The setting sun painted streaks of red and orange across the sky as Rodrigo and Geoffrey leaned on the battlements of the massive walls surrounding the city and peered out over the horizon. Across the grassy plains and rolling hills, long columns of marching soldiers and cavalrymen could be seen approaching Constantinople for nearly as far as the eye could see. A steady stream of knights and warriors had been flooding in for weeks as the princes and lords of Europe descended upon the city with their armies, the banners of their various kingdoms fluttering in the wind.
One of the nobles who stood out from the rest was the Norman lord, Bohemond of Taranto, from southern Italy. A giant in stature, he stood a head taller than even the tallest of the knights and warriors around him. With a per
