That roused Raymond from his seeming torpor. ‘What host can move at such a pace?’
‘The one we command, My Lord.’
Godfrey took up his argument again as Tancred got a cold glare.
‘I have studied the maps, as have you all. Every obstacle we must get round leads to a fertile region, a river-fed plain between one set of hills and the next.’
That truth silently acknowledged, he gestured towards Tancred.
‘My young friend here has made a most telling suggestion, that we cannot march as we would in open country, always looking for the next place to set up a camp. It has been put to me that if we march hard without anything in the way of a halt, bar the need to drink and quickly eat, we can cover the ground so fast that we will confound any news that can get ahead of us.’
‘Not camp?’ asked Normandy, though more from curiosity than objection.
‘That we do every third or fourth day and for the whole of it, to allow our men to recover from their exertions and to eat well before the next stage.’
‘As well as scout well ahead,’ Tancred added, ‘which will give us good intelligence of what we might face.’
‘The pilgrims?’ Raymond asked, implying that if they had not been forgotten they were being ignored.
‘Our rest day will give them time to catch us up.’
‘And at what risk will they run coming in our wake?’ Flanders said. ‘For we face no threat from the interior, and if we did we would know of it well in advance of any danger.’
‘I will not deny there is risk,’ Godfrey concluded, aware that Raymond remained unconvinced, ‘but within the two evils of that or a long march I see this as the lesser way. So now, My Lords, I ask for your vote, for the more time we waste talking the stouter will be the defences of Jerusalem that we will, with God’s help, face.’
That was hyperbole and all present knew it: a day or two of rumination would make no difference, but Godfrey, frustrated for so long in his aim of freeing the Holy Places — to which he was committed to do or die in the attempt — gave the impression that even the seconds it took between the posing of the question and receiving the assent of the majority were too long. His eager look forced a response and only Raymond dissented from his proposal.
To talk of risk was one thing, to face it quite another and Tancred, tasked to ride ahead of the host and warn of any danger, knew that should such a thing be manifest, turning round and reversing the march of twelve thousand fighting men, not to mention the equipment and camp followers in their train, would be impossible without the fighting elements getting mixed up with the rest and the whole descending into useless confusion.
That was true where they had a strip of land and beach to traverse; on the really narrow passes, like the first true obstacle south of Tripoli, a rocky promontory known to the Arabs as ‘the Face of God’, the crags ran right to the shoreline. Such a reverse there could not be achieved without massive loss of life to the men and animals edging along a single-man track with a precipitous drop on their right hand. With a mere glance they could look to the foaming ocean below, or the sharp rocks upon which the waves were breaking and too easily imagine a terrible fate.
To counter that Godfrey’s promise of fertile valleys was borne out. Given the time of year, full spring blessed with abundant sunshine, in a land full of good red earth that was favoured by several harvests of a huge variety of crops every year, there was no shortage of food for everyone to eat. What horses they still mustered, as well as the livestock on the hoof, were fattened with ample pasture and if there was caution from the inhabitants regarding such a warlike body in their midst there was no trouble, not least because of the way they quickly moved on.
In the sections of open country, moving in normal marching order, the leaders knew the whole army was at just as much risk, for if they did face danger in their manoeuvres on the narrower strips of territory, they at least knew, thanks to those scouting ahead, there were no enemies waiting for them in numbers. On an open plain in extended formation any military host was vulnerable; experience had told the Crusaders that their enemies could gather and move with speed enough to spring a surprise.
No sign of the Fatimids was observed and that did come as a shock; even resting at Sidon, like all the other coastal cities with an emir happy to pay for peace with gold and horses, there was no indication of any enemy ahead seeking to block their way. Any problems they encountered came from nature, most notably a type of venomous snake, numerous in quantity, that killed a number of men by its bite, they dying in an agony that had a near panic ripple through the ranks. Not many slept in the face of such a threat and those that did had to do so through the sound of others banging swords on shields to frighten the creatures off.
Such good fortune, no sight of an enemy, held as they passed through names that were scarred into their Christian understanding, Old Testament places such as Tyre and Acre, the Roman city of Caesarea, where they rested and celebrated Pentecost. On the entire march so far so few men had been lost it was thought to be a miracle, only one foraging party having set out failing to return; some jested they had found a fertile spot on the nearby Sea of Galilee full of wine and women, more sober minds sure they had fallen to some unknown force of Muslims, which had them warning others to avoid overconfidence.
The last place they would encounter if they carried on down the coast was Jaffa, known from pilgrim tales to be formidable; it was the port which led to the Holy City and surely the route by which Cairo fed men into Palestine and therefore bound to be well garrisoned. In order to avoid being held up by both fortifications and the defenders Godfrey got agreement that they should head inland from Arsulf and make for Ramleh.
This was the last city before their goal and, expecting to have to fight for what was a vital strategic centre protecting Jerusalem, they were both surprised and delighted to find it abandoned, and obviously that had been carried out in a headlong panic, for the inhabitants had taken only what they could carry. Ramleh’s storerooms were stacked to the rafters with grain, and resting there they had both time and food enough to reorder their lines prior to the final thrust.
Lying just outside the city was the famous Basilica of St George, said to hold buried in its vaults the saint’s bones. Eager to send a message ahead regarding the nature of the Crusade, Godfrey de Bouillon put forward the notion that once the basilica had been rededicated to Christ, Ramleh should become the first Latin bishopric in Palestine. This had all the contingents vying that one of their number should fill the office.
Raymond of Toulouse, being so insistent that one of his divines must have preference, united everyone else to agree to a priestly candidate drawn from the remnants of the French forces once led by Hugh of Vermandois — he being known as Robert of Rouen no doubt swayed Normandy and Flanders — and the man was duly consecrated in the office with word sent to Rome so that they could approve his elevation.
They departed Ramleh with every man-sack bulging and every animal laden with grain, moving on to the town of Qubeiba, a mere three leagues from the walls of the Holy City, buoyed by the feeling that the Fatimid garrison they would face had to be lacking in numbers and purpose, or surely, if they had either, they would have come out to fight rather than hide behind their defences.
In a final council Godfrey sought to reach a consensus as to how Jerusalem should be assaulted, only to stumble on what was, as ever, the intransigence of the Count of Toulouse.
‘Would you have me fight under your instruction?’ he demanded of Godfrey.
‘Not instruction, My Lord, but in cooperation so that we act as an aid to each other, not a hindrance.’
‘No one will hinder my sword,’ Raymond barked, ‘lest they seek martyrdom.’