Soldier of Crusade (23 page)

‘Like my grandfather?’

‘I only knew Prince Gisulf a little, Robert, but I can tell you he makes Count Hugh of Vermandois look like Alexander the Great, he was such a military dolt.’ Seeing that it sounded like a slight on his bloodline, Bohemund softened his tone, which had been unsympathetic. ‘You are not he and today, if we combine well, you will prove it. We may not see battle but if we do I want you to stand as well in my eyes as Tancred.’

‘I thank you for that.’

‘Robert, it is an aim I extend to all my captains, without exception. Now ride ahead and spread your men out to cover as much ground as the landscape allows without any loss of contact.’

‘How will I let you know if we do find the enemy?’ Bohemund just looked at him without answering, the obvious point that this
was something he should be able to sort out himself and Robert acknowledged that. ‘Men to the rear who will alert you?’

‘I need numbers and how willing they are to fight. If, as I hope, they see you as meat for their table you are to take flight as if beaten, the rest will fall to me.’

Watching them depart there was a moment when Bohemund doubted the wisdom of giving Robert command; his lust for some kind of glory was high – he had a need to wipe out the stain of his inheritance being taken from him by the
Guiscard
, that made even more disagreeable by the fact that Duke Robert’s wife, his Aunt Sichelgaita, had been a party to the removal of her own father – seeking fame, Robert might disobey his instructions. That thought had to be smothered; he had handed over responsibility and there was no point in fretting upon it. Instead he must look to how he was going to exploit what he expected to happen.

When the first half of his force was out of sight Bohemund ordered his men to dismount and walk; he wanted his mounts to be as fresh as possible for what he hoped was coming and it was a long time before that anticipation turned to frustration for there was no sign of Robert making contact, sending a hard-riding messenger to alert him to the approaching Turks. Throughout the morning they walked, exercising strict control over their horses when it came to cropping pasture or drinking, for a full belly was not an advantage in an equine when it came to rapid movement.

The sun was well past the zenith and he was getting closer to that escarpment called Jalal Talat when Bohemund realised he had made an error in thinking the fortress of Harim was too far off to trouble the siege of Antioch. So close had they come that a separate camp would have been unnecessary, indeed folly, much more vulnerable
than even a small walled fort. Given cause to admire his enemies before, he was in that position again, there being no point in being upset that they failed to conform to his own tactical thinking.

‘Mount up,’ he called as he saw a rider, or rather the dust cloud in which he was near enveloped, his gaze ranging round for some way to keep his presence partly hidden. He wanted the Turks so fully committed they could not avoid contact and he spied to his side a low hill that, if it would not hide his men completely from anyone on an elevated slope, would serve to obscure their number. Riding slowly – he did not want dust in the air to alert the enemy – he led his men to where he had chosen to wait.

Robert was a long time coming, again raising the spectre of him acting for his own reputation, but eventually the ground began to vibrate with the effect of so many hooves and the one man Bohemund had put as lookout began to signal that the fleeing Normans were approaching and assured him that there were upwards of a thousand men in their wake. The lances went down as soon as the men had crossed themselves.

Now it was not vibrations but noise, a thundering and increasing cacophony of fast-riding horses, and then came the distant but faint whoops of excited and triumphant Turks, the same sound they had originally emitted at Dorylaeum. The forward element of Robert’s section, the fastest riders, began to fly past the vision of the waiting Normans and yet Bohemund held still, for his presence remained unknown and that surprised him. Surely the Turks would have the sense to divert some of their pursuers to high ground to alert them to a possible trap, and if they did they could not fail to see what was waiting for them even if it was too late to avoid.

The sight of the bulk of his men riding by, neck over their withers,
was soon followed by the first Turks, nearly everyone with a sword out and looking straight ahead, until those with wiser heads could not fail to see, by a flicking glance, what was on their flank. That they tried to pull up caused confusion throughout the Turkish ranks and that to Bohemund was the time to move. He led his men out at a fast canter, trusting the conroy leaders to exercise the requisite control, and they hit the first Turkish riders, spread out as they were, almost at once.

Robert must have been looking back, for as soon as Bohemund moved he had the horn blown and his men spun round to join in, with their young leader showing good judgement by leading them to the left flank of the Turks, the opposite side to which they were being assaulted by Bohemund. Riding flat out in pursuit it was near impossible for the Turks to either turn to meet the enemy in any disciplined manner or to easily realise how precarious their position was and retreat.

They sought to fight, but the odds were numerically against them as well as the tactical situation; they were disordered whereas the Normans were in close to full control, and that was not improved when they started to go down in droves to the couched lances. If there was a leader he had lost the battle before it started, for he could exercise no command that would save his men other than individual flight and, worse for his survival, those to the rear of his leading cavalry, unaware of what they faced, came on pell-mell into the battle, pushing forward their fellows into the rapidly closing jaws of the Norman maw.

The Turks died in droves; forced in upon themselves they fought as bravely as they could, but once more, when it came to even numbers the Normans, in their physical attributes and weapons, outmatched
them in every way. For every one that died, another two were wounded to become a prisoner and when the battle was done the Turks had lost so many men to both that Bohemund knew the threat from Harim to be quashed.

The prisoners were brought back to Antioch to be paraded before the walls, a taunt to the defenders to tell them that their situation had gone from sound to questionable: without the support from Harim, the Crusaders’ supplies would increase and theirs would diminish. The Turks jeered at that, so to still their mockery the men Bohemund had captured were brought into plain view and beheaded by a single blow of a Crusader sword, their heads then catapulted over the battlements.

The Turks, if they could not match the numbers, sent out a sneak sortie and caught a high divine, the Archdeacon of Metz, sharing an assignation with a comely young Armenian girl in one of the apple orchards. The cleric, clearly bent on seduction, lost his head immediately, the girl and his skull being taken back into Antioch, she to be, the besiegers were informed, a sound receptacle of the juices of Islam. They knew what that meant: she had been raped into stupefaction. Then she was beheaded like her potential lover, both their heads fired back along with contempt.

Day after day the Armenian patriarch of Antioch, an elderly man as befitted his office, was brought to the walls to be hung upside down while the soles of his feet were beaten with rods, an affliction he bore with more fortitude than those who observed his ill-treatment. Designed to drive good Christians to fury, it succeeded better than the Turks could have supposed and fired up the very people they sought to taunt to a level of barbarity that flew in the face of their stated beliefs.

F
or all the successes enjoyed by the besiegers, hunger soon became the abiding curse; all their plans for regular supplies foundered on the inability of those who had promised to deliver, and that continued even after the threat of Turkish interdiction had been removed. Then there came weather that was a surprise to the majority if not those who had a wider knowledge of the world; not just rain and cold, which they thought the region free from, but heavy falls of snow that completely cut off the routes to Antioch for even those trying to meet their commitments.

Supplies by sea, even after the Crusaders had captured and opened the southern port of Latakia, on a benign wind a day’s sailing from Cyprus, were delayed by storms, and it had to be added that the island was a place of no abundance. The locals fed themselves first and no amount of payment would tempt them to risk hunger for the sake of a cause of which most of them had no notion. Foraging, from
an area that had borne a heavy burden already, was producing less and less and the store of available sustenance was so depleted as to cause serious concern.

Naturally the fighting men were fed first, which meant that the pilgrims without the means to buy at inflated prices starved, and all the pleas of people like Peter the Hermit fell on deaf ears when it came to the Council of Princes. They worried about the health of their soldiers and it was far from good – disease always stalked siege lines and Antioch was no different, but if the men were weakened by hunger the death toll would escalate to dangerous proportions.

With no reinforcements coming in because of the season it was vital to maintain the numbers they could now muster and, with that in mind, it was decided that the act of foraging had to be extended beyond what would be considered safe or advisable in normal times. The decision was not unanimous that it should be so, especially given the lack of fit horses due to the need to put the feeding of men before equines, and it was this over which Raymond of Toulouse and the Normans came into open conflict.

‘You are talking about sending away a high proportion of our cavalry strength and half our
milities
. What of Antioch?’

‘The Count of Toulouse,’ said Robert of Normandy in reply, ‘does not seem to accept that without we can feed our men, there will be no siege to press home.’

‘While the Duke of Normandy cannot grasp that Antioch must be in as dire straits as we. It is no time to relax our grip. If we must send men away let it be to a place where there is food.’

‘Would not that equally deplete our strength?’ Bohemund enquired.

Raymond had taken a position on the matter and over the
preceding weeks he had become fixed in his opinion that he knew how to press home a siege better than his peers, which gave Adémar a real dilemma, for he lacked the knowledge to know who was right and who was wrong. This made what he saw as diplomacy and some saw as fence sitting harder to maintain.

‘At least, Count Bohemund, we might see those we favour back to good health.’

‘Good! When they return they can bury the bones of those left behind.’

While Raymond sought to impose his views, Godfrey de Bouillon had moved to a position of much influence for his sound common sense as well as his complete lack of conceit and, while Adémar had seen his authority diminish, that of the Duke of Lower Lorraine had risen to the point that when he spoke all listened.

‘The stocks of food are low and they are not being replenished in enough quantity. I would also remind you, My Lords, that we have another duty, which if it does not transcend what we are engaged in must have an effect on our thinking.’

‘These pestilential pilgrims,’ Vermandois spat. ‘They eat food that should go to the men who fight. If you had listened to me after Nicaea it is a burden we would have shed.’

‘Would it matter,’ Godfrey responded, ‘if they starved in Bythnia or here in Syria?’

‘The Emperor would have fed and cared for them.’

‘As he did previously, Count Hugh? Do you not recall we walked over their bones on the road to Nicaea? I would like to see you put that point to the sainted Peter who led them. He was in my pavilion today pleading that his pilgrims be treated equally and as Christians.’

‘We lack the stores,’ Robert of Normandy insisted. ‘We have no
more than a week of half rations and no idea of what will come in the days ahead.’

‘I must have a formal proposal,’ Adémar insisted, ‘so I can put it to the vote.’

That got him a jaundiced look from Raymond, who expected support from the papal legate who had, to his mind, come here on the tail of his surcoat. But the Bishop was on the horns of a dilemma, still seeking to maintain harmony when he could see it fracturing before his eyes. It had come to the point that without Godfrey de Bouillon to aid him in keeping the peace there would have been constant dissent and disagreement.

‘I propose,’ said Normandy, ‘that we send out every pack animal and ox cart we can muster, with men to both protect and lead them, to proceed to the plateau known as the Jabal as Summaq, in which we are told food is plentiful, and bring back enough to help sustain us until the spring.’

‘Ten days to get there, ten to forage and ten back at least,’ Raymond protested. ‘Do you not think our Turks watching from their citadel will not notice?’

Bohemund spoke up then. ‘Are you saying we cannot contain them even with half our strength?’

That flummoxed Raymond; if he believed he could not hold them he was admitting to the fact the siege was an error – the host outnumbered the defender six to one at even the most limited estimate.

‘I would undertake to do that,’ Bohemund added, which stung the Provençal magnate’s pride. ‘There is no need when my knights are present. They alone can seal the walls.’

‘Then, Count Raymond,’ interjected Robert of Normandy, ‘you will not object to your foot soldiers driving the carts?’

‘Do you intend to lead, Duke Robert?’

That gentle enquiry from Godfrey de Bouillon got a shake of the head. ‘I will put forward my brother-in-law of Flanders.’

‘An excellent choice,’ Adémar exclaimed, with such faux enthusiasm he made it sound the very opposite.

Godfrey spoke next. ‘Would you, Count Bohemund, agree to share the venture?’

‘Surely it is the turn of others?’

‘How can it be, my friend, when you so recently defeated our enemies in open conflict?’

‘I am willing to serve as the council directs.’

The plateau referred to by the Duke of Normandy lay well to the south-east of Antioch and as had already been stated it was, for the kind of cavalcade led by his brother-in-law and Count Bohemund, a long and slow march to get there. Both commanded large bodies of knights, some three hundred each in number, enough to cow the locals into cooperation as well as to deal with any groups of Turks they might encounter.

Where Bohemund had come to enjoy common ground with Duke Robert on the way to Dorylaeum, he found the Count of Flanders less forthcoming in that regard, he being aloof and much concerned that he was as much a knight and commander as the Norman and that his authority over his own lances should not in any way be compromised. Added to that, those on foot were Raymond of Toulouse’s men and they proved unruly, their captains just as unwilling to bow the knee to Norman or Frank.

The success of their mission made such a situation tolerable; while acting in concert they operated in a semi-independent fashion, ranging
far and wide over what was a land full of milk and honey compared to Antioch, loading up their beast of burden and their carts until they were fully laden, eventually coming together to camp side by side with the intention of starting back for Antioch on the next morning, the troops of Flanders to the east and the Normans to their rear.

It was never established whose duty it was to send out scouts, each man blamed the other for the failure to do so and that continued all the way to the later chronicles of the Crusade; all that mattered was there were none, or too few to give warning of the threat that was approaching the foraging force. The sight of a large party of Turks at dawn, observing their positions, was in itself alarming and set the camp into a rush to get ready to move. Riding out to assess the level of danger Bohemund got a shock greater than any he had ever experienced, for, from an elevated observation point, he could see that the land to the east was covered in marching men; this was no roving squadron but a full-scale army, obviously headed for Antioch, and one that massively outnumbered the Crusaders.

Hastening back to the lines he harried the drovers and
milities
to get their carts and animals into motion in the hope of putting some distance between them and the Turks, quick to curse the Count of Flanders for the fact of such a force being a surprise. There were grounds for that, if they were slender – the mounted men of Flanders had operated close to the enemy line of march – but it was, in truth, the fault of both men to allow themselves to feel so secure that no duty for protection had been discussed.

To say it was a race to get clear was risible; the sole hope was that the approaching Turkish host would have in mind some other objective and that the sight of the foraging Franks would not divert them from that. It proved to be a false dream almost before they
cleared the overnight encampment, as Turkish cavalry appeared on the far hillsides in numbers, clearly intent on forcing battle. With sinking hearts the two leaders knew the Muslim foot would be hot on their heels. Worse, the mounted warriors split into twin columns and set off with the clear intention of getting ahead of the Crusaders before coming together and blocking their route to the west and there was little either Count could do to prevent it.

Running for the whole foraging party was not an option; too many were foot bound, quite apart from their encumbrances, so they were ordered to make a corral with their wagons, into which they should lead their donkeys, mules and packhorses, and to then form a defence around that while the knights sought to drive off the enemy enough to create a corridor of escape. To the west the Turks were coming in from both the pincers to close the gap, leaving the lances no choice but to seek to force a way through.

Robert of Flanders declined to give first chance to the Normans – or was it their commander, for whose fame and reputation he now openly demonstrated his disdain? Gathering his knights he set off to stop the completion of that encircling movement, Bohemund electing not to join him but determined to hold his men together so that he could react to whatever came next. The knights of Flanders did good service, crushing the line of Turks before them, which allowed Bohemund to split his forces and attack the two wings which were now in confusion, thus opening the potential for flight by all.

With their weight superiority the Crusader knights were doing great slaughter and driving back the enemy so that the route west was clear. Hard as they fought to hold open that corridor, and despite an order to move, abandoning wagons and animals, including the stores they had worked so hard to collect, it soon became clear that
the
milities
felt safer in their wagon-bound enclave than in the open and when they should have moved they stayed put. Never having the discipline of their mounted confrères, regardless of where they came from, no amount of browbeating would make them budge.

Both Bohemund and Robert of Flanders were in a bind: if they went to the rescue of their Provençal
milities
they would be riding back into the Turkish trap, and pouring towards that square of wagons were thousands of Turkish foot, too many for a force of five hundred knights to beat off unless they could be induced to panic. Why would they do that when on either flank they still had mounted men ready to fall upon their enemy?

It had to be attempted, there was no choice; mounts which had already been in action once were kicked into motion once more to filter round the wagons on both sides, one half of the field the ragged lances of Flanders, the other the near-to-neat line of Normans. The effect was immediate in that the Turks halted their onward progress, yet they were numerically so superior that the hoped for wave of dread and flight did not materialise; they formed a firm line ready to resist the charge of heavy cavalry under command of men who held them steady.

For their bravery the men at the front died in droves, speared, sliced, cut and trampled by the sheer weight of what hit them, and soon the knights were doing execution in staggering quantities, though not without losses of their own. Bohemund, in between slaying his foes, realised that the cavalry they had driven back were now re-formed and about to repeat their previous manoeuvre, only this time they would be close to and in support of their own foot, a potentially deadly combination.

Much as he hated the notion there was no choice but to withdraw
or die in a situation where preservation of the mounted part of the crusading host was paramount. Added to that was the frustration that the Provençal
milities
had still not moved; this they could have done at a run and then at least he and Flanders could have acted to protect their back. Nor was he sure that his fellow leader would discern the same dilemma as he, leaving him no choice but to disengage independently, an act which left the Count of Flanders no option but to do likewise, a later cause of increased recrimination.

To get clear was not simple; the Turks did everything they could to hamper their efforts, but find space they did, riding hard towards the wagons, Bohemund yelling that there was still a slim chance to flee, a faint hope the Turks would not come on at speed. Now, as the knights rode by them without stopping – they could not without they sacrifice themselves – these Provençal foot soldiers finally realised the extent of their plight and some emerged to grab the stirrups of their knights so as to be dragged to safety.

Most remained, and when the mounts were blown and the knights stopped on the crest of a hill, it was to look back at a scene of slaughter as the
milities
fought and failed to hold off the Turks. For those who did not fall, slavery would be their lot, but nearly as depressing was the fact that all the supplies they had gathered were now in Turkish hands. Painful to watch, it had to be witnessed and it sat heavy on their souls as they rode back to Antioch, only to find there that the Turks had taken advantage of their absence to sortie out and attack the siege lines, inflicting a serious check using the tactic of the false retreat.