The Franks could take up positions only on three sides of Antioch; they were prevented on the fourth side by Mount Silpius which kept a back door open for the besieged. As the Franks ran out of food some of them, like sparrows, picked through manure for the grain in it; some died of starvation; some deserted. They were always foraging through a countryside more and more empty of everything except Turks in ambush and they had of course to beat off such armies as came to relieve Antioch. Yaghi-Siyan made sorties when circumstances favoured; there were many engagements major and minor; history was daily sown like a crop to be harvested in its season.
Having thought of history as a crop that was sown I am left with the image of sowing but the picture in my mind is not one of seeds flung from the hand of the husbandman; it is of heads flung from the missile-throwing machines on both sides. Heads! Human heads that have spoken, kissed, whistled, eaten, drunk, done all those things that only heads can do! Heads as missiles! The heads slung into Antioch by the Franks were the heads of Turks killed in battle but the heads slung out of Antioch by the Turks were not those of Franks; they were the heads of Syrian and Armenian Christians of Antioch.
Those Syrian and Armenian Christians of Antioch and the country roundabout, I know not quite how to think of them, how to hold them in my mind. Until 1085 Antioch had been part of Byzantium, but as the tide of Byzantium ebbed they found themselves stranded on a beach that belonged to Qilij-Arslan. Sometimes I think of them as being like those little shore birds that run on long legs, crying as they glean the tideline. They were never static, never inactive, those Christians of that place and that time, they filled in whatever unoccupied spaces of action they found. They were constantly going backwards and forwards between the Franks and the Turks: sometimes they spied on the Franks for the Turks; sometimes they spied on the Turks for the Franks. When the Franks were starving those busy Christians in the country around Antioch sold them provisions at what might be called Last Judgment prices which effectively sorted out those who could afford to live from those who could only afford to die. Those same Christians, when they found Turks in flight from an engagement with the understandably testy Franks, ambushed the Turks and so struck a rough balance in their dealings with both sides. They had no peace, those Christians, they had no rest, they were continually gleaning that shimmering tideline against a background of towering breakers. The churning of the times they lived in had imparted to them a motion they could not resist, they were compelled by forces beyond them to keep moving in all directions and to be incessantly busy in many ways.
There came a particular day that winter when the Franks ambushed the Turks who were planning to ambush them. We were told that seven hundred Turks died that day while the Franks had no losses whatever. It was a cold grey day, the tents and awnings of the Hidden Lion bazaar was snapping in the wind; it was one of those grey days, it was one of those winds when no matter how many people gather together each one of them looks utterly alone and too small under a sky that is far, far too big. Little leaning pitiful figures. The tax-collector that day was pacing with ostentatious self-importance, like a man who knows that people breathlessly await his words.
There came to Hidden Lion then Yaghi-Siyan riding on his horse, his bodyguard with him as always. They were followed by a mule-cart covered with a tent-cloth. Yaghi-Siyan rode clip-clopping on to the tiles with the bodyguard clip-clopping after him and the mule-cart rumbling behind. He wore a helmet and a mail shirt with a gold-worked green robe over it. One couldn’t tell whether he had been in the battle or not; he looked fresh and clean. He had a bow slung on his shoulder; I had never seen him carry a bow before; he looked as if at any moment he expected to have to fight or fly for his life. His face was wild with rage and (I thought) with despair. He looked all around him while his horse danced and tossed its head. (How strange, I thought, to be a horse; one might be carrying on one’s back anything at all to anything at alclass="underline" chaos to order; betrayal to trust; defeat to victory; death to life.)
Everyone became silent, and in the silence there came on the wind snatches of singing from the Franks encamped by the Gate of the Dog. They were singing in Latin and the only words that came clearly in the gusting of the wind were: ‘Deus trinus et unus’, ‘God three together and one’.
‘Do you know what tongue they sing in?’ Yaghi-Siyan said to me.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They are singing in Latin.’
‘Scholarly Jew!’ said Yaghi-Siyan. ‘And what do they sing?’
‘“God three together and one”,’ I said. ‘Those were the only words I could make out.’
‘“Three together and one”!’ said Yaghi-Siyan. ‘Which is it? Is it three or is it one?’
‘It is both three and one,’ I said. ‘The three are together in the one.’
‘How many gods do you worship, Jew?’ he said.
‘One,’ I said.
‘I also,’ he said. Still looking at me he said over his shoulder, ‘Bring Firouz here.’ One of the bodyguard rode off at a trot towards the Tower of the Two Sisters.
Everyone waited in silence. There had been no command for silence nor was Yaghi-Siyan, Governor though he was, a commanding presence. It was clear to everyone, however, that something of great power was commanding him. The faces that were turned towards him were looking at what was commanding him. The awnings flapped and fluttered, the green-and-gold banner carried by one of the bodyguard snapped in the wind. Mount Silpius, continually surprising in its mountainness, seemed itself surprised to find itself where it was, surprised to find that the present moment had indeed arrived. I cannot say less than I must but I dare not say more than is permitted; for the first time in this narrative it comes to me that words are images, and what is sacred cannot be imaged. Still there is the obligation of the witness: though the world should pass away, what has been seen has been seen; the voice that does not speak is denying God.
Yaghi-Siyan himself seemed to be snapping in the wind like the banner as he sat there on his horse in silence. The horse arched its neck, pawed with its hooves, dunged upon the tiles that at another time Yaghi-Siyan had taken off his shoes to walk upon.
The guard returned, Firouz riding beside him. Yaghi-Siyan said to Firouz, ‘Get down off your horse, please.’
Firouz dismounted, stood upon the tiles of Hidden Lion. The guard who had brought him took hold of the bridle of Firouz’s horse.
‘Firouz,’ said Yaghi-Siyan, ‘you have been a Christian, have you not?’
‘I bear witness that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the messenger of God,’ said Firouz.
‘Yes, yes, we know that,’ said Yaghi-Siyan. ‘Now you are a Muslim. But you must tell me about the Christian god, the Three in One.’
‘What must I tell you?’ said Firouz.
‘You must tell me,’ said Yaghi-Siyan, ‘what this Three in One is. Is One the head and Two the body and Three the legs? What is this Three in One?’
‘One is the Father, Two is the Son, Three is the Holy Spirit,’ said Firouz.
‘Very good,’ said Yaghi-Siyan. ‘Here we are, you and I, upon Hidden Lion with its twisting serpents, contiguous with infinity: you are an Armenian, you have been a Christian and now you are a Muslim; I am only a simple Turk, I lack your experience in religious matters; I have always been a Muslim the same as I am now, I don’t know anything else. But you, having been a Christian, must know all about Christians — probably you can immediately recognize them when you see them. How is it with them, have they got lines upon their bodies dividing them into Spirit, Son, and Holy Father?’