'You say this has happened more than once?'

Addressed by Raymond, Bartholomew immediately dropped to one knee and threw back the cowl that had covered his head, for he had grown up hearing of the mighty deeds of the Count of Toulouse and now, only ever having seen him from afar, he was in that ill.u.s.trious presence.

'Yes, My Lord, first when we crossed Anatolia on that desperate march through the desert in which we nearly died of thirst, and many times since.'

'In Antioch?' demanded Ademar, with a sharpness born of too much exposure to visions.

'Not just here, My Lord Bishop, in many places as I went foraging for food to support our cause, but always at night and yes, once here, when we were first encamped outside the walls.'

'You say the older man spoke?' Raymond asked, hauling himself upright. 'What did he say?'

'That a piece of the Holy Lance, which pierced the very body of Christ on the crucifix, lay within the confines of St Peter's original cave church. On that last visitation I was told to go to the spot where it was buried by the hand of St Peter himself so that I would recognise the place when the city fell and be able to recover it should the need for divine inspiration arise.'

Ademar had a carapace of seeming interest in such situations he had dealt with many religious fanatics in his time which masked any scepticism. Yet this claim was stretching that to the limit and what followed from this peasant did nothing to make easy holding his incredulity at bay, not that his expression dented Bartholomew's certainty.

'I was instructed to go to St Peter's Church and stand over the place of burial.'

'You entered Antioch while we had it still besieged?' Raymond demanded.

His tone demonstrated wonder as well as an acceptance and that had Ademar questioning the seriousness of his ailment. Perhaps it was of greater threat than he had hitherto supposed for it might be affecting his mind, which had always been too superst.i.tious for the Bishop's liking, while his body, especially his florid, well-fed face, seemed to show few ill effects.

'I did so in spirit, My Lord, not in person, clad in the very garment in which I now stand before you, which with a celestial touch made me invisible to the infidels who held the city. Such was my transcendence that the walls proved no barrier to my progress, so great is the power of G.o.d.'

'You speak well for a peasant, do you not?' Ademar scoffed, seeking to knock a man he thought a charlatan off his stride, only to receive a confident response.

'I speak as my saint has instructed me, for I could not, humble and lacking in schooling as I am, conjure up such words.'

Count Raymond's eyes were now alight, either with fever or faith, Ademar could not tell. 'You say you could take us to the place where the Holy Lance is buried?'

'My Lord, that is why I have come to you, for with that lance no Christian knight could be defeated in battle against an infidel and no man is more deserving to hold such a relic in his fighting hand as you, who, if men could see right, would have command of the whole host that will lead us to Jerusalem.'

About to respond with agreement, Raymond hesitated, no doubt from the presence of the papal legate, who was de facto in that position. That the Count of Toulouse felt he should have the leadership of the Crusade had been a barely disguised fact ever since he had arrived in Constantinople, the only man he was prepared to bow the knee to being the Emperor Alexius himself, who had hinted he would lead the enterprise personally but had signally failed to make good on his vague undertaking.

'You waited a long time to reveal this,' Ademar added. 'Why?'

'Before this day I hesitated out of fear and doubted even my own experience, but I was again visited last night and by an angry saint, so I am commanded by him and G.o.d to bring to your attention the means to strike down the force that threatens our endeavour. Even if I face a burning at the stake for speaking out, I cannot remain silent.'

'This is nonsense,' Ademar expostulated, waving an arm to dismiss Bartholomew.

'That, My Lord Bishop is easy to establish,' Raymond insisted, with a look of cunning that Ademar had never taken to. 'Let our fellow here take us to the spot where he claims the Holy Lance is buried. If he speaks the truth we will find it, if not ...'

'Fire for my body and d.a.m.nation for my soul,' Bartholomew intoned, his eyes closed.

A search for such a holy relic, as close to the body and blood of Christ as it was possible to get, could not be kept secret and nothing so inspired faith as anything which had a connection to the Crucifixion the bones of a martyr were as nothing by comparison and there were several of those being borne to Palestine by the Crusaders.

Ademar himself had a piece of the True Cross in his baggage, which he had bought from the Emperor Alexius. It was not the notion that a piece of the Holy Lance might exist that made him a sceptic, more the timing and claimed placement of Bartholomew's disclosure; it was too convenient.

The reaction of the other magnates varied as Bartholomew reprised his vision, on the insistence and in the presence of Raymond, to the Council of Princes. Bohemund and Robert of Normandy were vocally dubious as to the truth of the a.s.sertion, Vermandois not willing to sway one way or the other, while G.o.dfrey de Bouillon was sure, if it could be found, it would, as it was claimed, lead them to victory.

Robert of Flanders, a man in love with relics and the owner of many, was excited by the notion but none came to see the need to exhume the lance more than the Count of Toulouse who claimed the right, as Bartholomew's lord and master, to oversee the endeavour; his fervour knew no bounds, yet that turned to frustration as two days of digging produced no positive result.

Six men had hacked at the floor of the cave, through the compacted earth of a millennium of worship to the softer ground below, spades wielded with decreasing gusto as they sunk ever lower to a depth where their heads were hidden from view. All this went on while sporadic fighting took place in every quarter of the defence as Kerbogha worked, not to overcome the walls but to keep his enemies on their mettle and exhausted. Peter Bartholomew stood over the dig, eyes closed and praying to the heavens, though never in doubt and hope, more in certainty that his vision was real.

Raymond, somewhat recovered in health on the prospect of the find, came to visit often, for to him the discovery of such an object had become of paramount concern, many observing this as a sign of his loss of faith and the need that it be restored by a divine revelation.

It was not long before his confidence in Bartholomew began to waver, which produced a flood of questions, the most telling being: what hands, those who had the buried the Holy Lance, would dig so deep? The peasant seer pointed out that it had needed to survive many occupations of Antioch, even the reversal of Christianity and the return to paganism forced by the Byzantine Emperor Julian, followed by the arrival and occupation of Islam.

Those who had interred it knew the dangers that would be faced by such a holy object over a thousand years, knew that the lance had a purpose and the day of that need would come just as spiritual guidance would be required to exhume it. They would not burrow a shallow hiding place, but one so deep that only a person of true faith and divine resolve could find it.

'Then I suggest you do so, Bartholomew,' Raymond growled finally, his sombre tone of voice made more ethereal by being echoed off the walls of the cave church. 'For if it is a lie I will not be alone in wishing to flay the skin from your back and see your entrails in your hands before we set light to the f.a.ggots around your body.'

'Give me the means, My Lord, and I will expose it myself.'

'You men cease digging and help this miscreant down.' Raymond then fixed his Provencal peasant with a basilisk stare. 'Dig well, Peter Bartholomew, for what remains of you should you fail will aid us in refilling this.'

The diggers needed a ladder now to allow them both into the hole and out. Gathering his monkish garment around him Bartholomew disdained any aid as he clambered down into the small area lit by a single guttering oil lamp, taking up one of the spades left and beginning to slash at the earth with fury. The clang as he hit rock reverberated up and out to fill the chamber, which had Raymond's diggers looking at a lord who would not return their stare, he too busy in contemplation of the problems of being made to look like a credulous fool.

Judging by the sound now coming from below, Bartholomew had taken up a pick, also left below, and was hacking at the rock, which tempted one of those standing above to sn.i.g.g.e.r, that dying as the Count gave him a black look, which seemed to deepen with each blow of that instrument, now a rhythmic ringing that might have pa.s.sed for a church bell, given the mountains on which Antioch had been built were made of near indestructible stone.

'Hallelujah!'

That cry had all pressing forward, lanterns in hand, to gaze down at the dirt-blackened face of Peter Bartholomew gazing up, his eyes seeming to glow and in his hand an object too indistinct to identify.

'G.o.d be praised!' was his next cry, before he sunk to his knees so that the sounds of his loud and thankful prayers now rose up to the waiting ears.

'What have you found?' Raymond demanded.

The response was slow in coming; Bartholomew was too busy thanking G.o.d. 'That which I was sent to discover, My Lord.'

The temptation to blaspheme with impatience had to be curbed. 'Get up here and at once.'

Bartholomew's ascent was slow and what appeared before him, held aloft in one hand, did not look in any way divine: was it even metal, for time and burial had dimmed its shine with rust and grime? What became apparent when examined more closely, as Bartholomew held it out for inspection, was its shape, it being very like the partial tip of a Roman pilum, a finger width at the base and reducing to the point, the very form of a weapon that truly might have been carried by a legionary on the Mount of Calvary.

'Where is the shaft?' Raymond demanded, only to be met with a look of disdain, with a manner to match, by a man now confident of his safety.

'Who would bury that, and if they did, would the timber not rot?'

If Raymond missed the tone of voice, as well as the lack of acknowledgment to his t.i.tle, the others present did not and one spoke up to tell Bartholomew of whom he was addressing, only to be reminded, and with discourtesy, that the man he was talking to was blessed by G.o.d and to mind his manners.

'Pa.s.s it here.'

The pointed metal shard, a hand and a half in length, was pa.s.sed to Raymond who took it gingerly, as if expecting the contact to scorch his flesh. Instead it was cold, as it should be, which sent a look of doubt across his face, noted by the man who had found it and responded to swiftly.

'Do not expect it to glow or burn your skin, My Lord, the force it carries is in the flesh of whom it once pierced. Underneath that dirt and rust who can tell? may still lie the dried blood of Jesus.'

Raymond recoiled at that and he was not alone; those who had been digging previously stood back in near horror at being perhaps so close to such a liquid, even if dried. These were men who believed that when shriven by a priest what they received in the Eucharist was the very blood of Christ transformed; to be in the presence of reality was overpowering.

The noise from the mouth of the cave church began to grow, for there had been believers as well as doubters gathered there throughout, diminishing in numbers as time went by, it was true, but never so few that one or two were not keeping vigil. Bartholomew's cry of hallelujah had echoed out of that hole in the ground, bounced off the walls of the tiny cave church, flying out to those waiting ears.

Those lacking faith crossed themselves but the greater effect was on the devout: their wailing and gnashing of ecstasy had brought many more running to see what they hoped would be a sure sign of their deliverance. The man who carried it out into daylight and a now milling crowd was not the man who found it, though the dirt-covered Bartholomew was close on his heels.

It was Raymond of Toulouse, eyes alight and gait steady, who held it aloft to the gathering throng and he who paraded it through the streets, where likewise all who observed it, be they knight, fighting foot soldier, camp follower, pilgrim or Armenian Christian, fell to their knees and sent up a keening sound of worship that was, in truth, ma.s.s entreaty.

It was no surprise, then, that the work of Peter Bartholomew in actually disinterring the relic was overborne by the spreading fame of the man who had possession and was eager to show it off. The relic was hailed wherever Raymond went, for he never subsequently moved without it rumour had it that he took it to his bed with him that first night and it was not long, those who shared his rank thought, before he seemed to confuse worship of the Holy Lance with praise for his own person.

With the whole city in a spasm of religious fervour, Peter Bartholomew called for the sinners to fast yet more vigorously and to give up to G.o.d alms that would be used to aid their deliverance, and thousands complied, it being noted that such coins as were gifted ended up with Raymond of Toulouse to swell his coffers to such an extent that he was soon far ahead of his peers in wealth and therefore influence.

'I wonder,' Bohemund opined, 'if anyone thought to search this Bartholomew before he entered St Peter's Church?' That Tancred doubted the wisdom of such an enquiry was plain to see; his faith had always been stronger. 'Examine the tale, nephew, and ask yourself if it is not a miracle too far?'

'Miracles happen, Uncle.'

'So I do believe, even if I have never witnessed one. But the convenience of this troubles me.'

'Do you intend to question and deny it?'

'No. Ademar, I suspect, thinks as I do, Robert of Normandy also, but if anyone is going to doubt it is a true relic let it be a consecrated bishop.'

'Is he not a Provencal bishop?'

That got a meaningful shrug, for Ademar and Toulouse came from the same part of Christendom. 'If he is careful not to cause Raymond offence, for the sake of harmony, that is an attribute he applies to us all. He will not show partiality.'

'Ademar dare not say it is false when all of Christian Antioch thinks it genuine.'

'Not all, Tancred, but that is less important than that he stops anyone from using it to guide our actions. Let the ones who hold it to be a true point of the Holy Lance take what comfort they need from it being in their midst. But it will not feed them nor will it drive off Kerbogha and his thousands.'

'My Lords,' Raymond said to the a.s.sembly of his peers, this accompanied by an arch look of triumph, 'who can not welcome the prospect of divine intervention?'

That brought a murmur of 'Amens', which faded somewhat as the Count of Taranto spoke out to repeat what he had said to Tancred about the shortage of food and the very powerful enemy encamped nearby, as well as the fact that no word had come of Byzantine aid.

'If we remain within Antioch we will either die from hunger or be so weak as to be unable to resist.' Pausing to await the comments of others, none came; he had spoken the unvarnished truth and all knew it. 'Such is the dearth of food that we are talking of days before we will be obliged to throw ourselves on the mercy of Kerbogha, which I suspect will not be in large supply.'

'Even a Turk likes ransom,' Vermandois insisted.

'True, Count Hugh, but while we may be sold back to our subjects, those we lead will not, and who knows, he may cut our throats as quick as he slices theirs. I look around me and ask who is inclined to trust in his greed?'

'Not I,' Robert of Normandy stated, emphatically.

Raymond, who had with him the Holy Lance, held his relic out for all to see. 'Let us seek terms. If this divine object cannot feed us or drive our enemies away, perhaps that is not the message it brings.'

'You think,' Ademar responded, 'that it will aid us in negotiation?'

'I am bound to ask why we have not tried before to talk to the Atabeg?'

G.o.dfrey of Bouillon responded to that by showing a rare flash of exasperation. 'You know very well, My Lord, that it is common in siege for those outside the walls to demand we cease to resist. Kerbogha has not followed that custom; in short, he has not come to us with terms.'

'Then we must go to him,' Raymond insisted, 'with an offer to allow us to depart Antioch as a host. Does he want the city or our blood?'

'I would say our heads on pikes would satisfy him,' Bohemund replied.

'I say it is worth an attempt.'

Bohemund was adamant. 'While I think that will be worse than useless.'

Florid-faced Toulouse went a deeper shade of scarlet but he got no chance to speak, for Ademar exercised his right to do so as the man who acted as the representative of the Pope. If few believed what Raymond proposed to be the case, it led to a long and heated discussion in which his view finally held sway, for in truth it was folly to keep fighting in a hopeless situation if the mere surrender of the city might spare them.

The first suggestion, that Ademar should go as envoy, was squashed by G.o.dfrey of Bouillon, who required much circ.u.mlocution to tell his peers that the Bishop was too valuable to be made a hostage to fortune without bringing the cleric to the blush. In truth, he held the ground between them, which might turn to open conflict were he no longer alive.

Yet no one else would put themselves forward, G.o.dfrey, Raymond and Bohemund included, for what was being spoken of was abject surrender and none amongst these magnates could face being the bearer of such a communication, an act which would stay with their name till the Second Coming. In the end it was decided that Peter the Hermit was a suitable messenger.

'Will he agree?' asked Vermandois.

Ademar spoke then in a manner rare for him; he was close to spitting, given the trouble such preachers had caused him ever since he had first encountered them. Peter was a particular bane: months before, when food had been short, and sensing the siege of Antioch to be failing, he had sought to flee back to the safety of Constantinople, only to be pursued, captured and brought back.

'After his attempt at flight he will do what he is told, if for no other reason than to redeem himself. He has learnt Greek since he came to the east, if he has learnt little else. Let him put that to our use.'

Peter was called to the Bishop, as ever looking like a biblical prophet with his long snowy hair and beard, as well as the look of mysticism he had in his eyes, to be reminded of his disgraceful transgression and how he had not been as severely punished as he should have been for deserting people who he had claimed as his flock.

He would be given an interpreter, a fellow called Firuz, who had been suggested by Count Bohemund, and he would go to Kerbogha's camp. That such a command provoked terror in the old man's soul was obvious, yet he knew his sin was not forgiven but in remission and that Ademar had the power to apply whatever sanction he chose.

The prospect of being burnt as a traitor to the Crusade, which had been hinted at by Ademar and was felt, it seemed, to be a just fate by the higher lords, was greater than any fear of the Atabeg and with heavy tread he prepared, next morning, to exit one of the smaller gates with a truce flag, dressed in robes of white, to make his way towards the camp of a man he thought near to the devil.

Firuz stood with Peter. Prior to surrendering his tower to the Apulians and facilitating the capture of the city, he had been a Muslim convert but was now once more a Christian. The Armenian was less fearful than the preacher: he was a military man and had that carapace of indifference to death that attended his chosen profession. Living and dying was in the hands of powers greater than he, but he had a task to perform, one outlined by Bohemund.

So far, Kerbogha had employed mainly Turks to invest and attack the city it was they who had issued from the citadel and only once had he tested the walls with mixed contingents. The men he had left in the nearby camps, easy to distinguish because of their attire, had been of the same single and clearly dependable race. To rate the quality and spirit of the rest of the enemy host, those yet to be committed to battle, had been denied to the Crusaders, so Firuz was to examine with great care the main Islamic lines and report back what he observed about their make-up, strength and confidence.

CHAPTER SIX.

Just getting the Hermit and Firuz out of the Bridge Gate took much negotiation, indeed permission had to be sought from Kerbogha himself to allow them pa.s.sage, consent brought back by a richly dressed rider leading what was clearly a strong escort. So with a final sign of the cross the pair slipped through the postern gate and crossed the arched stone bridge to the other side of the River Orontes.

The main Turkish encampment was just south of the western end of the Iron Bridge and as soon as they were sighted, what was a seemingly somnolent area of tents and cooking fires came to life; men leapt to their feet and hurried to see this apparition in his flowing robes, others exited their canvas to come and stare at Peter and his plainly clad companion, their escort slowing so they could be clearly seen and derided.

'Keep your head high,' Firuz commanded, as Peter let it sink on his chest rather than meet an enemy look. 'Do not show fear if you want to live.'

The eyes of the Armenian were darting around, doing what he had been asked, seeking to drink in what he could of the dispositions of Kerbogha's host as well as their true numbers, for the messages that had come into Antioch over the weeks since the arrival of this army had thrown up variations that were either low and designed to rea.s.sure, or fantastical and aimed at inducing terror.

Some estimate of the true figure could be discerned from the time it took to get from the edge of the camp to the centre, where sat the huge black pavilion of Kerbogha. Here were camped his own personal retainers, those on guard duty well armed, alert and wearing mail, leading Firuz to wonder if they were set there to protect their lord from his own host rather than display.

Once outside the main flap they were forced to wait in the broiling sun, offered nothing to drink or even spoken to by those entering and exiting with their leader's commands. They also had to wait when the entire host was called to prayer, Peter at last allowed to close his eyes, in truth joining in the devotions to pray for his corporeal body not his soul.

When they were called to go inside that was carried out in silence, merely a sharp nod by a man who pulled aside the flap designed to keep out the dust, while inside the pa.s.sageway there were bowls of burning incense to kill off the latrine smell which attended the gathering of every host. Through another flap they entered the main area, lit by numerous oil lamps that sent out shadows that seemed to exaggerate the hard features of the Turkish commander.

Kerbogha had a visage that went with his reputation: long, oiled hair swept back to expose a narrow, much lined brow, heavy eyebrows atop black orbs that rarely blinked, hooked nose over full lips that arced down at the corners and a prominent chin covered with a well-trimmed beard, all set off by his dark skin. Hunched forward it was still possible to see he was a man of some strength, for he wore a short, sleeveless tunic that exposed his muscular arms while his calves were likewise huge. When he spoke his voice seemed to be coming from the soles of his soft leather boots.