‘Eleanor, all you have done here,’ he whispered, ‘is to act the part as I have. I feel sorry for Asmaja, Firuz and Baldur, but I also pity my comrades rotting in the camp outside. What you have told me I must use.’
Over the next few days Theodore deftly wove a tapestry of subtle intrigue. Firuz learnt about his wife’s infidelity, then witnessed it first hand. Publicly there were no confrontations or angry words. Baldur was summoned to the tower and dismissed, whilst Asmaja simply disappeared. Firuz informed Theodore that he had sent his wife back to her parents. Theodore, ever the good listener, counselled his new-found friend. Firuz appealed to Yaghi Siyan for justice against the adulterer Baldur, but the ruler of Antioch had other matters on his mind and dismissed the plea out of hand. Firuz returned to the Twin Sisters deeply resentful, determined to drown his sorrows in goblets of wine. Theodore, like the serpent in Eden, wound his way round the man’s soul. Firuz listened. Theodore pointed out how all the gates of Antioch were besieged, the city was locked and eventually would fall. He opened a way whereby Firuz could secure justice and vengeance, not only against his wife and Baldur, protected by Yaghi Siyan, but against the ruler of Antioch himself.
Within a week the web was woven and Firuz was trapped. He entered into secret pacts with Theodore and solemnly promised how, at a given time, he would deliver the Twin Sisters to Bohemond and the Army of God. The trap was closed. Firuz could not object. If he now revealed the plot to Yaghi Siyan, he, like Theodore and the others, would be executed as a traitor. It was only a matter of time, of waiting for the right opportunity.
Part 7
Antioch: The Feast of St Lawrence, 10 August 1098
Quo vulneratus insuper, mucorne diro lanceae.
(Where he was wounded by a thrust from the sharp tip of that lance.)
Venantius Fortunatus, ‘Hymn In Honour of the Cross’
Full summer was now close. Water was plentiful in the city but the markets remained empty. Firuz, full of bitterness, had grown even more eager than Theodore for the Army of God to act. The situation in and around Antioch was worsening. The army were digging up bodies to eat, and cannibalism was rife in the camp, whilst in Antioch the price of food soared so high that people lay out in the streets begging for food. Violent clashes occurred around Bridge Gate and that of St George as Yaghi Siyan made a desperate attempt to destroy the makeshift forts and redoubts that had been thrown up, but still the Franks pressed their siege. News filtered through. Khebogha, Atabeg of the Caliph of Baghdad and Emir of Mosul, was fast approaching the city with a huge army, ready to crush the Franks. Such news heartened Antioch. Bohemond and the others only intensified their siege. Firuz made a fresh appeal to Yaghi Siyan for justice, but Baldur was needed to lead out sorties from Bridge Gate, and Yaghi Siyan refused to do anything.
By the end of May both besieged and besieger were searching for a way to shatter each other. The Army of God, deluded by certain merchants of Antioch into thinking that the city would surrender, dispatched envoys through Bridge Gate under Walo, Constable of France. These were immediately surrounded and killed, their severed heads catapulted into the Frankish camp. The bloody incident increased tension. Theodore, fearful of Yaghi Siyan discovering his plot, believed Firuz was ready. On the Feast of the Blessed Virgin, the last day of May, the Year of Our Lord 1098, he and Firuz went out along the ramparts of the Twin Sisters. Theodore loosed an arrow carrying a message into the darkness below; a lantern flashed three times in reply, a sign that the message had been safely received and understood. The die was cast. The Twin Sisters were to be betrayed on the night of 2 June.
The hours in between were both fraught and frenetic. The city was bracing itself for more attacks and greater food shortages. News came through that Khebogha, the leader of tens and tens of thousands, was only a day’s march away. The Army of God would be trapped before Antioch and utterly destroyed. Speed became the essence; the hours were passing. Early on the morning of 2 June, during the third watch of the night, Theodore roused Eleanor. Simeon was told to guard Imogene whilst she and Theodore followed Firuz up on to the fighting platform of the main Twin Sisters tower. The Armenian was quiet but resolute in what he intended to do, a man, according to Theodore, who had closed one door of his life and was prepared to open another.
Eleanor felt as if she was in a dream. She could hear nothing from the darkness below as a slight breeze cooled their sweaty faces. She stayed at the top of the steps just within the shadows of the doorway whilst Firuz and Theodore chattered to the guards, warming their hands over a brazier. Suddenly she heard the hiss of steel, the crack of an arbalest, followed by the sighs and moans of dying men. Her name was called and she hurried out. Corpses were strewn about the fighting platform; curls of blood coursed down the gulleys. Theodore was busy at the wall, leaning between the crenellations, letting down a tarred rope, whilst Firuz was tying the other end to an iron hook thrust into the wall. Eleanor ran across, peered over and glimpsed the dim glow of a lantern. On the strengthening breeze came the clink of armour. Men were massing below, desperate, hungry and eager for bloodshed. Theodore sighed loudly as he pulled up the rope; on its end hung an ox-hide ladder. Firuz secured this over the battlements. As Eleanor and Theodore waited in the shadows, an eternity seemed to pass. She heard gasps and moans from the blackness below, then Hugh appeared, stepping on to the fighting platform, Godefroi behind him. Theodore whistled, and they came over. In the poor light both looked like gaunt grey ghosts, chain-mail coifs pulled close over their heads, faces hidden by helmets with broad noseguards. Hugh embraced Eleanor in a gust of sweaty leather, stroked her gently on the back of the head, whispered something and disappeared into the tower. Godefroi kissed her full on the lips, winked and followed Hugh down the steps. Theodore hastened after them as others poured over the crenellations. A short while later, across on the other tower, dark shapes bobbed and moved along the fighting platform. The faint clash of steel echoed; figures fell. Eleanor heard a scream.
‘The ladder!’ Firuz shouted. ‘It’s broken.’
Harassed, he threaded down the rope, and another ox-hide ladder was raised and secured. Eleanor kept to the shadows as Theodore had instructed her. More knights climbed over, pushing their way forward, eyes glazed with fear and anger. They were full of battle fury, torn between terror and the desire to wreak revenge on their enemy. Swords drawn, they hurried down the steps of the tower; Firuz followed. Eleanor heard a crashing and banging below. The knights were now trying to force the postern gates. Lights flared along the walls. The clatter of steel rang like a tocsin from the neighbouring towers. At last a resounding crash sent her hastening down the steps. Shadows fluttered. The narrow, winding steps reeked of sweat, leather, horse and the stench of the camp. A corpse swimming in blood lay across the threshold of the tower; the courtyard beyond milled with mailed men. The postern gate had been torn apart. A giant on a black war horse came clattering through. The blood-red banner he carried was unfurled to shouts and acclamations. Bohemond had arrived, standard in one hand, sword in the other; his great voice boomed through the darkness proclaiming the death knell of Antioch.
‘Deus vult! Deus vult!’ The cry was taken up. ‘Antioch has fallen.’