Prince of Legend

by Jack Ludlow

  First he wanted to know by what right the Count of Taranto held on to Antioch when specific undertakings had been made and vows sworn that any possession taken back from the Turks must be handed over to Byzantium? Next he issued what amounted, however diplomatically it was couched, to a demand that the Crusade wait upon him in their present location, prior to his arrival with both an army and a fleet, at which point he would take personal command of the march on Jerusalem.

  ‘Therefore,’ Raymond insisted, ‘we must do as the Emperor desires and await his arrival.’

  ‘Just as we waited at Antioch?’ Tancred enquired.

  ‘This time he will keep his word.’

  ‘By what divine knowledge do you see this?’

  Raymond waved the scroll on which this commitment was inscribed. ‘We have it here.’

  ‘You have a promise, My Lord, and we all have had near two years to observe the value of an imperial pledge.’

  That florid face went a brighter hue, as it always did when Raymond’s anger ran ahead of his tact. ‘How much you sound like your uncle. Might I remind you, Lord Tancred, that your voice in these councils is a courtesy, not merited by your following. You took my silver, are obligate to my banner and for that I expect your loyalty.’

  Normandy was quick to react. ‘Am I too obligated?’

  ‘Less so than Tancred, given your rank and your many lances, My Lord, but for the same reasons, yes.’

  ‘Would this have anything to do with the siege of Arqa?’ Flanders asked. ‘If we wait for Alexius, that can be maintained.’

  ‘The two meld, I will not deny it. The siege can be pressed to a success before Alexius gets to us.’

  ‘He will not come,’ Tancred insisted, ‘and even if he does, are we to bow the knee to a ruler who has so far failed us?’

  Godfrey de Bouillon, hitherto silent, but clearly by his expression less than content, finally spoke up before Raymond could reply. ‘Such a delay permits the Fatimids to take a strong grip on Jerusalem. They may make it a city harder than Arqa to capture.’

  ‘Who is to say it is not that already?’

  ‘Count Raymond, you of all people know that when al-Afdal’s men took the city from the Turks – and by all the accounts we have he did so with ease – their first task would have been to make it safe from anyone else. It would be reasonable to judge the defences were in poor repair when the Fatimids arrived, which will not be the case the longer we leave them in possession.’

  Everyone but Toulouse was in agreement with Godfrey, but as a discussion it went on to be circular, as the two sides covered the same ground time and again with slight variations in their arguments. What was missing, and this was plain to Tancred, was the overarching voice that would draw matters to a conclusion, an authority that had been missing since the death of Bishop Adémar of Puy. Without the consent of all, neither side could safely move so the siege went on, pressed home by Raymond’s men over several weeks, with no more success now than previously: Arqa refused to fall.

  The time spent in that allowed for messages to pass back to Antioch, not least the imperial displeasure at it being held by not only a Latin, but by Bohemund of Taranto. Along with that was the news of Alexius’s intention to join the Crusade in the Lebanon, obviously by sea, and then march on Jerusalem, which at least relieved the anxiety that he would come to Antioch first and soon. Not that such a course, even if it was followed, provided security; with the Holy City captured what would Alexius do next?

  The answer was obvious and, coming from the south, Bohemund would have a much reduced chance of blocking his way in order to negotiate terms advantageous to him – there were no natural obstacles, narrow easily defended passes like the Cilician Gates, as there were if he came from the north. Whatever, if he had to fight for the city he would.

  At the very least Bohemund had decided he would hold Antioch as a subject of Alexius if he had to and could negotiate such a grant in lieu of a costly Byzantine siege. But his ambition raised higher than that: to be, in person and in fact, Prince of Antioch. Yet to achieve that elevated aim he required two things: a reason to hold it that would be admired and some protection.

  Ever since he had first written to Rome, his letters had been aimed at getting papal authority to turn it into a Latin bishopric, that eased when John the Oxite finally expired and he blocked the appointment of an Orthodox successor. To achieve his aim, the appointment of a bishop both sanctioned and sent by Rome, he had to create in the mind of the Pontiff and those who advised him a distrust of the motives of Byzantium. Were they truly committed to the Crusade or was it mere territorial expansion gained by the swords and on the backs of those faithful to Rome. Were they dealing in good faith over the matter of the schism or merely leading the donkey of Rome with a carrot on a stick?

  The tone of the replies tended to show that doubts were creeping into the papal policy and its attitude to Byzantium. Additional news of the imperial intentions provided another thrust to the impression Bohemund was seeking to create: that of an utterly untrustworthy supposed ally who would never acquiesce in any of the interfaith disputes and, indeed, would grow as a rival to Rome rather than act to create a universal and undivided church.

  ‘It has to be asked, Your Holiness,’ he dictated to the monk who acted as his scribe, as well as an advisor, ‘why the Emperor, now so keen to march on Jerusalem, was prepared to leave us to our fate at Antioch?’

  ‘My Lord, every letter I write on your behalf talks of that very same failure.’

  ‘It cannot be said often enough,’ Bohemund insisted, which was understood to mean leave it in. ‘Now he says that he will march on the Holy City. First, is such a thing to be believed, or will he as he has in the past hang back to let the blood of Christian Europe be spilt, as at Nicaea, only to appear when the spoils are secured?’

  ‘It might be wise to expand on that, My Lord, and tell Rome again of the way Byzantium has failed to act in the entire march.’

  Bohemund nodded. ‘But add this: what are the intentions of Alexius when it comes to Jerusalem? Is it to secure the Holy City for Christendom or for Byzantium? Will the lot of Latin pilgrims be any easier if it is controlled by a Greek emperor, and who is to say what will be the nature of the successors of Alexius, for he must die, as must we all?’

  ‘The last communication from Rome told us the Pope is unwell. Such a reference to the death of rulers may be unwelcome.’

  ‘Then find the words to say it better. What we must plant in the mind of the Pope – and if he does die whoever succeeds him – that the enemy of Rome is no longer the Turk. They we have beaten so effectively they are spent and the Curia will know from the communications from Lebanon that the Arabs are likewise cowed. But there is still an adversary and in time it may be a greater one than either.’

  The monk smiled. ‘And to counter that enemy it is necessary to hold Antioch?’

  The reply was emphatic. ‘More than that, the rival we must keep in check is Byzantium, and not just in Syria. Alexius must be kept from the Holy City itself, for if it is controlled from Constantinople what hope can Rome have that its voice will carry weight in how it is governed or what access will be granted to pilgrims? Jerusalem in imperial hands will become a bargaining counter that may see the power of our faith move from the Tiber to the Bosphorus.’

  ‘You are saying if Rome believes such a prospect exists it will terrify them?’

  The doubt in the monk’s voice was unmistakable, which did not anger Bohemund; the man was paid to be awkward and question every act of his master.

  ‘We must aid them to see it as a possibility, that is all, which we will do by repetition of the risks. Even if they only perceive a slight danger it is one the papacy must guard against and that can best be achieved by turning the lands over which the Crusade has marched into bishoprics and lay holdings that owe allegiance to the Latin rite.’

  Since the march from Ma’arrat, Peter Bartholomew, who had joined his lord from Albara, had shown in
creasing signs of self-belief and arrogance, indeed that had been growing ever since he personally dug the Holy Lance from the ground. If there were those who doubted the veracity of that act, indeed had reservations about Bartholomew himself but were not elevated in rank enough to avoid repercussions, they were careful not to state them, so strong was the belief that Antioch had been won by it being present among the multitude.

  Bartholomew rarely strayed far from Raymond’s side now he had gone from humble preacher to where he saw himself, as the soul of the Provençal enterprise, feeling free to speak when not required to do so, as he had done with the envoys from Homs. Now he was having visions once more – to the cynical, these manifested by the failure to take Arqa, which by rights should have fallen long before and so were designed to aid Raymond of Toulouse.

  These revelations, unlike those centred on Antioch, were of a more brutal nature. He claimed to have been revisited by his celestial interlocutors, who had castigated him for allowing the host, especially the armed members, to fall into sin and debauchery. Thus he was instructed to weed out the unworthy so that the Crusade could be purified.

  Few of the other preachers, and they were still numerous, had been prepared to openly challenge Bartholomew – Peter the Hermit, who alone might have had the prestige to do so, wearied as well as disillusioned had long ago sailed back to Europe – and neither had the other princes. But that changed when he proposed his solution, which was alarming.

  The soldiers, lances and milities should be lined up in five equal ranks, they themselves choosing which file to join without being told why. The vision told Bartholomew that those in the front three ranks would be the men true to the faith and Jesus Christ; those in the two to the rear were such endemic sinners that no hope of salvation could exist for them and in being present they were risking the souls of the whole host, pilgrims included.

  ‘And what are we to do with these sinners?’ asked Godfrey de Bouillon, when Peter Bartholomew was called upon to explain his vision to the Council of Princes.

  ‘Kill them!’ That produced a shocked silence, into which Peter added, ‘Then all that remain, from the highest to the lowest, are to do what has been bidden, which is to scourge themselves to remove the taint of transgression.’

  ‘The high to the low?’ asked Normandy, disbelieving.

  ‘No noble is a power enough to stand against the word of God.’

  ‘And you see yourself as passing on the word of God?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘No army,’ Tancred said, with deep irony, ‘can stand to lose two-fifths of its strength on a questionable apparition.’

  ‘How dare you call it questionable,’ Peter replied, his tone cold. ‘I see you, Lord Tancred, in the rear rank, and if your uncle was here he would be alongside you, for if ever there was a sinner it is he.’

  ‘While I see you in a jester’s cap and, peasant, if Bohemund was here and you spoke thus your head would be on the carpet and several body lengths from your trunk.’

  ‘Will you allow me to be so traduced, My Lord?’

  This demand was directed at Raymond of Toulouse and in a manner that he would have struggled to accept from an equal. From a one-time ragged supplicant here was a man who had elevated himself to near divinity, such a mode of address was, in front of his peers, like a slap to Toulouse, yet such was his reliance on Peter, who was ever loud amongst the pilgrims in his praise that the Count was a man of true faith, he did not dare check him as he should.

  ‘This must be told to the host,’ he responded weakly.

  ‘Tell them and the sinners will avoid their just fate.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Normandy interjected, ‘we should put your faith, or maybe your visions, to the test.’

  ‘Your dare to question the word of those who come to me in the night?’

  ‘I dare to question the sanity of any man who claims to speak for the Almighty.’

  ‘There are many of those,’ Robert of Flanders reminded the assembly. ‘I wonder how they would take to this vision, indeed take to such a massacre?’

  ‘Let us assemble them and ask them,’ Raymond said, in a tone of voice and with an expression on his face of a man looking for a way out of damning his own seer.

  When the word was spread, albeit in a controlled way, the reaction of those who saw themselves as at least Bartholomew’s equals in the strength of their mission was absolute and negative. No deity, whom they worshipped, one who had allowed his son to die on the Cross so that sinners could be saved, would contemplate such an act. Their refusal to accept what Peter said sent him into a towering rage in which he dammed them to perdition and the fires of hell.

  ‘Let it be an ordeal by fire,’ he shouted finally, after every argument in seeking to persuade them of the truth of his vision had been exhausted. ‘I speak the words of God through messengers he has sent to me. And I will have in my hand the Holy Lance that won for us the Battle of Antioch. If I am a deceiver, he will burn me, if I am not I will emerge not even singed by the flames.’

  That silenced those who were disputing with him, for to talk of such trials was a commonplace; holy men were ever quick to propose such an ordeal, less willing ever to follow it through and take the actual risk. Peter’s declaration was of a different order, for having made it and in such an assembly it was not one from which he could, without utterly losing face, withdraw, even when Raymond, fretful of the consequences, sought to dissuade him. Peter fasted for four days, praying to God all the while, the Holy Lance, which he claimed would protect him, taken from Raymond so that it could prove his visions were real and it truly was the point of the weapon that had pierced the side of Christ.

  A pile of olive saplings was set up as a long walkway and soaked with pitch so that it would burn fiercely. Now that word of such a happening was abroad all action in the siege was suspended on the day of the ordeal and the slope that ran up to the walls of Arqa was crowded with fighting men and pilgrims; no one wanted to miss this and that incline gave many a good view.

  Peter appeared dressed in simple white robes, the Holy Lance in his hand, and indicated that the faggots should be ignited, he, like the whole assembly watching as the flames took hold and were transferred from the slivers of wood to the main timbers, the orange and red flickers quickly rising to well above the height of a man, a pillar of black smoke rising from the top of those into the blue sky.

  Bartholomew was now in deep and silent prayer, a state in which he stayed until murmuring indicated that it was time to walk, that if he delayed much longer the inferno would die down and not be enough to maintain his claim. Gathering the crucifix he wore on his chest into his one free hand he stepped forward and walked with slow deliberation into the fire, now with flames so thick he disappeared from view.

  The creature that emerged did so with his hair on fire, as were his garments. All over the exposed flesh there were blisters while on his face there was clear sight of the agony caused by such a scorching. The hand that held the Holy Lance had strips of flesh hanging from it, the wooden crucifix in the other hand actually burning as he held it. Forward he staggered, until the pain was too great and he collapsed to a groan from the many who had put faith in his prophecies and still believed in his enchantment.

  If a goodly number sought to give Peter succour, to stamp out the singeing of his clothes and hair before lifting him to carry him to one of the tents where the mendicants plied their trade, more were now looking at the Count of Toulouse, while in response he was gazing at the sky. One of the men who had assisted Peter Bartholomew just as he collapsed pushed through to Raymond, the shard of the Holy Lance in his hand, this proffered to a man who had ever valued the holding of it.

  Now he was reluctant to take it, for it had proved to be false, proved that it could not offer Peter a carapace of faith that would protect him from his now obvious fate, for without divine intervention, and that now seemed unlikely, he would surely die from such wounds as he had sustained.

  But Raymond
had little choice; if Peter Bartholomew had placed much of his reputation in that relic, so had the Count of Toulouse. Had he not used it to advance his claim to lead the Crusade, and now it was seen for what it was, nothing but a piece of rusted metal? All around him there was loud wailing, for if the lance had failed the Count there were thousands amongst the host who had resided as much faith in the relic as he.

  ‘What now, My Lord?’ asked Narbonne, the Bishop of Albara; he had come, like many, to witness a miracle.

  Raymond was very obviously aware that within earshot were his fellow princes, who if they had thoughts, and they would not be flattering ones, were keeping them to themselves.

  ‘We have a siege to pursue,’ Toulouse replied, his voice strong, ‘so let us be about it.’

  Raymond knew as well as any of his peers that his standing was blown. Despite what had happened with Bartholomew, who lingered in deep agony twelve whole days before he expired, he sought to replace the power of the lance with a new relic that would bind the faithful to his side. The late Bishop Adémar had purchased, in Constantinople and from the Emperor, a piece of the True Cross, a sliver of near black wood that, it was claimed, formed part of the crucifix on which Christ had been nailed.

  Highly respected as Adémar had been – many would call him a saint – such a shift from one relic to another was seen for what it was, an attempt by Raymond to maintain his authority among the deeply religious and numerous pilgrims. By regaining that, he felt he could continue to impose his thinking on the fighting elements of the Crusade. Try as he might, and word was spread of miracles being wrought by that sliver of wood, it failed to convince anyone; if anything, such perceived desperation weakened him more than the exposure of the Holy Lance as a fraud.