Any meeting between the Count of Taranto and Baldwin of Edessa was bound to be fraught. No satisfying explanation had ever been given to Bohemund for the way a hundred and fifty of his Apulian knights had been massacred by the Turks outside Tarsus, this following on from Baldwin — with a bit of low cunning that seemed, along with his brutal manner, to be his defining characteristic — having cheated Tancred out of possession of the famous city.
This was the first time they had clapped eyes on each other since the Crusade split up after the victory at Dorylaeum, but that type of behaviour had manifested itself in Baldwin from the very first days since the Crusade had crossed the Bosphorus. He was rude and openly disputatious with his own brother, to whom he owed both filial and bounden service, and was heartily disliked for his brusque manner by all Godfrey’s equals, constantly implying that he had a better brain and superior military ability to any of an assembly of men very experienced in war.
Unknown to his brother Godfrey, and certainly a mystery of which the majority of the princes were ignorant, Baldwin secretly supplied the Emperor with information that should have been kept within the confines of the Latin forces, with greed at the root of his duplicity, for while the childless Godfrey de Bouillon was both a duke and well-endowed with land, Baldwin, his heir, was strapped in both; anything he did own he had pledged to fund his Crusade.
If Edessa had not been his initial aim when he parted from the Crusade, Bohemund had no doubt that he had something of the kind in his mind when he and Tancred were detached from the main body. Both, with a hundred knights each, were tasked to scout the fast route to Antioch through the Cilician Gates and the Belen Pass, two tight bottlenecks that were thought too dangerous for the host to pass through safely. That either could and should claim as a fief any place of value they could capture, subject to approval from and in line with vows made in Constantinople, was taken as only their right.
Secretly — even his brother did not know until he found them gone — Baldwin had added another one hundred and fifty Lotharingian lances to his contingent, meeting them at a secret rendezvous, which ensured that he would outnumber Tancred should they ever be in dispute about who owned a capture. When this became known Bohemund, having no trust whatsoever in Godfrey’s brother, sent the same number to reinforce his nephew.
Tancred got to the first major prize, the ancient city of Tarsus, without Baldwin being anywhere in sight. He had first fought a skirmish with the Turks and, having won that, he set about negotiating the surrender of the city by bluff, intimating the whole crusading host was close behind him. That engendered an agreement that would see the garrison march out unmolested the following morning, though without anything of value bar their weapons. In addition there was an agreement that Tancred’s de Hauteville banner should be immediately hoisted above the battlements.
When Baldwin arrived, having been delayed by his need to combine his forces, the first thing he noted was that red flag with the chequered bar of white and blue streaming out above the city. With stunning audacity — he had taken no part in anything to do with the forthcoming surrender — he immediately claimed half the spoils as his due, a demand Tancred was quick to deny.
That he had underestimated his adversary was later seen as being to Tancred’s credit, he being upright where Baldwin was sly and dishonest. That was not the way the young Lord of Lecce saw things, for he felt like a fool when he awoke the following morning to find his banner gone and Baldwin’s in its place. Worse, the man himself, as well as his two hundred and fifty lances, were inside a set of walls now too potent and well manned to consider attacking; numbers alone were telling, but in addition to that he would be fighting not Turks, but knights of his own calibre.
Baldwin informed Tancred he was now negotiating his own terms with the Turkish governor and these did not include any reward for the Apulians, which led to the first instance of Latins, in strict contravention of their vows, taking up arms against each other on Crusade. It was not, however, driven to a fatal conclusion, being no more than a brawl, albeit with weapons, resulting in slight wounds and a few taken prisoners on each side.
Nothing more could be achieved by Tancred than an exchange of the latter, his Apulians for Baldwin’s Lotharingians, with the man himself refusing him even entry to Tarsus. Baldwin insultingly threw down his banner from the walls and told him to be on his way. It was a bitter pill to swallow but one that left Tancred with no choice.
He was obliged to lead his disgruntled lances on to the south-east, for there was still the mission to consider. It was only later, when he had, with Armenian aid, taken the town of Mamistra as his own, that he found out what had happened at Tarsus to those reinforcements sent by his uncle, of which up to that point he had been entirely unaware.
They had arrived at Tarsus within half a day of his own departure, tired from hard riding and in need of both rest and food, neither of which were forthcoming from an obdurate Baldwin. He even denied them the dubious comfort of accommodation within the city, obliging them to make camp outside by the nearby riverbank. What occurred next was clear in only one respect: the Turks, still armed since negotiations were unconcluded, sneaked out of the city in darkness and slaughtered the Apulian knights, not one of whom survived, despite a desperate fight.
Had Baldwin, in league with the Turks, engineered the massacre? Even some of his own lances had initially thought so, aroused by the cries of the last Apulians to die. The Lotharingians then set about securing their own safety by mass bloodshed within the city, yet such was the depth of suspicion that Baldwin was obliged to lock himself in a tower until his pleas of innocence could calm his accusers enough for him to resume command of his forces.
That achieved and his banner claiming Tarsus as his own fief, with all his lances sharing in the ravages he had inflicted on the survivors, Baldwin abandoned the Crusade completely, riding due east in search of conquests by which he could enrich himself, ending up at the massively affluent and important trading centre of Edessa, which he also not only took for his own, but one he then turned into a bastion of Frankish power that controlled the whole region.
Baldwin was never again seen anywhere near the Council of Princes, where he had once acted as a tendentious supporter to Godfrey, and because of that absence he had never been challenged by men who were either his superiors in noble rank, or even his peers, to provide an explanation of what had occurred at Tarsus, and the man who wanted to know most was with him now.
Much as Bohemund wanted to challenge him, indeed push him to the point of trial by combat, such desires had to be set aside in the name of the greater good.
‘You sitting in Edessa and my doing likewise in Antioch will not do anything to aid the safety of the Crusade.’
‘Is their security any real concern of yours?’ Baldwin demanded. ‘You have your principality, what more do you need?’
‘I think my conscience demands that I do more, as should your own.’
‘I have no qualms to trouble my conscience.’
Was the swine challenging him to refer to Tarsus? Bohemund did not know. What he was aware of was the pressing need to do something to ensure that the siege of Jerusalem could proceed without any threat of relief from the east and he took refuge from his suppressed anger in an explanation of the strategic problems that to a warrior like Baldwin, and despite his manifest shortcomings he was a good one, that were probably unnecessary.
‘If the Fatimids attack from the west there is nothing you or I can do to relieve them.’
‘But a force of Turks-’
‘Yes, but would such a host move if they felt threatened on the flank?’