Siege of Heaven da-3

by Tom Harper

  I looked at Nikephoros in surprise. ‘Intends?’

  ‘He has a hold on the pilgrims’ affection. Count Raymond has leaned on that as a crutch to his popularity for some time. Now that Peter Bartholomew has seen that he can bend the count to his will, do you think he will stop there?’

  I shrugged. ‘Something has changed. He used to be content with his fame, to soak up the adulation he earned by finding the lance.’

  ‘Then perhaps he got a fright when it began to seep away from him.’ Nikephoros gave a grim, self-mocking laugh. ‘It can be a painful ordeal, losing the power you once enjoyed.’

  For the next week the Army of God trudged south. There was little pretence at haste — some days we made so little progress that at dusk the rearguard pitched their tents where the vanguard had camped the night before — but day by day we inched our way further from Ma’arat, closer to Jerusalem. Peasants, priests and soldiers mingled freely, so that it felt not like a military expedition but as if a whole town had been uprooted and set in motion. Smiths loitered at the roadside offering to re-shoe horses or sharpen blades; peddlers and barterers conducted a lively exchange of clothes, boots, tools and gold; women brought baskets of bread or eggs or even chickens to sell, for now that we were out of the well-scoured lands of Ma’arat food was plentiful.

  But for all we might be a wandering town, it was a town under constant siege. Every day, bands of Saracens would descend from their hilltop castles to harry our column, peppering us with arrows, breaking our carts and stealing livestock or unfortunate stragglers. Once or twice Tancred’s cavalry sallied out to try and punish the attackers and free the captives, but after two of his knights were killed he called off the sorties. It was even worse in the dark. However closely we huddled our camp together and however many fires we lit, each dawn revealed fresh losses: sentries with their throats cut, stores ransacked and women missing. Though I should have been happy to see my family again, it preyed on my nerves to have them there. I slept little, standing watch outside the tent into the dead hours until Sigurd or Thomas relieved me, then lying awake with my ears pricked open, trying to warm myself against Anna’s body. At least Sigurd seemed restored to his natural humour. Moody and abrasive he might be, but against the uneasy cloud that hovered over my family he was a simple, reassuring bulwark.

  Five days out of Ma’arat, we reached a place called Shaizar. High bluffs rose on either side of a broad river valley, and on a spur a formidable castle commanded the crossing. Sigurd looked at it from a distance and groaned.

  ‘If we have to capture castles each time we ford a river or climb a mountain, Christ himself will have returned to Jerusalem before we get there.’

  But for once his pessimism was misplaced. The local emir had heard of the Franks’ exploits at Antioch and Ma’arat, and drawn the conclusion that cooperation was his wisest course. He offered us safe passage through his lands and plied the princes with gifts.

  We made our camp by the river that evening, in the shadow of the castle. While Thomas and Helena went to find firewood, and Zoe prepared food, Anna and I walked down to the river bank. In all the time since I had returned we had had few moments alone together, and even those had been fleeting and awkward. However much we might resist the idea, months of separation had driven a distance between us.

  We clambered out on a rocky point and sat by the water’s edge. A little way downstream a group of women were washing clothes, singing as they worked, but we were alone. I pulled off my boots and let the stream cool my weary blisters.

  ‘I wonder what this river is called.’ I leaned forward, scooping the water up in my hands and drinking. ‘Is it one of the four rivers of Eden, do you think?’

  Anna laughed, and wiped away the droplets that beaded my beard. ‘Didn’t you know? This is the Orontes.’

  ‘I thought we had left it behind at Antioch.’ I imagined kicking out into the river and letting it carry me back, beneath the walls we had besieged so long and all the way out to the sea.

  Anna pulled up her knees and hugged them to her chest. ‘Sometimes it seems we’ll be wandering in circles for ever, until even the last of us is dead.’

  It was unlike Anna to be so morose. I slipped my hand into hers and held it. Marry me, I wanted to say. Marry me now. Find a priest, even a Frankish one, and have him marry us before God. I did not dare.

  ‘At least we’re on the road to Jerusalem again.’

  ‘We’ve been on the road for the best part of two years.’ Anna pulled her hand free. I edged away, pretending to peer in the water for fish.

  ‘Two years of our lives,’ she repeated. ‘Two years when we should have been playing with our grandchildren and laughing with our families. And now that we have them with us at last, it only makes things worse.’

  ‘You should have sent them home.’

  Anna shook her head. ‘They arrived just after you left for Egypt. I was in Antioch, caring for the plague victims. By the time I knew they had arrived there were no ships to take them away — and they would not have gone in any case.’ She touched my arm gingerly. ‘It is not what I would have chosen for them. But you must understand Thomas. He has already lost his family once; he could not bear to be parted from them again.’

  ‘Even if all that meant was being with them at their death?’

  ‘Even so.’

  ‘He is not the only man who loves Helena.’ I pressed my bare foot into the river bed, feeling cold mud ooze around it. ‘And his son may have a Frankish name, but he has my blood in his veins as well.’

  ‘Do you think I haven’t told Thomas all this? And Helena, too. But she would follow him wherever he asked- even if he didn’t ask — and he loves her too much to let her go.’

  ‘He’ll be left holding onto her corpse if he clings so tight.’

  Anna gave a sad smile. ‘That is the risk we all take. But you should be kinder to him. When you were his age and the emperor’s armies stormed Constantinople, did you send your daughters away to safety? Your wife?’

  I had never been happy discussing Maria with Anna. It always felt that I was trying to squeeze them both into the same place in my soul, a place where only one could fit. I could see immediately from Anna’s face that she regretted it, but that did not temper the anger in my words.

  ‘I protected my wife and child in our home — as men are supposed to do. I didn’t drag them a thousand miles away from home to die in a famished, plague-stricken wilderness of barbarians and Ishmaelites.’

  Tears gleamed in the corners of Anna’s eyes as she rose. ‘It’s too late to tell him that. Too late for any of us.’

  I sat there for a time after she had left, until even the river no longer numbed my cares. Then I pulled on my boots and walked back towards our tent. It lay on the far side of the pilgrim camp: I tried to avoid going that way if I could, but night was hastening on and there was no good reason to fear anything — only a vague sense of unease. For so long the pilgrims had been an encumbrance, a mute and obedient shadow behind the main army. Now, in Peter Bartholomew, they had begun to find their voice, and it was an unsettling sound.

  I was almost at the far edge of the pilgrim camp when suddenly I came around a row of tents and found my way barred by a knot of peasants. They had gathered around a preacher: I did not think he was a priest, for he wore only a simple white tunic, but he held his audience rapt.

  ‘Think of the mustard seed. When you sow it in the earth it is the least of seeds, yet it grows to greatness. In the same way, the kingdom of God will grow from the least of his people. The last shall be first, and the first last.’

  I was about to slip away and find another route, when suddenly I noticed two familiar figures standing at the edge of the gathering. Thomas and Helena, watching intently. Helena held Everard in her arms.

  ‘The time will come when the Lord will send two great prophets, Enoch and Elijah, back into the world. They will prepare God’s elect for the coming storm with three and a half years of teaching and
preaching. Three and a half years,’ he repeated ominously. ‘When did we set out from our homes?’

  ‘Three years ago,’ someone called from the crowd.

  ‘Three years ago.’ He leaned forward, lowering his voice. ‘The prophets are already abroad. First Enoch — and now Elijah. There is not much time.’

  I had almost reached Helena, when a voice in the crowd beside me asked: ‘But where will we find the prophet?’

  The preacher answered with a gap-toothed smile, as if he had expected the question. ‘Come with me, and I will show you. He has much to teach you, and little time.’

  He beckoned them on. Several stepped forward immediately, hope bright on their faces; others hung back. The preacher gave them a pitying smile.

  ‘Have you forgotten the prophecy of Isaiah? You will listen but never understand; you will look but never perceive. Come now and see.’

  He turned around, and began shepherding his converts deeper into the camp. Some of the waverers hurried after him, while others — shamefaced and sullen — drifted away. Thomas and Helena looked as though they were about to follow, when my hands gripped their shoulders and spun them around.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded. ‘You were supposed to be fetching firewood.’ I pointed to their empty hands. ‘Did you have nothing better to do than listen to charlatans preaching nonsense?’

  Thomas’s face hardened but he said nothing. Helena was less restrained. ‘What are you doing spying on us? I am not your girlish daughter any more. I will go where I choose, hear what I choose and believe what I choose.’

  I looked at Thomas. ‘You, most of all, should know the dangers of following self-ordained prophets on the path to heaven. Your parents certainly found it out.’

  Thomas looked at me as if he could have cut my throat. His hateful stare transfixed me, until at last Helena took his hand and pulled him away into the twilight.

  Later that night, I crawled across to Helena’s corner of the tent and lay next to her.

  ‘I’m sorry. I should not have said what I did.’ I spoke softly, trying not to wake the baby. For a long moment I thought I had been too quiet, for the only reply was slow breathing, but I did not dare repeat myself.

  At last, still lying with her back to me, she whispered, ‘You cannot teach Thomas the lessons of his own past.’

  But why doesn’t he learn them? I did not say it. Instead: ‘I don’t want you to die like his mother and father.’

  ‘Neither do I. But he is my husband, and I am the mother of his son. You cannot expect me to live locked away from the world like a nun.’

  I thought of the monks in the Egyptian desert, invisible to the outside world. ‘There are places on this earth between the convent and the front line of battle.’

  She rolled over. ‘Not where Thomas is. And not where you are.’

  We lay there in silence, facing each other a few inches apart. Once there had been no distance there, when she and her mother and a newborn Zoe and I all shared the same bed.

  ‘I cannot make Thomas learn the mistakes of his parents, any more than I can make you learn from mine.’

  Helena gave a small laugh, which reminded me of younger, happier times, then broke off as she remembered the baby. ‘A lifetime would not be long enough to learn from your mistakes,’ she teased.

  ‘Probably not.’ I fumbled in the dark for her hand and squeezed it. ‘I know Thomas has suffered pains and horrors I can barely imagine. He has my pity.’

  In the darkness of the tent, I sensed Helena stiffen. ‘He does not need pity. He needs love.’

  ‘Love, too. But he must not let his hurt drive him to oblivion. He has too much to lose.’

  On Helena’s far side, the baby started to cough. She turned over, and I heard a tapping as she patted its back, like soft footsteps approaching.

  Four days after leaving Shaizar, we reached a crossroads. To the south, a broad road followed the river valley; to the west, another road led towards the snow-capped mountains we could see in the distance and thence, our guides assured us, to the sea. Raymond summoned Tancred, Robert of Normandy and Nikephoros to debate our choice. As ever, I accompanied Nikephoros to translate. Though a month in the Franks’ company must have taught him something of the common dialect, I think he would rather have cut his tongue out than allowed the barbarian sounds to touch it.

  ‘The southerly road looks easier.’ Duke Robert craned his head and stared, as if he might see all the way to Jerusalem if he looked hard enough.

  ‘But that road goes by Damascus,’ said Nikephoros. ‘There you would find yourselves trapped before another Antioch. You could besiege it for a year and never take it.’

  ‘Perhaps the lord of Damascus would give us safe passage, like the lord of Shaizar,’ Robert suggested.

  Raymond twitched his head to dismiss the idea. ‘He might — if Bohemond had not slaughtered half his army at Antioch a year ago.’

  ‘Then what lies the other way, past the mountains?’

  ‘The coast,’ answered Nikephoros. ‘Go that way, and the emperor’s grain ships can supply you from the sea.’

  ‘If we can capture a harbour. The coastal road is guarded by a chain of fortified ports. Arqa, Tripoli, Sidon and Tyre, Acre, Caesarea, Jaffa.’ Raymond’s face darkened as he recited them. ‘If we besiege every one of them, we’ll have exhausted the emperor’s granaries long before we reach Jerusalem.’

  ‘We will not need to capture each of them,’ said Tancred confidently. ‘The reputation of Antioch and Ma’arat will carry before us and open their gates. Otherwise, we’ll sack the first city we see, raze it to the ground and teach the rest what awaits them if they resist us.’

  Raymond nodded absent-mindedly, distracted by a movement behind us. A rider had ridden out from the army to join us, with half a dozen acolytes scampering on foot behind him. It was Peter Bartholomew, who seemed to have exchanged his donkey for a full-grown horse, a snow-white mare. He perched awkwardly in the saddle, unaccustomed to the motion or the height, and struggled to rein in his mount as he reached us.

  ‘Why have we stopped?’ he demanded.

  ‘We heard that the crown of thorns was hidden in a thicket near by, and thought you might be able to find it,’ said Tancred.

  Peter Bartholomew flushed, and made a fumbling sign across his chest to ward off evil. Saying nothing to Tancred, he turned and looked at the fork in the road. ‘Which way leads to Jerusalem?’

  ‘Both of them.’

  Peter considered this for a while, staring at the different paths. It was the same gaze that he could fix on a man — frank, penetrating and overwhelming — as if you could not imagine the thoughts and judgements that passed behind his eyes. No one interrupted him, not even Nikephoros.

  At last he blinked, and pointed towards Damascus. ‘We should go that way.’

  ‘Who asked you?’ growled Tancred. He turned to Count Raymond. ‘When I offered you my service I thought I would be led by the Count of Toulouse, not an ignorant peasant. Who is in command of this army?’

  ‘The Lord God,’ said Peter primly.

  ‘I am in command.’ Raymond’s eye raked over the watching faces; no one, not even Peter Bartholomew, contradicted him.

  ‘Then which way do you say we go?’ A blade of insolence hovered under Tancred’s question.

  Raymond jerked his head around, first to the wending road to Damascus, then the steep path that descended past the mountains towards the sea.

  ‘We will camp here tonight. I will announce my decision in the morning.’

  24

  But there was no decision the next day, nor even the day after. Word went out that this was to allow us to replenish our supplies, for the inhabitants of this country had fled before our advance and abandoned their granaries for us to plunder. That was fortunate for Count Raymond, for even the most ardent pilgrim would not complain of the pause if given the chance to fill his belly.

  ‘But he cannot delay much longer,’ Nikephoros told
me on the second day. ‘Once the pilgrims have eaten, they will be doubly eager to march on to Jerusalem.’

  ‘What do you think Raymond will decide?’

  Nikephoros leaned forward. Even on campaign he wore a dalmatic sewn with a crust of gems, which stretched and sank above his shoulders as they moved. ‘The road to Damascus is a dead end: the only way we will ever reach Jerusalem is by the coast. Raymond knows that. He only delays because he is too frightened to contradict Peter Bartholomew.’

  When did peasants learn to direct the affairs of armies? I wondered. Perhaps the preacher had been right: perhaps the meek had inherited the earth and the mighty fallen from their seats. Perhaps.

  ‘Have you tried to convince him?’

  ‘Every day.’ Nikephoros snapped a stick of sealing wax in two. ‘If force of argument could move a man, I would have propelled him all the way to the gates of Jerusalem by now. He will not listen to me.’

  There was a pause. Nikephoros squeezed the broken wax in his hand, crumbling it over the desk.

  ‘I could try,’ I said at last.

  He looked up. ‘You? What could you say to Count Raymond that I have not?’

  ‘Not Count Raymond: Peter Bartholomew.’

  Nikephoros said nothing but gestured me to go on. The wax had stained his hand red.

  ‘Peter Bartholomew has not always been the pillar of righteousness he is now. His past has been. . erratic.’ I shrugged. ‘Perhaps if I remind him of it he will prove more amenable.’

  I did not trust my powers of persuasion so much that I would go alone. I tried to find Sigurd, but he had gone foraging; instead, I took Thomas. We walked without speaking. The silence weighed on me desperately, but I could not think of anything to say that was not trite or patronising.

  Soon we crossed the open ground that divided the two camps and entered the pilgrims’ domain. A hostile atmosphere seemed to menace us all about. Even when we could see no one I felt the prickling sense of being watched; elsewhere, wide-eyed peasants sat under their makeshift shelters — sheets tied to branches, or awnings hung in the spaces between larger tents — and stared openly. But no one touched us or tried to stop us.