Soldier of Crusade

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

In taking up their area of responsibility every crusading contingent took precautions to prepare for an immediate sortie by the garrison, indeed they did not expect to make their dispositions unmolested. Yet nothing happened for days; they were left to settle in, to eat well, drink wine, sleep soundly and celebrate their daily Mass with the numerous priests that accompanied the host. Camp wives, who were plentiful, settled in to look after their menfolk, which, much to the disgust of Peter the Hermit and Godfrey de Bouillon, included the more elevated divines, though not Bishop Ademar.

The whole turned into more of a settlement than a military camp and this lasted for one surprising week, then another. This left the princes with many questions but no answers, though it provided ample time to reconnoitre those areas not occupied as well as assess just how difficult it would be to shut off the city from resupply, very necessary if attrition was to work. Some wit, part of a party of horsemen reconnoitring the narrow track on the eastern flank of Antioch, having heard the inappropriate name of the Iron Bridge, decided that the equally stone-built point of entry and egress at the end of the valley should be called the Iron Gate as a measure of the kind of resolve that would be needed to invest and close it.

Not to be outdone, the Apulians named their gate after St Paul of Tarsus, where they had lost so many men murdered in their sleep. A dead dog cast over the walls where the Duke of Normandy and Raymond of Toulouse were camped gave the next one south its name while the third gate was more prosaically termed the Gate of the Duke after Godfrey de Bouillon’s title.

The Bridge Gate was obvious but no one was quite sure how the last of these edifices got to be called the St George’s Gate, probably more a patron saint of someone than for any other reason.

Mobile patrols were kept active, especially on the far side of the river, even if it was a long slog to the nearest crossing. Armenians and Syrians continued to be expelled or flee from the city, the suspicion that they were not all they seemed impossible not to consider after Nicaea, which, if true, meant that Yaghi Siyan knew much more about them than they did about him or his intentions; did he wish them gone or was he content to lull them into a false sense of security?

That period of peace broke on the garrison’s first sortie, something they could do with impunity given half their gates were able to open and close at will, with nothing outside to impede them that could not be seen from the high citadel. It was to Bohemund’s St Paul’s Gate that they directed their first attack, using the western slope of Mount Staurin to assemble in plain view on a relatively flat ledge, then rain down arrows on the Apulian lines. Caught unawares and without mail or shields several knights were wounded, while one woman, the camp wife of a foot soldier, was killed outright.

To fight off such an attack was difficult; the men on duty and properly clad for battle sought, under Robert of Salerno, to advance up the steep slope of loose stones and scrub bushes under a hail of missiles that made the assent doubly hazardous since it was near impossible for them to both climb and protect themselves. They also faced the added danger of larger rocks deliberately set in motion to roll down the hillside and maim them, and they did not manage to even make contact. The Turks withdrew when their supply of arrows ran out, jeering as they retired, with Bohemund making a swift move to counter the threat.

‘We will need to make up screens behind which we can shelter, for this will not be their last attempt using that tactic.’

Soon the whole Apulian host was hacking out and joining up frames while others cut and fashioned reeds in bundles thick enough to stop, or at the very least take the sting out of, a speeding arrow. Once erected the tents were moved into their shade, which had a double benefit of keeping out the sun for part of the day while a watch was kept on the hillside for a repeat, which was bound to come, it being so seemingly risk-free for the garrison. They had reckoned without the son of the Guiscard.

At night, in a thick heat haze that obscured both moon and stars, they could move without being observed and Bohemund led a party of his men in a wide arc and up the hill as silently as was possible, well away from the hearing of the sentinels on the walls. The aim was to find a bush behind which to conceal themselves, using their cloaks for added camouflage, the command to stay still and not move pressed home many times. The same band of Turks, at first light, no doubt using as an exit the Iron Gate, came over the brow of the mountain and began to slither down to that ledge from which they had launched their previous attack, making no attempt at subterfuge.

With the sun in the east and not yet fully risen, and the peak of Mount Staurin so high, the whole of the western slope was in deep shade, which helped to keep the knights hidden. Bohemund waited till he heard orders being issued, indicating they were getting ready to attack, before he stood up and called for his men to do likewise, immediately rushing forward and yelling like a banshee. At this elevation and given the incline it was not easy, running with one foot so much lower than the other, but it was possible and the Normans had surprise on their side.

The startled Turks, with their bows still on the shoulders, panicked instead of acting as they should and they were not aided by the fellow obviously in command shouting orders that seemed to be causing more confusion rather than less. Now it was the turn of the Turks to seek to scrabble to safety and quite a few, some dozen in number, did not get clear, falling to great swipes by flashing Norman swords as well as a pair of well-aimed axes; there was no jeering now, just screaming and much of that was coming from those fleeing.

Bohemund knew he dare not linger; the battlements were not far off and his party was in range of archery from there. It would not take long to muster the men needed to turn his attack into an untidy and potentially fatal retreat. His command to move came with an instruction to kick the dead Turks so they rolled down the slope ahead of them, and if the knights descending appeared inelegant, sometimes failing to keep their feet, they came back to ground level with the cheers of their confreres ringing in their ears.

‘Now, we need a permanent piquet at the brow of the slope,’ Bohemund gasped. ‘One that will stop them ever attempting that again.’

If such a tactic was easily advanced it was far from easily carried out and nor was it safe; it required the building of a drystone enclosure high enough to stop anyone just leaping over to slit the throats of those who were sent to man it. Every night it had to be resupplied with food, water and men, those left to hold it rotated from what was an isolated and extremely dangerous duty. But it worked; the Turks knew they would have to fight first to get into position and such attacks as had happened originally diminished, if they did not entirely cease.

Having begun to act the Turks expanded their efforts over the following weeks, employing mounted archers to inflict casualties on the Crusaders, small highly mobile squadrons who knew exactly the dispositions of their enemies and could see when certain groups were too remote from the main host to benefit from quick support, and such raids happened around the whole perimeter. Any companies caught outside the St George’s Gate were obliged to flee for the distant river crossing, while those knights caught to the east of the mountains seeking to stop up the Iron Gate were being attacked by flying columns from a force based outside and to the east of the city.

But such actions happened right in front of the western walls too, for there was only a narrow strip of land between the Gate of the Duke and the Orontes in which to operate and too many times men were being trapped there and decimated, either killed by arrows and swords or else they drowned in the river trying to get clear. A frustrated Godfrey de Bouillon, whose knights were suffering the most, decided to build a pontoon bridge over the river using boats, so that the main body of men from his camp, of necessity on the far bank, could get across to aid their hard-pressed confreres.

This was only a partial solution given that aid came best from mounted and mailed knights; to ride a horse across an unstable platform was difficult and that imposed a strict limit on how many could use the pontoon at the same time — the greater the number who tried simultaneously, the greater the movement under the horses’ hooves — which led to crowding on the west bank as frustrated warriors sought to get at their rampaging enemies.

Henry of Esch, he one of the pair who came up with the ridiculous bombardment screen which fell apart at Nicaea, became so frustrated he rode into the river, sinking ever more until his head was under the water and he was despaired of. God was with him, it was later claimed, as he emerged, still mounted and dripping water, to urge his mount up onto the far bank. Still soaked he went straight into action and did good service.

Of greater concern, as time went on, was the diminution of supplies; such a huge number of mouths — fighting men and pilgrims — required feeding on a scale that even the fertile plains to the west of the Orontes could not support, while bringing in food and fodder from the well-disposed Armenians was slow and difficult given it all had to be carried by oxen or donkeys and was subjected to raids by bands of Turkish warriors.

Those same bands made foraging difficult to near impossible, so from being a place of plenty the region in which they were encamped soon looked to be on the way to becoming a wasteland, and that was before the weather, hitherto benign, turned for the worse. Lashed by heavy rain and battered by strong winds the siege lines turned into an area of hard-to-negotiate mud and made everyone’s life a misery, the Turks quick to take advantage of that by sending out short sharp raids to further lower the spirits of those they faced.

After days of such downpours the sky cleared, the wind dropped and news came from St Simeon that a fleet of Genoese ships had arrived in the harbour with supplies, and not just provender: there were new Crusaders too, if in no great number, but more importantly the Great Count Roger had responded to his nephew’s request and sent from Sicily his most experienced artisans, men who had campaigned with him on the island and helped to take many a Saracen fortress.

Their first task was to turn Bohemund’s temporary bastion on the slopes of Mount Staurin into a more robust fortress and if it could not match in strength the walls of Antioch it was well built enough to completely secure that flank and obviate the risk of what many feared, a mass attack being launched down that slope in an attempt to sweep the Crusaders into the river. Needing to be named, as did everything structured in the siege, the men who manned it called their temporary fort Malregard, a reference to the fact that it was still an exposed and dangerous position.

Yet if that arrival lifted the spirits it soon became clear just how short a period any food they had brought would last, and the ships were quick to depart once unloaded, with those who knew of the sea aware that they would not be seen again till spring, so dangerous was the Mediterranean for lengthy winter voyages. They still had Cyprus, much closer, but even there the crossing could be suspended for weeks due to storms, and in anticipation of dearth Bohemund sent half his horses away to the north where there was more pasture, an act which his fellow princes declined to emulate.

That still left him with enough mounts to be active in the ensuing sorties and the one most pressing was the need to counter the interdiction of supplies by roving raiders from the eastern hinterland. It was not just the loss of food to the Crusaders — every time a force sought to impede supplies getting in through the Iron Gate they faced not just the defenders of Antioch but a strong mounted force which threatened their rear and on more than one occasion had caught the Frankish lances unawares and inflicted heavy casualties.

As the contingent who would find it easiest to disengage and recross the Iron Bridge, the council deputed the Apulian Normans to seek to remove this threat, to find out where these raiders were camped and either destroy them or so harry them they would have to move further away to a point where their depredations would cease to be effective. From being static before the St Paul’s Gate — only the other contingents had seen much work mounted — Bohemund’s lances, one thousand strong, were delighted to move out on horseback. Tancred was left in charge of the rest of the host and Robert of Salerno taken along as second in command.

Across the bridge and riding east Bohemund was aware that the terrain to him was unknown. The plain he was on consisted of rolling hills, grassed after the recent rains, until far in the distance was an escarpment he knew was called Jalal Talat and the fortress of Harim. He suspected that somewhere in between there was a Turkish camp and a force of an unknown number, but one seemingly big enough to raid close to Antioch as well as far and wide to block the routes to the siege lines, so highly mobile and operating in country which they clearly knew well.

‘Let us show them respect, Robert.’

That such a feeling did not come naturally to the Lombard showed on his face, but he kept any words to himself.

‘We will split up. I want you to ride ahead at walking pace with half our lances and seek to flush out our enemy. As soon as they think you will discover their encampment they will be obliged to try and drive you off.’

‘Happily.’

‘You are not to offer them anything other than token battle. Make sure the fellow with the horn knows that you intend to retreat shortly after making contact.’

‘I could tell the men.’

‘Then you would have five hundred generals instead of one, best keep your own council. Understand this, Robert, I sense in you a desire to be popular and that is laudable in a leader, but my father taught me it is just as important to know your own mind and to be equally sure that no one who is not in your trust does not. Half the time in combat he was the only person who knew what he intended and that was total in his dealings with men off the field of battle.’

‘Like my grandfather?’

‘I only knew Prince Gisulf a little, Robert, but I can tell you he makes Count Hugh of Vermandois look like Alexander the Great, he was such a military dolt.’ Seeing that it sounded like a slight on his bloodline, Bohemund softened his tone, which had been unsympathetic. ‘You are not he and today, if we combine well, you will prove it. We may not see battle but if we do I want you to stand as well in my eyes as Tancred.’

‘I thank you for that.’

‘Robert, it is an aim I extend to all my captains, without exception. Now ride ahead and spread your men out to cover as much ground as the landscape allows without any loss of contact.’

‘How will I let you know if we do find the enemy?’ Bohemund just looked at him without answering, the obvious point that this was something he should be able to sort out himself and Robert acknowledged that. ‘Men to the rear who will alert you?’

‘I need numbers and how willing they are to fight. If, as I hope, they see you as meat for their table you are to take flight as if beaten, the rest will fall to me.’

Watching them depart there was a moment when Bohemund doubted the wisdom of giving Robert command; his lust for some kind of glory was high — he had a need to wipe out the stain of his inheritance being taken from him by the Guiscard, that made even more disagreeable by the fact that Duke Robert’s wife, his Aunt Sichelgaita, had been a party to the removal of her own father — seeking fame, Robert might disobey his instructions. That thought had to be smothered; he had handed over responsibility and there was no point in fretting upon it. Instead he must look to how he was going to exploit what he expected to happen.

When the first half of his force was out of sight Bohemund ordered his men to dismount and walk; he wanted his mounts to be as fresh as possible for what he hoped was coming and it was a long time before that anticipation turned to frustration for there was no sign of Robert making contact, sending a hard-riding messenger to alert him to the approaching Turks. Throughout the morning they walked, exercising strict control over their horses when it came to cropping pasture or drinking, for a full belly was not an advantage in an equine when it came to rapid movement.

The sun was well past the zenith and he was getting closer to that escarpment called Jalal Talat when Bohemund realised he had made an error in thinking the fortress of Harim was too far off to trouble the siege of Antioch. So close had they come that a separate camp would have been unnecessary, indeed folly, much more vulnerable than even a small walled fort. Given cause to admire his enemies before, he was in that position again, there being no point in being upset that they failed to conform to his own tactical thinking.

‘Mount up,’ he called as he saw a rider, or rather the dust cloud in which he was near enveloped, his gaze ranging round for some way to keep his presence partly hidden. He wanted the Turks so fully committed they could not avoid contact and he spied to his side a low hill that, if it would not hide his men completely from anyone on an elevated slope, would serve to obscure their number. Riding slowly — he did not want dust in the air to alert the enemy — he led his men to where he had chosen to wait.

Robert was a long time coming, again raising the spectre of him acting for his own reputation, but eventually the ground began to vibrate with the effect of so many hooves and the one man Bohemund had put as lookout began to signal that the fleeing Normans were approaching and assured him that there were upwards of a thousand men in their wake. The lances went down as soon as the men had crossed themselves.

Now it was not vibrations but noise, a thundering and increasing cacophony of fast-riding horses, and then came the distant but faint whoops of excited and triumphant Turks, the same sound they had originally emitted at Dorylaeum. The forward element of Robert’s section, the fastest riders, began to fly past the vision of the waiting Normans and yet Bohemund held still, for his presence remained unknown and that surprised him. Surely the Turks would have the sense to divert some of their pursuers to high ground to alert them to a possible trap, and if they did they could not fail to see what was waiting for them even if it was too late to avoid.

The sight of the bulk of his men riding by, neck over their withers, was soon followed by the first Turks, nearly everyone with a sword out and looking straight ahead, until those with wiser heads could not fail to see, by a flicking glance, what was on their flank. That they tried to pull up caused confusion throughout the Turkish ranks and that to Bohemund was the time to move. He led his men out at a fast canter, trusting the conroy leaders to exercise the requisite control, and they hit the first Turkish riders, spread out as they were, almost at once.

Robert must have been looking back, for as soon as Bohemund moved he had the horn blown and his men spun round to join in, with their young leader showing good judgement by leading them to the left flank of the Turks, the opposite side to which they were being assaulted by Bohemund. Riding flat out in pursuit it was near impossible for the Turks to either turn to meet the enemy in any disciplined manner or to easily realise how precarious their position was and retreat.

They sought to fight, but the odds were numerically against them as well as the tactical situation; they were disordered whereas the Normans were in close to full control, and that was not improved when they started to go down in droves to the couched lances. If there was a leader he had lost the battle before it started, for he could exercise no command that would save his men other than individual flight and, worse for his survival, those to the rear of his leading cavalry, unaware of what they faced, came on pell-mell into the battle, pushing forward their fellows into the rapidly closing jaws of the Norman maw.

The Turks died in droves; forced in upon themselves they fought as bravely as they could, but once more, when it came to even numbers the Normans, in their physical attributes and weapons, outmatched them in every way. For every one that died, another two were wounded to become a prisoner and when the battle was done the Turks had lost so many men to both that Bohemund knew the threat from Harim to be quashed.

The prisoners were brought back to Antioch to be paraded before the walls, a taunt to the defenders to tell them that their situation had gone from sound to questionable: without the support from Harim, the Crusaders’ supplies would increase and theirs would diminish. The Turks jeered at that, so to still their mockery the men Bohemund had captured were brought into plain view and beheaded by a single blow of a Crusader sword, their heads then catapulted over the battlements.

The Turks, if they could not match the numbers, sent out a sneak sortie and caught a high divine, the Archdeacon of Metz, sharing an assignation with a comely young Armenian girl in one of the apple orchards. The cleric, clearly bent on seduction, lost his head immediately, the girl and his skull being taken back into Antioch, she to be, the besiegers were informed, a sound receptacle of the juices of Islam. They knew what that meant: she had been raped into stupefaction. Then she was beheaded like her potential lover, both their heads fired back along with contempt.

Day after day the Armenian patriarch of Antioch, an elderly man as befitted his office, was brought to the walls to be hung upside down while the soles of his feet were beaten with rods, an affliction he bore with more fortitude than those who observed his ill-treatment. Designed to drive good Christians to fury, it succeeded better than the Turks could have supposed and fired up the very people they sought to taunt to a level of barbarity that flew in the face of their stated beliefs.