by Simon Acland
Sickened, I turned back towards the wagon, to see the Duke watching me with a face of fury.
“What are you doing, you halfwit? What do you think will happen if they all realise that we have a supply of water here? As like as not we’ll have an outright mutiny on our hands. If you go near that wagon again I’ll have you strung up. And see – your monkish charity has achieved nothing. Nothing.”
Godfrey gestured roughly at the prostrate figure of the women before turning and climbing back onto his horse. After that, helpless, I watched hundreds of other women, children and sick men reach the end of their endurance and just drop as they marched. Perversely, I felt almost relieved when our own water ran out the following day.
Then, every two or three days, if God deigned to answer our prayers, we might cross a small stream oozing out of the dry hills. Each was quickly trampled to mud by desperate men, all now fending only for themselves, so that those behind had to stumble a distance to either side of the main trail to find a place to drink. I lay down with the others to try to wet my cracked and darkened tongue, desperate to slake my thirst and to refill my skin bottles even with that sandy brown liquid. When the water had run out I followed the example of others and cut twigs from the thorn bushes that were the only vegetation for miles around, chewing them to extract a little bitter moisture. Then I turned to drinking my own urine. Ashamed at first, I stood aside from the line of march, trying to fill my water skin with a few spurts from my parched body. Surreptitiously, I poured the filthy liquid back down my throat, gagging on the sour salty taste which became more acrid still as my body dried up. Then I had no piss left.
The heat of the July sun was so intense that I found my helmet and mail too hot to touch. Only the night gave any respite from the heat. I threw myself to the ground where I stood, exhausted, when the sun dipped behind the hills to my right, to rest for what seemed like only a short time before that merciless orb rose again over the desert to start its cruel cycle. Soon, Godfrey gave the order to march at night and to rest by day. Then I lay dozing in the terrible heat, half dead in whatever shade I could create by spreading my cloak over the thorn bushes.
When we halted at dawn after a night’s march, Bishop Adhemar led the army in prayer, and on the Lord’s Day he inspired us by celebrating Mass and delivering a rousing sermon. He reminded us how Our Lord spent forty days and forty nights in the desert alone with Satan’s temptations, and told us how honoured we should be to be sharing His privations. I might have cried with confused emotion if I had had any moisture left in my body.
The suffering of our poor horses was truly terrible to behold. Before long they were all too weak to carry their riders. Knights had to dismount and walk along leading their animals behind. Many horses just collapsed and died by the road. When that happened they were quickly butchered, even before they were quite dead, and their meat fought over by desperate men whose discipline had long since snapped. Those lucky enough to win a morsel moved a safe distance away to chew it raw, not so much to stave off the pangs of hunger as to provide their parched bodies with some precious moisture. I saw other knights whose horses were still alive bleeding them and drinking their blood. I swore that I would not do that to the fine steed which had carried me so far, but I cracked after another day under the burning sun. Just before setting out at nightfall I had a groom hold my mount’s head while I slit a vein in his neck. He rolled his eyes and whinnied feebly in fear and reproach. With a mixture of greed and revulsion I gulped down about a pint of the glutinous liquid, retching at its salt-sweet taste and thick consistency, but forcing it into my shrunken stomach. The following afternoon my poor beast could go no further, however hard I tugged on his leading rein, and he lay down and died. I turned away, unable to bear the sight of him being dismembered, and I could not bring myself to fight my fellows for a handful of his scrawny flesh. Without a horse, I felt that I was no longer a knight, and staggered sorrowfully forward no better than a common footsoldier. The creatures which best survived this march were the sheep and the goats. Like the horses, most of the mules and donkeys died, so these lesser animals – even dogs – were hitched in their stead to the baggage carts and laboured along. If they had been unable to perform this task they would have been slaughtered quickly for the blood in their veins.
Lest I made things worse, I tried to put the anger I felt at God out of my mind and prayed instead for deliverance. And at last I could acknowledge that my prayers were answered. Gradually the landscape became greener and less barren. In the distance a city or town could be made out. A ragged cheer rose from the van of the army. This, at long last, was our goal, the ancient Roman town of Iconium. Godfrey dispatched scouts who rode gingerly towards the city walls on such horses as remained; our men were in no shape to attempt to storm the fortifications and I prayed that we might enter unimpeded. The scouts returned, reporting that the city was deserted. It seemed that the entire population had fled with all their moveable possessions. However, the fugitives could not take with them the River Meram and the delightful orchards on its banks. Here at last was water, fresh and sweet. The discipline which had begun to crack during the march now broke completely as men threw themselves into the shallows and drank greedily. I stripped off with the rest of them and let the cool water wash over my wasted body.
Water and rest rapidly restored our health and morale, and we were able to take stock. Our greatest concern was the lack of horses, for barely half our knights still had mounts. When a few horses were found, they were traded at exorbitant prices. At least Godfrey had money enough from his share of the spoils of Dorylaeum to ensure that his close retinue were remounted, and, a knight once more, my spirits began to rise. I tried to put behind me all that I had seen, and to stop searching for reasons for all that I had witnessed. A few days after reaching Iconium I felt cheerful enough to be pleased when Godfrey proposed some sport.
“We could do with some more fresh meat, Hugh. I am sick of stringy goat. Let’s ride up into the hills over there and see what game we can find. Do you remember that first hunt we had together? You speared my boar. This time I will show you how to do it.”
With half a dozen fellow huntsmen, we equipped ourselves with lances and short bows and rounded up a small pack of powerful hounds from the dogs which had survived the desert. The most promising direction appeared to be to the East, towards the thick woods covering the base of the two dead volcanoes named for the Holy Apostle Saint Philip and Thecla, the chaste virgin disciple of Saint Paul. I felt exhilarated to be riding unencumbered for once by mail, the breeze blowing through my unhelmeted hair, and the sun pleasantly warm though my clothes instead of boiling me in the cooking pot of my metal skin. A gentle wind blew in our faces down the river valley, and the hounds soon picked up a scent. As they gave tongue, I put spurs to my horse. For the first time since the downhill ride at Dorylaeum, I filled with youthful exhilaration and excitement.
A few minutes’ hard gallop and we came up on a herd of deer, bounding in front. They were slighter than the harts I was used to from home, and their ruddy backs were scattered with white spots. Black-striped white tails bounced up and down as the scattered animals sprang over the undergrowth to escape the hounds. The slowest, a doe, was caught and pulled down. Two huntsmen leapt from their horses to stop the dogs tearing their prey to pieces. Able to shoot now without risking the hounds, I loosed off at the escaping herd and to my great satisfaction saw one of the small stags fall, my arrow quivering in its shoulder.
Godfrey was delighted and gave orders for two of the huntsmen to strap the deer to one of the spare horses. “A good start, eh Hugh? Look at these pretty little spotted creatures. That was no mean shot of yours. I wonder what we’ll come upon next?”
Then we rode on. As the ground rose slowly into the foothills of the conical mountains, it became rougher and rockier. The hounds found another scent, and bounded forward out of sight, for the steeper ground now made it harder for the horses to keep up. This time their growls gave
away that the game was something bigger.
Indeed, as I came galloping up I saw that the hounds held a bear at bay at the base of a rocky cliff. The beast had reared up on its hind legs. The hounds leapt at it, trying to sink their teeth into its thick throat. It swatted them away with round swipes of its clawed arms. One was already down on the ground, gasping its last as blood bubbled through a rent in its neck.
Spear at the ready, Godfrey spurred his horse forward. On that first hunt with me his mount had stumbled as he was leaning forward to strike. Luck was still not with him, for now the girth of his saddle suddenly snapped. This time Godfrey’s spear found a mark, not in the bear’s heart as he had aimed, but in its upper arm. Godfrey rolled helpless to the ground right at its feet as his horse galloped away, free of the weight of rider and saddle. Ignoring now the dogs, with roars of pain the bear swiped at this new and seemingly more dangerous enemy. I leapt down but before I could drive it back, it had torn at Godfrey. Even with three men threatening it with spears, the bear proved a good match. It parried my angry feints with the practice of a skilled swordsman. The first time I penetrated its guard I failed to drive the spear through its tough hide, just pricking it so that it bellowed more furiously. Finally I managed a low thrust under its rib cage into its vitals and my companions were then able to finish the creature off.
I quickly turned my attention to my stricken master, the exhilaration of the chase and the fight rapidly ebbing away. Blood poured from a deep wound in Godfrey’s loins where the four razor claws on the bear’s right hand had torn through clothing and into the flesh below. Under his blond beard and moustache, his face was still white with shock but the pain was hitting him and he began to moan in agony. With my dagger I cut strips of cloth from my cloak and used them as bandages to stop as much of the bleeding as I could. More strips of cloth then served to tie together some boughs, fashioning a rude litter.
I gathered up Godfrey’s saddle to see if it could be repaired to hold one end of the litter. It was my turn to go pale. Surely that girth had not just snapped of its own accord? The break was too straight and clean. I could see that the leather strap had been deliberately two-thirds severed by some sharp instrument. At the moment of greatest pressure, when Godfrey was leaning forward to kill the bear, it had been unable to hold his weight, and had broken. My suspicion immediately turned towards Baldwin and Bagrat. They must have committed this act of sabotage themselves, or bribed some groom to do so. Their plot could scarcely have worked out better. My mind began to race. Automatically I played my part slinging the litter between two horses. We lifted Godfrey onto the litter as gently as we could, nevertheless struggling with his weight and provoking awful curses and groans of pain. Our mournful cortege then plodded its way back to camp, in low spirits and in utter contrast to the excitement of the outward chase.
Godfrey was popular with his men and the news of his wound spread despondency through the camp. His broken body was taken to his tent and laid down on a mattress. He was given wine to drink to numb the pain and help him to sleep. The surgeon then pulled back the rough bandages that I had used in his attempt to staunch the flow of blood, causing Godfrey to cry out in pain. I gasped too when I saw the depth and rough edges of the wounds across both his upper thighs. On one side, his flesh was cut back to his white leg bone. And in between, his testicles hung half severed. The surgeon shook his head grimly and crossed himself.
“My God, it is bad. And bear’s claws carry poison. He’ll be lucky to live. For sure he’ll not sire any children now.”
He poured wine across the wound, making Godfrey scream again. I held down my master’s shoulders while the surgeon sewed the edges of the wound together with fine silk thread, provoking more moans and pleas for the pain to stop.
“We may need to bleed him later. I expect yellow bile to pour from the wounds and we’ll need to reduce his moist humours to balance it.”
Mercifully, Godfrey passed into unconsciousness. I sat up beside him, occasionally wiping sweat from his brow, trying to sooth the tossing and turning of his unsettled sleep. He had treated me well and I felt affection for him. His flashes of anger and bad temper were always rapidly erased by his innate geniality and zest for life. I wondered what would happen to me if, God forbid, he were to breathe his last. Perhaps Godfrey’s alliance with Bohemond would hold, and I could pass into the Norman’s service. But perhaps instead I would fall into Baldwin’s power, and I shuddered to think what might happen then at the hands of the loathsome Bagrat. So I sat and tended Godfrey, keeping a weapon close to hand against any attempt to complete the job, and prayed.
Godfrey was not the only one suffering in the camp that night. The beautiful Godehilde had survived the desert but was now in the grip of a terrible fever, and the doctors despaired of her. Their usual remedy of bleeding had failed to rid her of her bad humours and she was becoming weaker and weaker. At first it struck me as a strange symmetry that the woman whose voluptuous looks had been the root cause of the rift between the brothers now lay in mortal danger at the same time as her improper lover. Then I wondered whether her state was really a coincidence, or whether Baldwin had taken his revenge simultaneously on his wife and her lover. Perhaps Bagrat’s supply of poison had not after all been exhausted in Godfrey’s wine.
It was as part of a sorry party that I travelled forward, this time not proudly in the van of the army, but with the sick and the wounded just ahead of the rearguard. I rode watchfully beside Godfrey’s litter, which was covered by a canopy to protect him from the sun but open at the sides. The Duke tossed and turned, passing in and out of consciousness, muttering in his delirium about his home, the green lands of Bouillon, the fresh fish-filled River Semois winding between its hills. His crazed nostalgia made me ache too for the verdant woods and fertile fields of my homeland, and to long that I could somehow turn time backwards. Thankfully, at least, this part of the journey was easier than the terrible march through the desert. We now passed almost due east, through land that was somewhat less arid, and we had anyway taken care to well provision ourselves with water from the River Meram. The surviving horses and pack animals were freshened by five days of rest with plenty of fodder and drink, so we made good time.
Early in September, after five or six days on the march, scouts brought back menacing news of another Turkish army massing at the town of Heraclea. In spite of this alarm I had time to wonder for which of the Greek hero’s deeds the town was named, remembering with longing my reading of the demigod’s exploits at Cluny. In battle order the vanguard moved forward, now led again by Bohemond and his Normans, only for the word to come back that the enemy had fled without engaging in battle. A cheer of relief rang through the army, and suddenly a great comet rushed through the sky, which many read as a sign from God of His favour. The council of war thus gathered the next day under better auspices. Godfrey showed some signs of recovery. The flow of yellow bile from his wound had subsided and it appeared to be knitting. His fever and delirium were less frequent. But he was still far too weak to stand and underneath his golden beard, now streaked with grey, his eyes were dulled and his face gaunt. He was propped up on cushions in his litter, the canopy removed, to participate in the discussion. Lady Godehilde had been less fortunate, and had perished twisting in agony where she had once writhed in lust. Cold Baldwin looked untouched, his face expressionless and his eyes adamantine. His lack of emotion added fuel to my suspicions of his hand in his wife’s demise. Bohemond, the hero of the hour, entered the council tent, his rude health now a sorry contrast to the weakness of my master, where once they had been so similar. And in spite of their shared birth year, Bohemond now seemed a good ten years younger.
“So the Danishmend Emir had no stomach for a fight,” he boomed, “I hoped for hand-to-hand combat when I charged forward to seek him out, but no such luck. He turned tail with his so-called men and ran like a woman.”
When we had all heard enough of Bohemond’s boasts, the discussion turned to the main bu
siness – by which route should the army travel forward to the City of Antioch? General Tatikios explained that there were two possible roads. The army could turn south and climb the Taurus mountains up to the high pass of the Cilician Gates, the route followed by the Great Alexander on his way to his glorious conquest of Persia, or it could circle back northwards to skirt round the mountains by the towns of Caesarea and Mara to enter the plain of Antioch further east. The Byzantine general argued that the pass was too narrow and too steep and could be easily held by a small group of men against an army. Now that the Danishmends had turned to flight, he urged the longer and easier route. This was supported by Bohemond, cautious in spite of his victory. Godfrey, Count Raymond, who was also litter-bound by illness, Bishop Adhemar and the other Frenchmen all concurred. Tancred, though, dissented, boiling over with resentment harboured towards the Emperor and his men since they had thwarted the sack of Nicaea.
“We listened to you before,” he growled, “and suffered most terribly in that desert as a result. You just wanted to weaken our force and reduce our knights to foot soldiers. Then we could pose no threat to your imperial master. Well, I have heard that there are rich pickings to be had the other way – in the city of Tarsus. I am not going to make the same mistake twice. That is the way I will lead my men. If it was good enough for Alexander, it is good enough for me.”