by Simon Acland
Godfrey sat down again to his meal, lowering himself heavily. I told him of my treatment at Baldwin’s hands, and of the vengeance I had wreaked on Bagrat. Godfrey’s eyes regained some of their old sparkle. But I did not speak of my true purpose in Antioch. I did not want to suffer the lewd jibes that Godfrey would make about Blanche. Nor did I want to have to explain everything that had happened at Alamut. I did not wholly understand myself. And Godfrey would not wish me to leave again with Hasan-i Sabbah’s book. So I simply related that after my escape from Baldwin I had been captured by a wandering group of Turks, to be held prisoner for months in a remote stronghold until a gaoler’s careless oversight had allowed my escape.
“It strikes me that your captors minded you well,” said Godfrey. “You look to me fitter and stronger than I remember. Or perhaps it is just the sad contrast with the rest of us after the hardships we have suffered.”
I then told how I had observed the Turkish army, of my skirmish with the Arab riders, and of the headlong gallop to the Iron Bridge. Godfrey grinned with delight.
“I knew you would turn out more warrior than monk, Hugh. We must take your news to Bohemond when he returns from his battle at the citadel, for he is our general now. He took the city, you see.”
“Yes, so I heard. I was told that Bohemond found a turncoat inside the walls and had him let down ladders to his Normans.”
“Another Armenian, he was. They’re all like Bagrat – cannot be trusted. The only one who does not acknowledge Bohemond’s leadership is Count Raymond. His Provençals hold a section of the city by the Bridge Gate and he sulks there in the best palace in Antioch. That single eye of his watches Bohemond with careful suspicion. Anyway we all shared in the plunder of the city.”
Godfrey pointed to an untidy pile of treasures stacked in a corner of the room.
“But we cannot eat gold and silver, nor even silk and wool. There’s no food left; our blockade was too tight and no provisions were left in the city when we took it. Now we are suffering from our own prowess. This skinny rodent,” he gestured at his plate with disgust, “cost me two silver shillings.”
“It’ll get worse still when Kerbogha’s army shuts us in,” I said as Godfrey took another bite. “Do our knights have any horses left to ride? Mine was eyed in the street greedily for its meat.”
Godfrey mumbled through his stringy mouthful. “When we won the city scarcely more than seven score stallions were left to the whole army; perhaps four hundreds were found inside but most of those can scarcely stand for want of fodder. Half of those have probably now been eaten. But that’s not the worst of it. The Turks still hold the citadel up the mountain. It commands the lower town and they can sally forth at will to harass us.” He shook his head and picked his teeth. “If Bohemond can find a way to keep this city, good luck to him. I’ve stood by my pact to help him win Antioch. I hope he’ll leave me Jerusalem if I last that long. What a time you have chosen to rejoin us! Few would be bold enough to enter these walls at a time like this. More have fled to safety – some ran away even before we won the siege. So, Hugh, you are a brave man but I’ll wager that you’ll soon wish you’d stayed away. But I’ll not pretend to be other than pleased to see you.”
With a woeful expression on his hungry face Godfrey turned his attention back to his roasted rat.
“My Lord, I am just glad to be back with you. I swore that if I won through to rejoin you I would give prayers of thanks in the ancient Cave Church of Saint Peter. I’d heard it is the holiest place in the city. I want to fulfil my vow as soon as I can. Then I’ll lend my help to the city’s defence. Can someone direct me that way?”
I thought that if I could find the Lazarus Gospel and take it from the church I could be away before Atabeg Kerbogha’s noose tightened around Antioch’s neck. But Godfrey laughed bitterly.
“You’ve chosen the wrong place for your prayers, my friend! Old Adhemar also wanted to say his prayers of thanks in Saint Peter’s holy cave, but found that it is set upon the hillside under the citadel. You’d be brought down by arrows before you reached it, or cut to pieces whilst you were on your knees inside. Either say your prayers somewhere else or wait until we have dislodged the Turkish garrison.”
So I learned that after all I would have to stay while Kerbogha besieged the city. The image of Antioch as a giant trap was unpleasantly real. All that was left for me to do was to fight as best I could to dislodge the citadel’s garrison.
As soon as his poor meal was over, Godfrey took me to deliver my news to Bohemond. The Norman had just returned from leading the fighting at the citadel. I saw that privation had taken its toll on him as well. His broad form had been thinned by a meagre diet and the responsibility of command. His blue eyes were reddened and bloodshot from lack of sleep and the dust of battle. His shoulder-length hair was uncharacteristically unkempt and his smooth face was for once roughened with stubble. To my concern Tancred was with his uncle. I quickly thought back to my last encounter with him at Mamistra. Both Normans heard my tale of capture and escape with sceptical expressions. Bohemond leaned sideways to allow Tancred to whisper up into his ear, and then turned fiercely back.
“Turkish walls and dungeons are more solid than this man pretends. Your story does not ring true. My nephew tells me that you were with bloody Baldwin at Tarsus. That was where he shamefully betrayed our Norman kin and locked them out of the town to be slaughtered. Then he was at Mamistra when Baldwin came to blows with our men. Why do you come here now of all times? Is this part of some plot hatched by your crafty brother, Godfrey?”
Godfrey protested that I had travelled with Baldwin at his direct command. I remembered how flattery had soothed Tancred’s anger once before and bowed deeply.
“My Lord Tancred, when we last met I told you that I was with Baldwin at my Lord Duke’s request. I told you that Baldwin hated me. I said he had chosen me as a messenger to you to put me in harm’s way. I had no love for Baldwin – I was his prisoner. Remember that I gave him no warning of your intent, for when you fell on his camp with your men, seeking just revenge for Tarsus, you found he had made no special preparations.”
“His camp was well guarded, but no better that I would have expected of one of his distrustful cast of mind,” Tancred acknowledged grudgingly, and I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The Normans’ suspicion soothed, I rushed on to tell Bohemond of the disposition of Kerbogha’s army, hoping to confirm his trust with good information.
“You will find that his army is numerous. But it is made up of many different tribes each under their own emirs. Maybe it can be fragmented by a stout and single-minded force under your command, Lord Bohemond.”
Bohemond soon learned that my appraisal of Kerbogha’s army was correct, for over the next few days disparate thousands arrived and surrounded the city, taking up their positions in the same earthworks that had recently been held by our men. So the besiegers did indeed become the besieged. Gone now was any chance for me to reach Saint Peter’s Cave Church and escape before the siege began. Bohemond and his Normans had fought valiantly to dislodge the Turks from the citadel whose towers brooded over the city from the top of Mount Silpius. But the approach to the fort was too steep, the walls that faced the city too strong, and the defenders too determined. Foiled, the Normans had established a camp to the south of the stronghold, and were readied to launch a flank attack from there should the Turks attempt to charge down the slope into the town. But it was essential to build fortifications at the foot of the mountain to meet the force of such a charge. This task was given to Godfrey and his Lorrainers. Here with other desperate men I laboured, my shoulder now quickly and fully healed. I hoped from here that I could throw the enemy back and fight through to the Cave Church and its precious secret. High above on the hillside, brooding over the same valley, a great statue had been cut in ancient times into the rock of the mountain. It showed the head and shoulders of a man, ominously veiled. The Antiochenes called him the Charonian. His shrouded gaze threatened
me as I worked. I wondered if I would be among the many whom he would row across to Hades in the days to come.
My feeling of foreboding rose until I lived in fear. But that was no shame. I think every man, however brave, if he were honest, was scared. Neither wine nor ale was left in the city, and nothing could dull the dread we all felt, of pain, suffering, disfigurement or death in the fight to come. We knew what had happened to the garrison at the Iron Gate, for Kerbogha had ordered their heads to be impaled upon lances and mounted within sight of our walls, the brave captain’s in the middle on a pole somewhat longer than his unfortunate men’s. The Normans in their improvised camp on the flank of the mountain could only watch in helpless apprehension as the citadel filled with the freshest and strongest of Kerbogha’s troops through its outer gate. We all quaked in expectation of their attack. Nerves were stretched to breaking point and petty squabbles broke out frequently between comrades. Bohemond had ordered the houses near the ramparts to be burned, to create more space for his soldiers to manoeuvre if the outer walls or gates were breached, and to make it harder for deserters to climb out unseen. At dawn on my third day in the besieged city, rough smog from the fires still billowed through the streets. The guards peered into the thin grey light with eyes red-rimmed by smoke and lack of sleep. Suddenly one man, his watch sharpened by fear, screamed the alert.
“They’re coming; oh God in Heaven, they are coming.”
Desperate men gripped their weapons as enemy wave after enemy wave poured down the slope in a tide of vengeance. They seemed unstoppable. Their war cry “Allahu Akbar” was answered by ragged roars from dry Christian throats. I felt a rush of relief brought by the start of combat. At last the waiting was over.
Those defenders who had their crossbows to hand had just enough time to let one salvo fly. A few Saracens in the front line tumbled, knocked back by the force of the quarrels at short range and tripping others behind. Another roar came from the right, “The Cross, the Cross, Bohemond, Tancred, Deus le volt”, as the Normans sallied from their camp and crashed into the attackers’ flank. The weight of their charge squeezed the Saracen ranks together and forced some to turn to defend themselves. It slowed the attack just enough to prevent us on our rudimentary walls at the bottom of the slope from being swept away. Nevertheless, the tide broke over us with terrible force.
A few Saracens were carried to the top of the wall by the momentum of their downhill charge. We threw them back and then we held the enemy off with spears, thrusting down at them from the top of our makeshift wall. The Turkish archers behind could not fire now for fear of hitting their own men. I was in the thick of the fighting. My conscious mind was torn between keeping safe for Blanche and my own sake and straining every muscle to drive the enemy away so that I could win through to my goal. But in truth I had no choice but to fight; I was caught up in a furious tornado. Some of the Saracens hurled missiles, and in my eagerness to stab down at the enemy I showed too much of a target and received a great blow in my ribs. I fell backwards, for a javelin had torn through my coat of mail and cut a long gash in my side. I staggered from the fight to staunch the flow of blood.
My wound bound up, and slightly refreshed by a draught of vile brackish water, I returned to the fray. The enemy numbers were beginning to tell. Baying soldiers had climbed the defences and were dropping over the wall. Rallying a group of men, I rushed at the foe, hewing and hacking with my sword until its blade streamed with blood. The swordsman at my left fell, his face cut open by a scimitar. I turned to face the killer, who now swung ferociously at me. I sidestepped but not quite far enough, and felt a line of fire burn down my left cheek. The enemy’s defence lowered, I swung back and struck a great blow at the side of his head. The half-severed neck pumped blood out in a scarlet fountain which sprayed over my surcoat. Elated, I turned to find my next adversary, but saw that the other Saracens who had climbed the defensive wall had been dealt with and were dead or dying. Those outside the wall turned and ran back to regroup, before flooding back in wave after wave again and again.
That battle at the base of Mount Silpius raged until night fell and the dark delivered some respite. My shield was battered and dented by countless blows; my arms and shoulders ached from the effort of wielding my weapons and fending off the enemy. The wound in my ribs throbbed with pain, and the deep cut down my cheek stung and burned. My body was a mass of bruises. I staggered back exhausted to Godfrey’s lodging and collapsed fully clothed on the pile of squalid straw that passed for my bed.
I woke at dawn, reinvigorated, to the sound of the trumpets announcing the renewal of conflict. I stripped off my sweat-stinking mail to inspect the wound under the bloody dressing on my side. To my surprised relief it was already healing well and most of the pain had passed, although it itched madly. I found the same when I gingerly fingered the deep cut on my cheek. Breakfast was some tough cold camel meat that Godfrey’s steward had found, the scrawny carcass of which had cost no fewer than fifteen marks of silver, or so he had said with disgust the day before. Picking morsels of the stringy flesh from between my teeth, I returned to my station at the wall, knowing that my poor breakfast had been better by far than most of the other men had enjoyed.
Another wave of attackers poured down the slope. Again I was in the thick of the fight. My energy and skill began to attract admiring glances and inspired by example those who watched me. We drove them back and in bold enthusiasm I leapt to the top of the wall, yelling defiance and challenging the Saracens to take me on. None dared face me sword to sword but a determined Turkish spearman lurking wounded at the foot of the wall thrust his weapon upwards. It flashed under my mail coat deep into my right thigh. A scream of pain burst from my throat. Leaning down, I split the spearman’s head with my sword but tottered backwards. As I weakened, I shouted for a leather thong to be brought and tied in a tourniquet round my upper thigh to staunch the flow of blood. This time the wound was bad enough to lay me in the hospital, a grim and ghastly building full of grey-faced men bound with dirty bandages. Less than one in three left those rooms alive. An overworked surgeon grimaced and pursed his lips when he saw the damage the spear had done.
I passed the rest of that day and the night in that dank and dreadful place among men with stumps where limbs had been, surrounded by groans and animal whimpers forced by relentless agony. I too was tormented by pain but feared most the look on the surgeon’s face, where I read that the amputation saw might soon be sharpened for me too. Nearby, through the stench of gore and excrement, I could detect the rotten smell of someone’s gangrened flesh.
Kind sleep took these thoughts away, only for them to return with morning’s cold light. I reached down to my damaged thigh and found I could bend my knee and hip joints. They were a little stiff, yes, but the muscles seemed to work. The wound could not have been as bad as I feared. But how it itched! Cautiously I rose to my feet. I was able to stand, albeit a little unsteadily. The surgeon stared at me with sharp astonishment, and shrugged his shoulders as his patient limped slowly away.
Godfrey was no less surprised and showed his delight by thumping me on the back.
“Hugh, my friend, I was worried about you. I thought you had had it this time. Since you came back you seem to be indestructible. Perhaps it is your youth that heals you so fast.”
For three more days the fighting continued on Mount Silpius, broken only by the hours of darkness. I returned again and again to fight in the front rank, earning praise and respect from all those who saw me. I learned more in those desperate days about how to handle arms in battle than in all the months of effort in the training lists. My growing experience and skill gave protection from further injury, whilst I exacted a terrible toll on the enemy, despatching many unfortunate souls to their next world. Battle-hardened, I now scarcely thought of the damage I did, or of the pain I inflicted.
On the night after the third day of the fighting, a star with a great tail flashed across the sky, disappearing over the horizon behind the Saracen
camp. Many took this as a portent of God’s favour. Perhaps the Moslems took it as an evil omen, for on the fourth day of the struggle, they decided that they had had enough and stayed inside the citadel. A great cheer went up from our crude wall. Those of us who remained standing felt that we had won a great victory. The slopes were littered with dead Saracen bodies which we left to the vultures and the jackals. Our Christian dead numbered hundreds too. Although exhausted, we collected our broken comrades and buried them as best we could. Many bodies were unrecognisable, either dismembered by enemy swords, torn by birds and beasts, or already stinking, swollen and blown with maggots.
But victory was by no means won. Kerbogha had simply changed his strategy. Now he would starve us into submission, or perhaps wait until we were too much weakened by hunger and the disease that stalked with it to hold out against another assault. I filled with despair. At least when under attack I fought with hot blood flowing. Now, penned into the festering city, surrounded on all sides by putrefaction, all I could do was await my fate. And worst of all, the citadel was still held by the Turks so I could no more reach the Cave Church than walk on water.
SAINT LAZARUS’ COLLEGE
“I knew it. I knew it. I saw it coming. I said so. I knew we were going to get all that nonsense about how Islam was better than Christianity.”
The Chaplain spluttered in a distinctly unchristian rage and the Best-Selling Author looked uncharacteristically alarmed by his outburst.
“Look old chap, it is just two young men in a book talking to each other. You should not take it to heart so much. And if you read it again more carefully, I think you will see that neither Hugh nor Mohammed is able to provide a full justification for their beliefs. Honours are pretty equal.”
