picked up the broadcast from a neighbouring radio station and piped in the sounds when the circuit was flipped and callers were placed on hold. Instead of being irritated with this glitch, both the factory owner and patient callers found it rather novel and pleasant.

Once our adventure got off to a start, more as Pope Urban II had envisioned it and under the sanctioned leadership of penitent princes of Latin Christendom, there were quite a few trials along the learning-curve to sort out first and throughout the interminably long and punishing siege of Antioch. To begin with, a large contingent that the Byzantine Emperor Alexios was welcoming into Constantinople—already being a little miffed by his previously ungracious guests in the peasants’ army, were Italo-Norman mercenaries, the same groupthat had been conducting raids on Byzantine lands in the Balkans. Much of the rest of the princes were either very ambitious or were impoverished, landless nobility who sought to make their fortunes in the Crusade, and whom, like the poor serfs that did not hesitate over-much in leaving their estates, didn’t have much to lose and a great deal to gain, but there was the universally-respected Bishop Adémar of Le Puy, the papal legate who was officially in charge, and a few excellent strategists to hopefully reign in these more dangerous elements. As Urban had in part sold the idea of retaking the Holy Lands to Byzantium, whose blessing was absolutely necessary for the venture to succeed, with the promise of helping the Eastern Empire regaining territory