“No! and that’s final,” said the Duke. “I remember that last time now you speak of it, and it’s just the sort of thing we don’t want to happen; one horse flinching upsets the ranks and makes the others hesitate. If you like, you can go round to Tancred’s absurd castle to-morrow, and have a go at the horse-guard. That is all your pony’s fit for, but don’t bring on a battle by calling out the Italians to rescue you.”
Roger bowed and withdrew, angry and disappointed, while the sergeants pretended to have heard nothing, and one of the clerks smiled to the page. He found Robert still gossiping with Anne, and at once poured out an account of the interview. His cousin found it amusing.
“Duke Robert is getting very military these-days,” he said with a smile. “For the first time in his life he has found someone who obeys him, and he delights in giving orders. It wasn’t wise to ask permission first; perhaps you should just have tacked on to us in the darkness. What do you think of a trip to Tancred’s castle; it doesn’t sound a very good idea to me. You won’t bother the enemy, and you might lose your only mount.”
“Of course he must go,” Anne broke in eagerly. “If he is so careful to obey the Duke, he can take this as a command. He must make a name, or we shall never get our castle.”
It never seemed to occur to Anne that knights might be killed in these encounters. Or else she thought the chance of winning a fief was worth any risk.
“If you think it’s a good plan,” Roger said, “I’ll ride round there to-morrow morning. I will say the Duke sent me and the Italians can’t object then. At least it will get me off night-patrol in the evening, and that will be clear gain. I’m sorry I can’t come with you, Robert, and I wish you the best of luck. Shall I come to your hut and arm you?”
At this hint Robert took leave of the ladies and went off, singing to himself, towards the Italian encampment.
Next morning, after Mass and a leisurely breakfast, Roger was armed by Anne and Domna Alice, and set out at mid-morning with a lump of biscuit for his dinner. With the walls of Antioch on his right, he rode south-east across the deserted Aleppo road, and soon his pony was climbing the ridges of Mount Silpius. The Turks usually kept their horses inside the walls during the middle of the day, and though he rode cautiously he saw no one until he came to Tancred’s castle from the south, as the garrison was finishing dinner. They were chiefly crossbowmen of mixed south Italian stock, and he could not understand their various languages, but there was a Norman-Italian knight in charge; to him Roger explained his errand, stressing that it was the Duke’s command.
“If the Duke of Normandy sent you, I suppose it is all right, but I don’t know what you think you can do. When we try to raid the herd the Turks just bring more men out of the city, and we are not strong enough to drive them in by main force. Of course, you might catch one of their guards by himself, and ride him down, though that won’t really help on the Holy War very much. I can’t send out my crossbowmen to support you, it would endanger this fort; but we will cover you if you come back in a hurry. That bush marks the farthest range of an arrow from here, and the Turks won’t pursue past it. I hope you brought your own dinner, it’s shameful the way the Count of Blois neglects this place.”
Roger was slightly disappointed that this tough old warrior did not think him a hero, and he was in two minds whether to ride back to the camp; but that would look altogether too foolish, so he dismounted and munched his biscuit. Almost at once, the Gate of Saint George was opened in the plain below, and a body of about a hundred Turks rode out, followed by an enormous herd of loose horses. Ten of the infidels came straight for the drystone walls of the castle, and sat their horses without moving about two hundred and fifty yards away.
“That is what they always do,” said the captain, “and we can’t harm them if they don’t come any nearer. Still, any day they may grow careless, and at sunset most of them dismount to worship their devil. One of my men will hold your horse ready by the entrance at the back, where they can’t see him; a lance shows over the top of this wall, so keep yours couched as you ride round. Go straight out when you see your chance, don’t stop to consult me or you may be too late. Good luck! Now it’s time for my nap,” and he stretched himself, wrapped in his cloak, in the lee of the flimsy wall.
Roger stood in an embrasure, beside the sentinel, for two long hours, and the Turks sat outside, waiting. But their ponies were getting cold, and after that time they began to walk up and down, not in a group, but in twos and threes. A dun-coloured stallion, with three mares in attendance, was grazing up the hill, and as the little troop of horses drew nearer to the fort six Turks rode to turn them back; another had dismounted to look at his pony’s foot, and only three were left to guard against surprise. Roger stiffened; was this his opportunity? He dreaded to make up his mind. He had never given an order in battle, and the only time he had used his judgement, at Dorylaeum, he had clearly been wrong. But he had been growing more and more nervous, and with a sudden resolve to get the waiting over, he ran silently across the fort to his horse. The crossbowman grinned as he helped him into the saddle, and handed him shield and lance; he looked old enough, and wicked enough, to have been at war for many campaigns, but, like all footmen, he obeyed the orders of any untried young knight.
Roger wheeled his pony out of the entrance on the far side of the fort, turned sharply round the walls, and galloped as hard as he could downhill towards the three Turkish sentinels. They were watching their comrades turn the straying horses, and the ground of the hillside, softened by the winter, rains, muffled the noise of approaching hoof-teats. Luckily it was close turf, without boulders, and the paralysing fear of a fall was driven from Roger’s mind by his taut, screwed-up resolution. He had gone a hundred yards before the Turks were aware of him, and then they behaved as he had hoped; instead of galloping away and shooting over their horses’ tails, they drew their ridiculous little curved swords and rode towards him, calling loudly on their devil. He dug his spurs deep, in a way his pony had never felt before, and holding the beast straight with his knees, thundered down the slope. In a few seconds he was into them, his lance thrust deep into the chest of the man on his right front, while his gallant pony charged into the opponent in the middle as though he was a trained western warhorse. The Turk on his left cut with his sabre as they all pulled up in a milling, stamping knot, but no swordsman can do much damage on the near side of his horse, and the blow was turned on the leather of the shield; he dropped his lance at the first shock, as the Turk whose chest he had pierced rolled out of the saddle. The pony he had knocked into was sitting on its tail like a dog, while its rider clung to the saddle, dazed by the collision; the only Turk still in action was on his well-protected left side. He plucked out his sword and swung his horse to the left. But as the heavy, straight weapon was heaved up into the air, the Turk whipped round and bolted, the other when his horse scrambled up did the same, and for a moment he was alone with the dead man’s pony, which had been trained to stand while its reins trailed on the ground. He had to be quick, for six Turks were riding towards him, bending their bows; but he just had time to thrust his sword-blade through the loop of the riderless pony’s reins, and then he was galloping back towards the fort. A few arrows came past, but the enemy had been taken by surprise, and they did not dare to pursue within range of the Italian crossbows. Breathless and sweating, without his lance, and with a long bright scar on his weatherbeaten shield, he rode into the fort with his captured pony. The garrison were standing to their embrasures, but when they saw that there was no pursuit they crowded round him, admiring the new horse and congratulating him in their unknown tongues. The captain smiled and helped him to dismount.
“You did that very nicely,” he said, in the sing-song French of Italy. “Of course, they played into your hands by trying to meet you sword to sword; they wouldn’t have done that just after Dorylaeum, but with the siege going so badly they have got above themselves. All the same, I think it is enough for one day; loo
k how careful they are now it’s too late. You had better not go back until they drive their herds home for the night, which won’t be long now. There is a little jug of wine I keep for emergencies; will you have a drink?”
Roger felt like a hero, a very pleasant sensation. He had conquered his dread of a fall at full gallop, and he had been quick and dexterous at getting hold of the riderless horse; best of all, until he got back to the fort the remembrance of Hugh de Dives had not once occurred to his mind. This was what real war was like, meeting your enemies in full career and hurling them to the ground; and all before a crowd of admiring spectators. He coughed modestly, and said it was nothing and what about that drink.
In the evening the Turkish herdsmen went back into the city, driving the horses before them; and as darkness fell Roger set out on his long ride back to the main camp. The Duke was bound to be pleased with him, the Italians could be trusted to exaggerate his exploit, and furthermore he had regained his self-confidence. He was almost sorry that he met no enemies on the way home, and he trotted briskly through the chill of the evening; the new pony was used to being led, and he seemed a sound, good-moving horse, though common and not up to very much weight.
There was no one to welcome him at his own lodging, except the crossbowman who acted as groom.
“Where is Domna Anne?” he asked, “or Domna Alice? I am tired, and I want someone to disarm me.”
“Everyone has gone to watch the Duke distribute the spoil he won in the battle,” said the man, “and I expect, sir, that the ladies are there. I see you have been fighting also, and successfully; is there anything damaged that I ought to repair?”
“Take the shield,” Roger told him, “and smooth it down where that scar shows. Also I lost my lance; we have spare lanceheads among the baggage, and you are sure to find an Armenian pedlar with shafts for sale. I won’t disarm now. I shall go and look for Domna Anne as I am.”
He felt a strong sense of grievance. Whatever victories the Duke might have won, his wife should have been there to see her husband return with his spoil from single combat against odds.
There was a large crowd outside the Duke’s pavilion, and knights were clustered by the entrance. But Anne stood out, with her slender upright figure and golden face; she was full of excitement when he came up to her, and put up her cheek to be kissed very prettily.
“My dear,” she said rapidly. “I am so glad to see you back safe, though you must be tired and hungry. Isn’t it splendid news? Your Norman ambush was completely successful; they took more than thirty horses and killed I don’t know how many Turks. The Duke is just giving out his share of the captured horses now.”
Indeed, that was what the knights by the pavilion were waiting for. Roger decided to see the Duke, though he sent his wife back to prepare supper; he was angry that she had not shown more interest in his doings, and he told her nothing of his fight below Tancred’s castle, or of his own prize. For the first time in his life he had performed a brave deed of arms, and everyone was too busy talking of the Duke’s ambush to hear the story. When at last he was admitted to the pavilion he was boiling with rage; he came straight to the point.
“My lord, you told me yesterday that I was unworthy to ride with you to the ambush, and that if I wanted fighting I could go to Tancred’s castle. I went there to-day, killed a Turk, and took his pony. Now I have two ponies; would you, my lord, like one of them?”
The Duke was in excellent spirits, for he loved to make presents, and ten knights had been very glad to get their ponies.
“Ah yes, young man, I did say something of the kind; but you mustn’t take everything I say too seriously; you might have got yourself killed. Now you have an extra pony and you very loyally offer your lord the first chance of buying him; that is very good of you. But I’m, h’m, a little short of actual gold, h’m, at the moment. When I sell I get promises, and when I buy they make me pay cash; it’s just as it was back home in Normandy.” He paused, wrinkled his brow, and went through a pantomime of desperate thinking.
“Could I buy this pony with anything else?” he continued. “Not gold, but wine say, or a pretty slave girl? No, I see you are not that sort of man; besides, I remember, you have only just been married. I’ve got an idea, my second warhorse. I never ride him now, while we are encamped for this siege, and it is a shame to keep a warhorse idle when so many knights are on their feet. You can give me both your ponies and take Blackbird, my second warhorse, in exchange. How does that strike you?”
Roger was delighted, but this talk of horse-dealing automatically brought a surly, wooden expression to his face.
“It all depends, my lord, on what you think of the ponies and what I think of the horse. Perhaps I could examine him in daylight.”
“Of course,” said the Duke heartily. “Bring your animals here to-morrow after breakfast, and I’ll tell them to have Blackbird ready. I’m sure you will like him; he’s not young, but he’s sound, and I trained him myself.”
Roger went back to his hut, and over a late supper told Anne and Domna Alice all about his adventures; they had both had years of practice at listening to knights telling their achievements in battle, and showed a suitable interest.
In the morning the exchange was effected; Blackbird was a big, powerful horse, not very fast, which made him safe in the charge, but sound in legs and wind, and with the deep ribs that mean staying-power; he was about twelve years old, but good for two or three more campaigns, and he had been carefully trained by the Duke himself. The shortage of warhorses in the pilgrims’ camp made it hard to calculate his value, but even in Normandy he would have been a good horse.
Roger found that his new acquisition altered his status considerably. In the West, as armour and weapons were improved, the gulf between lords who could equip themselves with the best that money could buy, and simple knights who relied on the fighting gear of their fathers at Hastings, was tending to widen. He had always been regarded as a knight of the second rank, but now, though he still had no mail breeches, the possession of a warhorse put him on an equality with dukes and counts.
As the siege dragged on into December, Roger was glad he had only one horse to look after, for it was a difficult job to keep even Blackbird fed; in midwinter the fields gave little grazing, and it was not easy to compel the liberated peasants to give up their grain for fodder; there was also disease in the transport-lines, and the mules that had carried his wife and her companion died of it. The groom wandered all day in the plain of the Orontes valley, cutting rushes and sun-dried grass for the warhorse, and Roger had to spend several gold pieces to buy oats from the Syrian merchants. Yet the horses must be kept alive somehow until the spring, for without them the pilgrims would not be an army.
Food also grew more and more scarce; their Turkish overlords had effectively discouraged the Syrian peasants from hoarding grain, and there was only the last autumn’s harvest to feed both the country-side and their deliverers. Of course, warriors were used to seeing peasants starve in wartime, but in this strange, mountainous country, where their language was not understood, it was difficult to ferret out the buried grain from the hilltop villages. As one of the better armed, Roger was not called on for these unpleasant foraging parties, and the susceptibilities of peaceful Sussex were not harrowed, but every burnt-out farmhouse meant more spies for the Turks, or more useless starving non-combatants hanging about across the river from the camp, begging from every passer-by. The Count of Blois still managed a small daily distribution of grain, but the price of meat, or any other extra, rose to fantastic heights among the pilgrims, still stuffed with gold from the Greek Emperor’s largesse.
In the middle of the month the council of the leaders caused proclamation to be made that all non-combatants, women, clerks, and other useless mouths, should leave the camp to winter in the Greek towns or at the port of Saint Simeon. Roger heard this with mixed feelings; since his wedding he had not been parted from his wife for a single day, and he would miss her dreadful
ly. But she had grown much thinner, and the leaky hut had given her a cough. It was lucky she had not started a baby. He sent her off to the port, with Domna Alice and two sickly crossbowmen; they had ten gold pieces to last until spring, while he kept only a handful of Greek small change, queer coins of copper washed with silver on the outside; but the local merchants knew the tricks of the mint at Constantinople, and valued these coins as copper only. There was no transport, and Anne had to make the journey on foot; Roger felt a pang as he watched the two gently-reared ladies shouldering their bundles across the stony plain, but all the pilgrims had come down in the world during the last year, and even the Duke of Normandy often went hungry to bed.
He discussed the situation with his cousin Robert, as they strolled on the riverbank.
“I don’t see that we are doing any good, sitting here,” he complained. “It was stupid to start this siege so late in the season. This is my first campaign, but I always thought one went into winter-quarters by November at latest. What do we gain by grinning at the Turks across this marsh; we can’t get at them, and they don’t bother to chase us away.”
“There is a reason, all the same,” said Robert in a low voice. “Perhaps you don’t realize quite how bad things are. The leaders are afraid that if they let us disperse now, they will never get an army together again in the spring. Nothing keeps a disheartened army together like the constant presence of the enemy; that is why they dare not let us go to the Greek towns.”
Roger was taken aback by this despondent view from his cousin, who was usually so sanguine.
“Do you think we are any nearer taking the town than we were two months ago?” he continued. “They still get in convoys of provisions by the Gate of Saint George, and send their horses to graze under the wall.”
“Oh come, you never know how badly the enemy are feeling. They must think we are the sort of people who never let go. And remember these Turkish rulers hate one another just as our kings do in the West. None of them like the present lord of Antioch, and they may leave him to his fate; in that case we can starve him out in the summer if only we hang on here. After all, we have done pretty well so far, marching from Nicaea to the Orontes in spite of anything the Turks could do.”
Knight with Armour Page 13
