Prince of Legend

CHAPTER SIX

Just getting the Hermit and Firuz out of the Bridge Gate took much negotiation, indeed permission had to be sought from Kerbogha himself to allow them passage, consent brought back by a richly dressed rider leading what was clearly a strong escort. So with a final sign of the cross the pair slipped through the postern gate and crossed the arched stone bridge to the other side of the River Orontes.

The main Turkish encampment was just south of the western end of the Iron Bridge and as soon as they were sighted, what was a seemingly somnolent area of tents and cooking fires came to life; men leapt to their feet and hurried to see this apparition in his flowing robes, others exited their canvas to come and stare at Peter and his plainly clad companion, their escort slowing so they could be clearly seen and derided.

‘Keep your head high,’ Firuz commanded, as Peter let it sink on his chest rather than meet an enemy look. ‘Do not show fear if you want to live.’

The eyes of the Armenian were darting around, doing what he had been asked, seeking to drink in what he could of the dispositions of Kerbogha’s host as well as their true numbers, for the messages that had come into Antioch over the weeks since the arrival of this army had thrown up variations that were either low and designed to reassure, or fantastical and aimed at inducing terror.

Some estimate of the true figure could be discerned from the time it took to get from the edge of the camp to the centre, where sat the huge black pavilion of Kerbogha. Here were camped his own personal retainers, those on guard duty well armed, alert and wearing mail, leading Firuz to wonder if they were set there to protect their lord from his own host rather than display.

Once outside the main flap they were forced to wait in the broiling sun, offered nothing to drink or even spoken to by those entering and exiting with their leader’s commands. They also had to wait when the entire host was called to prayer, Peter at last allowed to close his eyes, in truth joining in the devotions to pray for his corporeal body not his soul.

When they were called to go inside that was carried out in silence, merely a sharp nod by a man who pulled aside the flap designed to keep out the dust, while inside the passageway there were bowls of burning incense to kill off the latrine smell which attended the gathering of every host. Through another flap they entered the main area, lit by numerous oil lamps that sent out shadows that seemed to exaggerate the hard features of the Turkish commander.

Kerbogha had a visage that went with his reputation: long, oiled hair swept back to expose a narrow, much lined brow, heavy eyebrows atop black orbs that rarely blinked, hooked nose over full lips that arced down at the corners and a prominent chin covered with a well-trimmed beard, all set off by his dark skin. Hunched forward it was still possible to see he was a man of some strength, for he wore a short, sleeveless tunic that exposed his muscular arms while his calves were likewise huge. When he spoke his voice seemed to be coming from the soles of his soft leather boots.

‘He asks why we have come,’ Firuz said.

It was a tremulous voice that replied; Peter was in dread of his imagined fate and if it was not the one he had faced in Antioch, it promised to be even worse. ‘You can tell him.’

‘You must speak, Peter,’ Firuz hissed. ‘It must seem to come from you, and choose your words with care for there will be Greek speakers in this tent. Also, look him in the eye and reply with firmness. Imagine you are preaching to your flock and that God is using you as his instrument.’

It was not immediate; Peter seemed to want to fill his body with air before he opened his mouth and steadied his nerves. When words did come out, they made him sound more demanding than good sense allowed.

‘I am Peter the Hermit and I come from the mighty Council of Princes of the Holy Crusade.’

Firuz translated that in a softer tone and with a higher degree of tact, the council being noble not mighty, not that it mattered for another whispered the true words in Kerbogha’s ear.

‘I have come to seek by what terms you will allow us pass out of Antioch and make our way back to our far-off homes?’

Firuz added to that, ‘In peace.’

The Atabeg actually began to laugh, it starting with a chuckle then turning into a bellow of amusement, soon taken up by all his attendants. Peter and Firuz watched as his head went back and his body rocked in his curule chair, so hard that the front legs were lifted from the floor. Then it died out, like a candle being extinguished, to be replaced by a glare that had Peter take an alarmed step backwards, only stopped from going further by the restraining arm of Firuz.

‘Did you come in peace?’ Kerbogha demanded, not waiting for a reply, leaving Firuz talking simultaneously and quietly while the Atabeg ranted about Crusaders, Franks, the Christian faith — Latin and Orthodox — as well as the crimes of all of those and the mercy of Islam, spittle bursting from those thick, dark lips to spray the carpeted ground between them until he concluded and sat back with the words, ‘You came to kill, it is fitting, therefore, that you should die.’

It took some nudging to get Peter to deliver the offer as it had been given to him by the council: that the Crusaders and the pilgrims would abandon any attempt to get to Palestine and march instead to the north, leaving behind their arms and what few mounts they still possessed as well as any treasure they still had from their previous actions. Nor would they stop, not even at Constantinople.

‘It is also my duty,’ Firuz translated, ‘to remind you that we are not alone in making war on your faith. We act in concert with the mighty Emperor Alexius of Byzantium who is at this very moment marching to our aid.’

An idea put forward by Vermandois, for once his suggestion had not been ignored — that it was wasted became obvious after another bout of loud mirth.

‘Your mighty emperor is now marching back to his capital, burning everything in his wake, crops, shelter, slaughtering animals to stop me from pursuing and destroying him. That is because he thinks you lost, which proves that for a Christian he is no fool.’

Peter, shocked at such news, had to be nudged to say, ‘Our offer stands.’

The Atabeg made a pretence of thinking on it, only to slowly shake his head and start speaking again, the low and calm of his voice lending more effect to his words than if he had shouted them, Firuz matching the tone.

‘No messenger, go back to your mighty council and tell them they are as sheep and their offer a bleat. Perhaps they will, like that beast, succumb and be roasted on my fires. Or maybe they will die from lack of pasture.’

That last notion seemed to amuse Kerbogha; it chilled the men at whom it was aimed.

‘My host will pray you to come out and fight, but Allah does not always grant a wish to the faithful. So you will expire from a lack of food, and when your knights can no longer stand and do battle I will walk into Antioch at my pleasure.’

Kerbogha fell silent for a moment, which had all eyes on him for it was plain he had not finished. If it was merely for effect it worked.

‘I offer you this, for it is not fitting that I should fail to be merciful. Leave the city and your clothing, banners, weapons and armour, come out naked and I promise you will all die quickly, rather than the slow death you now face. And because Allah is merciful he will take to his bosom anyone who turns to the Prophet and the true faith.’

Peter opened his mouth to speak but the sharp command to take both he and Firuz back to Antioch cut right across the attempt. As they left the pavilion Firuz whispered that Peter should walk slowly and look sad, an admonition that was in fact unnecessary, for the older man was near to stumbling and tears ran down his cheeks.

Clearly he feared what was coming, which made a fellow who had converted twice wonder at why a preacher who claimed to be so holy and had spent his life spreading the gospel and underlining the route to salvation was so frightened to meet his maker?

It took time enough to assemble the council and that allowed Bohemund to question Firuz about what he had observed. The Armenian was truthful: the host was great, well armed and seemed in good spirits, with no sign of dissension amongst the various groupings. Antioch being a trading city was a magnet to merchants from all over the interior, so Firuz had, by what they wore on their heads and the colouring of their garments, been able to identify the different clans and sub-faiths that made up Kerbogha’s army, not without a sense of wonder that such grouping, famed for their internecine conflicts, could ever come together. In his opinion this was only made possible by the evil reputation of their general.

‘Tell me everything, from the moment you entered the camp to the time you left.’

That took a while, with Bohemund listening and saying not a word, until a call came to say that the council was assembled and his presence was required. The air he adopted when he entered the chamber, of seeming confidence, stood in stark contrast to the looks of gloom by which he was greeted and he maintained that as the message Peter had been given was relayed in all its barbarous clarity.

‘Do you think it true about the Emperor?’ Vermandois asked, in a manner that spoke of near despair.

‘I cannot see,’ Normandy replied, ‘why Kerbogha would lie, and, if there was threat from the north, would he still be in his full strength where he is camped?’

Robert of Flanders pitched in. ‘Sense would dictate he moves to meet that threat if it exists. It takes little of his forces to keep us bottled up.’

‘Then we must do what he least expects,’ said Bohemund softly.

‘What do you suggest, Count Bohemund?’ Ademar asked.

‘We must fight him and beat him, but on terms of our choosing.’

‘Easily advanced,’ Vermandois scoffed, ‘but how do you think that can be achieved?’

‘Surely if the Holy Lance has a purpose, it is to aid us in that!’

The reactions to those words were mixed, but Raymond of Toulouse was openly irritated — Bohemund’s scepticism about the relic and how it was discovered had not remained a secret for the very simple reason he had made no attempt that it should.

Godfrey of Bouillon spoke next. ‘Whatever the Holy Lance brings to our cause, Count Bohemund has the right of it. We stay here within the walls and starve like curs or we die like men in battle.’

‘Outside the walls,’ Bohemund insisted.

This was said with a grateful look at Godfrey, whose views carried weight. That there was mutual regard was true; Bohemund, with the aid of Tancred, had, a year past, saved Godfrey’s life when he was about to be killed by a bear that had already savaged him severely. Yet he would not grant an opinion based on gratitude just for the sake of that; if Godfrey spoke it was with honesty.

‘We can barely muster a hundred fit horses,’ Raymond protested.

‘And if we had ten thousand I would not employ them. To go to Kerbogha would be fatal, for that allows him to choose the field of battle, something my forebears taught me was always a flawed notion. Let us choose where we fight, let us make him come to us and let us fight on foot as we did at Dorylaeum.’

‘Which you would have lost without we came to your relief.’

‘We held for a day and would have held for another,’ Normandy barked, for no knight liked his deeds to be belittled and the Normans had held off a Turkish force that massively outnumbered them. ‘The enemy you and your companions chased from the field was one we had much diminished.’

In truth it had been nip and tuck: Bohemund and Duke Robert, riding ahead from Nicaea with a third of the crusading host to ease the problem of supply, had been caught unawares by a force of Turks, led by the Sultan of Rum. Bold action by the Duke and Bohemund, leading their own familia knights, had blunted the initial assault, but it was only sheer bloody-mindedness and ability that had got them out from the men who eventually surrounded them.

Their actions gave Tancred time to get the rest of the host, pilgrims included, into a place the Normans could defend. Retiring into a nearby marsh, with a soft crust of ground that would negate the Turkish cavalry, they had been forced to fight on foot until relief came, which it did when Raymond, Godfrey, Flanders and the Bishop of Puy arrived to chase their attackers away. That had ended in a rout for the Sultan and the capture of much booty.

‘There is still hope that Kerbogha was lying,’ Count Hugh insisted, as if Normandy had not spoken. ‘Alexius might bring the might of Byzantium to our aid.’

Ademar cut off any scoffing by saying quickly to Vermandois that it was a very tenuous thing to hope for and gave ground when Bohemund took up the discussion again.

‘The promises of Alexius Comnenus are worthless — all he has ever been concerned with is the integrity of his empire.’

Nor did he stop at that, for it was time to tell the truth, however unpalatable it was to listen to. How many times had Bohemund been tempted to tell them this, to show how little trust they should place in the word of a Byzantine emperor, whoever he was and regardless of his winning manner? He could speak his mind instead, acting in a manner that he had been obliged to curb since their first council.

They had been dazzled by Byzantine magnificence and saw virtue where there was corruption and deceit, this driven home by a harsh assessment of the Emperor’s motives. If the Crusade aided him, taking back the old Byzantine possessions from the Seljuk Turks and handing them over to him, such offerings would be gratefully received. If, however, they died in the attempt, that was a loss with which Alexius could live, for in doing so they must diminish those who could threaten him, quite apart from the fact that they might themselves represent a future menace.

‘I fear,’ Ademar responded, ‘and it gives me no joy to admit it, that you may speak the truth.’

‘Mark it, My Lord Bishop, as no lie, for if it was not so, why is Alexius no threat to Kerbogha?’

The weary-looking cleric cast a glance around the assembly, as if seeking someone to refute what Bohemund had said, but not even Raymond was prepared to challenge a man who knew Byzantium too well. Having waited for what seemed an age, Ademar finally set things in motion again.

‘Do you have a way of proceeding to suggest, Count Bohemund?’ That got a sharp nod. ‘Then perhaps it would be a notion to outline your thinking to all present.’

Which he proceeded to do, and if it was bold as a plan it was also, if it failed, a route to certain annihilation. Many times it had to be restated that such a fate awaited them regardless of how they acted, and after much discussion it was agreed that to die by wasting away was not a fitting death for men of such stature, while those of lesser rank would follow either from the same feeling or because they had enough belief in God or relics like that which Raymond displayed to them.

‘Let them see the Holy Lance before the battle,’ Bohemund suggested, for if he was cynical himself he knew that others were not. ‘And let them kiss it if they so desire.’

Toulouse reacted as if the smelly mob was being invited to plant their lips on him.

‘But let us put my plan in execution and place our faith in our abilities.’

Put to the vote it was agreed, then came the vexed question of who was to lead, that immediately countered by the suggestion from Raymond that they should, as they had in the past, command their own contingents.

‘No!’ Bohemund maintained and not with much tact. ‘Such a battle requires one leader, one general, for a divided command will not serve.’

‘And no doubt, Count Bohemund, you see yourself in that position?’

‘I have a plan, Count Raymond, do you?’

That would have descended into unseemly wrangling if Godfrey de Bouillon had not spoken out forcefully. ‘I will say, without equivocation, that I will not assent to take my men into this battle under anyone else but Count Bohemund!’

‘He saved your life once, Duke Godfrey,’ Toulouse scoffed, ‘do not be so sure he will do so again.’

The reply was stinging and would have seen a sword drawn if it had come from anyone else.

‘I have often wondered if you are capable of being a fool, Count Raymond, now I know it to be so. You are a puissant lord, a famous knight, but do you think the Turks whisper in terror of you in the dark of the night? I know they do not fear my name any more than did Alexius Comnenus. He feared Bohemund de Hauteville, not anyone else of our number and I think our enemies know best of him and his deeds to be likewise affected. It is his banner that will draw their gaze, therefore let the man who has brought us to this conclusion and has at least a plan have the command.’

‘For the very good other reason,’ Robert of Normandy cut in, ‘that amongst us he is by any measure the best and most experienced general.’

‘You would serve under a man who owes you fealty?’

‘Better that than die under one in whom I repose no faith.’

That was like a slap to Toulouse, really the only other contender, and he was angry. Yet he was no fool despite what Godfrey had said and to put it to a vote was to lose. Flanders would go with his brother-in-law of Normandy, which only left Vermandois to back the Provencal case to the leadership, Ademar only having a casting vote if it was required. With a sharp nod and still holding his relic, he left the room.

‘Then,’ Ademar said, ‘it is needful that we say a Mass for our hopes.’

When it came to a choice of where to fight a battle, Bohemund had always been aware he was not gifted with much choice. Without horses he could not attack an enemy camped so far off from Antioch and, as he had said, would not have done so even if he was well supplied with mounts — that left the actual point of contact too open to chance. On foot he dare not stray too far from the security of the city walls, so all that was left was to use those as an anchor.

His aim was to deploy in such a way that would invite Kerbogha to attack him, but just to get what was left of the crusading army out through the Bridge Gate was hard enough and, despite his feelings, that seemed to require a strong body should be left behind to mask the citadel, thus weakening what could be put in the field and that he declined to do. The notion that it be left unguarded alarmed more than the men he led: Toulouse, who scoffed at any suggestion the Count of Taranto put forward, was vocal in his scorn.

‘They could take the city while we are outside!’

‘If we are beaten Kerbogha will take Antioch anyway, Count Raymond, and I am putting my faith in the fact that we will tempt our Atabeg with a morsel he cannot resist.’

Sensing the need to explain further Bohemund stood closer to the table on which lay the map of Antioch and its surroundings.

‘Kerbogha wants to destroy us, wants to say to all of his peers that the men who defeated every army sent against it was brought low by him.’

‘You can see into his mind?’

‘Perhaps,’ the Duke of Normandy interjected, to put Raymond in his place ‘my confrere can see into more than one.’

‘It does no harm,’ Ademar suggested, emollient as ever, ‘to test notions of what might be. Even as a mere cleric I know that.’

Godfrey of Bouillon laughed out loud. ‘If God had many mere clerics like you, My Lord Bishop, then all of Islam would quake and Kerbogha would up sticks and flee back to Mosul.’

If the Bishop of Puy-en-Velay was flattered, he hid it behind a display of becoming modesty, but Godfrey’s sally had spread amusement and done more to lighten the atmosphere than all the priestly soothing, which allowed Bohemund to continue.

‘I suggest we tempt him with that destruction and hope that seeing us outside the walls he will do nothing to require us to withdraw, which an attack from the citadel will most surely require. I am guessing …’

That word got an indrawn breath from Vermandois and Toulouse which Bohemund ignored: what was the point of explaining to men who knew as well as he did that war was a game of chance and this was no different? All any general could do was make a plan and hope that he could maintain his, while throwing his opponents off their own.

‘I believe he will order those in and to the rear of the citadel to do nothing to take the shine off his anticipated glory. Those men are commanded by Shams ad-Daulah even if he fights under Kerbogha’s banner. The last thing our Atabeg will want is possession of the city gifted to him by the son of the last governor.’

‘And if you are mistaken?’ Toulouse demanded.

Bohemund declined to respond directly to that meaningless question and instead spoke to them all.

‘Do I need to remind you of how desperate our situation is, My Lords? We either fight on what terms we can manage or we march out with naked, shrunken bellies and halters round our necks within days, to have our blood turn the Orontes red. I tell you, if we cannot engage as a body of maximum strength, I will march out alone with my Apulians and you can watch the slaughter from the walls and get an early sight of your own fate.’

‘Finish outlining your plan, Count Bohemund,’ Ademar replied, his voice strong and commanding for once. ‘And by my faith let us all attend to it.’