Soldier of Crusade

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The makeshift fort opposite the St George’s Gate, on the site of a long-abandoned shell of a monastery, was more a sieve than a true barrier; while it put a check on the Turks issuing in numbers to raid the lines of communication without warning it could not, and was not designed to blockade that entirely. Nothing demonstrated its vulnerability more than the need to keep it supplied and the efforts of the defenders of Antioch to impede that: every time food and water were brought to the bastion, it took a strong escort and a fight to deliver it.

It was effective at impeding anything of magnitude seeking to enter the city, as were the constant patrols out in the countryside seeking to cut off any supply being brought to the city by the Turks. Despite that, some got through, especially through the still-open Iron Gate, but the Apulians were the last line of obstruction at St George’s and often an effective one. Not long after taking up the position Tancred and his knights captured a sizeable caravan carrying in large quantities things much desired by the Crusaders and even more so by those still inside: food, oil and wine.

When it came to small traders, exclusively Armenian, the gate was as open as it had ever been and once the screw was turned on the others points of access the amount of goods flowing past Tancred’s position, while not a flood, was certainly significant to the ability of Yaghi Siyan to maintain the siege, if not in terms of fighting power, certainly as a means of stifling discontent within the Armenian majority.

Keen to have information about conditions inside Antioch and the state of mind of the besieged population, Tancred had taken to facilitating some of the smuggling, initially without side, but in time making things easy for those who passed him valuable information, while prohibiting those who refused to let him know what they had observed, so that he could advise his uncle in his dealings with the Council of Princes. What would happen to Antioch once it had fallen, now it was out in the open, had become a bone of some contention. That still, however, took second place to what lay before them, the actual act of capture, and for that the mood inside the walls was of obvious interest.

‘My nephew reports a sense of increasing despair,’ Bohemund informed them. ‘Very little from Turkish caravans is now getting through and what the smugglers can supply will only serve to keep happy those who can pay the high prices they demand, and even they must guard against their purchases being stolen by the garrison. It is true, when we arrived they hoped we would pass on to Jerusalem-’

‘Others have informed us of this,’ Raymond interrupted; he had become increasingly uncomfortable with the Count of Taranto holding the floor, which, given his greater knowledge of Antiochene morale he had been inclined to do. ‘And that is history.’

‘History with a point, My Lords,’ Bohemund insisted, in essence ignoring the Count of Toulouse, which did not go unnoticed. ‘For that first dented their optimism and we know that through the winter, when they saw us starving outside the walls, they expected each dawn to see us gone.’

‘So now they know we are here to stay, which no one amongst us, I hope, doubted would be the case.’

In saying that, Godfrey de Bouillon meant it; if his faith had sustained him there was not another magnate in the pavilion, Bohemund included, who had not at some time contemplated that very outcome, either by individual action or a collective loss of will.

‘The main food stocks on which the Turks rely, like the grain stores, are dwindling, what can be brought in without we appropriate it is reduced and so Yaghi and his Turks must impose ever more severe measures on distribution, which turns the populace against him, especially the poor who depend on Turkish largesse. They see the Turks feeding their horses while their dole is cut.’

‘Not enough to overthrow him,’ Duke Robert said.

‘How could they?’ Ademar responded. ‘He still has as many as three thousand men under arms even after his losses. If anyone raises complaint I would suggest they are quickly executed.’

Bohemund then informed them of how many times that had occurred and told of the rumours of just how many Armenians had fallen to Yaghi Siyan’s summary justice, for he was fierce when it came to sniffing out betrayal and swift to act. The aim of the Turkish leader was to hold out in the hope that an army would come to his relief and he would see the citizenry starve rather than surrender, so the Crusade, even if it frustrated them, had to be patient.

Raymond was not to be sidelined. ‘I still maintain an assault on the walls will produce results.’

‘It will.’ Bohemund insisted, for he was aware, as were his peers, only he was in position to execute such a thing at the St Paul’s Gate. ‘It will result in many dead Apulians.’

‘We must do something.’

For a man with such a reputation there was much irony in the reply. ‘Yes, My Lord, we must wait.’

Which was a point he repeated to Tancred when he received a request that he visit his bastion.

‘Raymond will not accept that there is no advantage in an assault if the Turks are still in good spirits and he is addressing men who are not known for their restraint.’

‘Which would include you and I, Uncle.’

That got a smile and a nod. ‘I nearly brought up my father, but that rankles even more than when I speak from my own experience. He knew never to throw men uselessly at a well-manned fortress. If we try and do not succeed that will affect our morale more than the Turks’.’

‘And they are a long way from eating their horses.’

‘True, so why have you asked me to come?’

‘I may have a way to get inside the walls.’

About to mention the fate of Walo of Chaumont, Bohemund checked himself; his nephew was no fool, he would know better than to suggest anything that smacked of the same risk of a slit throat, and by a look alone he invited Tancred to continue.

‘As you know, I have cosseted certain of the Armenian smugglers and if they have told me much I have hinted that they might achieve much more. I now know one of the towers on the walls is held by a force of Armenian converts, the others are manned by Turks.’

‘Which one?’

‘Halfway up Mount Silpius at a point were the incline is so steep we would never be able to try an assault.’

‘Why give that post to an Armenian?’

The question Bohemund posed then was rhetorical, for it was not a vital part of the defence. Tancred agreed, but his uncle added that such a thing was not necessarily to the good.

‘Converts are often the most stalwart when it comes to their faith.’

‘True, but they have a limit when it comes to perceived slights and the fellow in command, who goes by the name of Firuz, I am told feels badly used by Yaghi Siyan. My informant tells me that the governor has stripped him of his property to ensure he stays loyal and it has had the opposite effect.’

‘This your informant told you, which has to mean that such grievances have been spoken about, man to man.’

‘The smuggler tries to supply Firuz and his men rather than the Turks, whom he loathes.’

‘Says he loathes,’ Bohemund cautioned. ‘So can we be sure that the story is true?’

‘No.’

Silent for a while, Bohemund sat deep in thought before speaking gain. ‘Then let us discount this disaffection and work on the premise that this Firuz seeks to gain from our taking possession of Antioch.’

The response to that was jaundiced. ‘Which without a Trojan horse is a long way off.’

‘Meet with your smuggler, let him take to Firuz an offer of great power and wealth under a Christian prince, to gain which, he will have to convert back to his original faith.’

‘Just that?’

‘Yes, for if he baulks at reversion, Tancred, he is trying to lure us to our death.’

‘Will you tell the council of what is possible?’

‘It is too soon to say anything; let it lie and see what your smuggler brings us.’

Taking contraband into and out of Antioch was not a daily affair; those doing the supplying had to travel far to find the goods they wished to sell within the walls, for most of what was grown locally was consumed by the Crusaders. Added to that, Tancred’s informant was no fool, certainly not stupid enough to be transparent with Firuz. Hints had to be dropped and less than entirely open responses needed to be carefully assessed, before inching to more intimacy. The Armenians would be fools to repose trust in each other too soon if they wished to keep their heads.

Slowly, over weeks, with Bohemund staying in the background — he had to be able to disown what he was doing in secret — the terms by which Firuz and his men would surrender their tower were fleshed out. That they would revert to Christianity was the first hurdle crossed and it was an important one, for the mass of the population would not, once freed from the Turkish yoke, take kindly to an Islamist in high office.

Now bribes could be offered — immediate riches in gold and silver and valuable offices promised, which no Christian prince yet held. Bohemund and Tancred alone, so as not to cause alarm, inspected the tower that Firuz held, an isolated one in terms of defensive numbers, commanding a stretch of wall as Tancred had said, almost impossible to assault due to the steepness of the slope. Finally a night had to be selected and the means planned as to how the Normans were going to get up that wall as well as get into position without being seen by the Turks in the adjacent towers, all this passed to and fro by that one single messenger on whom the whole enterprise depended.

With what he saw as a workable arrangement to proceed, it was time to ensure that if he did succeed, he should be the beneficiary — that the law of conquest he had sought to gain before was agreed, and in that he ran into a wall as stout as those of Antioch. His fellow Princes would not deviate from the notion of shared possession, while Tancred remained the only person he could be open with about his frustrations.

‘There is a furtive tone when the subject is raised. Godfrey de Bouillon apart, I cannot help but think that others are on the same path as we and for the same purpose.’

‘Then why not agree to what you propose?’

‘Believe me, if they are scheming the time will come when, close to fruition and sure they will be the one that gains and that they have allies in place to support them, the right of conquest will be accepted.’

‘Raymond?’

‘Is, I grant you, the most likely, but Vermandois will be conniving, even if he has already had his fingers scorched. Our Robert of Normandy could buy back his duchy from his brother with half the revenues of Antioch, so he too will be conspiring.’

‘Such a loss does not mean an end to opportunity, there is still Jerusalem, which is ten times a richer capture than Antioch and will be a fief to covet in Christian hands.’

That had to be acknowledged; Jerusalem produced massive revenues from pilgrims in bad times and Muslim hands; once back under the way of the true faith it would return wealth in untold quantities.

‘If I have plunder to gain there I have little else, certainly not power.’

There for the first time, as far as his nephew was concerned, Bohemund had been open about his desire for domains, not just gold and silver.

‘You cannot be sure of that.’

‘Tancred, Jerusalem is no different to Antioch. Once captured how is it to be held?’

‘By Crusaders.’

‘In joint control, like Antioch?’ There was no option for Tancred but to nod. ‘It will not do. Where has such a thing as joint ownership of a fief led to anything but jealousies and dissension? All that kept my Uncle Roger and my father from conflict was the separation of the Straits of Messina. Whichever city you speak of it must be under the control of a single authority. Do not be fooled by the forced agreement we have enjoyed so far — that has been fed by necessity and some success. Once in Jerusalem, with the Crusade complete, that will not hold and the only solution is to hand the Holy City over to one of our number.’

‘Which will not be you.’

Bohemund smiled. ‘No, there is only one man who would justify selection, one of the council who would be content to stay and hold Palestine.’

‘Godfrey de Bouillon?’

‘I think that the case. Raymond is rich already and would not want to abandon his Provencal domains. Robert wants his Duchy of Normandy back, and the capture of Jerusalem will so raise him in wealth and standing, not even his brother William Rufus would be able to hold out against a successful Crusader with the Pope on his side and he would be bound by oath to leave Robert be.’

‘Vermandois?’ Tancred joked, which got a snort of derision.

‘No, Godfrey sold nearly all he possessed to come on Crusade and he is a good man as well as true. If we do end up in the Holy City, I will expend every sinew to make sure that he is given whatever title is agreed upon and holds Jerusalem as his own fief.’

‘If you can carry the principle, no one will dare vote for anyone but him.’

‘I look forward to seeing Raymond of Toulouse’s face when Ademar, a man he thinks his pet bishop, does just that.’

News had come from some of their eastern Armenian allies of another Muslim army being raised to come to the relief of Antioch and it was soon established that it was not being gathered — it was complete and ready to march in numbers that beggared the imagination; this had happened before and been proved to be much exaggerated, a point made by the Duke of Normandy, but it was decided to send out scouts to verify what the council were being told. The information that came back was worse than confirmation. Whatever threats they had faced up till now this was the greatest; the Turkish host was said to be beyond calculation and under the command of a formidable and experienced general called Kerbogha, and the conclusion drawn by Ademar was sobering.

‘Up till now we have faced the forces of two brothers who hate each other and so they have only ever been able to bring to the field a part of the available Muslim strength. This host is different: it has been ordered to assemble by the Sultan of Baghdad and is led, I am told, by the Atabeg of Mosul.’

‘This Kerbogha is a name that means nothing to me,’ said Vermandois.

‘It means a great deal to our Armenian allies, Count Hugh,’ Ademar insisted, ‘enough to strike terror into their souls and they begged us not to think the numbers are embellishment, but insisted it is three to four times the strength of anything we have yet faced, which our own scouts have confirmed.’

‘Only if you choose to believe it,’ Raymond said. ‘Even our men can be blinded by sights they think they see.’

‘My Lord of Toulouse, I admit I am still a tyro in matters military, but what would be the point of sending another army to dislodge us from Antioch if it were merely of the same size as those we have already beaten? My information from the Armenians tells me that the Seljuk Sultan has finally decided to brush us off the face of the earth and has ensured his commander has the numbers to do so.’

‘Will Byzantium aid us?’ asked Robert of Normandy.

This only proved to Bohemund he had yet to understand Alexius Comnenus, who would fear that such a host would turn on him if he took the field. ‘Let us say it would be unlikely.’

‘So,’ Godfrey de Bouillon interjected, ‘if we must fight this Kerbogha, and what we are told is proved to be the case, we must do so with every man we can muster.’

No more explanation was required; that meant lifting the siege and marching to do battle and with no guarantee that the Crusaders would win, which was an even more sobering prospect, for they still lacked enough horses of the kind that could stand in battle. It had always been a known fact that they had only successfully sustained their Crusade and got this far due to dissension between the Muslims, it being common knowledge that if they put aside those differences the numbers they might have to face would be staggering.

If the Sultan of Baghdad had hitherto see advantage to his own security in that family discord — men who fought each other could not combine to depose him — he obviously now saw the men around Antioch as the greater threat and he had the authority to force others to put aside their disputes and join in a counter-crusade.

‘If we were within the walls of Antioch, this general the Sultan so esteems would have to besiege us.’

Every eye was upon Bohemund when he said that and all held the same expression. They were not inside.

‘We have no prospect of that,’ Ademar said, but there was a lack of conviction in his voice, a suspicion perhaps that a member of the devious family de Hauteville would not have said such a thing lightly.

‘My Lords, I return to my previous plea that the common laws of conquest be applied, that whoever’s banner flies over Antioch when we are within its gates has the right to claim it as their possession. I have not to this point alluded to what anyone of us must have sought, namely a way of entry by betrayal, but I would ask that we be open now and tell each other what contacts we have made for such a purpose.’

‘You seem sure that the Lords assembled have done such a thing?’ Ademar responded, clearly displeased.

‘It is out of admiration for my peers that I think they are not so foolish as to have set aside the notion or that they have not sought to pursue it. And to prove my own sincerity in this I have very recently made contact with an Armenian commander willing to surrender to me a tower.’

‘Where?’ demanded Vermandois. ‘At St Paul’s Gate?’

‘What stratagems have you employed, Count Hugh, since you so sadly lost your brother’s Constable?’

‘I have sought contacts, it is true, sent messages in by various means seeking to seduce the garrison to …’

He did not finish that, which was an indication of how far he had got.

‘And tell me, Count Hugh, if you had succeeded, would you have willingly handed the city over to joint suzerainty by the council?’

‘Of course,’ the Frenchman contended, but he was a poor liar and Bohemund wondered if he was the only one present who did not believe him.

‘Count Raymond?’

‘As you say, Count Bohemund, a man would be a fool not to try, but do not think I would seek Antioch for myself.’

‘Noble indeed,’ Godfrey cried, as Normandy admitted he too had been active.

‘What we have, if the Bishop’s intelligence is correct, is a crisis, My Lords. I care not if you call it greed, but if I enter Antioch first and you are obliged to follow me I will claim it.’

‘Very like a de Hauteville,’ Duke Robert growled.

‘Perhaps, but we did not get to eminence on the gifts of others, either in Normandy or Italy. Nor can I believe that men such as here present would act in any other way, despite their protestations, from which I exclude you, Godfrey, for you are the only saint among us.’

That remark produced more lines on Ademar’s face than had ever been seen hitherto; he thought himself that.

‘We must agree to what is in our hearts instead of our mouths and take steps to ensure that we have the means to defeat this great army coming our way, which I, for one, worry cannot be done in open battle when Antioch is still in Turkish hands.’

That did much to concentrate minds; with such a host approaching the siege would have to be lifted and worse than that, Yaghi Sigal could emerge from his walls to threaten their rear. The agreement was reluctant and had to be dragged out of each lord present, with the exception of Godfrey de Bouillon who spoke straight at Bohemund.

‘I owe you my life and more besides, as you well know of. I also state here and openly that if others see in you avarice, I do not. If I disagree with what you contend it is not from antagonism to the notion. You may have the right of what you maintain and we here collected could have the wrong. What we are about is in the hands of God and if you are to be his instrument I am content.’

News that Kerbogha was besieging Edessa, which Geoffrey de Bouillon’s brother Baldwin had taken as a fief, gave time for Bohemund to finalise his plans, but before he put them into practice he called upon Godfrey to advise him of what was about to happen and to seek his assistance.

‘For if I can get into Antioch, I will not have the strength on my own to hold it. I want others standing by at certain gates armed and ready to rush in once they are opened. I need that to be set in train but in some secrecy.’

‘Yet you still wish to claim it?’

‘As I will be first over the walls, yes.’

Godfrey thought for what seemed an age, no doubt examining his conscience, to which he was a slave, until Bohemund could contain himself no longer; he was aware of what was closest to his fellow magnate’s heart. ‘Without support I will fail and so might the Crusade.’

‘Then tell me what you need.’