Knights of the Cross da-2

by Tom Harper

  ‘I know Peter Bartholomew. He came to Anna for relief from a boil. I saw him again as I left you in the square by the palace this evening.’

  ‘Is that all you know?’

  ‘Should I know more?’

  Adhemar sighed. ‘As you saw, he threw himself at me in the square by the palace. He was greatly agitated. Much of it seemed to come from you, from a fear of what you might have told me.’

  ‘I told you nothing,’ I said evenly.

  ‘I know that – but he did not. And I wonder how much it affected the fabulous story he insisted that I hear.’

  ‘What story was that?’

  I was giving Adhemar no help, but there was nothing he could do. Reluctantly, he unclasped his cloak – it must have been stifling in the June heat, even at night – and began.

  ‘He told me he had seen a vision. More accurately, he told me that the Lord had sent him a vision. Now, many men see visions, the poor and simple more than most. Certainly, some are divinely inspired, others the product of credulous enthusiasm or wishful thinking. And sometimes, I fear, of calculated interest.’ He spoke these last words with special emphasis. ‘As a bishop, a shepherd of souls, my duty is to establish the truth of such visions.’

  ‘Christ manifests himself in many ways,’ I said solemnly. Count Raymond scowled at me.

  ‘I need not trouble you with the details of his vision,’ Adhemar continued. ‘Enough to say that Saint Andrew had visited him in a dream and had spoken of a holy relic, a glorious artefact of our Saviour’s life. The saint told him this thing was concealed within Antioch itself, and gave Peter instructions on how it might be found. No fewer than four times, apparently.’

  ‘He is nothing if not persistent,’ muttered Raymond.

  ‘So?’ I asked. ‘Follow the saint’s commandments. You will know soon enough if the vision came from Christ.’

  Adhemar pressed his fingers together. ‘It is not so easy. If we seek it in secrecy, and only reveal it when it is found, who will believe that it is the relic we claim? If we seek it openly, and do not find it, we shall be scorned and reviled. You have seen the sentiment of the army, Demetrios. The panic is calmed, but their courage balances on a single straw. If they lose faith in their leaders, or believe that God has deserted them, the straw will break and we shall be plunged into a pit from which we will not rise. That is why I must know what I can of Peter’s motives.’

  He fixed his gaze on me, demanding an answer. Still I prevaricated.

  ‘This relic might be valuable.’

  ‘Invaluable,’ said Adhemar. ‘As a sign of God’s continuing favour, a symbol that He is with us still, it would be beyond measure. It would lift the hearts of the army, restore their trust. And as a standard in battle it would surely bring us victory.’

  ‘And great honour to the men who found it,’ I observed. ‘A Provençal pilgrim’s vision, received by a Provençal count and his bishop. The men who say that Bohemond should lead would be silenced; Count Raymond’s prestige would be unchallenged.’

  ‘If you say we do this only for gain, you are a fool, spat Raymond.

  ‘If you say you have no thought for gain, you take me for a fool.’

  ‘No,’ said Adhemar. ‘Of course we will gain. But that is not our motive. What benefits us benefits the army.’

  ‘Now you sound like Bohemond,’ Sigurd said.

  Raymond rose in anger. ‘Perhaps we do. Who better than a mercenary to understand his wiles? But we are not so alike as you think. What serves Bohemond well serves your Emperor ill. What serves us serves Alexios better.’

  I thought of Bohemond’s instructions to his brother-in-law on the wall, the treacherous gamble he had devised. Bohemond’s star would only rise at the Emperor’s expense. And if his fixation was such that he would cut himself off from all hope of relief, he would not hesitate to be rid of the only Byzantines remaining with his army.

  Yet still I waited. Peter Bartholomew was no friend of mine: he was a heretic, and he had conspired with heretics to keep me captive. But could I condemn him to be burned alive for that? I had been the instrument of so much death already.

  I looked up. In the surrounding silence, all gazes had come to rest on me: Sigurd’s, Anna’s, Raymond’s and Adhemar’s. All I desired was to be free, to be away from Antioch and safe with my family. It seemed that even so simple a prayer could not be answered without more killing.

  ‘Only God can judge the truth of Peter Bartholomew’s vision.’ I saw Count Raymond about to speak again, thinking that I spoke platitudes to delay him, and hurried on. ‘But as to why he might fear me, I will tell you this. It will not please you to hear it. Heresy has infested your flock. For two days the heretics held me in a cave under the city. I saw their rites, and heard their lies.’

  Adhemar had gone very still and his skin was pale as the moon. ‘What manner of lies?’

  ‘That the world was made not by God but by the Devil. That every fleshly thing is evil. That we are children of Satan.’ I struggled against my revulsion to remember more, but every word of it was like chewing mud. It was enough.

  ‘That is a wicked heresy indeed,’ whispered Adhemar. ‘How could the Army of God . . . ?’

  Under his hood, Count Raymond’s reaction was better hidden. ‘That is bad. But what does it have to do with Peter Bartholomew’s tale?’

  Through his horror, Adhemar had guessed. ‘He was one of the heretics. He saw you talking to me and feared that you had betrayed his secret. He invented the vision to impress me with his piety, to stall his punishment. Well? Was it so?’

  His question hung unanswered. Sigurd lifted the spear he had used to roast my meat and thrust it into the flames like a blacksmith, stoking the embers. They chattered and crackled, spitting sparks into the air above. I shivered.

  ‘If I tell you that he was a heretic, you will burn him alive.’

  ‘If he believes what you say he believes and has taught its corruption to others, he deserves it,’ said Raymond.

  ‘What can I do?’ Adhemar spoke as much to himself as to any of us. ‘If I try him for his crimes, if I roust out this nest of heretics, there will be more hatred and more killing among us when unity is our greatest need. If enough schismatics adhere to their foul church, there might even be war between us. We would gift Antioch to Kerbogha.’

  Anna looked at him without pity. ‘Enough Christians have died in flames already. If Peter Bartholomew reports this vision, perhaps it is a sign of his repentance.’

  ‘Or of his fear of execution,’ said Sigurd.

  Adhemar stood. ‘I will think on what you have told me and make my decision in the morning.’ He looked up at the sky, though a pall of smoke still hid the stars. ‘I fear it is already not far off.’

  ‘I have told you nothing,’ I warned him. ‘I have not accused Peter Bartholomew of anything.’

  ‘I know. Be assured I will not treat him as if you had. Not yet.’

  The bishop began to make his way down the stairs. He stooped terribly, I noticed, as if under an enormous burden.

  ‘A dishonest man may still be granted a true vision,’ I called, on impulse.

  Adhemar did not answer.

  ‘I thought you were dead.’

  It was too hot to sleep. Anna and I lay naked on the tower, alone. We did not touch, but faced each other resting on our sides. The gully of air between us seemed charged with heat, and my chest ran with sweat.

  ‘Perhaps I should have died.’ So many others had, by my hand or my acts.

  Before I could move, Anna had lifted her arm and slapped me hard on my cheek. ‘Never say that. Never.’ Her voice trembled. ‘It is awful enough being in this cursed city. Without you . . .’

  ‘You do not know what I have done.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘I have killed men, and I have let them die. I have consorted with heretics. I have heard things—’

  Anna raised her hand again, and I did not try to avoid the blow. ‘Be quiet. If you mus
t give in to despair, do not try and draw me into it.’ She rolled over, setting her back to me. Now there was only silence between us.

  A yearning to confess my part in the downfall of the city, a guilt such as I had not felt since I was a boy, overwhelmed me. In my mind, I formed the words a hundred times over; sometimes I opened my mouth to speak them, but each time fear choked them back. Even as she loved me – because she loved me – Anna hated me for the pain that my absence had inflicted on her. It would be many days, I feared, before she could forgive me, and the vice of Antioch was not a place for loosing emotions.

  ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘Await our fate. Face it when it comes. I have overheard Bohemond conspiring with his brother-in-law. He will go to the Emperor, and he will announce that we are slaughtered. The Emperor will not come.’

  Anna turned back to me. ‘How can he do that? We are already drowning – must he pile on more stones to speed us down?’

  ‘He would rather die than give up Antioch.’ I remembered the promise that he had made to the princes. ‘If the Emperor comes, Bohemond’s title will be snatched away.’

  I sensed Anna shivering in the darkness – was it fear or rage? At last, in a faint voice, she asked again: ‘What shall we do? How can we await our fate if there is no hope?’

  ‘How can we do otherwise?’

  ‘You sound like Sigurd – obsessed with dying.’

  ‘It is hard not to think of it.’

  ‘Think of life – think of your children, your new grandchild. Surely you cling to the hope of seeing them again?’

  ‘No.’ I shook my head, though she could not see it. ‘That would make it unbearable.’

  ‘For me, it is all that I can bear.’

  κ θ

  Dawn came quickly. In the south-east, smoke still rose from the ashes of the city, and the morning air was bitter. Soon it would boil, for midsummer was ten days hence, and there was no canopy of cloud that day to shield us. It was not a happy thought as I pulled on my heavy quilted tunic, and my chain mail over it. I soaked a rag in water and tied it around my neck so that I would not burn my skin on the iron. I tied my helmet by its chin-strap onto my belt. Whatever enemies the day might bring, I would be ready for them.

  I did not have to wait long. As I stepped out of the tower, I saw a Norman standing facing Sigurd in the street below the wall. They seemed to be arguing furiously, but by the time I had descended from the rampart the knight was gone.

  ‘Who was that?’

  Sigurd spat on the ground. ‘One of Bohemond’s lieutenants.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He wanted nothing. He demanded that my company go to reinforce the Normans on the mountain and help them defend the city against the Turks in the citadel.’

  My pulse quickened. ‘You can’t go.’

  ‘So I told him. But you know that the Normans are not easily denied. He swore that if we did not come Bohemond would burn us out of our towers and slaughter us for cowards.’

  ‘Either way we die.’ I felt sick. Bohemond had sent his brother-in-law to cut us loose from the Emperor’s aid; now he would rid himself of the last Byzantine checks on his ambition. Either he would murder us as deserters, or put us in the forefront of the battle, like David with Uriah, and let the Turks achieve his purpose.

  Nor could I doubt that Bohemond would make good his threat if we did not go. He had burned down half the city, Franks and his own kinsmen alike, to bolster his army; he would happily add a handful of Varangians to the pyre.

  ‘At least on the mountain we can die well.’ Sigurd folded his arms. His shield and axe leaned against the wall behind him, and he had a pair of small throwing axes tucked in his belt. ‘I will take a dozen men and do as Bohemond demands. The rest will stay here and defend our camp, and you and Anna.’

  ‘Not me.’ My stomach churned as I spoke, but I hurried on. ‘I will come with you.’

  Sigurd snorted. ‘How long since you left the legions, Demetrios Askiates?’

  ‘Nineteen years.’

  ‘And you will march up that mountain, to a battle you have no part in, because a bastard Norman orders it? You will be dead in the first minute.’

  ‘I will go,’ I insisted.

  ‘This is my calling, not yours. What would Anna think of you for doing this?’

  I scowled. ‘If Anna asked you not to go, would you obey?’

  ‘This is different.’ A troubled look passed over Sigurd’s face. Both of us, I think, felt things we wished to say but could not.

  He kicked his foot in the dust, and turned to pick up his axe. ‘We should go, before Bohemond murders us from impatience. If you want to march into death, that is your concern.’

  It made no difference. Wherever we went in the city, we walked in death, and if it came I felt a strange certainty that Sigurd would guide me to it bravely. Anna would have condemned such a thought, but to me it was reassuring.

  The path up the mountain began in the south-eastern quarter. The main avenue, with its long colonnades and broad paving, had served as a noose on the fire: when we crossed it, we stepped into a burnt realm of ash and charcoal. Twisted buildings hung bent and shrivelled like balled-up paper, and smoke belched up as from naphtha pits.

  ‘This is the kingdom that Bohemond makes for himself,’ Sigurd muttered, awestruck. ‘The cost of his ambition.’

  How much else would be felled by his pride, I wondered? I did not speak it aloud, for I had not mentioned Bohemond’s latest treachery to Sigurd. There seemed scant purpose in destroying the last vestiges of his hope. Instead, I grunted my agreement and tried not to breathe the morbid fumes.

  It took little time to cross the city. The labyrinth of alleys, which two days earlier had snared me in its endless tangle, had been razed to the ground. As long as we took care to avoid the places where embers burned, or where pieces of iron still nursed the fire’s heat, we could walk the roads we chose.

  Too quickly, we arrived at the foot of the path, where the gentle rise of the river valley met the steep slope of Mount Silpius. At first the way was easy, a broad scar rising across the face of the mountain past terraced olive groves and high villas perched on the rock. The pine trees which crowded between them still shaded us from the climbing sun, and it was as well they did, for my armour weighed on me terribly and the shield on my back constantly tugged me backwards. Sigurd had been right: nineteen years out of the legions was too long.

  Even at that hour we were not the only ones climbing the road. Ahead of us I could see cohorts of knights marching in loose order, shouting and laughing, perhaps to disguise their fear. I had expected to see them, and was content to keep a safe distance lest they chose to whet their scorn on us. What I had not expected were the women: scores of them, from barefoot girls in torn smocks to wizened grandmothers wrapped in black shawls. Every one of them carried a vessel filled with water – buckets, jars, urns, barrels. The smallest children carried cups, holding them out in rapt concentration like chalices, while some of the stronger adult women had casks yoked over their shoulders in pairs. They stretched as far ahead as I could see, and as far back, a river flowing miraculously up the mountain.

  Sigurd pointed to the summit, his arm raised almost vertical. ‘A bad place for hot work.’

  ‘No easier for Kerbogha, at least.’

  Whether it was the rising heat of the day, or the sight of so much water around me, I was suddenly consumed by thirst. A scrawny girl, no more than seven or eight years old, was passing; I knelt, stretched out cupped hands, and as clearly as I could said: ‘Water?’

  She did not stop.

  ‘Water,’ I repeated. ‘Please.’

  She shook her head. It was stained black with soot, everywhere save on her forehead, where a finger had marked a crude cross in the grime.

  ‘For the fighters,’ she said, staring at her cup. ‘Not Greeks.’

  After that, the way only seemed hotter. After a time, the path switched back sharply, and took us s
outh-east, straight into the sun. My armour began to burn where it rubbed against me, and whether I screwed my eyes shut or kept them open I was blinded. The path narrowed; it was too high for villas here, and too steep for trees. Our pace slowed as our fellow travellers were squeezed closer together onto the constricted road. It reminded me of crossing the Black Mountains into the plain of Antioch, when treacherous paths through steep gorges had proved almost impassable. Men had pulled off their armour and flung it into the ravines; they had sold their horses rather than have the effort of leading them. Even the sure-footed could not hold the path: whole trains of mules had been lost over the precipices. A hard journey and a sweet arrival, we had consoled ourselves at the time.

  Now the corpses began to appear. Casualties of the fighting on the mountain, men had tried to return to the succour of the city and had failed. At first scattered, then ever more numerous, they lay sprawled where they had fallen. Some bore few wounds, so peaceful-looking that you might have thought they were merely dozing to break the long climb. Others were so badly injured that it seemed a miracle they had managed to stagger so far to die. All were naked, stripped bare by looting and now become the habitation of flies.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go on?’ asked Sigurd.

  I could not speak, for searing nausea had joined the thirst in my throat. All I could manage was a limp wave forward.

  At the next corner the road began to level. It was little consolation, for by now we were high up, only slightly below the height of the middle summit. The sounds of the armies drifted down to us – though not, as yet, the sounds of war. At the roadside two stakes had been driven into the ground like gateposts. One had a crossbar nailed to it, so that it took the form of a crucifix; the other tapered to a spike on which a Turk’s head was impaled. I shivered as we passed them.

  Ahead of us, the path continued across the neck of the mountain into a small dip between the middle and northern summits. Atop the latter, on a high rocky promontory thrusting out to the west, I could see the unbroken walls of the citadel. The purple banner of Kerbogha hung from its tower.