‘Which requires,’ Ademar interjected, ‘that one of you here present accept the duty.’
‘We are not mere villeins,’ cried Baldwin of Boulogne, his act of speaking getting him a glare from his elder brother; supporters at such gatherings whispered to their leader, they did not take the floor themselves unless invited to do so.
‘Let the Byzantines repair their road,’ said Vermandois, agreeing with him. ‘Is it not to their advantage to have it in good order?’
‘Which means,’ Tancred insisted, ‘sending back to the Emperor a request for the bodies needed to carry out the task.’
Raymond cut in again, his voice strong and commanding. ‘There is no time for that. Let each host provide a contingent.’
‘Well said, Count Raymond,’ cried Ademar, ‘for it is only by joint effort that our enterprise will succeed.’
This took no account of the fact that Raymond’s army was still on the other side of the Bosphorus, but it was nevertheless agreed, as was the opinion, again advanced to Tancred by Bohemund, that even on a clear road the Crusaders would need to move in groups, given the ability to supply the men along a roadway was constrained, while what pasture existed for the mounts would be destroyed if overgrazed. Things would be much improved if it were given the means and time to recover.
‘I myself will toil on repairing the road,’ said Godfrey de Bouillon, unaware of the sibling glare that produced behind his back. ‘No man can stand idle when the work of the Lord needs to be done.’
‘Well said,’ was the chorus, but none of the other magnates volunteered to work with him.
It took thousands of men and two weeks to clear and make usable the ancient road that led through the mountains to Nicaea, work which was carried out undisturbed by the garrison of that city, men who could not fail to be aware of the strength of the approaching host or the intended target of their labouring efforts, the common opinion being that they felt so safe behind their walls that the prospect of investiture was one they did not fear.
Tancred, in company with Vermandois and Robert, Count of Flanders, led the first major component south, Walo of Chaumont coming on later with Godfrey de Bouillon and Robert of Normandy, then finally Raymond in company with the forces of the Emperor Alexius. Several thousand men strong, on horse and foot followed by carts, oxen and a number of camp followers, such a body presented a tempting target on a highway now cleared and lined with white crosses, one that led across open country and on through mountainous defiles. A screen of cavalry was strung out to the east as well as ahead to ensure they could not be caught unawares.
With them came Manuel Boutoumites, as the personal envoy of the Emperor and a man who had attended a previous siege of Nicaea, his task, which he was plain seemed a thankless one, to offer the Turks an opportunity for honourable submission. Tancred tried to be affable but it was not readily reciprocated; he suspected the Byzantine soldier saw the Westerners as barbarians and that coloured his manner. It seemed, too, he had limited faith in the notion that they could succeed where his hero Alexius had failed, and he had just cause.
The first sight of Nicaea from the high hills, lying as it did on a fertile and open plain bounded on one side by a huge lake, brought enough pause on its own. The massive walls as well as their extent brought forth some appreciation of the task they faced as a whole army, never mind a partial one. Not quite as forbidding as Constantinople, they were a full three mille passum in length, twenty cubits in height, surrounding the city on three sides, interspersed with close to a hundred towers, which rendered any assault on the base deadly and that took no account of the deep double ditches that would have to be crossed to even get close.
Debouching onto the plain, the Crusaders made no attempt to approach the walls or to cut off entry and exit by the roads that led out of the landward gates. That would have been futile anyway; the city sat on the western edge of the mighty Askanian Lake, ten leagues in length, that came right up to its walls and was reached by an indented watergate. On a midsummer day the still blue waters seemed endless as they disappeared into the haze made by the late spring sunshine acting on water still cold from winter.
‘Now you can see why we failed,’ Boutoumites growled, as he and the other commanders rode closer to the walls to reconnoitre. ‘It must be taken by assault for they cannot be starved out nor deprived of water.’
Tancred, ensuring with the pressure of his knees that his horse stayed out of longbow shot, replied with an insouciance he did not feel. ‘You have not seen the walls of Bari. They were just as high and they too were supplied by sea.’
‘My forbears built the walls of Bari,’ Boutoumites snapped, angry, for the loss of that great Byzantine port had sounded the death knell of imperial hopes in Southern Italy.
‘And my grandfather,’ Tancred replied, in a deliberately cold tone that matched the other man’s ire, ‘took it from you when everyone, including those he led to the walls, believed it was impossible.’
Boutoumites produced a sneer. ‘You would summon up the ghost of the Guiscard?’
‘Why would we need to,’ Tancred replied gaily, ‘when we have Bohemund, his son?’
‘Do you not mean his bastard?’
‘Advice, Curopalates: never use that word in the presence of my uncle, for if you do he will smite you so hard you will need two coffins in which to be buried.’
‘I require a truce flag and an escort to the main gate.’
In time-honoured fashion the defenders had to be given a chance to surrender, that was the way of things in Asia Minor as well as Europe. Matters differed somewhat, for, instead of merely delivering an ultimatum from his saddle, Boutoumites required that the gates be opened and that he be allowed to enter. Nor did he emerge as the sun went down, which had Vermandois at first, and subsequently Flanders and Tancred, wondering if he had decided he was safer with the Turks than with them.
He stayed inside for three whole days and that had them thinking he had been killed and they awaited the sight of his head on the walls, but he emerged looking hale and unmarked, dressed in fine silks which could only be gifts from his hosts, to tell his eager companions about his attempts to broker a surrender of the city with the governor Acip Bey.
‘Three days to establish what?’ was the unified response.
That got a sneer from Boutoumites, who took pleasure in informing them that such negotiations were not carried out in the barbaric fashion common in Europe; offers had to be advanced, but with great subtlety, never anything like a definite statement — Tancred suspected that meant bribes of money and offices to this Acip Bey to betray Kilij Arslan. These inducements had to be given careful consideration and the full meaning and value explored. Could there be more and what was best for those in receipt; was it wiser to accept or reject? All this carried out in the midst of much ceremony and endless flattery.
‘And?’ the Count of Flanders demanded.
‘They said no.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Encamped on a well-watered and fertile plain, the force that set up camp outside Nicaea was in no danger of either deprivation or, it seemed, physical attack, though it had to be acknowledged that the inhabitants of the city existed in even more comfort, which no doubt excused their reluctance to attempt an exit and drive the Crusaders away. The air of unreality lasted until Bohemund arrived on the just visible shore with ships full of supplies, curious at first, displeased second and then furious when he fully understood the situation. Not only was the partial force outnumbered and completely exposed, but they had no idea when the rest of the main forces, both Crusaders and Byzantines, would join them.
Tancred had felt the lash of Bohemund’s tongue many times in his life, but not since he had been a callow and easily tempted squire. As a boy he had been both handsome and wayward, inclined to go off on what he thought of as escapades and his seniors saw as outrageously risky adventures. Very often there was a wench attached to his disappearances and if his uncle was no prude — he enjoyed the company of women as much as the next knight, albeit he preferred them refined — he became heartily sick of the way Tancred seemed incapable of passing up on an opportunity, regardless of how much he put himself at risk by partaking of it.