Knight with Armour

by Alfred Duggan

  On the 5th of July, exactly a week after the battle, the citadel finally surrendered. Anne arrived from Saint Simeon, and found her husband’s house after inquiring at the Duke of Normandy’s palace in the lower town. Roger was delighted to see her again; during her absence he had thought of her chiefly as a responsibility that must not be neglected; now he saw her again as a beautiful and intelligent person, someone in all this crowd of strangers who was his own to love. She was satisfied with the house, found the forced labour of the native Christians quite adequate, and saw-to it that her husband had clean bedding and good meals. Roger settled down to a belated honeymoon, to rest and comfortable living, after the hardships of the past year. He could be idle with a clear conscience, for the leaders had met in council immediately after the surrender of the citadel, and announced that the army would rest until All Saints’ Day, the 1st of November.

  They had also discussed the future of Antioch, but the meeting had been stormy and they had failed to agree. The Count of Taranto claimed that the city had been promised to him; he had said this so often and for such a long time that it had become generally accepted as an article of belief, though in fact no one could remember a public promise by the Greek Emperor to this effect, and in any case most of them would have denied that it was Alexius’s property to give. Undoubtedly Count Bohemund had been instrumental in the treacherous capture of the place, and the council had promised it to anyone who could take it, at a time when affairs were in a very desperate condition; but many people argued that it was only an accident that he had been the first leader approached by the traitor, and all the great lords had taken part together in the actual escalade.

  It was rather surprising that the chief champion of the rights of the Greek Emperor should be the Count of Toulouse, who had always refused to become his man, and had only taken an oath not to make war on his dominions. Public opinion condemned Raymond, for it was widely believed that his only motive was jealousy of the Count of Taranto. Meanwhile the various sections of the wall were held by different contingents, all under arms and with full military precautions.

  A week later the council met to discuss yet again the government of Antioch, and the future plans of the army. A certain amount of previously unknown information leaked out at once; for one thing, the Greek Emperor had been in the field with his army, and might be said, by his friends, to have been coming to the assistance of the pilgrims; but at Philomelium, on the other side of the Taurus mountains, he had met the Count of Blois and other fugitives, who said all was lost, and the pilgrim army probably butchered already; so he had turned back to protect his own borders. It was known that the Count of Toulouse was making the most of this, as proving that the Emperor had done his best to bring help; but most of the pilgrims argued that the Greeks had been carefully keeping out of the way until the battle was decided. In fact, everyone would have been unanimous in telling the Emperor to come and take Antioch by force if he wanted it, if only they could have agreed on some other lord for the city.

  The Count of Taranto had the best claim, but nobody trusted him, for the Normans of Italy were known to be unscrupulous; he was quite capable of making an alliance with the infidel against the Emperor, and then the Christians of the East would be worse off than ever. So argued those, like Roger himself, who had come on the pilgrimage out of genuine religious feeling. Of course the others, the landless adventurers who had come to win land from anyone too weak to hold his possessions, backed Count Bohemund as a lord after their own hearts; this gave him enough support to persevere against the wishes of the majority. Even the disinterested pilgrims could not uphold with full conviction the Count of Toulouse, the Emperor’s chief advocate; it was too obvious that his motive was not zeal for the Christians of the East, but jealousy of a better warrior than himself.

  Every speech was recounted to the excited crowd in the square, by the numerous clerks and messengers who came in and out of the council hall; luckily, though the garrisons of the various towers were in full armour, the crowd was unarmed, and there was no more serious distrubance than cheers and counter-cheers. Long after dinner-time, when the most boisterous of the partisans had melted away to their meal, Roger heard a rumour that the Legate was proposing a compromise. He decided to stay and hear the fate of the city decided, though Anne might be anxious about him; if it was war between Provence and Apulia he would go north and take service with some lord in Edessa or Cilicia, rather than fight his fellow-pilgrims.

  The Bishop’s proposal at least prolonged the uneasy truce. Alexius was given another chance; the Count of Vermandois, the man of highest rank in the whole pilgrimage, was to go to the Emperor and bid him hasten to Antioch; if he came at once with his whole army he might have the city; otherwise the council would dispose of it. Meanwhile, for the sake of-peace, the leaders were encouraged to send out their men on private expeditions; this would avert spontaneous clashes before the next council-meeting on All Saints’ Day.

  This was news; and good news too. Perhaps the Duke would ride out to win land in the east or the south, and there would be a castle for him after all. So Roger thought, as he hurried back to his wife. As he swung round a corner he was challenged by a cross-bowman with a wound and loaded weapon. The man cried out in Italian for him to halt, and then repeated the command in bad French. Roger was taken aback; he knew that the various parties held portions of the wall by armed force, and strangers were not allowed near, but it was a bad sign if that state of affairs was spreading to the houses in the interior of the town. He brushed back his mantle, to show that he carried no sword, and asked the fellow whose man he was.

  “I follow no lord,” answered the sentry in barbarous French. “I am a citizen, and this factory is held by the Senate and people of Genoa.”

  “Well, I don’t want to take it away from them,” said Roger pleasantly. “But how did you come by it? The council has just been trying to decide who the city belongs to, and they can’t make up their minds.”

  “The Count of Taranto, who took the city, has given us the whole quarter, and we shall hold it against his enemies and ours. If you want to buy our goods you can go up that alley there to the warehouse, but no strange knights may wander about in this street.” And he brought up his crossbow in menacing fashion.

  Roger went back round the corner, and found another way to his house. It was clear now that Count Bohemund would have the city sooner or later. It also knocked on the head his earlier idea of becoming a merchant, for the Italian cities were close corporations of traders, all supporting one another under the leadership of a Bailey, and there would be no room for an independent competitor. His future was still undecided.

  When he reached home he was pleased to find Robert de Santa Fosca finishing dinner with Anne; perhaps it was a little unconventional of her to dine alone with a man, but the servants must have been in and out of the room all the time, and anyway they were all campaigning together. He had not seen his cousin since the miraculous victory, and it would be interesting to hear his views on the political situation.

  “I see your Count is not losing much time,” he began, after the usual greetings. “As I was coming along the street I was stopped by a rude old Genoese sea-horse, with a crossbow; he told me his fellows held a quarter of the town from the Normans of Italy. You seem to have anticipated the verdict of the council, which still hasn’t made up its mind, as a matter of fact. But I don’t think anyone will try to turn you out by force, now you have the backing of the Italian fleets.”

  “Our Count moves quickly,” answered Robert. “But, of course, all this manoevring ought not to be necessary. Didn’t the Emperor promise us Antioch, and didn’t the council promise it to whoever managed to capture it? That is two good reasons why we should have it now. I was just telling Domna Anne what a pleasant place it will be to live in, when Count Bohemund is in control. The walls are still impregnable, and he is a good friend to all peaceful traders.”

  “I hope you are right,” Roger answered. �
�Those Italian sailors will be a help, too. They are the best crossbowmen and engineers we have in the army. Perhaps Antioch will be a good place to live in, but I don’t see how Anne and I can go on staying here. Where is the money to come from?”

  “Why not serve my Count? He always has room for more knights, especially Normans, and he has the money to pay good wages.”

  “My oath to the Duke won’t allow that; as long as he is on the pilgrimage I can’t leave him. Now don’t argue, Anne; we have had all this out before, and you know I have made up my mind on the matter.”

  “Very well, cousin,” said Robert with a sly grin. “Oaths must be kept, of course, if there is no way of getting round them. Your Duke is not good at winning land, and you won’t grow rich while you follow him. When he goes back to Normandy there will always be a welcome for you with us. Now tell me what you saw of the great battle. We were in the rear, facing the other party of Turks; we had hard fighting and little plunder, and the camp had been sacked when I got to it.”

  The conversation took a much more pleasant turn. Anne composed her face into the correct expression of rapt admiration, as her mother had taught her, and the two cousins settled down to a quiet bragging-match. Roger was hampered by the fact that he was eating his delayed dinner, but actually Robert had more to tell; for the Normans of Italy, facing the separated right wing of the Turks who had been cut off from the main body by the first Provençal charge, had had very much the hardest fight of the day. No one could deny that Count Bohemund, in supreme command, had chosen for himself and his followers the most dangerous task and the smallest chance of reward.

  Robert was always a charming companion, especially when there was a lady present, and the afternoon was one of the pleasantest Roger had spent since he crossed the sea. That evening he looked round his neat little living-room, stone built, weather-proof, and clean, and he sighed with satisfaction. All this, and the constant companionship of an attractive wife, was a fair reward for all his troubles and dangers in the cause of God’s Church; there was no justice in the world if he could not get enough money to keep it.

  Though the weather was very hot during a Syrian July, Antioch was a pleasant place to live in, especially for a knight who could leave his armour hanging on the wall. It was true that at first the town was uncomfortably full of armed men, and sentries challenged at every corner; but the various contingents never quite got to the point of attacking one another, and each lord was content carefully to guard his own winnings. Later in the month the army began to disperse. The Duke of Lotharingia marched north to help his brother to enlarge the borders of the County of Edessa, the Count of Toulouse was campaigning up the valley of the Orontes and in the direction of Aleppo towards the east, and the Count of Taranto went back to settle his lands in Cilicia. Both Provençals and Italians left garrisons to hold their respective portions of the city-wall, and Robert de Santa Fosca was one of those who stayed behind. The trade of the town was beginning to revive. With Asia Minor utterly desolate after twenty years of Turkish raids the silk and spices of the East had to find some other outlet to a prosperous Europe, and Jewish merchants, tolerated and despised by both sides, brought caravans from across the Tigris to the Genoese factory. Provisions were cheap and abundant, for the harvest was already gathered in; the Turks seemed to have given up the struggle, and had retired to Iconium in Asia Minor, or to the uplands between the Caspian and the Black Sea; no one feared the lightly armed skirmishing Arabs of the desert, and there was no dangerous enemy nearer than the garrisons of Egyptian soldiers in Jerusalem and the coast towns of the south. Hunting parties rode out far and wide, though the contending armies had made game scarce in the Orontes valley; there were picnics by cool springs, and, to the annoyance of strict churchmen, tournaments outside the walls. Roger passed the time pleasantly sitting in his cool and well-built house, or riding with Anne on hired mules to some beauty-spot for dinner in the open air.

  There was only one shadow on the season of gaiety; the Provençals and the Normans of Italy would not meet as friends. This was unfortunate, for Robert de Santa Fosca was liked by both the de Bodehams, and most of Anne’s women friends came from Provence. Of course, they were really quarrelling about the possession of Antioch, but as that seemed to be rather a sordid question they took sides also about the Holy Lance. The Legate, a Provençal, had made the Count of Toulouse guardian of the holy relic, which increased his prestige among the devout; but the Normans of Italy, themselves rather lax in religion and anti-clerical in politics, mocked at the whole thing as a fraud. Everyone was drawn into the dispute, for it was the chief topic of conversation even among those who cared nothing about who ruled in the town. Anne, though a Provençal, came from a family that had long been hostile to the Count of Toulouse, and her friendship with cousin Robert made her a mocker. Roger himself was doubtful; he went once to adore it, and made a small offering, but the whole affair was too much mixed up with politics to satisfy his faith.

  As usual, he took his difficulties to Father Yves. One day he found the priest outside one of the town churches; the good man was coming away in high spirits from the baptism of a family of hill-shepherds, who had been Orthodox Christians twenty years ago, infidels during the Turkish occupation, and had now been received into the Catholic Church; it was their simple rule to profess the same religion as the tax-collector who counted their flocks, but none of the pilgrims suspected that anyone could hold such a mercenary point of view.

  “We shall really get a grip of this land,” the priest said, as they walked slowly uphill on the shady side of the street. “These conversions are a most promising sign. The Greeks say that an infidel will never turn away from his idolatry, but it only shows that they don’t try hard enough to convert them. They don’t preach, and they won’t trouble to learn the local language; in fact, I don’t think they really want anyone to be saved who is not a subject of their Emperor.”

  “I am glad you think it promising,” answered Roger, “though I don’t believe any of the converts I have seen so far will add much strength to our arms. Have you baptized a warrior yet?”

  “Well, of course they find life easier if they don’t have to keep to our morality,” Father Yves admitted. “One prisoner had the impudence to tell the interpreter that it was the Law of Nature for one man to have many wives. Some of them seem to possess no natural conscience, and I am all in favour of killing out of hand those we find practising sodomy. They must know without being told by Revelation that it is very wrong.”

  “It might be a good idea to tell that to the King of England,” Roger said with a laugh. “One reason why I wouldn’t serve him as a soldier was that his sins cry out to Heaven for vengeance, and I don’t want to be involved in the bad end that must come to him. But seriously, Father, do you think we shall ever stamp out idolatry in Syria?”

  “Of course we shall in the end,” the priest answered stoutly. “It will take time, but the Truth must prevail. The Turkish and Arab fighting-men who are too proud to learn anything from us will go back at last to their deserts, and the humble peasants will do as they are told.”

  “Well, that seems a very satisfactory end to it all, but who will hold Antioch while you are preaching to the heathen?”

  “I haven’t any very strong opinions on that point,” Father Yves said slowly, like one thinking aloud. “The Greek Emperor has finally lost his chance; I suppose you heard that he led his army back to Constantinople? The Count of Vermandois went with him, and then right on back to France, which is really shameful. That is by the way. If the city is to be given to one of our leaders, then there is not much to choose between Toulouse and Taranto; they are both good warriors and practising Christians, and both have enough of a following to hold it. Our own Duke should have been given a chance; he has behaved much better out here than he used to at home, but I suppose the leaders felt that a lord who can’t keep his father’s inheritance would not be clever enough to hold this city. What about the Duke of Lotharingia? H
e sold his lands to fit out his men, and no one has fought harder or worked more earnestly to make the pilgrimage a success. I really don’t mind who is lord, so long as he is of good birth and reasonably good morals.”

  Roger saw the chance to put his question before they reached the house.

  “Do you think, Father, that the position of the Count of Toulouse is strengthened by the fact that he is the guardian of the Holy Lance? And did the Holy Lance win the battle for us? Or is the whole thing a fraud, as the Apulians are never tired of saying?”

  “That is three separate questions, my son. In the first place, we must reverence the Holy Lance since the Pope’s Legate accepts it, always remembering that Rome has not yet pronounced, and the Pope may still decide against it in the end. Secondly, was our victory really miraculous? I was in the very back row of the foot, and I can’t say that I had much serious fighting; but the Turks did not try very hard, for all that they outnumbered us so. As you know, I have been talking to the prisoners, and they tell me that the infidel army was disaffected. All these Turkish kings hate one another as much as they hate us, and some of their leaders were eager to betray the King of Mosul, who commanded them all. Then they had Arabs in their ranks, who won’t fight hand to hand. Perhaps we won that victory only because we were all of one mind, and our enemies were not. Finally, does the Count’s guardianship of the relic give him any claim to hold the town? Here I say no. The possession of the most sacred relics gives no claim to dominion. Otherwise we ought all to obey the Greek Emperor, who owns the Crown of Thorns, and the greater part of the True Cross, both much better authenticated than the Holy Lance.”

  The priest, trained in clear argument by the schools, had gone to the root of the question, and Roger felt relieved. Norman naturally supported Norman, but he had supposed uneasily that religion was on the side of the Provençals. As they reached the house he called out to Anne: