The response was a sneer. 'So your loyalty can only be bought with silver?'

'To a man like you, Count Raymond, yes! To G.o.dfrey de Bouillon, as with my uncle, I give it freely.'

With any hope of outright leadership entirely gone and with no sign that the promised expedition of Alexius was even on its way, which laid Raymond open to the silent sneers of his confreres for being doubly gullible, he had no choice but to raise the siege of Arqa and agree that the Crusade should finally set off for Jerusalem.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

For an army with a divided command, and the man leading the strongest element of that sulking, the Crusade when it did move managed it with surprising speed. Raymond of Toulouse had faced a difficult choice of route when marching south and had turned for Tripoli; now the whole faced a similar dilemma, one direction to Palestine fraught with risk, the other involving the subjugation, either by treaty or battle, of strongly held and ancient cities on the way.

The decision, that haste was the more vital requirement that the longer the Fatimids were left in peace the harder Jerusalem would be to capture when discussed in the Council of Princes, only saw unanimity because Count Raymond declined to put forward an opinion. That rendered the voice of G.o.dfrey de Bouillon the most potent and in Tancred, who aided him, he had an adherent raised in war by an uncle famed for boldness.

'I have talked with our Maronite Christian brethren,' G.o.dfrey explained, his mode of speech suffused with enthusiasm, 'and we will save much time by marching along the coast. It is narrow in places, it is true, hemmed by mountains and the sea, but it favours us and allows for naval support.'

The Duke of Lower Lorraine looked at Raymond then, altering his tone to speak softly and slowly, as if seeking to mollify his fellow magnate's obvious pique. 'Should the Emperor come, then all he has to do is sail further south to unite with us, which would not be possible if we take the inland route.'

'I too have spoken with the Maronites,' interjected the newcomer, Gaston of Bearn, a slack-jawed man with a protruding lower lip and sad eyes in a large head that made him seem more gloomy than he was by nature. 'The coast road is, we are told, so narrow in some places that we can only make our way in single file.'

'Think of how it will confound our enemies.'

'As long as it does not confound us.'

Bearn saw no need to explain the risks of that to the whole a.s.sembly: the vulnerability of rounding the rocky promontories that enclosed every bay along the Mediterranean, in places reducing the so-called road to a track for halter-led donkeys, was obvious. G.o.dfrey, albeit there was acknowledgement, barrelled on in his usual way, his confidence based on the notion that the G.o.d to whom he was so pa.s.sionately devoted would bless his endeavours.

'But what enemy would think a man so foolish as to come that way?'

'The Fatimids will know of it before we are pa.s.sed Sidon,' Bearn insisted.

'Will they?' G.o.dfrey replied. 'The Arabs of the Lebanon and Palestine have no love for the rulers of Baghdad, why would they have any more for the Sultan in Cairo?'

Tancred spoke up, having gestured to G.o.dfrey to seek permission, eager to back up the man to whom he had so recently transferred his allegiance. 'And, if we move with speed, we may well get ahead of any news of our movements.'

That roused Raymond from his seeming torpor. 'What host can move at such a pace?'

'The one we command, My Lord.'

G.o.dfrey took up his argument again as Tancred got a cold glare.

'I have studied the maps, as have you all. Every obstacle we must get round leads to a fertile region, a river-fed plain between one set of hills and the next.'

That truth silently acknowledged, he gestured towards Tancred.

'My young friend here has made a most telling suggestion, that we cannot march as we would in open country, always looking for the next place to set up a camp. It has been put to me that if we march hard without anything in the way of a halt, bar the need to drink and quickly eat, we can cover the ground so fast that we will confound any news that can get ahead of us.'

'Not camp?' asked Normandy, though more from curiosity than objection.

'That we do every third or fourth day and for the whole of it, to allow our men to recover from their exertions and to eat well before the next stage.'

'As well as scout well ahead,' Tancred added, 'which will give us good intelligence of what we might face.'

'The pilgrims?' Raymond asked, implying that if they had not been forgotten they were being ignored.

'Our rest day will give them time to catch us up.'

'And at what risk will they run coming in our wake?' Flanders said. 'For we face no threat from the interior, and if we did we would know of it well in advance of any danger.'

'I will not deny there is risk,' G.o.dfrey concluded, aware that Raymond remained unconvinced, 'but within the two evils of that or a long march I see this as the lesser way. So now, My Lords, I ask for your vote, for the more time we waste talking the stouter will be the defences of Jerusalem that we will, with G.o.d's help, face.'

That was hyperbole and all present knew it: a day or two of rumination would make no difference, but G.o.dfrey, frustrated for so long in his aim of freeing the Holy Places to which he was committed to do or die in the attempt gave the impression that even the seconds it took between the posing of the question and receiving the a.s.sent of the majority were too long. His eager look forced a response and only Raymond dissented from his proposal.

To talk of risk was one thing, to face it quite another and Tancred, tasked to ride ahead of the host and warn of any danger, knew that should such a thing be manifest, turning round and reversing the march of twelve thousand fighting men, not to mention the equipment and camp followers in their train, would be impossible without the fighting elements getting mixed up with the rest and the whole descending into useless confusion.

That was true where they had a strip of land and beach to traverse; on the really narrow pa.s.ses, like the first true obstacle south of Tripoli, a rocky promontory known to the Arabs as 'the Face of G.o.d', the crags ran right to the sh.o.r.eline. Such a reverse there could not be achieved without ma.s.sive loss of life to the men and animals edging along a single-man track with a precipitous drop on their right hand. With a mere glance they could look to the foaming ocean below, or the sharp rocks upon which the waves were breaking and too easily imagine a terrible fate.

To counter that G.o.dfrey's promise of fertile valleys was borne out. Given the time of year, full spring blessed with abundant sunshine, in a land full of good red earth that was favoured by several harvests of a huge variety of crops every year, there was no shortage of food for everyone to eat. What horses they still mustered, as well as the livestock on the hoof, were fattened with ample pasture and if there was caution from the inhabitants regarding such a warlike body in their midst there was no trouble, not least because of the way they quickly moved on.

In the sections of open country, moving in normal marching order, the leaders knew the whole army was at just as much risk, for if they did face danger in their manoeuvres on the narrower strips of territory, they at least knew, thanks to those scouting ahead, there were no enemies waiting for them in numbers. On an open plain in extended formation any military host was vulnerable; experience had told the Crusaders that their enemies could gather and move with speed enough to spring a surprise.

No sign of the Fatimids was observed and that did come as a shock; even resting at Sidon, like all the other coastal cities with an emir happy to pay for peace with gold and horses, there was no indication of any enemy ahead seeking to block their way. Any problems they encountered came from nature, most notably a type of venomous snake, numerous in quant.i.ty, that killed a number of men by its bite, they dying in an agony that had a near panic ripple through the ranks. Not many slept in the face of such a threat and those that did had to do so through the sound of others banging swords on shields to frighten the creatures off.

Such good fortune, no sight of an enemy, held as they pa.s.sed through names that were scarred into their Christian understanding, Old Testament places such as Tyre and Acre, the Roman city of Caesarea, where they rested and celebrated Pentecost. On the entire march so far so few men had been lost it was thought to be a miracle, only one foraging party having set out failing to return; some jested they had found a fertile spot on the nearby Sea of Galilee full of wine and women, more sober minds sure they had fallen to some unknown force of Muslims, which had them warning others to avoid overconfidence.

The last place they would encounter if they carried on down the coast was Jaffa, known from pilgrim tales to be formidable; it was the port which led to the Holy City and surely the route by which Cairo fed men into Palestine and therefore bound to be well garrisoned. In order to avoid being held up by both fortifications and the defenders G.o.dfrey got agreement that they should head inland from Arsulf and make for Ramleh.

This was the last city before their goal and, expecting to have to fight for what was a vital strategic centre protecting Jerusalem, they were both surprised and delighted to find it abandoned, and obviously that had been carried out in a headlong panic, for the inhabitants had taken only what they could carry. Ramleh's storerooms were stacked to the rafters with grain, and resting there they had both time and food enough to reorder their lines prior to the final thrust.

Lying just outside the city was the famous Basilica of St George, said to hold buried in its vaults the saint's bones. Eager to send a message ahead regarding the nature of the Crusade, G.o.dfrey de Bouillon put forward the notion that once the basilica had been rededicated to Christ, Ramleh should become the first Latin bishopric in Palestine. This had all the contingents vying that one of their number should fill the office.

Raymond of Toulouse, being so insistent that one of his divines must have preference, united everyone else to agree to a priestly candidate drawn from the remnants of the French forces once led by Hugh of Vermandois he being known as Robert of Rouen no doubt swayed Normandy and Flanders and the man was duly consecrated in the office with word sent to Rome so that they could approve his elevation.

They departed Ramleh with every man-sack bulging and every animal laden with grain, moving on to the town of Qubeiba, a mere three leagues from the walls of the Holy City, buoyed by the feeling that the Fatimid garrison they would face had to be lacking in numbers and purpose, or surely, if they had either, they would have come out to fight rather than hide behind their defences.

In a final council G.o.dfrey sought to reach a consensus as to how Jerusalem should be a.s.saulted, only to stumble on what was, as ever, the intransigence of the Count of Toulouse.

'Would you have me fight under your instruction?' he demanded of G.o.dfrey.

'Not instruction, My Lord, but in cooperation so that we act as an aid to each other, not a hindrance.'

'No one will hinder my sword,' Raymond barked, 'lest they seek martyrdom.'

'This is insufferable,' Normandy responded, in a voice very close to a shout.

'Yet suffer it we must,' added his brother-in-law with a grin as he sought by a hand to calm Normandy.

The way he had expressed it made Tancred look at Flanders hard. He had the sense that the Count was not truly distressed by Raymond's att.i.tude, that reinforced when he whispered urgently in Duke Robert's ear. To that was added silence from the Count of Bearn, which gave another indication of the impression forming in the younger man's mind.

The only person present who was lacking in ambition was G.o.dfrey, whereas the others present were thinking of their own reputation, none wishing to be tied to a plan that might see another achieve a glory after which any man would hanker, namely to be the first to overcome the defences of Jerusalem, the first knight who could claim to have conquered the city.

The fame that would accrue to that would be ma.s.sive. Throughout Europe, in every parish church and cathedral the faithful were praying for success. It was a sobering reflection that perhaps what they were about to attempt, and in pursuit of that glory, was likely to be a free-for-all in which individual desire would trump common purpose.

A messenger entering the pavilion interrupted that train of thought. 'My Lord G.o.dfrey, outside there is a delegation from Bethlehem, seeking audience.'

The name of that place, the birthplace of the Saviour, had even these high-born men crossing themselves and G.o.dfrey quickly ordered that they should be allowed to enter. The trio who did so, elderly men and venerable, made Tancred think of the three kings who had followed the star to the lowly manger where Mary had borne the Son of G.o.d.

The request they conveyed, the hope of shucking off Muslim rule before the attack on Jerusalem, was one that could not be refused, yet it was strange how no one present vied to meet their desire that an armed party should be sent to Bethlehem to chase out a body of Muslim soldiers who garrisoned the barracks and manned the watchtower.

'Tancred,' G.o.dfrey finally spoke so as to fill an embarra.s.sing silence. 'Take a party of your Apulians to Bethlehem and bring it back to the true faith, as these good people so crave. It is not fitting that it should remain in the possession of the infidel any more than the Holy City itself.'

Had anyone else suggested such an act, Tancred would have refused, for if it led to a hard fight he might be kept from the a.s.sault on Jerusalem. G.o.dfrey obviously sensed this and added rea.s.surance.

'No one will set foot from here until Bethlehem is secured.' Then he seemed to reconsider his first instruction. 'Take some of my lances too, those captained by Baldwin of le Bourg will serve.'

Night was falling by the time the party set out, not that it mattered much in a sky so filled with stars as to provide clear sight of the ground over which they rode. In order to reach Bethlehem he was required to lead his men in an arc round Jerusalem. As evidence of how numerous was the population of that great conurbation, and how nervous were the defenders, their combined oil lamps and wall torches seemed to add a distant orange glow to the sky above the city.

Bethlehem had no walls, only the small Muslim garrison, set there previously by the Abbasids to milk the pilgrims who came to pray, indeed abase themselves, at the shrine of such a holy site. The Fatimids who had chased their religious rivals away were no less keen on extracting money from visitors, for if the Christian pilgrims of Europe were with the Crusade, there were plenty of co-religionists to feed infidel greed: Copts, Armenians, Maronites, indeed all the fragmented branches of the faith Pope Urban was so keen to unite under the canopy of Rome.

Tancred made no attempt to negotiate that the garrison should peacefully depart. He rode right into the hamlet and, advised by those who had come to plead with the princes, made straight for the barracks in which his enemies resided. The noise of the mounted approach had awakened these men and, well aware that escape was impossible, they elected to fight from behind walls that were no more than half again of the height of a normal man; Tancred was so tall he could practically engage them on the tip of his toes.

Like nearly every infidel the Crusaders had fought in the last two years they were not inclined to easily succ.u.mb. Either their faith was equal to that of any Christian or, knowing death awaited them, or a forcible conversion, they were left with little choice but to engage in an uneven contest. By the time the first hint of light touched the eastern sky, the men Tancred led were over those flimsy walls and doing terrible execution, their swords swinging until no one was left to stand in their way.

The crowd that appeared when the fighting stopped, bearing beakers of wine for their champions to drink, were close to ecstatic; how many generations had lived under the Muslim yoke, how many times had they hankered after this deliverance in discreet prayer? Impatience did not permit the fighters to leave, the people of Bethlehem leading them to the Church of the Nativity, there to say a Ma.s.s of thanksgiving on the exact spot that saw the birth of Jesus.

Tancred, still covered in Muslim blood, was moved and he was not alone. Most of his men were moist of eye and possibly thinking how they would tell, once they got home, how they had liberated this venerable spot. Added to that they sensed that salvation was sure to be theirs: surely G.o.d would see that Bethlehem was as much a source of remission as Jerusalem; surely, when the time came for them to join him, it would be in his celestial paradise.

Ma.s.s over, the locals asked for men to protect them, after all there could still be Muslims close by who would come to take revenge for their fallen comrades. Tancred had to agree yet it was not just to a.s.suage their fears: that conference from which he had been sent away left in him an impression of ambition so unbridled that there was no way of knowing how matters would conclude.

Thus, much to the annoyance of Walter of le Bourg, he raised his de Hauteville banner above the Church of the Nativity before detaching some of his Apulian lances to occupy the barracks and provide protection. Whatever happened in the following days, for success would lead to a parcelling out of the domain of Palestine, he would claim Bethlehem and the lands surrounding as his own fief.

On the return to Qubeiba it was obvious that no host was encamped there, indeed when they entered the town it was close to being deserted, with no sign even of G.o.dfrey de Bouillon. Calm interrogation of the few people he found informed him that the men of Provence had moved out in the hours of darkness, with Raymond at their head, seeking to steal a march on his n.o.ble rivals.

With the Count of Toulouse being obviously determined to be first outside the walls of Jerusalem, this had quite naturally led to the rest hastily following to seek to thwart him, including the Lotharingians. His initial anger at G.o.dfrey's broken promise had to be set aside; he would have had little option but to do likewise, with his lances champing at the bit lest others take the city by a coup de main.

There was no time to rest his tired mounts and for the same reason: Tancred was just as keen on the potential glory as any count or duke, so the food and drink he and his men took on was hastily consumed, the horses fed with oats given they would be walking not galloping, and off they set in the wake of their confreres, the route easily marked by the pa.s.sage of a whole army.

They found the host outside the walls of the Holy City, not making camp, indeed many were on their knees in less than silent prayer, soon joined by the remaining Apulians and those of le Bourg's. There was no shame in the tears they shed; how many months had they prayed to see this sight? For most it was three years since the day they first came together under their lords and priests to dedicate themselves to the cause of Crusade.

From that day their journey had been filled with as many doubts as elations, added to which were the numbers, friends and comrades, who had perished on the way and were not here to witness this stirring sight. There, lit by the rising sun, was the Temple Mount on which sat the Dome of the Rock and when he climbed the Mount of Olives, Tancred could look upon the epicentre of his religion, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. All that was now required was to take it back for his faith.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

The headlong rush to Jerusalem had masked many dangers that quickly became apparent, not least that the Crusade was isolated; they had nothing but enemies behind them as well as to their front. If cities like Acre and Beirut had paid tribute to be left in peace they were Muslim in faith and not well disposed towards Christians. Having bypa.s.sed Jaffa, the princes had no hope of the kind of naval support that required a port in which to land reinforcements, so even if Alexius kept his word and sailed to their aid, which was still considered unlikely by everyone but Raymond, he would have to fight to get his host ash.o.r.e.

Added to that, the army was nothing like the force that had set out from their homelands, indeed it was seriously more diminished now than it had been outside Antioch. To set against that was the fact that those who had finally made it to Jerusalem were amongst the hardiest of their breed; there were no doubters now, everyone had suffered much privation to get here, so within them lay the kind of spirit, as well as a depth of belief, that could overcome obstacles the size of mountains.

The Holy City well fitted that description; it was formidable and its dimensions were no secret, for like Antioch every returning pilgrim described them with awe. Forming a fairly rectangular shape, the ma.s.sive walls of Jerusalem extended a whole league in length, were the width of three knightly lances and the height of four fair-sized men standing on each other's shoulders.

Accessed by five gates, each one of those had a set of twin towers to protect it and, at the sections deemed most vulnerable, stood two great fortresses able to maintain themselves independently of the city; they had their own storerooms and water supply. The larger bastion was known as the Quadrangular Tower, the other the legendary Tower of David, this constructed of great stone blocks fixed to each other with molten lead to well over half its total height.

Jerusalem was near impervious to a.s.sault on two sides due to the valleys of Josaphat and Qidron that protected it. To the north and east the rest of the defence was rendered equally difficult by man-made additions such as a secondary outer wall as well as dry ditches. Given the dimensions of the whole, set against the number who had finally made it to their goal, the notion of surrounding the city and cutting it off from support and resupply was unachievable.

The garrison, under the command of one Iftikhar ad-Daulah, was strong and had recently been reinforced by a large body of elite cavalry. If ad-Daulah had foolishly failed to impede the Crusade reaching Jerusalem he had shown some sense in poisoning or collapsing the outside water wells before they arrived. Added to that, suspecting the Christian inhabitants would aid their allies in faith, he had chased them out of the city to prevent them rising in rebellion.

Food was not a problem for the besiegers: they still had possession of the granaries of Ramleh, but the lack of water was crippling in the full throbbing heat of a Palestine summer, where the very ground shimmered. The only uncontaminated source, a small spring-fed puddle called the Pool of Siloam, at the foot of Mount Zion, was within bow shot of the southern wall and the Fatimid archers gathered there in numbers for sport.

Each time it was drained the Pool of Siloam took three long days to refill and that was diminished, as it occurred, by thirsty animals, though not enough to prevent it becoming near full eventually, at which point it was rushed by every man made brave enough by desperation to risk death.

A hail of arrows greeted them, yet it was a harsh choice: expire from want of water or from a piercing bolt that might strike some vital spot. With so many seeking relief, that which was consumable soon became churned with mud, making it less than quenching, it being already rendered vile by the rotting carca.s.ses of dead beasts. Each time the lack of remaining fluid persuaded the men to retreat they left behind them the bodies of their comrades, some of whom had been so trampled as to drown in what was now no more than deep sludge.

The two main divisions of the host, the leaders barely on speaking terms, moved to take up separate positions. G.o.dfrey de Bouillon, supported by Tancred and Flanders, lined up to the north-west of the city between the Quadrangular Tower and the St Stephen's Gate. Raymond having arrived first, and supported by the Duke of Normandy, had originally set up his camp opposite the Tower of David, but that being an obstacle too difficult to easily overcome he had moved south to a more exposed position opposite the Zion Gate.

If the split was brought about by continued dispute it nevertheless had the advantage of forcing ad-Daulah to do the same. This divided the defence for it was moot how much the Fatimid governor knew about the mood in the Crusaders' lines. Since Arqa, both because of the failed siege but more from the exposure of the Holy Lance, the position of Raymond of Toulouse had steadily diminished. He was no longer considered a spiritual leader as well as a military one, not that anyone meeting him would have realised this to be the case his arrogance was fully intact.

Hopes in that area had shifted to the much more pious G.o.dfrey de Bouillon, and men, even many Provencals who owed allegiance to Raymond, looked to him to lead them to their ultimate goal for the obvious sincerity of his faith as well as his undoubted ability as a fighter and leader. Seeing the need for a symbol, one of de Bouillon's confessors had had made a cross of solid gold, this fashioned from the tribute the marching host had gathered on the way, to be displayed outside G.o.dfrey's pavilion.

If it was not of the one-time stature of the Holy Lance not being a relic it was nevertheless an object to which men could attach some meaning and the effect was soon demonstrated when, perhaps under pressure from his troubled knights, the Duke of Normandy detached himself from Raymond and moved his men to the north of the city to take up position alongside G.o.dfrey de Bouillon.

'Bohemund predicted G.o.dfrey would end up as the leader of the Crusade,' Tancred said, as the Norman lances rode up to form their new lines.

'When?' asked Flanders, watching with him, the implication that it was easy to see that as true, quite forgetting that the man mentioned by his nephew was many leagues to the north and could have no notion of the fall from grace of Toulouse.

'After the fall of Nicaea.'

The doubt on the Count's face was very noticeable, for he made no attempt to hide it, which brought a smile of superior knowledge from Tancred. 'I asked him about the leadership of the Crusade, which I thought should have been gifted to him from the outset.'

'You would, being of his blood.'

'No, it was that I have seen him fight many battles, much more than any of his peers and he has a gift for leading men to feats to which they would not normally aspire. I think you too saw the sense of that at Antioch.'

'He never so much as hinted or put himself forward.'

'Bohemund was certain he would never be acknowledged as leader, just as he was sure that if we ever got to Jerusalem the man the Crusade would choose to rule the Holy City would be G.o.dfrey, as being the only one deserving of the t.i.tle, though he was equally certain Raymond would seek to be gifted it by acclaim.'

'There might have been a rival other than Toulouse.' Flanders spluttered as he said that, not, Tancred thought, because he believed it to be so, but merely to underline that he too might have laid claim to the prize. 'Even you must acknowledge, Tancred, that your uncle forsook the Crusade.'

'I cannot deny it, but let those who wonder at his claim to Antioch, and the zeal with which he pursued it, think on what he saw well before any of us: that if he wished to profit from our endeavours and his ability it was not going to be where we now stand.'

'Think what troubles we would have if he was here,' Flanders replied.