CHAPTER XVII
HOW HUGH WON KNIGHTHOOD
For nine days the host tarried on the Asiatic shore, collecting stores of food in preparation for undertaking the siege of the city. A mile away on the opposite side of the strait lay the army of the Greeks, five times as numerous, gaily caparisoned, well-drilled, equipped with all the arms and engines of warfare. And behind this army were ten times as many more soldiers, if they were needed. By losses at Zara and the desertion of the malcontents the host had shrunk to some 20,000 fighting men. In Constantinople, alone, there were 200,000 men of arms-bearing age, and the populations of the suburbs, flowing in to take refuge behind the impregnable walls, added considerably to this total. In Adrianople, Messinopolis, Tchorlu, Salonika, Nicea and many another city there were hundreds of thousands more. The Crusaders were as a chip of wood beside an oak-tree in comparison to the Empire they had attacked.
On the tenth day a Parliament was held after mass in the open fields by Scutari. It was attended by every knight and baron, fully armoured and horsed. Boniface, Dandolo and the Young Alexius sat their saddles in the centre of a horse-shoe of steel-clad men and chargers. A forest of lances ringed them round. The words of counsel were punctuated by the clatter of hoofs, the jingling of bits and the clank of shields on hauberks. Fierce-visaged, eager, the knights cried with one voice to be led to the attack. Alexius, sumptuously clad in silks and velvets, seemed ill at ease in such martial surroundings, but Dandolo and Boniface surveyed the glittering ranks with the exultant eyes of leaders who know themselves staunchly served.
"Forward, lords!" shouted the host. "Let the lances be couched! Out swords!"
Pennons and banners fluttered like the beating wings of birds of prey, and a storm of war-cries rose from the ranks. Boniface raised his hand in a sign for silence.
"I wot well what ye seek, Messers," he said. "And it is my hope that every valiant knight and brave sergeant shall have full opportunity to prove his metal. We have now gained such store of food that our wise ally, the magnificent Lord Doge, advises we may pass over the straits and show the enemies of the Lord Alexius here that Our Lady of Heaven fights on our side. To the ships, Messers!"
The host moved in seven battalions in orderly array, as became veteran men-at-arms. The vanward was commanded by Count Baldwin, because among his Flemings there were plenty of archers and crossbowmen. The five divisions of the centre were led by Count Baldwin's brother, Henry; by Count Hugh, by Count Louis, by the Lord Matthew de Montmorency—in this battalion were the men of Champagne; and by Odo de Champlitte. Boniface himself led the rearward, the largest body of all, composed of all those peoples who were not of the north of France.
The Venetian shipmasters directed the embarkation. The knights and squires and mounted sergeants went on board the horse-transports, with their chargers. The footmen boarded the great ships and galleys. And when the last man had been assigned his place, the galleys took the transports and ships in tow and began the passage of the strait. It was a fair summer's day, with a gentle breeze blowing out of the Black Sea, and the sun shone on the armour and weapons, whilst trumpets sounded gaily from sterncastles and the coats-of-arms on shields and surcoats glowed with vivid colour.
Hugh and Matteo were aboard the transport which carried the Marshal of Champagne. They stood with other knights and squires in the hollow waist of the ship, beside their chargers, all saddled and ready to leap into the water the instant the keel struck ground. In front of them the shipmen crouched along the transport's side, waiting to unfasten the great doors, which dropped down and became bridges over which the horses could be led.
In the depths of the hold they could see nothing of the fleet's progress, but as they approached the European shore they heard the trumpets of the Greeks, shrill and challenging, and presently enormous stones, flung by petraries and mangonels, commenced to drop in the water beside them. Cross-bow bolts hissed through the air and struck the transport's hull with a vicious "ts-ss-st!" On the high forecastle the Venetian shipmen laboured at the machinery of a mangonel, which presently answered the missiles of the Greeks. The air was full of arrows and hurtling stones.