Eleanor joined Imogene beneath the cart to drink watered wine and chew on dry bread before crawling out to help the wounded, console the survivors and assist with laying out the dead. Late in the afternoon Frankish horse appeared, the riders sporting the ghastly trophies of their great victory on the end of their lances or tied by the hair to their saddle horns. They brought splendid news: the near defeat had turned into a great victory! Angels in gleaming armour had been seen fighting on the side of the Army of God. The Turks had been completely routed, their camp taken and ransacked. The riders brought orders: the rest of the army must move down to occupy the Turkish camp. Jubilant, singing hymns, the entire army swept up the valley to seize, as Peter Bartholomew proclaimed, ‘the tents and possessions of their enemies’.
On that night a great banquet was held, the darkness lit by hundreds of camp fires and pitch torches. Freshly slaughtered meat was roasted on makeshift grills and spits. Songs, hymns and drunken shouts resounded up to the surrounding hills. ‘Deus vult! Deus vult!’ The cry was repeated. The Army of God rejoiced beneath the dark blue velvet sky, the stars brilliant as if an angelic host was also watching. The revelry, however, was broken by the faint sounds of keening and mourning. Eleanor had seen the dead laid out in rows. Men, women and children, mothers and priests as well as warriors like Tancred’s brother: a long line of blood-splattered corpses. The stories were rife about the rape and killing perpetrated in the camp by the Turks. The Poor Brethren of the Temple had certainly lost several of their number: Richer the Fuller, Osbert and Anna, Matilda of Aix with four of her children, William the Brewer, his wife and three children, all wrapped in shabby shrouds. Graves had been hacked from the ground. The corpses, each with a small wooden cross, were assigned to the earth, their souls to God in joyful expectation of the rapture, the final resurrection. The kin of the dead were given special rewards in the distribution of the spoils. Heaps of treasure, lines of horses and stacks of weapons had been put on show. Chests and coffers brimming with jewelled plate, cups of ivory, onyx and jasper, golden goblets, gilded armour, bejewelled sheets, embroidered cloths, elaborate harness fashioned out of blood-red leather, cloaks, gowns, shoes and girdles, medallions and coins, the likes of which had never been seen before.
Now, as the darkness deepened and the celebrations echoed to the heavens, the leaders of the Poor Brethren camped around their fire. All were exhilarated and jubilant. Alberic and Norbert had received light wounds before escaping from the massacre, Hugh and Godefroi likewise, though both had their horses killed under them. The main topic of conversation was the ferocity of the Turks.
‘Count Raymond,’ declared Hugh, biting into a piece of blackened beef, ‘says the war is changing. Bellum in extremis — war to the end.’
‘That is the only war there is,’ Norbert replied. ‘As I said, no war can be just, no war can be holy.’
Eleanor, half asleep over a cracked goblet of wine, tried to clear her soul of the gruesome images of the day. Beltran was agreeing with Hugh how little mercy could be shown or expected. Theodore, exhausted after his furious ride for help, was smiling at Eleanor over the flickering glow of the fire.
‘Our cause is just!’
Eleanor startled at Peter Bartholomew’s trumpet-like voice.
‘Satan walks,’ the prophet continued, ‘Satan rides like a great lord. We must arm ourselves against him, take up the weapons of salvation.’
Hugh caught Eleanor’s gaze and indicated with his head that they should withdraw. Peter Bartholomew continued his prophesying as they both retreated into darkness. Hugh grasped her hands.
‘Eleanor, Count Raymond really asked us to join Bohemond so I could watch for something.’
‘What, Bohemond himself?’
‘No.’ Hugh drew closer. ‘Godefroi knows this as well. Do you remember at Radosto how the Greeks attacked as soon as Count Raymond left? How they seemed to know our movements? How they deployed so swiftly?’
Eleanor nodded.
‘Well,’ Hugh shrugged, ‘this morning Kilij Arsan learned very quickly that Bohemond had become separated from the rest of the army.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Eleanor, we might have a traitor in our midst. Count Raymond now sees a bear behind every bush; perhaps the Poor Brethren of the Temple shelter one.’
‘Why us?’ Eleanor replied hotly. ‘Why not the Beggars’ Company? They provoked the Greeks at Radosto.’
‘Ah, yes,’ he replied, ‘but only amongst the Poor Brethren was it first known that Raymond had left for Constantinople. The rest learned much later whilst the Greeks were ready, just looking for a cause…’
‘And?’
‘We know the Turks have spies in our camp,’ Hugh continued, ‘as we have in theirs. Count Raymond received an anonymous message that if he was looking for traitors then he should search for them amongst the Poor Brethren of the Temple.’
‘A lie!’ Eleanor countered. ‘Someone trying to create trouble.’
‘Count Raymond trusts us,’ Hugh replied, ‘me, you, Godefroi and the others, but as he pointed out, Alberic, Norbert and Theodore have wandered the face of God’s earth, so whom do they truly work for? Do we house a traitor, sister?’
Eleanor reflected on Hugh’s question as she sat in that plundered pavilion and watched the flies dance in the shaft of sunlight piercing a tear in its cloth.
‘Mistress-sister?’ Simeon the Scribe stared around. The pavilion was now empty. Imogene had left saying she wished to share a cup of wine with the brethren. ‘Sister, a spy?’
‘You know, Simeon…’ Eleanor smiled. ‘I trust you whilst you can only trust me.’ She touched the tip of Simeon’s nose. ‘Moreover, you were not at Radosto.’ She gazed round. She’d welcome her own tent, poor and shabby though it was. This one reminded her of blood, the terrible massacre she’d witnessed. The army planned to march to Antioch within three days. She’d be pleased to leave here. There were too many demons, blood-splattered and wicked, clustered about.
Part 6
Antioch: The Feast of St Godric, 21 May 1098
Vexilla Regis prodeunt.
(The standards of the King advance.)
Venantius Fortunatus, ‘Hymn In Honour of the Cross’
‘O Key of David! O Rod of Jesse! O Morning Star!’
Eleanor de Payens shivered as Norbert and Alberic intoned the Advent ‘O’ antiphons. Outside Hugh’s tent it was black and cold. Inside a meagre fire and two evil-smelling candles shed a little light and warmth against the stink and the freezing cold. 1097, the year of iron and blood, was drawing to a close. When they left Dorylaeum the Army of God thought they would celebrate the great feast in the real stable at Bethlehem whilst their battle standards fluttered above the ramparts of Jerusalem. Instead they had marched on to the plains of hell and encountered Antioch, a city of iron and steel, a huge, dangerous boulder blocking their path. Antioch! The Army of God dared not go round it because the city controlled northern Syria. It could cut off their lines and sever any help from the Emperor and the west. Yet what help? Eleanor wondered as she stared down at her bitten fingernails.
She tried to curb the wave of self-pity and stared round the tent. They had left Constantinople seventy thousand strong; now they were fewer than fifty thousand. A long trail of funeral crosses and burial mounds stretched back across Asia. An army of ghosts must now march with them. She closed her eyes briefly and gave thanks that at least those dear to her had survived. Hugh and Godefroi, Alberic and Norbert, Theodore, Beltran and Imogene, but, she stared swiftly around, they were all now grey people: grey-haired, grey-faced, grey-souled, ekeing out a grey existence in that sinister half-light of the year before the brooding mass of Antioch. Again Eleanor tried to check herself. There were those other grey shapes left along the dusty highways and roads. Little wonder wolves had come down boldly to the gruesome feast provided. Lions, scenting the rotten smell of decaying flesh, had slunk close. Bears abandoned their lairs for the feast and dogs the hovels they lived in, filthy beasts, soon joined by every creature that could smell carrion-tainted corruption from afar. Vultures, shadowy flocks of them darkening the sky, became their constant companions. These foul birds of the air so filled their bellies they grew too fat for flight, so trees, bushes and gorse became sprinkled with gore from their feathers whilst bits of putrid flesh and drops of blood fell on the trudging column. Were they cursed? Eleanor recalled passing a crumbling graveyard. She forgot which village in which province, they all seemed the same now, but she certainly remembered that one! A hag, a crone crawled out from between the rotting masonry of a cemetery; she was scrawny and squalid, her hair all matted and tangled. She danced round on the top of a table tomb screaming curses in a screeching voice until some unknown archer loosed an arrow straight through her throat. They left her sprawled in a pool of blood. No one cared, but had they killed a witch?