God's Warrior

by Hilary Green

  Worse followed. The soldiers stooped by the man, their actions hidden by the battlements. Then suddenly he was lifted bodily and flung over, to hang by ropes around his ankles. That was not the end. One of the men lifted what looked like an iron rod and began to beat the soles of the old man’s feet.

  ‘Call for the archers, sire!’ one of the knights begged. ‘Tell them to shoot those god-forsaken bastards!’

  Bohemond was grinding his teeth with rage but he shook his head. ‘They are too far for any accuracy. They might as likely kill the patriarch. Perhaps they hope to provoke us into an attack. If we do nothing they may yield and pull him up again. God rot them! Is there no mercy in their hearts?’

  Eventually the old man was hauled up again, but whether dead or alive they could not tell.

  Within a month Ranulph’s forebodings were fulfilled. The countryside around the city had been stripped bare and foraging parties had to range further and further afield. They soon realised that the men in Antioch were not the only enemy they had to contend with. The Turks had fortified outposts all round the area, each occupied by a contingent of enemy soldiers. Increasingly, the foraging parties came under attack and had to return empty-handed. Once again, hunger began to take its toll on the weakest.

  Winter came, and with it endless driving rain and bitter cold. Every tree within easy reach had already been cut down for fuel and the besiegers were faced with a stark choice – head out into the distant forests to find more and risk attack, or freeze to death. They huddled over smoking fires of green wood and shivered. Disease stalked the camps. Men, women and children died from the flux or the sweating sickness and Ranulph was once again called upon to share his knowledge of medicine with the physicians. On Christmas Day Bishop Adhemar conducted a High Mass but it was apparent to all of them from his gaunt features that he was suffering worse than many others.

  Two days later the leaders met in council. It was obvious to everyone that unless new supplies of food could be found they must either give up the siege or resign themselves to a slow death from starvation. It was agreed that half the force should set out on an expedition to wrest whatever could be found from the nearby towns and villages, while the others stayed to maintain the blockade of the city. Bohemond immediately volunteered to join his men with those of Robert of Flanders in the attempt.

  Ranulph wrapped the end of his cloak across his face in an effort to keep out the stinging rain and huddled lower in the saddle. Brand walked with his head drooping and it stabbed Ranulph to the heart to see his beloved horse reduced to a walking skeleton. In two days they had travelled further from Antioch than any foraging party before, protected by their numbers from any attack, but they had found neither food for themselves nor fodder for the horses. They were climbing a track which wound upwards towards a cleft in the hills. A local man had told them that there was a valley beyond it with a village called Almara, where they might find provisions. They crossed the pass and, descending, found a gentler landscape, shielded by the mountains from the worst of the weather.

  ‘Praise God!’ someone ahead of him called. ‘There is pasture here for the horses.’

  Without waiting for an order to halt the whole company drew rein and let their horses drop their heads to graze. For a while there was nothing to be heard but the patter of rain and the sound of teeth pulling at grass, then there was a shout.

  ‘Look! Up on the hillside. Sheep!’

  All round men looked up and pointed, then gathered up the reins and urged unwilling horses up the slope to where a flock grazed under the eye of a young lad. Knights knew little of rounding up sheep, but they were well practised in surrounding an enemy and driving them inwards until they had no room to wield a sword. Ignoring the protests of the shepherd boy, they encircled the flock and drove it towards the pass they had just crossed. Ranulph heard shouts behind him and looked back to see the boy running after them, desperately waving his arms. Knowing what the loss of the sheep would cost him, and his village, he turned back and drew a small gold piece from the purse at his waist. The boy skidded to a standstill by his horse’s head and grabbed the coin Ranulph held out, but he was still gabbling urgently and pointing behind him to where the valley ended in a narrow defile. The boy was speaking in the language of the Armenians, and Ranulph caught the word ‘soldiers’. He leaned down from his saddle.

  ‘Soldiers? Where?’

  ‘There – many, many!’

  ‘Turkish soldiers?’

  ‘Yes. Many, many Turkish soldiers. Coming down the valley. I saw them from up there. See! They are coming!’

  Ranulph looked up and saw the first ranks of men debouching from the narrows onto the wider plain. They wore colours and carried banners he did not recognise, but more were following behind and it was clear that this was not merely a skirmishing party. He found another gold piece, larger than the first, and threw it to the boy, then wheeled Brand round and galloped after the retreating Franks. They were moving slowly to keep the flock together and he soon overtook them. He aimed for Bohemond’s standard and drew Brand to a skidding halt beside the count.

  ‘Sire, behind us! A new Turkish force. We shall be under attack in minutes!’

  Bohemond turned in the saddle and saw the danger.

  ‘Herald, sound the alarm! ‘ Then, to his squire, ‘Henri, ride ahead and warn my lord of Flanders. The rest of you, to me! Form the wedge!’

  The Franks were scattered across the valley, to prevent the sheep from turning back. At the sound of the trumpet they turned their horses and rode hard towards the standard. The Turks were flooding into the valley now and it was clear that they faced superior numbers. They had been seen and, as Ranulph nudged Brand into place in the wedge formation, he heard their trumpets sound the charge. Without waiting for the last of his knights to reach him Bohemond raised his arm and gestured forwards.

  ‘Go!’

  Stirrup to stirrup they hurtled into the centre of the Turkish lines and split them like an axe cleaving wood. The impetus of the charge carried them deep into the middle of the advancing horde and the conflict resolved itself into a confusion of hand to hand fighting. The constant rain had softened the ground and the pounding hooves soon turned it to mud and Ranulph found himself enmeshed in a chaos of sliding horses and falling bodies. The rain was heavier than ever, falling in curtains that made it hard to tell friend from foe. A scimitar came at him out of the murk and he threw up his shield to block it by instinct, thrust under it and felt his sword meet flesh and bone. There was a yell behind him and he swung Brand on his haunches to meet the new threat. A sword flashed towards his head and would have found its target except that at that moment the destrier lost his footing in the mud and went down on his knees, so that the blow passed harmlessly above him. The horse scrabbled for a foothold and rose and Ranulph struck back-handed at his opponent and saw him fall. For a moment the rain eased and he saw a gap in the press of bodies and clear ground beyond it and spurred Brand towards it. The big horse responded, leaping a fallen body, and broke through. Ranulph turned him to rejoin the fight but found no one to attack. Instead, he saw the backs of the Turks in full retreat, heading as fast as their horses could go towards the head of the valley. He looked round for the rest of his companions, praying that none of them would be so foolish as to follow into a possible ambush; but at that moment the trumpet sounded the recall and Bohemond’s standard waved to reinforce the order. Ranulph searched among the familiar figures as they reformed around the banner and did not find Marc. Usually they fought side by side but in the chaos he had lost sight of him and now a wave of nausea rose in his gut as he faced the possibility that his friend was among the bodies that lay scattered all around.

  Ignoring the order to rejoin the standard, he dismounted and began to search. Almost all the bodies wore Turkish clothing. As usual their leather jerkins had given them no protection against the heavily armoured Franks. One or two Frankish knights who had been unhorsed were scouring the field for their mounts,
but Marc was not among them. He found him at last, half hidden beneath the body of a Turk. He had lost his helmet and there was a gash across his scalp oozing blood. Ranulph knelt and heaved the other body aside and felt a flood of relief as Marc groaned. He pulled him across his knees, calling his name and speaking words of encouragement and reassurance. He unwound the scarf he always wore to stop the neck of his hauberk from chafing his throat and bound the wound and at last Marc opened his eyes, then twisted sideways and vomited into the mud.

  By this time some of the others had seen what was happening and two of them rode over to help. Marc’s horse was cropping the muddied grass a short distance away and was easily caught and between them they lifted him and laid him across the saddle, securing his hands and feet together under the girth with his own belt. Ranulph mounted Brand and took the reins of the second horse and made his way back to where the rest had gathered around Bohemond. For a while there was confusion about their next move. The flock of sheep had scattered and some of the men wanted to spread out and try to collect them but Bohemond forbade it.

  ‘There may be other bands of Turks in the neighbourhood. If you go wandering off it will be you who are the lost sheep and they will be able to pick you off at their leisure. We cannot go forward now, so there is nothing left for us but to return to camp.’

  ‘Whose men were those?’ someone asked. ‘We had heard nothing about a new army coming against us.’

  ‘We have taken prisoners,’ Bohemond replied. ‘We shall soon know the answer to that. Cut off the heads of the dead. And bring the others.’

  They rode back the way they had come, dejected and empty handed. They found the camp in a ferment of mingled triumph and despair. Yaghi Siyan, the emir of Antioch, had seen them leave and seized his opportunity to attack while the remaining besieger force was weakened. The attack had come at night and the first warning had been when the sentries had seen the Dog Gate being opened. The alarm had been sounded and Raymond’s knights had scrambled from their beds and seized their weapons just in time to meet the oncoming Turks. It had been a near disaster but by some miracle they had held the enemy at bay until the horses could be brought up and reinforcements arrived from the other camps around the city. Then they had attacked and driven the Turks back over the Dog Bridge to the gates and it had seemed for a few minutes that they might be able to force their way through and take the city. Then a rider had fallen from his horse on the narrow bridge and in the dark and the confusion that ensued the Turks had succeeded in slamming the gates shut.

  ‘So, after all we have done,’ Bohemond said heavily after he had heard the report, ‘we find ourselves in no better state than we were before Christmas.’

  Marc regained consciousness on the ride back, to Ranulph’s great relief. Ranulph cleaned the wound and anointed it with some of the salve he had brought from Sicily, then tore up a clean linen undershirt to bind it. The bleeding had stopped and he was no longer being sick, but he was grey-faced and shivering. All Ranulph could do was wrap him in his spare cloak and hope for the best.

  There was one thing to be grateful for. They learned from their prisoners that the force they had encountered had been led by Duqaq, the Emir of Damascus, who had been persuaded by Siyan to come to the relief of the city. Now, their scouts informed them, apparently disheartened to find the Franks still able to fight, and by the unending rain, he had decided to abandon the attempt and had withdrawn to his own city.

  Next day Tancred rode into the camp with his followers. He was greeted with cheers, which he acknowledged with smiles and waves. Watching, Ranulph remarked dryly, ‘You would never think he was soundly beaten by Baldwin and sent packing with his tail between his legs.’

  Bohemond lined up the prisoners in front of the St Paul’s Gate, surrounded by the severed heads of their comrades. He beheaded the first man with a single sweep of his sword and then at his command his closest followers each rode forward in turn to despatch another. Ranulph hung back, sickened. He understood the purpose and knew that there was no food to spare for prisoners, nor any safe place to keep them, but he had never yet killed a defenceless man. To his relief, all had been dealt with before he was called forward, but as he turned away Tancred swung his horse across his path and waved his bloodied sword in his face.

  ‘What’s the matter, Englishman? Squeamish? No wonder your fellow countrymen were no match for good Norman swords.’

  Ranulph’s hand went to his own sword then, and he would have drawn it had not Bohemond grasped his wrist. ‘If you strike him, it will be combat to the death! He is not worth that.’ To Tancred he said, ‘Sir Ranulph has proved his valour in many fights. You do ill to taunt him.’

  Tancred glowered at them both, then grunted and turned away.

  Ranulph returned to his tent. Mark was clear-headed but too weak to stand. Ranulph looked at him, and then at the rest of the little group he had come to regard almost as his family. They were all gaunt and drawn with hunger. Even Fernando’s ample flesh hung loose on his body. But apart from Marc he was most concerned about Dino. He had been a scrawny youth when Ranulph had taken him into his service. He had put on weight while they were still in Sicily and withstood the earlier part of the expedition well, but the privations they had suffered since leaving Nicaea had worn him down and the brief period of plenty had not been enough to rebuild his reserves. While Ranulph and Marc and even Aymar were fully grown and had had the benefit of good feeding and training that had built strong muscles, he still needed extra nourishment for growing limbs; but now his arms and legs were like green twigs and the flesh of his face was so shrunken that it resembled a deathshead.

  Next morning Ranulph slipped out of camp without asking permission and rode out into the countryside, following the course of the river as the earlier expedition had done. It was a risk, but he had covered his armour with a plain cloak and he hoped that a solitary rider would not attract the attention of the watchers on the hills around. In spite of the siege, merchants and pilgrims still travelled the roads, though rarely alone. On the previous foray he had noticed something that others had missed, but it had not seemed worth diverting the whole company to investigate it. Now he headed up a tributary of the river to where had had spotted what he thought was a building, perhaps a water mill. He found it at length, but it was abandoned and in ruins. As he turned away, disappointed, he heard a bleat. Riding round a bend in the stream he came upon an old man, with a small herd of goats. The man immediately fell on his knees, gabbling a plea for mercy. Ranulph dismounted and drew him to his feet.

  ‘I do not intend to harm you, father. I want to buy one of your goats – a milking nanny. I will pay well for her.’

  The old man shook his head. ‘I have so few left. I cannot let you have one who will help to increase the flock. A kid, I will sell you, not a nanny goat.’

  ‘No,’ Ranulph insisted. ‘A kid will give me one meal. The milk from a nanny may save the life of a young man. It is a noble thing to do, is it not? One that will bring the blessing of God upon you.’

  The man hesitated, then Ranulph saw the glint of greed in his eyes and knew that he had won. ‘How much?’

  He did not haggle but paid far more than the man could reasonably have hoped and rode back to camp with the goat across the front of his saddle. Fernando greeted him with a cry of joy.

  ‘A goat! Master, I will make you a stew that you will remember for the rest of your life.’

  The very thought made the saliva start to Ranulph’s mouth, but he replied, ‘You will not! You will milk her and make a gruel with what grain we have left. It is for Sir Marc and for Dino. Only for them. And you will guard her with your life! If we can find enough food for her somehow she will continue to nourish us, but there will be others who would gladly take her from us. You understand me?’

  Since the beginning of the siege, Ranulph had been careful to keep back some of the wheat that had seemed so plentiful. Now, unlike most of his fellows, he still had a small store of it in his ch
est.

  Fernando turned away, crestfallen, but he did as he was told and when the gruel was ready Ranulph carried two bowls into the tent.

  ‘Aymar, this is for Marc. Feed it to him slowly. Dino, this is for you.’

  The boy seized the bowl and then stopped with the first spoonful halfway to his mouth. ‘Where is yours, sire?’

  ‘I will have mine later. Eat.’

  Dino shook his head. ‘You have kept none for yourself. I will not eat unless you do.’

  ‘You will do as you are told,’ Ranulph responded. ‘As you have pledged yourself to do.’

  The boy hesitated a moment longer, then put the spoon to his mouth and did not pause until the bowl was empty. Marc stopped eating when half of his share remained and turned his head away, so Ranulph told Aymar to finish it. Going out to the shelter where Fernando had his fire he found him scouring the dregs out of the pot, and pretended he had not noticed.

  Down by the river there were thorny bushes, which even the starving horses would not touch, but the goat fed happily on their branches and continued to give enough milk to keep them all alive. Slowly, Dino and Mark began to recover their strength.

  Retribution for the beheadings was not long in coming. Up to then the camp where the women and children were, with the other non-combatants, had been spared from attack; but soon after dawn next day a flight of arrows showered into it and a woman fell dead. The Turkish archers had scaled the top of one of the towers and found a vantage point from which they could fire down into the camp. Bohemond’s crossbowmen returned fire and the tower was temporarily cleared but it was obvious that a safer place must be found. Bohemond rode up to the top of a small rise, a couple of bowshot lengths from the walls, and gave orders for the construction of a fort. A ditch was dug around the summit and the earth from it heaped up to form a rampart.

  Regarding it when it was finished Bohemond grinned. ‘We will call it Malregard! It’s far from beautiful, but it will offer some protection - and every time the Turks look at it it will remind them what’s in store for them.’