Still, it was an optimistic host that departed Raphania, that too set alight like Ma’arrat, this to avoid the need to detach a garrison, for Raymond was very aware that his numbers did not permit that he leave a line of fortified towns to his rear. Let those who came after him, if they came after him, make their own way. Even now, with their bellies full and the pilgrims singing as they plodded along, the Count of Toulouse was in no hurry, partly hoping to be reinforced by de Bouillon and Flanders, partly eager for news as to what Bohemund was up to. Information was scant in all respects.
The feeling of well-being and easy passage was shattered when a party of Arabs, possibly from Raphania, raided the rear of the column and inflicted heavy casualties on the pilgrims and camp followers; worse they stole back a goodly quantity of the food the Crusaders had gathered from the storerooms of their city. The people the lances had hoped to find and rob had not been spirited away, and now they were intent on exacting revenge for the torching of their city.
Stung, Raymond took personal control of the rearguard, forming a strong screen of knights to protect the vulnerable. Yet progress, remaining slow — he would not be rushed by mere brigands — allowed those raiding to get ahead of the host so that the next attack came in the centre of the line of march, which obliged Tancred to wheel his Apulians in order to drive them off. This was achieved but not without further losses and the raids continued sporadically until distance intervened.
Since leaving Shaizar and that part of the River Orontes they had ascended and traversed a lengthy plateau. Now they were coming to the end of those uplands, yet Raymond’s hopes that his fellow magnates might come to join with him showed no sign of happening. If he did not understand why, others did; de Bouillon and Flanders would not march with him for to do so would be to acknowledge his leadership.
Would they ever do so, or would they abandon the Crusade altogether? There was no way of telling and that uncertainty increased the further the distance he put between himself and Antioch. The thought that he might be alone was troubling but one he would not discuss with those who had taken his silver — indeed, he rarely sought to include them in his thinking regarding any future plan, but that could not be maintained; the time had come when alternatives to how they would progress from this point on needed to be examined and that had to be done in the light that they might, indeed, be alone.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The direct route to Jerusalem through Nablus was tempting, yet even if Raymond had enjoyed the full strength of the Crusade he and his noble supporters would have hesitated to follow it. First it was flanked by the major city of Homs, before it then took them perilously close to the huge and even more dangerous Muslim metropolis of Damascus.
Being only a fraction of the Latin force made such a course doubly hazardous, it being too much to expect that a city with such a numerous population, as well as one able to draw in strength from the surrounding countryside, would be cowed into submission by stories of Crusader bestiality.
It was not necessary to see Damascus to know that, unlike Homs, they lacked the power to invest such a city — there were enough local voices to relate its size as well as to boast of the defences — added to which such a route increased rather than diminished their seeming isolation, for once committed they must proceed all the way to Jerusalem.
No news had come from Antioch since they departed Ma’arrat, so Raymond had no real notion of how he stood in relation to the final goal and the further he marched south the greater that lack of knowledge affected their chances of achieving the ultimate objective.
‘The other route is by the coast,’ Raymond said. ‘Supplies we can purchase, we will be in contact with Europe as well as the sailing fleets of Genoa and Pisa, and we can also get news from Antioch of what progress is being made by our confreres.’
The Count drew a line, with the point of his dagger, on one of the ancient maps by which, in a series, the whole Crusade had progressed from Constantinople. What the Roman surveyors had drawn to ease the passage of the legions had not physically changed in the thousand years since. It was not necessary to add that by taking the latter course he was both eschewing haste as well as avoiding the notion of closing in on Jerusalem by himself.
The air of confidence by which this alternative was advanced did not fool Normandy or Tancred; it was a tacit admission that Raymond was taking a detour because he was obliged to wait upon de Bouillon and Flanders to reinforce their expedition before he could even think of entering Northern Palestine. Mingled with a certain sense that the Count of Toulouse was getting what he deserved for his hubris was another emotion: neither man was here to parade around Syria posturing as Crusaders.
They as much as anyone in the host wished to get to Jerusalem and, either peacefully or by siege, take possession of it for their religion and their vows. If their leader was frustrated by the actions of the men they had left encamped at Antioch so were they, though such thoughts they kept to themselves so as not to feed Raymond’s temper.
‘There are many obstacles to overcome in a march down that coast,’ Normandy insisted, pointing with a finger to such ancient ports as Tripoli and Sidon, which had Raymond drawing in a deep breath of air in preparation to make his case more vehemently, that dissipated when the Duke added, ‘But it is the better course by far.’
‘And for you?’ Raymond asked, looking at Tancred.
Well aware of his relative strength and thus his position in this triple hierarchy, the young man replied tactfully, ‘I have no choice but to bow to your superior judgement, Count Raymond, for in truth, I do not know for certain which is best.’
Normandy reached up a hand and slapped him on the back. ‘None of us know that — it is a guess, no more.’
There was pleasure to be had for the way Raymond looked affronted at such an opinion of his abilities.
As they passed through the abundant al-Bouqia Valley, still marching at a leisurely place, events contrived to underline what they might have faced had they chosen the route through Nablus: the Crusaders were subjected to the first coordinated proper military attacks since setting out from Ma’arrat. The inland side of the valley was overlooked by the mountains of Lebanon, in particular a fortress called Hisn al-Akrad, stuck on the end of a pointed and rocky promontory, which gave those who possessed it a view of the whole region for dozens of leagues in each direction. Small and reputedly somewhat dilapidated as a stronghold, Hisn al-Akrad was still reckoned by repute to be impregnable, being unassailable on three sides due to the sheer near-endless drop from the walls on the remaining three, nothing but sheer escarpments impossible to climb.
The garrison held it for the Emir of Homs, a potential Arab enemy and that, added to the feeling of security the location generated, led them to descend from their eyrie to raid the marching and overextended Crusader columns as they crossed the plain. In doing so they inflicted much more damage, in terms of killing as well as the stealing and destruction of food and livestock, than the pinpricks they had suffered after leaving Raphania in a raid that left Raymond incandescent with rage.
‘I say we ignore it,’ suggested the Duke of Normandy.
His opinion was based on the difficulty of assaulting such a location, one that was now being examined from below by all three contingent leaders. It would involve a long climb through wooded hillsides and over barren open slopes, then an assault on the one assailable wall, which would have to be carried out with whatever they could hastily construct in the way of ladders once they got there.