‘Yet he will demand we hand it over to him.’
‘An oath is an oath.’
‘It is, Count Raymond, until it is broken. I say here and publicly that the Emperor Alexius has broken his word by failing to support us here and has thus freed me of mine to him and Byzantium, which I suggest applies to all who likewise made their pledge.’
Raymond must have sensed that the mood of the meeting was again not in his favour, so he played what had to be a last card — for all decisions, it had been agreed at the outset, had to be unanimous.
‘While I insist that the Emperor be asked what it is he wishes for the city.’
‘An envoy must go to him,’ cried Vermandois.
Raymond was quick to jump on that and he replied in a sonorous tone that was at odds with his widely known opinion of the scatterbrained, glory-seeking Frenchman.
‘Count Hugh, I can think of no man better qualified to undertake such a mission than yourself.’
‘I am humbled,’ Vermandois responded, though with a manner very much not that: he could not hide the notion that such a mission might add lustre to a reputation he already held to be glowing. ‘But I will only accede if it is the opinion of the whole council.’
‘Count Bohemund?’ Ademar asked, having got nodded assent from the others.
That made the man questioned smile but he too gave silent agreement; Alexius could be asked till he was blue what he wanted of Antioch — without he led an army to back up his wishes they were so much air.
Raymond had thrown delay into the discussion: with that nothing was decided and Bohemund could hold what he had and time was an ally. Yet it was not agreement, nor the peace that Ademar had set out to achieve; Raymond of Toulouse and Bohemund were as far apart as ever, perhaps even more so, and it was with a weary and false expression that he brought the discussion to an end.
‘Good. Count Hugh, I beg you to make ready to go to the Emperor and seek his instructions. Until then, we must put our minds to what progress we can make to Jerusalem.’
That left another more vital point hanging in the air and one that also acted in Bohemund’s favour: no military leader with an ounce of sense would progress south to the Holy City unless he knew Antioch, on his line of communication and his main source of supply, was secure, and to be that someone of ability had to hold it safe.
Not that such a matter was the sole concern of the counciclass="underline" it was still high summer with the hottest month of the year yet to arrive. Having experienced such temperatures the previous year, not one of the leaders saw sense in repeating the horror of what had so very nearly been a death march across the barren, waterless and deliberately scorched lands of Anatolia.
‘But surely the Holy City awaits,’ Ademar insisted, ‘and after we have humbled Kerbogha what infidel will stand in our way?’
‘General Summer will kill us, not the Turks or the Arabs,’ Normandy responded. ‘Let us wait till the weather cools and the stocks of food will be high in the country we pass through. Then we can move swiftly, in such a way and at such speed I would not be surprised to see Jerusalem surrender as soon as they sight our banners from the Temple Mount.’
That was gilding the lily; their enemies had rarely melted away before them and were unlikely to do so now, but the point left unsaid was the army was not ready for an immediate advance: from brave knights to the lowest milities all had suffered privation, desperate battle and an abiding fear of damnation and death, which had only just been lifted. To seek to march them on immediately and in searing heat would be folly.
‘Let us recover our strength and our purpose,’ Duke Robert continued, looking round to ensure he was speaking for all, ‘and let us have time to send word to our homes of our success and to seek men to make up for our losses.’
‘That could take months,’ Ademar protested.
Raymond intervened then, though no one was certain of his motives. Was it to allow time for Alexius to come and take control of Antioch, or was it because he genuinely agreed with what had been said? In the calm months of summer, speedy sailing vessels could get to Provence and back to bring him men and money, though Apulia was even closer, so Bohemund would not be weakened by it.
‘Let it be so, Bishop Ademar. July and August are a furnace and September perhaps still too hot.’
‘October is reputed scarce better,’ added Flanders.
‘Let it be November, then.’ Given it was Godfrey de Bouillon who stated this, it had added weight; he was a hard man with whom to argue when it came to Jerusalem. ‘Then the temperature will be clement, to which we men of the north are more accustomed.’
Seeing the gloom on Ademar’s face, a man who could only advise, not command, Godfrey added with heartfelt enthusiasm, ‘And fear not, Your Grace: before the feast of Christmastide is upon us, you will say Mass in the Holy City.’
Ademar rubbed a weary hand across a heavily creased brow; where now that so flawless countenance which he had brought from his Provencal home? Even if he had donned armour and fought alongside these magnates, they were the men who knew about soldiering. For all his disappointment and the fact that he lacked energy there was real passion in his voice when he announced his agreement.
‘I will not delay past the first day of November, even if I have to go on alone.’
Busy fighting off Kerbogha, the Crusaders had not given any time to the restoration of the Christian faith; they had that now and every church that had been converted into a mosque was reconsecrated. Yet even within that lay dispute: the Patriarch and the local priests, men who had survived a double siege, much persecution and two times the amount of hunger, were adherents of the Greek Creed.
Those who had come with the Crusade were firmly Latin and wished that the places of worship, having been freed by Roman Christians, should celebrate their liturgy in that rite and that the man appointed Bishop of Antioch should be one of their own.
‘Which I most heartily support, Your Grace.’
‘While I cannot agree, Count Bohemund,’ came the reply from a somewhat restored bishop, and it was not without a barely disguised waspish tone at odds with his habitual diplomacy, ‘when Pope Urban appointed me to this post it was with the express instruction to take back from the infidel those lands and places of worship once Christian. In what we have conquered that means the Orthodox rite and I gave my word to the Emperor Alexius that I would fulfil my task as it was given to me.’
‘I have in mind to meet the wishes of the flock you lead.’
‘While I have in mind the wish to meet the dictates of my conscience.’
As usual, much was not being said: Ademar suspected that Bohemund wanted a Latin bishop for his own advantage; it was part of his ambition to have Antioch as his possession. A Byzantine cleric would owe allegiance to and take his instructions from Constantinople and he would also resist any attempt to turn the population towards Rome. If Alexius Comnenus did appear and demand the city be turned over to him, a Greek Patriarch and a rigidly Orthodox flock would make holding out against him much more difficult.
The Bishop also knew he was on safe ground: this was a matter in which no layman could interfere, however strong his reputation or his determination. Pope Urban was keen to mend the schism that had split the two branches of the faith these last forty years and throughout the reign of half a dozen of his predecessors, arguments on the true interpretation of the Holy Trinity and the status of the Bishop of Rome as head of the Christian faith.
These deeply theological questions were also muddied by disagreements over priestly celibacy: Rome insisted upon it and was driving it forward in the lands where it held sway, while Constantinople denied the need and held that priests should live as did their flock. Added to that was a matter as arcane as the correct form of bread to be used in the Mass. Such divergences, Pope Urban knew, would not be overcome by aggressive attempts to bring the Creed of Rome to Asia Minor.