by Hilary Green
GOD’S WARRIOR
Hilary Green
Copyright © Hilary Green
The right of Hilary Green to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
First published in 2019 by Sharpe Books.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE: THE CASTLE OF MARGAT IN THE PRINCIPALITY OF ANTIOCH 1119.
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17.
Historical Note.
PROLOGUE: THE CASTLE OF MARGAT IN THE PRINCIPALITY OF ANTIOCH 1119.
A slow procession of ox-drawn wagons, guarded by armoured knights whose black cloaks were emblazoned with the white cross of St John, wound its way up the steep slopes of the hill crowned by the massive walls of the castle of Margat. They carried the wounded who had fallen in the battle of Hab, two days earlier. At the side of one of the wagons rode Sir Marc d’Ambray, whose face, weathered by sun and wind and marked with old scars, showed him to be the veteran of many battles. On the other side rode a young lay brother, whose eyes returned again and again to the face of the man who lay, unmoving, on a bed of straw between them.
The wagons creaked over the drawbridge and came to a standstill. Willing hands lifted the men in them and carried them into the great hall of the castle, where they were laid in long rows on pallets. Some of them groaned or cried out in pain as they were moved, but the man Sir Marc had guarded made no sound, nor did he open his eyes. Marc called one of the infirmarians who tended the wounded to him.
‘Can you find a quiet spot for Sir Ranulph? He has been insensible ever since the battle ended and he needs our greatest care.’
‘Of course,’ came the ready reply. ‘I am sorry to see him in such a state. No one is more worthy of our closest attention.’
The unconscious knight was carried to a small chamber leading off the hall and Sir Marc turned to the young lay brother. ‘Get some rest. You watched all night with him and have travelled all day. You need to sleep.’
‘As you must, too,’ the boy responded. ‘We watched over him together.’
‘He is in good hands now. We can allow ourselves a few hours respite.’
They parted, each to seek a quiet corner in the overcrowded castle where they could sleep; but the night was not far advanced when Marc roused himself and made his way to the chamber where his old friend was lying. Even so, the younger man was already there, kneeling at the bedside in fervent prayer.
Marc waited until he looked up, and said, ‘There is no change, then?’
The boy got up from his knees, his brow creased. ‘I ...I’m not sure. Perhaps it is just because I wish it to be so, but I thought I saw his eyelids flicker... but now...’
Marc stooped over the bed. ‘Ranulph? Can you hear me? Give me some sign if you can.’
There was no response and he straightened up. ‘We must not give up hope. He is still breathing. Perhaps in time …’ He left the sentence unfinished and drew a stool close to the bedside.
The boy fetched another and settled himself on the opposite side. He leaned forward and clasped his hands between his knees.
‘When we watched together last night you began to tell me the story of Sir Ranulph’s remarkable life. I was as much enthralled as if I was listening to a bard telling me some fantastic tale. But you broke off at the point where he had been rescued from the galleys by Count Roger of Sicily and offered the postition as his secretary. I still do not know how he came to take up the cross, or what befell him on the long march to Jerusalem.’
Marc stretched and yawned. ‘It was a long march, indeed. Three years it took us.’
‘I am surprised that Sir Ranulph agreed to take the post Count Roger offered him. He is a Norman, and as you told me last night, Sir Ranulph had good reason to hate all Normans.’
‘True. But you must remember that he had been vouchsafed a vision, in which God told him that he should fight beside his fellow Christians against the infidel, instead of taking up arms against them. From that time on he truly believed that God had a special purpose for him.’
‘The liberation of Jerusalem?’
‘So it transpired. But six years passed before that purpose became clear. Six years during which he faithfully fulfilled his duty to Count Roger, mediating between him and the Sicilian Moors he had conquered and bringing peace to the island. He honed his talent for languages and developed his interest in the wisdom of the Arab peoples. But he still maintained the warlike skills he had learned in his apprenticeship as a mercenary soldier, and kept himself in regular training.’
1.
Sicily, 1096
In a dusty courtyard, under the blazing Sicilian sun, two men fought, their swords flashing fire as they reflected the light. One was dark-haired, his skin weathered to the colour of leather, his body sinewy with years of training, his movements quick and nimble. The other, younger man was a good deal taller, with blonde hair tied back out of his eyes with a leather thong, and eyes the same colour as the cloudless skies above him. Though the bigger of the two, he moved with a surprisingly agile grace.
The older man came at his opponent with a flurry of strokes, swinging his sword two handed, aiming first for his head, then for his legs, then for his body. The young man parried and parried again, letting his opponent drive him back across the courtyard until his back was almost against the colonnade at its rim. Then he saw his opportunity. The other man had over-reached himself and he dodged sideways, ducked under the next stroke and thrust at the man’s groin with a ferocity that would have unmanned him - if the sword had been sharp.
His opponent leapt back with an oath and Ranulph of Erbistock, sometimes called Ironhand, lowered his sword point to touch the ground and leaned on it, panting. ‘Thank you, Renaldo. That’s enough for today, I think.’
‘I should bloody well think it is!’ Renaldo retorted. ‘Where did you learn a dirty trick like that?’
‘Not from you,’ Ranulph said with a grin. ‘I learnt my sword-play in a world where you knocked your opponent out by any means you could, or forfeited your own life. I come to you to put a little more finesse on my skill.’
There was a fountain in the corner of the courtyard, playing into a basin of clear water. The two men walked over to it and Ranulph pulled off his mailed gloves and dipped his hands in the water, then cupped them and drank a long draught. He was sweating profusely. He bent from the waist and allowed his chain mail hauberk to slide over his head to the ground, then filled a pannikin which stood at the side of the basin and tipped the water over his head.
Renaldo watched him. ‘You have never told me where you learned to fight. What did you mean, just now?’
‘As boy I ran away to sea to escape the Normans. One day, when I was about sixteen, I fell in with a company of my own people in a tavern, Englishmen displaced by the bastard, William. They had formed themselves into a mercenary band, offering their services to anyone who would pay them. I had reasons at the time’ … he paused for a moment, his eyes shadowed, ‘to want to leave the seafaring life, so I asked if I could join them. To begin with my duties were to look after the horses, cook, clean weapons – the menial work any serving boy is put to. But they taught me to ride and to use a sword and a lance and when I grew into my strength I fought alongside them.’
Renaldo rubbed a hand through his hair. ‘Well, I see how you learned to fight dirty. But I don’t understand why you push yourself so hard now. Anyone would think yo
u were likely to find yourself fighting for your life again any day.’
‘An unlikely eventuality for a man who spends his life writing letters and doing accounts and trying to keep the peace between Count Roger’s fractious fief-holders,’ Ranulph agreed wryly. He paused and looked at Renaldo. ‘The fact is, I still have the idea that one day I am going to need these skills again – and when it comes I don’t want to be found wanting. So I am grateful to you for helping me to improve.’ He looked up at the position of the sun. ‘I must get back. The Count is in residence and he could send for me at any moment. I don’t want to have to explain my absence.’
‘Boy! Get the gentleman’s horse out for him.’
At Renaldo’s command a lad, who had been perched on a barrel watching, jumped down and went to the line of stables that formed one side of the courtyard. He led out a bay gelding, ready saddled, but Ranulph did not go to mount directly. Instead he took a handful of corn from a bin in the corner and walked along the line to where a black head with sharply pricked ears looked out expectantly. The horse nickered softly as he approached and took the corn from his palm with soft lips while Ranulph scratched him behind the ears.
‘Not today, my friend. There isn’t time. But I will come tomorrow and we will have a good gallop and then we will go on with our lessons.’ He ran a hand down the glossy neck, looking over the stable door. ‘He’s in top condition, Renaldo. I hope you’re giving him plenty of exercise.’
‘He gets that,’ the other man responded. ‘And so do I. I can’t let any of the lads ride him. He tolerates me on his back, just, but yours is the only voice he really responds to.’
Ranulph smiled. ‘Which is just the way I want it to be.’ He gave the black horse a final pat and walked away to mount the bay gelding.
Ranulph crested the last rise and drew rein abruptly. Below him spread the city of Palermo, with its stout walls, the castle four square on its hilltop, and its deep harbour. It was on the harbour that Ranulph’s eyes were focussed. It was full of ships, and these were not the usual trading vessels; they were war galleys – Norman galleys by the look of them. Ranulph screwed up his eyes, trying to make out the standards that flew from the masts. He could not see them in detail but they were clear enough for him to be sure of one thing. The ships did not belong to Count Roger. His heartbeat quickened. Was this an attack? Normans they might be, but it was far from unknown among that quarrelsome tribe for one power-hungry lord to attack another. A moment’s consideration dismissed the idea. No sounds of battle rose from the city, no smoke, no screams. The gates were still open and there was no stream of refugees issuing from them. In the fields around, peasants were working peacefully. Not an attack, then. A friendly visit. But by whom, and why so many ships? He touched his horse with his heels and trotted towards the city.
At the city gate he called up to the watchman in the tower above. ‘Whose ships are those?’
‘They belong to the Count Bohemond of Taranto, sir.’
The reply was respectful. In the six years since he had come to the island Ranulph had risen to a position of considerable power and authority. Count Roger was undoubtedly a great war leader, but he had little interest in the administration of the territories he conquered. Much of his time was spent campaigning on the Italian mainland in order to retain control over his rebellious possessions there. He was no fool, however, and in Sicily he had arranged things so that he had little to fear from armed insurrections. He had divided the land into small fiefs and distributed them amongst loyal Norman, French and Italian followers, so there were no over-mighty lords who might rise up against him. He had even allowed some of the Muslim aristocracy to retain their lands, on condition that they paid homage to him. He had been granted Apostolic Legateship by Pope Urban and had installed bishops in the major cities and made Palermo a Latin archbishopric; but at the same time he had granted land to the Greek Orthodox monastery of San Fillippo di Fragole and had made no attempt to close down the mosques.
He had also seen the advantage of retaining the apparatus of administration set up by the previous emirs, who had established an efficient bureaucracy staffed by highly educated men. Roger himself was illiterate, like most of his kind, but he saw the value of learning and encouraged Arab scholars to come to Sicily. It was here that Ranulph had found his niche. With his fluent Arabic and his understanding of how business was conducted in Arab lands, developed over years of trading around the eastern Mediterranean for silks and spices, he was the perfect intermediary between the Normans and their new subjects. As a result, he had been able to establish himself in a position of considerable influence.
‘Bohemond of Taranto!’ he murmured to himself, as he rode on through the narrow streets towards the castle. It was a name to conjure with. The bastard son of Robert de Hauteville, the Guiscard, and therefore Count Roger’s nephew, he was known as an even more redoubtable warrior than his father, but he had a reputation as a restless and insatiable campaigner, always seeking to carve out for himself wider lands; even going so far as to challenge the eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople for his dominions on the Adriatic coast. What, Ranulph wondered, did his arrival in Sicily portend?
The courtyard of the castle was a swirling mass of activity. The Count had returned only a few days earlier, and now there was this new influx. Knights crowded the steps leading up to the main door, or stood around talking in small groups, their cloaks a vivid splash of colour against the ochre stone of the walls. Ranulph noticed with some surprise that each of them had two strips of rich red fabric sewn to his cloak in the form of a cross. Squires were leading horses towards the stables and pages and servitors ran backwards and forwards on a variety of errands. Mingling with them all were peasants leading goats or pigs, or carrying squawking fowls by their legs, and women with baskets of vegetables and herbs. A great feast was in preparation.
A voice hailed Ranulph from across the tumult and he turned to see Marc d’Ambray running towards him. Six years earlier, in circumstances Ranulph preferred to forget, he had saved Marc from drowning, but they had met only intermittently since then. As one of the Count’s household knights Marc had to follow where his master led; but in spite of that they had retained a close connection sustained by a sense of mutual obligation. Ranulph had been away from the court when Roger returned, inspecting the Count’s domains in the south of the island, so it was the first opportunity he had had to meet his friend.
They embraced, and then Ranulph held Marc off and looked into his face. ‘So, you’re still in one piece, then.’
Marc made a wry grimace. ‘Just about, but it’s no thanks to those pig-headed Amalfitans. We had to fight them to a standstill. Some people just don’t know when they’re well off.’
Ranulph’s look grew serious. ‘Amalfi? Was there much bloodshed?’
Marc grinned. ‘I think they will hesitate before they rebel again.’ Then seeing the change in his friend’s expression, ‘Do you have a special interest in the place?’
‘It was my home for some years, when I was not at sea on trading voyages. That was before Count Roger … acquired it.’
‘I see. I’m sorry if the news distresses you. Do you still have friends there?’
‘I think not. The only man who might remember me was drowned three years ago when his galley went down in a storm.’ He shrugged as if dismissing some dark thoughts and changed the subject. ‘Tell me, what brings Lord Bohemond to Sicily?’
‘He’s seeking recruits and collecting supplies for a new campaign.’
‘Against the Emperor again? I should have though he had learned his lesson at Dyrrakhion.’
Marc’s eyes glittered with the excitement of a momentous announcement. ‘Not this time. He is bound for Constantinople at the Emperor’s request, to undertake a much greater enterprise. Nothing short of the liberation of the Holy Land from the infidel.’
Ranulph had the impression that all the frantic activity around him had ceased and he stood at the centre of great stilln
ess. So it had come, then, at last! The summons he had been waiting for.
‘Jerusalem,’ he breathed. ‘He is going to Jerusalem.’
Marc nodded, breathless with the same excitement. ‘If God wills it.’
‘He wills it!’ Ranulph declared with certainty. ‘But how did all this come about. What put the idea into Bohemond’s head?’
‘He’s not alone,’ Marc said. ‘The Holy Father, Pope Urban, has preached a Holy War against the Turks. They have been preventing pilgrims from reaching the shrines in Jerusalem and robbing them on their journey. Terrible stories have been told of the atrocities they have committed.’
‘And Emperor Alexios has invited Frankish lords like Bohemond to Constantinople? After the battles they have fought against him?’
‘The Turks have overrun most of his domains in Syria. That is why he needs our aid. Outside Amalfi we met a great band of Christian warriors, looking for ships to take them on their way. Some of the greatest nobles of France have committed themselves to the cause.’
‘Is that why Bohemond’s men all have those crosses sewn to their cloaks?’
‘Yes. I was told that when he heard what the Pope had preached he was seized with such enthusiasm that he immediately ordered his finest cloak to be cut up, so that all his followers could bear the symbol of the cross.’
‘Will you go with them?’
‘If Lord Roger will give me leave. It is too great an opportunity to be missed. Think of it, Ranulph! To walk the streets that our Saviour walked, to worship at the Holy Sepulchre, built over the place where he suffered and died and rose again! And on top of that, His Holiness has promised remission of sins to all those who heed the call. It is worth any danger, any sacrifice. You must agree!’
‘I agree,’ Ranulph said, but already his mind was no longer on their conversation. His first impulse was to seek out Bohemond and offer his services. ‘Where is he now – Bohemond?’
