Siege

by Richard Foreman

  “I will pray for you anyway, Edward, lest Girard desires to put himself first in the line to stab you in the back,” Adhemar said, pouring his remaining measure of wine into his guest’s cup.

  “Well, God has already just answered my prayers, as I asked him for more wine. But if you must insist on praying for my wellbeing please implore the Almighty to provide me with a sturdy horse.”

  “I may be able to provide that myself.”

  “How do you know that I won’t abandon you and ride off into the sunset with the mount?”

  “I trust you.”

  “That must be the drink talking.”

  “Perhaps. But I believe that you have never broken your word, Edward.”

  “That’s because I’ve never given it.”

  “You are still a good man, for a knight.”

  “And you’re an honest man, for a priest.”

  “Touché. But more so let us hope Bohemond proves a good and honest commander. At our last council meeting he promised he would be able to take the city. His price, if successful, will be to take control of the Antioch. When he put forward his proposal some time ago I, like other council members - Raymond, Robert of Normandy and Godfrey – refused to acquiesce to the idea. Our honour demanded that we return Antioch to the emperor. The avarice and pride of the other princes would not allow Bohemond to covet the city for himself either. But necessity has ground down opposition. Raymond asked me before the meeting if I could scupper Bohemond, but desperate times call for desperate measures. We have already sacrificed too many lives. So, I endorsed Bohemond’s proposal. We will need to be on the other side of Antioch’s walls when Kerbogha’s army arrives, else prayers alone will be all that we have to deliver us,” Adhemar asserted. He stared into space as he spoke and shivered a little, either from fear or the cold breeze blowing through the entrance of the tent.

  “If it was anyone else but Bohemond I would put his promise to take the city down to Norman hubris. You will forgive me I hope if I don’t rely on the power of prayer or God to save us. God may even be to blame for luring us into this lion’s den – where we’ll shortly be mauled to death. If anything, we are being punished for our sins, perhaps by the Jewish God for the massacres at Mainz and Cologne. Or by a Muslim God for the aftermath at Dorylaeum. For my part, I’ll be praying for some old-fashioned good luck instead of divine intervention. In my experience, good luck is a far more consistent commodity than God’s favour. But what will be will be. Or inshallah, as our enemies often spout. There are worse fates than death. For one, I could be married to an ugly, poor English shrew - who can’t cook!”

  3.

  His legs felt like they might buckle, either from fatigue or the fear of having to explain his defeat to his uncle, Raymond of Toulouse. Girard kept his head lowered, his chin digging into his chest, as he made his way through the camp. Past rows of tents, stables, blacksmiths and campfires. Past all manner and races of men: Franks, Greeks, Armenians, Germans, and Italians.

  Shame and a seething fury chequered the nobleman’s thoughts.

  “It was a boy against a man,” one spectator had said scornfully, as the crestfallen Norman rose to his feet after the contest. Godfrey of Bouillon and Robert of Flanders had turned their backs on him. The laughter from some parts of the crowd still rung in his ears. Even the birds, cawing in the background, seemed to be mocking him. He still felt the end of the Englishman’s blade on his face – like an itch he could never scratch away. The adolescent gripped the hilt of his sword, to stop his hand from trembling.

  Defeat and dishonour would follow him around, like the mark of Cain. Holy water couldn’t wash it off. Nor wine. Nor the blood of a vanquished Turk. Perhaps only the blood of the English knight could redeem him. He needed to face and defeat his enemy in a rematch. Or kill him in his sleep, Girard darkly mused.

  The whey-faced Norman trudged on, towards Raymond’s billet. A few of the young nobleman’s retinue trudged on behind him - mournful, as if they were walking behind a coffin. They had no desire to disturb their lord, lest he took his humiliating defeat out on them. His mood could be as changeable as a child’s.

  Streaks of sweat marked his dusty, tawny countenance. Sand had annoyingly entered his boots. Girard felt it in between his toes and rubbing against his heel. The short-tempered nobleman cursed the omnipresent sand as much as Kemp, or God. It found its way into his bed, his wine and victuals. Girard missed the sensation of dewy grass beneath his feet and a vernal breeze cooling his skin. Provencal – not the Holy Land – was the true realm of milk and honey, he grievously concluded. The nobleman missed hunting, basic luxuries, good wine and the laughter and flesh of his mistresses back home. Taking the cross was a mistake. How were men celebrating the glory of God by dying in their own excrement – or being slaughtered by the enemies of Christendom?

  Three guards stood either side of the gate to the farmhouse, which Raymond of Toulouse had appropriated as soon as he reached Antioch. Other mere mortals billeted themselves in tents. The six surly-faced sentinels were employed for reasons of status, rather than security - especially when one considered how it was known that Bohemond posted four soldiers outside of his own billet.

  The main stone building of the property was crumbling. Timbers were cracking. Outbuildings were lurching. Weeds rather than flowers sprouted up from the sun-baked ground of the courtyard. Grey vines criss-crossed the stonework, albeit visitors were unsure whether the plants were alive or dead. A pillar of smoke vaunted up from the chimney and the smell of roasted pig filled his nostrils. Girard had been tempted to defy his lord and not answer for his defeat – but at least he might now receive a decent meal after enduring Raymond’s ire.

  A few of Raymond’s soldiers were sat on benches in the courtyard. The sound of dice (carved from the bones of slaughtered animals – or Turks) could be heard, along with the end of a bawdy joke and a chorus of laughter.

  As Girard approached the main door of the farmhouse, he was met by the figure of Tancred of Hauteville coming out. Although Tancred was an ally – and nephew – of Bohemond he had of late been spending a notable amount of time in Raymond’s company. Courting him – and being courted. The dividing lines between allies and enemies were drawn in shifting sands. Tancred was keen to come out of the shadow of his uncle and establish himself as a powerful lord in his own right. At the start of the campaign Tancred had been a largely unknown and unproven knight, but none now doubted the Norman’s courage and ambition.

  “I do not want to go down in history as merely being my uncle’s second in command,” Tancred had remarked to Raymond, during their meeting.

  “Adhemar advised me that, given my years, I can afford to be patient. But patience is not a virtue. It is rather a form of weakness, I warrant.”

  The afternoon sun shone off his bright armour. Though only a year or so older than Girard, Tancred carried himself with the stern authority of a knight twice his age. His features were hard, his heart even harder. His blade had tasted blood – and was thirsty for more. The prince had already proven himself as a successful commander, having taken the major towns of Tarsus and Adana during his passage to Antioch. But he had ultimately been outwitted, or bullied, by his fellow crusader Baldwin of Boulogne. Once his power base was strong enough Baldwin abandoned the campaign – breaking his oaths to both Urban and Alexios - to establish himself as a ruler of the region, off the back of Tancred’s initial victories. Baldwin’s mercenary behaviour (which had culminated in him controlling the town of Edessa, after betraying his erstwhile ally, Thoros) had further strengthened Tancred’s determination to be a king in his own right – answerable to no one. Many condemned Baldwin for his lack of honour and loyalty. Tellingly, Tancred had also refused to swear an oath of loyalty to the emperor. The soldier had relinquished his rightful spoils of war to another man for the last time.

  Girard moved aside to allow the stolidly built knight past. He both envied and feared the prince.

  “Good day, Tancred. I ho
pe we will be able to share some wine soon. We’ll get some women in too.”

  “I have more important things on my mind than women and wine. And you should too, especially given your risible performance earlier, against the Englishman. Wine and women have made you weak. It is why your strength failed you,” the prince replied, little disguising his contempt, as his hand rested on the ornate pommel of his sword. Tancred sneered and snorted simultaneously, before purposefully striding on and ignoring the nobleman as if he were a leper.

  Girard grimaced and blanched, turning slightly to conceal his expression from his retinue. His entire body seemed to shrivel-up, as if he were a slug that had just had salt poured over it. And after the shame came the searing, splintering resentment again – directed not at Tancred but at himself and the ignoble Englishman. The cause of his dishonour.

  My enemy.

  Thomas Devin suffered hunger pangs, to the point where the young man walked, doubled-over, like a creaking grey-beard. The God-fearing Christian told himself that he was fasting – but really, he was starving. He told himself that the ration of bread and barley he had given away had gone to someone more deserving. But his stomach felt like it could reach out and snatch a crumb from the mouth of a baby.

  Devin struggled to keep up with the attendant, who had been ordered by Bohemond to fetch the scribe and translator. Hugh of Cerisy was one of his most senior knights. Occasionally the stern-faced Norman turned around, pursed his lips and beckoned with his head for the youth to keep pace. Their master didn’t like to be kept waiting. What did Bohemond want? Thomas sensed that he wasn’t being summoned just to translate a letter. Was Bohemond about to give the order to attack the city? Or announce that they were retreating, back to Constantinople? Or marching on, to Jerusalem?

  Thomas was keen to see Bohemond. He needed part of the money the prince was holding for him for safekeeping. His father, an affluent merchant, had only permitted his son to journey to the Holy Land if he travelled with Bohemond’s company and carried sufficient funds. Oswald Devin had been a friend and moneylender to Robert Guiscard, Bohemond’s father. The son was happy to receive the elderly merchant’s friendship – and gold – too.

  Thomas had promised to donate a portion of his wealth to Adhemar, to purchase provisions and distribute to the needy. Edward had recently chided the adolescent for his over-charitable heart. Or the cynical knight was sometimes bemused – or amused - by his gullible, or Christian, behaviour:

  “You’re a holy fool, lad. Given the chance, people will bleed you dry. That’s what people do. And you’ll soon be left with nothing, like them. They’ll then forget your name quicker than a whore will forget the name of her latest customer, just as soon as she closes the door on him.”

  A wry grin animated the usually pensive boy’s expression as he remembered how his father had called him a “holy fool” too, when he announced his intention to join the armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Any words of caution he heard from his mother and father however were drowned out by the voice and wisdom of Urban’s sermon at Clermont, still fresh in his ears.

  The council of clergy, headed by the supreme pontiff, took place in November, in south-eastern France. Such was the volume of people, numbering four hundred or more, Pope Urban II and his audience couldn’t fit into the cathedral. Rather a platform was constructed outside and his papal throne placed upon it.

  A sea of congregates stood before him, including archbishops, bishops and abbots. Noblemen and commoners stood together too, in reverent silence; their ears pricked to attention to hear the historic sermon. It had been decades since a Pope had blessed France with a significant sermon. The wind chilled the youth’s pink complexion, but Urban’s words would soon fire his heart.

  Urban’s face, his beard neatly trimmed, appeared devotional and determined. He partly projected authority through finery. The gold thread embroidering his fur-lined robes shone in the sunlight. His voice carried across the emerald field, as if borne on wings.

  “O race of Franks, race from across the mountain, race chosen by and beloved by God… To you our discourse is addressed and for you our exhortation is intended. We wish you to know what a grievous cause has led us to your company, what peril is threatening you … An accursed race, a race alienated from God, has invaded the lands of Christians… Altars have been destroyed and desecrated, baptismal fonts smeared with the blood of the fallen. Our fellow Christians are tortured to death. They are tied to stakes and pierced with arrows, dragged along the ground by their extremities, disembowelled, circumcised and beheaded. Women are sold into slavery and raped, children cruelly executed... Christians are being forced to pay illegal taxes and convert to nefarious religious practices… I have heard stories too of the infidel peeling back the skin of merchants, believing there to be riches beneath. The vile Turks have also been mercilessly cutting open stomachs, believing that humble pilgrims have swallowed gold or silver. We must avenge the fallen and protect the living… The barbarians are at the gates, the gates of Heaven. Our enemies have taken possession of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre – the sacred ground where Christ sacrificed himself for us and died for our sins. The Holy City is in the hands of deplorable heathens. The road to Jerusalem must be made safe for pilgrims. We must regain the prize, both worldly and divine, of Christ’s city – and be able to walk again in the hallowed footsteps of our Lord.”

  The supreme pontiff here paused in his oratory, perhaps overwhelmed by his own words. But any silence was quickly filled by a section in the crowd, which grew in strength and numbers each time the refrain was sounded out, like the clarion call of a trumpet.

  “God wills it! God wills it.”

  Urban raised his ringed hand and commanded silence. He hadn’t yet finished his speech. Far from it. Thomas stood rapt. His chest swelled with compassion, for those Christians suffering from the brutality of the Turk. Justice, vengeance, fired his innards, like bellows, too. He wrote to his father that evening about how their pope was both Cicero and St Augustine. Urban was a conduit of God, a vessel for divinity, as Christians congregated before him in the field at Clermont.

  “I call upon our knights. Nobility has its responsibilities… In saving others, you will be saving your own soul. ‘Twill be a just war, against an unholy foe… The church will offer a remission of sins, in return for your service. Your lands will be protected during your absence, during your mission to protect the East from further enemy incursions. The pestilence of the Turks is already occupying the borders of the Byzantine Empire. How long before they stand at the gates of Constantinople – and then Rome? For if Constantinople falls, that great province of civilisation and Christianity, the infidel’s bloodlust will not be sated. They will not be content until they plunder and put Clermont and the whole of the west to the sword… We must heal the schism between our churches and unite under one banner. Rome and Constantinople serve one God… Your fellow Christians in the East are your blood-brothers, your comrades-in-arms, born of the same womb as you, for you are the sons of the same Christ and the same Church. The West must aid the East. We must turn any animus we harbour towards our neighbour and direct it towards our shared foe.”

  “God wills it! God wills it!”

  Thomas found himself mouthing and then chanting the phrase too, as the crowd spoke with one voice. Knights placed their gloved hands on pommels - and clutched the crosses they wore around their necks. This was the first time the diligent student and devout Christian had travelled from his home. He had almost chosen to prolong his stay at the monastery at Cluny, but Thomas now felt that he had been called to Clermont. It was fate. God’s will.

  Urban’s voice grew even stronger, surer – as did the congregation’s responses. His beatific features became bellicose.

  “Christ called us, “to take up the cross and follow me.” I call upon you all, in the name of Christ, to take up the cross in an armed pilgrimage. We must liberate Jerusalem, expel the infidel and answer the call to arms of our Christian brothers i
n the East.”

  “God wills it! God wills it!”

  Not a soul in the crowd remained mute. The thunderous sound vaunted upwards, past the spire of the cathedral, to the heavens.

  “Let that be a war-cry for you in battle because it came from God. When you mass together to attack the enemy, this cry sent by od will be a cry of all – “God wills it! God wills it!””

  Spontaneously, or seemingly so, Bishop Adhemar rose to his feet, walked towards his eminence and bent his knee. His beard and build were fuller than his superior’s. His firm, noble features were softened with grace and deference. The crowd fell silent, slightly open-mouthed, as if enthralled by a piece of theatre. In a clear, resolute voice, brimming with devotion, the much-admired bishop beseeched his holiness to be able to make the journey to Jerusalem. To take up the cross.