Prince of Legend

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘All My Emir asks, Great Lord, is that none of those you lead are left free to take more than we are prepared to openly give.’

  Tancred observed the way Raymond’s chest swelled to be so addressed by the Latin-speaking envoy sent from Shaizar, added to the way he looked around the assembly of his captains, his confessors and his fellow peers to ensure it had been noted. That reprised the feelings that had surfaced in his mind over the past week: how different it was to be under the orders of such a man.

  That the Count of Toulouse was excessively proud meant little; that he had been aware of for over a year. Yet previously it had been a distant impression, whereas now it was before him as a constant as well as an irritant, and as a way of behaving it did not stand comparison with his uncle, who if he would not surrender an inch in pride to Toulouse, was not a man to allow sycophancy to affect his judgement or even to show that he was moved by it.

  ‘As a ruler himself, My Emir knows that control of such a host is something only a man of true eminence can achieve. Yet he knows you to be that, has heard of your deeds, Count Raymond, which have sped to the four corners of the earth to make mere mortals wonder at them. Mighty Kerbogha fell before your sword, did he not?’

  There was a moment when Raymond was slightly flustered and had a chance to indicate the other men present who had actually fought the Atabeg, though there was no chance he would deny the praise he was receiving for something he was singular in not doing; he could hardly say he had taken to his bed in a fit of pique.

  ‘He’s going to flatter Raymond till he bursts,’ whispered an irritated Normandy.

  Tancred replied by leaning to talk softly into the Duke’s ear. ‘Is there such an amount?’

  Raymond noted the exchange, if not the words they employed, and irritation flashed in his eyes. Toulouse was seated on a chair while they were obliged to stand and observe, this to underline that regardless of rank he was the leader. In his hand, as always, he held the shard of the Holy Lance, to which the eye of the envoy had flicked more than once, for news of that discovery, as well as the power it exerted, had been disseminated throughout the land as quickly as the deeds of the Crusade.

  ‘If all the needs of my people are met, what need have they to disturb the country?’

  The envoy used the flat palm of his hand, in a slow and unthreatening gesture, to indicate the Holy Lance. ‘Perhaps if they saw what you hold as a divine requirement, Great Lord, they would see the need to obey Allah as well as their leader.’

  Peter Bartholomew, stood to Raymond’s left, cut in without seeking permission, so much had he grown in arrogance. ‘There are many who would demand you and your kind pray to the same God and acknowledge his disciples.’

  ‘There is but one God,’ the envoy replied, in a soft, non-threatening voice. ‘Allah is his name and Muhammad is his prophet.’

  ‘We are not here to dispute the path to salvation,’ Raymond snapped, in French and in a clear rebuke to his personal prophet, one that would not be understood by the Emir’s envoy. His eyes then swivelled to Tancred and Robert of Normandy, who were speaking in hushed tones again, and his voice was firm. ‘And no good is served by whispered conversations in the offing, either.’

  ‘I had a tutor who addressed me so once,’ Normandy replied, also in French, his tone, Tancred thought, deliberately even and non-threatening. ‘When I was old enough to do so I boxed his ears.’

  If the envoy and his attendants were confused, they were alone in that; everyone else present understood perfectly that Raymond had overstepped the mark of respect due to a man who held a noble rank greater than his own. If they had harboured any doubts about the effect of his being checked that would have been dispelled by the way the florid face of the Count went a deeper shade of red.

  ‘We are engaged upon important matters here,’ he protested, ‘and I know you would agree that any sign of dissension will not aid our progress. We are being offered free passage through the Emir’s lands, are we not, but that is because we are united. If this fellow returns to tell him we are divided, what then?’

  ‘You have the command, My Lord,’ Normandy replied, ‘but if my father was here he would tell you, mighty warrior that he was, that dissension comes very easily from a lack of respect.’

  Raymond clearly thought no response was possible without a loss of face so he turned his attention back to the envoy, who had made strenuous efforts to keep his mask of diplomatic indifference in place throughout an exchange, which if he did not understand in words, was plainly fractious in mood.

  ‘I will let it be known that it would be seen as a sin against God to take from your people anything that is theirs, as long as we are, on our march, not in want.’

  With those words spoken, the Holy Lance was raised slightly, which caused the envoy to bow low, while the priests present, led by Narbonne, and joined by the ever-present Peter Bartholomew, crossed themselves.

  The Emir of Shaizar was as good as his word: wherever the Crusade set up camp there was food in abundance, fresh-baked bread, roasting meats and fruit, enough for pilgrims and soldiers alike. Disseminated through his priests Raymond had made it known that any depredations against the Emir’s subjects would be severely punished, the truth of that driven home by a couple of his own milities being burnt at the stake in full view of the men sent by the local ruler as escorts, this for the rape of a Muslim woman.

  If the Emir wished to speed his passage he found that Raymond was in no rush to clear his lands, for, with such provisions, daily the effect on the army was visible and remarkable. Men who had struggled along head down when they set out from Ma’arrat now marched with heads lifted, the horses they still had likewise filling out until their rib bones no longer showed with alarming prominence.

  How obvious it was when they passed into the territory of another ruler. There was no food awaiting them as they camped, although that mattered less now, for they were reduced in need and also in a terrain as yet untouched by warfare. If there was no food in the fields or fruit on the trees there were peasant storerooms full of the harvest of the previous year and, now that the promise Raymond had made no longer constrained them, those he led could indulge in all the acts that had previously been denied to them.

  Never had the reputation of the Crusade been so forcibly established as when they came to the city of Raphania, the next on their line of march, set on a slight elevation overlooking a wide plain full of productive fields and orchards that ran close to the defences, with distant hills to feed the streams that irrigated the soil.

  At long sight the high walls, bright cream stone shining bright in the sun, looked formidable enough to promise a siege of some duration. Raymond, Robert of Normandy and Tancred donned their mail and rode forward with their personal retainers, having ordered that camp be set up, anticipating perhaps that emissaries would emerge from the gate towards which they were headed to meet them in the open and discuss the same kind of peace they had just had from the Emir of Shaizar. They even halted well short of that gate to allow such messengers to make their way, but none appeared, so Raymond spun his own horse to talk to his fellow leaders.

  ‘I would hope that they accept terms.’

  ‘Can we bypass them?’ asked Normandy. ‘A siege could mightily weaken us.’

  That sent Raymond’s head onto his chest, for it was not a ridiculous suggestion. Besieging both Albara and Ma’arrat had taken time, led to losses in men, and at the latter resulted in an even more telling wound to morale, and if there was food now in peasant holdings, to stay in the area would soon see it stripped as bare as any terrain supporting a winter siege.

  Nothing they had heard indicated that the Emir of Raphania was a warlike individual, indeed he was akin to his compatriot in Shaizar, a tribute-paying Turkish satrap whose main desire, it was likely, was to be left in peace. To have such a ruler on the line of communication with Antioch and the other contingents might not pose too much of a threat.

  Tancred spoke up, as was
his right. ‘We would have to leave behind some men to mask the city, which would perhaps weaken us more than fighting. If they are not inclined to a stubborn resistance we may overcome the walls with a quick assault.’

  ‘That is so,’ Raymond said, more to himself than to Tancred. ‘But my Lord of Normandy is nearer to being right, I think: better we progress on our way, perhaps, than linger here.’

  Aware that the younger man did not wholeheartedly agree, Raymond added, ‘We will give them terms and then judge from their response. If it is pure defiance, then we must overcome them, for that means they will seek to raid our rear once we pass. If they seek naught but to be left untroubled then …’

  There was no finishing that, for it was unnecessary. Raymond spun his mount once more and led the way to a point close enough to the walls where his voice could carry, and there he demanded to speak with someone who would both understand him and pass on his words to the ruler of the city. The call floated upwards, but no head appeared at the battlements to even acknowledge their presence and that was repeated on the second call.

  ‘Go forward,’ Raymond said, to a pair of his familia knights, ‘and see if your being close tempts them to react.’

  Up till now the whole party had been bareheaded; the men ordered to move were quick to don their hauberks and helmets, as well as ensure they had a good grip on the shields they would need to raise quickly should any arrows, the first line of any defence, come their way. They advanced one step at a time, their mounts under stern control, in an eerie silence, waiting for the yell that would bring up the Arabs from behind their walls to rain missiles in their direction.

  No bolts came their way, nor when they moved closer did a single lance fly over the walls, even when they were in easy range. It was with due trepidation that they approached the gate, heads stretched back to keep a sharp eye on the high twin towers that enclosed it, and still there was nothing. One knight spun his lance and used the haft to bang upon the wood of the high door, the thuds echoing back to his confused leaders.

  When that too got no response he spurred his horse slightly forward until both it and he were up against the gate and pressing. Even if it was heavy and studded with iron bolts, it swung a fraction, which had both knights pushing in a blink. The gate swung open enough to create a gap, which had both men immediately spur their mounts away, for there had to be danger behind that.

  ‘If it is a trap to ensnare us, it is a cunning one,’ Normandy said.

  ‘Every one of you forward,’ Raymond ordered.

  He did not mean the leaders, so the knights led by Normandy and Tancred looked to their own masters for permission to obey, which was quickly forthcoming. It was now a strong party of thirty mailed and helmeted men that went for the gate, there to join the pair already present. With still no reaction, two of Tancred’s Apulians dismounted and put their shoulders to the wood and with a creak of unoiled hinges it swung wide open until it hit the interior walls.

  ‘Plague,’ Duke Robert hissed, crossing himself.

  ‘Do you see any dead?’ Raymond shouted, getting a negative response.

  Now the knights had both gates open and before the leaders, once their men had stood aside so they could see, lay a deserted and long cobbled avenue, lined with buildings, of the kind that formed a main route into many a city they had seen on the Crusade. Raymond spurred his own mount, followed in a blink by his confrères, and they rode through their own knights, under the gate barbican, their hooves echoing on the stones of the pavé.

  Still with proper caution they advanced into the dark gully formed by the high buildings that enclosed the roadway, past open doorways, fearful that a screaming mob of armed men might at any second appear from the side alleys to assault them, in their breasts still recalling the terror in Normandy’s voice when he mentioned that the city might be ravaged by disease.

  ‘Nothing,’ Tancred said. ‘Not a soul.’

  Then he shouted, which coming without warning spooked not only his own horse but also those of Normandy and Toulouse, which got him an angry growl from the latter. All he could do in response to that was laugh, first a chuckle, then louder and louder until the sound echoed through the streets, that fading when they entered an equally deserted square hemmed in by more imposing buildings that spoke of the centre of authority. Raphania was abandoned; fearing massacre, it was now obvious: the population high and low had fled.

  ‘I suggest, Lord Raymond, that we have no need to camp when we have a whole city in which we might contentedly spend the night.’

  ‘Lances first, Tancred, let us see if when they fled they took with them everything of value.’

  The pickings proved to be meagre in terms of plunder, the flight of the population having clearly been well organised, but there were storerooms full of food too heavy or bulky to bear away, so it was a comfortable place to rest for a short period while some of that was consumed, with care taken that enough was brought to a central point so as to provide the supplies needed for the onward march.

  There was some discontent: without seeking permission, parties of lances set out to search the nearby countryside, the distant hills especially, in a search for the Emir of Raphania and the chests of gold they were sure he had taken with him, even to find the more lowly, the traders who might have about them money or possessions to steal. It proved fruitless: no firelit encampment was visible and the caves they found were as empty as the land around them. It was as if the inhabitants of the city had been spirited away by some divine power.

  Still, it was an optimistic host that departed Raphania, that too set alight like Ma’arrat, this to avoid the need to detach a garrison, for Raymond was very aware that his numbers did not permit that he leave a line of fortified towns to his rear. Let those who came after him, if they came after him, make their own way. Even now, with their bellies full and the pilgrims singing as they plodded along, the Count of Toulouse was in no hurry, partly hoping to be reinforced by de Bouillon and Flanders, partly eager for news as to what Bohemund was up to. Information was scant in all respects.

  The feeling of well-being and easy passage was shattered when a party of Arabs, possibly from Raphania, raided the rear of the column and inflicted heavy casualties on the pilgrims and camp followers; worse they stole back a goodly quantity of the food the Crusaders had gathered from the storerooms of their city. The people the lances had hoped to find and rob had not been spirited away, and now they were intent on exacting revenge for the torching of their city.

  Stung, Raymond took personal control of the rearguard, forming a strong screen of knights to protect the vulnerable. Yet progress, remaining slow – he would not be rushed by mere brigands – allowed those raiding to get ahead of the host so that the next attack came in the centre of the line of march, which obliged Tancred to wheel his Apulians in order to drive them off. This was achieved but not without further losses and the raids continued sporadically until distance intervened.

  Since leaving Shaizar and that part of the River Orontes they had ascended and traversed a lengthy plateau. Now they were coming to the end of those uplands, yet Raymond’s hopes that his fellow magnates might come to join with him showed no sign of happening. If he did not understand why, others did; de Bouillon and Flanders would not march with him for to do so would be to acknowledge his leadership.

  Would they ever do so, or would they abandon the Crusade altogether? There was no way of telling and that uncertainty increased the further the distance he put between himself and Antioch. The thought that he might be alone was troubling but one he would not discuss with those who had taken his silver – indeed, he rarely sought to include them in his thinking regarding any future plan, but that could not be maintained; the time had come when alternatives to how they would progress from this point on needed to be examined and that had to be done in the light that they might, indeed, be alone.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The direct route to Jerusalem through Nablus was tempting, yet even if Raym
ond had enjoyed the full strength of the Crusade he and his noble supporters would have hesitated to follow it. First it was flanked by the major city of Homs, before it then took them perilously close to the huge and even more dangerous Muslim metropolis of Damascus.

  Being only a fraction of the Latin force made such a course doubly hazardous, it being too much to expect that a city with such a numerous population, as well as one able to draw in strength from the surrounding countryside, would be cowed into submission by stories of Crusader bestiality.

  It was not necessary to see Damascus to know that, unlike Homs, they lacked the power to invest such a city – there were enough local voices to relate its size as well as to boast of the defences – added to which such a route increased rather than diminished their seeming isolation, for once committed they must proceed all the way to Jerusalem.

  No news had come from Antioch since they departed Ma’arrat, so Raymond had no real notion of how he stood in relation to the final goal and the further he marched south the greater that lack of knowledge affected their chances of achieving the ultimate objective.

  ‘The other route is by the coast,’ Raymond said. ‘Supplies we can purchase, we will be in contact with Europe as well as the sailing fleets of Genoa and Pisa, and we can also get news from Antioch of what progress is being made by our confrères.’

  The Count drew a line, with the point of his dagger, on one of the ancient maps by which, in a series, the whole Crusade had progressed from Constantinople. What the Roman surveyors had drawn to ease the passage of the legions had not physically changed in the thousand years since. It was not necessary to add that by taking the latter course he was both eschewing haste as well as avoiding the notion of closing in on Jerusalem by himself.