MILES CHRISTI

Chapter Eighteen

For you who are reading this, both subscribers and those who like to drop in - thank you. I gotta tell you, it’s a tough gig to pull off - the irony, the sarcasm, the paradox. Never talk about religion - the old saying. Well - some of it is and some of it is not. In truth, it’s not even about history all that much. But as much about the current state of writing and platforms and our inundated cottage industry . . .

Well, here we are at the first great battle - a gory and bloody affair. Enjoy.

If you have recently joined or are checking things out, start at MILES CHRISTI Chapter One. Thanks.

MILES CHRISTI

Chapter Eighteen

The fool will ruin us, Aile in a tantrum. Who does he think he is? Stupid, greedy Tancred! Does the Basileus think us brigands? Will this dissuade him from rewards? She could’ve throttled the young Norman after what Tìbald related. She could’ve throttle Tìbald for not intervening. What could he do? . . . But it’s not about logic but regret. Too many years she’s been Tìbald’s victim through actions or neglect. She’ll be one no more. She must be strong. And cruel regardless of her nature.

Tìbald placed the bag of coins in her hands. She stared at it speechless – the size of a man’s head – more money than she had ever touched in her life. A marvelous weight. Enough to support them for many years. Off fell the chains. It made her weep: her God was a loving God, a generous God. She prayed for His forgiveness and knew she’d not deserve it. But God provided because He said He would and not of her doing. ‘What father would give his son a stone if he asked for bread or a serpent if he asked for fish?’

She opened the bag and rolled the coins with her fingers – its coldness, its hardness, its sour metal smell. How quick her turn. Her true self so wanting to shed the armour. The money allowed her to put it down. And in her largess, demanded she give some away. This is what God would have her do. She walked out of the tent to find a peasant, but there were none. She found a pede. Here’s richness as she placed the coin in his hand. Her fingertips tingled touching his palm and him looking at her with wonder. A holy thing between them and worth far more than the coin’s value. That coin, she mused, was the finest in the bag. How happy for her to give it away. She found a puer and pressed a coin in his hand – so counter to the world of Tancred, and only God sees. Six weeks to Jerusalem they said. Six weeks of labour, a woman can endure that. A little pain and then forgotten. No. Faded. Ignored. In her head the Dracon Valley. She shook the thought away. Nicaea fell without a storm. She saw no fighting as she was nowhere near the frontlines. Mother – Bayard’s voice, the voice of all the children mingled with other sounds – the creaking wheels, the jingling tact, the idle chatter of soldiers. Just a sound. The weight of the bag in her hands countermanding every doubts. Six weeks to Jerusalem. Six weeks to reward . . .

******************

So too thought the Militas Christi marching along the old Byzantine Road from Nicaea. God was truly with them, the cause awash in His grace. History rushing to an end. Even so, they would not forgive Alexius for denying them Nicaea’s spoils, none more than the pede, the foot soldier, who received no gifts. With whom had they partnered? Alexius, by his diplomacy, regardless of intentions, compromised their war for Christ. All were prepared to die in His name and scorch the earth with holy fire. For the sad world was in need of burning so it could start anew. The task demanded purity, and purity quite rare as it carried with it a blessed madness, a madness not just any race could bear. The common soldier knew this and made terrible war because it was the right thing to do.

The right thing to do – Tìbald rode ramrod straight in the saddle. He wore a large straw hat to shade his face already burnt under the Anatolian sky. A water gourd banged against his thigh wetting his hip from the wood stopper’s poor fit. Never had he known such heat. Sainte Cecilia had her days, but nothing so depleting. Here the sun boiled. Sweat did not wick off to cool the skin but coated in a hot brine. Still, he held his lance high, unlike some who rested theirs against their shoulders or tied them to their pack horses along with their shields. A number of seigneurs rode without armour. Antioch was weeks away and after Nicaea, the enemy dare not attack on open ground where the seigneurs had the advantage of the charge. Still, a vanguard rode in advance. Tìbald trusted none of it and rode prepared.

So did Fulk. So did Joceran. Marin as well.

The four fed off each other not needing to speak. Men in silence side-by-side without the need for words. Useless noise. A dither. It is better not to talk. All manner of confusion when we talk for words are false with different meanings. Words that we say. Words that we read. Silence is eloquent. It is the language of God. A bonding – silence.

Though in silence, man and wife are in separate worlds. Talking is connection. The wife talks and the wise husband answers – like Christ the groom and His bride the Church; the Church always blathering words, words, words – ‘help me with this’, ‘heal me of that’, ‘forgive us’, ‘bless us’, ‘save us’. And Christ, the husband, silent most the time. Tìbald and Aile no different – she with corrections, the pinpointed flaws, imperfections – all from talking. And Tìbald silent, answering when needed . . .

He shielded his eyes, how fat the sun like a fried egg ‘bout to bust. It boiled the place dry. A land of dragons, he thought since the army turned south into the hill country – a drab landscape burnt and brittle. This could be Hell with the flames turned off. Stone formations heaving from the earth in twists and turns. The Devil’s teeth all fang-like. And within their cavities human dwellings. Are these the Christians we’re fighting for? Trolls? Imps? A neglected territory. The Byzantine Road in disrepair. So much so the army divided in two: Bohemond with the combined Norman forces, the Northern French, the Flemish, the English and Scots, a half-day’s ride in the lead; Raymond with his Provençals and the armies of France, Lorraine and Burgundy.

Yes, dragons live here, thought Tìbald. The stench of sulfur. Bones bleached and licked clean. A dragon does not capture its victim with its teeth but with its serpent-like tail. It suffocates and strangles and when the victim’s faith’s undone, it eats at its leisure. Dragons are afraid of Peridexion trees. Doves like to nest in their branches. Dragons do not abide doves as they are servants of the Holy Ghost. They will try to eat them, but the shade of the Peridexion tree keep dragons at bay. The tree is sturdy like the Church. Doves that keep to its shade are faithful Christians and the dragon cannot touch them. When the dragon flies, when it beats its great leather wings, the air shines. It makes a day calm and bright just before it strikes – like the Devil can take the appearance of a beautiful maid. He lies and waits on a beautiful day and the heart feels right with the world. But what does this mean to you? Dragons are mythical beasts, and I’m certain you don’t believe in the Devil. But millions here do. And they look on you as naïve in your age – your age of such certainty where you march in righteous lockstep to murder to do good. They murder . . . Tìbald had never seen a dragon. Never knew anyone who did. Dragons are invisible. They capture by stealth and the captured don’ know they’ve been eaten and when digested and shitted out, they sally forth as ghosts, treadmill phantoms thinking their thoughts are their own . . .

Dragons swirl about us now

And above all of it, Tìbald’s spear point, never dull and suzerain of all expectation, and though the voice was silent, the spearhead seemed to sing: Come to Jerusalem and meet me there.

Am I the lockstep man? Are you? If our hearts have knowledge and our brains have choice. Is it better to act on what we know, or act despite what we know? If a man follows his heart, has he chosen at all? Did Tìbald choose Aile? Could he help himself when he saw her with his heart’s eye? Only his brain could make him ride away. Why would it do that? For his heart knew. Brains do not.

Tìbald turned in the saddle back to Aile. He did not know her and fooled himself that he did. Does the brain reside in the heart? And when so goes the heart, so goes the brain?

Père Marin rode beside. Of these things men did not speak.

“The landscape’s changing,” Tìbald said.

“It will as we come closer to the center of the earth. Jerusalem is hot and dry in the center. Good and evil have battled there for a thousand years . . .”

Stop talking. Get to the fight. No expositions in the fight. Wasn’t Tìbald the purer man when making the heads fly? No thought. No guilt. Just do. 

******************

Bohemond’s division continued to pull ahead until Raymond’s was over a day behind. At the bridge over the Blue River Bohemond had them pitch camp to replenish their water and wait for Raymond.

The sun blood red and out of its halo, scout riders galloped into the camp, their horses in a lather.

“The pagans are gathering several leagues from here to ambush us on the plain.”

“What is their number?” Bohemond asked.

“Does it matter?” Tancred said. We’ve the might of the Norman armies.”

“How many?” Bohemond asked again.

“Thousand,” the scouts said. “Thousands into the tens of thousands. All on horseback and more gathering by the day.

Bohemond scratched his hands. “We’ll array our lines and meet them in morning.”

The army jubilant. As if they held a secret the Saracens did not know. Shock and awe. The earth will shake. “Death to the heathens no matter how valiant. Death to the enemies of God. Let them come at us alone. Greater will be the glory.”

Taticius, Alexius’ general, attached to the Franks with a force of two thousand, braced himself for an enemy he knew well. Who held the secret?

The blue moon over the Dorylaeum Pass bathing the camp in soft light. Tìbald sharpened his sword while Fulk fastidiously cleaned Tìbald’s hauberk.

“Dómini,” Fulk said, “I fight tomorrow?”

“If needed,” Tìbald reluctant to say.

“I am capable, dómini.”

Tìbald nodded. “You are.”

“Tomorrow will be a great fight,” Fulk pressed. “I should be at your side. If I am destined to die for Christ, I want it in His service.”

“Your service is to me,” he said with impatience; he would embrace the boy but dare not.”

“Why do you hate me?” Fulk blurted. “Rainald did not treat me so. It is true, I’m not like Ugo. You should not hate me for that . . . There now – give me my beating.”

Tìbald would put a hand on his head. “I do not hate you, boy. I keep you for me. And I will smack you to keep you in place.”

“Too many of our family are dead. I will die too. I see Ugo in my dreams. They come to me. Beat me then, I’m not afraid. I’m in the army of Christ to free the Holy Sepulchre.”

“Ghosts? What do they say?”  

“They say when are you going to believe all that we told you? They wait for me. Let me fight, domini. Make me a seigneur.”

“I will pray on it . . . And boy, I do not hate you . . . Approach me in the morning.”

Fulk nodded gravely.

Tìbald headed to the stable. Bayard would’ve been Fulk’s age. But better Bayard dead and in Heaven than what he would face here. Life is brutal though cherished. It will fight every element before going down. One cannot will their life away for all their misery. Only something in some way can take it – with axe or blade, disease or fire, time takes it too. But it’s cankerous in its dealings. Do we think we’re not immortal even now unless that other is there before your face? Mortality we see in others to our ease or terror. Fulk was right, too much terror over the years.

Tìbald’s destrier was hitched at the end of the line, barely under the protection of the tarpaulin. Such his ranking in the hierarchy of seigneurs. The brute shifted its weight from side to side not for relief but from anticipation. An exile from the other mounts, not that they too were not hard bitten, but Tìbald’s mount was unmerciful. As he approached, it whipped it head to bite him. Tìbald punched its nose then grabbed its ear and stared dead into its black eyes.

“You too will obey me. We may both go down together.”

The destrier acquiesced – one rider, one owner – Tìbald. He examined the hooves. All was well, then slapped its neck with approval. He patted it again with a little more affection.

“Tomorrow, you ride them down. My killer.” Did it know it was a killer? Or did it just do what it did? Made that way? Killers are made. But not all. Some relish in it and have no idea of their offenses.

In the distance a drone of Latin – priests hearing confessions for the coming action. If the destrier was a seigneur, it would eat and fuk and piss on the ground.

Tìbald knelt before a country priest, rattling off sins, emptying himself as he would a cupboard of broken pottery.  

“Is there more, my son?” the priest asked.

“Nothing more . . .” He should be confessing to Marin. Marin would know. To this priest a persona. But then said, “Father, I fear to be clean.”

“Why my son?”

“Because I’m weak and worst for it. How does the Scripture say? ‘When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he roams in search of rest. Then says I will return to the man I left and finds him neat. Then it calls seven more spirits and the man is worse off than in the beginning.’ I will fall and that fall steeper every time. I wonder if it be better tomorrow if God take me. For this state of grace cannot last. I will break it.”

“For your penance, my son, hide yourself away and fast – no water, no bread, no conjugal relation; do not speak for the day. For this day, the world is dead to you. As our Lord bore His cross so shall you. How heavy the weight of your sins on His back. Go and sin no more. Ego te absolvo. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”

An outdoor Mass was led by a bishop, hundreds in attendance. Tìbald, clean, mingled in. He knew few, Normans mostly, but there were Anglish, Scots, and Saxons as well. Thank goodness for the body of Christ, for most could not speak the other’s language. Just the venue he needed. As the bishop performed the rite, the Shroud in Tìbald’s mind and its ghostly image – Christendom’s most sacred relic. It moved him. Yet here, everyday – HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM – corporeal, real, no mere image. If that not jog faith what can? Yet Judas stood before Jesu and kissed Him. How many kisses had Tìbald had? That one confession could make amends for them. He took the Host while clean. A rare circumstance.

As night fell, he nestled next to Aile in their small tent, who, in a confident slumber had no mind what morning will bring. O’ she could imagine, but not the real thing. That she stay asleep he prayed – no connubial rites, for in his restless sleep, sleep that was no sleep, he knew what was coming. In his dreams he held the young Turk’s head and its moving lips.

They awoke to the sounds of trumpets. Fulk stood over him in his gear, Tìbald’s polished hauberk draped over his shoulder. Fulk attended him in silence. Aile waited at the entrance with his helm. “This day be ours,” she said placing it on his head and cinching the chin strap. She tied up the ventil protecting his chin. Fulk followed gamely, toting Tìbald’s lance and shield.

Tìbald turned to him. “You are now a mounted Serjeant of Arms. God keep you.”

The army broke camp, dividing into two wings: the cavalry in the lead and the pedes with the baggage and civilians in the rear. They marched onto the plain with banners flying. Again, the scouts came galloping back.

“The pagans have amassed their forces and are arrayed for battle. They have heard our trumpets and are coming on hard. Thousands upon thousands. Where is Count Raymond? We’ll be sorely pressed if not overwhelmed if he doesn’t come soon.”

Bohemond, seeing they had come on marshy ground, ordered the camp be quickly laid. Even as they pitched the tents, the ground trembled. On the horizon a flood of Turkish cavalry consuming all before it. “Allah Akbar!” their roar.

Off galloped riders to Count Raymond as Bohemond, surrounded by interpreters, addressed his host, “Militias Christi, the fight is closing about us! Let us advance manfully and show the enemy our might! Let the pedes remain to spread the tents and guard the camp.”

Tìbald mounted his destrier, took his lance and shield from Fulk, who then placed his mount in line. Tìbald looked at the boy. He’s dead. Tìbald could not care. The Turks were thundering down on them. A good boy, Fulk. Damn if Tìbald cared. A good boy the young Turk.

A crush on Tìbald’s legs from the squeeze of the chargers in line. A trumpet call and Robert Curthose ordered his centuries forward. Tìbald could see little with his shield near his eyes. The rows moved with a single motion as their compression could not allow otherwise. Tìbald bounced hard until the line broke to a canter. He held the lance high, its pennant flying and the burnished tip glinting in the sunlight. There, the Turks, like an avalanche, thick and black to crush them. His chest pounded. The thundering of the advance in his ears, the slap of bucklers against the chainmail, the tact jangling. A trumpet call and they broke into a gallop. The destrier snorted, its hooves cutting the ground, its muscles churning beneath its hide, its flanks a jet a sweat. Tìbald hard on his teeth, cheeks hot red. The trumpet bleated again.

Charge!

Down came the lances. Tìbald screamed. His arm and lance one rigid piece, he and the destrier a single beast hurtling toward the prey. The landscape blurred. Amidst the clamour, a cutting through the air. Hundreds of arrows. Tìbald heard them zip past his ears. Bile gushed his throat. He braced himself. They punched his shield one, two, three. They ricocheted off his helm with a plink and imbedded in the sleeves of his hauberk. They flicked the destrier’s ear. They grazed its shoulder. They impaled its croup. It charged imperviously.

Suddenly the Turks wheeled away. How could they accomplish such a feat? Shifting like sea grass in a current. The Norman line nearly tumbled. But not all Turks could skirt away and these slower ranks received the Norman horror.

Tìbald’s arm wrenched as he drove through a man pivoting away. The point thrust through his kidney and burst out his ribs. The Turk grabbed the shaft sticking from his side and fell from the saddle, wrenching Tìbald’s grip, who jerked the shaft free flicking bits of kidney on himself. The Turk was not yet dead and the destrier trampled him.

The Turks wheeled again, surrounding the Normans in close quarter fighting. Horse and men shrieking. Tìbald’s shield buffeted by arrows and mace blows. The destrier, wild-eyed, plunged at an enemy stallion, banging the horse with its head. Down went mount and rider. Tìbald, his lance in both hands, came down through the Seljuk’s chest as the destrier leapt over them. Before the Arabian horse could rise, the destrier kicked its head and it pissed a fountain. A spear point glanced off Tìbald’s shield then off his helm. If not for the iron hat it would’ve killed him. It was then the withdrawal sounded but all about him, wild Asian men, faces covered save for their eyes – large eyes black with rage, snarling, screaming, unrelenting to make him dead – to make him dead. He whirled his lance to keep them at bay, the burnished tip like a talisman. Then of all sights, to his right, Fulk wild-eyed, splitting shields and taking arrow hits.

“Fulk!” he screamed and drove for him. When they met, Tìbald had rarely seen such terror, usually in men soon to be dead. Side-by-side they fought their way to Curthose’s banner. Tìbald kicked his steed in the direction of camp, the destrier ramming a Turkish pony before it. Abruptly they were free, galloping back to their lines. Everyone combed in arrows.

Bohemond ordered the seigneurs to dismount and draw into a wall of shields around the perimeter of the camp. How well that served Harold Godwinson in ’66. “Hold fast!” Bohemond said. “Trust in Christ! And in the victory of the Holy Cross! Today, please God, we’ll be rich!”

We’ll be rich?!? We’ll be dead! Tìbald had never seen an army this size and all mounted.

He knocked off the arrows. Fulk did the same, but to no avail. Volley upon volley whistled in. Tìbald threw up his shield to protect the destrier’s head while Fulk lifted his own to cover all.

“Get him back!” Tìbald shoved the bridle into Fulk’s hand. “Stay with him and be ready!”

Fulk nodded when an arrow impaled his calf. Another rang off his helmet and knocked him senseless. Tìbald shook him back to life.

“Get to the middle of the tents!” He threw Fulk back, then turned and ran to a breach in the defensive line.

Up raced the Turks turning short of the Franks’ spears and hurled their javelins over the shield wall. As Tìbald hit the breach, sword in hand, he hacked the closest object – a horse’s nose – cut the soft tissue clean off to the bone. It reared, toppling its rider which the Franks hacked to pieces. Crossbowmen crouched behind the line of shields, firing through the spaces. One steadied his weapon on Tìbald’s shoulder and fired as a Mongol-eyed warrior came in range. It struck his chest and passed out his back to embed in the shoulder of a rider behind him.

The man to Tìbald’s right collapsed, a javelin through his neck. A rider and mount plunged knocking Tìbald to the ground and cutting off the head of the man next to him. Tìbald, beneath the stamping hooves, hid beneath his shield. The horses cracked the buckler, cutting the hides and snapping the wood frame. About him the dust of stamping legs, then sprays of guts and blood. He thrust his sword into the belly of the horse over him. He stabbed again harder, feeling the pop of hide and muscle. The animal bleated and started to collapse. Tìbald rolled out as the rider sunk down to his level. Three Normans split the Turk from shoulder to ribs.

Tìbald rose to find another buckler and grabbing a javelin, hurled it at the closest rider. It struck the horse’s shoulder which fell. Tìbald attacked the rider with the shield. How the rider glared as Tìbald beat him to death and took off his head with his sword.

More Turks broke through and raced towards the civilians in the reed marsh. Up rose a pitiful hum as they huddled, like spirits already dead. Arrows cut through the assemblies. Mothers gripped their dying children as they hobbled about wounded. They piled the dead to use as covering. They clamoured on top of priests begging for absolution.

Aile seized Ysobel and raced back to her tent; arrows had struck the floor and hung in the canvas. Aile threw at Ysobel her hauberk and gambeson then stripped off her gown and chemise. Ysobel froze. Aile slapped her. “Dress me,” she commanded while slipping on her leggings. Aile slapped her again. “Do it!”

Ysobel dead still.

Aile ripped the armour from her fingers and struggled into it.

“Buckle it!” She grabbed Ysobel’s useless hands.

But there, at the tent’s entrance, either angel or prop, a miraculous Esmé. “I know how to do it.” She worked the buckles, tied on the belt and sword, mounted coif and helm and tied them off. The sides of the tent flew inward from horsemen racing by. On went the buckler around Aile’s shoulder.

“They’re in camp!” Ysobel screamed and bolted from the tent.

“No!” Aile called to stop her and snatched her spear to follow. Esmé on her heals with a kitchen knife.

The tent collapsed as they cleared it. Horse and rider emerged through the canvas like actors on a stage. Aile threw her shield up over her head as the Turk came up behind her. She tripped over a child’s body just as the Seljuk made his cut. She skidded on the bloody silt, taking a mouthful of mud. The Turk then rode Ysobel down, and standing in his saddle, swung hard his sword to take off Ysobel’s upraised arm which hurtled back to hit her face. She fell and it save her for he was going to split her head. Aile ran to her. Esmé too, cutting up Ysobel’s chamise for a torniquet.

Aile now in iron – what should she do? Forward the battleline raged. Behind her, the écuyers protecting the seigneurs’ mounts. “Fulk!” she cried as he and several other pedes had unhorsed a rider and were hacking him to bits. “Fulk!”

He saw her in her iron. “Get away from here!”

“Where’s Tìbald?”

A pede stumbled in front of her his guts in his hands and the smell of shit upon him. “Forgive me of my sins! Forgive me of my sins!” Aile wailed as the man fell dead before her.

Fulk grabbed her and she clung to him. More arrows whistled by. “Prepare yourself, dómina,” his voice like the dead. He pointed to the shield wall. “There is the fight.”

In the center of camp beset by non-combatants, Marin watched the maelstrom at the shield wall; seigneurs and men-at-arms falling from wounds and exhaustion. “Aid our warriors!” he shouted, sweeping the civilians away. “Take them water or it will be the death of us all! Get them water! If you’re to die, die the pilgrim you vowed to be!”

Esmé the first in obedience as others watched her defy the arrows to get to the fight. She returned oblivious to their shock to fill another bucket. They could not help but join her, Esmé now their patron saint.

Marin, for his part, gathered the priests en mass and lifted their hands to heaven in prayer.

Tìbald’s sword arm racked with pain, the sword growing heavier. He slid upon the bloody ground only to brace his against the fallen.

“Where’s Raymond? Where’s the Provençals?” someone cried.

“We kill them and they keep coming,” another said.

“The Devil commands them!”

No voices Tìbald knew – all in accents and strange tongues . . . Were all his men dead? Not one to give solace?

A troop of riders slammed into his section and knocked him down again. Earth and sky tipped. His arms so sore they could not move. And he felt it – Death coming for him. The battle froze. Death coming . . . Then a jolt. He made his feet, the deadweight in his limbs vanished. But instead of to the fight, he ran. He ran past women bringing up water, past Aile as she came forward in search of him. No one noticed. No one cared except . . . Marin who locked on him with a hard stare – like a father – no longer a drunk, botched priest, slayer of knights, rapist, murderer of children, burner of crops in the guise of a reprobate. Tìbald fell at Marin’s feet, and he held Tìbald without a word as the battle overpowered the seigneurs. And after an infinite silence, Marin whispered, “Aile looks for thee.”

“What?”

“She’s gone to the line in armour.”

Tìbald hit. Coward. Bastard. Slacker. He grabbed his sword before his courage could collapse. Let me die.

Aile raced about the shield wall, dodging the archers and men-at-arms in frenzied combat. Suddenly she felt a grip of hands as a burly Norman thrust her into line. Her shield rattled from arrows. One zipped passed her ear. Another banged off her helm taking it off her head. A stallion so close snorted its enraged breath in her face. She stabbed the beast through the roof of it mouth. It reared and the rider fell, and when he hit the ground the soldiers next to her cut off his arms, and she with her spear slit open his belly. Out spewed his guts like snakes. He looked at her as he died. Then delirious, she saw amidst the tangles, grim reapers, gleaning their crop into the underworld. They hauled indiscriminately. Skeletons gambolling between opponents, capricious with their touch. Frank and Turk fought not each other, but this invisible army stealing their life . . .  

An arrow struck above Aile’s breast and punched against her shoulder blade. She sat and curled up in her metal skin and closed her eyes.

Tìbald searched as the defensive circle tightened. Bodies whole and in pieces marked the retreating line. And what if he find her dead? Had he walked over pieces of her, scattered here and there? He placed himself in line. A rider came down on him with a spiked mace, he ducked and the rider swing which struck his own leg. Tìbald with a backhand blow of his sword took the Turk’s jaw off his face. Tìbald advanced beyond the shield wall. A hail of arrows came his way. A number missed, but the kite shield and hauberk took hits. He dared them to come near without their cowardly arrows. The Norman line hooted and cried the same. A Seljuk warrior holstered his bow and pulled an axe. Tìbald sheathed his sword and did the same. The Turk was not a big man but lean and gristle in his lamar armour, no doubt battle hardened. He was brave for Tìbald was an intimidating figure, but there his comrades butchered at the shield wall and laid up as barriers along with the Christian dead. A duel in the middle of a battle, they did not think or care. The Franks being crushed, their defense ever shrinking, one of them would die and one would die eventually.  

The Turk charged proclaiming God is Great. Tìbald readied to chop off the man’s leg in the saddle or take out the horse if the man would ride over him. The hooves pounded and at a length, the Seljuk hurled his axe at Tìbald’s face. Up jerked the shield as it knocked him back and the Turk riding past rifled his sword with a backhand whack on Tìbald’s helm. A crash and in his eyes colours. The Turk turned to make another pass.

In the distance a blare of trumpets. Coming over the ridge the armies of Raymond and Godfrey baring down on the Turkish right. Out before them two seigneurs in gleaming armour of silver. “It’s Sainte Michael and Sainte George!” the Normans cried.

The Seljuks turned to meet them. Not so Tìbald’s warrior who bore down on him hard. As he came within a length again, shield up and sword arm cocked, two could throw an axe. Tìbald threw his axe hard, the sword coming down. The axe split the shield and in turn the man’s breastbone cutting in two his heart. The Normans ran out and pulled Tìbald back behind the wall.

Bohemond ordered up the horses.

Fulk rode up with Tìbald’s destrier, his face caked with dust and blood. Tìbald took the charger’s reins, hefted himself in the saddle, took his lance, and to Fulk’s surprise, snatched his shield. Before Fulk could speak, Tìbald smacked him with his fist toppling him from the saddle. Fulk securely on the ground – good. Tìbald kicked his mount forward to join the seigneurs.

The Franks galloped forward to give the enemy no time to veer away. The Seljuks could not retreat and turned to meet the charge head on. Tìbald stood in the saddle, snapping the stirrups taunt and leaned forward. The lines collided with a shock. The Seljuk front line vanished. The Franks emerged from the dust to meet the next line who were hurling their javelins, but they too were crushed. The momentum took them to the very center, but now with equal numbers. The Seljuks fed in their last reserves. But over the hills behind them the army of Adhemar. The Turks swung in retreat. No ruse as they spurred their mounts to flee.

The Christians followed and cut them down.

Time passed and Tìbald exhausted. Behind him the killing ground writhing, moaning. No more. His sword a glut of red running down the fuller. That stink of iron on him, in his nose. A shiver in him. Fulk at least alive. Aile?

Before them Kilij Arslan’s abandoned camp and all its treasures – greater treasures than all Alexius had offered. Bohemond was right. The Christians wild rifling through the tents. The seigneurs giddy. This is what they meant. There is grace, but there is money. Grace will save thee but money is power in the hand. Besides, what should they do with it? Give it to Alexius? Give it all to the Church? How many of them dead and bloodied on the field? What could it be but God’s reward.

But Tìbald wheeled the destrier around, its hide pricked with arrows and cuts on its thighs and shoulders. It bled but showed no pain and Tìbald would not coo or sooth it when removing them. Just a tug for the old war horse knew what’s what. He’ll salve the wounds ‘til it was blotched all over with greasy dots . . . But never mind the beast, find Aile. His heart in his throat. God have mercy, find Aile! He spurred the horse to a gallop.