by Paul Doherty
‘Hugh speaks the truth,’ Theodore confirmed. ‘We cannot lay siege to all five gates.’
‘So the Turks can come and go as they please,’ Imogene declared. ‘Either through one of those main gates or through the postern doors up in the hills that we cannot guard.’
‘Could we cross the Orontes?’ Eleanor asked.
‘No,’ Theodore replied. ‘The Turks would hurl missiles at us, launch sorties and trap us against the river or the wall. Moreover, that stream as well as the Orontes turns the ground very marshy, ill-suited for a camp especially as winter approaches, when the rains and snow will soon swell the waters.’
‘Think!’ Hugh plucked the chart from Simeon’s fingers. ‘Antioch is like a sprawling garden that can only be entered from the north whilst those inside may leave by a number of routes.’
‘Then why besiege it?’ Beltran asked. ‘Why not just go home?’
‘God will help,’ Peter Bartholomew declared.
‘With what?’ Beltran jibed.
‘His help!’ Peter Bartholomew’s shout sent the birds fluttering above them. ‘He will help! He will send his angels.’
‘I sincerely hope so,’ Beltran whispered, though loud enough for the rest to hear.
Eleanor realised the coming siege would be a crisis. She had a deep sense of oppression and found herself going more often to Alberic or Norbert to be shriven. These men of God, however, were resolute in their belief that the army would eventually be victorious. Both encouraged Peter Bartholomew’s increasing urgency to describe the visions of the night.
The Army of God prepared itself and moved down towards Antioch. A brief but brutal foray was launched to capture the so-called Iron Bridge, which forded the Orontes to the north-east of the city and controlled the road to Aleppo and Damascus. A savage mêlée ensued, with the Franks forming testudos to take the fortress commanding the bridge. Eventually it fell, and the Army of God moved into the foothills leading down on to the plain of Antioch. They deployed before the city during the last week of October, just before the Feasts of All Saints. Camp was pitched and Eleanor rode out with commanders of the Poor Brethren to view the city’s defences. These seemed absolutely formidable: a range of turrets and towers above which the green sheen of orchards shimmered. Hugh and Theodore’s description was perfectly accurate. The Orontes twinkled in the sun; on the other side of it lay a stretch of marshy land, then that wall with its massive towers, one either side of all five gates. Above these frontal defences rose the peak of the highest hill which, Eleanor learnt, was called Silpius; from that soared an impregnable citadel with a commanding view of the countryside on all sides.
The Army of God immediately moved to besiege some of the gates. Bohemond, supported by Robert of Flanders, set up camp before St Paul’s Gate on the far east of the city. Raymond of Toulouse encamped in front of the Dog Gate, Godfrey of Bouillon before the Gate of the Duke. Bridge Gate and the St George Gate, however, not to mention the Iron Gate, the heavily fortified postern door at the rear of the city, were left unguarded; the Franks simply lacked the men to besiege these as well. The Army of God glared at the obstacle before them whilst the Turks beyond the walls stared back. Debate raged fast and furious. What was to be done? A great council was convened. A large pavilion plundered from the enemy was erected, the ground beneath it covered with looted prayer carpets. Godfrey of Bouillon was given the chair of state, beside him Adhémar of Le Puy in full episcopal robes. Special stools were arranged for the rest: Hugh of Paris; the yellow-haired giant Bohemond; Robert of Flanders, constantly stroking his own face; Robert ‘Short-breeches’, Duke of Normandy, flushed as ever, one hand on the buckle of his war belt, the other grasping a goblet of wine. Next to these sat their Greek adviser Tacticius, his false metal nose gleaming in the sunlight. Count Raymond, grey-faced and sweat-soaked, after recovering from his malignant contagion, opened the debate. Behind him Hugh and Eleanor were given places of prominence to witness what happened. In the end, nothing did. Count Raymond advised a swift, brutal assault on the city but the rest declared they would wait. The council meeting broke up and everyone drifted away to pursue their own gains.
A strange period, as Eleanor wrote in her chronicle, as if it was a holy day during a festive season. The Turks were locked up in Antioch so the Army of God was free to go on a foraging spree of plunder and rapine, scouring the surrounding countryside for food, wine, women and livestock. For two weeks they gobbled the rich fat of the land. The entire camp was given over to revelry and drinking. They almost forgot Antioch until the Turks struck, sallying out in swift, savage raids. They left by the Iron Gate at the rear of the city, seized the heights above Bohemond’s camp near St Paul’s Gate and poured down a heavy hail of arrows and other missiles. To bring the battle to the enemy, Bohemond retailiated by building a tower he named Malregard, or Evil Look, to protect his position, whilst Duke Godfrey constructed a bridge of boats across the Orontes to reach the Gate of the Duke. Meanwhile, Tancred took the heights above the St George Gate and bided his time.
The siege now began in earnest. The days of revelry were over. The Army of God had plundered vineyards, pits of grains and orchards, their trees bending heavy with fruit. Now, as the winter rains lashed in, the countryside was stripped bare of produce. The Turks released Armenians into the camp to act as spies but kept their wives and children as hostages to fortune as well as to war. If any of these spies were caught, Bohemond had them paraded before the walls and summarily decapitated. The Turks responded just as cruelly. The Armenian patriarch who sheltered in the city was taken up on to the ramparts and hung upside down over the battlements, where the soles of his feet were beaten with rods. Frankish prisoners were also exhibited on the walls before being decapitated, their heads flung by catapults into the camp. Eleanor was one of those deputed to collect such grisly objects and wrap them in linen for decent burial. She did so carefully even as she wondered about the cry of ‘Deus vult!’ and the will of God. One burial particularly haunted her, that of Adelbaro, Archdeacon of Metz. He had gone into the woods near Bridge Gate to play dice with a young woman from the camp. They regarded it as a festival day, taking wine, fruit and bread. A Turkish troop burst out of the city and invaded the orchard, driving out all who sheltered there, including Adelbaro and his sweet maid. Both were captured and taken back into the city. Just before darkness fell, Adelbaro was dragged up on to the battlements and decapitated, whilst the young woman was publicly stripped and repeatedly raped, her cries ringing out through the darkness. At dawn she was stabbed and her head was cut off. Just as Father Alberic was finishing Mass, the whoosh of a catapult cut across his blessing and the severed heads of the pair were hurled into the camp. They bounced along the ground, then stopped, objects of horror with their gaping mouths and startled eyes. Theodore, Eleanor and Simeon collected them in linen sacks and buried both together in a hole beneath a pile of rocks, whilst Alberic sprinkled holy water with his asperges rod. Afterwards Eleanor sat and sobbed in her tent as Simeon the Scribe, anxious about his mistress-sister busied himself over this task or that. From outside came the sound of more catapults delivering their gruesome burdens. Shouts and cries echoed. Somewhere a monk began to chant the hymn ‘In Cruce Christus Dominus Vincit Mundum’ – ‘On the cross Christ the Lord Conquered the World’.
Eleanor listened to the words and began to laugh. What conquest? she reflected. What world? She lay down on the cot bed, crossed her arms and stared at the light pouring through the tent flap. She recalled the prophecies of Peter Bartholomew about the Apocalypse. Were they all part of that Apocalypse? Was she really dead and living in hell? What had all this cruelty to do with the cross of Christ? She, Hugh, Godefroi and the rest were no better than babbling babes; they’d had little inclination of the bloody cost of this undertaking. As if mocking her, Eleanor heard the whoosh of catapults, the cries of the besiegers, followed by shouts from the archers closer to the walls; above all this rose a Turkish voice chanting a prayer. Eleanor knew what was
happening. In revenge for the execution of the archdeacon and his mistress, more prisoners were being herded down to the river bank to be executed. Eleanor began to shiver, then burst out crying. Imogene came in and crouched before her. Eleanor just stared back. She was not ill, she assured herself; in fact she felt as if she could perceive everything most clearly. She gazed at the Jewess so determined to bury her parents’ ashes within the precincts of the Holy City. Eleanor could understand that. Yet even Imogene had changed. Jerusalem did not concern her now; only Beltran. He had become Imogene’s life; her second, or even first reason for being here. Over the last few months Imogene had distanced herself. Sometimes Eleanor would catch the woman staring curiously at her, but she very rarely talked about Beltran, though she often tried to draw Eleanor about what might happen once Jerusalem was taken. Eleanor had ignored her questions, being more concerned with the present than any future plans.
Eleanor continued to lie there, staring into the middle distance. Imogene offered her some wine. Eleanor refused, so Imogene left. Simeon the Scribe, crouching in the corner, crept out to fetch Hugh, who came and sat beside his sister. He coaxed her to drink the wine Imogene had poured. Eleanor did so and felt her body being warmed. She drew a deep sigh, sat up and then attempted to stand. Hugh told her to stay.
‘It’s nothing,’ Eleanor murmured. She put her head into her hands, staring down at her battered ox-hide boots caked in yellow mud.
‘It must be something,’ Hugh insisted.
‘It is.’ Eleanor forced a smile. She gestured at the tent flap. ‘Brother, the killing, the blood, the revenge, the agony, the pain. Is this really God’s work? Are we here so that Bohemond can carve out a kingdom? You’ve heard the rumours. Bohemond wants Antioch for himself.’
‘It is necessary.’ Hugh’s voice was fierce and resolute. ‘Sister, what we do now is truly filthy. I know that. Godefroi and I have been talking. We have taken a great oath. If the Lord delivers Jerusalem into our hands, if our lives are spared to achieve that, if we can look upon the Holy Face, then we will found a holy order of poor knights who will take the vows of monks and dedicate themselves to protect God’s people.’
Eleanor hid her smile. The fire in Hugh’s heart only burned stronger; he was no longer talking to her but preaching his own private Crusade.
‘What you see here, Eleanor, is the truth,’ he continued. ‘This so-called Army of God does include men and women of vision, though many are here to indulge their filthiest passions.’ He blinked, pausing for breath. ‘I speak not only of the likes of Jehan the Wolf and his lieutenants, Gargoyle and Babewyn, but also of our leaders. Nevertheless, here before the city of Antioch, God will purge them all.’ Still absorbed in his own dream, Hugh patted her hand and left the tent.
Eleanor laughed quietly to herself.
‘As the child,’ she murmured, ‘so the man; as the tree, so the branches.’
‘Pardon, mistress-sister?’ Simeon the Scribe scrambled to his feet, face all concerned.
‘Hugh.’ Eleanor spoke over her shoulder. ‘Ever since I can remember, he has been the preacher and I have been his congregation.’ She walked to the entrance of the tent, pulling her cloak closer about her. As she lifted the flap, she almost walked into Theodore, who grinned and stepped back.
‘I heard you were ailing.’ He smiled and extended a hand. ‘You wish to walk?’
Eleanor agreed, and they went out into the frenetic bustle of the camp. Under iron-grey skies, tents and bothies were being erected. Carts were being pulled across the narrow thoroughfare to block any attack by enemy horsemen. Camp fires spluttered, cauldrons bubbled. People stumbled about dressed in the now common colours of brown and grey. A blacksmith was trying to fire his forge. A group of Saxon mercenaries were sharpening their swords on a whetstone. A knight in rusty chain mail led his thin-ribbed horse carefully through the camp, picking his way around ropes, pegs and mounds of refuse. Smoke billowed and swirled. The cold breeze blew the various smells: the stench of the latrines and horse lines mixing with the odours of sweat, leather, burning wood and roasting meat. The Beggars’ Company had gathered around a cart, eager to share the plunder it brought.
Eleanor and Theodore walked in silence down to the edge of the camp where the standards and pennants fluttered. Eleanor stared at the slight ridge of land that rose before falling down to the Orontes. On the near bank lay a heap of corpses, blood spilling out from their severed necks. On the ridge above it stretched a long row of poles; each bore the severed head of a Turk, positioned where it could be seen easily by the defenders of the city. Eleanor shivered. Theodore put his arm about her shoulder. She did not resist.
‘It’s only beginning,’ he whispered. ‘We have gorged ourselves after our hunger upon sweet bread, figs, fruit and wine. People think this is the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey. Eleanor, fresh horrors are about to emerge. We’ve plundered the countryside bare. Constantinople is an eternity away. We’ve bathed in pools, occupied plundered houses, but now what?’
‘Deus vult!’ she whispered. She turned, freeing herself from his grasp, and stared full at him. ‘Do you really believe that, Theodore? That God willed this, the sickness, the savagery, the fighting, the blood, the severed heads, the catapults? Look at poor Adelbaro and his mistress playing dice in an orchard. Was that what God intended?’
‘I don’t know.’ The Greek’s usually merry eyes were now black and hard. ‘Eleanor, I believe in the truths of our faith, that Christ the Lord is God incarnate, but also that real religion is a matter of the individual soul, the mind,’ he tapped his head, ‘nothing else. In here, in our minds, our souls, we have Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre and Calvary. Here we have the Sacred Face. If we cannot worship Him in our own inner sanctuary first, then what is the use of searching for something else?’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve just learnt that!’
Eleanor remembered his words as the siege tightened and the Army of God bayed like a pack of ravenous wolves before the walls of Antioch. November came in a flurry of sleet and rain. The ground turned soggy underfoot. A creeping fear seized the camp. Count Raymond had spoken the truth: the city should have been assaulted immediately. Now everything had changed. Yaghi Siyan, the protuberant-eared, white-headed Governor of Antioch, had perceived the weakness of the besiegers and sent hasty messages to Aleppo and Damascus pleading for help. He also dispatched his horsemen in brutal forays through the various gates to plunder and ravage the Army of God. The Turkish archers, in gleaming breastplates and colourful robes, rode swift-footed ponies, bows pulled back, arrows notched ready to drop a deadly hail into the enemy camp. At night the misery continued, the Turkish catapults hurling fiery missiles into the tents. The pain turned into agony. Heavy rains swelled the Orontes. Icy sleet pounded the sodden, thinning tents, rotting bowstrings, spoiling rugs and carpets, polluting food stocks. Eleanor did what she could to assist. She filched, begged and scoured the camp, then she cooked and broiled the morsels into the most savoury messes.
Eleanor now regretted what she called her miasma of fear. She drew strength especially from Theodore. Instead of talking about the siege, he chattered constantly about his own dreams of a whitewashed villa set in vineyards with orchards full of pears, apples and almonds alongside fields burgeoning with millet and wheat. The Greek won Eleanor over with his vision of life, of ordinary things, peace and stillness. Eleanor reflected and vowed that she would come through this nightmare to find her own salvation. What could misery and despair achieve? Tomorrow always brought new hope. So she struggled along with the rest, even boiling leather straps to fashion a weak soup. She foraged with the other women, grubbing for shoots and roots, anything that could be cooked in boiling water.
Advent came. Bohemond planned a great foraging expedition to bring in supplies. It ended in disaster. His company was ambushed even as the rest of the army were attacked by Turkish horsemen; they streamed into the camp, slicing and cutting, casting firebrands and loosing flame-edged arrows into the tents. Eleanor, n
ow resolute, grasped a pike and fought alongside the other women. What did she care if Christmas had come and gone? Here was her life, squelching in mud, pike out, jabbing at horsemen in billowing robes who thundered past her. Nevertheless, when the attack ended, wise-thinking heads brought important issues to the fore. Bohemond had left to forage and been ambushed. At the same time Yaghi Siyan had quickly learnt that Bohemond was absent and dispatched his raiders to wreak hideous damage in the camp.
‘Strange,’ people murmured, ‘how the infidels were so closely informed about what was happening.’
The new year of 1098, as Eleanor reflected in her chronicle, brought little cheer. The portents for the future looked dismal. The threat of total and absolute failure swept the camp. Eleanor realised it might all be coming to an end but took comfort in the belief that she had done her best. She could do no more, so she and Simeon spent their time chronicling the past and ignoring the future. She wished Hugh and Godefroi would visit her, but they had become virtual strangers, until one January night when Hugh swept into her stinking goatskin tent, and asked her and Simeon to join a secret council convened by Count Bohemond. At first Eleanor objected, but Hugh grasped her by the shoulders.