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any case since Bohemund was forced to bend his head in such a low enclosure due to his remarkable height. Equally guarded in such a place, where God could see into their innermost thoughts and tot up their sins, came Count Hugh of Vermandois, brother of the King of France: slim, handsome, blue eyes, golden-haired and with an arrogance to go with a lack of military ability hidden from everyone but himself.
    Two Roberts followed: the Duke of Normandy, second son of William the Conqueror, and alongside him the Count of Flanders, his brother-in-law – another relative of that contingent, Stephen of Blois, had abandoned the siege and retired further north to the safety of Alexandretta. Each magnate held their own thoughts masked, aware that following their devotions matters would be brought to the fore that would require them to take a position for what was rapidly turning into a choice of faction.
    Only Godfrey de Bouillon, the barrel-chested Duke of Lower Lorraine, seemed unaffected by what was to come, his much battered face alight with devotion. Pious and without any personal ambition other than to reach and take Jerusalem from the infidel, his roundface shone with the sheer delight of being in such a hallowed cave. On entering, Godfrey fell to his knees and allowed his head to touch the floor in obeisance to the memory of Christ’s leading disciple.
    At the tiny rock altar, Adémar began his Latin Mass in the company of the much abused and venerable John the Oxite, previously Patriarch of Antioch until removed by the Turks. Outside in the still bloodstained streets – the bodies of the Turkish slain had been tossed into a deep pit or the River Orontes, which would carry them out to sea – men and women, both Roman and Armenian in their Christianity, many of whom had converted to Islam to survive, knelt and prayed in unison with a cleric most of them could not understand, happy to be alive and able to take from the passing priests of both branches of the faith the absolution for their transgressions which was being freely distributed.
     
    ‘Antioch belongs to the Emperor Alexius Comnenus, as many here confirmed by sacred oath and for which I gave my bounden word, which no man is at liberty to break.’
    ‘That is not disputed.’
    Bishop Adémar, as he uttered that reply, gave Raymond of Toulouse, who had made such a forthright statement, the kind of look that implied he should calm himself, for the way he had spoken lacked the necessary level of diplomacy when dealing with men of equal rank. Once the possessor of an unlined and rosy countenance – the kind of well-fed, youthful and contented face too often the condition of high clerics – time and the cares of the Crusade, not least the need to keep happy this assembly of proud magnates, had played upon Adémar till he had now begun to look like an old man.
    ‘It would be foolish, My Lord Bishop,’ Hugh of Vermandoisinterjected, ‘not to acknowledge that there is ambition in that direction.’
    Robert of Normandy responded to that with a slice of wicked wit; if he was ever at war with his brother the King of England for possession of his lands, then his other enemy on his eastern border was France, so bearding the royal sibling Vermandois, a man devoid of irony, was a game he enjoyed.
    ‘We all accept that you have aspirations for Antioch, Count Hugh.’
    A wise man would have shucked that aside; Vermandois was a dolt. ‘I do not mean myself and you know it.’
    ‘Our Lord Bishop may have an insight into the souls of men,’ Robert intoned sonorously, ‘God has not granted me that ability.’
    ‘We are all ambitious in the cause of God,’ Adémar snapped, impatiently falling back on an unassailable reminder of their purpose to kill off the secret smiles caused by the Frenchman’s stupidity. ‘Which is why we are where we are.’
    He then gave Normandy a bit of a glare that extended to his equally amused brother-in-law of Flanders: he knew there were more