Had it been the responsibility of Robert or Bohemund to set those guards? That had never been established and neither had ever accepted that they were to blame, which had naturally led to their being cold in each other’s company. Yet for Bohemund there was much to admire about the man: he was a doughty fighter, the leader who had held off Kerbogha for days at the fort of La Mahomerie, which, given the odds, should not have survived one.
Added to that, in the Battle of Antioch, if there had been any residual resentment, it had never surfaced; he had stoutly obeyed the man and later had shown him, in the glow of such a stunning victory, some regard that laid to rest the events in the disaster that befell them both on that foraging fiasco.
Where matters lay now was a mystery, but it was Robert who had whispered to Raymond to get Toulouse to modify his stance. At the moment his features were rigid, so when he did speak, Bohemund’s reply was gentle and delivered, if not with a smile, at least with a sympathetic look for a fellow noble on a thankless mission.
‘That I guessed, just as I surmised Count Raymond would not see it as fitting to come himself.’
The tone had a definite effect: Robert’s face softened and his response had something of a weary air. ‘I had to dissuade him from commanding that you attend upon him.’
‘Now that he occupies the Governor’s Palace our Count of Toulouse no doubt feels he has that right.’
‘You can guess, Count Bohemund, why I have come.’
‘As an emissary to demand that I surrender the towers I hold?’
‘Ma’arrat is Raymond’s by right.’
‘An opinion he firmly holds to, Count Robert, but one, I suspect, which you know is nonsense.’
‘So you reject his demand?’
‘As would you, My Lord, were you in the same position. There is, however, one act of his that will persuade me to accede. Let Raymond surrender to me the Bridge Gate and what he holds in Antioch and he can have these towers of Ma’arrat.’
‘Which is why you came to this place?’
‘Hardly a furtive act, indeed an obvious one, which you guessed when I first arrived, and if what I offer is accepted it still leaves Count Raymond the man best off.’
‘He will not agree.’
‘And I will not then surrender my towers, which means that as we jointly hold Antioch, so we jointly hold Ma’arrat an-Numan.’
The servant had entered with the sent-for refreshments, but Flanders declined to partake of them. ‘Count Raymond will be eager to hear your answer.’
‘Please, My Lord, he would have known my answer before he sent you on what is a fool’s errand and one that is an insult to your dignity.’
For the first time since arriving, the face of Robert of Flanders showed genuine anger. ‘Allow me to be the man to measure my dignity.’
Then he spun round and left, Tancred filling the doorway as he departed.
‘You heard?’
‘Everything, and I wonder at it,’ Tancred replied. ‘Giving him Ma’arrat does not entirely secure Antioch.’
‘Would you have me offer nothing?’
‘You could offer to join in the march on Jerusalem.’
‘Tancred, there is no such march.’
‘And nor will there be, Uncle, while you continue to dispute with Toulouse.’
The reply was scathing. ‘If you are looking for someone to soften their stance, try him, not me!’
‘Perhaps I will,’ Tancred replied, in an equally intemperate manner, before he too was gone.
Word soon spread of the impasse between the two princes and if the attitude to it was an increase in exasperation it was not for want of land and cities, but for the fact that such a dispute caused even more delay in the Crusade to which all these people, knights, milities and pilgrims at Ma’arrat were committed. Men already disgruntled at the lack of progress became even more vocal, their ire not dented by the plunder they had gathered by their own hands or the largesse showered on them by their leaders.
If Bohemund’s standing sank in both camps — a goodly number of his Apulians were as angry as any — so did that of Raymond of Toulouse. Demands began to be heard that if he was not going to use the Holy Lance for the purpose to which it was best suited, namely as an icon to lead the faithful to Jerusalem, then he should hand it over to his troops and let them march on without the benefit of his presence.
The relic, from being a massive benefit to Raymond’s standing, was now working in the opposite direction: he was being seen as undeserving of possession. Acutely attuned to the mood of the faithful, Raymond sought a way to shift the blame squarely onto the Count of Taranto. He initiated a public assembly, using the pretext of an open-air Mass to celebrate the taking of the city.
This was a setting he knew Bohemund would not be able to avoid. He knew just as well as anyone how he was being perceived, even amongst his own followers. Held in the square before the Governor’s Palace, not long after first light, the press of bodies was so great that many were stuck in the adjoining streets and needed to be dealt with by suffragan divines and satellite altars. The sun shone bright in a cloudless sky and if it was cold on the cusp of December, it seemed that the heavens had decided to bless the celebration.
Kneeling at the front of the assembly, Raymond had with him the Holy Lance and he ensured it was highly visible. Not far off from that knelt Bohemund, with Tancred and Flanders in between. That the two leaders did not talk to each other as they took their places was obvious enough to set up a murmur of disapproval, which rippled through the crowd.
That faded as the archdeacon saying Mass began his litany, aided by his clerical supporters as they blessed the body and blood of Christ, the paramount vessels for both brought before the relic in Raymond’s hand as if to underline not just its own importance but his.
No one but the archdeacon and his acolytes saw how Raymond reacted to the catcalls that surfaced then from hundreds of throats, few comprehensible. Yet a few transcended the mass of noise by being shouted, questioning why he had the Holy Lance and what he intended to do with it.
A glare from the archdeacon was enough to quell that disturbance, unbecoming at such a time and in such a ceremony, so the giving of Holy Communion went on throughout the square without further interruption, though given the numbers seeking to be shriven, the sun was well past its zenith before the Mass ended, at which point Raymond took up a position to address the crowd.
‘I call on the Count of Taranto,’ he shouted, holding up his lance, ‘in the presence of all and this lance which once pierced the body of Christ, to renounce what he holds here in Ma’arrat and hand it over to those who took it by their brave endeavours.’
The approval of that was far from universal; if the Provencals cheered, many of the Apulians did not, added to which if he had hoped to embarrass his rival it failed utterly as Bohemund gave to the assembly the same reply he had given to Robert of Flanders: Give me Antioch.
‘A plague on both, I say.’
Whoever shouted that, and it seemed to echo off the very sky, was, in such a dense crowd, too well hidden to be identified, but he was secure anyway, given the cry was taken up by many, soon to be joined by openly vocal demands to Raymond of what had hitherto been just murmuring. The demand that the lance be surrendered became a cacophony, and with the relic still in his hand, it was a chastened Count of Toulouse who retired to what was now his palace.
Bohemund was no less affected, receiving as much abuse as his rival, and he began to issue his orders to Tancred as soon as the square appeared clear. Try as he did, there was no missing the hateful glares thrown in his direction as the crowds dispersed; he was in the same steep tub of opinion as Toulouse, for if there had been any doubt about his intention to claim Antioch for himself, that had been laid to rest by his declaration.