It was less so for Tancred, who felt he had sacrificed much in the way of family loyalty to get to Palestine. He chafed at the lack of progress but was aware that his status as the most junior of the lords left him little room to challenge the policy adopted. He too reckoned Raymond to be on a quest for territory, an attempt to set up, not unlike his uncle, a fiefdom for himself that would rival Antioch.
The strands of what happened next were hard to fix. Partly it was the desire of the Emir of Tripoli to divert the Crusaders away from his city; partly that Raymond had no immediate goal in sight and an army at danger of being idle, always dangerous to its long-term capability and morale. The Emir hinted at a great payment to be made if the Count subdued the rival inland city of Arqa, ruled, much to his chagrin, by an assembly of its citizens and a commercial rival to dent Tripoli’s income.
This played upon Raymond’s greedy territorial instincts, given it was an important trading centre full of fat merchants, a link to the north that might hamper communications and a fortress of some strength which, if held, would allow him increasing dominance of the region; the fall of such a city would also bring in more tribute from those who feared the same fate.
What tipped the balance was not the pleas of the Emir, but the refusal of the citizens of Arqa to not only surrender their city but also to pay heavily for the privilege of having Raymond’s garrison lord it over them. Always at risk of allowing his pride to override his judgement, such a refusal, coming on the back of so many others having acquiesced, sent the overly conceited Count into one of those passions from which actions sprung regardless of wisdom.
Arqa would feel his wrath, he insisted, this justified to his confreres by the intimation that to allow such an insult to pass would embolden others, even perhaps Tripoli, to do likewise, thus drying up the stream of gold filling their coffers.
So the horns blew and northward marched the best part of the host — a good number had been left behind to keep Tripoli in check — buoyant in the mass as was their leader in his breast until they came upon Arqa, white-walled and sat atop a slight atoll, every bit as formidable to the eye as it had been reported to the ear.
Fully expecting the sight of his army to bring about that which verbal thunderbolts had failed to achieve, he was even more deeply offended when the leading citizens of Arqa, with utter disdain for his rank and his fame, made him aware of their determination to resist by laughing in his face.
‘This is fruitless,’ Tancred snapped to Normandy when the result of the parley became known. ‘Arqa lies in the opposite direction to that which we should be travelling.’
For once the Duke was not placatory, a habit he had formed since Ma’arrat to meet the passions of his younger confrere, who was often irritated by Raymond’s pretensions as well as his actions, while being unable to be too open about it with the man himself.
Normandy normally suffered from this too, but not now, which, to Tancred’s mind, showed just how much that stream of gold had affected his thinking. ‘Then march on north and tell your Uncle Bohemund and those who support him to join us.’
‘Would such a move detach Toulouse from this foolish diversion?’
‘Nothing other than that will.’
‘Well, if Raymond commands an Apulian attack on those walls I will hesitate to obey. I will not set my lances forward as an offering to his pride and see them bleed for it.’
‘What makes you think he will ask?’ Normandy snapped. ‘This is a fortress on which he will want to stamp his own name.’
It was an expansive Raymond who dined with them that night, his talk full with boasts of the speed with which he would subdue Arqa. Such comments were received with little in the way of challenge, for even if Tancred thought the enterprise imprudent he expected that as a siege it would not be one of long duration; with luck he and his Apulians would have no participation at all.
Easy conquests had clouded the judgement for them alclass="underline" a look at Arqa should have alerted them to some of its advantages, the first of which came on the primary assault, in which they discovered that the defenders had several huge catapults, mounted on platforms set well behind the parapet, that could bombard them with a spray of large rocks before they ever got close to the walls, deadly missiles that no shield or mail could withstand.
Even if he had had the presence of the English carpenters to build a siege tower — and Raymond did not, for they had returned to Antioch — he would have been unable to employ one. Sitting as it did on an all-round incline, Arqa made such a weapon flawed, for to get it up the slope with such weight was beyond the strength of man, and even if it were not, the likelihood of it toppling backwards was too high to be risked.
Moving away from the area covered by the catapults offered the best chance of a successful assault, albeit that with nothing but ladders it would be difficult. Leading that assault himself Raymond once more came close to death — he lost two of his own familia knights — as rocks rained down on them well short of their goal. The suspicion that the defenders had endless catapults proved to be false; what they had were machines easy to break up and reassemble, as well as sighting positions on all four sides of the city to employ them.
The next option chosen, a bombardment screen, took time to construct, though sporadic attacks were maintained to keep the defenders occupied and tire them out, the concomitant of that being the same effect on the Crusaders and to that was added an unusual level of casualties. Worse still, the men suffering the most were the influential captains who led from the very front by example. To see their leaders struck down and killed by those flying rocks was enough to annul the attempt to even raise a ladder.
When the bombardment screen was ready, hopes rose that sapping could bring down the walls. Cheers greeted the assembly as it moved forward, more when catapulted rocks bounced off its sloped roof, for it had been made extra strong with those in mind. Slowly, for it was heavy, it inched towards those white walls until it was firmly placed against them and the diggers could get to work with their picks and shovels.
The contraption that appeared above the screen excited comment but no fear, a thick wooden frame with what seemed like pulleys attached to the top of it, the curiosity aroused doubled by the way the defenders began to knock away some of their own battlement crenellations to create a gap. Next, there were men lined up on either side and even at a distance the Crusaders could hear the shouts that indicated the calls needed to move a heavy object.
When what those men were lifting appeared it caused gasps, for its purpose was obvious. Eased up to the level of the gap in the wall, it was a massive round rock in a cradle of ropes that was soon being pushed outwards; indeed the whole pulley structure was now leaning towards the attackers at an angle that increased with agonising slowness. Eyes were on Raymond of Toulouse now, wondering what he would do, let his diggers continue or call off both them and the screen; he chose the former.
When the huge rock was finally pitched over, more by its own weight than any pressure from those pushing, it seemed to roll downwards at no pace at all in the minds of those watching. But when it struck the wails were loud, for it smashed through the roof of the screen as if it were mere bark, sending great splinters of wood in all directions, worse still carrying on to crush those sappers, who of necessity were right up against the base carrying out the task.
Few of them survived, for the place from which it had been pitched lay right above their heads, the foremost point of the screen roof. Many of those who had helped to get it into place, the men who had built it, perished too from being felled by their own handiwork, those that did not subjected to a hail of lances then arrows as they fled.