normandy, though he himself had been miserable during the greater part of it. He woke up in the morning in a muddy alley of the camp. He felt very ill indeed, and lurched stiffly to his hut; he could not possibly face Mass on Saint Stephen’s Day, though it was quite a considerable feast, and he fell on his bed, too tired to wash, and longing for a quiet sleep. Anne was looking provocatively healthy and strong, with her head tied up in a napkin while she superintended the work of the Syrian chambermaid. She greeted him with all the deference a wife owes to her lord, but he saw her smiling at his appearance, and he went to sleep in a worse temper than ever.

  For the next few days he had a grievance against her, though he could not always remember the reason why; she, though outwardly polite, paid less attention to his opinions than before. Yet somehow he could not bring himself to quarrel with her in cold blood, and it was difficult to put her faults into words.

  VII. Jerusalem 1099.

  At Epiphany, the 6th of January 1099, the council of leaders met again in the Chapter House of Antioch. The parties were still divided as they had been ever since the autumn; the Italians and the Normans of Italy for Bohemund, and the Provençals for the Greek Emperor; while the rest were undecided. But in one respect the Greek Emperor’s case had weakened; everybody knew of the occupation of Laodicaea, and for the Greeks to hold a town to the south of the pilgrims’ territory seemed to them all to be nothing but aggression and encirclement. This strengthened the party of Bohemund, and put most of the waverers on his side. It looked as though the council would invest him with his principality without further discussion, wind up the pilgrimage, and make arrangements for going home in the spring. However, there was a surprise in store; the Count of Toulouse had been concentrating on the clergy, and everyone who attended Mass that morning, which on such a great feast was practically the whole army, heard an impassioned sermon on the duty of going on at once to free Jerusalem.

  Roger had been in the congregation of Father Yves, who celebrated at a little portable altar in one of the Duke’s pavilions; and as he said to Anne when they came out, it was only what he expected to hear from the Breton priest. But at the great dinner held in the Duke’s hall, in honour of the feast, he realized that everyone else had listened to the same exhortation. The knights were not very interested; preachers were always telling them what ought to be done for the welfare of Christendom as a whole, and they were used to disregarding these commands, unless they happened to fit in with their own worldly interests. It was the duty of preachers to talk like that, and it would be very shocking if they did not, but it was for the great lords to decide what the army would do next. The general opinion was that the Count of Taranto would still get what he wanted, and that they would all be on their way home by midsummer.

  But in the afternoon Roger went to the horselines to see his pony fed, and what he heard there brought home to him that the sermons had made a great impression on the lower orders. Tom the crossbowman was full of it.

  “He told us pretty straight what we had to do, sir. He said there was no special virtue in Antioch, any more than in Carthage or any of those Spanish towns in infidel hands; but Jerusalem is different. He told us that we should lose all the blessing of the pilgrimage if we turned back now, with the Holy Land almost in our reach, and that it was only the covetousness and sloth of the knights, begging your pardon, sir, that was holding us back. He said that since the poor are always more pleasing to God than the rich, if we went on by ourselves Jerusalem would fall to our crossbows and pikes, without any need for the knights with their great swords. It was a very good sermon, sir, and of course there were not many gentry to hear it, for Father Peter is not well-born; in fact, they say his father was a villein.”

  With the accurate memory of the illiterate, the groom was quite prepared to give a verbatim report; but Roger shut him up, for it was easy to reconstruct the whole story from these excerpts. He recognized the type of priest easily enough; a man who had come up in the world, and therefore spent his time attacking his superiors, and praising the virtues of the lower orders. There were many like him in country parishes at home, but it would be a serious matter if they began to incite the foot to disobey their natural leaders. He spoke severely to Tom.

  “I hire you at a weekly wage to look after my horse; if you want to leave me you may, and I can easily get some Syrian to do the work instead. But you are also an oath-bound follower of the Duke of Normandy, and you must obey his lawful commands; or we shall see what you look like on the mutilation-block. As to the foot marching by themselves, remember what happened to those who first set out under Godescalc and Walter the Penniless. You can do nothing without knights in this land of bow-bearing horsemen.”

  “I’m very sorry, sir,” Tom answered, putting his hand nervously to his eyes. “I was only telling you about the sermon I heard this morning. Of course I would like to remain in your service, unless you intend to go home. I mean to stay here till I die.”

  Roger dismissed the man, after making sure that the corn had really been given to his pony, and not kept back for sale later in the market. On the way back to his hut he thought over what he had heard. It was going to be very awkward if the foot became discontented and mutinous.

  When he got back he mentioned his misgivings to Anne, but she was not inclined to take them seriously.

  “These poor silly crossbowmen will never dare to take a line of their own. For one thing they haven’t the slightest idea where they are, and they could never find Jerusalem by themselves if they tried to. Even the great lords have trouble enough getting guides to show them the way to the next town, in this land where everyone speaks an unknown language and the travelling merchants are infidels. If the foot do try to go off by themselves you must ride them down, and kill a few of the ringleaders; but nothing of that kind will happen. They may be reluctant to go home when the time comes; so much the better for us, as we are staying here. We shall be able to pick and choose our garrison.”

  “I am sure you are right, my dear,” he answered. “But it will be rather shaming if they set us a good example which we are unwilling to follow.”

  “Oh, the poor are always setting good examples,” said Anne with a shrug. “They haven’t our temptations in the things of the flesh, and they are too stupid to think out pleasant ways of sinning.”

  “That is quite enough of that, on Epiphany Day especially. But I know what you mean. I had thought of warning the Duke that there may be trouble coming; but I expect he will have heard all about it, and anyway it will blow over with-nothing worse than talk. I shall go into town now, and listen for news outside the Chapter House. The council meets to-day, and it’s time they decided something.”

  But he was late. As he passed through the Duke’s Gate he saw a rapidly-growing crowd in fron
t of him, pushing round a crier who was giving out some announcement. Evidently the council had come to a decision, and it was being published to the whole army. He saw a young knight he had spoken to sometimes at the Duke’s table, and called out an inquiry.

  “News enough, my friend,” answered the other. “Count Bohemund has been given his princedom in absolute sovereignty.”

  “Well, we all expected that, though perhaps not quite so quickly,” Roger interrupted.

  “Yes, but that isn’t the half of it. The Count of Toulouse was in a furious rage, of course, and he made a very violent speech. He says he will take the Provençals south on the Jerusalem road a week from to-day, even if no one else comes with him. That got them all excited, and God knows what will happen next. The Duke hasn’t made up his mind, and we don’t know whether we march or not.”

  Without waiting to hear more Roger hurried back to the camp. So the split had come at last; now he must talk over his plans with Anne. As usual, this exciting news spread faster than a man could walk on foot, and Anne knew all about it when he reached her. She had already made up her mind, and told him quite calmly what he must do.

  “Go to the Prince of Antioch in the morning and see what sort of promise you can get out of him. And it would be as well if we moved into the town as soon as possible. There may be fighting, and the quicker we join his following the better.”

  The advice was sound, but it was going a little too fast for Roger, as he pointed out.

  “I am afraid I am still the Duke’s man, my dear, until he definitely decides to go home. I can’t leave his camp now, when the leaders are quarrelling and may come to blows at any moment; this is just the time when he wants every one of his men to follow him loyally. It is quite possible he will make some bargain with the Prince, and sell his support for land, or even for a sum of money. That would be the sensible thing, though perhaps it’s not quite in Duke Robert’s tradition. But I will certainly go and see the Prince, and find out what he has to offer me.”