Jack Ludlow - Prince of Legend

These were men who, when they were not fighting, practised daily to do so. Time spent in the sand-filled manege day after day and hour upon hour, in mock play of what they were now doing for a purpose, allowed them to keep going when lesser mortals would have succumbed from sheer exhaustion.

Bohemund’s standard flew above his head; along the line to one side fluttered the similar device of Tancred and beyond that those of Normandy and Flanders, while to the other flank, stiff on the breeze, flew the pennant of Robert of Salerno. If he was not a full-blooded Norman — neither was Tancred truly that with his Lombard father — he, like all the Italians who served as knights with the men from the far north, had been induced entirely into their ways.

Danger threatened when, as had been feared, the sheer pressure of Turkish bodies pressing against it led to the collapse of a section of the drystone wall. Bohemund, alerted to the crisis, immediately disengaged and called to the knights behind him who made up a reserve to join in response — if a man fell they were needed to move into and maintain the line. Together they headed towards the breach, which had become a melee of intermingled fighters: paramount was the need to restore the perimeter, and scant consideration had to be given to those engaged.

With his bulk and massive strength the Count of Taranto drove into the crowd, slashing right and left and never stopping to consider he might maim or kill his own, the men he had brought forming a wedge behind him, able by driving hard to push back the Turks and to kill so many that their bodies filled the breech in the wall. To get to the line of defenders obliged the attackers to now cross a barrier of blood, gore, severed limbs and twitching remains.

Whoever had command, perhaps Kerbogha himself, ordered the horns blown and the Turks retreated, to leave a line of Crusaders too weary to even think of pursuit, thus allowing the enemy to filter back through the inner gate untroubled. Much as he wanted to sink to his knees, as had many of his lances, Bohemund and his fellow magnates had to stay visible, had to raise their swords and emit the first sound of a hoarse cheer, that slowly taken up by the others, to what was far from an outright victory but was enough to tell their enemies that they were of good heart.

Yet they only had to look around to observe the number of their confreres who had either fallen or were groaning and grievously wounded to assess what had occurred: if they had driven off the Turks it had not been without cost.

‘If he attacks the walls at the same time as he sorties out from the citadel we will be on a set of sharp horns, my friends.’

No one at the meeting of the Council of Princes wanted to disagree with Godfrey de Bouillon for the very simple reason he was right. He and Toulouse had held the western walls overlooking the river, but in much diminished strength for such a task, the necessity of holding the higher ground being paramount. Yet if no one responded, all must be wondering at the lack of what they feared: Kerbogha had the strength to do as he wished as well as a clear view of the Crusaders’ lack of means. He could attack in two places at once.

Robert of Normandy, ‘ Curthose ’ by soubriquet because of a pair of short legs, spoke up next. ‘We cannot just let him act as he wishes.’

‘I cannot see how we can stop him.’

Hugh of Vermandois said that with an accompanying look that sought confirmation; what he got was indifference, his view on anything discounted almost by default.

‘We have all agreed we cannot fight outside the walls,’ Bishop Ademar reminded them, ‘but can we not raid a little to disrupt them?’

Bohemund was amused by that; early in the Crusade Ademar had been keen to emphasise that he was a mere cleric, not a military man in any sense, and that he was ever willing to bow to the superior knowledge of his knightly confreres. Yet he had bought a mailed hauberk in Constantinople and had been seen to read the historical Greek chronicles of Herodotus and Xenophon to glean insight into how battles were fought in Asia Minor.

Increasingly, at Nicaea, he had advanced his own theories until, after the city fell, a chance came for the Bishop to show his mettle. At the Battle of Dorylaeum he had led a party of knights with great gusto and had come to see himself after that, albeit with discretion when he spoke, as the tactical equal of any of these men who had led armies. It was a mark of the respect in which he was held that none now disputed it; even if he had got above himself Ademar had a clever mind and a clear sight of necessities.

‘Surely,’ the Bishop continued, ‘the way to counter Kerbogha at the citadel is to attack the men encamped to the rear of the mountains?’

‘Who are,’ Vermandois cried, seeking to latch on to the Bishop’s popularity, ‘more numerous than those actually in the citadel.’

Even stating the obvious got the Frenchman scant attention; at one time Vermandois had been advised by his brother’s constable, he an experienced and well-regarded soldier trusted by the King of France to keep the enthusiasms of his younger sibling in check. That poor fellow had been slain in a most shameful manner, having been sent to secretly negotiate with a group Turks seemingly willing to surrender one of the gates, in a meeting set up by Count Hugh, who declined to go himself. All Vermandois got back was the poor fellow’s severed head fired from a catapult.

Yet his outburst concentrated minds: the citadel might be formidable but it was not large. It could not possibly hold the number of men necessary for the assault Kerbogha had launched, indeed he had only used a proportion of his available strength so far, almost exclusively Turks, and to march such a host to and fro from the main camp each day was folly. On the rear slopes behind the citadel, visible from the towers held by the Crusaders, lay a satellite camp of some seeming permanence; the enemy were there to stay or at least until Antioch fell.

‘We could launch a night raid,’ Ademar suggested. ‘After all, we have a postern gate nearby that would serve very well by which to exit.’

‘Such an act is not without risk,’ Bohemund responded, as he contemplated the pros and cons.

Toulouse was quick to speak and sharply. ‘What is not?’

His reaction being brought on by rivalry — anything the Apulian said had to be countered by Provence — obliged Ademar to concur with both Toulouse and Bohemund, talking in a way that debarred interruption like Solomon applying his famous wisdom. If it irritated Bohemund it infuriated the man with whom the Bishop of Puy had set out on Crusade: Toulouse fairly spat at the cleric.

‘If the Apulians fear to set foot outside the walls the men of Provence do not!’

The response from Bohemund was delivered in an even tone and quietly, but lost nothing by that; he would hold to his vows if he could, but there arose times, and this was one of them, when it was required that anyone who insulted him did so at some peril.

‘Have a care, My Lord, about whom you choose to affront.’

‘No slur was intended,’ cried Ademar, a remark that flew in the face of the obvious. ‘But if we could send out a strong party, perhaps a hundred men, we might impose a check on the devil of Mosul.’

‘I will provide fifty,’ Vermandois said, glaring at Bohemund until that was returned in full measure, which had him look away; such a giant was not a man to challenge.

‘And I the rest,’ exclaimed Toulouse.

‘Good,’ Bohemund added, ‘then I need provide no one.’

On a night with little moon, with a heat haze to obscure what light came from the stars, getting out onto the escarpment and doing murder was not hard, the surprise being the way Kerbogha’s soldiers panicked and fled as soon as the Crusaders got amongst them. For every one that died a hundred ran away, using the down slope of the mountains to speed their departure and leaving their entire camp to be looted.