CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

The Fatimids knew the Crusaders were coming long before dawn, just from the noise of their preparations, added to the amount of darting torchlight that had illuminated their night-time activity. They were at their places while it was still dark, sweating on what was a hot and humid mid-July night, nervously awaiting the final sound that would bring on the a.s.sault the sound of the battle horns blowing the advance.

First the sky took on a hint of grey, which failed to provide enough light to show the ground before the walls or the great hulking silhouettes of the towers before the Quadrangular Tower and the Zion Gate. The gradual increase in the level of daylight did begin to touch the upper frame of the siege engine built by Raymond of Toulouse.

But the men facing the expected attack from the contingents led by G.o.dfrey de Bouillon were confounded by the absence of what they expected to see, until it became obvious that before the Quadrangular Tower the ground was completely clear G.o.dfrey's siege engine had disappeared and so had his entire encampment; all that was now visible was the clear pathway along which the defenders had antic.i.p.ated the siege tower would advance.

News was swift to arrive that the very construct was now being hurriedly a.s.sembled before the St Stephen's Gate, a story initially disbelieved by every Fatimid commander from Iftikhar ad-Daulah down, for what they were being told was that the impossible had occurred. Only the man on the spot knew it to be the undoubted truth for he could see the very same lengths of timber being put together by a positive army of willing hands furiously wielding hammers.

In employing Gaston of Bearn, the Lotharingian Duke G.o.dfrey had been gifted a craftsman of genius, a man who had built siege towers many times before in his life and thought long and hard on ways to improve their efficiency. The better axles he had designed made it possible to move it more quickly not that it was ever swift giving the defence less time to interdict its progress, but that did not obviate the major tactical flaw, the need to move it in a straight line from its start position to its final deployment.

Try as he might Gaston had never been able to come up with what he so keenly sought, a way of turning off a true course an engine that weighed several tons, for the leverage to change direction was beyond human endeavour. But in G.o.dfrey he had found a magnate willing to experiment and had been given leave to put together a tower that, in the s.p.a.ce of a dark night, could be dismantled to its very base, the last part of which was of a weight that men were able to manoeuvre.

Since it was put back together with like speed it was now taking proper shape opposite a section of the walls of Jerusalem ill-prepared to receive it, and at the same time, protected by framed wattle bombardment screens, men, women and children, no doubt the pilgrims so eager to see the Holy City fall, were progressing forward, levelling out, by clearing and filling, the new ground over which the tower must now pa.s.s, which led directly to the easternmost tower that framed the St Stephen's Gate.

Before the sun was far above the rim of the horizon the engine itself was on the move, the great wheels grinding across the earth to send forth a terrifying sound, yet it was halted well before it came within range of the defences, the hope being that by seeing it so close it would instil greater fear, this while the mangonels, also moved from before the Quadrangular Tower, moved well forward of the tower and began to fire their deadly missiles to subdue what was a scratch defence, given Iftikhar ad-Daulah had yet to sanction the movement of the men needed to meet this shocking development.

The only part-protection they had, set to either side of the St Stephen's Gate, was a low curtain wall that made any approach to the main fortifications impossible and to counter that G.o.dfrey was about to employ the great battering ram. The Fatimids would have a.s.sumed it to be used to pummel against one of the wooden gates, to the mind of such men as Gaston uselessly, given gates had been b.u.t.tressed since time immemorial to withstand such a weapon.

Now its purpose was clear, if not its progress, for it was a beast of an edifice to move; where the huge wheels of a siege tower could, by their sheer dimensions and the numbers employed in moving it, overcome obstacles, the smaller orbs on the battering ram meant even the most minor impediment, even a small stone, was a problem. Yet as the men on that struggled forward, the inner walls and undermanned ramparts were peppered with missiles rocks and b.a.l.l.s of burning sulphur and pitch bound with wax, designed to make any counterstroke hazardous.

With a supreme effort, and this by heavily muscled knights more accustomed to wielding personal weapons, the ram was brought close enough to the outer curtain to be employed. Eschewing protection the men pushing got it up to the speed of a fast walk, so that when the metal tip hit the stonework, secured only by mortar, it went crashing straight through, filling the intervening s.p.a.ce with rubble into which the defence, fearful of being immediately overcome, poured their own incendiaries, that wasted as an effort at killing since none of the Crusaders could cross the area due to the fallen stonework.

What it did do was set the ram alight: the great single block of timber would have needed a great deal of time and inflammables to cause it to catch fire, but it was full of staves driven through from one side to the other, this the means by which it had been pushed forward. Those lighter pieces of timber went up quickly and threatened to carry the fire to the inner part of the ram, which had the alarmed Crusaders rushing to douse the whole with water before the ma.s.sive tree trunk could ignite, this being carried out under a constant rain of arrows.

The Crusader effort proved fruitless even if the flames were doused. The aim was to repeat the battering exercise against the main wall and likewise drive that in to make a breach, which would, when the siege tower was employed, further divide the defence, given men would have to man both the upper parapet and breach in a situation that would make mutual support impossible.

Yet not only was the head of the ram buried by masonry, the very success of the initial effort had made any further forward movement impossible. Try as they might, and most of the rest of the day was thus employed, there was no amount of force which could get those small wheels over the mound of debris and it was clear that if it was left there it would be right in the path of the siege tower when that was employed.

Orders were sent forward to set alight a weapon the flames of which the men who had been pushing it had only just managed to extinguish, which led to what many saw as a farce. With Crusaders seeking to set it alight, the Fatimids, who wished it, for obvious reasons, to remain an obstacle, sought by throwing great tubs of water over it to snuff out the flames. So it became a battle to keep it burning, this finally achieved when the whole was so much ablaze that no amount of drowning could put out the conflagration.

That accomplished, G.o.dfrey's men withdrew, the fight being over for the day. If there was disappointment, the employment of the ram had been a positive, for the under-resourced defence had used against it weapons that would have been better employed against the real and soon-to-be-employed threat, Gaston of Bearn's siege tower.

Raymond of Toulouse had, unbeknown to him or his knights, always had the harder task, given that the Fatimids had a.s.sumed his attack to be the main effort, while that on the formidable and easily defended Quadrangular Tower was seen as a diversion, which proved that if they had got wind of Crusader dissension, they had failed to make sense of it. These leading magnates were men who were barely talking to each other with civility, never mind leaders coordinating a winning strategy.

G.o.dfrey's surprise had thrown that notion to the winds, yet on the previous a.s.sumption the Provencals were attacking the best and most comprehensively organised resistance, with the walls well protected by ropes and filled sacks against the rock-throwing ballistae and sharpened baulks of timber protruding from the fortifications at the point at which they knew for certain Raymond's siege tower must come upon the ramparts.

Here also the Fatimids had concentrated the ma.s.s of their mangonels and the majority of their archers and they were targeted on what was a very narrow field of battle, the known line by which Raymond's siege tower would progress. That he had a clear run to the main defence there was no outer curtain wall to impede him here proved a small positive against such a ferocious attempt to counter his advance.

High-fired stones rained down on the heads of those pushing the tower as well as the men following behind it, the engine itself, once within range, being hit by flaming arrows and burning bolts, soon added to this wooden hammers wrapped in pitch-soaked straw and studded with nails so that they would adhere to whatever they struck. Those fighting men not on the tower were advancing under an endless bombardment but it was the siege engine, and those at the very top, that would decide the fate of the attack.

Raymond's main weapon was placed under such relentless bombardment that following several hours of pushing it had still not reached the wall alongside the Zion Gate and, despite all the precautions to avoid it happening, it was alight in many places, so much so that Raymond ordered his men to pull it back out of danger so the fires could be dealt with without the presence of their main a.s.sault weapon that meant a withdrawal of the whole of his forces.

That night it was hard to find anyone not too exhausted to stand guard, this being a must lest the Fatimids sortie out in a surprise raid, even harder to find those willing to risk their lives by going forward in torchlight to clear as much as possible of the larger pieces of rubble that had fallen into the path of the siege tower from that destroyed curtain wall.

Every captain and fighting man, as well as those who were mere labourers, was weary from the efforts of a day of combat and, even if it was kept to mumbles of disgruntlement around their cooking fires, alarmed at the ferocity of the defence they had faced. It was the task of leaders like Tancred, despite his own fatigue, to move amongst his men and point out that if they were dispirited, so must be their enemies, well aware that the coming dawn would see the attack renewed.

In G.o.dfrey's camp there was no gratification to hear that their Provencal confreres had fared worse than they, suffering more casualties and an even more spectacular reverse. For the men before the St Stephen's Gate it was to be hoped they would succeed if for no other reason than to make easier their own a.s.sault. Yet there was true fellow feeling to add to that the whole could not enjoy any triumph if one part failed.

Before dawn they were awakened to eat a breakfast of gruel and to say their prayers, many seeking out a priest to bless them as a habit before battle. Then, as the light again touched the eastern horizon, the horns blew and G.o.dfrey's men took their places around Gaston's great siege tower, which would, this day, either prove its worth or, like Raymond's, miserably fail.

In its favour, Gaston's tower was a much more formidable construct, three storeys in height and with a few more of his innovations, which would only prove their worth when tested. G.o.dfrey de Bouillon would not hear that any other man should take the lead, so he was on the top level, under the golden cross banner so beloved by the faithful, when the tower began to slowly grind forward again, before them, again under bombardment screens, a ma.s.s of people clearing the last of the rubble as well as the ashes and charred remains of their battering ram.

In choosing to move to the St Stephen's Gate there had been several considerations much discussed by G.o.dfrey and his fellow magnates, the two Roberts and Tancred. First it was a relative weak spot in an otherwise stout defence, but it was also, on the reverse side of the walls, a place much crowded with buildings and one in which the streets were really alleyways, too narrow to allow the Fatimids to deploy their mangonels.

This meant these weapons could only be employed on the actual ramparts and right below the fighting parapet, which entailed them sending most of what they discharged in a high arc, which of necessity reduced their range. More important to the advance of the siege tower, that range was fixed, so that once it covered a certain amount of the intervening ground it would be impossible for the defence to employ large objects to impede its progress.

Raymond of Toulouse attacked again at dawn, just like G.o.dfrey, for the second day pushing forward his tower and in receipt of the same response; in fact, if anything the defence was even more ferocious, an indication that the Fatimids knew that the slightest breach could lead to destruction. Every man that Iftikhar had, it was expected, would be on the walls and now in both places they would be required to engage in a test of will as much as warfare; the Crusaders could not fight without respite and another day of reverses might kill off their fervour for the battle.

The same antic.i.p.ation lay within the besiegers; these were the men who had defended the walls of Antioch against Kerbogha and they knew only too well how debilitating that could be, a constant daily effort that sapped both the will to fight and the degree of faith they reposed in the spirituality of their cause. What they had once experienced would apply to those defending Jerusalem; all that was needed was that the Crusade impose its will.

For Raymond the second day was an even greater debacle than the first; again he and his men advanced into a hail of stones and arrows, the rocks from the Muslim mangonels large enough to crush any shield as well as the man holding it up as protection. Drop the shield a fraction to see what was coming and there were sharp-eyed archers skilled enough to choose a now exposed target, a task made easier the closer the attack came.

But again it was Raymond's siege tower that bore the brunt of the retaliation, the same methods employed as the day before to set it alight in so many places that it see-sawed back and forth, dragged just out of range of more fire so that those already alight could be doused. That achieved it was pushed forward once more, but another difficulty began to manifest itself.

Regardless of what carpentry skills were employed, such a construct, built in such a place, had to be flawed. No amount of effort could take all the potential hazards out of the ground over which it must travel, and to the men at the top, not only in the most danger, it seemed to sway alarmingly and that put a heavy strain on joints that were secured by no more than glued and hammered-in wooden dowels. Fire also led to structural weakness and the tower before the Zion Gate had been set ablaze several times.

In the end it was the combination that caused the tower to partially collapse, leading to a hurried exodus by those manning the top levels, few because the greater the number the higher the weight that had to be moved. Slowly, with much creaking, Raymond's tower began to sag and if it was still capable of being employed, no exhortations of his or even offers of gold could get his men to trust to it, for the very simple reason that if it fell apart completely, and it looked as if it might, then those fighters manning it would be doomed to die in the wreckage.

In the fog of war the failure of Raymond's attack looked like a setback too far; there was no point in the construction of a replacement tower, never mind the time it would take to build, given the way the first one had so spectacularly failed. Added to that, such a fiasco could only embolden the defenders, given the part morale played in battle.

Yet through that thick mist, if only the Count of Toulouse could have gazed, he would have seen that the two-p.r.o.nged attack, albeit brought about by discord rather than strategy, had achieved more than was obviously visible.

G.o.dfrey de Bouillon nearly died well before his tower got anywhere near the northern wall, where it adjoined the gate tower, the top of that set at a slightly higher elevation than the ramparts. The man standing beside him on the top platform, employed by archers to suppress the defence, was killed instantly by a huge rock that crushed his head and cracked his neck like an eggsh.e.l.l.

The Duke was holding a crossbow and was quick to retaliate and kill one of his opponents, but even he could see the sense that for him to be in such an exposed position, loading a weapon that took time, was folly: if he fell, such was the regard in which he was held, the whole endeavour might do so as well.

For all that he had to be dragged to the steps that went down to the next level, where he joined Tancred and Robert of Flanders, as well as the party of the twenty knights who would commence the initial a.s.sault if the tower could get into the right position. On this platform he was blind, before him a stout wooden screen, riddled with metal spikes on the face that would drop onto the ramparts at the right moment and hopefully pinion some of the defenders. From there he was unable to see if Gaston of Bearn's other innovations were aiding the a.s.sault.

The usual practice was to line the exterior of the tower with wattle screens and animal skins, which Gaston had done, but, and this was different, he had made them with stout frames and created angles so that they protruded out from the siege engine on all sides. This rendered useless most of the inflammables hurled at his construct for they glanced off instead of sticking and fell to the ground.

Yet it was nip and tuck as the rocks rained down, for they were harder by far to deflect and some crashed through his defences. Added to that, however well built was Gaston's tower it still had the inherent defects of all such weapons of war. Heavy stones and the movement over uneven ground were likely to put excessive pressure on the joints and cause them to fail.

The fighting men knew when they had reached an arc of relative safety, merely by the diminution of the noise, the lack of thundering cracks as the mangonel rocks fired by the Fatimids battered their crawling conveyance. Yet that also told them they were close, which had knights tensing muscles and taking practice sweeps with their swords, thudding them on the screen before their faces. Tancred, holding his axe in one hand, a lance in the other, remained stationary and in prayer.

'Greek fire!'

That shout had him open his eyes, for there was good reason to be fearful of such a weapon, a fluid that once ignited could not be doused by water. It was a piece of good fortune that had given them information that it might be employed as a last line of defence, this from the Christians Iftikhar had expelled from the city. That made possible for them to have ready the one substance that could counter it: impervious to water it might be but vinegar, which they had in tubs on each floor, was able to quench Greek fire.

An increase in the swaying motion, though it had never been still and was exaggerated by the height at which they stood, told G.o.dfrey and Tancred that they were pa.s.sing through the gap cleared of rubble where had once stood the curtain wall and the charred remains of their battering ram. Soon it would be time to let go their screen and begin to fight against ma.s.sively unfavourable odds until behind them more knights would rush up the internal ladders to their aid.

The cry came from those who could see and the men tasked to drop the screen released the ropes that held it in place. Down it crashed onto heads and bodies that could not get clear of its spikes for the numbers crowding onto the parapet eager to engage, their screams of pain the first thing to register. The second thing to register was more sobering, for to their front as they advanced onto that platform stood a ma.s.s of screaming Fatimids, who had only one aim: to kill as many of these Latins as they could.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

The first task was to advance to near the leading edge then to hold the platform, which was resting on the very top of the crenellated battlements, not easy as the defenders quickly employed long pikes kept on the parapet to prevent that very manoeuvre, the points of these countered by both broadswords and swinging axes lopping off spikes aimed at taking away their legs. At the same time shields had to be held high to protect against arrows, loosed over Fatimid heads, potentially dangerous given they were being fired at short range.

That meant a tight line in which advance, once the primary moves had been completed, was secondary; let the enemy die as they sought to clamber up to make contact at a level much higher than their fighting parapet, leaving them vulnerable at a time when their weapons could not be properly employed. That they did so, despite the risks, was either testimony to their zeal or the same quality of those to their rear, so eager to get into battle that they pushed their own men onto the Crusader weapons.

Those initially pierced by a lance, or in a second wave taken by sword and axe, presented a barrier to the ma.s.s of their fellows, who solved this problem by seeking to shift them out of their path, regardless of the fact that to do so was to heave them off the platform edge into thin air, the screams of those still living adding to the cacophony of noise, that silenced as they hit the pile of rubble below.

Once fully supported from below, G.o.dfrey, Robert, Tancred and their confreres, the most puissant knights from each of their contingents, could seek to advance, which was carried out in the standard tactic of one pace at a time and that only possible when the whole line could move as one; a dog-leg here was more dangerous now than the same predicament on an open field, until they got to the very edge and from there sought to clear enough s.p.a.ce to get onto the walls themselves.

To aid the whole endeavour, Gaston of Bearn had fashioned another innovation, the ability to cast off the wattle screens on the next floor down, deliberately made wider than the top storey, and from there, using extension planks and ladders, to get men onto the flanks in order to stretch a defence that was short on numbers, it being forced to do battle on two fronts so far apart that mutual support was not possible.

That was about to become more telling in a wider sense too: with the siege tower fully employed and sucking in the enemy defenders, the ma.s.s of the attackers, hitherto idle, could a.s.sault the walls using stout ladders with which to clamber up to the level of the ramparts, the situation and stretched defence giving them a good chance of getting over the battlements and onto the wooden parapet.

Once there in sufficient numbers, complete success became a real possibility, not that it was ever guaranteed, for it was an axiom of such an action that the defence would always outnumber the attackers, and if the Muslims held their nerve and fought with brio, to drive the Latins back off again was achievable. Perception was all: if men thought they were losing, whichever side they were on, they would slacken off their efforts, half concerned with escape rather than wholly committed to victory.

Tancred's height played a part as it always did, his reach being that much greater than those who lined up beside him, which meant he had to show restraint so as not to advance too quickly. But right now it was the billowing smoke blowing across the platform, stinging his eyes and affecting his vision, that seemed the greater problem. Right before him a gap appeared, he having chopped the lower arm of his immediate opponent, who was so immobilised by the loss that he temporarily blocked the way to those at his rear. That allowed for the briefest glance to right and then left, which engendered an immediate shout.

'My Lord G.o.dfrey, look to our left.'

Having made that call Tancred was forced to once more fully engage with the enemy, and with G.o.dfrey likewise fighting hard there was a gap before circ.u.mstances allowed him to comply with the cry from the younger man. Yet when he did, what he saw had a similar effect on him: the top of the eastern tower that framed the St Stephen's Gate was emitting a great ma.s.s of smoke, which, caught by the wind was blowing across to envelop the combatants.

'Close up!' G.o.dfrey shouted, immediately pulling back, a command obeyed by both Tancred and the knight on de Bouillon's left, Ludolf of Tournai.

Able to retire to a point from which he could a.s.sess the situation, the gap the Duke left was quickly filled by a supporting knight from the reserve. This was Ludolf's brother Engelbert, who moved up and called to be allowed to act as a replacement, entering the line with his vigour fresh and his pa.s.sion for the fight at full stretch.

G.o.dfrey, to get a better view, dropped down one level and, cutting through what remained of the wattle screen, peered out of the side of the siege engine. What he saw lifted his already bubbling spirits: if the gate tower was on fire that meant the interior wooden frame that formed the support for the stonework was ablaze. Such a conflagration, being embedded, would be impossible to extinguish.

If weakened enough, and it would be as the fire progressed, it was only a matter of time before the whole edifice collapsed, which would take with it the supporting pillars of the gate itself, causing that to sag open, thus fully opening the way into the city for the whole ma.s.s of G.o.dfrey's fighters. An added danger lay on the wooden parapet on which the defenders fought: that too could catch fire, and being constructed the way it was, with open slats, it would burn quickly and ferociously.

The panicked cries from above, albeit they were in Arabic, indicated to the Duke of Lower Lorraine that he was not alone in seeing the danger and drawing the requisite conclusion. To seek to hold a section of the walls when the means to outflank you were imminent, and the ground beneath your feet could disappear, was madness. A call from one of his knights, telling him that the Fatimids were weakening, posed the possibility for G.o.dfrey that he would not be in action at the most vital moment.

Slashing at the wattle and knocking one of his own men out of the way, he was on a ladder and climbing at a furious scrabble, able to catch sight of his men, now standing on the very top of the ramparts. By the time he joined them they were on the parapet, now doing combat with an enemy that seemed more intent on disengagement than continued resistance.

All along the battlements the men led by G.o.dfrey, Robert of Flanders and Tancred were pushing over the crest of the walls and occupying a wooden fighting platform on which only those trapped by the inability to get clear were still contesting the ground. Ma.s.sively outnumbered, they were to die for that, while it soon became apparent that the remainder of their comrades had fled.

Before the Zion Gate, Raymond of Toulouse was seeking by personal example to inspire an attack rapidly running out of energy. His voice was hoa.r.s.e from shouting that his men should continue to advance in the face of a defence that had not lost one iota of its power since the previous day. If anything it seemed more potent. There was no weakening of Raymond's sword arm for it had yet to be employed; no one, him included, could get close enough to the walls.

With his siege tower unusable his men refused to enter it and climb there were only ladders with which to seek to overcome the Egyptians, that and the rocks fired by his lighter mangonels and they were as nothing compared to what the Fatimids were raining down in response on his stuttering advance.

Much as he hated to contemplate retirement there seemed little choice, and in doing so he knew he would be faced with a complete rethink of the ways needed to take the city, which was complicated by the fact that time must be short. The Vizier al-Afdal must be aware that the city was besieged and that would force him to leave Cairo and come to its rescue. The Crusade, still without the walls of Jerusalem, faced possibly a worse dilemma than they had at Antioch.

Suddenly the air, which had been full of rocks and arrows, was clear of both. Looking up at the battlements there were no heads peering over, bows at the ready and eyes roving to pick a target. It took time to register, time before the advance broke from a stumbling walk into a run, men amazed, none more so than Raymond himself, that they could raise their ladders without interference, even more so when that applied to their ascent and the crossing of the ramparts themselves.

The parapet, when they occupied it, was empty, which induced an amazed pause as the likes of Raymond sought to glean some meaning from what had just occurred. It did not take too long to realise that the defence had collapsed because it was breached elsewhere, which meant G.o.dfrey and his men were inside Jerusalem, and with a head start on the sack of the city. From the fervour of battle, it soon became the Provencal purpose to be equally dedicated to the pursuit of plunder.

Jerusalem paid a high price for its resistance, with later chroniclers, such as Aguilers, seeking to exalt the success, claiming that ten thousand Muslims gave up their lives to appease G.o.d. That this was an untruth was not allowed to interfere with the glory of the capture of the Holy City, yet there were those who later spoke the truth: if that number died, to be eventually burnt in great mounds outside the walls, the frames of the siege engines used as kindling, there were as many Christian victims as Muslims.

The sack was brutal as every Crusader sought personal enrichment, many succeeding given Jerusalem was a place full of the means to do so: rich in gold, even more so than in metal, as well as silver, fashioned into objects designed to venerate the memory of Jesus Christ, a ma.s.sive number given as gifts by pilgrims that had preceded the Crusade in more peaceful times.

Following the frenzy of acquisition men would later gather to pray and hear Ma.s.s in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a church from which they were quick to eject any who adhered to another branch of the Christian faith Armenians, Copts, Nestorians and Maronites. They did not ask for forgiveness for the acts of barbarity which they had just carried out: houses invaded and left wrecked, women ravaged, babies dashed against pillars and young children slain, bodies of both s.e.xes sliced open to seek any wealth that might have been consumed to hide it from view.

The Crusaders did not see the need: what they had done had been carried out for the greater glory of the G.o.d they worshipped and one who had shown them divine favour, not a single worshipper present doubting this to be an absolute truth. Three years had pa.s.sed since they took their crusading vows and left their homes, hearths and wives to fulfil that pledge, three years in which they travelled a thousand leagues, conquered disease, hunger, battle, despair and the elements. How else could they have overcome such obstacles without that their G.o.d had strengthened their resolve as well as the arms with which they wielded their blessed weapons?

Conquest did not end dispute, for there still existed the vexed question of to whom control of Jerusalem should devolve. The churchmen demanded it be a divine, yet that faltered on the fact that there was no one of sufficient stature to fill the office of bishop, a man who could command the necessary respect.

In a break with previous intentions, and at the instance of both G.o.dfrey de Bouillon and Raymond, one cleric called Arnulf was appointed to the See of Jerusalem. He being bound to take Ma.s.s in the Roman rite, that was a message to Byzantium and the Emperor Alexius Comnenus that whatever vows had been taken in Constantinople were now void.

Secular dissension was unabated: Raymond of Toulouse, always with an eye on how to exert pressure on his confreres, had quickly occupied the Tower of David, into which Iftikhar ad-Daulah had fled with his best troops, a detachment of Egyptian cavalry. In order to secure it peacefully, Raymond had given Iftikhar and his men safe pa.s.sage to the west, which was seen as folly, given any attempt at recapture must come from that direction.

Not that Raymond was bothered: the Tower of David acted as the citadel of Jerusalem as much as that which Bohemund had held fast did for Antioch. Without it the Holy City was not secure and when called upon to give it up, Toulouse refused, still hoping that by his action he could claim t.i.tle to the whole. In this he was thwarted by his own unpopularity set against that of the man who could claim to have engineered the capture.

G.o.dfrey de Bouillon was the choice of the host for his personal piety. A degree of political wisdom had him listen to the priests who insisted that no man should allow himself to be called 'King' in the city of which G.o.d was the only sovereign. Accepting the t.i.tle of Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre, he knew that what he had taken on was a fief in all but name, a wealthy one and one that would require to be defended: it was a prize of incalculable importance to three faiths.

In a huff Raymond decamped to an encampment in Jericho, leaving the Tower of David to be held by Bishop Peter of Narbonne; he promptly betrayed the man who had favoured him with the See of Albara and handed it over to G.o.dfrey. Yet Jerusalem was not secure: scouting to the west, Tancred had caught wind of a huge army landing and gathering around the port of Ascalon. It was under the personal command of the Vizier of Cairo and further enquiry produced the alarming proportion that the Crusade, even combined, was outnumbered by a measure of four to one.

'Here I can invoke the name of Bohemund,' Tancred insisted, once more back in the Holy City and able to alert the new advocate to the looming threat. 'If we stay inside the walls of Jerusalem it will be a repeat of what we faced with Kerbogha.'

'Even if the gate of St Stephen is fully repaired?' asked Normandy.

'We overcame it, My Lord, and therefore we must accept that others might follow our example.'

'Do they have our spirit,' G.o.dfrey mused, '... or our ability?'

'What they have is numbers and I would say what my uncle always advocated, if there is to be a battle let us choose the ground on which it is to be fought.'

'And I say let them batter themselves against the walls.'

Nonplussed that Normandy should advocate such a course, Tancred pressed on.

'One of the factors that sustained us during our siege was the sure knowledge that the Fatimids were no more loved than their Turkish predecessors. We expected to hold this city with the good opinion of the inhabitants, but can that be said to be so after the actions of our newly consecrated bishop and his priests?'

Arnulf was present and offended, even more so when Tancred pointed out how, by barring other Christians, who made up the bulk of the population, from the holy sites, he had mightily alienated them. In order to counter his own folly he had 'miraculously' discovered a piece of the True Cross, which to Tancred, his own piety much dented, looked very suspiciously like a repeat of the Holy Lance. Clearly the Jerusalemites felt a similar suspicion, for they had failed to rally to Arnulf's relic.

'We can only adopt the course you advocate, Tancred, if we are joined by Raymond.'

Normandy responded to G.o.dfrey in a manner that, if he shocked him, he did well to disguise. 'I will not march on the news Tancred has brought to us.'

'You do not see the threat?' G.o.dfrey asked.

'I see an army disembarking but I do not see one marching towards us. Unless they do and their intention is clear, why should we countenance the threat as real?'

'I cannot think you believe that,' Flanders exclaimed.