Jack Ludlow - Soldier of Crusade

‘He saw you as a threat.’

‘Tancred, he saw us all as a threat. If he did not he would have come to Nicaea himself instead of Tacitus. No Roman emperor can afford to repose trust in any man and Alexius so mistrusted us our back was all he wanted to see.’

‘Which angers you?’

‘No, he acts as he sees in the interests of his empire. I am seeking to persuade the Council of Princes to act on behalf of the Crusade.’

Tancred grinned. ‘But you would like that we Apulians should take possession of Antioch?’

‘The man who held it for Byzantium was titled “Prince”.’ Bohemund laughed out loud, which had been rare these last months. ‘Would that not be one in the eye for a Great Count and a mere Duke of Apulia?’

‘Can we make that happen?’

Bohemund shook his head. ‘Only God can make that happen.’

If Bohemund’s views had struck obstacles with most of the leaders, Hugh of Vermandois was animated by the thought of his banner flying over Antioch, so when a message was sent to him offering to surrender the city, delivered by an Armenian smuggler, he eagerly pursued it and wanted to do so personally. This was a notion Walo of Chaumont, who had been sent to contain his follies, spent much time talking him out of and he only persuaded the Count to desist by offering to meet these Muslim rebels himself.

Every gate into the city had a postern and there were others at various places in the walls, small doors which only one man could pass through at a time and therefore very easy to defend or block up if threatened. In a time of peace these facilitated movement to and from the city, now they were used for smuggling and if the entry points were supposed to be guarded by men of the Crusade, inevitably milities , then a coin slipped into their hand, or food when they had been starving, was not to be sneezed at. If anyone had told Bohemund he would have just laughed; no place he had besieged had ever been sealed off completely and there were always folk within the walls willing to pay for luxuries or just good food, sometimes when the poor were eating weeds.

Walo took with him several knights and they were armed, slipping through the postern one by one on a dark and moonless night, with Vermandois straining to catch sight of them. He did see the door close behind them, but he heard the creak. The thick oak cut off the sounds that followed, that of his brother’s Constable, the man the King of France entrusted to command his armies by his side, having his throat cut, the same fate visited upon those with him.

This was not a loss that could be hidden and Vermandois was obliged, when the heads of those men slaughtered behind the gate were thrown over the walls, to explain what had happened and without his main supporter to advise him he made a poor fist of it. It appeared a chance to gain the city by betrayal; it would have been foolish not to pursue such a possibility and he would do so again if chance offered it. The loss was heartbreaking but how many knights had given their lives in this endeavour? Walo had given his and would be esteemed for it and yes, the Armenian messenger, the smuggler, had not reappeared.

‘Why do your think the message was sent to Vermandois?’ Tancred asked.

‘Yaghi Siyan wanted to warn us off dealing with traitors, on pain of our own death. What better way to despatch such a communication but through the hands of a fool?’

‘He knows that Vermandois is a fool?’

‘Why not? Everyone else does.’

The makeshift fort opposite the St George’s Gate, on the site of a long-abandoned shell of a monastery, was more a sieve than a true barrier; while it put a check on the Turks issuing in numbers to raid the lines of communication without warning it could not, and was not designed to blockade that entirely. Nothing demonstrated its vulnerability more than the need to keep it supplied and the efforts of the defenders of Antioch to impede that: every time food and water were brought to the bastion, it took a strong escort and a fight to deliver it.

It was effective at impeding anything of magnitude seeking to enter the city, as were the constant patrols out in the countryside seeking to cut off any supply being brought to the city by the Turks. Despite that, some got through, especially through the still-open Iron Gate, but the Apulians were the last line of obstruction at St George’s and often an effective one. Not long after taking up the position Tancred and his knights captured a sizeable caravan carrying in large quantities things much desired by the Crusaders and even more so by those still inside: food, oil and wine.

When it came to small traders, exclusively Armenian, the gate was as open as it had ever been and once the screw was turned on the others points of access the amount of goods flowing past Tancred’s position, while not a flood, was certainly significant to the ability of Yaghi Siyan to maintain the siege, if not in terms of fighting power, certainly as a means of stifling discontent within the Armenian majority.

Keen to have information about conditions inside Antioch and the state of mind of the besieged population, Tancred had taken to facilitating some of the smuggling, initially without side, but in time making things easy for those who passed him valuable information, while prohibiting those who refused to let him know what they had observed, so that he could advise his uncle in his dealings with the Council of Princes. What would happen to Antioch once it had fallen, now it was out in the open, had become a bone of some contention. That still, however, took second place to what lay before them, the actual act of capture, and for that the mood inside the walls was of obvious interest.

‘My nephew reports a sense of increasing despair,’ Bohemund informed them. ‘Very little from Turkish caravans is now getting through and what the smugglers can supply will only serve to keep happy those who can pay the high prices they demand, and even they must guard against their purchases being stolen by the garrison. It is true, when we arrived they hoped we would pass on to Jerusalem-’

‘Others have informed us of this,’ Raymond interrupted; he had become increasingly uncomfortable with the Count of Taranto holding the floor, which, given his greater knowledge of Antiochene morale he had been inclined to do. ‘And that is history.’

‘History with a point, My Lords,’ Bohemund insisted, in essence ignoring the Count of Toulouse, which did not go unnoticed. ‘For that first dented their optimism and we know that through the winter, when they saw us starving outside the walls, they expected each dawn to see us gone.’

‘So now they know we are here to stay, which no one amongst us, I hope, doubted would be the case.’

In saying that, Godfrey de Bouillon meant it; if his faith had sustained him there was not another magnate in the pavilion, Bohemund included, who had not at some time contemplated that very outcome, either by individual action or a collective loss of will.

‘The main food stocks on which the Turks rely, like the grain stores, are dwindling, what can be brought in without we appropriate it is reduced and so Yaghi and his Turks must impose ever more severe measures on distribution, which turns the populace against him, especially the poor who depend on Turkish largesse. They see the Turks feeding their horses while their dole is cut.’

‘Not enough to overthrow him,’ Duke Robert said.

‘How could they?’ Ademar responded. ‘He still has as many as three thousand men under arms even after his losses. If anyone raises complaint I would suggest they are quickly executed.’

Bohemund then informed them of how many times that had occurred and told of the rumours of just how many Armenians had fallen to Yaghi Siyan’s summary justice, for he was fierce when it came to sniffing out betrayal and swift to act. The aim of the Turkish leader was to hold out in the hope that an army would come to his relief and he would see the citizenry starve rather than surrender, so the Crusade, even if it frustrated them, had to be patient.