Prince of Legend (17 page)

All the magnates complied with Raymond, for what was obviously
going to be an attempt to broker some kind of agreement. Bohemund was aware, if the others were in ignorance, that the Count of Toulouse had not just sought to turn Ma’arrat into a Christian enclave. His men had ridden out from there to take a firm grip on the surrounding countryside, he being eager to continue in his quest to isolate Antioch from the regions to the south.

Expecting Raymond to use that to again insist that Antioch should be held for Byzantium, what he did offer, once he had finished boasting of his exploits and laid strongly the case for a march on Jerusalem, came as a surprise.

‘My Lords, such an endeavour we cannot undertake in a like manner that has got us this far in our quest.’ That had the Duke of Normandy and Godfrey de Bouillon shifting uncomfortably: Raymond was about to openly vie for the leadership and his next words proved such suspicions correct. ‘I am, amongst you, the most potent in terms of men, and none, I can assure you, are ahead of me in purpose.’

To pause then was a clever ploy, allowing, as it did, his fellow princes to adopt looks that presaged refusal.

‘Yet I am aware also that we have come from Constantinople and succeeded by collective opinion. Therefore I cannot ask of you that you hand to me command of our enterprise merely for the fact that I can put more lances in the field than all of you here assembled.’

‘Many of whom you have seduced from our service with promises of silver and the power of your relic.’

The Duke of Normandy was scowling as he said this and if the likes of Godfrey de Bouillon remained silent his expression alone demonstrated that he too shared the same sentiment.

‘I have only ever sought that we have the means to fulfil our vow,
and in order that we do so I am willing to extend to you, my fellow princes, the same, based on that which you can bring to the campaign, which we must, in all conscience, pursue.’

There was uncertainty then, those he was addressing unsure what it was he was offering and again Raymond used a long pause to heighten the tension.

‘To you, My Lords of Normandy and Lower Lorraine, I offer ten thousand silver
solidi
each, to the Count of Flanders six thousand to serve under my banner.’

‘Nothing for me?’ Bohemund enquired, a smile playing on his lips.

‘To do so would be to waste my breath, Count Bohemund, but I am prepared to offer your nephew five thousand
solidi
to take service with me.’

All eyes turned to Tancred, who was close to a blush, for to a man of his standing it was a lot of silver and he was near to being ranked with the Count of Flanders, so the temptation to grab what was offered was high. Fortunately, Godfrey de Bouillon spoke then, which allowed the young man to remain silent.

‘You do not see this, Count Raymond, as flying in the face of the spirit of the Crusade?’

‘I see it, Duke Godfrey, as a means to break an impasse that has held us in Syria too long. If we cannot serve for faith, then let those amongst you who are tempted to serve for a less Christian motive come with me, for I intend to march on my own if that is required. What matters is not why we act but that we do so, for at our rear are the men we lead, who cannot understand the delay and that takes no account of the mass of pilgrims, who clamour only to attain the goal for which they have given up everything they possess.’

‘Surely you do not seek an answer here and now?’

‘No, but I would want it soon for I have made my plans to march south within the week and I will not delay.’

There was a telling response to that: was Raymond speaking truthfully or bluffing? Was this just a ploy to isolate Bohemund or did he genuinely wish to march on to Jerusalem at the head of the Crusade? Judging by the faces of his fellow magnates, and such was the mistrust that had grown up between them, they were ruminating on both possibilities without being able to come to a conclusion.

W
ith the conference concluded most of the princes, Toulouse excluded, returned to Antioch, with Tancred uncomfortable and making a poor fist of concealing it. If he looked to his uncle for a way to proceed he was sadly disappointed: Bohemund would not advise him, seeking to avoid the subject and only saying when forced to comment that his nephew should look to the dictates of his own conscience, that even more unsettled on the news that the Duke of Normandy, hitherto one of the most vocal in complaint against Raymond of Toulouse and his habit of bribery, had accepted his offer.

If that came as a real surprise, it had to be recalled that, in order to fund his personal Crusade and assure the adherence of his knights, Duke Robert had mortgaged his Normandy holdings, as well as the income thereof, to his brother the King of England for a hundred thousand crowns, a sum long ago consumed; Robert Curthose was a
man with few options when it came to the revenues required to fulfil his vow and in his case plunder had been in short supply.

The news regarding Normandy was followed by an equally surprising defection: Robert of Flanders, who had supported Raymond at both the sieges of Albara and Ma’arrat an-Numan, arrived from Rugia having declined to follow the lead of his brother-in-law and flatly, even insultingly, refused the offer from his erstwhile ally.

‘How do you think he feels,’ Bohemund enquired, when his nephew questioned the Flanders decision, ‘when having given such faithful service and suffered the excess of Raymond’s pride for many a month, he is ranked as worth only a thousand
solidi
more than you?’

Tancred’s response was mordant. ‘I think, in truth, neither of us count for much.’

‘Your greater worth lies in your connection to me.’

‘Something I am being asked to sunder.’

‘Which is of the greater concern to you, nephew,’ Bohemund replied, with an enigmatic grin, ‘your soul or your bloodline?’

That was said in such a way as to preclude one question, but not another. ‘What of Duke Godfrey?’

The reply was emphatic. ‘He too will decline.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘To be paid to regain Jerusalem would, in his mind, sully the endeavour, and for Godfrey purity of motive is paramount. Besides, with his brother Baldwin to back him, and through that the revenues of Edessa, he does not want for silver or support.’

‘They are not close, Godfrey and Baldwin; indeed, I was of the opinion, more than once, they came close to loathing each other.’

‘What heir to a fiefdom loves his lord?’

That, a reference to the fact that Godfrey was childless and his
brother next in line to the ducal title of Lower Lorraine, raised another question never addressed and one that would not be raised now: Bohemund, too, lacked an heir and many supposed that Tancred was close enough both in blood and friendship to the Count of Taranto to be next in line to succeed him in Apulia.

‘You think Baldwin will support him. If he does I am curious to understand why.’

That got a rousing laugh, loud enough to echo off the battlements of Antioch. ‘If you are waiting for me to say to you blood is thicker than water, Tancred, you will wait in vain.’

Raymond’s ambitions for Jerusalem did nothing to dent his desire to rein in the ambitions of his rival; he still intended to control the entire supply of food to Antioch from the south by holding an arc of land hinged on Ma’arrat, which abutted Turkish territory, through the Ruj Valley to the coast, with control of the roads to the nearby ports to complete his aim.

There were other ambitions too, based on possession. In Ma’arrat, as he had in Albara, he had installed one of his priests, the one-time archdeacon, Peter of Narbonne, as the bishop of that see. Both would adhere to the Latin rite, albeit they had needed to be consecrated by the only available high divine, the increasingly feeble Armenian Patriarch, John the Oxite, these designed to raise his standing among the pilgrims as well as to curry favour in Rome.

These manoeuvres, and he knew of every step his enemy took, were watched by Bohemund, though it would have been fruitless to seek to observe how much such moves concerned him. All an observer would see was a man going about his business, ensuring the walls of Antioch, where damaged, had been repaired, that his forage parties,
albeit obliged to work to the north and east, were bringing in enough to fill more than just the storerooms of the citadel, over which he had total control.

If he had a major concern, it was one he did not spread abroad. When John the Oxite shrugged off his mortal coil, something that seemed increasingly imminent, Bohemund was determined, in the same manner as Raymond, that the person who replaced him should be a Latin bishop. This engendered much correspondence with Rome, a steady stream of letters, his aim to persuade the Pope to accede to his request and to send someone of stature to take the office, not forgetting to add that he, unlike Raymond of Toulouse, did not have the arrogance to assume that he could appoint someone from his own retinue of priests and of his own choosing.

In every communication lay several references to the loyalty to the Holy Church shown by his family, not least Count Roger of Sicily, which conveniently glossed over the several times a reigning pope had been humbled by a de Hauteville over the previous decades. Added to that lay a subtle undercurrent of doubt, in which Bohemund detailed the lack of support the Crusade had received from Alexius Comnenus, not omitting to add that an emperor who had so far taken as much as he could of the spoils of the Crusade without spilling the blood of his own men, would no doubt claim that Jerusalem, like Antioch, should be a fief of Constantinople.

How then, when Byzantium ruled in the birthplace of Christ as well as the mighty city of Antioch, the site of St Peter’s first church, could the Bishop of Rome lay claim to be the universal head of the faith? How then, with Byzantium in such a powerful position and entrenched, could His Holiness hope to persuade the Orthodox Church to heal the divisions of the forty-year schism?

When it came to the unity of the faith, a matter of vital concern to Rome and the future of the Christian mission, who was the true enemy, Byzantium or Islam?

‘I know a great deal of your grandsire’s family, Tancred,’ Robert of Normandy said. ‘They were much talked about when I was growing to manhood, he most of all.’

‘Not with much affection, I suppose.’

That was a remark that made both men smile, though it did not last long with the Duke. The de Hautevilles – if successful, they were at least distant –were typical of his own subjects, men whose loyalty was to their own success and well-being, not that of their liege lord. Norman knights were able to shift allegiances with an alacrity that made the task of ruling Normandy, indeed anywhere the heirs of the Vikings had planted their feet, near impossible, as the
Guiscard
too had found to his cost.

His own father, William, had taken years between his succession at seven years of age and the great Battle of Val-es-Dunes to exert control over his subjects and in that he had required the support of the King of France, his titular suzerain, who did not supply such aid to the nineteen-year-old Duke William without extracting a territorial price, one redeemed when the young man, a decade older and finally secure in his domains, turned on his one-time ally and defeated him in battle.

Robert himself, succeeding to Normandy on the death of William, now called the Conqueror, had been forced to fight his brother, who ruled England, to maintain the title bequeathed to him; in that contest the ability of his subjects to change sides, and to do so at the drop of a gage, made a successful defence near impossible.

The two men talked on – Robert had been kind and indulgent to Tancred ever since they had marched in company with Bohemund from Nicaea – each recalling the feats of their forbears. Robert was able to range with pride all the way back to Rollo, the Viking raider who, to keep him and his ferocious raiders quiet, had been given Normandy as a fief. If Tancred’s lineage was, in terms of nobility, a shorter one, their deeds were just as remarkable, so a happy period was passed in talk of Norman success.

‘You have accepted the offer made to you by Raymond of Toulouse?’ Tancred said, in what seemed an abrupt change of subject and one that fractured the pleasant mood.

‘I have,’ Robert replied, with a look indicating that any enquiry into motive would be unwelcome.

‘Who can doubt your faith?’ Tancred responded, neatly sidestepping the issue of Raymond’s silver. ‘For myself …’

The ploy, leaving any conclusion to his words hanging in the air, was obvious and intended to be. Robert was sharp enough to pick up on what was required.

‘You are here to seek my advice?’

‘Some would be welcome, My Lord, since I can extract none from my uncle.’

‘You have asked?’

A nod accompanied by a gloomy look. ‘And been told to follow the dictates of my own conscience. Were it anyone but Toulouse I would not hesitate, like you I am all committed to Jerusalem, but …’

Robert, with his saturnine complexion and dark eyes, gave Tancred a look that seemed to enquire if he was ever going to finish a sentence, yet he declined to be drawn once more and remained silent, forcing the younger man to continue.

‘If it were Godfrey de Bouillon seeking my sword arm I would not hesitate, yet if I join with Raymond, Bohemund will surely see it as a betrayal.’

‘That is not necessarily the case.’

There was an air of real artificiality in the way that Tancred brightened then, made more apparent by his eagerness to hear anything encouraging.

‘We have just been talking about our ancestors, have we not? Ask yourself, Tancred, what the
Guiscard
would do in the same circumstance, indeed what your uncle would do if matters were reversed? What is here for you in Antioch but continued service under his shadow? What waits for you if you do as I have done, and you follow the dictates of your crusading vow?’

‘Bohemund is fond of saying he cannot see into the future. I am no better than he.’

When Robert responded, it was with an emphatic tone and a sharp chop of his hand.

‘That was a vow taken by Bohemund too, to march on Jerusalem and bring it back to Christianity, yet you and I know he will not progress one step beyond Antioch, for he sees no advantage to himself in doing so. Think like your uncle and that will give you the answer you seek.’

‘I have spoken with the men we lead, both lances and the foot soldiers, as you said before that I could.’ That got a gesture from a seated Bohemund, a twitch on the enjoined hands under his chin; it implied such a thing was hardly a secret. ‘Fifty of our lances are set on Jerusalem, nearly all the
milities
.’

‘They are more pious, the
milities
.’

‘And I am determined on Jerusalem myself, but I will go without Raymond’s silver if acceptance of that offends you.’

‘Take his money, for not to do so would be foolish,’ Bohemund snapped, but it was not said in anger. ‘But this I advise, trust Raymond in nothing, stay close to Robert of Normandy and even more to Duke Godfrey when he decides to march.’

‘For someone who claims not to be a seer you seem to know a great deal of what de Bouillon will do.’

‘What he must do, proceed to Jerusalem, but it will not be under the banner of Toulouse.’

‘How fractured this effort has become.’

‘The miracle is that there was accord for so long. I doubt if even Adémar, had he lived, could have kept it in harmony.’

‘If I am to take Raymond’s silver that means I must join him at Rugia.’

‘Then do so with my blessing, Tancred.’

‘If you are keen to give it now, why has it been so withheld?’

Bohemund stood and approached his nephew, taking his shoulders in his hands, his smile that of an indulgent parent.

‘It is not my place to make such decisions for you, regardless of what feelings I have for you – and those you know, so I will not reprise them. The time has been long in coming when you must strike out on your own, and I esteem you for the considerations you demonstrated in not wishing to do so in the service of a man who is my enemy.’

‘It is still an uneasy choice to make.’

‘Enough that it is done,’ Bohemund insisted. ‘I know you will fight well when the time comes, as you have done with me and perhaps, when men talk of the fall of Jerusalem, it will be of Tancred they speak, not the Duke of Normandy or the Count of Toulouse.’

‘With your permission I will leave on the morrow and I ask for the supplies of food I need to get to Rugia, enough for two days’ march.’

The benign expression on Bohemund’s face disappeared and his tone matched the look that replaced it. ‘You are in Raymond’s service now. If you want food, ask his men holding the Bridge Gate to provide it for you.’

With Tancred and his men barely gone, the news that arrived from Ma’arrat shocked even those inured to brutality; as had been observed by Bohemund, the land close to the city had been ravaged by the passing of armies, the good red earth lying fallow till the spring planting. Even with the city in Crusader hands the feeding of the masses that waited there, wondering when the march on Jerusalem would finally take place, imposed a burden on the countryside that could not be met.

Each time a traveller or messenger arrived in Antioch, they spoke of the increasing dearth of supply in the territory of Jabal as-Summaq, a high plateau, in the grip of winter. Supplies sent from other places, to the Apulians by Bohemund, to the rest by Raymond from Rugia, did not even begin to meet the needs of such a mass of mouths, and with nothing in the fields – even the barely edible roots were gone – the people there, pilgrims especially, were bordering on starvation.

The likes of Bishop Peter of Narbonne and his attendant priests lacked for little, churchmen never did, while the soldiers, following the sack and distribution of the spoils, had coin enough to buy from the traders who ventured into the city and set up a market as soon as matters settled. Likewise those pilgrims who, in the plundering of Ma’arrat, had sought valuables rather than food, yet even they were getting hungry in a situation so perilous it was balanced on an edge.