Templar

by Paul Doherty

  ‘I did not beg, mistress.’ Simeon paused in his writing.

  ‘No, Simeon, you did not. You simply said you didn’t want to die. You claimed you were a Catholic captured by the Turks. If I remember correctly,’ Eleanor added drily, ‘you even quoted canon law, though that made little difference to those two grotesques.’

  ‘Camel turds,’ Simeon whispered. ‘But thanks to you, mistress-sister . . .’ He leaned forward. ‘Oh, by the way, can I take the oath as a Poor Brother of the Temple? I know things.’

  ‘Do you, Simeon?’ Eleanor narrowed her eyes.

  ‘I know secrets about the hidden things. I have heard the whispers.’

  Eleanor glanced quickly at Imogene stretched out sleeping on a pile of cushions.

  ‘Simeon, I am always amazed at your skill for listening.’ She smiled. ‘But let us return to our chronicle.’

  ‘Of course, mistress-sister, though I must add my thanks to you and your noble brother for saving my life. I am so grateful . . .’

  ‘The chronicle, Simeon . . .’

  ‘Yes, mistress-sister . . .’

  Babewyn had seized Simeon by the throat, struggling to keep him in position so that Gargoyle could swing his mace. Eleanor had screamed at them to stop, but only the arrival of Hugh and Godefroi, their swords drawn, forced the two killers to retreat. Drunk and mouthing filthy curses, they staggered away. Eleanor took Simeon into her entourage as the Army of God turned from celebrating its victory to the grim business of besieging Nicea. The city baffled them. No such fortifications had faced a Frankish army in the west. They also had no boats, so attack from the lake was impossible. The moat in front of the walls stretched over two yards wide and the same deep. The first defensive wall beyond was at least six feet thick and nine yards high, with towers jutting out to defend the approaches. Even if this was breached, the towering curtain wall behind it, eighteen feet thick, was protected by a fresh range of towers from where archers and slingers, not to mention engines of war, could rake attackers with a blizzard of missiles. Frustration mounted amongst the Army of God. The jubilation over Arslan’s defeat soon evaporated as they tried desperately to take the city. The moat was filled in at a certain point and makeshift catapults and mangonels pushed across. They and the soldiers who manned them were swiftly engulfed in a flood of arrows, stones, javelins and sheets of roaring flame. Mantlets, screens of aspen and willow woven together, were built to protect the archers, but these too were ravaged by oily fire poured from the battlements.

  One morning Count Raymond, escorted by Hugh, Godefroi, Eleanor and others from the Poor Brethren, rode out along the moat to search for any weakness. From the fortifications rose jeering insults and a rain of arrows, which fell short. It was a clear, warm day, the breeze sweet with the fragrance of pine, cypress and the fruits ripening in the nearby orchards. The count reined in.

  ‘We have plenty of wood,’ Raymond’s one good eye glared at Hugh and Godefroi as he gestured at the trees, ‘but what can we do with it?’

  Hugh grasped the reins of the count’s horse. ‘Come, my lord, there is something.’ They galloped further along the evil-smelling moat.

  Eleanor found the palfrey she had been given sluggish, reluctant to move, so Theodore reined in, moving between her and the Turks lining the battlements. He grasped the palfrey’s reins and winked at Eleanor.

  ‘Just in case,’ he murmured, ‘the Turks might glimpse your beauty and sally out.’

  Eleanor blushed, and Theodore began to sing a troubadour song about a maid locked in a tower. Eventually Hugh led them to the most eastern part of the wall.

  ‘Look, my lord.’

  Eleanor followed her brother’s direction.

  ‘Theodore told me about this,’ continued Hugh. ‘Stare hard at the base of the tower: the brickwork is crumbling, the legacy of a previous siege.’

  Count Raymond stared, then clapped his hands in glee. Two days later a testudo, fashioned out of cypress, willow and aspen under a roof of holm oak, its leather covering saturated with wet sand, crossed the makeshift bridge to pound at what Eleanor had christened ‘the Leaning Tower’. Archers sheltered beneath the eaves of the testudo’s broad sloping roof and loosed at the enemy along the battlements. The engineers soon broke through the wall, shoring up the breach with beams as they picked feverishly at the crumbling masonry behind. Eleanor stood watching, safe behind a line of shielded carts. The tower collapsed just as darkness fell, but the following morning the camp was roused by trumpet cries. Eleanor, bleary-eyed, rushed out of her tent and joined the throng streaming down through the shifting mist to the eastern side of the moat. They stopped and stared in disbelief of the Leaning Tower. During the night, the defenders, working feverishly, had repaired the breach. Count Raymond’s anger knew no bounds, and like Achilles, he retreated to sulk in his tent while other leaders pressed on with the siege. Yet despite Kilij Arslan’s defeat, the Niceans were ferocious in the defence of their city. The enemy had desecrated their dead so they retaliated by lowering hooks on ropes to seize the corpses of Franks; these were pulled up, stripped and hung over the walls to rot. If the Army of God attacked, stone and arrow shattered head and neck; if the Franks broke through, they were swiftly deluged by flaming missiles.

  For a week the siege became a desultory affair of two enemies watching each other like circling dogs, then, abruptly, the atmosphere changed. Count Raymond bustled about accompanied by Tacticius the Greek commander. Ballistae and mangonels from the arsenals of Constantinople appeared in the camp. These were wheeled down to the Leaning Tower to launch a scathing attack of missiles and rocks that drove the defenders from the walls. A new breach was opened, and when darkness fell, the night was illuminated by roaring fires and the light of flaming missiles hurled at the tower. This time the Turks had no opportunity to repair the damage. The star-lit sky was streaked with orange tongues, the silence shattered by the whoosh of missiles, the crash of wood and stones and the cries of both defenders and attackers. As soon as daylight broke, the Poor Brethren of the Temple, to shouts of ‘Deus vult!’ and ‘Toulouse!’, prepared to lead Count Raymond’s force across the makeshift bridge over the moat. Hugh and Godefroi kissed Eleanor before tightening the chain-mail bands across their faces, which left only their eyes exposed. Helmets were strapped on, shields fastened to arms and swords drawn.

  Hugh and Godefroi led their company down to the bridge whilst archers, crossbowmen and engineers loosed volley after volley at the walls. The catapults edged even closer to intensify the barrage. Eleanor watched, heart in mouth, as Hugh and Godefroi crossed the rickety bridge. Smoke billowed about, screams and shouts echoed. The knights of Toulouse thronged all about her. Standards were unfurled, men-at-arms in full battle gear waited to reinforce the first assault on those formidable defences. The horror and din of battle whipped Eleanor’s senses as if some wandering demon had seized her soul, her mind, her imagination. She looked up at the empty blue sky bending over those soaring yellow-brick fortifications. Arrows, sling shots and other missiles scored the blue. Oaken bundles, smoking evilly, swept through the air, spouts of flame erupted from the battlements. Eleanor glanced again. Hugh and Godefroi, shields up, were halfway across the bridge when an earsplitting roar cut through the noise of war. Men were pointing at the battlements where scarlet and gold banners displaying the gorgeous eagle of Alexius Comnenus were being draped and hoisted. The city had fallen! Greek forces were inside. The Turks had surrendered! Trumpets called the retreat. Hugh and his company fell back even as more imperial banners fluttered from the ramparts above them. A loud screech cut the air. The great gates of Nicea swung open and Catephracti, blue-silver insignia fluttering from their spear points, came thundering out. Imogene cursed and immediately left, searching for Beltran. Eleanor, feeling weak, eager to escape the confusing storm of war, returned to her tent. She went to lie down on the ready-made palliasse but startled in horror at the two curved daggers, white bone-handles gleaming, pushed deep into the bolster, their blades
tied together by a ribbon of blood-red cord . . .

  ‘Know ye,’ a voice whispered behind her, ‘what you possess shall escape you and, in the end, return to us.’

  Eleanor turned slowly. At first she could see nothing, then she made out a shadow outlined by the slit in the tent through which the mysterious intruder must have entered. He sat cross-legged on the ground, garbed in a white robe, head and face swathed in a black turban exposing only the eyes.

  ‘The witch woman’s chart.’ The voice stumbled over the Norman French. ‘I know Fulcher gave it to you.’ He extended a gloved hand; the other tapped the hilt of the dagger in the red waistband.

  Eleanor tried to speak but couldn’t.

  ‘The chart!’ the man insisted.

  ‘My brother,’ Eleanor stammered. The sounds from outside grew stronger, followed by shouts of someone approaching the tent. Eleanor glanced at the main flap then back, but her mysterious visitor had vanished.

  Simeon the scribe, talking as ever – God had given him a tongue as nimble as his pen – burst into the tent gabbling the news. How the Emperor had brought ships in ox-drawn carts to the Askanian lake and sent them up against Nicea. How these ships had even captured the wife and family of the Governor of Nicea as they tried to escape. The Turks soon realised that if the Army of God manned those ships, their city would certainly fall and be devastated by fire and sword. They had immediately entered into secret negotiations with Alexius, promising to surrender to him if they and their possessions were spared from the Army of God. Alexius had agreed, sending a high-ranking envoy named Boutoumites into the city to accept the surrender. The leaders of the Army of God had had some inkling of this, but when the news became public, the Franks immediately accused Alexius of duplicity and treachery.

  Rumours were rife that Boutoumites had encouraged Tacticius to persuade Count Raymond to attack, writing a note: ‘We have the game in our hand, assault the walls. Do not let the Franks know the true situation but, after sunrise, let them attack the city.’ The leaders of the Army of God knew about the ships and the pressure these would place on the Turks, but they never expected such a swift surrender. The Emperor had kept them in the dark and by nightfall his deceit was common talk around the camp. Tempers rose, especially amongst the Normans from southern Italy led by Bohemond and Tancred, so Alexius moved quickly to mollify them. Cartloads of fresh provisions and wine, baskets, coffers and chests full of precious stones, gold and silver, stacks of weapons, piles of embroidered cloths and lines of sleek, plump horses were dispatched into the camp. The Poor Brethren of the Temple drew their share, ten gold bezants, which went into the common coffer under Godefroi’s care. Later that same night, Eleanor, Hugh, Godefroi, Alberic, Norbert, Theodore and Simeon gathered to meet. The scribe had been taken on to their council because of his clerical skills as well as his knowledge of the shrines of Jerusalem, particularly the Dome of the Rock. Theodore hosted the meeting, welcoming their new recruit, and pointing out that Simeon’s only protection against the rancour of the camp was Hugh and Eleanor, so it was little wonder the scribe had enthusiastically taken their secret oath. On that night, as all the gates of Nicea were opened and the heralds proclaimed how the Army of God would soon march for Antioch, Eleanor told them about her own mysterious visitor.

  ‘But who could it be?’ Alberic asked. ‘Every one of the Poor Brethren was mustering before the Leaning Tower.’

  ‘It must be someone in the Army of God,’ Eleanor insisted. ‘The same thing happened in Constantinople.’

  ‘The Fedawi,’ Theodore explained. ‘Perhaps their assassins lurk hidden amongst us? It is foolish to speculate, but at least we know the importance of Anstritha’s map. Lord Hugh, you have it safe, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hugh replied absent-mindedly. ‘You have all seen it, but come . . .’

  They turned to fresh news. Bohemond’s phalanx was to leave immediately the following morning. Count Raymond wanted the Poor Brethren of the Temple to join these and act as a link with the rest of the army. No one disagreed, eager for what Hugh called the ‘proper pilgrimage’ to begin in earnest.

  Eleanor would never forget their departure. They left Nicea just before the sun rose swiftly in sheets of red-gold flame against the light blue sky. A fitting start for what proved to be a time of wrath, of anger, the beginning of the horrors. Yet, as Eleanor wrote in her chronicle, it started ordinarily enough. She sat perched on one of the carts, Imogene squatting next to her as Bohemond’s column trudged down the old Roman road stretching to the valleys and dusty plateaus leading down to Antioch. They crossed stone bridges built by the ancients over streams and rivulets, and passed the occasional decaying Byzantine guard tower. On either side rolled wild meadows sprinkled with hardy summer flowers; now and again, long strips of ochre-tinted ploughland; here and there a solitary farmstead usually built around the shell of a ruined villa. Clumps of sycamore, holm oak, grey ash, willow and cypress broke the undulating landscape. They passed lonely villages with their dusty trackways, wandering goats, domed wells, silent vineyards and wine presses. The morning air rang with the clatter and rumble of carts, the jingle of harness, the clink of weapons, shouts and cries from the trudging men-at-arms. Dust clouds swirled, staining the black robes of the monks. Spear and lance tips caught the sunlight and flashed it brilliantly back. Faces, white, red and brown, became laced with sweaty dust. Children played or fought with each other. Hymns were chanted. A group of nobles in gorgeously coloured robes left the column escorted by their grooms clad in green and brown; hawks fluttered on their wrists, or strained against the perches, making the jesse-bells tinkle. Young men, leggings pulled up, stood in the streams, busy with string or net to catch fresh fish. Eleanor considered it was more like a day out in the country, visiting friends or enjoying the good weather, than marching to war. Scouts came galloping back: they had glimpsed Turkish patrols but nothing happened that day.

  By evening they reached a crossroads near the yawning mouths of two lonely valleys, apparently empty except for the boulders, rocks, shrubs and trees dotting their sides. In between the valley mouths stretched a large, reed-ringed marsh. Bohemond, alarmed by increased sightings of Turkish patrols as well as rumours that the valleys on either side might house more, used the marsh to protect the rear of his camp. Nothing happened that night; it passed quiet and peaceful under the stars. At sunrise the priests gathered the people around the altar carts. Candles glowed in lantern horns and incense circled up into the heavy morning mist as Tancred led a comitatus of knights to scour the valley to the east.

  As Mass finished, Tancred came hastening back with alarming news: Turkish horsemen were emerging out of the mist further down the valley. The Franks, still jubilant over what they considered their victory at Nicea and lulled by the calm morning, became excited and curious. Horsemen galloped off to catch sight of the enemy. Women and children mingled with the leaders at the front of the column; eventually these were forced back, becoming an unruly mob. Eleanor glimpsed Bohemond in full chain mail, a towering figure on his powerful black war charger. Riders, casting up clouds of dust, came galloping towards him, turning in the saddle and gesturing back. Eleanor recognised Hugh, Godefroi and Theodore. What they announced must have been truly alarming. Bohemond turned to face the people, ordering them to move back. Hugh, Godefroi and the rest forced their way through, jumping from their saddles, screaming for their harness and weapons.

  ‘Eleanor, Eleanor!’ Theodore pushed her back towards the tent. He snatched up a wet rag from just inside and wiped the dust from his face. ‘Arm yourselves,’ he gasped. ‘They aren’t Turkish patrols. Kilij Arslan’s entire army is coming out of that valley, thousands and thousands of horsemen. They’ll sweep us away!’ He gestured at Imogene, who stood horror-struck. ‘Arm!’ he yelled, then he snatched at the reins of his horse and clambered into the saddle. ‘Lord Bohemond is sending me back to hasten on the rest. Eleanor . . .’ He meant to say more, but shrugged, turned his horse and galloped off.

 
Terror and panic swept the camp as more scouts rode in. The Turkish battle lines were fast approaching. Bohemond forced his way through the gathering troops, imposing order. Carts were pulled into position. Oxen and donkeys were swiftly unhitched, their pack saddles and baggage used to defend gaps. Bohemond ordered all horsemen to the front. The rear of the camp would be protected by the marsh whilst a semicircle of foot and archers would guard its flanks. Battle instructions were shouted, armour and harness quickly donned and clasped, swords and daggers loosened in their sheaths. The anxiety spread, apprehension deepened. Men knelt praying, sobbing for help.

  ‘Here they come!’ shouted a voice.

  Eleanor, standing on a cart, watched the haze swirl out of the mouth of the valley. It ebbed and flowed to reveal flashes of colour and the glitter of armour. A rumbling thunder shook the earth. The cloud of dust billowed then broke. Eleanor caught her breath at the power of the enemy. Hordes of horsemen armed with round shields, their bows already strung, arrows notched. They came on in a thunder of hooves, a pounding of drums and a clash of cymbals. They broke into a trot, a dense throng hurling itself towards the now silent Frankish lines. Screams pierced the air. Green banners flowed and rippled in the morning breeze. The Franks, standards now unfurled, answered with their own battle cries then, like lurchers in a hunt, burst into a furious, galloping charge. They should have smashed into the enemy like a battering ram, but the Turks divided abruptly to the left and right. As they did so, their mounted archers loosed shaft after shaft at the Frankish lines before closing in on the flanks with axe and scimitar, grappling hooks being thrown to drag the mailed knights from the saddle. Steel, flint and rock bit into head and stomach, smashing blows that severed hands, arms and legs. A second phalanx of Frankish knights prepared to charge but the Turkish horse, light and swift, came round the embattled first line and raced past the waiting ranks, loosing a deadly hail of arrows. Horses collapsed; others were panicked into galloping, only to be surrounded by Turks who closed to bring both horse and rider crashing to the ground. Bohemond could take no further provocation. The battle standards of Normandy unfurled, the air ringing with his war cry, his knights broke into a full charge against their tormentors.