Shadows on a Sword (8 page)

Following the ceremony, the emperor organized a mammoth celebration. Even though Alexius had been horrified by Godfrey’s attack during Holy Week itself, he showered gifts and money upon the assembled knights, and ended the festivities with a banquet of huge proportions. Then Godfrey and all his troops were transported across the Bosphorus, the narrow stretch of water that separated Constantinople from the lands to the east. They marched on to an encampment at Pelecanum, on the road to Nicomedia. There they would wait for the other crusading armies to catch up with them.

The weather melted into spring. One fine morning, Amalric and Theo stood together on a rise that danced with scarlet poppies and white and yellow daisies. The long grasses whispered around their legs. In the distance, toward Constantinople, a cloud of dust arose.

“That will be Bohemond of Taranto,” Amalric announced with satisfaction. “Finally. They say he did not hesitate to give his oath to Alexius, but demanded to be named commander-in-chief of all the imperial forces in Asia.”

“And did he get his wish?”

Amalric made a face. “Alexius waffled, what else? Gave him some vague assurances. Bohemond’s brother, Tancred, was more clever. He slipped by Constantinople at night and avoided Alexius altogether. But wait until Raymond arrives. Then we’ll see the fur fly.”

“Why?” Theo asked. These political wranglings irked him more and more. The crusaders were all sworn to the same cause; why did there need to be so much dissention?

“Raymond is the count of Toulouse. Connected to the royal houses of Spain, and very full of himself, he is. Lord Godfrey says Raymond is immensely jealous of Bohemond and feels he should be the leader.”

Theo shrugged his shoulders irritably.

The powerful Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy was next to arrive with all his forces. Theo had heard many stories about this man. A holy cleric he was, but also a formidable soldier. Theo watched with interest as the bishop rode into the encampment. He sat tall in his saddle at the forefront of his army, helmetless, his iron gray hair flowing to his shoulders. An impressive man, even from this distance. He radiated strength and assurance.

Raymond sent word that he would join the crusading armies later, as did Robert, duke of Normandy, the final lord for whom they waited.

“Now,” Amalric exulted, “now we can go!”

They left by the end of April on a bright and golden day. Loaded down with supplies and equipment, they put all resentments behind them. Nearly a hundred thousand strong now, scarlet crosses of Christ vivid on their chests and shoulders, the crusaders felt their spirits rise, and the mood throughout the ranks was again one of optimism and wild excitement. The heavy, bone-shaking gait of the warhorses was too uncomfortable to bear for long periods of time, so Theo and the other knights rode lighter palfreys. Their grooms and squires, mounted on nags or mules, led the more formidable, heavier animals. Behind them was a special detachment of engineers provided by the emperor Alexius.

Pennants flew in the brisk spring breezes. There was a smell of fresh earth and a newness to the air. The jangling, clanging sounds of an immense army on the march and all its followers echoed back from the hills on the one side, and over the shining blue of the long arm of the Sea of Marmora on the other.

It was an incredible, impossible, unbelievably unwieldy procession. The last of the pilgrims did not even set out until far into the day—long after the glittering head of the army had passed out of sight and was well on its way. Theo often turned in his saddle to look back at the people behind him. The line stretched out as far as he could see.

He could not bring himself to be as jubilant as the others. Eight months, he thought. We have been on the road for eight long months. He knew that many in the crusade had assumed they would have been in Jerusalem by now, that the Holy City would have been long conquered. Instead … Memories of the hardships they had already endured crowded into his head. The atrocities …

Eight months. And they had only just begun.

They camped that night at Nicomedia, on the way to their first objective, Nicaea, a Turkish city on the shores of the Ascanian Lake. There the battle to liberate the Holy Lands would truly begin.

Theo was called to a conference in Godfrey’s tent almost as soon as he had finished making his camp. Leaving William to see to the fire and boil up a stew for their dinner, he made his way quickly to Count Garnier, and they went on together. Godfrey was speaking as they pushed aside the flap to his tent and entered. He had recovered from the disaster at Constantinople and, now that they were actually on their way, he was back to his old self. Looking at him, Theo told himself for perhaps the hundredth time that the duke had made the wisest decision at Constantinople—indeed, the only decision. It would have been a catastrophe if he had pressed the attack. The crusaders could not have won, and hundreds of Christians would have been killed.

But Theo was still troubled by the feeling he had had when the duke had turned away. He
had
felt cheated. He had been revolted at the thought of fighting fellow Christians, but sometime during that mad charge his emotions had taken over. All thoughts of God and the crusade’s noble purpose had fled his mind, and he had been filled with a wild exultation. He had been ready to fight, fellow Christians or not. Worse, he had been ready—even eager—to kill.

He had not seen Amalric for days after the aborted attack. When they finally did speak together, Amalric had been quick to defend the duke’s action. It was obvious to Theo that Amalric was bitterly disappointed at not having done battle, and shared none of Theo’s misgivings about these feelings. But Amalric would not hear any criticism of the duke. In any case, Theo could not bring himself to speak about that day, and when Amalric realized this he changed the subject with obvious relief.

“We are in luck,” Duke Godfrey was saying as Theo followed his foster father into the tent. “The Seljuk sultan, Kilij Arslan, is away fighting on the eastern frontier. It was he who defeated Peter’s army so easily, and perhaps because of that victory he does not take us seriously. If he thinks we will be as easy to conquer, he will soon learn his mistake. Foolishly, he has even left his wife and children in Nicaea.”

“And all his treasure,” Baldwin put in. His eyes gleamed. Theo could have sworn he was restraining himself with difficulty from licking his lips.

A disturbance at the tent’s entrance interrupted them. A man pushed his way in, brushing past protesting guards. He was dirty and ragged, with limp, greasy hair hanging down around his shoulders, but in spite of his appearance, he held himself with the bearing of a king. His eyes shone with a peculiar sort of light. Theo stared at him.

“I am Peter. I have come to join you and bring those of my followers who are still with me to you. You will have need of me.” His voice rang out within the tent.

Peter the Hermit himself!

Godfrey rose. He gestured to the guards to leave. “You are welcome,” he said. “Your knowledge of this area will be invaluable to us.” There was a long silence. No one would speak of Peter’s defeat, or the reasons for it, but thoughts of it hung heavily in the air.

“Continue. I would hear your plans.” Peter spoke regally, as if graciously giving permission to one of his underlings.

A faint flush colored Godfrey’s cheeks. He sat down abruptly.

“We will march cautiously to Nicaea,” he said. “I will send engineers ahead to widen the track, which I understand is narrow in places, and scouts to warn us of any possible ambush.” He looked meaningfully at Peter. It had been a lack of just this kind of planning that had led to the hermit’s downfall.

Amalric stood behind Godfrey. When Theo caught his eye, Amalric raised an eyebrow. His easy-going good humor seemed to be restored. He looked as if he were enjoying himself.

They waited at Nicomedia for three days until all the troops were assembled and ready. There were fields here where the armies could spread out and camp. Peter and the remains of his army made their own camp somewhat apart from the others. Theo had heard that the monk was a great preacher, but Peter held no congregation here. He spoke little to anyone and seemed to seethe with a bitterness that escaped only through his burning eyes.

The morning chosen for their departure dawned bright and clear; the sun now gave a hint of the heat that was to come in the months ahead. They rounded the eastern end of the Sea of Marmora and headed for Civetot. The poppy-strewn fields at Civetot pushed out in a triangle into the southern shore of the sea. It was here that Peter’s followers had camped, and here where the Turkish army had flooded in after ambushing and destroying Peter’s army in the narrow defile to the south. The sultan’s men had massacred almost everyone: women, children, old men, priests. Theo gazed at the scene and his mind went back to the three wanderers he had seen in the tavern in Semlin. They must have been here, the girl and the child, camped somewhere on this very plain. The boy—he would have been among the soldiers, fighting. Near the shoreline, a tall tree lent some shade to the field, a cairn of stones on the ground under its branches. What had happened here? What was war really like? The waves of the sea lapped at the shore with deceptive peacefulness. The blood-red poppies swayed in the breeze.

They turned south, through the pass where Peter’s men had been ambushed. The engineers had done their work well; the way had been widened, but bones still lay strewn around the entrance and among the rocks at the sides. Human bones—with shreds of skin still stretched over them here and there, and remnants of moldering cloth among them. A series of wooden crosses marked the cleared track. A hush fell over the column of knights as their mounts picked their way through.

“Did you see the huts on the hillsides with roofs thatched with sticks and twigs?” Amalric asked that night when he sought Theo out after his evening meal. “I saw goats on top of one of them, prancing around! One was even eating leaves that were still growing from it.” His voice was hard and brittle, full of careless laughter, but there was a new look in his eyes.

It could almost have been fear, Theo thought, but dismissed the idea immediately. Amalric afraid? Impossible. He laughed with him. Yes, he had seen the goats. But in his mind, all he could see were the bones.

A week’s steady marching brought them to Nicaea. As they drew near the city, Theo could see massive walls rising straight out of the water on the western side. The same walls ran around the other three sides; there were towers at regular intervals.

“That will be a tough nut to crack,” Amalric said as they drew nearer and the walls loomed high before them. “Now at last I wager we will see real fighting.” His face was flushed and eager. Any doubts or fears he might have been harboring had obviously been cast out. He fingered the pommel of his sword nervously; the palfrey he rode danced a few skittish steps as if sensing his excitement. Theo felt his own heart quicken.

The excitement was contagious and traveled quickly throughout the army. Godfrey camped outside the northern wall, while Tancred and Bohemond took the eastern side. Raymond arrived and closed the circle to the south. Men set about entrenching themselves with an almost feverish haste.

The Turkish garrison sent messengers to open negotiations with the armies, but when news came that the sultan and his army had turned back and were now hastening to Nicaea from the south, the crusaders were quick to bring all talks to a halt. Preparations for war began.

Theo sharpened his sword and dagger and polished his shield, then did so all over again. He checked Centurion’s bridle, saddle and girthstraps himself, to the annoyance of William, who took it as an insult to his competence. He was keyed up to a fever pitch and jumped to his feet, heart suddenly racing, when Amalric appeared at his fireside late one evening. Amalric had been at the nightly conference in Godfrey’s tent, and would bring news of when the attack would come. His friend was scowling, however, all traces of excitement gone.

“The sultan will attack from the south,” he said, his voice sullen. “Raymond’s army and the Bishop of Le Puy will see all the action. We are to remain here, and not fight at all! The walls must be guarded, the duke says, so that there will be no possibility of forces coming out of the city and attacking our rear.” He paced back and forth beside the fire, kicking angrily at the smoldering embers.

Theo felt a wrench of disappointment. Was he never to see battle?

“Perhaps the sultan will not return that way,” he said. “Perhaps he will trick us.”

“He must come back that way.” Amalric glared as if Theo were being deliberately stupid, aimed another kick at the fire, then turned and strode away into the darkness.

He was right. Theo awakened with the dawn to the sound of trumpets and wailing horns on the far side of the city. The camp was up in an instant, everyone desperate to know what was happening, the men in a frenzy at not being allowed to leave their posts.

The battle raged all day. Theo could only hear vague echoes. Now and then, scouts brought news. The crusaders were beating back the Turks … The Turks were massacring the crusaders … Theo felt he would go mad at the enforced inaction, and he was not alone. The men were enraged at their helplessness. The walls of the city seemed unmanned, almost deserted, but a cautious foray toward them by several crusaders frantic for battle drew a skyful of arrows. The knights were sent to ride up and down among the foot soldiers and archers, to keep them in their ranks and alert. Theo welcomed the opportunity to do something—anything—but Centurion, who knew that a battle was underway, fought the slow pace his master insisted on. The warhorse was soon covered in sweat and foaming at the mouth as he champed at his bit. Theo needed all his strength and skill to hold the charger in.

It wasn’t until night fell that the battle was over. Scouts arrived after dark with the news that the sultan’s forces had retreated. Immediately, a delirious, almost insane joy swept away the paralyzing frustration of the previous hours. Shouts and cheers filled the air, and rose even louder when a detachment of Raymond’s knights rode triumphantly into the camp, bearing the heads of their vanquished foes on pikes. The knights paraded their trophies before the gates of the city by torchlight, then hurled them into the enclosure within.