Jack Ludlow: Prince of Legend

‘The men Vermandois has placed there can hold the Iron Bridge for a time, but eventually they will have to seek to retire or die where they stand, and flight on foot will bring about that same fate. The Turks, on their fast ponies, will fill their backs with their arrows.’

‘Then give them mounts.’

‘We require that we use every horse we have left for foraging, Tancred. Give the bridge guard mounts and they will fight on them, after which they would be blown, not able to outrun their too numerous enemies, so the horses will either die also or fall into enemy hands. Kerbogha, given his strength, will take Iron Bridge, so all Vermandois will do is put a minimal check on the Turks and at great loss to our cause in terms of fighting men. He would be best to admit we lack the power to keep the Atabeg from the city and, as of this moment, don’t have much chance of keeping him outside without the Emperor comes to our aid.’

‘Do I sense you doubt that he will?’ Tancred asked in disbelief.

‘Let’s just say I have dealt with Byzantium all of my life and at no time have I ever reposed faith that they will hold to their given promise. The lack of any word of his approach troubles me. At the very least he might be too far off to affect what we face.’

‘Then what hope do we have?’

‘Hope that when Kerbogha spies the walls of Antioch and sees we are on the parapets, he decides it is too tough to assault and too strong to starve out.’

‘He will know within an hour of his arrival how low we are on the means to feed ourselves. A goodly number of the Armenians who claim to have reconverted to Christianity are still Islamic at heart. Those who are not will be in terror of his revenge and eager to ingratiate themselves with information, lest he seeks to slit their throats.’

‘True, but when you ask me what will happen in the coming days, which I think you are about to do, I will remind you many times of what I have said before and that is I cannot see into the future.’

Now it was Tancred’s turn to smile. ‘There are those who say you can, Uncle, have indeed insisted you had your eye on Antioch before we even sailed from Brindisi.’

There was a degree of irritation in the response. ‘Then they are fools and I hope and pray that description does not include you.’

‘It would be revealing to see into the mind of Raymond of Toulouse, to find out if he shares such desires.’

‘I sense you are trying to provoke me, Tancred, so that you may be allowed to see into my mind. Antioch is mine by agreement among my peers, to hold until Alexius arrives, at which time I will claim it with him as suzerain and that is all you will find should you succeed, along with thoughts and concerns as to how we are going to keep Kerbogha at bay till then. Perhaps, if you could see into the mind of Toulouse, you would come across the same disquiet.’

They were now passing La Mahomerie, the siege fort the Crusaders had built on the plain before the Bridge Gate, improving with heavy timbers the site of an abandoned mosque. Robert of Flanders now held that and it had been decided it should be defended and denied to Kerbogha, albeit with a plan for safe abandonment. There had been another exterior siege fort, Malregard, which Bohemund had constructed on the hillside above what had come to be called the St Paul’s Gate, outside which the Apulians had been encamped.

It was a spot he had specifically chosen at the beginning of the siege, for the gate had obvious advantages. It was the northernmost entrance to the city and the only place with a wide and flat approach in ground that meant that a section of the walls could be closely invested in strength. Thus, if a breakthrough was to be achieved, it offered the most likely place where the walls could be overcome. Yet it had disadvantages too; it suffered from being exposed to attacks from the steep hillside of Mount Staurin, the slightly lower peak that dominated the north of Antioch, which lay to its left.

Malregard had been built to counter that threat, but now being indefensible from within the walls it had been set alight and burnt to cinders, likewise the bridge of boats put together by Godfrey de Bouillon had been broken up to deny it to the enemy. That, a pontoon of lashed barges, had given good if hazardous service in crossing the Orontes to provide support for those camped on the exposed sliver of the eastern bank and likely to be outnumbered by a sudden attack.

For all his concerns Bohemund knew that Kerbogha would suffer from the same difficulties that had faced the Crusaders on coming to Antioch: those steep walls that ran up the side of and around the mountains north and south of the city were impervious to assault, as much for the loose screed that covered the ground as the sheer degree of the slope itself.

On the east bank of the Orontes the spit of land between the western wall and the river was too narrow to safely camp men in any number and this left them vulnerable to sorties from within, as the Latins had found many times to their cost. That same stretch of water cut off any main body of fighters from the men who must invest the southernmost entry to Antioch, named by the Crusaders as the gate of St George, while to get across in force, lacking a pontoon of boats, required a long detour south to the next proper bridge.

Past La Mahomerie, the convoy was in plain sight of the Bridge Gate and that bright red and gold Occitan banner. If the Apulians were bringing welcome supplies, there was no air of gratitude in the men designated to guard it: they were surly, no doubt taking their cue from their lord and master. Just before he went under the barbican and through the gates Bohemund, still thinking on what was coming, looked up to the one huge advantage gifted to Kerbogha that had not been granted to the Crusade.

Any lookout from the high citadel could tell him where the walls of Antioch were well manned or weak. Men could be brought in from the rear through the mountains, less steep on their eastern flank, for part of that citadel formed the outer defence of the high part of the city and it had an exterior gate. From within they could debouch in strength which meant that would have to be contained, thus diminishing the numbers that could man the other points of danger; holding the city was going to be much harder for the Crusaders than it had been for the Turks.

If cogitating on this troubled Bohemund, or even Tancred — seventeen years the younger and much less experienced than his uncle — it would not have brought on dread; they were men born to fight and that brought with it the ever-present possibility of death. If God willed that Antioch was the place where they gave up life so be it, but that would not be sold cheaply by men who valued that their deeds be recounted to a listening world, long after they were gone, as the acts of paragons.

Nearly every available horse was being used in foraging, yet good sense dictated that a small body of cavalry be kept by each of the city gates ready to sortie out in case of need — not to necessarily do battle but to put a check on any sudden appearance by any advance party of Turks.

That duly came to pass: a body of some two hundred mounted archers was spotted to the south of the city and their presence, if left unchallenged, might cut off the Crusaders from the fertile Ruj Valley, one place where if food was not plentiful — the locals had taken to hiding it in cellars and pits — such locations could at least be tortured out of them.

Thus the horns blew and everyone not occupied rushed to the walls to watch their champions ride out to drive off the infidel. In command on the St George’s Gate was Roger de Barneville, one of Bohemund’s most experienced captains, a man of high reputation and one the Apulian leaders trusted to show good sense. That seemed initially to be well placed, for his furious charge, along with fifteen other knights, had the more lightly armed Turks, in their hundreds, wheel away and retire in seeming panic.