by Jack Ludlow
‘I hope we Apulians still hold the St Paul’s Gate?’ Bohemund asked, looking at that bright red Toulouse banner atop the barbican. ‘Otherwise I feel a squeezing hand upon my groin.’
‘It seems,’ Tancred responded bitterly, ‘that our Count Raymond spent more time securing this gate than in seeking out and disposing of our enemies in the city. Perhaps if he and his knights had attended to that we might have the citadel too.’
The mention of the fortress had Bohemund turning round and craning his neck; above the city flew not only his standard but also the green crescent banner of Yaghi Siyan, which had fluttered throughout the siege and was now the insignia of Shams ad-Daulah. It was as if both were mocking him, telling him that for all he desired possession of the city he still had a long hard fight on his hands to make it so.
‘Come, Tancred, we smell of death and blood. Let us bathe and change before we face our foes.’
‘Is Toulouse now a foe?’
Bohemund pointed at the man’s fluttering standard above his head. ‘By such an act as this he may have rendered himself so.’
No meeting of the Council of Princes, the body set up to coordinate the joint efforts of the Papal Crusade, could be convened before the man who called it into being had said a Mass for victory. In the city of Antioch there was only one location where such a celebration could take place, for it was here that St Peter had founded his first church, carved out of a cave in the side of one of the twin peaks that dominated the city and thus one of the holiest places in Christendom.
For a religion that venerated Jesus as a prophet to rank with Muhammad, it was saddening that the Turks had recently used it as a latrine but that was soon remedied by willing pilgrim hands and the application of vinegar. With blazing candles illuminating the interior and much plain chant from the attendant monks, the papal legate, Adémar de Monteil, Bishop of Puy, had led his dukes and counts into the sacred space.
Raymond of Toulouse was there, carrying his fifty years well, tall and florid of face, never willing to catch the eye of the Count of Taranto, not easy in any case since Bohemund was forced to bend his head in such a low enclosure due to his remarkable height. Equally guarded in such a place, where God could see into their innermost thoughts and tot up their sins, came Count Hugh of Vermandois, brother of the King of France: slim, handsome, blue eyes, golden-haired and with an arrogance to go with a lack of military ability hidden from everyone but himself.
Two Roberts followed: the Duke of Normandy, second son of William the Conqueror, and alongside him the Count of Flanders, his brother-in-law – another relative of that contingent, Stephen of Blois, had abandoned the siege and retired further north to the safety of Alexandretta. Each magnate held their own thoughts masked, aware that following their devotions matters would be brought to the fore that would require them to take a position for what was rapidly turning into a choice of faction.
Only Godfrey de Bouillon, the barrel-chested Duke of Lower Lorraine, seemed unaffected by what was to come, his much battered face alight with devotion. Pious and without any personal ambition other than to reach and take Jerusalem from the infidel, his round face shone with the sheer delight of being in such a hallowed cave. On entering, Godfrey fell to his knees and allowed his head to touch the floor in obeisance to the memory of Christ’s leading disciple.
At the tiny rock altar, Adémar began his Latin Mass in the company of the much abused and venerable John the Oxite, previously Patriarch of Antioch until removed by the Turks. Outside in the still bloodstained streets – the bodies of the Turkish slain had been tossed into a deep pit or the River Orontes, which would carry them out to sea – men and women, both Roman and Armenian in their Christianity, many of whom had converted to Islam to survive, knelt and prayed in unison with a cleric most of them could not understand, happy to be alive and able to take from the passing priests of both branches of the faith the absolution for their transgressions which was being freely distributed.
‘Antioch belongs to the Emperor Alexius Comnenus, as many here confirmed by sacred oath and for which I gave my bounden word, which no man is at liberty to break.’
‘That is not disputed.’
Bishop Adémar, as he uttered that reply, gave Raymond of Toulouse, who had made such a forthright statement, the kind of look that implied he should calm himself, for the way he had spoken lacked the necessary level of diplomacy when dealing with men of equal rank. Once the possessor of an unlined and rosy countenance – the kind of well-fed, youthful and contented face too often the condition of high clerics – time and the cares of the Crusade, not least the need to keep happy this assembly of proud magnates, had played upon Adémar till he had now begun to look like an old man.
‘It would be foolish, My Lord Bishop,’ Hugh of Vermandois interjected, ‘not to acknowledge that there is ambition in that direction.’
Robert of Normandy responded to that with a slice of wicked wit; if he was ever at war with his brother the King of England for possession of his lands, then his other enemy on his eastern border was France, so bearding the royal sibling Vermandois, a man devoid of irony, was a game he enjoyed.
‘We all accept that you have aspirations for Antioch, Count Hugh.’
A wise man would have shucked that aside; Vermandois was a dolt. ‘I do not mean myself and you know it.’
‘Our Lord Bishop may have an insight into the souls of men,’ Robert intoned sonorously, ‘God has not granted me that ability.’
‘We are all ambitious in the cause of God,’ Adémar snapped, impatiently falling back on an unassailable reminder of their purpose to kill off the secret smiles caused by the Frenchman’s stupidity. ‘Which is why we are where we are.’
He then gave Normandy a bit of a glare that extended to his equally amused brother-in-law of Flanders: he knew there were more telling disputes in this chamber, the one-time palace of the Turkish Governor, than the bearding of the arrogant Vermandois. The question that troubled him and one he was determined to keep from open disclosure was who would side with whom between the two emerging protagonists seeking to clarify the situation of Antioch, Bohemund and Raymond.
By the right of conquest, previously agreed, the Count of Taranto had a valid claim to the city, albeit he was bound by oath, sworn on the bones of martyrs in front of the Emperor Alexius in the imperial palace, to hold it for Byzantium. Yet Bohemund and his late father, as well as his numerous de Hauteville uncles, had fought that polity and a succession of emperors all their lives, first in South Italy, now under their control and then in the lands of Romania, which in the previous decade the Apulians had twice invaded.
Should he be given sole possession would Bohemund keep to his word and hand Antioch back to his old enemy Alexius Comnenus, who should, at this very moment, be marching with all his might to their aid? Would a man like Bohemund even hold it for Byzantium with the Emperor as his acknowledged suzerain? If he did not, he would not only break his own oath but the given undertaking of everyone present.
‘I would suggest,’ Bohemund said, ‘that such a discussion, given what we face, is a distraction.’
‘Better discussed now than left to fester on an altar of greed,’ Raymond responded, making no attempt to soften his tone.
‘My Lords!’
That loud interruption focused all eyes on Godfrey de Bouillon, a man respected by all present for there could be no accusation of ambition related to him, if you excluded the recapture of Jerusalem.
‘The army of this Kerbogha is on its way to us and we have yet to have news that Byzantium is likewise marching, and even if it is, Kerbogha will get here long before the Emperor. How we deal with such a threat carries more weight than talk of personal ambition, in whosoever breast it may reside. What hopes and stratagems do we have to deal with – that should be paramount.’
‘Quite,’ Adémar concurred. ‘Let us put aside all discussion of the possession of Antioch …’
‘We have yet to discuss it at all!’ Raymond cr
ied.
‘And we will in time, My Lord,’ the Bishop replied with unaccustomed firmness, he and Toulouse being close. ‘But we face a threat to our very existence, and with that we must take issue first.’
Vermandois was quick to respond. ‘We must hold the walls with the same spirit as those we have just overcome.’
Godfrey de Bouillon was quick to pounce on that. ‘Then I suggest, Count Hugh, that you withdraw your men stationed at the Iron Bridge to help man them.’
‘They are there for a purpose, as is my banner.’
That induced an uncomfortable silence; the standard and the man to whom it belonged were well separated, for he had not assumed personal command at the Iron Bridge but devolved it to an inferior captain. Crossing that viaduct provided the main route an army must take to invest the city – the Crusaders had done so eight months previously, finding it undefended by Yaghi Siyan.
Now French knights and milities in some numbers had garrisoned it. No one but Vermandois saw what he had done as a sensible move, suspecting he had only made it to assert his independence and to have the fleur-de-lis flying over something.
‘If what we are told of his numbers is accurate,’ Godfrey continued, ‘to meet this Kerbogha in the open would not serve. That we have agreed and I cannot see that the Iron Bridge falls outside that.’
That got what was an almost childlike pout from the royal brat. ‘The bridge is fortified and the river flows too strong for easy fording above and below. I have no doubt my men will hold it long enough to delay Kerbogha.’
‘How far off is he?’ Adémar asked, which deflected any more discussion, it being the business of Vermandois alone how he disposed of his lances. He had never been inclined to heed the advice of others better qualified in warfare, for he would not admit to the notion. To press him would only have him dig in his heels.
‘Days away,’ Robert of Flanders replied, for it was his scouts who were out to the east and had provided the latest intelligence. ‘He stopped to invest Edessa, but raised it after only a week to come on to Antioch, which does not much aid us.’
That had everyone looking at Godfrey de Bouillon again: Baldwin, who held Edessa, was his wayward brother and a man over whom hung certain questions, one his actions in leaving the Crusade without warning and another regarding a massacre of a body of Norman knights outside Tarsus the previous year. If the Duke of Lower Lorraine was seen as something of a saint, then Baldwin of Boulogne, or as he now preferred to be called, of Edessa, was the obverse side of the family coin.
Bohemund spoke speedily to spare the blushes of a fellow magnate he esteemed; of all men he knew that no one could be held accountable for their relatives, given he had troublesome de Hauteville cousins in abundance, as well as a half-brother he loathed.
‘Abandoning a siege of Edessa can only have come about because of the news sent to him from here. Yaghi Siyan must have intimated Antioch was in such grave danger of falling that for Kerbogha to delay outside Edessa would be to risk the city.’
‘A look at the grain stores confirms his concerns were well founded.’
That interjection came from the Duke of Normandy, in times past, albeit decades, the de Hauteville family suzerain, one to whom Bohemund responded with no hint of servility; what had pertained in the old homelands did not do so here.
‘Then we had best get foraging to seek to get those storerooms filled again, for without food we will not hold the Atabeg of Mosul at bay for the time we need, which is to allow Byzantium to affect the issue.’
Adémar was quick to concur – anything to delay discussion of Antiochene possession, the solution to which, he thought, rested with the personal presence of Alexius Comnenus. Once he was here and with soldiers to support him, the Emperor could decide if he wanted an old enemy in control of such an important fief, or someone in whom he could repose more trust.
‘We must send messengers to tell the Emperor Alexius that Antioch is ours and to make all speed with every man he can muster. Combined, we will outnumber this Kerbogha and drive him back from whence he came.’
As he spoke the words Adémar could not avoid a look at Bohemund, to see how such a notion, the idea of Alexius being present in person, was being received; all he observed was bland indifference.
‘Kerbogha must thread the bulk of his army across the Iron Bridge, is that not so?’
Tancred received an affirmative reply to that. The so-called Iron Bridge, which spanned the River Orontes north of Antioch, in reality made of arched stone, had tall, fortified towers at either end and lay a shade over two leagues distant to the north of the city. How it had come by its designation as ‘iron’ was a mystery no one had bothered to seek to solve.
‘Then why does Duke Godfrey so vehemently disagree with Count Hugh that we should deny him that crossing, or at the very least impose a check on his advance? Time, after all, is our ally.’
Not wishing to give an immediate reply, Bohemund cast an eye over the shoulder to look at the convoy of wagons they were escorting, supplies they were fetching from a pair of Genoese ships that had berthed the day before at the nearby port of St Simeon, bringing with them a welcome cargo. What they carried looked impressive: dozens of ox-drawn and fully laden carts, the contents of the ships’ holds, impressive until you counted the mouths such a cargo must feed.
Provisions had to be found for twenty thousand fighting men, both knights and milities, many weakened by various disorders brought on by siege warfare and needing to be brought back to full health and strength, as well as the same number of camp followers and pilgrims, so it would scarce last for a week. A clearing of his throat from Tancred brought his mind back to his nephew’s question.
‘The men Vermandois has placed there can hold the Iron Bridge for a time, but eventually they will have to seek to retire or die where they stand, and flight on foot will bring about that same fate. The Turks, on their fast ponies, will fill their backs with their arrows.’
‘Then give them mounts.’
‘We require that we use every horse we have left for foraging, Tancred. Give the bridge guard mounts and they will fight on them, after which they would be blown, not able to outrun their too numerous enemies, so the horses will either die also or fall into enemy hands. Kerbogha, given his strength, will take Iron Bridge, so all Vermandois will do is put a minimal check on the Turks and at great loss to our cause in terms of fighting men. He would be best to admit we lack the power to keep the Atabeg from the city and, as of this moment, don’t have much chance of keeping him outside without the Emperor comes to our aid.’
‘Do I sense you doubt that he will?’ Tancred asked in disbelief.
‘Let’s just say I have dealt with Byzantium all of my life and at no time have I ever reposed faith that they will hold to their given promise. The lack of any word of his approach troubles me. At the very least he might be too far off to affect what we face.’
‘Then what hope do we have?’
‘Hope that when Kerbogha spies the walls of Antioch and sees we are on the parapets, he decides it is too tough to assault and too strong to starve out.’
‘He will know within an hour of his arrival how low we are on the means to feed ourselves. A goodly number of the Armenians who claim to have reconverted to Christianity are still Islamic at heart. Those who are not will be in terror of his revenge and eager to ingratiate themselves with information, lest he seeks to slit their throats.’
‘True, but when you ask me what will happen in the coming days, which I think you are about to do, I will remind you many times of what I have said before and that is I cannot see into the future.’
Now it was Tancred’s turn to smile. ‘There are those who say you can, Uncle, have indeed insisted you had your eye on Antioch before we even sailed from Brindisi.’
There was a degree of irritation in the response. ‘Then they are fools and I hope and pray that description does not include you.’
‘It would be revealing to see into the mind
of Raymond of Toulouse, to find out if he shares such desires.’
‘I sense you are trying to provoke me, Tancred, so that you may be allowed to see into my mind. Antioch is mine by agreement among my peers, to hold until Alexius arrives, at which time I will claim it with him as suzerain and that is all you will find should you succeed, along with thoughts and concerns as to how we are going to keep Kerbogha at bay till then. Perhaps, if you could see into the mind of Toulouse, you would come across the same disquiet.’
They were now passing La Mahomerie, the siege fort the Crusaders had built on the plain before the Bridge Gate, improving with heavy timbers the site of an abandoned mosque. Robert of Flanders now held that and it had been decided it should be defended and denied to Kerbogha, albeit with a plan for safe abandonment. There had been another exterior siege fort, Malregard, which Bohemund had constructed on the hillside above what had come to be called the St Paul’s Gate, outside which the Apulians had been encamped.
It was a spot he had specifically chosen at the beginning of the siege, for the gate had obvious advantages. It was the northernmost entrance to the city and the only place with a wide and flat approach in ground that meant that a section of the walls could be closely invested in strength. Thus, if a breakthrough was to be achieved, it offered the most likely place where the walls could be overcome. Yet it had disadvantages too; it suffered from being exposed to attacks from the steep hillside of Mount Staurin, the slightly lower peak that dominated the north of Antioch, which lay to its left.
Malregard had been built to counter that threat, but now being indefensible from within the walls it had been set alight and burnt to cinders, likewise the bridge of boats put together by Godfrey de Bouillon had been broken up to deny it to the enemy. That, a pontoon of lashed barges, had given good if hazardous service in crossing the Orontes to provide support for those camped on the exposed sliver of the eastern bank and likely to be outnumbered by a sudden attack.