Eleanor reflected on Simeon’s description: if daytime was one lip of hell, night-time was certainly the other. They pitched their tents, if they could, and gathered around weak fires of dried dung, wormwood and whatever bracken they could find. Darkness was truly a time of terror! Eleanor never understood how such a deserted place could conceal so many creatures. Wolf jackals howled at the sweet fleshy smell of their restless horses and braying donkeys. Fire beetles flared eerily out of the dark. White moths flew in over the camp fires whilst the exhausted pilgrims screamed as bats, with their half-cat, half-monkey faces, chattering and swishing, swarmed in to feed on the myriad of insects. Eagle owls, fierce and fiery-eyed, joined other predators: jackals, snakes, huge rats, as well as the occasional lynx that slunk into the camp to seize dogs, birds, pets and, on one occasion, a sleeping girl. Eleanor herself soon experienced the dangers of leaving the camp. One night, alarmed by strange sounds, she went beyond the line of carts. She heard a soft growl and, turning to her left, glimpsed what looked like balls of green fire staring at her. A dark shape emerged from the darkness, a squat head with grinning mouth displaying sharp fangs and flecks of bubbling froth on a curling upper lip. Eleanor screamed, lashed out and the striped hyena swiftly disappeared into the darkness.
The effect of such hardships on the Army of God soon became apparent as they journeyed through the stifling heat. Hunger was commonplace. Leaves, bark, flowers and berries were eagerly seized and eaten. Some were poisonous, and more corpses and graves trailed their route. Horses, donkeys and dogs died. Pack animals became a rarity, so goats, sheep, cows and even dogs were used to carry the baggage until their skins became scuffed and worn. Knights rode oxen or trudged wearily in the wake of the carts. Water became equally precious; those wells, streams and waterholes the Turks had missed were soon turned into nothing better than muddy messes. People left the column to dig at roots, searching for any moistness. They prayed for rain, yet the sudden violent storms only brought fresh hardship. Simeon taught them how to build screens of poles, interwoven with palm fronds, prickle pear and acacia twigs, to protect their tents; these became ragged and torn but could be quickly repaired with goatskin. The abrupt, tempestuous sand storms, however, became the bane of their lives, especially at night, when the heavy clouds rolled in, hiding the stars and plunging everything into an inky blackness. Blinding flashes of yellow forked lightning silenced the growls, howls and deep coughs of the night prowlers. The air became heavy, and hot, thick flying sand pelted them so all they could do was shelter and pray for it to pass. Jagged holes would appear in the clouds, then close again, whilst the rain would fall, streams of icy water turning the ground into a sticky yellow mud that coated everything. The night would pass. The storm would break and the sun rise to blister rock and burn the ground, then by noon the dust returned to redden eyes, clog the mouth and block the nose.
Some pilgrims just disappeared; others turned back. Even their leaders began to falter. Tancred of Hauteville and Baldwin of Boulogne decided to take a different route through the Cilician mountains. They reached Tarsus, drove out the Turkish garrison, then fought each other for control of the city. Tancred, furious, had to withdraw and return to the main army. Baldwin followed because his wife was dying, but when she was gone so was he, with a conroy of knights, to Edessa in the land of the Armenians. Here he became the adopted son of Tholos, the ruler of the city. Treacherous as ever, however, Baldwin conspired with certain leading men in the city and Tholos was literally thrown to the dogs.
Peter Bartholomew, their self-proclaimed prophet, now came into his own. For most of the journey he had kept quiet, apart from the occasional outburst. As they suffered the horrors of their march from Dorylaeum, he seemed to survive only on brackish water, and began to preach and proclaim his visions. How in the dead of night he had dreams in which the trumpets of the Apocalypse summoned him to watch what was about to happen. How fire would fall from heaven to destroy the impious, yet this fire was only the harbinger of even greater calamities. Thunder and lightning delivered further visions. Plagues would be released to the clash of cymbals. Earth, air, water and fire would become polluted by the horrors God intended to unleash on the world. The Angel of Wrath would fly over ruined cities, whilst a devil named Wormwood lurked in the shadows, ready to strike. Very few understood him; even fewer cared. Nevertheless, after the morning Mass, or in the afternoon when the Ave Maria was recited, Peter would often climb on to some cart and preach about the pale horse, mounted by Death, which rode on their right flank, whilst black horses carrying Famine and Hunger galloped to their left. Of course the curious asked if God was punishing them rather than the Turks. Peter would blink, stare into the middle distance and immediately launch into another vision he’d received.
Eleanor wondered if Peter really had become witless. Beltran and Imogene insisted that he be banned from preaching and kept close, but Hugh thought differently. Now and again he would take Peter off into the dark, and they would sit away from the camp fire and talk quietly together. Once Eleanor asked Hugh what the topic of conversation was. Hugh merely gave that lopsided smile, his eyes not meeting hers. Indeed, brother and sister rarely talked during the march. Hugh was constantly employed by Count Raymond for this task or that, whilst Eleanor’s companions were either Beltran or, more usually, Theodore. On that occasion, when questioned about Peter, Hugh gnawed his lip and was about to walk away, but Eleanor caught him by the sleeve.
‘Hugh, we face horrors enough without Peter’s trumpeting. Why do you allow it?’
‘Very simple, sister.’ Hugh stepped closer, his face coated with a fine sheen of dust. ‘Peter reminds us that this is God’s journey. True, we call ourselves the Army of God, but in fact, Eleanor, we’re not. We have blood on our hands. We are as vicious and as cruel as our enemies. Nevertheless, God uses us for his own secret purposes. We will reach Jerusalem. We will discover the treasures there. Peter is important in this. If his voice echoes like a trumpet, then I say it is God’s trumpet reminding us why we are here.’
Theodore thought otherwise and approached Eleanor with a plea to talk quietly to Peter to try and calm him. Eleanor repeated Hugh’s words. Theodore shook his head.
‘Sister,’ he replied, ‘the pilgrims thought they would march through Asia into Syria and take Jerusalem. We have lost some twenty thousand souls through hunger, thirst, desertion, war and weakness. If we are not careful, the Army of God may think itself cursed, and then what?’
Eleanor realised that both Hugh and Theodore were correct: they were walking a narrow bridge. The Army of God must be virtuous, but if it lost hope, then what future was there? What vision existed? Hugh also sensed this and did his best for his own company. He would gather the Poor Brethren of the Temple and lead them in Compline or Vespers, or simply stand on a cart, a solitary stark figure, reciting his Ave beads and inviting others to join him.
The Army of God continued its march, beginning its climb through the mountains leading down to the plains of Syria and the city of Antioch. As Peter Bartholomew so eloquently proclaimed: their ascent was, in fact, more of a descent into a cruel hell of tortuous shale-strewn trackways lined with dark, sombre forests, along ledges that turned treacherous underfoot, especially when the autumn rains set. Little wonder Hugh and Godefroi called them ‘the Mountains of the Devil’ or ‘the Mountains of Hell’. Now and again they found some respite in one of the scattered stone-walled villages with their brown-domed churches and flat-topped, mud-brick cottages with cow and goat pens hidden behind. At least the inhabitants did not flee. Squat, sallow-faced men, garbed in old armour and reeking of cattle, dried milk and dung, came out to greet them. They carried crosses and offered wine and stale bread, explaining how they were Armenian Christians, hostile to the Turks. When Eleanor, Hugh and other leaders of the Poor Brethren met them in the dusty porchways of their round churches, they found the Armenians equally wary of the Franks. In truth, they offered little help and stole whatever they could. They also relayed false information, telling them that Antioch was an open city where the Turks were preparing to flee. Count Raymond, recovering from a near-fatal illness, believed them and immediately dispatched a conroy of five hundred knights, but the news proved false. On one subject the Armenians were adamant: the way ahead was bleak and treacherous. And so it proved.