Peter appeared dressed in simple white robes, the Holy Lance in his hand, and indicated that the faggots should be ignited, he, like the whole assembly watching as the flames took hold and were transferred from the slivers of wood to the main timbers, the orange and red flickers quickly rising to well above the height of a man, a pillar of black smoke rising from the top of those into the blue sky.
Bartholomew was now in deep and silent prayer, a state in which he stayed until murmuring indicated that it was time to walk, that if he delayed much longer the inferno would die down and not be enough to maintain his claim. Gathering the crucifix he wore on his chest into his one free hand he stepped forward and walked with slow deliberation into the fire, now with flames so thick he disappeared from view.
The creature that emerged did so with his hair on fire, as were his garments. All over the exposed flesh there were blisters while on his face there was clear sight of the agony caused by such a scorching. The hand that held the Holy Lance had strips of flesh hanging from it, the wooden crucifix in the other hand actually burning as he held it. Forward he staggered, until the pain was too great and he collapsed to a groan from the many who had put faith in his prophecies and still believed in his enchantment.
If a goodly number sought to give Peter succour, to stamp out the singeing of his clothes and hair before lifting him to carry him to one of the tents where the mendicants plied their trade, more were now looking at the Count of Toulouse, while in response he was gazing at the sky. One of the men who had assisted Peter Bartholomew just as he collapsed pushed through to Raymond, the shard of the Holy Lance in his hand, this proffered to a man who had ever valued the holding of it.
Now he was reluctant to take it, for it had proved to be false, proved that it could not offer Peter a carapace of faith that would protect him from his now obvious fate, for without divine intervention, and that now seemed unlikely, he would surely die from such wounds as he had sustained.
But Raymond had little choice; if Peter Bartholomew had placed much of his reputation in that relic, so had the Count of Toulouse. Had he not used it to advance his claim to lead the Crusade, and now it was seen for what it was, nothing but a piece of rusted metal? All around him there was loud wailing, for if the lance had failed the Count there were thousands amongst the host who had resided as much faith in the relic as he.
‘What now, My Lord?’ asked Narbonne, the Bishop of Albara; he had come, like many, to witness a miracle.
Raymond was very obviously aware that within earshot were his fellow princes, who if they had thoughts, and they would not be flattering ones, were keeping them to themselves.
‘We have a siege to pursue,’ Toulouse replied, his voice strong, ‘so let us be about it.’
Raymond knew as well as any of his peers that his standing was blown. Despite what had happened with Bartholomew, who lingered in deep agony twelve whole days before he expired, he sought to replace the power of the lance with a new relic that would bind the faithful to his side. The late Bishop Ademar had purchased, in Constantinople and from the Emperor, a piece of the True Cross, a sliver of near black wood that, it was claimed, formed part of the crucifix on which Christ had been nailed.
Highly respected as Ademar had been — many would call him a saint — such a shift from one relic to another was seen for what it was, an attempt by Raymond to maintain his authority among the deeply religious and numerous pilgrims. By regaining that, he felt he could continue to impose his thinking on the fighting elements of the Crusade. Try as he might, and word was spread of miracles being wrought by that sliver of wood, it failed to convince anyone; if anything, such perceived desperation weakened him more than the exposure of the Holy Lance as a fraud.
After a talk with Godfrey of Bouillon Tancred was able to meet with the Count of Toulouse and vent his own frustrations by telling him the unvarnished nature of his opinion of both his past and present behaviour, not least the folly of besieging Arqa.
‘And I will have you know, My Lord, that from henceforth I have pledged my banner and those men I lead to the Duke of Lower Lorraine.’
The response was a sneer. ‘So your loyalty can only be bought with silver?’
‘To a man like you, Count Raymond, yes! To Godfrey de Bouillon, as with my uncle, I give it freely.’
With any hope of outright leadership entirely gone and with no sign that the promised expedition of Alexius was even on its way, which laid Raymond open to the silent sneers of his confreres for being doubly gullible, he had no choice but to raise the siege of Arqa and agree that the Crusade should finally set off for Jerusalem.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
For an army with a divided command, and the man leading the strongest element of that sulking, the Crusade when it did move managed it with surprising speed. Raymond of Toulouse had faced a difficult choice of route when marching south and had turned for Tripoli; now the whole faced a similar dilemma, one direction to Palestine fraught with risk, the other involving the subjugation, either by treaty or battle, of strongly held and ancient cities on the way.
The decision, that haste was the more vital requirement — that the longer the Fatimids were left in peace the harder Jerusalem would be to capture — when discussed in the Council of Princes, only saw unanimity because Count Raymond declined to put forward an opinion. That rendered the voice of Godfrey de Bouillon the most potent and in Tancred, who aided him, he had an adherent raised in war by an uncle famed for boldness.
‘I have talked with our Maronite Christian brethren,’ Godfrey explained, his mode of speech suffused with enthusiasm, ‘and we will save much time by marching along the coast. It is narrow in places, it is true, hemmed by mountains and the sea, but it favours us and allows for naval support.’
The Duke of Lower Lorraine looked at Raymond then, altering his tone to speak softly and slowly, as if seeking to mollify his fellow magnate’s obvious pique. ‘Should the Emperor come, then all he has to do is sail further south to unite with us, which would not be possible if we take the inland route.’
‘I too have spoken with the Maronites,’ interjected the newcomer, Gaston of Bearn, a slack-jawed man with a protruding lower lip and sad eyes in a large head that made him seem more gloomy than he was by nature. ‘The coast road is, we are told, so narrow in some places that we can only make our way in single file.’
‘Think of how it will confound our enemies.’
‘As long as it does not confound us.’
Bearn saw no need to explain the risks of that to the whole assembly: the vulnerability of rounding the rocky promontories that enclosed every bay along the Mediterranean, in places reducing the so-called road to a track for halter-led donkeys, was obvious. Godfrey, albeit there was acknowledgement, barrelled on in his usual way, his confidence based on the notion that the God to whom he was so passionately devoted would bless his endeavours.
‘But what enemy would think a man so foolish as to come that way?’
‘The Fatimids will know of it before we are passed Sidon,’ Bearn insisted.
‘Will they?’ Godfrey replied. ‘The Arabs of the Lebanon and Palestine have no love for the rulers of Baghdad, why would they have any more for the Sultan in Cairo?’
Tancred spoke up, having gestured to Godfrey to seek permission, eager to back up the man to whom he had so recently transferred his allegiance. ‘And, if we move with speed, we may well get ahead of any news of our movements.’