God's Wolf Page 6

  The key virtues of chivalry, which any true knight required, were franchise, prouesse, largesse, cortoisie and loyauté: nobility or rank (of birth), military prowess, generosity, courtesy and loyalty. These all went together to make a man preux (‘valiant’) – a preudhomme – the truly valiant or chivalrous man.13 We find Reynald described in almost exactly such terms. Even the Old French version of William of Tyre, usually very critical of Reynald, describes him as ‘loyau’ and ‘sage, cortois et de bon afere’ (‘wise, courteous and of noble rank’). Ernoul says he was ‘haus hom et bon chevalier’ (‘high-born and a fine knight’). In battle, Reynald fought with the greatest ‘prouesse’. The one knightly quality not explicitly accorded to him is largesse (generosity), but while he was still a poor knight in Antioch, Reynald did not have anything to be generous with. However, there is reason to think he might later have met this criterion as well.

  We don’t know what Reynald looked like, but most crusaders were clean-shaven – something that was unusual for the local cultures, and especially shocking to the Armenians, for whom a beard was an essential sign of manhood. The ideal knight was also slender; ‘If the knight is thin and tall,’ wrote Usama Ibn Munqidh, ‘the Franks admire him more.’ Reynald was certainly good-looking – a ‘handsome bachelor’, according to his contemporary, the chronicler Ernoul. He also might have had the courteous gift of the gab – he had ‘milk and honey in his voice’, according to Peter of Blois.14 Most importantly, Reynald had the crucial quality of any knight, bravery, in spades. All in all, the attractive and well-mannered Reynald might indeed have been amongst those knights who found favour with Eleanor and her suite. His knightly qualities and adventurous spirit would also have fitted well with the courtly-love convention in which a knight idealizes a high-born lady as his love, performing deeds of valour to win her favour. The beautiful Princess Constance herself would have made a perfect object to put on a pedestal as his ‘lady’.

  Eleanor and her damsels dallied in Antioch without distress, but the frivolity could only last so long. Prince Raymond needed men like Reynald for their military skills, not for their manners. Although he was a formidable warrior, Raymond had his faults. He could be lazy, rash and had an uncontrollable temper. He also loved to gamble – surely a poor choice of vice for a man who, the chronicles say, was ‘greatly dreaded by the enemy, but unlucky’.15 Raymond also lacked skills as a statesman and strategist. On his erratic watch, the Armenians in Cilicia had taken territory from Antioch; they had also seized some strategically sited mountain castles belonging to the Knights Templar. The Templars, along with the other powerful Military Order of the East, the Knights Hospitaller, were vital elements in the defence of the Latin states. They garrisoned key frontier fortresses and provided substantial contingents of elite mounted knights to crusader armies.

  The Seljuk Turks in Anatolia were also menacing, though they were mainly absorbed in conflict with the Byzantines. Most temptingly for Raymond, the arrival of such a large contingent of warriors with the Second Crusade was a chance finally to take the offensive against Nur al-Din. Perhaps they could seize one of the key Muslim strongholds east of the Orontes River, such as the fortress town of Shayzar, or even Nur al-Din’s mighty capital of Aleppo itself.

  Eleanor supported Raymond’s strategy, which made sense – Nur al-Din was undoubtedly the greatest threat to the Franks at the time – but the queen’s stance widened the gulf between her and her husband. The pious Louis was not keen to help Raymond. He preferred to continue southwards first and complete his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Eleanor was angry enough to suggest a separation, pointing out that under the rules of consanguinity they were too closely related to be legally married. If Louis went south to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, she threatened to remain in Antioch with her vassals. Relations between King Louis and Prince Raymond quickly soured. Meanwhile the liaison between handsome Uncle Raymond and his beautiful niece became ever closer. William of Tyre is explicit about what happened:

  Frustrated in his ambitious designs, [Raymond] began to hate the king’s ways; he openly plotted against him and took means to do him injury. He resolved also to deprive him of his wife, either by force or by secret intrigue. The queen readily assented to this design, for she was a foolish woman Her conduct before and after this time showed her to be… far from circumspect. Contrary to her royal dignity, she disregarded her marriage vows and was unfaithful to her husband.16

  When the rumours reached Louis, who was still besotted with the lovely Eleanor, he was devastated. In the dead of night he left Antioch to continue his journey to Jerusalem. He did not take his leave of Raymond. The king’s men seized Eleanor and dragged her from the town by force.**

  When Louis left Antioch for Jerusalem, it is not known whether Reynald went with him, or whether he stayed to serve under Raymond in Antioch. The latter is more likely. Certainly a few years later the Old French version of William of Tyre, known as the Estoire d’Eracles, confirms that Reynald was working in Antioch as a mercenary soldier. What is certain is that, having experienced the lifestyle of Outremer at first hand and seen the opportunities on offer, Reynald decided to stay in the East.

  After leaving Antioch, Louis fulfilled his vow of pilgrimage and toured the holy sites. The German emperor Conrad was also in Jerusalem, having recovered from his wounds. They began a long series of debates with the King of Jerusalem, Baldwin III, about how best to use the substantial forces they had gathered. Eventually, in July 1148, Conrad and Louis, along with the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, led their remaining crusaders against the great Muslim metropolis of Damascus. The capture of Damascus would have been a strategic triumph for the crusaders and could have shifted the balance of power in their favour. It would have rid the Latin states of a powerful Muslim enemy, while winning rich new lands and untold treasure. But there were strong objections to the plan, among them the obvious problem that the populous, well-armed and high-walled city would be a very hard nut to crack. Also, Damascus was a friendly power. Unur’s regime had been a useful counter-balance to Nur al-Din’s growing strength, and Damascus actually paid an annual tribute to the crusaders. In hindsight, a direct attack on Nur al-Din in Aleppo might have been more sensible and, if successful, would have left Damascus isolated and easier to capture. But this was of course the strategy proposed by Raymond of Poitiers, which Louis had rejected.

  The outraged Damascenes put up a robust defence, and as crusader casualties increased, so did frustration and disunity in the Christian camp. The local Frankish nobility, with all their interests committed in the East, had a love-hate relationship with the new crusaders. While they welcomed reinforcements from the West with open arms, they emphatically did not want outsiders grabbing all the spoils. Rather than risk a conquered Damascus going to newly arrived crusaders like the ambitious and acquisitive Count Thierry of Flanders – who wanted Damascus for himself – the jealous local barons preferred to undermine the campaign. Rumours brewed of large bribes paid by the Muslims to local Frankish leaders to betray the crusade. After just four days, the siege was lifted and the magnificent Frankish army retired in disorder. Preoccupied with Nur al-Din in the north and estranged from the King of France, Raymond and the troops of Antioch were not even present at the debacle.

  King Louis and the Emperor Conrad returned, chastened, to Europe. The great crusade launched with such ardour by Bernard of Clairvaux had been a total failure. Bernard never really lived it down. Following the disaster of the Second Crusade, the balance of power in the Levant began to shift decisively and ominously towards Islam. Chroniclers reported a rain as red as blood in Jerusalem, and red snow in June.17 William of Tyre wrote pessimistically:

  From this time, the condition of the Latins in the East became visibly worse. Our enemies saw that the labours of our most powerful kings and leaders had been fruitless and all their efforts vain; they mocked at the shattered strength and broken glory of those who represented the substantial foundations of the Christians. With impunity
they had scorned the actual presence of those whose very names had formerly terrified them. Hence their presumption and boldness rose to such heights that they no longer feared the Christian forces and did not hesitate to attack them with unwonted vigour.18

  The aggressive activity of the Muslim armies after their victory at Damascus meant that even if Reynald, as we suspect, stayed in the north and missed the rest of the crusade, he would have had his fill of fighting around Antioch. Nur al-Din’s policy was one of constant jihad and eventual annihilation of the Christian invaders. He was on the warpath, and everything in the north of the Latin states was about to change. This change would throw up all sorts of possibilities for an up-and-coming soldier of fortune.

  * The Meander’s coiling course gave its name to the geographical term for a winding river bend.

  ** After the crusade, Eleanor’s marriage to Louis was annulled and she married a man more to her tastes, the energetic, warlike, impious and hot-blooded Henry Curtmantle, who went on to become the great King of England, Henry II.

  The Walled Fountain, near Inab, 29 June 1149

  It had been a long, hard night for the men of Antioch. The Turks had harassed them relentlessly through the hours of darkness, pushing back the outposts of Prince Raymond’s army, overrunning his outer lines of defence and seizing the high ground. The Franks were camped on a low-lying plain, near a spring known as Fons Muratus, hemmed in by marshes and hills. On the surrounding ridgelines, the morning sun revealed dust rising from ranks of Turkish cavalry, 6,000 strong. Raymond’s force was outnumbered by four to one.

  As a rising wind blew the dust in his eyes, Raymond could reflect on how his own actions had led to this potentially disastrous position.

  Word had come to him in Antioch that Nur al-Din was besieging the powerful citadel of Inab in the north-west of the principality. Raymond had responded with his habitual bravery and impetuosity. Some of his captains advised caution, but the rash Raymond would not be overruled when it came to warfare. Without waiting for the bulk of his cavalry to arrive, he pressed on.

  On 28 June, Raymond caught Nur al-Din’s forces by surprise, inflicting a sharp defeat. He could then have taken refuge in one of his nearby fortresses to wait for reinforcements, but his pride kept him in the field. He did not want to show any fear of Nur al-Din.

  Nur al-Din was at first reluctant to engage, suspecting that Raymond’s force was just the vanguard of a larger army. When scouts reported that Raymond had camped in the open, without reinforcements, the atabeg saw his chance.

  The next morning Raymond realized the enormity of his mistake, but it was too late to withdraw. He resolutely ‘drew up his lines in battle formation, stationed his knights in order, and prepared to fight at close quarters’. The two armies came together and engaged hand-to-hand in the choking gloom of dust clouds that blotted out the sun. The Frankish knights fought desperately, launching their most potent tactic – ‘their famous charge’ – at the Muslims, but they were too heavily outnumbered. In the chaotic mêlée the field-army of Antioch was virtually annihilated. Raymond ‘fought valiantly, like the high-spirited and courageous warrior he was, but finally, wearied by killing and exhausted in spirit, he was slain by a stroke of the sword in the midst of the slaughter which he had wrought’.19

  After the battle, the people of Antioch, picking through the piles of dead, only identified his naked, mutilated corpse by some recognizable marks and scars on his remaining body parts. Raymond’s head and right arm had been hacked off and taken to Nur al-Din, who paid their bearer a handsome reward. The prince’s skull was set in a silver case and sent as a gift to the caliph in Baghdad.

  Chapter 4

  ARRIVISTE

  Many there were, however, who marvelled that a woman so eminent, so distinguished and powerful, who had been the wife of a very illustrious man, should stoop to marry an ordinary knight.

  William of Tyre

  The defeat at the Walled Fountain in June 1149 was as calamitous as Roger of Antioch’s downfall on the Field of Blood thirty years before. ‘The flower of the army and the prince’ was destroyed, leaving Antioch at the mercy of the Muslim invaders. Nur al-Din swiftly captured the strategic castles of Harim, near Antioch, and Apamea on the Orontes. He then ravaged the principality, right up to the walls of Antioch itself. To underline the extent of his conquest, Nur al-Din rode to St Simeon and bathed ceremonially in the Mediterranean. Antioch, though, held out. The city’s intimidating defences and its determined populace deterred Nur al-Din, as did the threat of Byzantine retribution if he attacked. After all Antioch was officially – if not effectively – subject to Byzantine sovereignty. When King Baldwin of Jerusalem hurried north to take charge of the leaderless principality, Nur al-Din made a truce and withdrew beyond the Orontes River.

  If Reynald was soldiering in Antioch at this time, he may have been one of the few lucky survivors from the battle at Fons Muratus. More likely he was serving in the garrison at Antioch, perhaps even in the palace guard. His subsequent closeness to Princess Constance would fit with this possibility. Either way, from this time on it is overwhelmingly likely that Reynald was plying his trade in Antioch, as a mercenary in the pay of King Baldwin III.

  Baldwin needed someone to fill the vacuum left by Raymond’s death, but the heir to the principality of Antioch was Bohemond, the son of Raymond and Princess Constance. Bohemond was only five years old. According to William of Tyre:

  Great was the anxiety of King Baldwin of Jerusalem at this time on behalf of Antioch and the lands adjacent to it. He feared lest, deprived as it was of the protection of its prince, it might fall into the hand of the enemy and suffer the pitiable fate of Edessa1

  Again Antioch needed a military leader ‘to undertake the duties of the prince and to rouse the people from their state of dejection’.2 Again the princess needed a husband – at least until her infant son Bohemond came of age. The most powerful man in the principality was now Antioch’s spiritual leader, the wealthy, worldly and controversial patriarch, Aimery. In the wake of the slaughter at Fons Muratus, as Nur al-Din’s army approached Antioch, Aimery – contrary to his usual tight-fisted habits – paid for mercenaries to defend the city and showed effective leadership. As a stopgap, Baldwin left him in charge of administering the principality until a spouse was found for Constance. At this stage Baldwin would also have made arrangements to strengthen Antioch’s standing army and provide for their pay. This is where Reynald fitted in – ‘as a mercenary in the pay of the king’.3 It was a respectable job in which he could showcase his knightly skills (hunting, killing, and so forth), but certainly not the glorious achievement that an ambitious knight would have dreamed of when leaving Burgundy. Yes, he was fighting the Holy War, but there was little fame to be won in the endless round of petty raids and skirmishes. Reynald, we can be certain, was after something more. In Antioch, after the death of Raymond, that ‘something more’ may suddenly have appeared more attainable.

  Widowed heiresses in the Latin states were a very valuable commodity and a tried and tested means to social mobility. In Outremer, baby Frankish boys proved less resilient than girls. And if he survived the multiple ailments of infancy, a young man’s life expectancy was still very short, thanks to the ever-present swords and darts of the enemy. This meant there was an endemic shortage of fighting men. And because even the greatest lords frequently fell in battle, this led to a regular supply of rich widows for aspiring and able knights. Even the highest ranks were achieved through marriage: Raymond of Poitiers had become a prince by marrying Constance, and in 1131 Count Fulk of Anjou had become King Fulk of Jerusalem through his marriage to Queen Melisende. The view of the time was that while a woman could be the rightful holder and transmitter of authority in a fief, effective rule required a man, especially in the unremitting warfare of Outremer. Most powerful heiresses were quickly married off, husbands being carefully selected for their prowess, wealth, connections and the additional fighting men they could bring to the party.* Re
ynald would prove a master at using this critical tool of political marriage.

  Princess of the great city of Antioch and now back on the marriage market, Constance was one of the most eligible women in the world. Still only around twenty-two years old, she was not just rich and powerful, but beautiful as well. Raymond was not cold in his grave before the suitors began to queue up; and they included a candidate from Byzantium. The Emperor Manuel saw an opportunity to bring Antioch firmly under his control by marrying Constance into the imperial family. Manuel himself had been considered as a husband for Constance in his youth, but now he was married – though not very happily – to a homely German. He sent his brother-in-law, Caesar John Roger of Sorrento, to Antioch to ask for Constance’s hand. Unfortunately, the age gap between Constance and the widower John Roger was even greater than that between Constance and her first husband, Raymond. As a young girl she had had no choice but to acquiesce, but as a grown woman Constance was not keen to rush into a new match, especially not to another much older man. Poor old John Roger was summarily rejected. According to Manuel’s imperial secretary, John Kinnamos, the disappointed suitor took the rebuff to heart:

  In these circumstances the Caesar John went to Antioch, but achieved nothing of what he had come for (because he was aged); Constance regarded him with displeasure and he returned to Byzantion; when sickness beset him, he tonsured his locks and donned the black garb [of a monk].4