The Templar

Part 3

Radosto: The Feast of St Isidore, 4 April 1096

Dies quoque angustiae moeroris ac tristiae.

(A day also of bitter mourning and sadness.)

The Dies Irae of St Columba

‘To the right!’ Hugh de Payens’ voice, dry and cracked, shrieked a warning.

Eleanor, standing between two high-wheeled carts, wiped the sweat and dirt from her face. She brought up the arbalest, then lowered it. The morning mist played tricks on her eyes and Eleanor, like the rest of her companions, was exhausted. She stared along the line of carts and makeshift barricades the Provençal captains had thrown up. The absence of their commander, Raymond of Toulouse, was deeply felt. Perhaps they should have taken up a better defensive position. The Provençal line, bending slightly like a bow, stretched between two copses of trees. Behind them open heathland ran down to a stream, where their horse lines had been fixed. Eleanor took a waterskin and drank greedily, splashing more on her face before handing it to Imogene, who squatted trying to organise the crossbow bolts on a tattered sheet. The widow woman, black hair bound with a piece of string, smiled back, then coughed, spluttering how she was full of the rheums, her throat sore, her ears aching. She grumbled on as Eleanor patted her gently on the head. Over the last few weeks, during their nightmare journey from Istra down the Dalmatian coast, Imogene and Eleanor had become firm friends. They had, as Eleanor wrote in her chronicle, little choice but to unite against the dangers that confronted them. Imogene cursed as she cut her finger on the barbed edge of a bolt. She smeared some of the blood on her face.

‘Just in case the Greeks,’ she nodded towards the far haze of moving dust, ‘overrun us. They won’t rape the ugly ones!’

Eleanor stared despairingly up at the cloud-free sky. A buzzard came floating over and she wondered if the prospect of blood, her blood, had summoned it. The weather was turning balmy with the first hint of summer. They had travelled along the Via Egnetia to the Greek city of Dyrrachium and across northern Greece, arriving here outside Radosto only a few miles from Constantinople, yet their nightmare was not over. Alberic remarked how they were crossing Macedon, the wild, savage countryside that had once housed the great Alexander. Eleanor did not care for such history. The dark forests, rushing rivers, deep gorges and lonely meadowlands, from where the livestock had been driven away, were forbidding, rather haunting. Nevertheless, Macedonia for all its sombreness was a welcome relief from that nightmare road along the Dalmatian coast through Sclavonia. A dreadful dream of a journey, with the mist swirling as thick as fuller’s cloth across a trackway slippery with ice and littered with boulders and fallen trees. On either side of this pathway rose thick, dense forests whilst the wind cut along it like a razor. Nothing ahead, nothing behind but that mist curling like a host of ghosts.

Imogene said something. Eleanor was too tired to reply, and sat down with her back to the cart, staring across the heathland at the stream still bubbling from the spring rains.

Sclavonia! A barren land, Eleanor reflected, nothing but trees and mountains and that murk hanging like some vapour from hell cutting off sight and deadening sound. They rarely saw or heard any animal or bird. An eerie silence broken only by the sounds of their own straggling line of eighteen hundred souls on their horses and carts. The Poor Brethren of the Temple, their banner hanging limp from a pole, trudged along with the rest. Now and again the silent drudgery was shattered by swift, savage attacks. The Sclavs, who’d fled from their villages taking their livestock and precious food supplies with them, crept back to haunt the cross-bearers. They would follow the column, hanging on their flanks or rear, ready to attack any stragglers. They’d lop off heads, tie them to their standard poles and, if pursued, flee back into their mountain fastness. Eventually Count Raymond, tense and frenetic, moved mailed knights back to the rear of the column. He also asked Hugh, Godefroi and the Poor Brethren to sweep up the stragglers. A daunting task! A vigil that dominated the long, freezing days when the clouds seemed to descend so that when they did attack, the Sclavs were almost on them before anyone realised what was happening. Eleanor and the others fought back with crossbow, lance, spear and dagger. She recalled one attack. A Sclav, his bearded face all bloodied, climbed over the cart, crawling towards her. She shattered his head with an axe and pushed his corpse, blood pumping out, off on to the trackway.

Day after day the same numbing routine, cold, silent and hungry, until those hideous figures came shrieking out of the mist. Eventually Count Raymond decided on more punitive measures. They could not pursue their tormentors, who fled back into their rocky hiding places, so the Count turned on any prisoners taken. Eyes were gouged out, noses slit, hands and feet hacked off. The captives were left blinded, disfigured, bleeding hunks of flesh as a stark warning to other tribesmen to leave them alone: Eleanor would never forget those screaming men and women left crawling blindly about on the ice-bound trackways.

Eventually they reached Scodra. Count Raymond tried to negotiate a truce with the King of the Sclavs, but the aggression continued until they crossed the imperial border and reached the territory of Alexius Comnenus around the town of Durazzo. They all breathed a sigh of relief, especially when the Emperor sent letters of peace and offered supplies as well as news about other Frankish leaders swiftly approaching Constantinople. Imperial scouts closed in around them: Cumans in their quilted armour, along with Turcopoles, Buglars, Patzinacks and other mercenary cohorts. The Poor Brethren of the Temple believed they were safe. Hugh and Godefroi were pleased to doff their chain mail and heavy helmets. Norbert and Alberic celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving on an altar set up on one of the great two-wheeled carts. Peter Bartholomew announced he had experienced a vision of the tears of St John, who, as in the Apocalypse, wept at the thought of how the Poor Brethren and others had suffered in Sclavonia. The respite proved illusory. The Emperor’s mercenaries took to pillaging and harassing Count Raymond’s army. Fierce sword quarrels took place in which two Provençal leaders along with knights, women and children were killed. Even Bishop Adhémar of Le Puy received a knock to the head, and had to be sent under safe conduct to the city of Thessalonica.

By the time Count Raymond’s army reached the town of Roussa, its patience was exhausted; the townspeople there were unable, or unwilling, to trade, and fighting broke out during which shops and warehouses were pillaged. Running fights took place between townspeople and Count Raymond’s followers. Greek troops appeared, mounted men-at-arms with their oval shields supported by mercenaries, mounted archers and, more dangerously, Catephracti, the heavy-mailed cavalry of whom, Hugh assured Eleanor, Count Raymond was very wary. A truce was eventually arranged. Greek envoys entered the camp to beseech Count Raymond to accompany them to Constantinople to meet the Emperor, who was already negotiating with other Frankish leaders. The Count accepted the invitation and travelled on in haste, leaving his eighteen-thousand-strong host under the joint command of the Vicomte of Béarn and the Count of Orange; two young men who, in Godefroi’s opinion, hardly knew the difference between north and south, let alone how to command an army.

Three days had passed since the Count had left. The army had slowly moved on, close to the town of Radosto, still shadowed by imperial troops. There had been further clashes, and pillaging by the cross-bearers, for despite all the proclamations and ordinances, not all companies followed the same strict discipline as the Poor Brethren. The worst of these was a gang of ribalds from Montpellier called the Beggars’ Company, led by Jehan the Wolf. A notorious character, Jehan had been hired by the city fathers to drain Montpellier’s moat and ditches. He did so, but also developed a skill second to none of poaching geese and ducks from the same moats and ditches, birds that belonged to local farmers or the city guilds. He then set himself up as a successful fowler, selling fresh bird meat to all and sundry. When the call from Clermont came, Jehan realised rich pickings were to be had elsewhere. He immediately used his wealth and notoriety to organise his own company, most of whom were denizens of the city slums. The Beggars’ Company swarmed with codgers, counterfeiters, jesters and japers, moon people and tumblers. Such men and women thought Jerusalem was only down the road or just beyond the far horizon. The harsh journey down the Via Egnetia had shocked and embittered them. As Father Alberic commented, the Beggars’ Company had no knowledge of scripture except for one verse: ‘Live for today, do not worry about tomorrow or about what you will eat, drink or clothe yourselves in.’ Jehan and his legion of imps truly believed the Lord would provide, and if not, they would gladly give heaven a helping hand.

Jehan was assisted by two lieutenants, ugly bruisers who rejoiced in the names of Gargoyle and Babewyn. These organised his horde of rogues, and as they approached Radosto, the Beggars’ Company simply disappeared. After an absence of four days, they returned bringing back cattle, sheep, chickens and fresh meat for the pot, as well as valuable tapestries, cloths and precious goods, gifts they claimed from grateful local inhabitants. No one questioned them, though Hugh whispered hoarsely that they’d pay soon enough for the feast Jehan had prepared. None of the captains of the companies or the great lords had the authority or status to bring Jehan to account. More importantly, none of them could resist the smell of freshly cooked meats, spiced and garnished with herbs, that wafted through the camp.

Like some King of Misrule, Jehan entertained all the leaders to a great banquet. Eleanor, Hugh and Godefroi attended, their bellies sick for food, their throats craving the lush wines and fresh fruits on offer. The banquet was a clever move. Count Raymond was absent. Jehan played on the hunger and bitterness of the cross-bearers, turning them into his accomplices. Platters of fresh meat, duck, swan, pork and beef, were served in the light of roaring fires and flaring pitch torches. Jehan entertained them with tumblers and mummers as well as recounting a tale of how he had once swindled a fat wine merchant and a pompous canon of Montpellier.

‘I ordered some wine,’ he roared from his throne-like chair. ‘I told the merchant’s apprentice I would pay for it once it was delivered. He followed me to the cathedral. I told him to wait outside while I went in and accosted the canon. I told him I’d brought my nephew to be shriven as he had an insatiable hunger for money, a deep avarice, so would the canon talk to him and, in return, accept as a gift the barrels of wine I’d brought on the cart? Of course the canon agreed. He followed me outside and glimpsed the apprentice guarding the wine. I told him to wait, approached the apprentice and said that the fat, wealthy priest beckoning at him would settle the bill.’ Jehan’s story ended in roars of laughter at the mutual bewilderment of both confessor and penitent: the latter demanding money whilst the priest reproached him for his avarice. Truth eventually came with time, but by then, both Jehan and the wine had disappeared.

Eleanor regarded Jehan as a lying boaster, though she marvelled at his cunning. Hugh and Godefroi, however, as they surveyed what was being served and the plunder Jehan had gathered on his so-called foraging, tried to reassure themselves that what he had brought was legitimate. After all, if the Emperor wouldn’t supply them, what choice did the cross-bearers have but to take it for themselves? As Hugh and Godefroi watched Gargoyle, Babewyn and others display the glorious raiment and precious jewels they’d brought back to the camp, their anxiety deepened. They were confirmed in this by Theodore, a wandering Greek mercenary who had joined Count Raymond’s army and become closely attached to the Poor Brethren. Theodore claimed to have been born near Smyrna, of Greek and Norman parentage. He was certainly an expert swordsman, who owned his own destrier and pack horse. He was of medium height, his dark face bearded. In character he was courteous and kind, and he soon impressed Hugh and Godefroi with his knowledge of the Turks, the Greek army and the countryside they were travelling through. He also proved himself to be an able fighter, allowing Hugh and Godefroi to examine the special armour he wore: a mail-lined jerkin over a leather corselet made out of lamellar with a gorget of similar material and a ridged steel helmet. He was also skilled with the bow and couching a lance. A born soldier, Theodore had fought against Bulgar, Alan and Turk. He fascinated the Franks with his description of the Turks whose territory they were about to invade, describing them as swift fighters, deadly and ferocious, and skilled in mounted archery, which always confused their enemies. He also described the rigid discipline of the Emperor’s armies, its heavy and light cavalry and its well-organised infantry led by the Imperial Guard. He explained how Alexius organised his army into turma of about three thousand men, which in turn were subdivided into eight numeri each of about three hundred and fifty, delineating the various officers and standard-bearers as well as their military code. The Byzantine army was also well supplied in the field, being supported by siege trains, engineers and physicians. Hugh was deeply impressed by such organisation and began to impose similar discipline on the hundred or so Poor Brethren. He organised them into units of ten which he called a conroy, dividing the knights from the serjeants and allocating duties such as cooking and physic to various individuals, including even women and children.

Theodore arrived late for the Beggars’ banquet but immediately engaged Hugh in hushed conversation, talking quickly in the lingua franca of the Middle Sea. Hugh listened intently, then turned and whispered to Eleanor how Theodore believed Jehan’s men had not just collected supplies but had attacked and pillaged the villa and estates of a high-ranking local notable, a crime the Greeks would not ignore. The following morning, Theodore’s prediction was proved correct. The sun had hardly risen when scouts galloped into the camp, shouting how an imperial army was emerging out of the mist in column of march and deploying for battle. At first, the Frankish commanders thought this was simply a manoeuvre and moved to the outskirts of Radosto only to find their way blocked by imperial troops. Hugh and Godefroi were summoned by the Vicomte de Béarn for a hasty meeting near a clump of trees. Envoys were dispatched but imperial troops drove them off with a hail of arrows. Apparently the Greeks were intent on battle and all the Franks could do was sit and wait. Eleanor closed her eyes and dozed. After last night’s feast, she was no longer hungry but felt thirsty, tired and slightly sick, her joints aching. For a brief while she wondered if the whispers circulating the camp spoke the truth. Had they made a mistake? Should they have come? Was this truly God’s work?

‘Eleanor! Eleanor!’ She startled awake as her name was shouted. A group of horsemen — Hugh, Godefroi, Beltran and Theodore — came galloping up. Hugh threw himself from the saddle. ‘What is it?’ Eleanor pulled herself up; she had been so lost in her thoughts she’d ignored the growing noise from the camp. She turned and glanced out between the carts. In the far distance, the glint of armour and the flutter of coloured banners threatened whilst the dust-laden breeze carried the ominous sound of trumpet and drum.

‘Theodore believes the Greeks are massing for an attack. It will come soon.’ Hugh grasped Eleanor’s shoulders, his fingers squeezing hard. She glimpsed the fear in his eyes. ‘Eleanor,’ he whispered, ‘I love you, but in the name of God, is it to end here? For the love of heaven, Count Raymond has gone to meet the Emperor, so why are the Greeks attacking?’

‘Revenge!’ Eleanor stared out at the distant dust cloud.

‘I agree.’ Beltran had also dismounted and came swaggering across with Theodore, their dark faces sweat-soaked and anxious.

‘Negotiate!’ Eleanor rasped, pointing at the dust cloud.

‘Too late,’ Theodore declared. ‘Lord Hugh, we need to prepare.’

All along the Frankish line, the captains were trying to impose order. The Vicomte de Béarn and other commanders, garbed in full chain mail, conical helmets over their coifs, long oval shields fastened to their saddle horns, galloped up. They were desperate to close any gaps between the carts and deploy a mass of archers behind them. The vicomte reined in before Hugh.

‘What more,’ he yelled, ‘can we do?’

‘Close the line further.’ Hugh shouted back. ‘Close it fast. Place your horses here,’ he indicated each end of the line, ‘and here.’ He pointed to the centre. ‘Hold them in reserve. The same with some of the foot. Whatever happens, our line must not break. My lord,’ Hugh grasped the vicomte’s reins, ‘we must, if we can, treat with the Greeks.’

‘About what?’ the vicomte screamed back above the rising din.

‘Why do they attack?’ Hugh shouted.

‘Because they are Greek schismatics!’ one of the vicomte’s companions yelled. ‘Worthy of hell fire, jealous of our work!’

‘Nonsense, my lord.’ Hugh placed his hand on the vicomte’s mailed knee. ‘My lord, if we can, we must negotiate.’

The vicomte nodded. ‘There’ll be bloody bustle first,’ he murmured. ‘God wish the count was here. Hugh,’ the vicomte gathered his reins, ‘you remain in the centre.’ Then he was off.

Hugh began massing his own company before moving on to the Beggars further down the line. Banners and pennants were unfurled, crucifixes latched to poles raised and fixed on carts. Children, the aged and the infirm were sent back to the horse lines down near the stream under the protection of a group of women armed with spears, heavy arbalests and pouches of bolts. Rusty armour was hauled out of baskets and sacks. Short-sleeved mail shirts were quickly donned; body armour, buckram stuffed with wool, fastened securely. Pot-helmets, chapeaux de fer or kettle-hats, were hastily strapped on. Long shields were slung on soldiers’ backs or placed across gaps between the carts. Horns and trumpets shrieked. Eleanor was given a bow and a quiver. She peered between the carts and groaned. The Greeks were now moving slowly but ominously towards them. A long line of foot, shields locked, spears jutting out, a moving wall of barbed iron. Here and there the Greek ranks broke to allow squadrons of heavy horse to come through, their riders desperate to restrain their destriers and keep to the line of the march. Standards were raised to shimmer through the dust. The air throbbed with the clash of cymbals, the shrill of trumpets and the deep lowing of battle horns. Godefroi came riding up. Eleanor hurried across and grasped the bridle of his horse. He leaned down, his face and head almost hidden by the chain mail coif, and released the strap across his mouth.

‘Eleanor, I swear, if we survive today I will do some great service for God, assume the cowl, become the Lord’s monk.’ Then he was gone in a flurry of hooves.

Eleanor laughed, coughing on the dust as she walked back to the cart.

‘A lovers’ farewell?’ Imogene teased.

‘A true troubadour,’ Eleanor replied drily. ‘High romance. If he survives, Lord Godefroi will become a monk!’

Imogene’s sardonic reply that she would enter a nunnery was drowned by the raucous blast of trumpets. The Greek line of march was quickening. The earth shook with the stamp of feet, the clatter of steel, the shrieks and yells of men and the loud neighing of horses. All along the Frankish line men and women were notching arrows or pushing bolts into the grooves of crossbows. Hugh reappeared beside Eleanor, coif back, and clambered on to the cart. Eleanor peered between the slats as the Greek line stopped abruptly. The shield wall opened. Bare-headed men dressed in jerkins and breeches streamed out. They raced towards the Franks, leather straps whirling above their heads.

‘Slingers!’ Hugh shouted. ‘Hide! Heads down, shields up!’

Eleanor and Imogene hid beneath the cart. The air sang with the jarring hum of angry hornets. Polished pebbles smashed against the cart, followed by chilling screams from either side. Hugh, shield over his head, stood up.

‘Archers,’ he yelled, ‘ready — loose!’

The clatter of stones was answered with the twang of bows, the click of catches, followed by a sound like that of a giant bird’s wings snapping furiously. Eleanor stared round the end of a cart at the figures dancing in the dust clouds. She notched her arrow, pulling back the bowstring even as Imogene released the catch on her crossbow; both arrow and quarrel disappeared into the haze. Shouts of ‘Toulouse, Toulouse!’ rang out. Eleanor glanced down the Frankish line; corpses, bloodied and torn, were already being dragged out. On the cart above her, Hugh was roaring at them to ready and loose again. Eleanor did so, hands and fingers sweat-soaked, Imogene breathing curses beside her. Were they going to die? It was muscle-aching work. They notched and loosed, speeding arrow and bolt at that moving line of figures dancing like demons. All the clamour of hell surrounded them. Brief memories of Eleanor’s childhood sparked: her father, a distant figure riding into a courtyard, cloak billowing about him; her mother hastening out to greet him… Hugh, standing on the cart above her, shook her from the reverie. She heard him yell.

‘Axemen!’

The Greek shield wall had opened again. Long-haired, bearded mercenaries clad in leather hauberks were racing towards them, shield in one hand, two-headed axe in the other, a horde of shrieking men. Some collapsed in the dirt as arrows pierced them in the face and chest. Others reached the carts, climbing up to be met by whirling sword, mace, club and spear thrust. One of them broke through the gap between the carts. Eleanor tripped him up with a lance whilst Imogene, screaming hysterically, clubbed the back of his head to a bloody pulp. On the cart, Hugh and other mailed knights held off the attackers whilst those who did break through were caught by the waiting infantry. A nightmare vision of hissing steel, spurting blood, angry faces, hideous cries and the soul-wrenching sounds of metal and wood smashing out life. A brief respite, then a fresh ferocious assault. Eleanor felt delirious. Bodies were piled either side of her, then she heard a roar, and the attack began to falter, the axemen withdraw. Hugh, all blood-splashed clambered down from the cart. His chain mail had caught pieces of human flesh, his face was splattered with gore. Eleanor turned away and vomited, aware of Imogene’s arm around her shoulder.

‘Eleanor?’ Hugh pulled her hands apart. ‘Godefroi and the other knights attacked the Greeks in the flanks; they are withdrawing.’

Eleanor nodded. She did not care. She just crouched by the wheel; she had descended into hell. Children were crying, sobbing furiously, footmen were moving amongst the wounded. The enemy were given short shrift, a mercy cut across the throat, the same for those Franks the leeches could do nothing for. Dust devils billowed across. Water-bearers with buckets and ladles moved along the line of men baking under the sun. The Beggars’ Company were already pulling the dead of both sides away from their carts. The Vicomte de Béarn and his officers came galloping up. Eleanor leaned against the cart; Imogene pushed a ladle of water into her hand. She slurped at it, staring out over the battlefield. The dead lay mostly in contorted positions, but occasionally so peacefully, heads resting on arms, they seemed asleep. The summer heat, hot and clammy, intensified the agony. The cries of the wounded drove away the marauding buzzards but not the flies hanging in black clouds around gruesome wounds. A child was weeping uncontrollably. A woman wailed. Voices shouted for leeches or a priest. Rahomer, one of the Poor Brethren, had taken an axe cut to his shoulder and was sobbing with the pain. A leech tried to dress the hideous wound. Eleanor glanced away. Hugh was talking to the vicomte. Eleanor rose and walked over even as the vicomte nodded in agreement.

Hugh shouted for Theodore, Beltran and Alberic to join him.

‘We’ll seek a truce,’ he informed them breathlessly. ‘This is madness. We must discover why the Greeks have attacked so fiercely.’

A short while later, carrying a leafy bough hewn from a tree and flanked by Theodore and Alberic, the priest bearing a cross lashed to a pole, Hugh galloped into the dusty haze, Beltran following behind. The Franks dragged the dead, now stripped naked, ghastly bodies with their shiny purplish wounds, to the funeral pyres hastily erected near the stream. The mound of corpses was sprinkled with oil. A priest intoned the Requiem. A torch was thrown to engulf that monument of the dead in sheets of flame followed by plumes of black smoke. The acrid stench of burning flesh curled along the battle line. Godefroi came riding up, his face still full of battle fury. He looked absent-mindedly at Eleanor and cantered off to where the vicomte and other commanders had created a gap between the carts to ride out and stare across the battlefield at the gathering mass of Greeks. Envoys from the enemy camp came galloping through the murk carrying peace boughs. The Franks accepted these, allowing the Greeks to scour the field for their own dead and wounded. Eleanor slumped down. Imogene squatted next to her. They shared a cob of hard bread, some bitter wine and a few dried figs.

‘We are supposedly marching to Jerusalem, the Heavenly City,’ Eleanor murmured. ‘Yet here we are in the meadows of hell!’

‘Sister?’

Eleanor glanced up. Norbert stood over her. The Benedictine’s gaunt face, skin peeling, was spotted with blood.

‘It’s Fulcher the Smith.’ Norbert indicated with his head. ‘He is dying of his wounds. He says he must speak to you before he is shriven.’

Eleanor rose to her feet. She felt so dazed, Norbert had to steady her by the arm as he led her down the line of carts. They passed groups clustered around screaming, moaning men and women. Others were repairing weapons. A few knelt and prayed around some small statue of the Virgin or their patron saint. Smoke floated across, thick and rank. It broke to reveal Fulcher propped against some baggage; he lay shivering, the dirty bandage around his neck and chest blood-soaked.

‘I cannot stop the bleeding,’ the leech murmured. ‘Wounds everywhere.’

Eleanor knelt down. Fulcher’s eyes fluttered. He tried to grasp her hand but he was too weak. Eleanor, hiding her own weariness and fighting to control her stomach, ignored the fetid stench around them.

‘Arrowhead and sling shot,’ Fulcher gasped, ‘struck almost immediately.’ He blinked. ‘A wound to the back. Anyway, God wills it. Listen.’ The smith turned and Norbert withdrew. ‘Listen closer.’ Eleanor did so. ‘I’ve watched you,’ the blacksmith gasped. ‘I trust you, Lady Eleanor. I must speak to you. I was in the coven that killed Anstritha. No, hear me! You are not from the Auvergne, sister — where we live in a world of witches and warlocks. Anstritha had been a wandering woman, skilled in herbs, who came and settled in our village. She was a stranger. We had suspicions about her. She kept to herself, though God knows she was friendly enough. She was young and comely. Some of the women envied her, whilst the menfolk lusted after her. She had money and, to all intents and purposes, led a goodly life. It didn’t save her. Stories were rife, tragedies and misfortunes were laid at her door. A week after Michaelmas last, I and other sinners who drank at the Vine of the Lord…’ Fulcher gasped, a pink froth bubbling between his lips, and his eyelids fluttered. He took a deep breath. ‘We were given a secret message. No one knew its source. On a certain day we were to meet out along the heathland just as Father Alberic tolled the Vespers bell. We did so, gathering one by one in a grassy hollow; its sides rose high to hide the glow of the fire burning there. We thought it was a joke, but the message had mentioned Anstritha so, full of ale and mischief, we agreed. We were to come hooded and masked, and so we did, though I recognised them, Robert the Reeve and other sinners.’ He paused, gasping for breath.

‘Who?’ Eleanor asked.

‘I cannot say, sister, I am bound for God’s judgement seat. I do not wish to lie or condemn another. My soul is black and heavy enough already.’ He paused in a fit of coughing.

Eleanor grasped a battered waterskin and held it to his lips. Fulcher’s face had taken on a deathly pallor. Eleanor glanced quickly around. The blacksmith’s story had made her less aware of the bloody mayhem around her. She abruptly thought of Hugh galloping off towards the Greeks and quietly prayed he would be safe.

‘Sister, for God’s sake I’ll be brief.’ Fulcher’s fingers fluttered against her wrist. ‘A horseman appeared, cowled and visored. He told us a hideous story of how Anstritha was truly a witch who deserved to die. How she dug her fingers deep into the sockets of dead men’s eyes and bit off the long yellow nails from withered hands as she harvested the bodies of hanged men. How she made the black sacrifice in the dead of night and sacrificed bowls of blood to the demons of the air. Nonsense,’ Fulcher whispered, ‘but we believed him. He insisted we should cleanse such filth from our village. He left a wineskin and a piece of silver for each of us. We were bought,’ he coughed, ‘body and soul. We were told to wait for a sign, and when it came to act. On the night she died, we assembled hooded and visored in the tap room of the Vine of God. The taverner was with us. You, Lord Hugh and Godefroi were absent. Robert the Reeve, I am sure it was he, led us to Anstritha’s house. Sister, it was a blasphemy! Anstritha was in her small buttery, brewing ale. We burst in and seized her, but even then I knew something was very wrong. Anstritha fled to the church. I was already regretting my part. I returned to her house, not to plunder but to search for evidence. I found nothing that would be out of place in a nun’s cell, but more importantly…’ he struggled to pull himself up, ‘the horseman was there. Again his head and face were covered. He had already searched the house. I carried my hammer but he was armed with sword and dagger. He told me to be about my business. I realised we’d been used. I fled; I was frightened. By the time I rejoined the rest, Anstritha was captured. She was strapped and bound like some outlaw caught red-handed. I tried to speak to her, to console her. She asked if I could hear her confession. I told her I was no priest, but she insisted. Sister, my guilt deepened. Anstritha had a pure heart. Others came to taunt her. She whispered the Contrition and said I was to take her left sandal and give what I found to someone I trusted, “a new Veronica”-’

‘I am sorry?’ Eleanor interrupted.

‘Sister, I tell you what I know. Go amongst my belongings.’ He banged his head against the baskets and panniers piled behind him. ‘Take the small one, now.’ He pushed himself forward, allowing Eleanor to free the saddlebags, two pouches held together by a strap. ‘Keep them,’ he gasped, ‘and all that is in them. God knows there is no one else. Now, sister, I must confess…’

‘Who was this horseman, this stranger?’

‘I don’t know. Anstritha did claim she had travelled to Outremer. She told me that she had secrets of her own. Just before I left, she admitted how her present troubles were the fault of a half-brother who’d plagued her life.’ Fulcher coughed on his own blood. ‘Sister, it was dark, she was terrified, as was I. She would say no more. The fire roared and they hanged her above it. Anstritha’s blood is now on my hands and those of others. We have to pay, I know that.’

Eleanor, more to humour him than anything else, kissed him on the brow, muttered the Jesu Miserere, took the bag and left Fulcher to Brother Norbert’s ministrations. She’d hardly returned to where Imogene lay sleeping beneath the cart when shouts and cries sent her running to a gap. Hugh and his companions came thundering back. A cart was pulled aside and the riders galloped through, accompanied by a high-ranking Greek officer in court dress, a long, ornate gown that hung midway down his boots, bright and richly embroidered with gold thread. Behind him was a young servant boy dressed in green. Immediately they were surrounded by the vicomte and his commanders and a heated discussion ensued. Eleanor hurried to join the fast-gathering crowd. Jehan, leader of the Beggars’ Company, was summoned and the debate continued. From the people around her Eleanor learned that the Greeks had attacked because a nobleman’s villa had been plundered: the owner’s wife, together with his two daughters, had been brutally raped, then hanged from the beams of their own house. The servant boy had escaped but would recognise the attackers, and the finger of suspicion was already pointed at Jehan’s company. The Greeks had issued an ultimatum: the perpetrators must be identified and summarily punished, otherwise a fresh attack would be launched. Jehan tried to defend his company, but the vicomte ordered him to co-operate or be expelled.

The entire Beggars’ Company was summoned and lined up along the carts. Shouts of defiance — ‘Toulouse, Toulouse!’ — were swiftly quieted by the vicomte’s commanders, drawing their swords, whilst Hugh, now their envoy, stood up in his stirrups and proclaimed that rape and murder had nothing to do with their quest. ‘Moreover,’ he continued, ‘if justice is done, the Greeks will offer provisions and escort us safely to the great city.’ Shouts of abuse echoed, followed by more cries of ‘Toulouse, Toulouse!’ Nevertheless, the mood shifted as more people joined the throng. The servant boy dismounted and, accompanied by Hugh and Beltran, walked along the line of Beggars. Four men were identified. They shrieked their innocence as Hugh ordered them to be dragged out. The servant boy, grasping the crucifix Alberic thrust into his hand, shouted his oath that he’d spoken the truth. The men’s fate was sealed. Another quarrel took place between the vicomte and the Greek. The vicomte pointed to Hugh. The official nodded in agreement, bowed and, turning his horse, galloped off, followed by the servant.

The four prisoners were hustled out from behind the line of carts and forced to kneel on the ground, still littered with corpses and broken weapons. Alberic moved along, crouching before each one, hand lifted in absolution. He had just reached the third when Greek horsemen emerged, riding slowly up to watch what was happening. Alberic finished. Hugh, carrying a basket, stepped forward. He drew his sword and, like a harvester collecting grain, neatly severed each of the condemned men’s heads, a slicing cut that sent the head rolling like a ball. Blood spurted up as the corpses toppled over. Eleanor looked away. Once Hugh was finished, he collected the heads, put them in the basket and, walking towards the line of horsemen, placed it on the ground before them. He returned, cleaned his sword on the clothing of one of the corpses, resheathed it and strolled back to the watching wall of Franks.

Bread, meat, wine and ripe fruit began to reach the camp just before nightfall. Carts piled high with produce were escorted into the camp by Turcopole mercenaries in flowing sky-blue robes, white turbans on their heads, black horn bows thrust into side pouches on their saddles. The arrivals were greeted with dark looks but Hugh, unperturbed by the brutal executions, went out to talk to the Turkish officer, who smilingly agreed to his request to stage a display of mounted archery out on the open meadowland. Hugh, holding Eleanor’s hand, watched the rider circle round a tree stump, horse and officer acting as one. The nimble mount turned and twisted even as the Turcopole, low in the saddle, loosed shaft after shaft into the stump.

‘This is what we will face, Eleanor,’ Hugh murmured, raising a hand in thanks to the officer. ‘These are the enemy, not Greek women and girls. Do you know they were mere children, raped, tortured and hanged before their mother, who was forced to witness it. If I had my way, I would enforce strict discipline on this rabble. Anyone who raises a hand against an innocent should be executed; it is the only way. The Greeks do not wish to fight us. They see us as defence against the Turks. Yet there is more bad news.’ He pulled a face. ‘Our leaders are arguing in Constantinople; they cannot decide on who will lead the army.’

‘Hugh, look at me.’

He did so.

‘Tell me,’ Eleanor stepped closer, ‘why are you here? To impose order, to create a brotherhood, or something else?’

He slowly wiped the sweat from his dirty face.

‘I asked you a question, brother, a direct question that deserves an honest answer. We are travelling across the world to Jerusalem, yet there is more to it, isn’t there, than the freeing of Christ’s Sepulchre, the liberation of the Holy Places. You, Godefroi, Alberic and Norbert, there is something else, some secret.’

He opened his mouth to reply.

‘Hugh, I know you like no one else does. You don’t lie. Sometimes you simply don’t tell the truth! I have asked you to lend me that poem, “La Chanson de Voyage de Charlemagne”. What is in that, Hugh?’

He scraped his boots on the ground and, leaning down, took off his spurs, jingling them in his hand.

‘I promise you this, sister,’ he smiled, ‘I will tell you everything, but not now. We face problems enough. My execution of those men is not popular.’

‘Nor was their crime,’ Eleanor retorted. She stared at her brother. His unshaven face looked harder, more resolute. She felt tempted to tell him about Fulcher, but decided to wait. They were bound for Jerusalem, but Hugh and, to a certain extent Godefroi, Alberic and Norbert too, apparently had their own private crusade. She was sure it was not her own imagination, but decided to accept Hugh’s reticence for the time being.

They returned to the camp now all a-bustle, bitterness at the Greek attack and the subsequent executions swiftly receding as the food and wine were distributed. After Vespers, Eleanor, Hugh, Godefroi, Alberic and Norbert joined the leaders of other companies in a tented enclosure lit by cresset torches lashed to poles. The vicomte and his colleagues stood on a dais and openly debated what was to be done next. Shouted argument and counterargument ensued, wine and full bellies quickening tempers. Many claimed Count Raymond should not have abandoned them. A few voiced the wish to return home. Eleanor felt tired and sick. She excused herself and returned to the cart where Imogene, helped by a nearby family, had set up tent. Beyond the ring of carts, the torches of scavengers and other searchers moved around the battlefield. Guards on foot also patrolled in the jingle of armour and the creak of leather. Eleanor was about to settle down when she remembered Fulcher. She found the pannier where she’d hidden it and shook out the paltry contents: a dagger, some nails, a medal, pieces of silver and a thick-soled sandal, its leather upper prised loose from the stitching. Eleanor put her fingers inside and drew out a neatly folded piece of smooth vellum. She unfolded this; it was larger than she’d thought. The vellum was slightly oiled, the best to be found in any chancery or scriptorium. In the poor light she could make out a drawing like a map and the clearly written letters above it.

‘Under the Rock,’ she translated, ‘look on the treasures of God and the face of the Lord.’ She moved the lantern horn closer. The diagram meant nothing to her, nor did the words. She sat down, refolded the piece of vellum and tucked it into the hem of her cuff. Fulcher had evidently thought this was important; so had Anstritha. Was this the manuscript the mysterious horseman had been searching for? Anstritha had been out to Outremer; so had Norbert and Alberic. Had they discovered something precious there? Eleanor closed her eyes. She recalled that list of relics held by her brother, and yes, something else: Hugh and Godefroi chanting that poem they so zealously read. Those words on Anstritha’s manuscript sparked a memory of verses in the ‘Chanson’ about the face of Christ. Was there more to the Poor Brethren of the Temple? Anstritha and Fulcher had both died violently, as had Robert the Reeve. Was the latter’s death an accident? And was the horseman now one of their company? They had never really discussed Robert’s death. The reeve was undoubtedly a toper, but how had he drowned in that stream? Did he know something? Had he been inveigled outside and murdered?

Eleanor heard sounds, her name being called. She crawled to the mouth of the tent and pulled back the flap. Hugh crouched there.

‘Sister,’ he smiled, ‘a decision has been made. We, the leaders of the Poor Brethren, will leave immediately tomorrow morning for Constantinople to take urgent council with the Lord Raymond.’