Yet more Crusaders were now making their way down the Dalmatian coast under the fabulously wealthy Provencal magnate Raymond of Toulouse and including in its ranks the papal legate, Ademar de Monteil, bishop of Puy, and they were suffering, if anything, more in the way of local obstacles, not least from the barbarous Pechenegs who as a tribe — mercenaries apart — had ever been a thorn in the side of Byzantium. The Crusaders were finding they had to fight their way across Romania and special envoys had been despatched to facilitate their progress.
‘Who could ever have imagined they would come in such numbers?’
The person in receipt of this enquiry from the Emperor, one made many times previously, as they traversed the corridors of the Blachernae Palace, was the trusted Manuel Boutoumites. Added together — those on the way combined with those already camped around Constantinople — the figures were staggering: Alexius had reports that the armies totalled near fifteen thousand mounted men and twice that on foot.
The Curopalates responded with a wry look and a tone of deep irony to make a point that lay at the heart of imperial concerns: to what purpose was such a force assembled? ‘Are they truly devout to give up so much, or are they spurred on by greed?’
‘I do not doubt,’ Alexius replied, ‘that some are, just as I have no doubt that there are genuine pilgrims amongst them.’
‘Not Bohemund.’
The Emperor smiled, though it was not a name to often bring such a response. ‘No.’
‘Turn him away, Highness, tell him he is not welcome and send him and his men back to Apulia.’
‘I cannot, Manuel, for to do so would create a rift with the other leaders. If I say I have no faith in one of their number, then I risk implying I have no trust in any.’
‘I would advise it as sound policy to create division amongst them. Advise Godfrey de Bouillon that Bohemund told you of his attempt at communication to diminish him in your eyes.’
‘While I think it best to fashion a shared purpose. The key to holding them in check is this papal legate, Bishop Ademar. I must make common cause with him so he can remind these Crusaders of why they came here and to where they must proceed.’
‘And if he cannot control them?’
Alexius did not need any elaboration on that point; such a body of armed men camped around the city would present a threat too great to manage. All he had in his favour, apart from the walls of the city, was that supposed piety — the need to move on to Palestine, added to the other salient fact: that to act in unison they would need a leader and from what he had so far been able to discern that was not a position any one of the great nobles, much as he supposed they would hanker after it, was likely to gift to another.
‘Then I must,’ Alexius replied. ‘By a physical separation if no other way presents itself.’
He spoke these words as they entered the audience chamber, a room large enough to make his voice echo off its high-arched ceiling. Numerous assembled courtiers were waiting, while the tall axe-bearing Varangians stood guard, one to each of the numerous malachite pillars, with yet more taking station by the dais on which sat the imperial throne, their eyes seeming dead in the fashion of men engaged in such a duty, gaze fixed forward.
At the heart of Byzantium was a deep sense of the value of ceremony to establish the near divine position of the emperor, honed over centuries and which harked back to Imperial Rome. Thus when Duke Godfrey de Bouillon and his entourage of senior adherents entered the huge chamber it was to the sound of blaring trumpets. There he found Alexius Comnenus seated on his throne, dressed in a purple cloak threaded with precious embroidery and on his head the jewel-encrusted diadem, stones flashing in the sunlight streaming in through the openings in the walls, that same radiance picking up the masses of gold, both in objects and decoration, with which the audience chamber was blessed. In his hand he had the imperial insignia of axes and fasces fashioned in solid gold.
If the eyes of the imperial guards flicked, then it was to the weapons these men wore; few were ever allowed into the imperial presence bearing arms and commonly no man was allowed to approach the Emperor with anything that could be used for sudden assassination. This was an exception, a ceremony by which these Western knights would bind themselves by solemn oath to the Byzantine cause. They would use their swords as a substitute for the holy cross, while to drive home the depth of that pledge Alexius had caused the reliquary bones of several apostles to be brought to the Blachernae Palace from the Basilica of St Sophia, which each Crusader would be required to kiss.
The perfumed eunuch who had coached these men in the necessary protocol, whom he thought to be rank-smelling barbarians, had stressed that they were not to come too close to the imperial presence, while Alexius, in his majesty, kept his eyes fixed at a spot above their heads as they approached the line of dark marble tiles they had been told was the limit of their advance. There they were announced one by one, the Duke first, the rest in order of precedence, one obvious omission the name of Baldwin of Boulogne, though the youngest brother, Eustace, was present. On completion they were required to go down on one knee and only then did they come under the imperial gaze, this while that same courtier read out the oath they had agreed to take, first in Greek, then in the tongue of the Franks.
If it was somewhat less than Alexius had desired — Godfrey de Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, had insisted he was vassal to no man and was not about to become one even to a Roman Emperor — it met the needs, as the ruler saw it, of Byzantium. They promised on the threat of eternal damnation to pay due attention to his advice, to respect his office and those who bore his commands, to return to his control any possessions taken back from the infidel which had once been imperial property and to reserve to him the fair distribution of any treasure captured in their progress.
The apostolic relics were then brought forward to be kissed, each man making a personal and whispered vow to act as an agent of the one true God, the effect on Godfrey to bring tears to his eyes. First the thigh bone of St Peter, crucified upside down in Rome, then a forearm bone of St Bartholomew, skinned alive then beheaded, a finger of St Simon the Zealot, sawn in half while alive, and finally the skull of St James, stoned and clubbed to death in his ninth decade. The message was plain to alclass="underline" these are men who have martyred themselves for their faith, can you do any less?
‘Duke Godfrey, we bid you stand,’ Alexius said, adding to the wish with an upward lift of his hand, his voice changing to include the entire assembly. ‘We see before us a noble servant of Christ, a man who has already given much to the sacred cause and will go on to give more.’
Another gesture brought forth two men carrying between them a small casket, which was set down before Godfrey.
‘In order that you should know that you have our favour, and as some recompense for the sacrifices you have already made, not least in loss of land to fund your endeavour, I wish you to accept from our hand this small token of our imperial regard.’
A sharp command brought up the lid of the box, to reveal that it was full to near bursting with gold coins. If the Lotharingian knights strained to see, there was scant curiosity from the assembled courtiers; to them such as was being gifted was but a token, enough to impress a barbarian, scarce a quantity of treasure to raise a Greek eyebrow.