marching in loose order, shouting and laughing, perhaps to disguise their fear. I had expected to see them, and was content to keep a safe distance lest they chose to whet their scorn on us. What I had not expected were the women: scores of them, from barefoot girls in torn smocks to wizened grandmothers wrapped in black shawls. Every one of them carried a vessel filled with water – buckets, jars, urns, barrels. The smallest children carried cups, holding them out in rapt concentration like chalices, while some of the stronger adult women had casks yoked over their shoulders in pairs. They stretched as far ahead as I could see, and as far back, a river flowing miraculously up the mountain.
Sigurd pointed to the summit, his arm raised almost vertical. ‘A bad place for hot work.’
‘No easier for Kerbogha, at least.’
Whether it was the rising heat of the day, or the sight of so much water around me, I was suddenly consumed by thirst. A scrawny girl, no more than seven or eight years old, was passing; I knelt, stretched out cupped hands, and as clearly as I could said: ‘Water?’
She did not stop.
‘Water,’ I repeated. ‘Please.’
She shook her head. It was stained black with soot, everywhere save on her forehead, where a finger had marked a crude cross in the grime.
‘For the fighters,’ she said, staring at her cup. ‘Not Greeks.’
After that, the way only seemed hotter. After a time, the path switched back sharply, and took us south-east, straight into the sun. My armour began to burn where it rubbed against me, and whether I screwed my eyes shut or kept them open I was blinded. The path narrowed; it was too high for villas here, and too steep for trees. Our pace slowed as our fellow travellers were squeezed closer together onto the constricted road. It reminded me of crossing the Black Mountains into the plain of Antioch, when treacherous paths through steep gorges had proved almost impassable. Men had pulled off their armour and flung it into the ravines; they had sold their horses rather than have the effort of leading them. Even the sure-footed could not hold the path: whole trains of mules had been lost over the precipices.
Now the corpses began to appear. Casualties of the fighting on the mountain, men had tried to return to the succour of the city and had failed. At first scattered, then ever more numerous, they lay sprawled where they had fallen. Some bore few wounds, so peaceful-looking that you might have thought they were merely dozing to break the long climb. Others were so badly injured that it seemed a miracle they had managed to stagger so far to die. All were naked, stripped bare by looting and now become the habitation of flies.
‘Are you sure you want to go on?’ asked Sigurd.
I could not speak, for searing nausea had joined the thirst in my throat. All I could manage was a limp wave forward.
At the next corner the road began to level. It was little consolation, for by now we were high up, only slightly below the height of the middle summit. The sounds of the armies drifted down to us – though not, as yet, the sounds of war. At the roadside two stakes had been driven into the ground like gateposts. One had a crossbar nailed to it, so that it took the form of a crucifix; the other tapered to a spike on which a Turk’s head was impaled. I shivered as we passed them.
Ahead of us, the path continued across the neck of the mountain into a small dip between the middle and northern summits. Atop the latter, on a high rocky promontory thrusting out to the west, I could see the unbroken walls of the citadel. The purple banner of Kerbogha hung from its tower.
‘This is as far as we go on this road.’ Sigurd pointed to our right, over the hump of the middle summit. ‘Bohemond’s camp is over there.’
We picked our way up the hill, through the outlying positions of the Frankish army. It was like no battlefield I had ever seen – a victory, a rout, a battle and a siege all heaped over each other. Groups of men squatted in the scrub, sharpening blades and saying nothing. Archers crouched behind boulders and watched for a Turkish sortie. There were no cavalry. Scattered among the living lay the dead, dozens of them – though nothing compared with the number in the killing ground of the valley between the two summits. Within bowshot of both camps, those corpses could not safely be retrieved by either side, and so they rotted. The stink was merciless. Only the crows moved with impunity, for none could waste the arrows to fell them.
‘Some of them have been there for a week,’ said Sigurd.
I stared at him, amazed, as I counted back on my fingers. A week and a day – that was all the time we had been in the city. As many days as we had spent months outside the walls, yet it felt a hundred years longer.
And on every one of those days Bohemond had fought to win the one fragment of the city that he did not hold, while the Turks sought to overthrow him. I could see why neither had prevailed, for it was obvious even to me that this battlefield was no place for tactics or ingenuity. It was a shallow valley between the two opposing summits, bounded on one side by the wall along the ridge, and on the other by a cliff edge. Between those limits, all the armies could do was push against each other, face to face in an endless trial of strength. It was almost as if the Lord had made it to this purpose, for the bare earth was red as blood and the broken rocks as sharp as spears. At the very centre, in the belly of the valley, a jagged hole yawned open like the gates of Hell. All was black within.
‘The cistern,’ said Sigurd. ‘Bohemond smashed it open to parch the garrison in the citadel. Now it is fouled with the bodies of the fallen.’
We carried on up the hill. The high battlements of a square tower rose in front of us, and as we crested the summit we could see the full expanse of the walls spreading out from it. The main force of Bohemond’s army was concentrated here, and I saw immediately why he had risked firing the city in his hunt for more men. They were in a perilous condition. They sat on the ground in the noon heat, swatting flies and praying, waiting for the next onslaught. Few were not wounded.
I looked to the foot of the tower. Clearly, we were not the only men to have climbed the mountain that morning. Gathered in a circle, apparently heedless of the dying army about them, the princes held council. I could recognise Adhemar’s domed cap, Count Raymond’s stiff bearing, the various figures of Count Hugh, Duke Robert and Tancred. Of the first rank, only Duke Godfrey was missing. Towering over them all, his chin raised in pride or defiance, was Bohemond. We made towards them. I longed to confront Bohemond in front of the others, to make them know that he had cut us off from all hope of rescue, but I did not dare. He would deny it outright – the word of a prince against the word of a Greek spy – and afterwards he would ensure that I never spoke again.
Before we even reached the princes, one of the Norman captains stepped into our path. I did not recognise him, though with a week’s blood and dust and beard on his face he might have been my own brother and I would not have known it. He looked at us and at the file of Varangians behind us.
‘Are these all your men?’
‘All that can fight for you,’ said Sigurd. ‘Where shall we go?’
The Norman pointed down the slope, along the wall which stretched like a ribbon to the citadel. ‘The last tower.’ He drew his sword and swung it through the air to loosen his arm. From the far side of the wall, and within the citadel, I could hear the battle-cry rising. ‘You must hold it – and attack the Turks from their flank when they come.’
I looked to the nearest stairs, thinking that we would approach the tower along the top of the wall. But the Norman shook his head.
‘The tower doors are barricaded, so that the Turks cannot advance along the walls. The tower is cut off.’
‘How . . . ?’
‘There is a ladder. Go to the foot of the tower and call up to them. Tell Quino that I have sent you.’
The thought of the coming battle had already begun to numb me, but the name he spoke cut through all my defences. ‘Quino?’
‘Quino of Melfi. He commands the tower.’ The Norman must have seen the turmoil on my face. ‘Why? Do you know him?’
?
