Prince of Legend (2 page)

T
he bright red standard with the gilded Occitan cross, the flag of the Count of Toulouse, fluttered from the Bridge Gate barbican to taunt Bohemund the closer he approached. The most powerful, as well as the wealthiest of the crusading princes, this Provençal magnate had never been happy with the application of the right of conquest, for the fear it would not fall to him. He had chosen well if he intended to dispute possession of the city with the leader of the Apulian Normans as well as the banner high above the city that proclaimed it as a fief for Bohemund.

Outside the Bridge Gate lay the only crossing of the River Orontes, while over that arched stone bridge ran the roads that led north and south as well as to the coast and the port of St Simeon. These were all the points from which any supplies could come to what was now becoming a Crusader garrison and one Toulouse could choke off from resupply if he so chose.

As of this moment the Bridge Gate, like the rest of the entries to Antioch, was wide open: knights who had spent months outside Antioch – Provençal, Normans, Apulians and Lotharingians in their thousands – were busy moving all their possessions into the city and behind them would come their foot-slogging
milities
, then those who provided support for an army on campaign: camp wives, sutlers, farriers, armourers, harness and saddle makers, as well as the drovers who looked after food on the hoof, people without which no host could hope to survive in the field.

Last to enter would be the mass of non-combatant religious pilgrims who had increasingly swelled the numbers travelling to Palestine in the wake of the fighting men, all intent on finding remission for past sins as promised to them by Pope Urban. Useless mouths, who nevertheless demanded to be fed, they could not be left outside: Kerbogha would simply massacre them.

To observe the army, as it trickled through the gates, was to cast an eye over a much diminished force, for it was no longer the all-powerful entity that had crossed the Bosphorus from Constantinople the previous year; siege warfare, battles in the field, disease, loss of faith in the crusading ideal leading to desertion had plagued them prior to Antioch.

The long siege had only multiplied every one of those difficulties tenfold and nowhere was that more obvious than in their lack of horses. The main advantage for western knights in combat lay in their ability to impose their will by a shock charge when mounted, the foot soldiers used more as an aid to that than a body able to affect the outcome of a battle on their own.

Now that force of knights could barely muster one horse for every tenth lance and in terms of quality they could not compare with the kind of mounts with which they had set out from home; too many of
those had died on the way. The Normans, in particular, whether from the rain-washed north or sun-baked Southern Italy, were reckoned the most fearsome warriors in the known world but that reputation rested on animals they no longer possessed, the sturdy destriers as fearless as the men who rode them.

No contingent, when they had set out, had been any better supplied when it came to horses trained for battle. Now, even with careful husbandry – Bohemund had sent his herds away when they were not required to places with pasture – they were as near to deficiency as any of the others.

As he approached the Bridge Gate the thought of fighting for possession had to be put aside, regardless of the tactics employed; the Crusade was a delicate construct, led by men who were too proud to allow anyone to hold sway over their actions. But the one purpose they all shared and one that they had sworn the most solemn oaths to progress was that an army must march on to Jerusalem to make it once more a Christian city.

That any of the princes should allow their pride to overcome their faith, that any of their men should fall to fighting and killing each other rather than the infidel, was held to be anathema and a certain route to perdition. The only result of such an action would be the complete collapse of the enterprise, with a massive amount of opprobrium being heaped on those who had broken their vows.

Trial by single combat as a means of settling disputes was also out of the question, yet by his action Toulouse had taken the harmony and cohesion which had sustained the Crusade so far, albeit often strained, dangerously close to breaking, so close that one inadvertent incident, the kind of unforeseen accident committed by any man high or low in a passion, could fatally fracture it.

On the way down from the citadel Bohemund had heard of the other places seized by Toulouse, the Governor’s Palace being one, but such things were baubles compared to the Bridge Gate, which was a strategic asset of huge significance.

‘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 cried.

‘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.’