From that day their journey had been filled with as many doubts as elations, added to which were the numbers, friends and comrades, who had perished on the way and were not here to witness this stirring sight. There, lit by the rising sun, was the Temple Mount on which sat the Dome of the Rock and when he climbed the Mount of Olives, Tancred could look upon the epicentre of his religion, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. All that was now required was to take it back for his faith.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The headlong rush to Jerusalem had masked many dangers that quickly became apparent, not least that the Crusade was isolated; they had nothing but enemies behind them as well as to their front. If cities like Acre and Beirut had paid tribute to be left in peace they were Muslim in faith and not well disposed towards Christians. Having bypassed Jaffa, the princes had no hope of the kind of naval support that required a port in which to land reinforcements, so even if Alexius kept his word and sailed to their aid, which was still considered unlikely by everyone but Raymond, he would have to fight to get his host ashore.
Added to that, the army was nothing like the force that had set out from their homelands, indeed it was seriously more diminished now than it had been outside Antioch. To set against that was the fact that those who had finally made it to Jerusalem were amongst the hardiest of their breed; there were no doubters now, everyone had suffered much privation to get here, so within them lay the kind of spirit, as well as a depth of belief, that could overcome obstacles the size of mountains.
The Holy City well fitted that description; it was formidable and its dimensions were no secret, for like Antioch every returning pilgrim described them with awe. Forming a fairly rectangular shape, the massive walls of Jerusalem extended a whole league in length, were the width of three knightly lances and the height of four fair-sized men standing on each other’s shoulders.
Accessed by five gates, each one of those had a set of twin towers to protect it and, at the sections deemed most vulnerable, stood two great fortresses able to maintain themselves independently of the city; they had their own storerooms and water supply. The larger bastion was known as the Quadrangular Tower, the other the legendary Tower of David, this constructed of great stone blocks fixed to each other with molten lead to well over half its total height.
Jerusalem was near impervious to assault on two sides due to the valleys of Josaphat and Qidron that protected it. To the north and east the rest of the defence was rendered equally difficult by man-made additions such as a secondary outer wall as well as dry ditches. Given the dimensions of the whole, set against the number who had finally made it to their goal, the notion of surrounding the city and cutting it off from support and resupply was unachievable.
The garrison, under the command of one Iftikhar ad-Daulah, was strong and had recently been reinforced by a large body of elite cavalry. If ad-Daulah had foolishly failed to impede the Crusade reaching Jerusalem he had shown some sense in poisoning or collapsing the outside water wells before they arrived. Added to that, suspecting the Christian inhabitants would aid their allies in faith, he had chased them out of the city to prevent them rising in rebellion.
Food was not a problem for the besiegers: they still had possession of the granaries of Ramleh, but the lack of water was crippling in the full throbbing heat of a Palestine summer, where the very ground shimmered. The only uncontaminated source, a small spring-fed puddle called the Pool of Siloam, at the foot of Mount Zion, was within bow shot of the southern wall and the Fatimid archers gathered there in numbers for sport.
Each time it was drained the Pool of Siloam took three long days to refill and that was diminished, as it occurred, by thirsty animals, though not enough to prevent it becoming near full eventually, at which point it was rushed by every man made brave enough by desperation to risk death.
A hail of arrows greeted them, yet it was a harsh choice: expire from want of water or from a piercing bolt that might strike some vital spot. With so many seeking relief, that which was consumable soon became churned with mud, making it less than quenching, it being already rendered vile by the rotting carcasses of dead beasts. Each time the lack of remaining fluid persuaded the men to retreat they left behind them the bodies of their comrades, some of whom had been so trampled as to drown in what was now no more than deep sludge.
The two main divisions of the host, the leaders barely on speaking terms, moved to take up separate positions. Godfrey de Bouillon, supported by Tancred and Flanders, lined up to the north-west of the city between the Quadrangular Tower and the St Stephen’s Gate. Raymond having arrived first, and supported by the Duke of Normandy, had originally set up his camp opposite the Tower of David, but that being an obstacle too difficult to easily overcome he had moved south to a more exposed position opposite the Zion Gate.
If the split was brought about by continued dispute it nevertheless had the advantage of forcing ad-Daulah to do the same. This divided the defence for it was moot how much the Fatimid governor knew about the mood in the Crusaders’ lines. Since Arqa, both because of the failed siege but more from the exposure of the Holy Lance, the position of Raymond of Toulouse had steadily diminished. He was no longer considered a spiritual leader as well as a military one, not that anyone meeting him would have realised this to be the case — his arrogance was fully intact.
Hopes in that area had shifted to the much more pious Godfrey de Bouillon, and men, even many Provencals who owed allegiance to Raymond, looked to him to lead them to their ultimate goal for the obvious sincerity of his faith as well as his undoubted ability as a fighter and leader. Seeing the need for a symbol, one of de Bouillon’s confessors had had made a cross of solid gold, this fashioned from the tribute the marching host had gathered on the way, to be displayed outside Godfrey’s pavilion.
If it was not of the one-time stature of the Holy Lance — not being a relic — it was nevertheless an object to which men could attach some meaning and the effect was soon demonstrated when, perhaps under pressure from his troubled knights, the Duke of Normandy detached himself from Raymond and moved his men to the north of the city to take up position alongside Godfrey de Bouillon.
‘Bohemund predicted Godfrey would end up as the leader of the Crusade,’ Tancred said, as the Norman lances rode up to form their new lines.
‘When?’ asked Flanders, watching with him, the implication that it was easy to see that as true, quite forgetting that the man mentioned by his nephew was many leagues to the north and could have no notion of the fall from grace of Toulouse.
‘After the fall of Nicaea.’
The doubt on the Count’s face was very noticeable, for he made no attempt to hide it, which brought a smile of superior knowledge from Tancred. ‘I asked him about the leadership of the Crusade, which I thought should have been gifted to him from the outset.’
‘You would, being of his blood.’
‘No, it was that I have seen him fight many battles, much more than any of his peers and he has a gift for leading men to feats to which they would not normally aspire. I think you too saw the sense of that at Antioch.’
‘He never so much as hinted or put himself forward.’
‘Bohemund was certain he would never be acknowledged as leader, just as he was sure that if we ever got to Jerusalem the man the Crusade would choose to rule the Holy City would be Godfrey, as being the only one deserving of the title, though he was equally certain Raymond would seek to be gifted it by acclaim.’
‘There might have been a rival other than Toulouse.’ Flanders spluttered as he said that, not, Tancred thought, because he believed it to be so, but merely to underline that he too might have laid claim to the prize. ‘Even you must acknowledge, Tancred, that your uncle forsook the Crusade.’