Bohemund nodded. ‘But add this: what are the intentions of Alexius when it comes to Jerusalem? Is it to secure the Holy City for Christendom or for Byzantium? Will the lot of Latin pilgrims be any easier if it is controlled by a Greek emperor, and who is to say what will be the nature of the successors of Alexius, for he must die, as must we all?’
‘The last communication from Rome told us the Pope is unwell. Such a reference to the death of rulers may be unwelcome.’
‘Then find the words to say it better. What we must plant in the mind of the Pope — and if he does die whoever succeeds him — that the enemy of Rome is no longer the Turk. They we have beaten so effectively they are spent and the Curia will know from the communications from Lebanon that the Arabs are likewise cowed. But there is still an adversary and in time it may be a greater one than either.’
The monk smiled. ‘And to counter that enemy it is necessary to hold Antioch?’
The reply was emphatic. ‘More than that, the rival we must keep in check is Byzantium, and not just in Syria. Alexius must be kept from the Holy City itself, for if it is controlled from Constantinople what hope can Rome have that its voice will carry weight in how it is governed or what access will be granted to pilgrims? Jerusalem in imperial hands will become a bargaining counter that may see the power of our faith move from the Tiber to the Bosphorus.’
‘You are saying if Rome believes such a prospect exists it will terrify them?’
The doubt in the monk’s voice was unmistakable, which did not anger Bohemund; the man was paid to be awkward and question every act of his master.
‘We must aid them to see it as a possibility, that is all, which we will do by repetition of the risks. Even if they only perceive a slight danger it is one the papacy must guard against and that can best be achieved by turning the lands over which the Crusade has marched into bishoprics and lay holdings that owe allegiance to the Latin rite.’
Since the march from Ma’arrat, Peter Bartholomew, who had joined his lord from Albara, had shown increasing signs of self-belief and arrogance, indeed that had been growing ever since he personally dug the Holy Lance from the ground. If there were those who doubted the veracity of that act, indeed had reservations about Bartholomew himself but were not elevated in rank enough to avoid repercussions, they were careful not to state them, so strong was the belief that Antioch had been won by it being present among the multitude.
Bartholomew rarely strayed far from Raymond’s side now he had gone from humble preacher to where he saw himself, as the soul of the Provencal enterprise, feeling free to speak when not required to do so, as he had done with the envoys from Homs. Now he was having visions once more — to the cynical, these manifested by the failure to take Arqa, which by rights should have fallen long before and so were designed to aid Raymond of Toulouse.
These revelations, unlike those centred on Antioch, were of a more brutal nature. He claimed to have been revisited by his celestial interlocutors, who had castigated him for allowing the host, especially the armed members, to fall into sin and debauchery. Thus he was instructed to weed out the unworthy so that the Crusade could be purified.
Few of the other preachers, and they were still numerous, had been prepared to openly challenge Bartholomew — Peter the Hermit, who alone might have had the prestige to do so, wearied as well as disillusioned had long ago sailed back to Europe — and neither had the other princes. But that changed when he proposed his solution, which was alarming.
The soldiers, lances and milities should be lined up in five equal ranks, they themselves choosing which file to join without being told why. The vision told Bartholomew that those in the front three ranks would be the men true to the faith and Jesus Christ; those in the two to the rear were such endemic sinners that no hope of salvation could exist for them and in being present they were risking the souls of the whole host, pilgrims included.
‘And what are we to do with these sinners?’ asked Godfrey de Bouillon, when Peter Bartholomew was called upon to explain his vision to the Council of Princes.
‘Kill them!’ That produced a shocked silence, into which Peter added, ‘Then all that remain, from the highest to the lowest, are to do what has been bidden, which is to scourge themselves to remove the taint of transgression.’
‘The high to the low?’ asked Normandy, disbelieving.
‘No noble is a power enough to stand against the word of God.’
‘And you see yourself as passing on the word of God?’
‘I do.’
‘No army,’ Tancred said, with deep irony, ‘can stand to lose two-fifths of its strength on a questionable apparition.’
‘How dare you call it questionable,’ Peter replied, his tone cold. ‘I see you, Lord Tancred, in the rear rank, and if your uncle was here he would be alongside you, for if ever there was a sinner it is he.’
‘While I see you in a jester’s cap and, peasant, if Bohemund was here and you spoke thus your head would be on the carpet and several body lengths from your trunk.’
‘Will you allow me to be so traduced, My Lord?’
This demand was directed at Raymond of Toulouse and in a manner that he would have struggled to accept from an equal. From a one-time ragged supplicant here was a man who had elevated himself to near divinity, such a mode of address was, in front of his peers, like a slap to Toulouse, yet such was his reliance on Peter, who was ever loud amongst the pilgrims in his praise that the Count was a man of true faith, he did not dare check him as he should.
‘This must be told to the host,’ he responded weakly.
‘Tell them and the sinners will avoid their just fate.’
‘Perhaps,’ Normandy interjected, ‘we should put your faith, or maybe your visions, to the test.’
‘Your dare to question the word of those who come to me in the night?’
‘I dare to question the sanity of any man who claims to speak for the Almighty.’
‘There are many of those,’ Robert of Flanders reminded the assembly. ‘I wonder how they would take to this vision, indeed take to such a massacre?’
‘Let us assemble them and ask them,’ Raymond said, in a tone of voice and with an expression on his face of a man looking for a way out of damning his own seer.
When the word was spread, albeit in a controlled way, the reaction of those who saw themselves as at least Bartholomew’s equals in the strength of their mission was absolute and negative. No deity, whom they worshipped, one who had allowed his son to die on the Cross so that sinners could be saved, would contemplate such an act. Their refusal to accept what Peter said sent him into a towering rage in which he dammed them to perdition and the fires of hell.
‘Let it be an ordeal by fire,’ he shouted finally, after every argument in seeking to persuade them of the truth of his vision had been exhausted. ‘I speak the words of God through messengers he has sent to me. And I will have in my hand the Holy Lance that won for us the Battle of Antioch. If I am a deceiver, he will burn me, if I am not I will emerge not even singed by the flames.’
That silenced those who were disputing with him, for to talk of such trials was a commonplace; holy men were ever quick to propose such an ordeal, less willing ever to follow it through and take the actual risk. Peter’s declaration was of a different order, for having made it and in such an assembly it was not one from which he could, without utterly losing face, withdraw, even when Raymond, fretful of the consequences, sought to dissuade him. Peter fasted for four days, praying to God all the while, the Holy Lance, which he claimed would protect him, taken from Raymond so that it could prove his visions were real and it truly was the point of the weapon that had pierced the side of Christ.
A pile of olive saplings was set up as a long walkway and soaked with pitch so that it would burn fiercely. Now that word of such a happening was abroad all action in the siege was suspended on the day of the ordeal and the slope that ran up to the walls of Arqa was crowded with fighting men and pilgrims; no one wanted to miss this and that incline gave many a good view.