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Thinking their journey nearly complete, they lagged a little. The army was therefore critically divided on the ridge. The Turks, ever alert, seized the moment and the ridge. From there they fell upon both parts of the Frankish army, using the confusion and higher ground to their advantage, fighting for once with swords rather than bows.
Those who bore the first brunt of the fighting broke and ran. Those behind were hindered by steep valley walls and the exhaustion of their horses, but at last, stood and fought, literally clinging to rocks as they wielded their weapons.
The Turks pressed on to victory: they took prisoners and inflicted casualties, including Gauchiers de Montjoy, Evrard de Breteuil and Itiers de Meingnac, as well as killing Germans under the leadership of Otto, bishop of Freising.9
The disaster was laid at the feet of Eleanor.
It is speculated that Geoffrey had pressed on from the mountain top towards a more sheltered valley at her insistence. Eleanor was almost certainly in the van with Geoffrey that day, rather than in the middle section of the army, as the records do not show her or her ladies being in danger, and Geoffrey would not have altered the march plan without her consent.10
Whether or not she was responsible, the queen that night at first slept unaware in her tent, while her husband Louis took refuge in a tree, laying about with his sword to prevent capture by the Turks. As the night went on, however, news was brought by Odo of Deuil that all was not well. He begged for men to help the king, but they were unable to help, owing to the darkness of the night, the steepness of the mountain side, and the intervening enemy, who were stoutly braced against rocks and trees, shooting from above.11
"The camp resounded with lamentations, and the troops were torn with anguish. Throughout the entire camp there was not a place which was not filled with mourning for friends and household companions. One sought his father, another his master. Here a woman was searching everywhere for her son, there another for her husband. Those whose search was fruitless passed a sleepless night, burdened with anxious fear lest the worst had happened to the absent ones. During the night, however, there arrived at the camp some of each class."12
Amongst the stragglers who came limping in was the king, half dead with fatigue on a stray nag that someone had captured.
Eleanor had by now apparently tasted sufficiently of the rigours of crusading life, but they were not to end so soon. From this time there was a shortage of provisions, and William of Tyre notes that the regular markets that had been part of the crusading life disappeared. To cap it all, the Crusaders were without reliable guides, and wandered as best they could amongst the steep mountain passes.
With the Turks lurking behind them in the mountains, the Crusaders hastened to the gates of Attalia, reaching their goal early in February 1148.
Attalia itself although fertile was constantly subject to Turkish raids, and so could not supply grain. The famine deepened, so that the poor all but famished with hunger.
Eleanor, Louis, and the other nobles reluctantly decided to cut their losses. They left the foot soldiers and their companions behind - perhaps seven thousand or more - in the care of two veterans, Thierry Count of Flanders and Archimbaud de Bourbon.
Meanwhile Louis, his knights and the women sailed towards Antioch in barely seaworthy hulks - most of the women able to find the ten silver marks required for passage. The deserted generals tried to fight their way south. They were forced by terrain and enemy ambushes to turn back to Attalia. Here, the army took refuge between the inner and outer walls of the city, denied entrance by the Greek commander. Plague broke out: the pilgrims, fearing illness more than battle, plunged into the mountains once again. Here, the Turks took pity on them: they welcomed the wretched survivors into their ranks, where they vanished from historical record.13
The king's company, says William, was favoured with fair winds, sailing into the mouth of the Orontes, on the banks of which stands Antioch, but other sources suggest they were terrified by mountainous seas.14
In fair weather or foul, they landed at St Simeon, some 16 km from Antioch. Inside the city, Raymond had eagerly awaited his allies. When he heard the news of their arrival, he summoned all his chief nobles and went out to meet his niece and her husband, conducting them with the greatest of pomp and ceremony to his home.
Within the city walls of Antioch, Eleanor and her ladies found a new world, in which the dark Europe of pagan superstition and terrifying Christianity had been only lightly grafted on a melange of cultures that drew on the ancient Romans, the Greeks, the Saracens, and every other society that had stamped its footprint on the East.
The shrines of the Christians jostled most unsuccessfully for space next to deities such as Apollo, and Arab traders busied the bazaars with trade cries that were louder than the shouts of any Christian sentry.
The women enjoyed the spring, adopting the eastern customs of silken turban and burnous, their freshly made up faces veiled in Turkish fashion. In this fabled city of the apostles they encountered once again those luxuries which they must have all but forgotten during their journey, as well as new delights. There were sheltered courtyards, gardens on rooftops, water in aqueducts, gilded tables, mosaiced walls, and ivory coffers. They were treated to novelties such as soap, sugar, lemons, oranges, pomegranates and persimmons, and cotton, gauze and muslin garments.15
The ladies hunted and picnicked, and were lavished with pageants and delicacies such as snow cooled wine, and gifts such as the plenteous relics that abounded in Outremer.
Raymond was counting on Louis' aid in expanding his dominion, in which plot he relied greatly on the support of his niece.16
But Raymond's hopes and the cordial relationship between the rulers did not long endure, once Raymond laid his plans before Louis. He had underestimated the single minded devotion of Louis to his pilgrimage, from which neither the ties of flesh nor the chances of spectacular wealth through conquest could divert him.
Refused by the king, Raymond conceived a dark hatred towards his royal visitor, and "...he openly plotted against him and took means to do him injury."17
According to William of Tyre and other enemies of Eleanor, Raymond resolved also to deprive Louis of his wife, either by force or 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, as we have said, far from circumspect. Contrary to her royal dignity, she disregarded her marriage vows, and was unfaithful to her husband."18
William of Tyre was opposed to Eleanor, perhaps mainly because of her divorce from Louis. Ludicrous rumours sprang up in the years after the crusade, including the
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