by Paul Doherty
‘Days of Anger, Days of Fire, Days of Vengeance!’ was the phrase Eleanor of Payens used in her chronicle to describe the furious final assault on the Holy City. A time of deep anguish, of bitter loss and sordid betrayal, yet she wanted to capture it all. She sent Simeon to collect stories and tales that she could then weave alongside her own about that season of blood, of ferocious courage on both sides, a savagery that must have made Satan and all his fallen angels weep. Everyone realised judgement was imminent. The bowl of God’s fury was to be tipped out, but whom would it consume? On the evening of 13 July, the Year of Our Lord’s Incarnation 1099, the Portal of the Temple gathered to break its last bread and share out wine. Norbert said grace. Alberic delivered a brief homily and Peter Desiderius provided one more rendering of his vision of Adhémar of Le Puy.
They had all gathered under a shabby awning to make their peace and prepare. Eleanor, sitting between Theodore and Simeon, did not care for visions. Simeon’s teeth were chattering, as every able-bodied man and woman had been summoned to join the general muster and array at dawn the following morning. Theodore, on her right, sat cradling his sword. He’d given Eleanor a ring, slipping it from his finger on to hers, then pressing her hand close.
‘A token,’ he whispered. ‘If I return, I will reclaim it. If I do not, remember me!’
Eleanor choked back the tears. Now was not the time for weeping. Across the camp fire sat Imogene, staring at her sadly as if regretting the distance that had grown up between them. Eleanor wanted to speak to Imogene one final time before the trumpet sounded and the battle began. Yet Imogene was still hand-fast to Beltran, who continued to act as Count Raymond’s envoy, moving between the two great Frankish divisions bearing letters and messages; Imogene would stay with him that evening. The bread and wine were finished. Hugh cleared his throat, then spoke softly, eyes gleaming, describing how they would muster behind Tancred’s new banner, a red cross on a white background. If Jerusalem was taken, they must avoid any general plundering but assemble around him and Godefroi and follow them, or Theodore if they fell, into the city. Only the chosen few knew what Hugh would be searching for, yet no one questioned him. All realised those walls had first to be stormed and taken.
The night was hot, the moon full, the stars low and intense. Tomorrow would be a different day, and how many of them would gather again? Reminiscences were voiced, memories evoked, stories retold. Eleanor gripped Theodore’s hand as she recalled that cold nave at St Nectaire. Whatever happened tomorrow, she knew she would never return there.
Once Hugh had finished and Godefroi had answered any questions, the meeting broke up. Eleanor and Theodore walked through the camp and sat down on a small dusty hillock, staring out at the lights of the city. Against the starlit sky reared the great siege tower and mangonels. All was ready. The cries of sentries, the blowing of horns, the neighing of horses and the creak of badly oiled wheels fractured the silence. Smoke from camp fires hung in a haze as the last meals were cooked. Here and there hymns and psalms were sung or chanted. People still lined up in dark clusters for their sins to be shriven. As Eleanor stared across, she could make out in the far distance the faint outline of the Herod Gate and, closer to her, that of St Stephen. The attack would be launched against the section of wall between. She lifted Theodore’s hand and kissed the back of it.
‘Swear to me, Theodore, if we survive tomorrow . . .’
He turned, tipping her face back, and kissed her full on the brow.
‘I swear,’ he murmured. ‘If we survive!’
As the first red light of dawn torched the sky, wood creaked and crashed, ropes wound and hissed as the long arms of the stone-throwers hurled their deadly missiles towards the sky. Great boulders soared to smash against the walls of Jerusalem. Crossbows snapped and clicked, their squat black bolts whirling up towards the ramparts. Beneath the horrid sound of battle came the crashing of the ram pounding against the foundations of the outer fortifications. Shouts and battle cries were drowned by the roar of falling masonry. Dust and lime hung in the air, drifting like some deadly snow over siege engines and men. Mailed figures, knights in full armour, clustered behind rows of mantlets and woven shields. Every so often they would edge closer, but progress was slow. Other men, helped by women and children, rolled boulders towards machines or carried quivers of arrows on their shoulders. Swabian axemen and German swordsmen thronged impatiently, shields on their arms, weapons at the ready. On a hill opposite the eastern wall of the city clustered the banners of the lords and their retinues, ladders ready on the ground beside them. Men brushed the sweat from their eyes, peered through the dust and lifted hands against the glare of the sun. They listened to the crash and thud of battle before the barbican, the outer wall, trying to discover what progress was being made. Distant horns clamoured, trumpets rang out, messengers came and went with news that Count Raymond had also begun his assault against the southern wall opposite Mount Sion.
Eleanor listened to Simeon’s gasping reports but she sensed the real battle would begin and end here between the Herod Gate and St Stephen’s. The attackers were still clawing at the barbican. Stonework had been cut, gaps forced, and through these Eleanor and the rest could see the dark, shadowy figures of their enemies. Above them along the battlements thronged others. Now and again arrows flashed down, hitting the earth or piercing men struggling with picks and ropes to clear the debris of the outer wall so that the great tower could trundle forward and seize the advantage created by the ram still pounding away.
Eleanor, Imogene and the other women hurried backwards and forwards bringing skins of precious water for the men to wet their lips or clean the dust from their eyes. A great roar went up just as Eleanor returned with a pannier of water. The siege tower was moving forward. Slowly, great wheels creaking, it edged towards the filled-in moat, crawling towards the barbican. Almost sixty feet high, the tower sloped inwards on three sides. On the fourth side, towards the city, it rose sheer from the ground towards the drawbridge, that precious piece of wood and metal that would give them entry to the city. The tower slowed down. Something had happened. Smoke swirled. The Turks and Saracens now used fire against both the tower and the great ram. Faggots of wood and straw, bound together with iron chains and soaked in oil, were hurled with great force. Balls of fire whirled through the air. Despite the scorching heat of the day, the Franks fought back with axes and wet hides, yet still the rain of missiles fell. Suddenly the tower stopped completely. A great sheet of fire was blazing around the barbican. Men came running back with the dreadful news that the great ram had been fired: drenched in sulphur, pitch and wax, it was now burning fiercely. It could not be pushed forward, but neither could it be pulled back to clear a path for the tower. Orders were issued. Eleanor was given a message and scrambled down towards the fighting line, where Theodore, Hugh, Godefroi and the rest were waiting behind mantlets ready for the wall to be stormed. She delivered her message, demanding that the captain of the ram leave the fighting to receive fresh instructions, then ran back up the hill to the safety of that line of banners.
A short while later a man blackened from head to toe came up beating at his charred clothes and shouting for water. He knelt at Godfrey of Bouillon’s feet and talked tersely in gasping sentences. Godfrey crouched down beside him, feeding him the pannier of water Eleanor had placed there. The man nodded and hurried back. The ram was to be burnt, the attack called off. To the south of the city, Count Raymond’s company had fared no better. They too had pushed their tower against the walls and a hellish battle had broken loose. Catapults on the battlements hurled an avalanche of stones. Arrows pelted down like rain. The closer the Franks approached, the worse it became: stones, arrows, flaming wood and straw followed by mallets of wood wrapped in ignited pitch, wax and sulphur. These mallets were fastened with nails so they stuck in whatever they hit and continued to flare. Despite the intense heat and the ferocious defence, Count Raymond tried to edge his tower closer to the wall, but he too failed. The l
ight began to fade, so the horns and trumpets sounded the retreat.
Eleanor, exhausted, black with smoke, her gown saturated with sweat, her hair charred, returned to her tent. She wrapped a couple of blankets around her and waited for the Portal of the Temple to emerge from the horrors only a short distance away. The attack had failed. All around drifted the shrieks and screams of men, women and children gruesomely injured by the fire. Keening and mourning echoed like some blood-chilling chant. Simeon came in with a wineskin and forced her to take hurried sips before he squatted down beside her and drank greedily. At last the others returned: Hugh, Godefroi, Theodore, Alberic and Beltran, blackened faces furrowed by lines of sweat, hands hardly able to grasp a cup. They tore off their armour, belts, straps and jerkins tossed to the ground, then threw themselves down, desperate for water and wine, anything to prise their lips free from the sticky dust, unclog their throats and bathe their eyes.
Eleanor did her best to help. Theodore, half asleep, murmured where she could find more wine and water, a secret cache buried in his tent. She hurried away and brought it back. For a while they sat drinking and tending to their minor wounds. Eleanor went to the edge of the tent and peered into the gathering dark. Norbert and Imogene were missing. She went back and questioned the rest, but they shook their heads and wearily conceded that they didn’t know. Eleanor forgot her own exhaustion. She glimpsed the pinpricks of torchlight as others stole from the camp to look for their dead, or to plunder them. She tugged at Simeon’s sleeve.
‘Bring a crossbow, a sword and a dagger,’ she whispered.
The scribe looked as if he was about to refuse.
‘Imogene and Norbert,’ she hissed. ‘We cannot leave them out there.’
‘They are dead,’ he retorted.
‘They might be wounded,’ she whispered back. ‘At night, Simeon, the prowlers, two-legged and four, will range the battlefield. Norbert and Imogene have fallen,’ she continued, ‘we feel fortunate to be alive. It’s the least we can do. Anyway,’ she picked up her cloak, ‘I’ll go.’
Eleanor left the tent. She’d scarcely gone a few paces when she heard Simeon cursing and groaning behind her. She stopped, took the battered arbalest and scuffed leather case of bolts from him and went down towards the place of blood. It was a hot, dry night. Nevertheless, even the fierce battle that had raged that day could not silence the constant chant of the crickets and other insects. A night bird shrieked. A dog howled in reply. Eleanor and Simeon approached their own picket lines, where groups of soldiers huddled around fires guarding the precious siege machinery, the mangonels, small rams and that soaring battle tower still reeking of oil, sulphur and charred wood. In the distance a roll of drums echoed from the battlements. Eleanor glimpsed the flickering lights and tongues of flame shooting up above the cauldrons and pots along the ramparts, sure proof that the defenders were vigilant against a possible night attack. Their own picket guards let them pass. Other dark shapes were also sloping down towards the battleground. Eleanor recalled how both Imogene and Norbert had been helpers like herself, carrying water, arrows and messages to the fighters beyond the dry moat. She went back and begged a torch from a group of soldiers, who teased and jeered but handed one over, and she and Simeon entered that ghastly, gruesome field of the dead.
The stench was foul, reeking of blood, burning and that sickening sweet smell of corruption. Corpses littered the ground, sprawled in grotesque shapes. Some, with their eyes stark open, stared unseeingly up into the dark. Others crouched as if resting. Groans and cries shrilled into the night. A group of monks were already trying to drag the wounded away, disentangling them from the dead. The torchlight revealed grisly sights. A man squashed beneath a huge boulder. Corpses with heads, arms and legs severed. Faces with only the eyes intact. The parched earth was sticky with blood. The occasional bold jackal was already nosing at swollen stomachs; dark, dog-like shapes that fled swiftly at their approach. Eleanor stared despairingly around. The dead lay singly or in heaps. A monk came crawling over on all fours like some foulsome creature of the night, yet he proved friendly enough. A Frenchman, he gasped that he was searching for the wounded as well as those who wanted a priest. He murmured a prayer but shook his head at Eleanor’s descriptions of Imogene and Norbert.
Eleanor and Simeon continued their hunt. At times they had to cover both nose and mouth at the foul stench of dried blood, rotting entrails and the ever-pervasive reek of burning flesh. Charred corpses were common, nothing more than shrivelled black stumps of flesh. Simeon retched and vomited. Eleanor ignored his protests and moved on at a half-crouch. She tried to ignore the pallid faces, the eyes all caught in the shock of death. Only a few looked peaceful. They approached a cart burnt to cinders by an incendiary and found Norbert lying on his back, eyes staring glassily. At first Eleanor thought he was sleeping. She whispered to Simeon to bring the light closer, then covered her mouth at the horrid mess the sling shot had caused to the back of the monk’s head, a congealed mass of shattered bone, dried brain and blood. She knelt, head down, making the sign of the cross and whispering the Requiem. Then she glanced around. If Norbert had been killed here, then perhaps Imogene wasn’t far. She crawled across the ground.
‘Imogene, Imogene!’ she whispered hoarsely.
Nothing but silence. She was about to move away when she heard her name being called, a hoarse, dry whisper trailing out of the darkness in front of her. She crawled round the cart. Imogene lay by herself. She had turned on her side and was trying to drag herself forward. Eleanor caught her and cradled her carefully. Imogene sighed. Her hair was all dishevelled, her face sheet white, large dark eyes gazing up, blood spluttering between her lips. She was trembling, trying to keep the veil pressed close to staunch the deep wound in her side.
‘Eleanor,’ Imogene panted, ‘listen . . .’
‘No . . .’
‘No,’ she gasped. ‘Promise me, my parents’ ashes?’
Eleanor nodded.
‘You will bury them and say a prayer?’ Imogene pleaded. ‘Any prayer? If the city falls, do that, in sacred soil in the corner of some shaded garden. Do that, Eleanor, and my vow will be fulfilled. Promise?’
Eleanor tried to reassure her.
‘No,’ Imogene gasped, ‘I’m dying, I know that. I will be glad to be gone. Too much pain, too much hurt! This wound . . . Beltran.’ She spat the name out. ‘He did this. He is not what he claims to be, what he pretends to be. He seduced me, Eleanor, not because he loved me but because of a conversation I had with him oh so long, long ago.’ Imogene’s eyelids fluttered. ‘The night Robert the Reeve left the church and went into the dark, Beltran, I am sure, went after him. I kept silent about it then later teased him. He laughed it off even as he began to court me. You can’t disguise everything, Eleanor, not for two years. Beltran has travelled far and wide. He betrayed himself in small things: knowledge of customs, petty mistakes; he too chattered in his sleep. On occasion he’d go missing and I began to wonder. He changed. The closer we came to Jerusalem, the more he wanted to enter the Portal of the Temple, draw closer to your brother. He wanted to be rid of me, but without creating any suspicion.’ Imogene coughed on the blood seeping between her lips.
Eleanor just stared down at her, a cold, gripping fear curdling her stomach as she recalled Imogene’s questioning of her. Imogene had begun to suspect Beltran of imposture and falseness, and of course Beltran needed Imogene, who lodged with Eleanor. Imogene might learn so much about Hugh, Godefroi and their search for precious relics.
‘Is he the Magus?’ Eleanor asked.
Imogene shook her head in bewilderment. ‘I don’t know what you mean, but I am sure he was the horseman.’ She gasped. ‘I’m sure he was responsible for Anstritha’s death, and for that of Robert the Reeve, who also suspected the truth. So hard, Eleanor,’ she whispered, ‘so callous. He wanted me dead. He had no need of me any more. In the battle today I saw Norbert being struck, I went to help him. Beltran slipped beside me, so swiftly . . .’ She cou
ghed violently, her body shook, her eyes fluttered, then she lay still. Eleanor let her go, placing her gently on the ground. Cries and shouts echoed from the walls. A bundle of fire, flames streaking, was launched from a catapult. It lighted the night sky then smashed into the ground in a burst of fiery sparks. Other sights and sounds came pressing in.
‘Mistress-sister, what shall we do?’
‘We must go back,’ Eleanor declared. ‘We must warn Hugh and Godefroi; we can collect the corpses tomorrow.’ She blessed herself and stumbled back across the battlefield, trying to shut out the hideous images. She felt sick and exhausted. Slowly the two of them crept back towards the sloping ridge leading up to their watch fires. A shape moved abruptly to her right, fast like that of a loping wolf. She ignored it, but then halfway up the sandy, pebble-strewn hill, a shadow moved from behind a gorse bush to block her way. Exhausted, Eleanor sat down, peering through the darkness. Beltran, cloaked and cowled, squatted before her, grasping a Brabantine arbalest. In the juddering light of Simeon’s torch, he looked sinister despite the smile, the casual way he kept the arbalest down, as if he was more surprised than suspicious.