Stateless (47 page)

The duke tried to keep his men enthused with declarations of riches and glories of battle, even rehashing the Church's proclamation of the cleansing of sins for those who would see the campaign through. He was a man of considerable motivating force, but Nimrod could see that the inspiration would be unlikely to last should they not find victory and plunder soon.

As the Crusade progressed south and east towards Jerusalem, the cities and towns leading to Constantinople had come and gone, the heathen Mohammedans driven out and the pressure on King Alexios the First Komnenos relieved.

Now the great city of Antioch loomed before the diminished throng and became a much-needed beacon of hope for the Crusade as a place that would fulfil the promise. But the walls of Antioch were so wide and high and long that it was impossible for the Crusader army, far smaller than that which had set out from Paris and led by arguing and quarrelling commanders, to stem the flow of supplies into the city. The siege seemed destined to last indefinitely as the Turks threatened to send reinforcements.

And Nimrod was fearful of what he had seen. War was brutal and the casualties inflicted since leaving the north of France had been grave; more so on the citizens of the towns and cities they ravaged than the soldiers at arms, but the Crusaders were suffering none the less.

Nimrod had seen barbarism he could not wipe from his memory. He had seen heathen men boiled to death in the great camp cauldrons and children impaled on spits to be roasted and devoured by Crusaders driven mad by hunger. And Nimrod had seen his own people caught up in the conflict between Christians and Muslims as Jacob's prophecy came to pass – the Crusaders saw little that differentiated Jews and the followers of Mohammed. At night as he tried to sleep, Nimrod had often found himself wondering why he could not speak up against such atrocities – all these men, Christians, Muslims and Jews, were children of Abraham; all died with their faith in the same God. The guilt of his silence weighed upon him.

As he finished his task and drew the bed sheet over the duke's legs, Nimrod knew he was being watched. He did not need to turn to know that Michel Roux stood behind him.

‘Leave us, Jew,' said Roux but Nimrod was already collecting his medicinal tools and salves and shuffling towards the door, averting his eyes.

Chevalier Roux filled Nimrod with fear. He represented everything that darkened men's hearts. The duke kept him close
as a brutal warrior and leader of his cavalry, but Nimrod feared the power that Roux craved. He was not of significant noble birth and could never hope to claim the duke's title or estates save by sword and cunning, and Nimrod felt in his heart that he was quite capable of succeeding, especially as the duke's health was failing the further he was from his home in France. Before the Crusade Nimrod had attempted to delicately counsel the duke of the dangers of such men as Roux but war made them more valuable than in peacetime and Nimrod had stifled his concerns.

Nimrod shuffled quickly away from his master's tent and made his way, through the torchlight and drunkenness that was the camp after dark, to the small tent that he shared with Jacob. He made this walk with a heavy heart as he knew that this night would likely be Jacob's last. The old man was suffering greatly, and there was no medicine that Nimrod possessed that could alter the passage of age.

‘Slaughter is coming . . .' said Jacob, softly whispering as he struggled to breathe. ‘You must leave, Nimrod. Be away from here before the slaughter comes.'

For all his skills, all his learning, there was nothing that Nimrod could do for the old man and he felt useless.

‘I cannot. I serve the duke,' said Nimrod as he wiped Jacob's brow. The journey of the Crusade had taken its toll on the duke's treasurer. He had carefully performed his duty, managed the duke's accounts, paid the soldiers and maintained the most meticulous records of any in the campaign. When they had left France, the duke had made clear his orders concerning the treasury that Jacob was to oversee.

‘All that is plunder will be given immediately to you as my treasurer. And in God's good time, a fifth part of what we take from the heathen will be divided among the men. Earls, barons and chevaliers will also be allotted a fifth part of that fifth part. The Church will be allotted another fifth part, and two fifth
parts will be retained by me in recompense for my service to the Holy See.'

Jacob had followed these orders and maintained perfect records of all that had been taken and all that was to be allocated. And the duke had made it clear to his Crusaders that there would be a price to pay for failing to be honest in the account of what they had taken.

Nimrod recalled well the words delivered by the duke from the back of his horse before they set out. ‘Any Crusader who steals plunder for himself will suffer the most horrible of deaths for all eternity. Your headless body will be left in a ditch and you will not be buried in consecrated ground. You will never go to heaven, but instead will be consigned to the hottest flames of hell, where your flesh will burn for ten thousand years. For I will not tolerate any crimes during this Crusade. You are soldiers of the cross; you are soldiers for Jesus; yours is a holy and God-ordained mission. So what you steal from us, you steal from God Himself, and for that blasphemy you will die.'

It had been Nimrod who had advised the duke on what to say and the phrasing that might best deter and motivate the men. Nimrod had a way with words. Yet thinking of these words now, as the carnage of what such men of God had reaped, the words tasted as bitter as bile.

Nimrod had kept the duke's health and Jacob had kept the duke's accounts. But now the strain of the journey had stolen Jacob's health and threatened to leave Nimrod on his own.

‘You have not seen what I've seen . . .' Nimrod feared the old man's words would slip into incoherence and delusion but they maintained clarity even as Jacob closed his eyes to recall a memory. ‘The terrible massacre that went before this Crusade. They came for us, for our people. This fate will come again . . .' But then the cough returned, stealing any further words from Jacob's lips.

Nimrod knew the stories, of the expulsion and massacre of the Jews from the cities of Europe. Since he had found his place and purpose in the court of the Duke of Champagne, such stories had felt far away. And yet now, as he himself was a part of the destruction being wreaked upon the East, as he had watched what men could do to other men, as Christians slaughtered Arabs in the name of a peace-loving God, the stories felt very close to home. And Nimrod was without anyone to trust.

Jacob's words softened and slid away into a soft babble. Nimrod held the old man's hand and waited, listening softly to his breath as it became a hiss and then a rattle and then nothing.

Soon after Jacob had died, the great walls of Antioch were finally breached. It wasn't might of arms that allowed the Crusader army to flood into the massive city in the height of summer, but rather simple bribery. The commander of the south tower had been paid a massive sum of silver to open his gates and the siege that had appeared to be unending was now over in an orgy of looting and killing, the walls of the city intact. Yet the revelry was short lived as the former besiegers became the besieged and a fresh Muslim army arrived, preparing to take back the city so recently captured.

Rather than the stalemate of siege warfare, the armies met in the open field outside the city and clashed like two mighty mailed fists punching each other. The army that would win would not be the strongest or best armed, but simply the force that could be held coherent in the chaos. In the end it was the Muslims who broke ranks as internal power struggles drove whole cohorts to quit the field and return to their tribal lands.

The Crusaders were left holding the bloodstained ground as stories circulated among the men of the Holy Lance having been found in the city as a sign from God, or even that a host of saints had been deployed on to the battlefield to drive back the heathens.

But to the ever-practical Nimrod observing the carnage, it was nothing more than the winds of war that, on this day, had blown in the favour of the Crusaders but tomorrow may well blow back in their faces.

Since the death of Jacob, the duties of the duke's treasury had fallen to Nimrod. But he had no head for numbers, and the scope of the task, now that Antioch had been conquered and the Muslim army broken, was beyond him. He attempted to follow Jacob's accounts, tried in vain to understand the conflicting reports of the duke's men as to what amounts had been taken and what must be recorded, and all the while he listened to the screams and wails of the city as it cried out in pain.

Nimrod bundled the day's scrolls of accounts under his arm and shuffled off towards the rooms the duke had taken up as residence in the wreckage of the city's palatial buildings. He kept his face down, his eyes on the ground, and tried to block out the world around him. The last remaining prisoners were being rounded up; Saracens were herded together like cattle and put to the sword. Yet, stripped of their scimitars and clothes, it was impossible to tell if they were soldiers or simple innocents collected up in the fever of fighting.

Nimrod kept the scrolls tight under his arm, walking to the Duke to make his account for the day's plunder. But as he walked, he heard words in a language none of the soldiers around him spoke, causing him to lift his head in surprise.

The words were a mix of English and Hebrew and Nimrod found himself looking across the flagstone courtyard to see a roughly bearded and wiry man pulling with all his feeble might at the grip of two Crusader soldiers who held him fast.

‘I am not a Saracen! I am not a Turk! I am not a solider. I am just a merchant . . .'

The soldiers continued to pull the man to follow them, and he changed his language from English and Hebrew into German, then Arabic. Nimrod, without consciously choosing to change direction, turned towards the man and the knights. It was only when he came close enough to see their faces that Nimrod saw the pock-marked face and flame-red hair of Michel Roux standing before the merchant.

Then the man spoke in faltering French. ‘I am Jewish, not Muslim. I am a friend to the Crusader. I want only to trade. I have wealth and I can –'

Roux lashed out with a mailed fist straight into the merchant's chest, forcing the wind from his lungs and causing him to cough, and then fall painfully silent.

‘Jew or Muslim, you are a godless heathen and you'll die like the rest. Take him away!' he ordered, and the knights on either side of the man heaved him around with his feet dangling above the flagstones.

Nimrod involuntarily raised a hand to stop the knights and in doing so the scrolls fell to the ground with a clatter. The movement caught the attention of both the soldiers and Roux, and all three turned towards Nimrod. Caught now in their glare, the doctor was compelled to speak.

‘This man . . . what has this man done?'

Roux looked at Nimrod baffled at his audacity to interfere. But Roux remained silent, looking at Nimrod in contempt.

‘This man . . . he is a m-merchant?' Nimrod stammered.

‘Jew? Merchant? What of it?' sneered Roux.

‘He may have –' Nimrod's words caught in his throat as he crouched to the ground to gather up the scrolls that had fallen from his hands and which threatened to blow away in the wind. ‘He may have skills that the duke . . .'

By now Roux was upon Nimrod, so close that the doctor could smell the man's putrid breath. He felt Roux's metal-clad hands grab at his shirt and all but heave him off the ground.

‘By what right do you question me?' Roux said, his voice menacing.

‘I am tasked by the duke . . . this man might be . . . we should speak first with duke Henri, and – '

Roux hefted Nimrod backwards, throwing him flailing through the air, and crashing to the ground. His head collided with the flagstones and his sight flooded with swirling colours. He put his hands to the ground to push himself up just in time to see Roux stand over him with his sword ready to strike down and end his life.

But the blow didn't come and instead Nimrod heard the thundering voice of the duke.

‘What in God's name is going on here?'

Nimrod opened his eyes to see Roux still clutching the sword and behind him the Jewish merchant staring with panicked eyes at the scene.

‘Roux, what is the meaning of this?' demanded the duke.

‘Just a prisoner, my lord,' said Roux, his gaze turning to the merchant still held by the soldiers.

‘And why is my doctor on the ground? Why are my accounts scattered in the dirt?'

Nimrod scrambled to his feet and, snatching up what parchments he could, said, ‘A merchant, my lord, this man is a merchant.'

‘And what is that to me, old fool!' said the duke.

‘He is a collaborator, working with the Saracen, and he will be put to the sword,' Roux shouted, not wishing to be outflanked by the old Jew.