Soldier of Crusade

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Expecting in the aftermath of the victory to meet an ebullient Bohemund, Tancred was surprised by his gloomy demeanour. ‘Baldwin and Toulouse behaved well, but de Bouillon’s lances will not serve as they are if we meet a better enemy. He could not hold them back.’

‘They did great slaughter.’

‘And would have done more if they had stayed their attack. Our aim should have been not just to defeat Arslan but also to destroy him and perhaps even take him prisoner. That was possible if we Normans had been allowed to pin their horsemen and Godfrey had done what I had in mind he should, get behind the enemy and cut off any chance of retreat.’

‘I do not recall you telling him that.’

‘No, and you know why — I must be careful of the pride of others.’

‘Just as they must have a care with you.’

‘If they take their behaviour from you, then they will fail.’ Seeing that his intended jest had been taken badly, Bohemund added something to mollify his nephew. ‘In truth, Tancred, they could call me a goat if they fought as I would have them do.’

‘Demand the command.’

‘It would be futile, and even a mere hint would sow division where we need harmony.’ Looking at the walls of Nicaea Bohemund produced a sigh. ‘With Kilij Arslan in our hands, even dead, we might have no need to continue the siege. As it is …’

Both men fell into silence, watching the cadavers of the dead being stripped and mutilated, while those bodies floating on the lake were being used as target practice, men employing captured bows and the surfeit of spent arrows. It was testimony to the ability of the Turks who had owned them that so many were having trouble even drawing them properly, never mind loosing an arrow that found a target.

‘Come, Tancred, there will be a feast and much rejoicing. Stay by me and if, in my cups, I look like telling the other princes of the opportunity we missed, I give you leave to buffet me round the ears.’

Tancred grinned. ‘Lay a hand on you when you’re drunk? Just what kind of fool do you think I am?’

The skins of wine were opened for all from high to low and soon severed Turkish heads were being displayed on lances, shown to the walls by the drunken revellers, some of the Lotharingians even taking to wearing them as trophies on their belts. Later, the newly constructed mangonels were employed to send a steady stream of bloody skulls over the battlements; bodies were tried but they generally splattered on the walls rather than carrying the parapet. All this was designed to depress the defenders who had, the next day, an even less cheering sight to trouble them, the rising shape of the great siege tower upon which work had recommenced.

Having restrained Tancred before, his uncle knew it was now time to assess the resolve of the garrison, to see what kind of resistance they could mount, that being the only true way to test their morale after the flight of their Sultan. Each contingent agreed to take turns with ladders and grappling hooks to launch an assault and try and get onto the parapet. This would require that they prepare in the dark, with good cloud cover to mask the moon, and get close before first light; at any other time of day the defenders would see them coming, allowing them to reinforce the point of attack.

Bishop Ademar was adamant that none of the commanders should risk themselves in such an enterprise, not, he stressed, through any lack of personal ability or courage — the nature of the task they were set upon precluded taking such a risk and the cleric was relieved when the sense of such a proposal was accepted. Vermandois apart, the princes were men with a firm grasp of what they faced in the future once Nicaea had fallen: twelve hundred mille passum of harsh territory, to be crossed in summer heat, over mountains and rivers, with enemies to fight on the way and very likely more great cities to besiege. If they were curious regarding the spirits of the defenders they faced, they were even more concerned about the morale of their own men, which would not be aided by them seeing their talismanic leaders slain.

The Normans drew first attempt, which meant Robert of Salerno got to execute the wish he had expressed before the battle; Tancred, much to his chagrin, was forbidden by his uncle to take part. Robert showed good judgement in choosing for his party twenty men who were not of great bulk, but slim and likely to be quick on their feet; speed might serve the assault more readily than muscle.

Once more a priest blessed the men, this time by torchlight, well out of view of the walls, and once confessed they lifted their equipment, four long ladders, and moved to get into position, not easy in the dark. Their leaders followed to observe and control the reserve, dozens of knights bearing, as well as swords and axes, a clutch of sharp, lightweight javelins. These men would follow in the wake of the lead party if they looked like achieving success. Behind them came milities carrying bolts of canvas. If Robert suffered a reverse the javelins would be used to seek to keep the defenders at bay until their confreres got clear, while the canvas would be spread and held taut to try and catch any falling fighter.

With the double ditch around the walls they needed to traverse one without being seen and use the land between to anchor the foot of their ladders. Robert had decided to use planks as well, the siege lines were littered with them, his intention to lay the ladders flat across the first ditch and use the planks to make a bridge by which to cross. Tiny strips of white cloth had been tied on the edges, visible to avoid them falling off.

Rough-hewn, made up of freshly cut wood full of sap, lashed with bark strapping and needing to be long enough to not only reach but also breast the battlements, the ladders were heavy. Robert’s plan was to have them up and in position to drop on the walls as soon as the sun tinged the rim of the eastern hills, his fighters beginning to climb before it crested them. With men anchoring the foot, to get them up took real effort, to hold them steady so they did not fall against the stonework even harder, and it all had to be carried out without a sound.

Well back and looking at the same eastern skyline, both Bohemund and Tancred suffered from the anxiety common in such endeavours. They were with their men in spirit, having undertaken many times what they were set to do, the last occasion at the siege of Amalfi. In the time of waiting their quiet conversation went back to that siege, to Roger Borsa and what a poor specimen of a ruler he was, Bohemund of the opinion that the duchy might well fall apart under his hand.

‘He has a son now, remember.’

‘Two years of age.’

‘Still an heir.’

‘Then the boy must be better than his sire,’ Bohemund hissed, ‘for I doubt he has the seed to produce more.’

Tancred could not avoid the thought: what will you do if he is not strong or your half-brother dies when he is an infant? It was almost as if Bohemund could read his mind.

‘No doubt my Uncle Roger will take up cudgels for the son in the same way he has for the father.’

‘Even if he is weak?’

‘Roger too has sons now and I daresay he is as ambitious for them as you and I would be for our own.’

‘For that we would both need a wife.’

‘When I have what I feel I need is the time to consider a wife.’

That touched on a subject rarely raised; Tancred was young and if he was unmarried that was hardly surprising, but Bohemund would soon pass into his fourth decade. Many Norman and Lombard lords of Southern Italy had made suggestions to him regarding their daughters, all had been politely rebuffed and only intimates like Tancred were permitted to know why. When Bohemund came to wed, he was determined that the standing of his bride should reflect his own, and to his mind that was yet to reach its peak.

‘I see a tinge of light,’ Tancred hissed.

‘Lord, I would rather be where our Lombard Robert is now than just being a spectator.’

Ahead of them and invisible, Robert’s party were standing at the base of the raised ladders, hoping the tops, which had been tarred with pitch to blacken them, did not catch a sentry’s eye. To keep them absolutely still was impossible; they were waving about, not much, but it was movement and thus dangerous. On a warm night and clad in chain mail they were sweating, no doubt like their leader thinking that an eternity had passed since they got to this point. That was when they heard his voice, for from behind him a slim line of grey had appeared in the eastern sky.

‘Drop them slowly, try not to strike hard on the walls.’

One voice spoke in Norman French, but quietly and it was not identifiable. ‘You need the Holy Ghost for that, Lombard, not us.’

There was no doubting when they did come to rest, aching arms were eased of the burden and no commands were required to get the first fighter to begin to ascend. Swords unsheathed and axes to hand they began to climb, Robert of Salerno in the lead, he like his men waiting for that shout which would mean their attempt had been exposed. Halfway up, Robert was beginning to believe they might get onto the parapet undiscovered, but that was dashed by the sound of a horn, which had men who had been climbing slowly and silently look instead for as much speed as they could muster.

In a part of the world where the sun rises fast, the outline of Robert, upright on the battlements, yelling and encouraging his followers, raised the spirits of all those watching. He had achieved enough of an advantage to not be immediately engaged and that held until half of his fighters could join him, which allowed them to fan out, though the first clash of metal on metal soon followed, this accompanied by the cries common in all combat: indistinct imprecations mixed with the odd shriek as a weapon struck home — frustrating for those watching, because while they could see their own, the defenders were hidden behind the crenellated walls.

‘They are fighting hard,’ said Tancred after a short while, time in which it was light enough to see clearly.

Bohemund knew he did not mean those attacking with Robert but the Turks of Nicaea; resistance seemed to be hardening, which could mean the original defenders were being reinforced.

‘Move the javelins forward and get them ready, but caution them against being too eager or they will smite their own.’

All along the battlements the mail-clad Apulians were swinging weapons to both seek to maim their opponents and to parry the pikes thrust at them, but they seemed unable to achieve the prime objective, which was to get down off that higher elevation, onto the rear parapet and seek to secure a proper and defensible foothold. That would allow those waiting below to join them; get enough fighters up there and they could push back the Turks from their own walls and they could then seek to take one of the towers. That was not happening, and much as he was anxious, Bohemund declined to shout any instructions; another was in command up above and any decision was his.

It was not long in coming and Robert’s signal was plain to everyone below, his shout to his fellow fighters, which implied they were outnumbered and in danger of defeat or death if they stayed. They were still in peril of such a fate in withdrawal, which was the hardest part of this type of action to execute. The line of battling knights began to collapse in upon itself, those at the rim now swinging weapons to hold back their assailants rather than wound them, while their confreres made for the ladders.

For those first to depart, the descent was achieved by first abandoning whatever weapon they were carrying — that was thrown into the ditch for later retrieval — then sliding down, feet clamped to the outer uprights, most of the weight of their bodies dependant on fast-changing hand holds, while below them and to the side the milities had spread their canvas, leaning back to stretch it in case they lost their grip.

The numbers were down to the last half-dozen, which compacted the area of fighting, so Bohemund ordered those carrying javelins to begin to loose them at the outer edge in the hope of creating a firewall by intimidation, for such weapons would not wound deeply, praying that what was a common problem would occur now: as defenders, assumed to be more numerous, pressed to get at the last of the attackers they achieved a diminishing return by being compacted into a crowded space, each getting in the others’ way as they tried to achieve a kill.

Someone managed to get through the battlement defence; the fighter next to Robert of Salerno suddenly bent over and began to fall, his sword flying out of his hand, the weapon that had pierced him only becoming visible when his body spun full circle, the long pike detaching itself from his flesh by its own weight.

Shuffling, craning milities moved quickly to catch him and as soon as he thudded into their canvas they rolled the body out onto the ground, resuming their vigil, leaving him to be lifted and borne away by the men with whom he had fought. As he passed Bohemund, the Count looked down in what was now full daylight to see the wound, a great gash pumping blood, and that brought to his lips a prayer; the fellow looked set for the ministrations of the priest not the mendicant monk.

The point at which Robert of Salerno threw his axe at the defenders marked the end — he was the last to take flight — an act that got him just enough time to get a foot on the ladder. Now it was the Turks who were clambering onto the battlements, one of whom took a great swipe at Robert’s head that only missed by a whisker. Unfortunately for the Turk, the effort, when he was off balance, worked against him and with a scream of panic he began to tumble, his scrabbling attempt to arrest his fall useless.

Tancred yelled to the milities to catch him — he could be a valuable prisoner — but either they failed to hear or ignored him and the falling body careered into the ground with an audible thud to lie there twitching. One of the just descended knights kicked him several times until he rolled into the ditch.

Robert, in company with the last quartet of his fighters, was several rungs down when Turkish pikes were employed to try and push the ladder tops away from the wall. This time their weight, added to that of the men still near the top, made such a thing difficult, too much for one man. It was a task requiring many hands and that was not achieved until the sliding knights were well past the fulcrum, but they could feel the way the ladders were going vertical and the point would soon be reached where they would pass that and fall.

What saved them was the length of the pikes, not long enough to get the ladders past the point of balance. Robert and his men got to the bottom and began to run as a hail of stones came down to try and crown them, the last act of the milities being to push the ladders so they fell backwards, saved for the next time they would be needed. Then they too bolted, dragging their canvas behind them, only one suffering from a rock that hit his head. Collapsed he was hauled out of danger.

‘They fought like wolves,’ Robert explained, making his report to the Council of Princes, the same he had made to Bohemund and Tancred. ‘If they are to be judged by the fire in their bellies and the look in their eye then their spirit is high.’

‘One attack,’ was the response of Raymond of Toulouse, ‘cannot be counted as a failure. We must keep up the pressure and see it we get a like result.’

‘It is for you to choose,’ Bohemund replied, slightly put out by the word failure; to his mind the Apulians had been as successful as was possible. ‘It is your turn next, Count Raymond, and perhaps your knights can show we poor Apulians where we went wrong.’

Raymond knew he was being addressed ironically and that showed in his reddening face, which was enough of a high colour to begin with. Here was what Ademar feared: that men of such known ability would not stand to be diminished publicly, regardless of the high standing of their peers. He was about to intervene when Godfrey de Bouillon spoke, making his point for him.

‘It can only be assessed when we have all tried. It may be, Count Bohemund, that your men met the very stiffest resistance, the best men in the garrison.’

‘Perhaps,’ Bohemund responded, forcing a smile. He was well aware of Godfrey’s deliberate attempt to ease matters;

when it came to pride, that sin so quickly identified by Bishop Ademar, the Duke of Lower Lorraine seemed to suffer from it the least. It was rapidly being acknowledged that he was a good man, the very antithesis of his brother Baldwin, and one whom everyone present was coming to respect for both his sagacity and his genuine godliness and crusading zeal.

‘Possible,’ Raymond acknowledged, likewise obliged to react with grace by Godfrey’s intervention.

Raymond made his attempt two nights later and for his men the cost was higher. On the south side of Nicaea, which he now occupied, the Turks had ballistae, huge catapult-like machines firing rocks from adjoining towers that created a killing ground between them that extended far beyond the ditches. His men got onto the walls, as had the Apulians, in the same manner and they suffered a few casualties there, but it was in seeking to withdraw that their losses were greatest as the catapults, able to swivel, bombarded those who had survived, one knight having his head removed completely by a boulder.

The other contingents had to make an attempt in their own section: Lotharingians, Normans and the French, and if they all managed to get up to the battlements, none could hold there, so stalwart was the defence. Matters were made more deadly with the Turks now alert to what might be coming, nullifying any advantage of surprise. If the results were the same, if the death rate compared to the Provencals was diminished, the conclusion was that advanced by Robert of Salerno: the Turks were in good heart, determined to defend their city and had to sustain them the previous failures of Byzantium.

There was another more telling reason for their confidence: the besiegers could not seal the side of the city which bordered on the lake, which supplied them with ample water, taking away thirst as a weapon, one of the staples of this form of warfare. Worse, even in daylight if they wished, the Turks could bring in more defenders as well as food and the Christian host had no means of stopping them, for they had no boats. This did not induce any sense of impossibility; well-supplied fortresses had fallen before and if it took numbers and courage, then that was outside the walls of Nicaea in abundance.

There was other activity over the following weeks, the mangonels firing stones that crested the battlements to drop on and catch the unwary sheltering behind them, the less cheering fact being they were too small to fire anything that would do damage to the walls and the means to construct bigger weapons was lacking. Two German knights were busy making what they called a ‘testudo’, consisting of baulks of timber bound together by lashed and tarred ropes in an attempt to emulate the Roman legionary tactic of advancing under linked shields like a tortoise.

That they did this without asking permission from the Council of Princes mattered not; that was a body quite willing to allow individual initiative, and when it was finished and ready to be employed the leaders all gathered to see how it performed as it inched towards one of the gates, there being a causeway across the double ditch. It was just as well the men who had set the idea in motion decided to let others test their plan, for the contraption turned out to be weighty for those who were under it and the bindings were too feeble to stay unbroken once the Turks began to rain down heavy stones.

It only took one rope to part and that put excess strain on the rest, not helped by flaring torches thrown onto the flat top surface where they set alight any strands of the tarred ropes. For a moment it looked as if the men bearing it would not only get to the gate but also be able to stay there and seek to set it on fire. But it was not to be; when another main rope parted it was only a matter of minutes before the whole thing began to come apart, individual baulks of timber falling to the ground to expose the men underneath.

What came down next was a potent mixture of burning oil mixed with grease and pitch that stuck to each and every body so that the fighters caught by it were turned into screaming, staggering torches that provided easy targets for the salvoes of arrows that followed. Few came back from that disaster and worse was to follow: those by the gate who had died or were wounded too badly to move were hooked by grappling irons and hauled up to the top of the towers, there to be stripped and mutilated before their cadavers were hung from the battlements, gut and entrails exposed, to tell the attackers what fate to expect if they too fell into Turkish hands.

Raymond of Toulouse spotted the flaw in the design the two German knights had used and he set his men to building a protective bombardment screen in the shape of a pitched roof, sloped at both sides so that anything striking would bounce off and away. Raised up it could be moved, static it could be dropped to the ground and provide total cover to those underneath. Following on from that which had preceded it there was no rush of volunteers and Raymond had to offer a money reward to see the execution of his experiment.

Again the leaders gathered and watched as the Provencal ‘volunteers’ inched forward. There was a small body of knights under the screen but the main party carried shovels, not swords, and had also a cart loaded with baulks of dry and turpentine-soaked timber, as well as planks to cross the ditches. It was obvious they were having more success because they got to the walls and remained there, seemingly impervious to all that was cast down upon them: the same combination of rocks, which bounced off, and flaming combustibles, which slid harmlessly to the ground while failing to set alight freshly cut timber lathes that made up the roof.

This allowed the diggers, and it took much time to achieve this, to attack the base of the stonework, their aim to create a deep hole and expose the underside of the foundations, into which they jammed their well-soaked baulks as supports. The rest of the dry timber was stuffed in and just before the bombardment screen withdrew it was set alight. Now the defenders had a dilemma: try as they might, no amount of water seemed to be able to reach and extinguish the blaze, which left the only option a sally out from the nearest gate to seek to put it out by hand, an eventuality covered by Raymond, who had mounted knights waiting to deal with such an attempt.

Every Christian eye was on that conflagration and so were those of the Byzantines, for here was a key that might unlock Nicaea. Smoke billowed up from the base of the wall, but inside that could be seen, very clearly, a red and orange inferno. Then a crack appeared above and it began to spread and fracture. With a mighty roar a section of the wall collapsed, stones tumbling as the mortar that held them gave way, the roaring sound of that overborne by the cheers of the besiegers. Half the stonework filled the ditch, the rest forming a pile that would have to be climbed to get at the defence.

Immediately preparations were put in place to launch an attack on that breech at dawn the next day but that only brought disappointment. Sunrise revealed that if the ditch was still full of stones, somehow, in darkness and without alerting their enemies, the Turks had managed to effect enough of a repair to close that breech to an assault that would have any chance of success.