His attempted flight had been kept from the armed host as well as the pilgrims for fear of its effect on morale, while his own belief in his divine mission as well as his powers of oratory had not been in any way diminished; he still preached as if he had a direct connection to the Almighty and seemed to have little difficulty in erasing from his mind any guilt for what had gone before.
Yet Peter was not alone in his hubris and in an atmosphere of heightened superstition it was not hard for such people to prey on the minds of those who believed in an all-seeing God and were in fear of a horrible death at the hands of the infidel — even worse was the notion of forced conversion — so that when such preachers called to their flocks that they should scourge themselves of sin it fell on willing ears.
People who were emaciated with hunger engaged madly in fasts lasting days to purify their souls, while flagellation and bodily mortification for the same purpose was common. All this was happening as many of the same men were fighting, for religious fervour was not confined to the non-combatants.
One preacher, by the name of Stephen, swore that he had seen a vision of Christ and the Virgin Mary, with an admonishment that the Crusaders should purify their souls by a five-day fast, and his claim was backed up by some of the attendant clerics, Ademar not amongst them. That might have scotched the whole thing but the personal confessor of the highly credulous Raymond of Toulouse chose to believe Stephen and that was enough for his claims to be taken as serious.
Stephen added to his certainties by claiming the appearance of a bright and streaking light in the sky, larger than those that normally filled the summer nights of Syria, was the body of Christ himself come to underline his message of victory and absolution. The meteor came down in a flaming ball of increasingly crimson fire, to crash into the distant mountains, which heartened the defence and, judging by the wailing from without the walls, unnerved the equally superstitious Turks.
If the believers thought to wake to find their enemies gone, they were sorely disappointed; in truth it was worse, for they were finally in the process of undertaking the dispositions that had been anticipated when they first arrived.
‘Kerbogha does not, it seems, believe in divine portents.’
Bohemund was watching the massed ranks of the approaching host, again Kerbogha’s best Turkish troops, deploy for the first time outside the western and northern sections of the defence. Like the Crusaders they targeted the Bridge and St Paul’s Gates, really the only segments they could get to and hope to be effective, thousands of men with siege ladders and the clear intention to press home an assault. Aware that his uncle was more cynical of visions than he, Tancred crossed himself before replying.
‘It matters if his men do.’
The response was harsh. ‘Look hard at them, Tancred, and tell me if you see a fear that divine fire is about to descend upon them?’
‘As long as our people are of good heart, as long as we believe.’
Bohemund, from his vantage point outside the citadel, looked along the walls, the rear parapet in plain view, noting how thinly they were defended. That would alter as the attack was pressed home, men would coalesce at the points of maximum danger and if they were not too numerous they should prevail. If there were a great many he would have to thin his own ranks to provide support and hope that having decided to change his tactics Kerbogha did not launch a simultaneous assault to those of the proceeding days.
‘Place less faith in visions and more in your sword arm, nephew.’
‘You pray to God before every fight, I have heard you!’
‘I pray that should I fall my soul will gain entry to heaven, not that Christ in person should come to my aid in battle.’
‘Even when, as now, we need such a divine intervention?’
‘What we need is the army of Alexius to press upon Kerbogha’s rear.’
‘Perhaps that is the meaning of the vision?’
‘Citadel gates are opening,’ came the call.
This killed off Bohemund’s reply, which would have been that the need for divine portents did not bring about compliance; if Alexius was even on the way there was no proof of it, and besides, there was no time to speculate on such matters. What he had feared, an attack in many places at once, was about to happen.
‘We are in for a hard day, Tancred. You take what comfort you need from what you believe and allow me to take my own.’
That assessment turned out to be an understatement: when dusk fell no one, certainly not Bohemund, could have told a listener how they had survived such a relentless assault, lasting as it did throughout the daylight hours. Everywhere the Crusaders fought they had lost ground and been obliged to recover it. Sections of the western wall had been taken by the enemy, including the barbican above the Bridge Gate, and in the very short breaks in his own action Bohemund had been able to see the Provencal knights take it back again, which, if he did not admire their leader, laid low and too ill he claimed to take part, did not in any way diminish respect for his men.
Godfrey de Bouillon struggled just as hard at the St Paul’s Gate, where Kerbogha had concentrated his main strength. There, only the narrowness of the area of assault — he was constrained between the River Orontes and the steep slope of Mount Staurin — held him in check, but it was a close run as several times he got substantial bodies of fighting men onto the parapet, where they engaged hand-to-hand with the Lotharingians in a fight that came down to knives, clubs and sometimes nothing but fists or gouging.
Matters were just as desperate outside the citadel and they turned critical when the Turks came close to taking one of the towers along the eastern wall, which would have outflanked the Apulians and rendered their drystone edifice untenable, their efforts scotched single-handedly by one knight who held his ground against stupendous odds until reinforced. Dusk fell on a besieged city full of spent men but they had held and that was all that mattered, even if they knew the morning would bring a renewal of the same.
Yet it did not come and some hoped that because Kerbogha had suffered great loss in his assault he was weakening in his resolve, a hope that was not long in being dashed as wiser heads prevailed. The Atabeg of Mosul knew very well the state of the besieged Crusaders; he had tested them as good sense dictated he must and then made a tactical judgement. Over the next days it became obvious he had decided that to throw bodies at the walls to seek to overcome them was a waste: time and hunger would do for him that which main force would not.
To sit in passive acceptance was neither natural nor wise and Godfrey of Bouillon was most determined to act; two days later, just before dawn, he led five hundred knights out of the St Paul’s Gate to attack the Turkish encampment, first overcoming and slaughtering the small body Kerbogha had kept close to the walls. Emboldened by that and the passion such success aroused in his men, he carried on towards the main camp only to discover that his enemy had taken precautions against just such a sortie. Godfrey and his men walked into a trap and it was only sheer bloody-mindedness that allowed a good half of them to escape, over two hundred left behind as dead, which imposed a salutary lesson to all.
‘It is madness to exit from any of the gates and in numbers,’ Tancred insisted when his uncle related the discussion he had just engaged in at the council. ‘Better to go out in small groups and spread terror.’
‘Do you intend to attempt that?’ Bohemund enquired, as he considered the notion.
‘If you will permit it, Uncle.’
‘I have noticed you often call me that when you want something.’
‘I mean it as a mark of respect,’ Tancred protested, until he realised Bohemund was smiling.
‘You second me in command of our Apulians, nephew, and I know you chafe at the restraint.’