The Perfect Heresy by Stephen O’Shea Page A

men of war, feared from Palestine to England for their warrior prowess, would surely find the way to defeat this stubborn, satanic city.
    As the meeting convened to discuss what was to be done, the great mass of the army was finishing its tasks. From three chroniclers, William of Tudela, Peter of Vaux de Cernay, and William of Puylaurens, it is possible to piece together what happened on that fateful afternoon.
    A handful of the camp followers—kitchen boys, muleteers, varlets, thieves—drifted down to the River Orb, shirts and hats in hand, to find a cool respite from the day. The Orb passed close to the southern fortifications of the city, within shouting distance. Inevitably, insults were exchanged between the men by the riverside and those atop the walls. One of the crusaders rashly walked onto the bridge spanning the Orb, a clear shot for any deadly defensive crossbowman, and loudly taunted the burghers of Béziers. The sight of this half-naked riffraff rankled the proud men behind the walls. A few dozen youths of Beziers decided to teach the scum of the crusade a lesson. They gathered spears, sticks, banners, and a few drums, then swung open a gate and went charging noisily down the slope to the river. The foolhardy loner on the bridge barely had time to choke down his last jeering taunt before they were on him, pummeling and beating him senseless. As his friends scrambled up the bank to help him, he was thrown off the bridge and splashed with finality into the muddy Orb. By then the donnybrook was on.

     
    The massacre at Béziers (from the
Canso
, or
La Chanson de la Croisade
)
     
    (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris)
     
    Farther downstream, the “king” of the camp followers—the ribauds—saw the lone heckler go hurtling down into the Orb. He also saw the open gate to the town. In the words of the chronicler: “He called all his lads together and shouted ‘Come on, let’s attack!’ ” By twos and threes, then by the hundreds, a throng came racing toward the mayhem, the scent of battle driving them forward. To return to William of Tudela’s account, mindful of medieval exaggeration: “Each one got himself a club—they had nothing else, I suppose—and there were more than fifteeen thousand of them, with not a pair of shoes between them.” The motley combatants surged toward the bridge.
    At the open gate of Béziers, the men and women must have screamed to their brave young roustabouts down below. Fromtheir vantage point atop the slope, those inside the city would have seen the thickening crowds converging on the bridge. The brawling Biterrois had made a ghastly mistake. The conventions of medieval warfare held that a besieging army should never be attacked when it is newly arrived and thus still fresh. Sieges were wearying ordeals of attrition for both sides, and risks were best taken when the opponent had grown tired. The crusaders, still well supplied with food and water, were not demoralized. If anything, they were itching for a fight.
    The men of Beziers, outnumbered and exposed, fought their way back to the rampart, up the slope they had so playfully descended just a few moments earlier. As far as can be inferred from the chronicle record, the club-wielding crusaders were among them, shoving through the open gate and into the city itself. Proud Béziers was no longer inviolate; the attackers streamed into the town.
    The Biterrois on the battlements saw the spreading stain below. They deserted their posts to descend to the streets to join the melee. Outside, crusaders propped long ladders against the walls of Béziers and scampered up to the unguarded heights. The town was wide-open.
    The distant shouts reached the noblemen gathered around Arnold Amaury. A chronicle related, “Now the crusading knights were shouting, ‘To arms! To arms!’ ” The great barons and their armored infantry, the most effective killers of any feudal host, prepared to launch the assault.
    In all probability, it was at