‘Choose your target!’
Reinhard’s yelled command immediately broke up the advancing line as each lance point was aimed at an individual Turk, now widely dispersed, those with arrows firing them off uselessly at men in full chain mail, others with empty quills drawing swords that only had one blow with which to stop the gleaming metal point heading for their vital trunk. Several arrows hit the horses, which slowed their progress if it did not entirely stop them, but within a blink the Turks began to go down to Crusader lance points, that soon followed by cleaving broadswords.
Lightly armed, the Muslims were no match for European knights in this kind of combat and when the milities, knives in hand, joined the fray to drag them to the ground and either pierce their breasts or cut their throats, the outcome of this part of the action was decided. With loud shouting the knights began to clear a path through their own milities to get to the rest of the Turks, now milling about in confusion between the fight and their leader.
The sight of heavily armed knights emerging from the dust-filled throng, even if they were struggling to keep their mounts in motion, sent the enemy riding off in panic and that communicated itself to their now visible commander, who sounded the horn as he abandoned both the field and those of his men who could not get clear. It was not necessary for Reinhard to call a halt to his men; sheer equine fatigue did that for him. Now, still outnumbered, he had to prepare for a counter-attack.
It did not come: the ground to the south was filled with riders carrying flaming torches and the tinder-dry, still-maturing fields of wheat began to smoke, soon turning into an inferno as the Turkish commander set light to the crops, obviously to cover his retreat; there would be no more fighting on this field and that occasioned a ragged cheer as everyone came to realise they had scored an outright victory.
For all the joy of success a look at the cost was sobering. His foot soldiers had suffered terribly and the fact that such a thing had been necessary did not make it easy to bear. He ordered that once the enemy dead had been stripped — there were none left wounded — their ponies should be gathered up and along with his own horses be used to carry the Crusader dead back to Antioch.
‘For these men, who might by their sacrifice have saved us all, deserve a proper Mass, a decent burial and a memorial to their memory.’
Even with most of his attention on what was happening to his front, Bohemund had spent much time anxiously glancing to the south to seek some indication of how Reinhard and his men were faring. When he espied the first sign of their return, such was their outline it was hard to tell if they were coming back in despair or triumph.
Only when he was in plain sight did Reinhard mount his own horse to close with the Apulian banner and report his victory. For all the elation this produced, it was not much more than a skirmish and such good news had to be set against the whole, which was still in a state of flux.
That the Crusaders were winning on balance was obvious; they were able to advance where the Turks could not, indeed it had become part of his task to stop them doing so, lest by moving forward they break the cohesion of the whole, for still there was no sign of Kerbogha. As a command such restraint was becoming more and more difficult to impose, so much so that Bohemund feared that one of his peers would be presented with such an opportunity that no words of his would cause them to avoid exploiting it.
‘The black banner, Uncle,’ Tancred called. ‘It is waving.’
It was obviously a message, but what it implied and its import was impossible to fathom. Was Shams ad-Daulah asking for permission to take part, or was it a sign to Kerbogha that his line was wavering and he should make haste?
What he could not see was the reaction in Kerbogha’s camp, where that flag had also been marked. From presenting an image of the relaxed and omniscient commander, the Atabeg of Mosul was suddenly presented with the possibility that his men fighting at Antioch might not hold for as long as he had hoped. That had him order the trumpets sounded for an immediate move.
To get such a huge host in motion, even when they had been waiting an age for the order, was not simple and, given haste was now important, nor was it possible to stop the contingents from getting mixed up in the eagerness for individual glory. The shouting that ensued, the blaring of horns and trumpets, did nothing to help; nor did the determination of Kerbogha and his close aides to get to the front of the army help either, for their rough attitude, as well as their willingness to ride over anyone unfortunate enough to fall beneath their rushing hooves, produced loud cursing.
Bohemund had placed Firuz, who had keen eyes, on the northern battlements of Antioch, so he knew within very little time that Kerbogha was on the move, yet he was surprised later when the message was sent to him that the force moving south seemed to be in some kind of disorder.
Close questioning produced no more than that information was an impression rather than a fact: what Firuz could see was limited, but by seeking to differentiate the various designs of headgear or the colours of cloaks, he was sure they were mixed up rather than in separate bodies.
It was when seeking to assess the meaning of this information that Vermandois succumbed to too much temptation. He advanced so far that he left a gap on his left into which the nearest Turks poured, forcing his neighbour Godfrey de Bouillon to turn his Lotharingians to face a flank assault.
Tancred noted it as quickly as Bohemund and did not wait for any command from his uncle; with a yell he led the entire Apulian contingent forward to restore the line, which occasioned much hand-to-hand combat with Turks encouraged by their rare opportunity.
Bohemund had to resist the temptation to join Tancred; he was in overall command, which could not in this arena be properly exercised in the battle line, but he had much to think on. If what had happened with Vermandois reoccurred with the whole of Kerbogha’s host on this plain, the chance to repair the breach would be impossible. Yet it would also be impracticable to seek to avoid such engagement for it could decide the outcome of the contest. Why the Atabeg had delayed he did not know and it made no sense, but he was coming now and at a time when the Crusaders had been fighting for over half a day.
The men the Count of Taranto was tasked to lead, even if he had sought to rotate them with his own reserve, were bound to be tired and that, if they were caught in an unrelenting battle, would soon turn to the kind of exhaustion that made continued resistance impracticable and positively guaranteed errors of judgement, which left only two options and to retire back into Antioch was the least attractive.
Observing that Tancred had repaired the breach made by the folly of Vermandois and that he had also managed to pull the Frenchman and his knights back into a solid line, Bohemund reasoned that the point of crisis had been reached.
To make a decision which could prove fatal is the lot of any commander, and in the making of it a whole mass of factors intrude in a fashion that precludes the kind of clear thinking of which chroniclers of battles later write. It is as much a feeling as knowledge, a tingling of the extremities that says to delay is the worst of all possible options, that the time is right to strike and to do so hard, for the Turks before him were weakened and their reinforcements had failed to yet deploy.
Leaving his mound, with his personal knights around him, Bohemund made his way to the far left of the line to speak first to an exhausted Bishop Ademar, now wearing garments stained with enough blood to hide any decoration or hint at Christian piety. Having issued his instruction he moved on to the right, stopping by each of his peers to tell them what he intended, sensing doubt from Normandy, but acquiescence, the same from Flanders, getting just a nod from both de Bouillon and Tancred. Vermandois he took station alongside, for he was a man who required close control, before commanding the horns to sound the advance.