P. Doherty - The Templar

Eleanor listened to the words and began to laugh. What conquest? she reflected. What world? She lay down on the cot bed, crossed her arms and stared at the light pouring through the tent flap. She recalled the prophecies of Peter Bartholomew about the Apocalypse. Were they all part of that Apocalypse? Was she really dead and living in hell? What had all this cruelty to do with the cross of Christ? She, Hugh, Godefroi and the rest were no better than babbling babes; they’d had little inclination of the bloody cost of this undertaking. As if mocking her, Eleanor heard the whoosh of catapults, the cries of the besiegers, followed by shouts from the archers closer to the walls; above all this rose a Turkish voice chanting a prayer. Eleanor knew what was happening. In revenge for the execution of the archdeacon and his mistress, more prisoners were being herded down to the river bank to be executed. Eleanor began to shiver, then burst out crying. Imogene came in and crouched before her. Eleanor just stared back. She was not ill, she assured herself; in fact she felt as if she could perceive everything most clearly. She gazed at the Jewess so determined to bury her parents’ ashes within the precincts of the Holy City. Eleanor could understand that. Yet even Imogene had changed. Jerusalem did not concern her now; only Beltran. He had become Imogene’s life; her second, or even first reason for being here. Over the last few months Imogene had distanced herself. Sometimes Eleanor would catch the woman staring curiously at her, but she very rarely talked about Beltran, though she often tried to draw Eleanor about what might happen once Jerusalem was taken. Eleanor had ignored her questions, being more concerned with the present than any future plans.

Eleanor continued to lie there, staring into the middle distance. Imogene offered her some wine. Eleanor refused, so Imogene left. Simeon the Scribe, crouching in the corner, crept out to fetch Hugh, who came and sat beside his sister. He coaxed her to drink the wine Imogene had poured. Eleanor did so and felt her body being warmed. She drew a deep sigh, sat up and then attempted to stand. Hugh told her to stay.

‘It’s nothing,’ Eleanor murmured. She put her head into her hands, staring down at her battered ox-hide boots caked in yellow mud.

‘It must be something,’ Hugh insisted.

‘It is.’ Eleanor forced a smile. She gestured at the tent flap. ‘Brother, the killing, the blood, the revenge, the agony, the pain. Is this really God’s work? Are we here so that Bohemond can carve out a kingdom? You’ve heard the rumours. Bohemond wants Antioch for himself.’

‘It is necessary.’ Hugh’s voice was fierce and resolute. ‘Sister, what we do now is truly filthy. I know that. Godefroi and I have been talking. We have taken a great oath. If the Lord delivers Jerusalem into our hands, if our lives are spared to achieve that, if we can look upon the Holy Face, then we will found a holy order of poor knights who will take the vows of monks and dedicate themselves to protect God’s people.’

Eleanor hid her smile. The fire in Hugh’s heart only burned stronger; he was no longer talking to her but preaching his own private Crusade.

‘What you see here, Eleanor, is the truth,’ he continued. ‘This so-called Army of God does include men and women of vision, though many are here to indulge their filthiest passions.’ He blinked, pausing for breath. ‘I speak not only of the likes of Jehan the Wolf and his lieutenants, Gargoyle and Babewyn, but also of our leaders. Nevertheless, here before the city of Antioch, God will purge them all.’ Still absorbed in his own dream, Hugh patted her hand and left the tent.

Eleanor laughed quietly to herself.

‘As the child,’ she murmured, ‘so the man; as the tree, so the branches.’

‘Pardon, mistress-sister?’ Simeon the Scribe scrambled to his feet, face all concerned.

‘Hugh.’ Eleanor spoke over her shoulder. ‘Ever since I can remember, he has been the preacher and I have been his congregation.’ She walked to the entrance of the tent, pulling her cloak closer about her. As she lifted the flap, she almost walked into Theodore, who grinned and stepped back.

‘I heard you were ailing.’ He smiled and extended a hand. ‘You wish to walk?’

Eleanor agreed, and they went out into the frenetic bustle of the camp. Under iron-grey skies, tents and bothies were being erected. Carts were being pulled across the narrow thoroughfare to block any attack by enemy horsemen. Camp fires spluttered, cauldrons bubbled. People stumbled about dressed in the now common colours of brown and grey. A blacksmith was trying to fire his forge. A group of Saxon mercenaries were sharpening their swords on a whetstone. A knight in rusty chain mail led his thin-ribbed horse carefully through the camp, picking his way around ropes, pegs and mounds of refuse. Smoke billowed and swirled. The cold breeze blew the various smells: the stench of the latrines and horse lines mixing with the odours of sweat, leather, burning wood and roasting meat. The Beggars’ Company had gathered around a cart, eager to share the plunder it brought.

Eleanor and Theodore walked in silence down to the edge of the camp where the standards and pennants fluttered. Eleanor stared at the slight ridge of land that rose before falling down to the Orontes. On the near bank lay a heap of corpses, blood spilling out from their severed necks. On the ridge above it stretched a long row of poles; each bore the severed head of a Turk, positioned where it could be seen easily by the defenders of the city. Eleanor shivered. Theodore put his arm about her shoulder. She did not resist.

‘It’s only beginning,’ he whispered. ‘We have gorged ourselves after our hunger upon sweet bread, figs, fruit and wine. People think this is the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey. Eleanor, fresh horrors are about to emerge. We’ve plundered the countryside bare. Constantinople is an eternity away. We’ve bathed in pools, occupied plundered houses, but now what?’

‘ Deus vult! ’ she whispered. She turned, freeing herself from his grasp, and stared full at him. ‘Do you really believe that, Theodore? That God willed this, the sickness, the savagery, the fighting, the blood, the severed heads, the catapults? Look at poor Adelbaro and his mistress playing dice in an orchard. Was that what God intended?’

‘I don’t know.’ The Greek’s usually merry eyes were now black and hard. ‘Eleanor, I believe in the truths of our faith, that Christ the Lord is God incarnate, but also that real religion is a matter of the individual soul, the mind,’ he tapped his head, ‘nothing else. In here, in our minds, our souls, we have Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre and Calvary. Here we have the Sacred Face. If we cannot worship Him in our own inner sanctuary first, then what is the use of searching for something else?’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve just learnt that!’

Eleanor remembered his words as the siege tightened and the Army of God bayed like a pack of ravenous wolves before the walls of Antioch. November came in a flurry of sleet and rain. The ground turned soggy underfoot. A creeping fear seized the camp. Count Raymond had spoken the truth: the city should have been assaulted immediately. Now everything had changed. Yaghi Siyan, the protuberant-eared, white-headed Governor of Antioch, had perceived the weakness of the besiegers and sent hasty messages to Aleppo and Damascus pleading for help. He also dispatched his horsemen in brutal forays through the various gates to plunder and ravage the Army of God. The Turkish archers, in gleaming breastplates and colourful robes, rode swift-footed ponies, bows pulled back, arrows notched ready to drop a deadly hail into the enemy camp. At night the misery continued, the Turkish catapults hurling fiery missiles into the tents. The pain turned into agony. Heavy rains swelled the Orontes. Icy sleet pounded the sodden, thinning tents, rotting bowstrings, spoiling rugs and carpets, polluting food stocks. Eleanor did what she could to assist. She filched, begged and scoured the camp, then she cooked and broiled the morsels into the most savoury messes.