The steep incline of the path began to tell on him. He slowed his pace, but struggled on. It came to him that his last few paces had been accompanied by the sound of splashing. He took another step, lost his footing, and fell, sprawling forward on hands and knees. His spear skidded across blood-slick stones.
He jumped to his feet, his hands dripping, his sleeves and the knees of his breecs sodden now. He stood for a moment, staring at his bloody hands as dread stole over him. His empty stomach knotted and squirmed. The trickle of blood had become a very stream, coursing in frothy freshets down the footpath, pooling in bright red puddles and running on, branching and twining as it went, the meaty smell rich where it ran.
Desperate to escape, Murdo fled up another street. But there was no relief. Here, too, the well-worn path was awash in reeking blood. There were bodies, too-dozens, scores, hundreds-their white and yellow robes red-stained and dripping still. He kept his eyes on the path ahead, refusing to look at the blood.
But there was so much! Everywhere his eye happened to light there was blood, and still more blood-in such ghastly profusion, in such absolute abundance of quantity that he could not ignore it and began at last to see nothing else… blood pooling thick and black in the streets… spurting hot and dark from the wounds of the dying… blood stinking foul in the hot sun… staining stone and wood and dirt with its rich red-brown patina of extinguished life… blood oozing purple from neck stumps of headless victims… blood in glimmering puddles surrounded by six starving cats that crouched at their grisly feast with their tongues lapping, lapping… blood splattered on the walls of the houses, and on the steps, trickling from the windows, and out through the doors… blood sluicing in slow rivers down the dirty streets, a dusty grey membrane caking thick upon the turgid surface… blood sticky under foot and curdling in the fierce summer sun… blood wafting the sweet suffocating stench of death into the hot dead air… a never-ending flood-tide of blood gushing through the streets in wider, ever more prodigious streams…
The blood… God have mercy! There was so much!
Sickened, wretched, he turned his back and fled the sight. Heedless of all else save the need to escape, he ran until he could run no longer. When at last he stopped to look around he saw that the shadows stretched long across an empty square, and the pathways were dark. Corpses strewed the paths and byways, and lay heaped on the doorsteps of the houses – whole families, slain in defence of their homes and of one another.
Pressing a hand to his side, he moved across the square, and passed a building surmounted by a six-sided star of bronze. Someone had written 'Isu Regni' in blood over the doorway. The words brought him up short. As he was standing there, he felt a feather-soft touch on his face and hair and looked up. Falling from the sky all around him, black ash, fine as snow was drifting gently into the silent streets.
Thirsty now, and sweating from his exertion, Murdo walked on. The further he walked, the thicker grew the ash. He saw grey smoke filling the street ahead, but continued on and soon came to the flaming wreckage of a huge building. The roof had fallen in and little remained of the walls; a few of the larger timbers yet burned, but mostly the flames had died to embers. The smoke was bitter, and stank of burning fat; it stung Murdo's eyes and made a putrid taste in his dry mouth.
He wondered at the reason for this, and then saw that what he had taken to be mounds of smouldering debris were in fact the charred bodies. Murdo looked with dull eyes upon the great mass of twisted, blackened husks, frozen in the rictus of death, limbs deformed by agony and fire.
The heat of their still-smouldering corpses parched Murdo's skin even as the ash from their clothes and flesh settled over him. The carcasses crackled as the fiery embers continued to devour them. The air was rank with the odour of scorched grease and burned meat; every now and then one of the corpses would burst, spilling its stewed internal organs into the embers to sizzle and stink.
When at last he turned away, his eyes were hot and his lips cracked. He walked on with aimless steps, and the sky overhead-when it could be glimpsed through the drifting tatters of smoke-took on the colours of a ruddy dusk. Murdo wondered how it was the sun yet continued on its accustomed round, moving through its course, undeflected and unchanged.
The strangeness of this occupied him until he arrived in yet another quarter. There were, he noticed without interest, domes on some of the buildings and these bore wooden crosses. By this he knew he had come to one of the Christian districts. Perhaps, he thought, this quarter had escaped the worst ravages of the fighting, and he might find water here. He licked his dry lips, and stumbled on.
After a while, he found himself in another yard-the courtyard of a grand house. Near the house stood a stone basin of the kind used to water animals; Murdo moved towards it, thinking he might get a mouthful of water there, and indeed the basin was full, but the body of a drowned child floated just below the surface. He stood and gazed at the little corpse, staring up at him through the water, its mouth rounded in a soundless word. A swirl of black hair framed the little face, and bubbles nestled beneath the tiny chin and in the corner of each wide eye.
Whether boy or girl, he could not tell, but Murdo marvelled at the calm serenity in that small face. How could it be that the child should express a peace so greatly at odds with the violence of its death? He stood long, gazing at the child, and gradually became aware of screams and coarse laughter coming from around the side of the house. Probably, the commotion had been going on for a time, but, absorbed in his unthinking contemplation of the child, he had not attended it.
He walked to the corner of the house and looked: five soldiers were standing before a wall-two held an infant between them, and two others grasped a frantic woman by the arms; the fifth soldier stood behind the woman with a sword in his hand. The woman's clothing was ripped and rent, and she was screaming for her babe, which was squalling in the soldiers' grip. A man sat with his back against the wall, head down, unmoving, the front of his robe a solid mass of blood.
The soldiers holding the baby offered the infant to its mother. They said something to her and she struggled forward, but was held fast and could not move. Again they offered the infant, and again she struggled forth, only to have the babe snatched away. This time, however, the soldiers turned and, with a mighty heave, dashed the infant head first against the wall.
The babe slid silent to the ground.
In the same instant, the two brutes holding the mother released their grip. The woman lurched forward to retrieve her child. Even as she started forth, the soldier behind her swung his sword. The blow caught her on the back of the neck. Her scream stopped abruptly as her head came away from her shoulders. She crumpled in midstep, pitching awkwardly forward, her head spinning to the ground in a crimson arc, and rolling to a stop between the legs of her dead husband.
Murdo turned and ran from the yard, the sound of the soldiers' laughter grating in his ears. When at last he stopped running, he walked. But he moved like a man in a dream, heedless of his steps, seeing all, yet attending nothing, feeling nothing, stumbling forward, falling, picking himself up and staggering on, his heart a dull aching bruise inside him.
Sick to his soul at all he had seen, he thought: This day I have walked in hell
Murdo carried the thought for a long time, listening to the words echo and reverberate inside his head. Some time later, long after nightfall, he finally reached the Jaffa Gate and made his way out of Jerusalem. As he stumbled out through the great doors, he paused to shed his borrowed mantle. He pulled the garment over his head and held it up to see the white cross glimmering in the pale, smoke-fretted moonlight.
Overcome by revulsion, he wadded the garment between his hands and hurled it away from him with all his might. He then stripped off his breecs and boots as well, and threw them away, too, before walking free from the Holy City.
He did not sleep that night, but roamed the darksome valley outside the walls, moving from camp to camp, restless in his search. Ho
wever, Murdo no longer remembered why he searched, no longer knew what he hoped to find.
THIRTY
The fever raged for two days and nights, releasing its grip as a murky, windswept dawn seeped into the troubled eastern sky. Niamh, who had spent the last days and nights at her friend's bedside, felt the fierce heat slowly leave the hands beneath her own. She roused herself from her numb half-sleep and removed the cloth from Ragnhild's forehead, dipped it in the basin, wrung it out, and replaced it.
At the touch of the cool cloth, Ragnhild's eyelids opened. Her cracked lips parted and she made to speak.
'Wait,' said Niamh softly; she brought a bowl to the stricken woman's lips. 'Drink a little. It will help you.'
Ragnhild swallowed some of the water, and tried to speak again. 'Ragna…' she said, her voice a dry rasp deep in her throat.
'She is near. I will bring her.'
Niamh left the bed, and hurried to the room beyond, where Ragna was asleep in a chair beside the hearth. The young woman came awake at Niamh's touch. 'The fever is gone, and she is asking for you.'
Ragna struggled up from the chair, pressing her hand to the small of her back as she steadied herself on her feet. Niamh took her arm and led her to her mother's room.
'You go in,' Niamh directed. 'I will remain here if you need me.'
Ragna nodded and stepped through the doorway. The fire was low on the hearth in the corner; the room was cool, but close, the air dead. She went to the bedside and, settling her ungainly bulk on the stool, took her mother's hand in her own. 'I am here, Mother,' she said quietly.
Ragnhild opened her eyes, saw her daughter, and smiled feebly. 'Ragna, my heart,' she said, barely speaking above a whisper. 'Is the baby born?'
'Not yet, Mother,' the young woman answered. 'But soon -any day now. You must rest and get better so you can attend the birth.'
Lady Ragnhild nodded. She closed her eyes again. 'I am so tired… so very tired.'
Ragna waited until her mother was asleep, and then crept from the bedside. 'I think you are right,' she said to Niamh as she stepped from the room. 'The fever has gone. She is sleeping now.'
Lifting a hand to Ragna's face, Niamh touched her cheek. The skin was cool beneath her fingertips. 'How do you feel?'
'I feel as big as an ox,' she answered; her hands traced the outline of her bulging belly. 'Still,' she smiled wearily, 'I am well.'
'For the sake of the child, you should rest now.' Taking Ragna's elbow, she led the pregnant young woman away. 'I will have Tailtiu bring you something to eat, and then you must sleep.'
'What about you, Nia-when do you rest?'
'Do not worry about me,' Niamh replied. 'I am not the one having a baby. Go on and do as I say. I will stay with Ragni and wake you if she asks for you again.'
'Very well,' Ragna agreed, and allowed herself to be put to bed.
Returning to the sick woman's chamber, Niamh built up the fire to take the chill off the room and settled once more on the low stool. She closed her eyes, folded her hands, and began to pray softly to herself. Ragnhild murmured in her sleep, but did not wake, and after a moment gave out a little sigh.
Niamh broke off her prayers when she found that she was listening for Ragnhild to inhale again. 'Dear God in Heaven, please, no,' she gasped, but Lady Ragnhild was already dead.
The next day, Niamh and Ragna, and a score of Cnoc Carrach's vassals watched as the priest sprinkled holy water over the wooden box containing Lady Ragnhild's mortal remains. Taking up his censer, the priest swung it three times in the air above the coffin, before lowering it into the hole which had been dug beside the altar. He then began to chant, dipping the smoking orb each time he came to the Kyrie Eleison.
When he finished, he replaced the censer on the altar, and removed the stole from the coffin. He then summoned the four farmhands waiting at the side of the chapel to come forward with their ropes. They moved hesitantly to the altar, genuflected stiffly, and took their places, two at either end of the oblong box. Passing their ropes under the coffin, they lifted it and shuffled over to the hole in the floor, where they began paying out the rope.
The coffin slowly descended into the grave, and all went well until one of the men lost his grip and allowed the rope to slide through his hands. The coffin landed with a thump of such solid finality that Ragna, who had braved all to that moment, crumpled and began to weep. Niamh, standing beside her, gathered the young woman into her arms and held her, stroking her hair, while the priest began another round of prayers and his helpers began slowly shovelling dirt back into the hole.
Niamh clung to Ragna as if to stifle the sobs shaking her body, and breathed a last, silent farewell to her childhood friend as the dirt was tamped down and the floor slab replaced. The great flagstone slid home with a grating thud, and silence descended upon the chapel.
The priest departed, and the vassals filed out quietly, mumbling their respects to Ragna as they passed. The two women stood for a long time, clinging to one another, listening to the quiet hiss of the damp candles. Then, without either prompting the other, they turned and walked slowly from the little stone church.
Their grief was all but banished three days later when Ragna's birth pangs began. The first quivers started in the night, and by morning she was certain the baby was going to be born. Two of the estate's more experienced older women were summoned to help with the birth and, at Niamh's instruction, began to prepare the young woman for the ordeal ahead. They dressed her in a loose gown and took the bedclothes away, replacing them with rags and straw.
They filled four basins with water, two of which they warmed at the hearth; they made a potion of chamomile and lavender, which they gave Ragna to drink, and chafed the young woman's wrists and ankles. They prepared a salve of goosefat and rose oil which they rubbed on her back, legs, and thighs. All the while, they talked to Ragna about what to expect when the birthing began, and what they would do.
As the birth pains increased in frequency and severity, they held her hands, speaking soothing words and encouragements. They told her how beautiful the child would be, and how happy she would be when she saw the fruit of her body which God, in his boundless grace, had granted her. And, when the moment of birth came, they gathered close and held her upright, supporting her back and legs so that she should not injure herself straining too hard.
The baby, a boy, was born in the evening, and the whole estate gathered in the chapel to give thanks and celebrate the infant's safe arrival.
'He is beautiful,' Ragna sighed as she held the babe to her breast for the first time.
'He looks just like Murdo did the day he was born,' Niamh told her. 'He had long feet just like this one.' Taking a tiny hand in her own, she stretched out the little fingers with her fingertips. 'His fingers are long like his father's, too.'
'I wish Murdo could see him,' Ragna said. 'He would be so proud to know he had a son.' She paused, sadness creeping into her voice. 'One life is taken, and another given. Very strange, is it not?'
'Have you decided what he will be called?'
'I had thought to call him Murdo, after his father,' Ragna answered. 'But now that I see him, I think he should have a name he can make his own. Do you think Murdo would mind if his son had a different name?'
'I think men care less about such things than they let on.' Niamh brushed the tiny round head with its pale fluff of hair. 'A mother can be trusted to know what is best for her child.'
'Then I will call him Eirik,' declared Ragna.
'A good name,' mused Niamh. 'A name of strength and eminence. I like it!'
'It is the name of my great-grandfather-the first man of our people to be baptized a Christian.' Ragna cradled her baby, and whispered his name to him for the first time. 'Eirik,' she said. 'Do you like it, my darling?'
The two women sat for a time, cosy in one another's company, whereupon Ragna, exhausted from her labour, drifted off to sleep. Niamh pulled the bedclothes around the new mother and her infant, and then lay d
own beside them herself. Night folded itself around them and they slept soundly and peacefully, stirring only when the babe stirred.
It was Ragna who heard the commotion in the yard: voices raised, people shouting, the dogs barking, and the sound of horses stamping in the midwinter cold. She came awake with a start and saw Niamh resting beside her.
'Wake up, Nia.' She gently shook the older woman's shoulder. 'Someone is here.' Even as she spoke the words, her heart leapt in her breast. 'Wake up! The men! I think the men have returned!'
Niamh came awake at once. 'What? The men, you say?' She hastened to the single narrow window, rubbed the small square of glass with her hand, and peered out.
'Can you see?' Ragna sat up excitedly, waking the baby, who started and cried out, his tiny voice no bigger than a bird's cackle. 'Hush, my lovely,' soothed his mother. 'All is well.'
'It is still dark,' Niamh reported. 'I cannot see who it is. They have horses-three or four of them, I think…'
'Is it them? Is Murdo with them?'
'I cannot say.'
There came a crash as the bolted door burst open and the voices from outside spilled into the house. Then came the rapid thump of feet on the wooden stairs. 'They are coming up here!'
Niamh stooped and retrieved a poker from the hearth and stepped to the bedside. There came the sound of other doors banging open and, a heartbeat later, the door to their room opened and a man's head and shoulders thrust through the gap. Niamh tightened her grip and raised the iron poker.
The intruder saw the women, and called to someone behind him, 'Here they are! I've found them!' He pushed the door open wider, but did not come into the room.
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