Just that day, Peter the Hermit and Herluin had ridden back through the gates with the not-completely-unexpected news that the emir Kerbogha had rejected peace terms. So, it all boiled down, like last week's stew (assuming the plague of locusts Bohemond called his men hadhad meat to stew last week) to a fight. God wills it, God save the right, but Bohemond was glad he had sharp swords, good armor, and some damn useful spies to rely on.
He only hoped Kerbogha had bigger stones than Yaghi Siyan, whose head stank on a post above the stinking city engulfed by stinking camps. When they'd arrived here over a damn nasty hill passage, the plain before the city had looked like it was full of milk and honey. They'd eaten all the food, and now it was full of carrion instead. Not even the stinking Tafurs could haul the bodies out fast enough, and when Bohemond had tried to talk withle roiTafur, who'd become in some strange fashion a vassal of his, that crazed death's head on legs had damn near raised his scythe to him.
Yaghi Siyan's son had tried to use the citadel to retake the city and failed. So he'd been deposed by Achmed ibn Merwine, another of those damned unpronounceable names. Son of a pagan whore could fight, though.
Adhemar was still praying, which was no surprise. Bohemond let his eyes unfocus. Torchlight glowed on the lance that Raymond de Saint Gilles always kept near him, making it shimmer. Finding that piece of scrap and calling it the Holy Lance that pierced Christ's side had been one of Raymond's better ideas, much as Bohemond hated to admit it. To think it wasBohemond who called himself the son of the Fox! Crafty Raymond had set a dozen men with more piety than sense to dig for the Holy Lance.
What if Raymond could outmatch him? Bohemond broke into a sweat. Thoughts like that could make a man defeat himself just when he stood on the threshold of the principality he'd fought for all his life.
Bless me, father. Bohemond crossed himself. At least, his hand didn't tremble. You've got to keep the men in heart. Hell, a good meal would do better than all these pious mutterings. Did anybody really think they could take Jerusalem and keep it anyways?
It wasn't as if he could challenge Raymond on a fake relic; there was always the chance there really had been a miracle, and there Bohemond would be-out of luck. Again.
He'd fought too hard for that. He didn't particularly like leaving Raymond, who had this superstitious reverence for the oaths he'd sworn His Imperial Majesty Alexius Autokrator of the Romans, and whatever other titles the man could hang around his overdecorated neck, behind in the city while he rode out yet again to fight, but my lord the Count of Toulouse was a sick man and someone had to stay behind to keep an eye on the citadel.
No man could fight like Adhemar and still claim to be a milky innocent, but Bohemond would have bet half the bribes Alexius had lavished on him that the Papal Legate thought they wanted to receive the Body of Christ, rather than a round of bread. Even if it did look like a very eye of God.
It was Bohemond's turn to limp forward and receive the Host. Christ, he could have swallowed the whole loaf without chewing!
Bohemond only saw bread, tasted bread, and not enough of it. What did Adhemar see?
Whatever, it was none of Bohemond's business, and if that's how he was thinking, he was taking fever from his wound and they'd have to burn it again tonight. If he had half the brains that had gotten him from a younger son's fealty in Taranto to the point where he could claim to be Prince of this city and be half believed, he'd take to his bed tonight alone, drinking little, and eating less.
But he knew he'd be out, prowling his city as he'd done every night since the gates opened to him and his banner went up.
Steady there… the peers were watching him. He might have wound-fever, but those others-they'd taken the infection of plotting from the Greeks, even though Alexius' pet Turkish general Taticius had long since abandoned the armies. Plots, nothing but plots. Give Bohemond an honest battle any day.
Antioch at night, Bohemond thought. I lift up mine eyes unto the hills, whence cometh my help-from the strength of my right arm and the valor of my knights. He'd pushed away a host of knights turned nursemaid and insisted that, yes, by Jesu, he was going to walk about his city, maybe up as far as the approach to the citadel, and who among them was man enough to stop him?
When they'd fallen back, murmuring among themselves, he'd flung a cloak about himself, picked up his sword, and set out. And damned glad to have done so, he thought as he paused, breathing hard, to look down at his city.
Surely not even Jerusalem could be more magnificent than his city with its walls, higher than Jericho's, with their hundreds of towers; his city, lying in the lap of the mountains. The night winds had blown the stink away. If you ignored the sections laid waste, the quarters burned by Bohemond himself to force Frankish slackers out of their houses and into the streets where they could be put to the serious work of fighting, his city was beautiful.
Do you see, Father?
Robert Guiscard had acknowledged Bohemond's quality. But he had chosen to make Roger Borsa, Roger the Purse, his heir. Well, my lord Roger shouldn't have one of those ungainly copper coins the Greeks called afollis to put in his purse-much as Bohemond would like to watch him try.
He could see men going to and fro on the plain, Tafurs dragging bodies out of the city, his nephew Tancred riding in a cloud of knights and dust to whatever errand he had tonight. He didn't trust him, not as far as he could throw him, fully armed, and his horse, assuming Tancred hadn't eaten it on the sly. His nephew's pride was too hot and his Arabic too good. Not that Bohemond was above profiting from it. If Tancred hadn't been able to speak to that turncoat Firouz, who'd turned a blind eye to the knights who climbed into the tower he commanded, they'd still be outside the city walls, and Kerbogha, coming down from the hills, would have cracked them against the walls like eggs.
And he'd have had no new godson. Firouz, who'd opened the city to him, had agreed to receive baptism and had taken Bohemond's name.
Bohemond looked up from the Orontes in its silvery flow to the greater silver of the moon. Milk and honey? The others could have Jerusalem and the hereafter, and he'd take this and the power and the glory of this world.
The moon was making him dizzy, like one of those fools who faints at Mass, mazed with sanctity. Or maybe itwas the fever.
But the river Orontes running through the plain wasn't the only water for leagues; Antioch was a city rich in water. That had helped it hold out under Yaghi Siyan and was helping them now.
A stream… two steps forward and he'd damn near have measured his length in it. He knelt, a movement painful enough to force a grunt out of him now there was no one to see and to whisper he was losing his strength.
He scooped up a palmful of water and slopped it down, dripping onto his cloak and armor: another, and another; and it wasn't enough. Taking off his helm, he filled it and lifted it. A moment longer and he'd have sluiced its contents over his head and maybe have quenched the fire in him that seemed to be turning his face and hair ruddier hues… But the image of the city, reflected in the water, beautiful as one of those mosaics in the Greeks' churches, captured him, and he stared at the city, his city, while the wind whipped up about him and he was alone, truly alone, as he hadn't been since his vigil before his father knighted him. Knighted him and sent him off to make his own fortune while making Roger Borsa, Master Purse with his little puckered mouth, his heir.
Bohemond shivered in the moment. He supposed it ought to be shared with the men who'd fought for him, with him: not to mention the ones who'd never see dawn and those who'd already died.