by Paul Doherty
The People’s Army had expected to travel safely and securely, but whilst crossing the Danube, they were attacked by Patzinacks, Turkish mercenaries, mounted archers from the steppes hired by Alexius Comnenus, Emperor of Constantinople, to serve as police along his borders. A bitter battle ensued, during which German knights on a fleet of rafts attacked a flotilla of Patzinacks and beat them off. They captured some of these mercenaries and brought them before Peter. He immediately ordered their decapitation along the banks of the Danube and left their severed heads tied to the branches of trees as a warning to the rest.
Peter and his army, Beltran explained, then crossed the Danube into Alexius’ territories and reached the city of Nish. Here the imperial governor promised them supplies and safe conduct to Constantinople. However, when some of the more fiery of Peter’s lieutenants discovered that their advance guard under Walter Sans-Avoir had been badly cut up in a forest fight, they turned back to burn and pillage the suburbs of Nish. Imperial police shadowing the People’s Army lost patience, and a furious woodland battle ensued. During this savage mêlée, thousands of Peter’s followers simply disappeared. Afterwards, the cross-bearers continued their march, escorted by fierce mounted archers, who shepherded them as dogs would sheep. However, if any of the marchers wandered off the beaten track, these dogs became wolves, taking heads and fastening the grisly trophies to their saddle horns.
At last, Beltran declared triumphantly, the People’s Army reached Constantinople. The cunning Emperor Alexius had them camped on the eastern side of the city near the Golden Gate and sent out carts heaped with supplies to feed them. Peter’s horde, relaxed and refreshed, immediately turned their attention to the wealth of Alexius’ city. The many thieves and vagabonds amongst them could not resist the temptation to loot; they even climbed on to church roofs stripping off the lead to sell to city merchants. The Emperor decided to move them across the straits known as the Arm of St George into Anatolia, the kingdom of the Sultan of Rhum, Kilij Arsan, who called himself ‘the Sword of the Spirit’. Here the People’s Army rejoined their advance guard under Walter Sans-Avoir who had taken up residence in a deserted fortress near Civetot.
Summer was ending in a golden glow, continued Beltran like a true troubadour; the harvest was ripening, fatbellied cattle and sheep grazed in the meadows. The People’s Army, bereft of Peter, who had stayed in Constantinople, began to have itchy feet and even itchier fingers. Foraging turned into plundering and reaping into rapine as they explored the paths through fertile valleys and well-stocked meadows. Although they did not know it – Beltran held a hand up – they were being closely watched by Seljuk scouts, who soon noticed how disorganised and ill-led the People’s Army had become. The Seljuks waited. The cross-bearers, hungry for plunder, planned a harrying chevauchée, a raid up to the walls of Nicea. They elected a mercenary, Rainald of Bruges, as their leader, and debouched on to the plains, unaware that they were being shadowed by the Seljuks on their nimble ponies, fierce warriors with their long plaited hair, necklaces and earrings; across their chests were lacquered armour plates, whilst from their saddle horns hung quivers and sturdy horn bows. These watched the cross-bearers and bided their time. Rainald led them to Xerigardon, a deserted fortress. Once they had fortified this, the rabble ruthlessly pillaged the surrounding countryside, unaware of how the Seljuks had now circled them.
In a flurry of fierce sorties, the Seljuks forced the People’s Army back into the fort, then cut off their water supply, a well close by the gate and a nearby fountain. According to Beltran, the People’s Army suffered hideous losses. They were now besieged, hunted, harassed and wounded, bereft of water and support and exposed to the late autumn heat. They grew so tormented by thirst they even drew blood from the veins of their horses and donkeys to drink. Some urinated into the hands of others, then supped it. Many dug into the moist ground and lay down, spreading the earth over them to allay the terrible heat. For eight days this agony continued. At last Rainald entered into a treasonable correspondence with the Turks and, in return for his life, agreed to hand over the others. The Turks placed some of their prisoners in a long line and used them for arrow practice; those they favoured were taken back to be sold in the slave markets.
Beltran now had his listeners spellbound. Meanwhile, he continued, back at Civetot, Walter Sans-Avoir and the other captains had heard about this disaster and hastened to help. The mob thronged along the road towards the deserted fortress without any order, although Walter and a handful of knights managed to keep a force of five hundred horsemen together. The Turks watched in astonishment, then trapped the entire army in a valley. Walter was killed in the first foray, seven arrows piercing his body. The Turks had won a great victory. The remnants of the People’s Army fled back along the road. The Turks followed in pursuit and captured their camp, cutting down the Christian sick and enslaving the women. News of the disaster reached Constantinople, but all the Emperor could do was send troops to help those who had fled and hidden in rocky gulleys or caves . . .
The Poor Brethren received all this news with loud groans, cries and lamentations. Eleanor, warming her hands near a fire, heard similar sounds from other parts of the camp and realised that heralds were spreading the dismal news elsewhere. Beltran had not yet finished; his litany of woes continued. Other crusading armies had emerged under the likes of Gottschalk, a German priest so cruel and predatory that the Hungarian king had ordered the total destruction of both him and his army . . .
Eleanor listened carefully. She had read vague rumours about such hideous events in the letters, memoranda and other missives dispatched to the chancery of Raymond of Toulouse. She and Hugh had been well educated by their widowed mother, a sharp martinet of a woman who’d mourned her husband at every waking moment; she had constantly reminded Eleanor and Hugh how God had taken her saintly man in the flower of his youth. She was also determined that both her children should rigorously study their horn books. They graduated on to Latin grammar and syntax, not to mention courtly French and even a few words of Greek. A harsh discipline! Eleanor often reflected on her bruised knuckles. She could still chant the Greek alphabet, as well as the more complex Latin tenses. Such a rigorous education had only drawn her and Hugh closer together, so that they had become like two peas in a pod. Even a drunken husband, the birth of a child who had died shortly afterwards, the upsetting of their world and the preaching of Urban could not shake that.
Once Beltran had finished, Eleanor accosted Hugh, demanding to know whether such terrible news could be true.
‘There is worse,’ he confessed, and took her to Raymond’s chancery tent, where Eleanor, as she later wrote in her chronicle, quickly realised that God was not always with the cross-bearers. Raymond of Toulouse’s clerks had also received dreadful news about Emicho, Count of Leiningen, who had used the call to Jerusalem to unleash a blizzard of hatred against the Rhineland Jews. Emicho truly believed he would be rewarded for his work with a diadem in Constantinople. He first tried his mischief at Speyer but then turned on Mainz and the Jews who hid in the shadows of that great city, locked in their own world, garbed in their grey and purple robes, treasuring their traditions, studying the Torah and celebrating their calendar of feasts. Once at Mainz, Emicho, who believed a red cross had miraculously appeared on his flesh – probably a flea bite – together with William the Carpenter, Vicomte of Melun, viciously attacked the Jews there. The vicomte, a killer to the bone, had acquired his sinister nickname in Iberia because of his passion for hammering spikes and nails into the foreheads of his victims. These two assassins and their cohorts took the trampled corpse of one of their company, buried thirty days previously, and carried it through the city saying, ‘Behold what the Jews have done to our comrade. They have taken a gentile and boiled him in water. They then poured the water into your wells to kill you.’ Violence erupted. Many Jews fled for safety to the bishop’s palace but were later betrayed. Emicho and William seized a leading Jew named Isaac. They put a rope around his n
eck and dragged him through the muddy streets to the place of execution, where they screamed at him to convert and be saved. Isaac signalled with his finger that he was unable to utter a word for his neck was choked off, yet when they released the rope, he said simply, ‘Cut off my head.’ They did so, then encouraged their followers to go on a bloody rampage. They killed about seven hundred Jews, who could not resist the attack of so many thousands. Various letters repeated the same horrors, a litany of hideous acts. Eventually Eleanor could read no more. She handed the documents back to the scribe and, followed by Hugh and Godefroi, left the chancery tent.
Later, Eleanor, Hugh, Godefroi, Alberic and Imogene gathered in a sombre mood for the evening meal of grilled rabbit meat and rastons. They met in the large shabby pavilion shared by Godefroi and Hugh; it reeked of scorched ox-hide, leather, sweat and charcoal. Father Alberic sang grace as Beltran pushed his way in and joined the circle just inside the pavilion’s entrance. Behind him echoed the noises of the camp settling for the night. They all paused at the sound of a wolf howling mournfully at the full moon.
‘A harsh day.’ Godefroi bit into the half-baked bread, made a face and thrust the wine goblet to his mouth.
‘Terrible news,’ Alberic murmured. ‘So many cross-bearers massacred. Peter the Hermit disgraced.’
‘A rabble,’ Hugh countered. ‘They and others murdered Jews, massacring women and children! What has that to do with God’s work?’
‘We will pay for that,’ said Alberic. ‘Innocent blood never goes unanswered.’
‘It’s the fault of our leaders,’ Hugh declared. ‘The bishops, counts and nobles. They should impose order; there must be stricter discipline in God’s Army.’
‘But they are God’s enemies,’ Imogene retorted.
‘Who are?’
‘The Jews. They crucified the Lord. They said His blood should be upon them and upon their children.’
‘But Christ’s blood is meant to cleanse and sanctify,’ declared Hugh.
‘Or punish,’ added Alberic, but his voice lacked any conviction. ‘In truth,’ he sighed, ‘are they any different from us?’
‘The Jews,’ Eleanor asked, ‘or the Turks?’
‘Both!’ Alberic muttered. ‘The Jews? Who are they but God’s children. Who are we? God’s children. Who are the Turks? God’s children, yet still we kill each other for the best possible reasons.’ He glanced round. ‘But are we God’s children? Or is there no God and we are what we are, killers to the heart?’
His companions stared in puzzlement.
‘Father,’ Godefroi asked, ‘do you regret coming?’
‘No.’ Alberic shrugged. ‘I do not regret; just wonder.’
‘But the Turks stole Christ’s fief, His Holy City.’ Beltran leaned forward, his unshaven, cold-pinched face bright in the firelight. ‘His Holiness the Pope says it’s our sacred duty to recover that fief, the Lord’s domain, now in enemy hands, and restore it to its rightful owners. Surely, Father, if someone came to seize my house or your church it would be our duty to regain possession.’
‘The devil rides a black steed,’ intoned Peter Bartholomew, sweeping into the tent and sitting down uninvited. He stared around, eyes all fearful. ‘I have heard the news,’ he continued. ‘The last days are upon us. Soon we shall see even more wondrous signs and listen to heaven-shaking news.’
‘But what is that to us, brother?’ Eleanor asked gently.
‘The Lord Satan sows dissension here where there should be none,’ Peter declared. ‘We have sworn to do God’s work. Is that not right, brothers and sisters?’ No one answered.
Eleanor watched Hugh closely. He had insisted that amongst the Poor Brethren, only the titles ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ should be used, and that each member must recite every day seven Paters, three Aves, two Glorias, the Dirige psalm and the Salve Regina. He had also compelled the Poor Brethren of the Temple to agree that money, plunder and the spoils of battle be shared equally. Discipline would be enforced, any violence against the innocent ruthlessly punished. Eleanor wondered about the Jews; those she herself had met seemed harmless enough, rather gentle, shy and frightened. True, she’d done them little good, but definitely no ill.
‘You know our rules.’ Hugh sipped at his wine. ‘We stand by them. One more thing! Listening to what happened to Rainald. If we are captured,’ he lowered his cup, ‘let us not be cowards, but go to God with pure hearts, yes?’
A murmur of approval greeted his words. Hugh paused as Norbert joined their circle and squatted down.
‘I heard you.’ The monk pushed back his cowl. ‘I was outside,’ he coughed and rubbed his stomach, ‘waiting for my belly to settle. I heard you mention the Jews, the Turks. Do you know what I think?’ He gestured round. ‘We are all killers. No . . .’ He lifted a hand against their protests. ‘Tell me, each of you, have you not lost your temper with a brother or sister and thought you could kill him or her? Have any of you said that?’ The Benedictine’s wrinkled face broke into a smile, lips parted to show blackening teeth. ‘Remember,’ he whispered, leaning forward, ‘the thought is the father of the word, which is the mother of the deed.’
‘But your answer,’ Hugh asked, ‘is that it? That we are all killers?’
‘It’s not an answer.’ Norbert chomped on his gums. ‘Just something I have learned. Killing is about the will – that is what the great Augustine said. I mean . . .’ Norbert’s rheumy eyes stared at Eleanor, and his long fingers went out as if he wished to catch the tendrils of her black hair. ‘If I planned to carry out an attack on your sister, to ravish her . . .’ he playfully thrust his balding head forward; in return, Eleanor pulled an expression of mock-fear, ‘then kill her, would you not have the right, Hugh, to defend her?’
‘I would kill you!’
‘No.’ The monk laughed sharply. ‘I said defend her. The two are quite different. Killing is about the will, what you intend to do.’
‘You are a scholar of Augustine,’ Alberic teased. ‘You hold to his thesis of a just war.’
‘Nonsense!’ Norbert cackled. ‘Oh, I’ve heard of Bonizo of Sutri’s arguments about that, and how the Pope confers titles on warriors such as our glorious Count Raymond to justify their wars.’
Eleanor caught the sarcasm in Norbert’s words.
‘Titles such as Fidelis Filius Sancti Petri – Faithful Son of Saint Peter. Nonsense! The phrase “just war” is a contradiction in terms! How can a war ever be just?’
‘So,’ Godefroi asked, ‘what is your reply? Why are you here?’
‘Why not?’ Norbert retorted. ‘Oh brothers, I do not mock you. None of us knows why we really do anything. Why am I a monk? Is it because I have a vocation to follow the rule of St Benedict? To serve Christ? Or was it to gain advancement and learning? Or because I sickened of listening to my mother couple with her lovers and wished to follow a more chaste life? Why have we come here? I tell you this.’ Norbert’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘There are as many reasons for our pilgrimage as there are pilgrims. We may be crucesignati – signed by the cross – but we are all different. Ask yourselves but don’t judge yourselves. Remember, our lives are taken up not by what we want to do but what we have to do!’
Eleanor pondered on Norbert’s words as she, Hugh and Godefroi walked out across the camp, the silence broken by the neighing of horses, the barking of dogs and the cries of children. Lantern horns gleamed from the poles outside the great lords’ tents. Camp fires flickered and crackled as they were banked down for the night. A cloud of smells greeted them: burnt oil, cooked food, wet straw and sweat, all mingling with the foul stenches drifting in from the latrines.
‘Why are you here, Eleanor?’ Godefroi abruptly asked as they stopped before her tent.
‘Because of you,’ she quipped, ‘and you because of me?’
Godefroi laughed self-consciously and shuffled his mud-caked boots.
‘Our life, as Brother Norbert said,’ broke in Hugh, eager to save any embarrassment, ‘is about wha
t we have to do, or not do.’ He stood, hands on hips, staring up at the sky. ‘I know why I am not here,’ he continued quietly. ‘I am not here to kill innocent men, women and children. I am not here to plunder and pillage, ravage and rape.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I am here because I am here. True, I want to see the wonders on the other side of the world. I want to walk the streets of Jerusalem as Our Beloved Lord did, yet there’s something else . . .’ He shrugged, grasped Eleanor by the arms and kissed her gently on each cheek. Godefroi followed suit, though more awkwardly, then they were gone, their voices shouting farewells through the dark.
Eleanor undid the tent flaps. The lad guarding the tent was fast asleep beside the makeshift brazier. Eleanor roused him and gave him some slices of cheese in a linen rag. Once he was gone, she built up the brazier, tidied the tent and waited for Imogene to arrive. She’d glimpsed the widow woman deep in conversation with Norbert after the meeting had ended. Eleanor recalled Imogene’s words about the Jews. She sat down on a coffer and watched a wisp of mist curl into the tent, thinking about Godefroi’s question. Why was she here? To plead for pardon for the death of her drunken husband? To shake off the guilt of his death and that of her boy child, that glorious little spark of life, that flame that burnt so fiercely yet so briefly in her soul? For Hugh, the brother she adored, father and mother to her? Was it one of these or all of them? Was she part of something she would come to regret? The stories of Count Emicho, William the Carpenter and others revealed terrible savagery. She shuddered at the fate of those poor Jews, yet was she any different from the killers who had butchered them? Surely she was! Nevertheless, Hugh and Godefroi had assured her that once they crossed into the valleys of Sclavonia, fighting would break out, and they too would have to kill.