Jack Ludlow - Prince of Legend

‘You are going to seek to get past them?’ asked Geldemar, confused.

That got an emphatic shake of the head. ‘Never manage it, and even if we were lucky, them ships can outsail us all day. But judging by the time they are taking to tack and wear it will be an age before they get alongside, time enough to fetch our chattels.’

‘It would serve you to bring along any tools you have,’ Pilet suggested.

‘Whatever for?’

‘Because you are skilled in using them, friend, as are some of our own fellows, and we are in need.’

The soldiers set to loading every conveyance they had gathered, from dog carts added to one or two drawn by oxen and even sacks tied to single donkeys, a job completed by the time the sailors had recovered their possessions, clothing, personal chests as well as their tools, setting light to their ships before they abandoned them. The whole combined number had cleared the port and city long before the Fatimid fleet thought of launching boats to chase them.

The arrival of the sailors allowed for the calling of another Council of Princes, first to rejoice in the cargo that had been fetched from Jaffa, but more to decide how to employ a much more precious asset, the woodworking skills of the men of the sea, who knew how to cut and shape timber and had brought with them the means to do so. With their help they could begin to contemplate the building of the necessary siege towers.

‘Now all we need,’ Godfrey exclaimed, ‘is the material to do so.’

It was easy to see the attraction of the County of Edessa as a possession: sat on a huge and fruitful plain between two of the great rivers of Asia Minor, and thus with well-watered soil perfect for the growing of crops, anyone who controlled it would have revenues sufficient to allow for regal magnificence. Passing fields full of toiling folk working that soil, Bohemund was aware that the sight of his forces caused a ripple of alarm to interrupt their labours; armed men, especially those with the crusading cross emblazoned on their surcoats and their reputation as bloody invaders, would always do that.

The road ahead was long and straight, evidence that the force of knights he was leading were still in country that had at one time been Roman. Thus it was possible to see far into the distance and observe the dot that was a rider closing with him and his conroys. The fellow did so with no haste; there was no danger in what Robert of Salerno later imparted to his liege lord.

‘It seems we are to be met before we even see the city.’

‘Baldwin himself?’

‘By his standard yes, and with an escort of several hundred knights, most certainly.’

Bohemund looked around him, at fields of good pasture on either side of the road. ‘How long before they get to where we are?’

‘I did not ride hard when I spotted them and neither did they seek to close with me. A glass of sand perhaps, certainly half that.’

‘Give the order to make camp, Robert, and with haste erect my pavilion. I would want to meet Baldwin out of the heat of the sun.’

The large tent was quickly set up and furnished by the minimum amount of furniture that the master of the household had fetched along in cart. All was in place before the thud of hooves began to reverberate through the ground, the sound of an approaching host. Bohemund was bareheaded, unarmed and outside his tent, with his familia knights close by and tense, as the one-time Baldwin of Boulogne, who now called himself Count of Edessa, rode close enough to remove his helmet and speak without the need to shout.

‘I am bound to ask what brings you and your men into my territory?’

‘Since the Battle of Antioch, Baldwin, I have felt free to go where I please.’

The lack of a title was deliberate and it hit home judging by the reaction on Baldwin’s face. He might style himself Count of Edessa, his brother and other magnates may oblige him in that; the acknowledged Count of Taranto was not one of them. His given name would suffice.

‘How do I address you, as Prince of Antioch?’ Baldwin sneered. ‘I have heard you lust for the title.’

‘My Apulian entitlement will do, given it is not in question by anyone.’

‘You are on my land, without my invitation, which displeases me.’

‘I did not come to offer you comfort, Baldwin, but to remind you of a duty you owe to the Crusade.’

That got a scoff. ‘A rich reminder coming from you.’

‘Ah! Baldwin,’ Bohemund sighed, ‘I had quite forgotten your gift for making enemies.’

That had the other man looking over his shoulder, then, quite dramatically casting an eye to the encampment behind Bohemund, the point obvious: he had arrived at the unarranged meeting with more men.

‘At a quick glance I would say that is something you should fear more than me.’

‘There may be in the future a time when I may call you to account for past deeds, but this is not one of them. If you have not already heard the reports, your brother Godfrey and his confreres have reached Jerusalem.’

For a man said to be impious, Baldwin was quick to cross himself. ‘When?’

‘It matters not, they are there and my information is that the Holy City is under siege. But what is troubling is this, they are far away from any succour should that siege take time, though they may be reinforced by sea.’

‘The Emperor?’ Baldwin exclaimed. ‘I would have thought you would trouble him more.’

‘Let us put Alexius aside, and as well we must put aside any opinions we have of each other, as well as any matters that need to be examined. I invite you to dismount, enter my pavilion and talk of what we must do to aid them, not least your own elder brother.’

‘I will only do so armed.’

‘So be it,’ Bohemund replied, with a full smile and his huge hands held out, which made Baldwin flush; this giant was telling him that he had weapons enough to deal with an assault from a man he thought a short-arse.

Any meeting between the Count of Taranto and Baldwin of Edessa was bound to be fraught. No satisfying explanation had ever been given to Bohemund for the way a hundred and fifty of his Apulian knights had been massacred by the Turks outside Tarsus, this following on from Baldwin — with a bit of low cunning that seemed, along with his brutal manner, to be his defining characteristic — having cheated Tancred out of possession of the famous city.

This was the first time they had clapped eyes on each other since the Crusade split up after the victory at Dorylaeum, but that type of behaviour had manifested itself in Baldwin from the very first days since the Crusade had crossed the Bosphorus. He was rude and openly disputatious with his own brother, to whom he owed both filial and bounden service, and was heartily disliked for his brusque manner by all Godfrey’s equals, constantly implying that he had a better brain and superior military ability to any of an assembly of men very experienced in war.

Unknown to his brother Godfrey, and certainly a mystery of which the majority of the princes were ignorant, Baldwin secretly supplied the Emperor with information that should have been kept within the confines of the Latin forces, with greed at the root of his duplicity, for while the childless Godfrey de Bouillon was both a duke and well-endowed with land, Baldwin, his heir, was strapped in both; anything he did own he had pledged to fund his Crusade.

If Edessa had not been his initial aim when he parted from the Crusade, Bohemund had no doubt that he had something of the kind in his mind when he and Tancred were detached from the main body. Both, with a hundred knights each, were tasked to scout the fast route to Antioch through the Cilician Gates and the Belen Pass, two tight bottlenecks that were thought too dangerous for the host to pass through safely. That either could and should claim as a fief any place of value they could capture, subject to approval from and in line with vows made in Constantinople, was taken as only their right.