Jack Ludlow: Soldier of Crusade

‘Godfrey de Bouillon?’

‘I think that the case. Raymond is rich already and would not want to abandon his Provencal domains. Robert wants his Duchy of Normandy back, and the capture of Jerusalem will so raise him in wealth and standing, not even his brother William Rufus would be able to hold out against a successful Crusader with the Pope on his side and he would be bound by oath to leave Robert be.’

‘Vermandois?’ Tancred joked, which got a snort of derision.

‘No, Godfrey sold nearly all he possessed to come on Crusade and he is a good man as well as true. If we do end up in the Holy City, I will expend every sinew to make sure that he is given whatever title is agreed upon and holds Jerusalem as his own fief.’

‘If you can carry the principle, no one will dare vote for anyone but him.’

‘I look forward to seeing Raymond of Toulouse’s face when Ademar, a man he thinks his pet bishop, does just that.’

News had come from some of their eastern Armenian allies of another Muslim army being raised to come to the relief of Antioch and it was soon established that it was not being gathered — it was complete and ready to march in numbers that beggared the imagination; this had happened before and been proved to be much exaggerated, a point made by the Duke of Normandy, but it was decided to send out scouts to verify what the council were being told. The information that came back was worse than confirmation. Whatever threats they had faced up till now this was the greatest; the Turkish host was said to be beyond calculation and under the command of a formidable and experienced general called Kerbogha, and the conclusion drawn by Ademar was sobering.

‘Up till now we have faced the forces of two brothers who hate each other and so they have only ever been able to bring to the field a part of the available Muslim strength. This host is different: it has been ordered to assemble by the Sultan of Baghdad and is led, I am told, by the Atabeg of Mosul.’

‘This Kerbogha is a name that means nothing to me,’ said Vermandois.

‘It means a great deal to our Armenian allies, Count Hugh,’ Ademar insisted, ‘enough to strike terror into their souls and they begged us not to think the numbers are embellishment, but insisted it is three to four times the strength of anything we have yet faced, which our own scouts have confirmed.’

‘Only if you choose to believe it,’ Raymond said. ‘Even our men can be blinded by sights they think they see.’

‘My Lord of Toulouse, I admit I am still a tyro in matters military, but what would be the point of sending another army to dislodge us from Antioch if it were merely of the same size as those we have already beaten? My information from the Armenians tells me that the Seljuk Sultan has finally decided to brush us off the face of the earth and has ensured his commander has the numbers to do so.’

‘Will Byzantium aid us?’ asked Robert of Normandy.

This only proved to Bohemund he had yet to understand Alexius Comnenus, who would fear that such a host would turn on him if he took the field. ‘Let us say it would be unlikely.’

‘So,’ Godfrey de Bouillon interjected, ‘if we must fight this Kerbogha, and what we are told is proved to be the case, we must do so with every man we can muster.’

No more explanation was required; that meant lifting the siege and marching to do battle and with no guarantee that the Crusaders would win, which was an even more sobering prospect, for they still lacked enough horses of the kind that could stand in battle. It had always been a known fact that they had only successfully sustained their Crusade and got this far due to dissension between the Muslims, it being common knowledge that if they put aside those differences the numbers they might have to face would be staggering.

If the Sultan of Baghdad had hitherto see advantage to his own security in that family discord — men who fought each other could not combine to depose him — he obviously now saw the men around Antioch as the greater threat and he had the authority to force others to put aside their disputes and join in a counter-crusade.

‘If we were within the walls of Antioch, this general the Sultan so esteems would have to besiege us.’

Every eye was upon Bohemund when he said that and all held the same expression. They were not inside.

‘We have no prospect of that,’ Ademar said, but there was a lack of conviction in his voice, a suspicion perhaps that a member of the devious family de Hauteville would not have said such a thing lightly.

‘My Lords, I return to my previous plea that the common laws of conquest be applied, that whoever’s banner flies over Antioch when we are within its gates has the right to claim it as their possession. I have not to this point alluded to what anyone of us must have sought, namely a way of entry by betrayal, but I would ask that we be open now and tell each other what contacts we have made for such a purpose.’

‘You seem sure that the Lords assembled have done such a thing?’ Ademar responded, clearly displeased.

‘It is out of admiration for my peers that I think they are not so foolish as to have set aside the notion or that they have not sought to pursue it. And to prove my own sincerity in this I have very recently made contact with an Armenian commander willing to surrender to me a tower.’

‘Where?’ demanded Vermandois. ‘At St Paul’s Gate?’

‘What stratagems have you employed, Count Hugh, since you so sadly lost your brother’s Constable?’

‘I have sought contacts, it is true, sent messages in by various means seeking to seduce the garrison to …’

He did not finish that, which was an indication of how far he had got.

‘And tell me, Count Hugh, if you had succeeded, would you have willingly handed the city over to joint suzerainty by the council?’

‘Of course,’ the Frenchman contended, but he was a poor liar and Bohemund wondered if he was the only one present who did not believe him.

‘Count Raymond?’

‘As you say, Count Bohemund, a man would be a fool not to try, but do not think I would seek Antioch for myself.’

‘Noble indeed,’ Godfrey cried, as Normandy admitted he too had been active.

‘What we have, if the Bishop’s intelligence is correct, is a crisis, My Lords. I care not if you call it greed, but if I enter Antioch first and you are obliged to follow me I will claim it.’

‘Very like a de Hauteville,’ Duke Robert growled.

‘Perhaps, but we did not get to eminence on the gifts of others, either in Normandy or Italy. Nor can I believe that men such as here present would act in any other way, despite their protestations, from which I exclude you, Godfrey, for you are the only saint among us.’

That remark produced more lines on Ademar’s face than had ever been seen hitherto; he thought himself that.

‘We must agree to what is in our hearts instead of our mouths and take steps to ensure that we have the means to defeat this great army coming our way, which I, for one, worry cannot be done in open battle when Antioch is still in Turkish hands.’

That did much to concentrate minds; with such a host approaching the siege would have to be lifted and worse than that, Yaghi Sigal could emerge from his walls to threaten their rear. The agreement was reluctant and had to be dragged out of each lord present, with the exception of Godfrey de Bouillon who spoke straight at Bohemund.

‘I owe you my life and more besides, as you well know of. I also state here and openly that if others see in you avarice, I do not. If I disagree with what you contend it is not from antagonism to the notion. You may have the right of what you maintain and we here collected could have the wrong. What we are about is in the hands of God and if you are to be his instrument I am content.’