Prince of Legend

CHAPTER EIGHT

Reinhard moved with little haste, more interested in keeping his formation in order and free from fatigue than covering ground. The men he was about to face were not going to engage in an immediate assault, their aim was to get into a good position for a later attack; indeed, when they were sighted, even if they were in superior numbers, they ceased to come on. This being far enough off from the southern walls of Antioch served the purpose of the Crusader army well, albeit the Turks were in sight of the citadel and any instruction Kerbogha chose to relay from its towers.

The Crusader had two options: to go on the defensive himself or to attack. Bohemund, even if it was more by chance than knowledge, had chosen well, for in Reinhard of Toul he had appointed a leader able to take all of the pertaining factors into account, able to reason that his men, over a long period without supply and given their diminished state at the beginning of the battle, not to mention their inferior numbers, were not in a fit condition for a long drawn-out action; as time went by their inherent weaknesses against a well-fed enemy would tell.

Another reason to act quickly was that it would be unexpected: normal tactics dictated that Reinhard should stay on the defensive; as long as he stopped the Turks from getting to the battle area his job was done and in the ordinary course of events they would seek to overcome him to get into the fight at a time of their own choosing. The state of his men, and more importantly his mounts, would be no mystery to a Turkish commander who oversaw the interdiction of the St George’s Gate, by far the most porous of the five entrances and exits from the city.

Smugglers plied their trade at great risk and ameliorated that not only by bribery but also by being conduits of information to both sides; they would tell the Crusaders the numbers and spirit of the besieging Turks once inside and do the reverse on their egress, which had to include the lack of such things as food and fit horses. If there was a degree of supposition in Reinhard’s thinking that was what any commander was obliged to rely on; certainty was never available in battle.

Another positive trait was him seeing the need to explain to those who would carry out his orders why they were being asked to act in that way; better men risking their lives should know the reason than hesitate in wonder once engaged. In battle you seek to see into the mind of your opposite number, to anticipate his thinking, and by doing so lead him to conclusions which he will see as rational when they are in fact false.

Tactical outline over, Reinhard lined up his milities in several ranks, so that they formed a rough square, and set them to advance with his cavalry bringing up the rear, but so slowly and wearily that the gap between the two bodies grew perceptibly wider.

A good commander, once he has made and explained his dispositions, prays that they are correct and only seeks to alter them, not by the gnawing worry that they might be wrong, but only when aware of the certainty that they are flawed. This led to an extended period of anxious watchfulness in the hope that the enemy, once they did move, would do so as had been hoped. Reinhard breathed easier when he saw them begin to deploy for an obvious attack, for if they had not he would have been obliged, lacking the force to press home upon them, to retreat to his starting position.

Mounted archers — one of, if not the main Turkish assault weapon — were deadly in open country and this was where Reinhard and his men found themselves, for they had declined to use the one flank partially protected by the River Orontes. The Turks held back on an immediate attack, instead riding around in a flurry of circles as if threatening rather than with intent, this because the opening gap between the Crusaders’ horse and foot looked to be playing into their hands, the divergence beginning to increase enough to allow them to assault the milities with impunity from all sides.

The blowing of a distant horn, coming from a small group under a green banner, obviously the commander, set the mounted archers into a fast canter, their mounts controlled by knees alone, both hands occupied with their bows, in a display of horsemanship which would have been admirable if it had not also been deadly.

Against such an attack the milities had only their shields and their helmets and these were rendered near to useless by the proximity of their assailants as they loosed off their deadly darts. Men were dropping in increasing numbers and the temptation to take aim at their less well-protected backs brought the bulk of the mounted archers into the ground between the milities and Reinhard.

In their enthusiasm for killing and maiming, the Turks were firing off their arrows with no discrimination, seeking to do with quantity what would have been better served by careful aim, and in acting so they presented Reinhard with the opportunity for which he had prayed and calculated. As soon as he saw the first fellow turn back towards his own side for want of anything in his quill, he called upon his men to advance, kicking into a fast canter his supposedly weary horses.

His primary aim was to induce confusion in his enemy, a lack of certainty about how to act, and Reinhard achieved that for there was no immediate response from his opposite number, now, in any case, partially hidden by a cloud of dust kicked up by his own men. Lacking clear orders they were unsure as to how they should react to this sudden alteration to the state of the battle, these Latin horsemen, who had looked to be spent before they started, coming on at pace with lowered and deadly lances; this had not been anticipated.

The milities suddenly broke ranks and spread out to get between the bulk of the mounted archers and safety, albeit they left behind a ground covered in writhing bodies. At a rush the lead elements got to the riverbank and took up a kneeling position with extended pikes to bar passage, which obliged their enemies, if they wanted to get away, to ride across their front. At the back of that first line the rest had turned to face south so as to hold at bay any Turks seeking to assist their comrades.

‘Choose your target!’

Reinhard’s yelled command immediately broke up the advancing line as each lance point was aimed at an individual Turk, now widely dispersed, those with arrows firing them off uselessly at men in full chain mail, others with empty quills drawing swords that only had one blow with which to stop the gleaming metal point heading for their vital trunk. Several arrows hit the horses, which slowed their progress if it did not entirely stop them, but within a blink the Turks began to go down to Crusader lance points, that soon followed by cleaving broadswords.

Lightly armed, the Muslims were no match for European knights in this kind of combat and when the milities, knives in hand, joined the fray to drag them to the ground and either pierce their breasts or cut their throats, the outcome of this part of the action was decided. With loud shouting the knights began to clear a path through their own milities to get to the rest of the Turks, now milling about in confusion between the fight and their leader.

The sight of heavily armed knights emerging from the dust-filled throng, even if they were struggling to keep their mounts in motion, sent the enemy riding off in panic and that communicated itself to their now visible commander, who sounded the horn as he abandoned both the field and those of his men who could not get clear. It was not necessary for Reinhard to call a halt to his men; sheer equine fatigue did that for him. Now, still outnumbered, he had to prepare for a counter-attack.

It did not come: the ground to the south was filled with riders carrying flaming torches and the tinder-dry, still-maturing fields of wheat began to smoke, soon turning into an inferno as the Turkish commander set light to the crops, obviously to cover his retreat; there would be no more fighting on this field and that occasioned a ragged cheer as everyone came to realise they had scored an outright victory.

For all the joy of success a look at the cost was sobering. His foot soldiers had suffered terribly and the fact that such a thing had been necessary did not make it easy to bear. He ordered that once the enemy dead had been stripped — there were none left wounded — their ponies should be gathered up and along with his own horses be used to carry the Crusader dead back to Antioch.

‘For these men, who might by their sacrifice have saved us all, deserve a proper Mass, a decent burial and a memorial to their memory.’

Even with most of his attention on what was happening to his front, Bohemund had spent much time anxiously glancing to the south to seek some indication of how Reinhard and his men were faring. When he espied the first sign of their return, such was their outline it was hard to tell if they were coming back in despair or triumph.

Only when he was in plain sight did Reinhard mount his own horse to close with the Apulian banner and report his victory. For all the elation this produced, it was not much more than a skirmish and such good news had to be set against the whole, which was still in a state of flux.

That the Crusaders were winning on balance was obvious; they were able to advance where the Turks could not, indeed it had become part of his task to stop them doing so, lest by moving forward they break the cohesion of the whole, for still there was no sign of Kerbogha. As a command such restraint was becoming more and more difficult to impose, so much so that Bohemund feared that one of his peers would be presented with such an opportunity that no words of his would cause them to avoid exploiting it.

‘The black banner, Uncle,’ Tancred called. ‘It is waving.’

It was obviously a message, but what it implied and its import was impossible to fathom. Was Shams ad-Daulah asking for permission to take part, or was it a sign to Kerbogha that his line was wavering and he should make haste?

What he could not see was the reaction in Kerbogha’s camp, where that flag had also been marked. From presenting an image of the relaxed and omniscient commander, the Atabeg of Mosul was suddenly presented with the possibility that his men fighting at Antioch might not hold for as long as he had hoped. That had him order the trumpets sounded for an immediate move.

To get such a huge host in motion, even when they had been waiting an age for the order, was not simple and, given haste was now important, nor was it possible to stop the contingents from getting mixed up in the eagerness for individual glory. The shouting that ensued, the blaring of horns and trumpets, did nothing to help; nor did the determination of Kerbogha and his close aides to get to the front of the army help either, for their rough attitude, as well as their willingness to ride over anyone unfortunate enough to fall beneath their rushing hooves, produced loud cursing.

Bohemund had placed Firuz, who had keen eyes, on the northern battlements of Antioch, so he knew within very little time that Kerbogha was on the move, yet he was surprised later when the message was sent to him that the force moving south seemed to be in some kind of disorder.

Close questioning produced no more than that information was an impression rather than a fact: what Firuz could see was limited, but by seeking to differentiate the various designs of headgear or the colours of cloaks, he was sure they were mixed up rather than in separate bodies.

It was when seeking to assess the meaning of this information that Vermandois succumbed to too much temptation. He advanced so far that he left a gap on his left into which the nearest Turks poured, forcing his neighbour Godfrey de Bouillon to turn his Lotharingians to face a flank assault.

Tancred noted it as quickly as Bohemund and did not wait for any command from his uncle; with a yell he led the entire Apulian contingent forward to restore the line, which occasioned much hand-to-hand combat with Turks encouraged by their rare opportunity.

Bohemund had to resist the temptation to join Tancred; he was in overall command, which could not in this arena be properly exercised in the battle line, but he had much to think on. If what had happened with Vermandois reoccurred with the whole of Kerbogha’s host on this plain, the chance to repair the breach would be impossible. Yet it would also be impracticable to seek to avoid such engagement for it could decide the outcome of the contest. Why the Atabeg had delayed he did not know and it made no sense, but he was coming now and at a time when the Crusaders had been fighting for over half a day.

The men the Count of Taranto was tasked to lead, even if he had sought to rotate them with his own reserve, were bound to be tired and that, if they were caught in an unrelenting battle, would soon turn to the kind of exhaustion that made continued resistance impracticable and positively guaranteed errors of judgement, which left only two options and to retire back into Antioch was the least attractive.

Observing that Tancred had repaired the breach made by the folly of Vermandois and that he had also managed to pull the Frenchman and his knights back into a solid line, Bohemund reasoned that the point of crisis had been reached.

To make a decision which could prove fatal is the lot of any commander, and in the making of it a whole mass of factors intrude in a fashion that precludes the kind of clear thinking of which chroniclers of battles later write. It is as much a feeling as knowledge, a tingling of the extremities that says to delay is the worst of all possible options, that the time is right to strike and to do so hard, for the Turks before him were weakened and their reinforcements had failed to yet deploy.

Leaving his mound, with his personal knights around him, Bohemund made his way to the far left of the line to speak first to an exhausted Bishop Ademar, now wearing garments stained with enough blood to hide any decoration or hint at Christian piety. Having issued his instruction he moved on to the right, stopping by each of his peers to tell them what he intended, sensing doubt from Normandy, but acquiescence, the same from Flanders, getting just a nod from both de Bouillon and Tancred. Vermandois he took station alongside, for he was a man who required close control, before commanding the horns to sound the advance.

There was no sort of rush; the tactic was one step at a time along the entire line, take on your enemy individually, force him onto his back foot by the ferocity of your assault, then press forward in such a way as to make him take a full step to the rear. That achieved, stand your ground for the counter-assault, then, when that tires, repeat the manoeuvre, all of which was done with shouted orders from every one of the leaders to mark their banners.

There comes a time, having achieved such a success more than once, that fear starts to appear in the eyes of your enemies, not least because this cannot be continued without those forced into retreat beginning to fall either to wounds or death; the Turks, for all their valour, knew they were unable to match on an individual basis the fighting ability and weapon reach of European knights and now that was being relentlessly driven home.

Soon the ability of those in reserve, there to fill the gaps, falters and openings appear as they are too slow to fill in. The first true break, a wide opening, came in front of Godfrey of Bouillon, who looked along the line to the towering figure of Bohemund and yelled of his success.

This had the Count of Taranto, who had already been required to step over six dead bodies, redoubling the strength of his blows, and they were mighty, for of all the magnates he was the most potent as well as the freshest. His one step at a time became two as the enemy melted before his assault, this matched by those at his side, Vermandois included, for if he was a fool he was also a fighter; very soon it was three and four as the Turkish line began to crumble.

‘Blow the horns,’ he yelled, having no idea where now stood those who would do so, but he knew from the reaction of those lining the walls, and their hysterical cheering, that the critical time had come. The priests on the battlements were no longer praying for deliverance, they were shrieking encouragement, waving their crosses to excite and advance with as much vigour as the knights below swung their swords and axes.

The final break was, as ever, sudden, a collective awareness along the whole Turkish line that if they sought to hold they would die. It only took so very few to seek to save themselves for that to multiply and induce panic in even the most stalwart followers of the Prophet. For all the promises of paradise, life becomes more important than faith and that brought for Bohemund the next difficulty: with the enemy breaking before them, how could he control the next phase of the battle?

In truth he could not, and soon, his voice hoarse from yelling, he gave up even trying; the Turks were running, heading up the roadway that led back to the Iron Bridge, enclosed and narrowed by orchards, the men they had so cruelly tormented in wild pursuit. At the head of that chase Bohemund saw what happened when they clashed with the forward elements of Kerbogha’s host, not least the man himself, busy trying to rally his best and fleeing troops.

His cries were ignored and soon the retreating soldiers were in amongst those coming up to do battle, spreading the thought of defeat by their mere flight. The leading elements of the main host soon turned and fled into the trees, to further infect those at their rear, which turned the whole of the Atabeg’s army into more of a rabble as they sought safety.

For many that was a false hope, they were cut down by Crusader weapons to litter the roadway and fields of fruit trees, while to the rear others, who had failed to make the road, were being forced into the River Orontes, a few to swim to the opposite bank, many more to drown.

To run near a full league is not possible in chain mail and it is far from easy without it, unless panic aids your efforts, the advent of which brought death to many of Kerbogha’s captains, this while their charges now fled in any direction that they thought safe. By the time Bohemund and his fellow magnates reached the main encampment there was not an enemy in sight, from the general himself to the man employed to wipe his arse.

But it was not deserted: it was full of the defenders of Antioch, looting with gusto and not just the valuable objects. There was food in such quantity as had not been seen for an age and, less honourably, the women the host had abandoned suffered as women do in such situations, ravaged before being killed by men suffused with bloodlust.

Some Apulian knights had secured Kerbogha’s black pavilion, very obvious by his flying standard, and Bohemund, first to the flap, stood aside to let Ademar enter ahead of him, as the papal legate and titular Crusade leader. Even a man who had seen the inside of the Vatican and the palaces of Constantinople stopped, so impressed was he by what he saw. No different to other rich men, the Atabeg of Mosul was a man who travelled with his wealth and there it was for each and every man to help himself if they so desired.

‘Set up a place of collection,’ Ademar instructed. ‘All valuables, all food to be brought to one point for even distribution by rank.’

If the men with him agreed to this they did so with hidden humour: the Bishop had as much chance of getting all the plunder into one surrendered place as he had of flying to Jerusalem. Yet it mattered not: judging by what was in this one pavilion, not least in the chests of gold and silver that Kerbogha had been obliged to abandon, there was enough for all.

When the Crusader army fell back on Antioch, with the light of the day fading away to darkness, they left behind not a single object, not even a tent. Kerbogha’s great encampment had become an empty and barren field and, as a bonus, the only survivor of the men Vermandois had lost at the Iron Bridge — filthy, albeit verminous — had been released from his dungeon.

If Raymond of Toulouse had really been sick, he had mustered enough strength when told of the victory to get himself up to the citadel and demand that they haul down Kerboga’s banner and replace it with his own, prior to being invited to formally surrender the following day. Thus when dawn came the sight of the Occidental flag was plain for all to see, not least to the man who had commanded the triumph of what was already being called the Great Battle of Antioch.

Not long after daylight a furious Bohemund was once more stood with his nephew and Firuz on the narrow bit of flat ground before the citadel where he had first and uselessly called for its surrender, seeking to control his anger at the sight of Raymond’s banner. The man Firuz was obliged to address was not Shams ad-Daulah, who had obviously abandoned his post.

Outside the main walls, to the rear, the camp that had been there was as deserted and barren as the one they had left the night before; the men who had rested there had, like the rest of Kerbogha’s host, taken flight and the place had been stripped bare of everything of value. Yet a token force had been left to hold the citadel and had no doubt been encouraged to martyr themselves for the sake of the safety of their leader.

‘Bohemund, Count of Taranto,’ Firuz shouted, ‘stands before you and asks how that flag you fly comes to be where his should be?’

‘That is not the flag of Bohemund?’

‘Ask him what kind of fool he is?’ Bohemund spat when that was translated.

Firuz, thinking that unwise, merely advised him of the truth, to then be told by the man left in command that had they known it would never have been raised, for they had seen from these very walls to whom the victory had been granted on the Antioch Plain.

‘A lie, of course,’ Firuz suggested, as the Occidental Cross was hurriedly lowered, ‘but a harsh one for which to punish them.’

‘Then tell him the terms are simple, Firuz. He and his men can march unmolested out of the rear gate of the fortress and head east to safety. They may take their weapons but nothing else and they must leave open these gates before us. I give my word not to enter until they are gone.’

Such a message took time to translate but the garrison had no choice but to accept: the citadel might be formidable but it could not hold out for ever without support and that was not going to come at any time in the foreseeable future; to stay was to die. So the answer came back as agreement and it must have been anticipated because the citadel was abandoned before a glass of sand had run through the neck of the timepiece and Bohemund, with his nephew and Robert of Salerno at his heels, marched in.

‘Robert,’ Bohemund said, handing Robert his banner, ‘for the honour of Apulia, set this flying from the staff that is now bare.’

‘Shall I go down and tell Raymond to take his flag off the Bridge Gate too?’ asked Tancred. ‘He cannot dispute Antioch with you now.’

‘Let it fly there, nephew, for it signifies nothing.’