‘For someone who claims not to be a seer you seem to know a great deal of what de Bouillon will do.’
‘What he must do, proceed to Jerusalem, but it will not be under the banner of Toulouse.’
‘How fractured this effort has become.’
‘The miracle is that there was accord for so long. I doubt if even Ademar, had he lived, could have kept it in harmony.’
‘If I am to take Raymond’s silver that means I must join him at Rugia.’
‘Then do so with my blessing, Tancred.’
‘If you are keen to give it now, why has it been so withheld?’
Bohemund stood and approached his nephew, taking his shoulders in his hands, his smile that of an indulgent parent.
‘It is not my place to make such decisions for you, regardless of what feelings I have for you — and those you know, so I will not reprise them. The time has been long in coming when you must strike out on your own, and I esteem you for the considerations you demonstrated in not wishing to do so in the service of a man who is my enemy.’
‘It is still an uneasy choice to make.’
‘Enough that it is done,’ Bohemund insisted. ‘I know you will fight well when the time comes, as you have done with me and perhaps, when men talk of the fall of Jerusalem, it will be of Tancred they speak, not the Duke of Normandy or the Count of Toulouse.’
‘With your permission I will leave on the morrow and I ask for the supplies of food I need to get to Rugia, enough for two days’ march.’
The benign expression on Bohemund’s face disappeared and his tone matched the look that replaced it. ‘You are in Raymond’s service now. If you want food, ask his men holding the Bridge Gate to provide it for you.’
With Tancred and his men barely gone, the news that arrived from Ma’arrat shocked even those inured to brutality; as had been observed by Bohemund, the land close to the city had been ravaged by the passing of armies, the good red earth lying fallow till the spring planting. Even with the city in Crusader hands the feeding of the masses that waited there, wondering when the march on Jerusalem would finally take place, imposed a burden on the countryside that could not be met.
Each time a traveller or messenger arrived in Antioch, they spoke of the increasing dearth of supply in the territory of Jabal as-Summaq, a high plateau, in the grip of winter. Supplies sent from other places, to the Apulians by Bohemund, to the rest by Raymond from Rugia, did not even begin to meet the needs of such a mass of mouths, and with nothing in the fields — even the barely edible roots were gone — the people there, pilgrims especially, were bordering on starvation.
The likes of Bishop Peter of Narbonne and his attendant priests lacked for little, churchmen never did, while the soldiers, following the sack and distribution of the spoils, had coin enough to buy from the traders who ventured into the city and set up a market as soon as matters settled. Likewise those pilgrims who, in the plundering of Ma’arrat, had sought valuables rather than food, yet even they were getting hungry in a situation so perilous it was balanced on an edge.
News came that dearth was rapidly descending into crisis and predictions of an impending catastrophe. The tale arrived at both Antioch and to Raymond at Rugia and told of a riot in which the sparse market had been pillaged by hungry pilgrims, the traders, those who were not killed, being driven off in terror, yet so numerous were the needy that only a few gained enough sustenance to stave off hunger from their depredations.
It was what followed next that caused many to cross themselves, for with even the limited trade cut off by fear, no food was to be had in Ma’arrat at all and the entire polity, it seemed, had begun to resort to eating the human remains of the Turks so recently slaughtered when the city had fallen.
The bodies of the infidels had been dragged out of the streets to be dumped in a nearby swamp. Now, after weeks of both water and weather, their rotting cadavers were being dredged out for the softer parts to be cut up then cooked. If it had been only one or two at first, the last reports told of an entire mass of people engaged in the same heinous crime, which had those still at Antioch — there were vessels arriving daily bringing yet more pilgrims from Europe — loud in their lamentations.
With a quickly gathered oxen train, Raymond rushed food to the city, there, when he followed in person, to be received with less of the acclaim to which he had become so accustomed. The faithful were loud in their condemnation of the lack of crusading progress, and if Bohemund was equally damned he was not present to have it assail his ears. Holding aloft the Holy Lance no longer brought genuflection, more a furious growl and that turned to open dissent when he stated his intention to march only once the walls of Ma’arrat had been rebuilt.
That such an aim acted as a red rag to the already discontented pilgrims could not be foreseen; to them such an intention spoke of territorial ambition not zeal in the cause of Christ. Led by their angry preachers the lay folk attacked the walls of Ma’arrat intent on tearing them to the ground, for such a place was of no account against their devotion and, if such a task was beyond them, the message was plain to Raymond of Toulouse.
To regain his place in their hearts, it was he who ordered that the said walls be destroyed, the stones being smashed by hammers then thrown down to fill that dry moat, the news of which flew back to Antioch. That was sent by Tancred who had so recently joined Raymond and found his men required to aid the Provencals in Ma’arrat’s destruction — the remaining Apulians declined to do so, but were happy, on Tancred’s orders, to rejoin Bohemund.
The day came to depart, and so that their endeavour should be reconsecrated, it was decided that the whole host — clerical, military and pilgrim — in order that there should be no doubt as to their devotion to their Christian God, that no hint of pride should sully their enterprise, must march out of the city walking and barefoot. Raymond, shoeless like the meanest servant, was at the front holding aloft the Holy Lance, alongside Peter of Narbonne, his so recently appointed bishop, who with his priests, intoned prayers seeking the blessing of Christ and the intercession of the saints.
At the rear came Tancred and his Apulians, no less loud in their devotions but with torches in their hands, these used to set light to every structure they passed, be it the splendid residences of the one-time city merchants, a tradesman’s shop, hovels lived in by the poor, a sty or a stable. The Crusade marched south, vigour renewed, and behind them the city they had just left turned to a smoking inferno which would, very quickly, consume everything that could burn. Ma’arrat an-Numan would be no more.
From the citadel of Antioch, Bohemund observed the Occitan banners of the Count of Toulouse that still flew from the Governor’s Palace and the Bridge Gate, a sign that whatever else he was willing to surrender it was not these. Yet he was content: they were few and he was many, while their liege lord was marching further and further away.
Antioch was his to control, though not without concerns: Toulouse had left Albara strongly garrisoned, which meant he still held the strategic key to the plateau of Jabal as-Summaq and the harvest it would produce in the coming year. Then there was the Emperor, Alexius Comnenus, whose intentions were as yet a mystery.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was clear that in his slow march to the south, Raymond of Toulouse was looking in two directions at once, that in which he was headed and the difficulties that lay before him, another over his shoulder to the actions of Godfrey de Bouillon and Robert of Flanders, without whose aid he could not hope to succeed in even marching to and investing Jerusalem — he could discount any help from Bohemund.