PRINCE OF LEGEND.

JACK LUDLOW.

To Bob Sykes.

who coached Junior Rugby with me for a decade:.

all those cold wet Sundays were worth it, Robert!.

PROLOGUE.

Bohemund de Hauteville, Count of Taranto and leader of the Apulian Normans, stood on the narrow glacis before the ma.s.sive and forbidding fortress that dominated the skyline. The citadel of Antioch had been the lynchpin of the city during the eight-month siege and a position from which Yaghi Siyan, the Turkish governor, had coordinated every act of the tenacious defence.

Designed for a twin purpose, it formed part of the mighty outer walls of the city but also served as a place to which the garrison could retreat if the ma.s.s of Antiochene citizens, Armenian Christians, broke out in revolt. The citadel was a stronghold with its own water cistern and storerooms that they could hold until the time came to rea.s.sert control.

Tancred of Lecce, Bohemund's nephew, stood with him, both Crusaders covered from head to foot in the blood of the numberless victims they had slaughtered in a night of b.l.o.o.d.y mayhem that had brought the siege of the city to an end. It had been a sore trial of a contest, in which they had experienced both the abundance of food as well as near starvation, summer heat and winter chill, and fought battles against the near impenetrable walls as well as far to the east in open country, this to drive off two attempts at relief by the Seljuk Turks. Now, finally, the crusading army were inside, if not completely in control.

That last point was one of some importance and it did not merely apply to the Turks: prior to the fall, Bohemund had engaged in a battle of wills with his fellow crusading magnates as to who should have possession of Antioch when it fell, he insisting the law of conquest must apply that whosoever could first breech the walls then raise their standard above the city, by long custom, should have possession of it.

A proposition originally and vehemently denied, especially by Counts Raymond of Toulouse and Hugh of Vermandois, it had only been acceded to when the position of the besiegers became so desperate that any means of achieving a result, in what was a rapidly deteriorating outlook, must be accepted.

A call went up to the new Turkish leader, who stood on the barbican that protected the gate, the demand simple: that he should open that portal and surrender. Shams ad-Daulah, eldest son of the now deceased governor, spoke neither the Frankish tongue nor Latin and Greek, so these words had to be translated into his own tongue, this carried out by the fellow who had aided Bohemund in the capture of the city.

A Muslim convert called Firuz, he had commanded one of the towers on the southern wall with a body of his fellow Armenians, initially with as much zeal as any of his Turkish contemporaries, only to find his efforts not appreciated by Yaghi Siyan, who had, to keep him loyal, stripped him of his possessions, an act that had rebounded spectacularly. Firuz had conspired with Bohemund and allowed his tower to be used as the point of entry.

'You know who I am?'

'Who could fail to recognise mighty Bohemund?' the Greek-speaking interpreter replied, following his master's lead.

There was truth in that; given his height and build, ma.s.sive even for one of Norman blood, as well as his flaxen-coloured hair, not to mention his fame, he could be identified easily even at a distance. Bohemund stood head and shoulders above his peers, wherever they came from, even those from his father's Normandy birthplace. Tancred, his mother a de Hauteville and of towering height himself, still conceded half a hand to his uncle.

'On yonder high battlement you will see my banner.'

The pointed finger was hardly necessary; the huge red flag, with its diagonal bar showing the blue and white chequer of the de Hauteville family, flew stiff in a strong breeze and was easily visible from anywhere on the wide expanse of the River Orontes plain, lit as it was by the blazing morning sun.

'We have possession of the city and we have the body of your father, who failed to make good his escape. If you wish that to be respected, and if you wish yourself to live, grant us possession of this fortress and march out with all honour.'

Two heads came close and composed the reply, which occasioned much discussion before the interpreter spoke once more. 'My Lord esteems his father still, but says if he is dead, then his body is of no account, for his soul will surely be welcomed into paradise.'

'Where your master shall join him,' Bohemund responded.

This got a furious reaction from Shams ad-Daulah when translated, which his interpreter sought to pa.s.s on by a form of shouting strangely devoid of a similar level of pa.s.sion.

'Idle boast, Christian, you have got inside the walls of our city, but My Lord holds this citadel. Allah be praised, it is written that you will die here, for an army of the faithful is coming that will crush you like a fly.'

That had Tancred swiftly crossing himself, that being no idle boast: a Turkish relief force, led by a general with a fearsome reputation called Kerbogha, famed across Asia Minor for both the application of terror and military success, was marching towards Antioch, leading an army of such staggering reported numbers that made the notion of meeting them in open battle seem suicidal, given the crusading army was now a much reduced force, fully half the number it had been when they set out from Constantinople.

The Atabeg of Mosul, Kerbogha had, with the active support of the Sultan in Baghdad, united the many disparate elements of the interior, Turkish, Arab and Persian tribes that normally fought each other, melding them into a body large enough to annihilate these troublesome western invaders.

It was the approach of these forces that had prompted swift action from the Frankish princes in both pressing home the siege and accepting the law of conquest, for they feared to be crushed between the anvil of Yaghi Siyan's stout defence of his city and the approaching host. Yet it was telling, and a testament to the strength of Antioch, that only internal betrayal had provided the key to its fall.

In essence, when it came to Kerbogha, the Crusaders were a victim of their own success: brought east by a plea from Pope Urban to aid Greek Byzantium in its century-old conflict with the Seljuk Turks, the true task was to proceed on to Palestine and free from the control of Islam the Holy Places of Christendom, visited each year by Christians in their thousands and from which came, regularly, tales of those pilgrims being maltreated robbed, women molested, both they and their menfolk sometimes killed.

The fury engendered by such tales had come in the wake of yet another entreaty from the Emperor Alexius Comnenus there had been dozens over the previous decades claiming that the faith in the east, the Greek Orthodox Church, was in danger of annihilation from these Turkish infidels. Byzantium had gained much from the arrival from Europe of a truly formidable host, the cream of Europe's fighting men, Alexius Comnenus directing them first to invest that which he saw as the greatest threat to Constantinople, the formidable city of Nicaea.

Turkish held and only three days' march from Constantinople, Nicaea was a vital bastion that threatened the very heart of an empire that had failed to recapture it in three attempts and had little hand in taking on this occasion. Thanks to the efforts of the Crusader Host, the imperial banner now flew from its battlements, which in turn secured the safety of the imperial capital.

From there the Crusade moved south: originally seen as an irritant when Nicaea succ.u.mbed, they had impinged more and more upon the Sultan's concerns the further they progressed, winning battles and taking possession of populous regional centres without a fight, stinging him especially hard when one of their number, Baldwin of Boulogne, acting independently of the Crusade and keen to line his own purse, had invested and captured the important city of Edessa on the far side of the River Euphrates.

Yet the main body had come to worry the Sultan more: they had swept aside one attempt to check them at the Battle of Dorylaeum, then, with seeming impunity, had marched across Anatolia and Armenia to invest mighty Antioch, once the third greatest city in the Roman Empire, and this had provoked a spirited reaction. Both the sons of the Sultan had separately tried to relieve Antioch they hated each other too much to combine and had been fought off and forced to flee. What was coming now was of a different order of magnitude.

Safety lay with the walls and that had now been achieved, yet if going from months of investing Antioch to possession of the city was change enough, to also turn from besieger to being besieged was singular. To simultaneously be both was the strangest state of all for they must contain this citadel and its garrison, a bane throughout the months of siege, standing, as it did, on such an elevated mountain top location as to give it a clear sight of any preparations being made for an a.s.sault on gates or walls.

Likewise, any gathering and movement of mobile forces on the Antiochene Plain had to take place in plain view, allowing the late Yaghi Siyan to send out his mounted archers to counter any threat, or to merely ensure that the gates or section of the walls the besiegers were aiming to attack were both closed and well defended. This made worse what was an already gruelling task, for the defences of Antioch were legendary in their construction.

No pilgrim knight, on the return journey from Jerusalem, failed to mention to his avid home listeners how formidable they were. Sat at the base of two mountains and with the River Orontes on Antioch's western flank, the walls were held to be impregnable. Not only did they restrict the attacker on the riverside, constricting the area in which a besieger could operate, but the high and multi-towered walls rose up the steep mountainsides in a way that made them impossible to overcome; the citadel, if it did not enjoy these advantages to the same degree, was nevertheless a redoubtable fortress in its own right.

'There is no taking this place but by ladders,' said Tancred, in response to the retort by Shams ad-Daulah, the way that was said testimony to how hard such an a.s.sault would be.

The response from his uncle was equally grim in tone. 'Yet take it we must.'

The truth of Tancred's a.s.sertion was self-evident: the walls were high, the garrison that had escaped into the fort from the lower city likely to be numerous and aware their sole options were surrender or death. From the gate before which they stood ran a winding path that led down into the teeming city and that would need to be held at all costs, while the single piece of flat ground before it was the one on which both these knights stood, the rest being surrounded by screed-covered inclines which would not allow for the application of any other form of siege equipment.

Bohemund's response that it must be taken was just as apposite: the main threat was not from within the walls of the citadel but before the main defences of the city, yet there was no doubt Shams ad-Daulah would essay out to do battle if he were allowed, which meant a split in the forces opposing him.

Those two difficulties were confounded by the fact that Antioch was not in a good state of supply. Eight months of diminishing provisions slowly the besiegers had increased their stranglehold on the city gates had left it short of food. In eight months the Crusaders had near stripped the locality bare and with Kerbogha approaching fast there was little time for the Crusaders to forage, of necessity far and wide, and make good that combined dearth.

'Then let us hope for another betrayal, nephew, that there is someone within the walls that wants so badly to live that he will deny his faith.'

Bohemund turned to engage the Armenian who had facilitated his entry, a man who spoke good Greek. 'Firuz, put your best efforts to making contact with someone, anyone inside.'

'Lord Bohemund!'

That call forced him to face an approaching messenger, clearly intent on delivering a communication of some import judging by the speed of his approach and his concerned expression, as well as his sweaty demeanour.

'Count Raymond of Toulouse has taken possession of the Bridge Gate and his standard flies above it.'

Bohemund uttered a hissed curse, for if anyone had stood in the way of his claim of conquest it was the aforesaid Raymond. He looked beyond him to see the truth of the words spoken, for the gate was visible from where he stood, as was every feature of the huge city. Then he turned once more to gaze up at the solid and impressive walls of the citadel. Softly he addressed Tancred, who would also know the importance of that information.

'Not all our fights, it seems, will be here in the coming weeks.'

CHAPTER ONE.

The bright red standard with the gilded Occitan cross, the flag of the Count of Toulouse, fluttered from the Bridge Gate barbican to taunt Bohemund the closer he approached. The most powerful, as well as the wealthiest of the crusading princes, this Provencal magnate had never been happy with the application of the right of conquest, for the fear it would not fall to him. He had chosen well if he intended to dispute possession of the city with the leader of the Apulian Normans as well as the banner high above the city that proclaimed it as a fief for Bohemund.

Outside the Bridge Gate lay the only crossing of the River Orontes, while over that arched stone bridge ran the roads that led north and south as well as to the coast and the port of St Simeon. These were all the points from which any supplies could come to what was now becoming a Crusader garrison and one Toulouse could choke off from resupply if he so chose.

As of this moment the Bridge Gate, like the rest of the entries to Antioch, was wide open: knights who had spent months outside Antioch Provencal, Normans, Apulians and Lotharingians in their thousands were busy moving all their possessions into the city and behind them would come their foot-slogging milities, then those who provided support for an army on campaign: camp wives, sutlers, farriers, armourers, harness and saddle makers, as well as the drovers who looked after food on the hoof, people without which no host could hope to survive in the field.

Last to enter would be the ma.s.s of non-combatant religious pilgrims who had increasingly swelled the numbers travelling to Palestine in the wake of the fighting men, all intent on finding remission for past sins as promised to them by Pope Urban. Useless mouths, who nevertheless demanded to be fed, they could not be left outside: Kerbogha would simply ma.s.sacre them.

To observe the army, as it trickled through the gates, was to cast an eye over a much diminished force, for it was no longer the all-powerful ent.i.ty that had crossed the Bosphorus from Constantinople the previous year; siege warfare, battles in the field, disease, loss of faith in the crusading ideal leading to desertion had plagued them prior to Antioch.

The long siege had only multiplied every one of those difficulties tenfold and nowhere was that more obvious than in their lack of horses. The main advantage for western knights in combat lay in their ability to impose their will by a shock charge when mounted, the foot soldiers used more as an aid to that than a body able to affect the outcome of a battle on their own.

Now that force of knights could barely muster one horse for every tenth lance and in terms of quality they could not compare with the kind of mounts with which they had set out from home; too many of those had died on the way. The Normans, in particular, whether from the rain-washed north or sun-baked Southern Italy, were reckoned the most fearsome warriors in the known world but that reputation rested on animals they no longer possessed, the st.u.r.dy destriers as fearless as the men who rode them.

No contingent, when they had set out, had been any better supplied when it came to horses trained for battle. Now, even with careful husbandry Bohemund had sent his herds away when they were not required to places with pasture they were as near to deficiency as any of the others.

As he approached the Bridge Gate the thought of fighting for possession had to be put aside, regardless of the tactics employed; the Crusade was a delicate construct, led by men who were too proud to allow anyone to hold sway over their actions. But the one purpose they all shared and one that they had sworn the most solemn oaths to progress was that an army must march on to Jerusalem to make it once more a Christian city.

That any of the princes should allow their pride to overcome their faith, that any of their men should fall to fighting and killing each other rather than the infidel, was held to be anathema and a certain route to perdition. The only result of such an action would be the complete collapse of the enterprise, with a ma.s.sive amount of opprobrium being heaped on those who had broken their vows.

Trial by single combat as a means of settling disputes was also out of the question, yet by his action Toulouse had taken the harmony and cohesion which had sustained the Crusade so far, albeit often strained, dangerously close to breaking, so close that one inadvertent incident, the kind of unforeseen accident committed by any man high or low in a pa.s.sion, could fatally fracture it.

On the way down from the citadel Bohemund had heard of the other places seized by Toulouse, the Governor's Palace being one, but such things were baubles compared to the Bridge Gate, which was a strategic a.s.set of huge significance.

'I hope we Apulians still hold the St Paul's Gate?' Bohemund asked, looking at that bright red Toulouse banner atop the barbican. 'Otherwise I feel a squeezing hand upon my groin.'

'It seems,' Tancred responded bitterly, 'that our Count Raymond spent more time securing this gate than in seeking out and disposing of our enemies in the city. Perhaps if he and his knights had attended to that we might have the citadel too.'

The mention of the fortress had Bohemund turning round and craning his neck; above the city flew not only his standard but also the green crescent banner of Yaghi Siyan, which had fluttered throughout the siege and was now the insignia of Shams ad-Daulah. It was as if both were mocking him, telling him that for all he desired possession of the city he still had a long hard fight on his hands to make it so.

'Come, Tancred, we smell of death and blood. Let us bathe and change before we face our foes.'

'Is Toulouse now a foe?'

Bohemund pointed at the man's fluttering standard above his head. 'By such an act as this he may have rendered himself so.'

No meeting of the Council of Princes, the body set up to coordinate the joint efforts of the Papal Crusade, could be convened before the man who called it into being had said a Ma.s.s for victory. In the city of Antioch there was only one location where such a celebration could take place, for it was here that St Peter had founded his first church, carved out of a cave in the side of one of the twin peaks that dominated the city and thus one of the holiest places in Christendom.

For a religion that venerated Jesus as a prophet to rank with Muhammad, it was saddening that the Turks had recently used it as a latrine but that was soon remedied by willing pilgrim hands and the application of vinegar. With blazing candles illuminating the interior and much plain chant from the attendant monks, the papal legate, Ademar de Monteil, Bishop of Puy, had led his dukes and counts into the sacred s.p.a.ce.

Raymond of Toulouse was there, carrying his fifty years well, tall and florid of face, never willing to catch the eye of the Count of Taranto, not easy in any case since Bohemund was forced to bend his head in such a low enclosure due to his remarkable height. Equally guarded in such a place, where G.o.d could see into their innermost thoughts and tot up their sins, came Count Hugh of Vermandois, brother of the King of France: slim, handsome, blue eyes, golden-haired and with an arrogance to go with a lack of military ability hidden from everyone but himself.

Two Roberts followed: the Duke of Normandy, second son of William the Conqueror, and alongside him the Count of Flanders, his brother-in-law another relative of that contingent, Stephen of Blois, had abandoned the siege and retired further north to the safety of Alexandretta. Each magnate held their own thoughts masked, aware that following their devotions matters would be brought to the fore that would require them to take a position for what was rapidly turning into a choice of faction.

Only G.o.dfrey de Bouillon, the barrel-chested Duke of Lower Lorraine, seemed unaffected by what was to come, his much battered face alight with devotion. Pious and without any personal ambition other than to reach and take Jerusalem from the infidel, his round face shone with the sheer delight of being in such a hallowed cave. On entering, G.o.dfrey fell to his knees and allowed his head to touch the floor in obeisance to the memory of Christ's leading disciple.

At the tiny rock altar, Ademar began his Latin Ma.s.s in the company of the much abused and venerable John the Oxite, previously Patriarch of Antioch until removed by the Turks. Outside in the still bloodstained streets the bodies of the Turkish slain had been tossed into a deep pit or the River Orontes, which would carry them out to sea men and women, both Roman and Armenian in their Christianity, many of whom had converted to Islam to survive, knelt and prayed in unison with a cleric most of them could not understand, happy to be alive and able to take from the pa.s.sing priests of both branches of the faith the absolution for their transgressions which was being freely distributed.

'Antioch belongs to the Emperor Alexius Comnenus, as many here confirmed by sacred oath and for which I gave my bounden word, which no man is at liberty to break.'

'That is not disputed.'

Bishop Ademar, as he uttered that reply, gave Raymond of Toulouse, who had made such a forthright statement, the kind of look that implied he should calm himself, for the way he had spoken lacked the necessary level of diplomacy when dealing with men of equal rank. Once the possessor of an unlined and rosy countenance the kind of well-fed, youthful and contented face too often the condition of high clerics time and the cares of the Crusade, not least the need to keep happy this a.s.sembly of proud magnates, had played upon Ademar till he had now begun to look like an old man.

'It would be foolish, My Lord Bishop,' Hugh of Vermandois interjected, 'not to acknowledge that there is ambition in that direction.'

Robert of Normandy responded to that with a slice of wicked wit; if he was ever at war with his brother the King of England for possession of his lands, then his other enemy on his eastern border was France, so bearding the royal sibling Vermandois, a man devoid of irony, was a game he enjoyed.

'We all accept that you have aspirations for Antioch, Count Hugh.'

A wise man would have shucked that aside; Vermandois was a dolt. 'I do not mean myself and you know it.'

'Our Lord Bishop may have an insight into the souls of men,' Robert intoned sonorously, 'G.o.d has not granted me that ability.'

'We are all ambitious in the cause of G.o.d,' Ademar snapped, impatiently falling back on an una.s.sailable reminder of their purpose to kill off the secret smiles caused by the Frenchman's stupidity. 'Which is why we are where we are.'

He then gave Normandy a bit of a glare that extended to his equally amused brother-in-law of Flanders: he knew there were more telling disputes in this chamber, the one-time palace of the Turkish Governor, than the bearding of the arrogant Vermandois. The question that troubled him and one he was determined to keep from open disclosure was who would side with whom between the two emerging protagonists seeking to clarify the situation of Antioch, Bohemund and Raymond.

By the right of conquest, previously agreed, the Count of Taranto had a valid claim to the city, albeit he was bound by oath, sworn on the bones of martyrs in front of the Emperor Alexius in the imperial palace, to hold it for Byzantium. Yet Bohemund and his late father, as well as his numerous de Hauteville uncles, had fought that polity and a succession of emperors all their lives, first in South Italy, now under their control and then in the lands of Romania, which in the previous decade the Apulians had twice invaded.

Should he be given sole possession would Bohemund keep to his word and hand Antioch back to his old enemy Alexius Comnenus, who should, at this very moment, be marching with all his might to their aid? Would a man like Bohemund even hold it for Byzantium with the Emperor as his acknowledged suzerain? If he did not, he would not only break his own oath but the given undertaking of everyone present.

'I would suggest,' Bohemund said, 'that such a discussion, given what we face, is a distraction.'

'Better discussed now than left to fester on an altar of greed,' Raymond responded, making no attempt to soften his tone.

'My Lords!'

That loud interruption focused all eyes on G.o.dfrey de Bouillon, a man respected by all present for there could be no accusation of ambition related to him, if you excluded the recapture of Jerusalem.

'The army of this Kerbogha is on its way to us and we have yet to have news that Byzantium is likewise marching, and even if it is, Kerbogha will get here long before the Emperor. How we deal with such a threat carries more weight than talk of personal ambition, in whosoever breast it may reside. What hopes and stratagems do we have to deal with that should be paramount.'

'Quite,' Ademar concurred. 'Let us put aside all discussion of the possession of Antioch ...'

'We have yet to discuss it at all!' Raymond cried.

'And we will in time, My Lord,' the Bishop replied with unaccustomed firmness, he and Toulouse being close. 'But we face a threat to our very existence, and with that we must take issue first.'

Vermandois was quick to respond. 'We must hold the walls with the same spirit as those we have just overcome.'

G.o.dfrey de Bouillon was quick to pounce on that. 'Then I suggest, Count Hugh, that you withdraw your men stationed at the Iron Bridge to help man them.'