Siege of Heaven da-3

by Tom Harper

‘Do you have so little faith in your tame peasant that you fear to put him to the ordeal? Do you fear that your authority might die with him, when all men see that the lance was a hoax concocted by charlatans, connived at by princes who should have known better. If you truly wished to preserve your authority you would not be trying to protect this peasant from roasting himself on his own pride — you would lead your army from Arqa this very afternoon, and not halt until you were at the walls of Jerusalem.’

  The corner of Raymond’s dead eye-socket twitched, but before he could answer Peter had shouted, ‘Count Raymond protect me? Why should I need it, when I am robed in the armour of God? Build your pyres, stoke them up as high as you can. Two days from now I will pass through the flames and not one hair on my head will be singed. The flames will burn away your lies. The heavens will part with thunder, every element will be dissolved with fire, and all things will be revealed.’

  They built the fire in the valley, at the narrowest point where its slopes offered plenty of vantage for the curious. Olivewood boughs were stacked four feet high and doused with oil, laid in two parallel rows just far enough apart that a man could walk between them. It was full thirteen feet from one end to the other — more than enough time for God to prove his favour, as Sigurd observed.

  Good Friday dawned clear and warm, though it was one of those days when the senses and the soul misalign themselves, and even sunshine feels overcast. A grim expectation gripped the camp — long before the appointed hour, the audience had gathered thick as crows, many thousands of them rising far up the slope like the crowds in the hippodrome. Like the hippodrome, the nobles had the choice places nearest the arena, while the mass of peasants thronged the heights above. A cordon of barefoot priests stood around the pyre and held back the onlookers, singing the psalms appointed for that holy day.

  Be wise, O kings,

  Be warned, you rulers of the earth.

  Serve the Lord with fear,

  And trembling kiss His feet,

  Or He will be angry, and you will perish,

  For His wrath is quickly kindled.

  Many of the pilgrims joined in that verse with relish, while the lords touched their swords and looked anxiously around them.

  There was no place of honour for me. I sat with my family about halfway up the hill, looking down into the cauldron of the valley. Up there the atmosphere was like a village festival or a fair. Peddlers picked their way through the crowd with trays and baskets of nuts, olives and water. Others offered less wholesome wares: one man carried nothing but an enormous tray of bones. I beckoned him over.

  ‘What are those?’ I asked.

  The peddler, a ruddy-faced man whose rough features seemed set in simple, honest contentment, gave a gaptoothed smile. ‘Relics.’

  ‘Relics of whom?’

  He nodded down to the waiting pyre. ‘Of him. These bones’ — he picked one out and offered it to me for inspection — ‘come from the lepers and cripples who Peter Bartholomew, bless his name, healed with his touch.’

  ‘Not very well if this is all that remains of them.’

  Anna reached into the tray and took another bone, a tiny thing barely larger than a comb’s tooth. ‘Has Peter Bartholomew healed many squirrels?’

  Rather than take offence, the peddler gave a broad, innocent grin. ‘He knows all the birds of the air, and all that moves within the field is His.’

  Anna rummaged some more in the tray. ‘And these?’ She pointed to an assortment of half a dozen mismatched pebbles.

  ‘Stones that Peter Bartholomew, bless his name, has himself touched. And here. .’ The peddler leaned forward confidentially and extracted a thin clay vial from inside his tunic. He uncorked it and held it to Anna’s nose. ‘A few drops of his most precious blood. I was walking behind him in the forest when he pricked himself on a briar; I gathered it fresh from the thorn myself.’

  ‘I thought it was usual to wait for a saint’s death before distributing his relics,’ I said.

  ‘Only because you have never been in the presence of a living saint. Although. .’ He knelt down, rearranging the bones and stones in his tray. ‘I have an agreement with one of the chaplains. If Peter Bartholomew, Christ preserve him, does not survive his ordeal, I am to get a bone from his forearm — and possibly his left hand. A Narbonnese priest offered me ten ducats for the arm, but if you were interested. .’

  I shook my head, smiling to hide my disgust. ‘I’m sure Peter Bartholomew will triumph in his ordeal.’

  The relic-seller beamed. ‘I pray he does.’

  The sun climbed higher and hotter, so hot that I feared it might set the fire alight before the appointed hour. The still air was drenched with the stink of oil and sweat; flies swarmed all around us. The mood of the crowd grew impatient: some wondered when their saviour would appear, while others taunted them that he had run away rather than be revealed as an impostor. In the sweltering heat the arguments became angry, and several men had to be pulled apart from their quarrels. Others let their purses speak for them, and laid wagers as to whether Peter Bartholomew would survive, how long it would take him to traverse the corridor of flame, and whether the angels who carried him up out of the blaze would be seen by the audience.

  A little after noon we heard a shout go up from the camp. In an instant, every man was on his feet, watching the solemn procession climb the valley. A cohort of Provencal soldiers led the way, forcing a path through the throng. Behind them came Count Raymond and a bishop, then a knot of priests huddled around a figure I could not see. They proceeded slowly, in a cloud of foliage where the peasants showered them with olive leaves and wildflowers. The air sang with adoration and the valley echoed with hosannas like the highest sphere of heaven.

  At last the procession reached the open space around the fire. The watching crowd fell silent, and the only sound came from the cordon of monks who still sang their psalms. Wicked and deceitful mouths are open against me, speaking against me with lying tongues. They beset me with words of hatred, and attack me without cause.

  The priests separated. In their midst, revealed like the stamen of a flower, stood Peter Bartholomew. The shining white robe had gone, and he wore only a simple tunic, which barely hung to his knees. His beard had been shaved close to the cheek, no doubt so it did not catch fire, and he had cropped his hair short. I could not see his face, but there was no strut or defiance in his posture, only humble concentration. He did not acknowledge either the praise or the insults of the crowd, but kept his gaze fixed on the ground.

  ‘For the love of Christ, call it off,’ Anna murmured beside me. ‘You cannot tempt God like this.’

  The priests and soldiers who had escorted Peter fanned out, forming a loose circle a little way from the fire. Four men stood at its centre: Raymond; the harelipped priest who served as his chaplain; a robed bishop and Peter Bartholomew. Peter knelt before the bishop, while the chaplain announced solemnly, ‘If Omnipotent God talked to this man in person, and Saint Andrew revealed the true holy lance to him in vigil, let him walk through the fire unharmed. But if he has lied, let Peter Bartholomew and the lance he carries be consumed by fire.’

  The crowd bellowed out a resounding ‘Amen’. The bishop snapped open the golden reliquary, and laid the invisible fragment of the lance in Peter Bartholomew’s cupped hands. Impervious to the building tension, the monks still chanted their psalms.

  Let all who take refuge in you rejoice;

  Let them ever sing for joy.

  Spread your protection over them,

  So that those who love your name may exult in you.

  You bless the righteous, O Lord;

  You cover them with favour as with a shield.

  Now it was Peter Bartholomew’s turn to speak. On previous occasions before such vast crowds his voice had carried effortlessly, somehow amplified to reach the furthest corners of his congregation. Now, that brightness was gone. I could barely see him behind the monks and priests who circled him, and his mumbled words
were inaudible to all save the closest bystanders. The passage between the logs loomed before him like a tunnel.

  Search me, O God, and know my thoughts.

  See if there is any wickedness in me,

  And lead me in the way everlasting.

  The chaplain had carried a clay lamp, its light invisible in the brightness of the day. Now he presented it to the bishop, who spoke a few words of prayer over it and hurled it against the waiting pyre. The vessel shattered; for a second I saw twin tongues of flame racing along the tops of the corded wood, then the entire edifice erupted. A pillar of fire rose up, devouring the birds who had circled too low over it, and black smoke choked the sky. The crackle of wood was like the gnashing of great teeth.

  A gust of wind blew smoke in my face, stinging my eyes. I squinted through the tears, so that Peter became little more than a dark blur at the foot of the flames. He must have been touched by God, for how else could he have stood so close to that blaze. Though I heard many things afterwards from those who had stood closer, I did not see him throw out his arms to embrace his fate; I did not see his eyebrows catch fire or his tunic start to smoulder, and I did not hear the last words he said before entering the inferno. Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.

  I do not know how long Peter Bartholomew stayed in that fire. Afterwards, some claimed they could see his shadow through the flames, striding serenely forward and laughing, as if the fire and coals did little more than tickle him. Others swore that he had not passed through the ordeal alone: they had seen dim figures walking beside Peter, holding his hand or leading him on. For myself, I saw nothing but a glowing curtain of flame.

  My hands and feet have shrivelled;

  I can count all my bones.

  They stare and gloat over me,

  And divide my clothes among themselves.

  Had the monks resumed their chant, or did I merely hear the words in my heart? I no longer knew: everything was ash. I was vaguely aware of Anna’s hands gripping my arm — I saw the bruises later — and a murmur swelling around me as the crowd began to voice their doubts. Where was Peter Bartholomew? Surely he could not have survived in there so long. Had all his boasts been in vain? Had the lance failed him? Some men dropped to their knees and prayed for his survival; others sat in the grass and wept. Why had God forsaken them?

  With a cloud of sparks and a shriek of unutterable pain, a black figure stumbled from the fire. He was naked as a child, his hair and clothes burned away, his skin turned to cinders. He could barely stand; as he stepped away from the flames, he flung out his arms for balance as if he had never stood on his own before.

  ‘God help us!’ he screamed.

  The crowd of pilgrims howled with triumph. As one, they rose up, poured down the hillside and engulfed him.

  31

  A pall of smoke from the smouldering fire covered our camp for the rest of the afternoon, shrouding the sky and bathing us in a sickly twilight. That did not deter the pilgrims, who flocked around the dying fire in their thousands. As the heat retreated they would run in and snatch at the coals or charred branches, holding them aloft like trophies, even as the embers burned into their skin. Afterwards, they showed these scars like wounds won in battle. I thought they were trying to find the fragment of the lance, which Peter must have dropped in the flames; Thomas explained that they were taking the ashes as relics of the holy ordeal, fragments of Peter Bartholomew’s own cross. They stripped the fire bare, until by evening all that remained was a black scar on the earth.

  ‘But he failed the ordeal,’ Sigurd objected as we sat by our tents that night. ‘Who would want a relic of that?’

  ‘Sometimes the battles you lose are more glorious,’ said Anna — mocking him, for she had never in her life thought any battle glorious.

  Thomas did not laugh. ‘Peter Bartholomew did not lose his battle, and he did not fail the ordeal.’ He spoke very deliberately, straining to check his obvious emotion. ‘We saw him emerge from the flames. If he has lied, let Peter Bartholomew and the lance he carries be consumed by fire — that was the test. The flames burned him, yes, but they could not overcome him.’

  I sighed. The ordeal was supposed to have been a test, absolute proof one way or the other, yet now it seemed it had only added new layers of doubt and confusion. Was that an admonition that I should have more faith — or a warning against credulity? Show me your way, 0 Lord, I prayed, and grant me wisdom to see. Once I had styled myself an unveiler of mysteries, a seer of truths that other men were too obtuse or blind to see. Now I could not even be sure what had happened before my own eyes.

  Anna laid a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. ‘Time will tell. If Peter-’

  She broke off. All evening the camp had murmured with the songs of lamentation for Good Friday. Priests and pilgrims had gathered in their congregations, as the disciples must have gathered in their homes one evening long ago, after they had come down from Golgotha. The music filled the air with melancholy; they wept for themselves, as much for Peter. But now one sound grew louder, a solemn chant swelling above the rest. I jumped to my feet. A train of lights was snaking its way down from the valley and I ran to the road to watch them pass.

  It reminded me of a funeral, of that procession I had seen in Antioch half a lifetime ago when they laid Bishop Adhemar in the ground. Barefoot priests led the way with veiled crosses, and acolytes carried long candles beside them. Behind came Peter’s prophet John, his camelskin coat covered with a black gown that had been artfully torn in many places; after him a dozen men I did not recognise, and then the mass of pilgrims. Not just pilgrims, I saw — many knights and soldiers walked among them too. Candlelight flickered on their faces, windows in the darkness revealing their grief: cheeks smudged with soot, eyes shining with tears, hearts stricken with disbelief. They carried a bier, and for a shocked moment I thought it must be Peter Bartholomew’s corpse. Then it came past me, and I saw it was only an effigy of Christ’s tomb, with a high crucifix towering above it. They had garlanded the crucifix with flowers — poppies, narcissi, dandelions and roses; the flowers shivered and swayed as the bier moved, so that with the colours of their petals it appeared that the cross was wreathed in flame.

  ‘The dead shall live,’ they sang, ‘their corpses shall rise. Awake, you who dwell in dust, and sing with joy.’

  Peter Bartholomew was not dead, but he barely lived. According to rumour he lay in his tent on the hill, a burnedout ember of a man, and awaited God’s judgement. That was not enough for Anna, who insisted on going to him to see if she could ease his suffering. ‘He was my patient once before,’ she reminded me. But the crowds about his tent were so great we could not get within two hundred paces of it — and anyway, we were told, he had refused all salves and ointments, saying that the Lord alone would decide his fate.

  ‘If he spurns medicines, he has made Christ’s decision for Him,’ Anna complained. But every hour on Easter Saturday the crowds around his tent grew, so many that the pilgrim camp could barely contain them. The surrounding tents were stripped back to make room, first from the top of the hill, then ever further down the slopes, until Peter’s tent stood in solitude on the bald summit.

  Unexpectedly — for he had not even attended the ordeal — it was Nikephoros who showed the greatest interest in Peter’s fate. He summoned me to his quarters on the Saturday morning and questioned me at length; he even asked what Anna thought, which was extraordinary, for until then I had not realised he knew she existed.

  ‘She is certain that without a doctor’s attention he will die of his wounds?’ he pressed me.

  ‘Even if he did accept it he would hardly have much hope. Any other man would have died already of those wounds. That he has survived until now is. . fortunate.’ I could not bring myself to say miraculous.

  Nikephoros seemed satisfied. ‘The sooner the better.’

  ‘But if Peter Bartholomew dies, and the lance is discredited, Raymond will be much weakened.’

  Nikephor
os dripped wax on the dispatch he had just written. ‘Raymond is weakened anyway. He built his house on shifting sands, and now they have swallowed him. No doubt he will salvage what he can by claiming that the peasant in fact survived the ordeal, but few will believe him once they see Peter Bartholomew laid out in his tomb.’

  ‘But then-’

  ‘Peter Bartholomew’s death will weaken Raymond. As he is the only barbarian who even pretends to support the emperor, that would be a setback. But if Peter Bartholomew survives, if tomorrow he appears to his peasant congregation resurrected. .’ Nikephoros pressed his seal into the soft wax. ‘What do you think will happen then?’

  I rose early on the Sabbath just as the day was dawning. Helena wanted some herbs for the Easter lamb, and I had said I would find them. I slipped out of our tent alone and walked quickly towards the mountain. I told myself that I remembered seeing some wild rosemary growing in the forest there, though I might not have remembered it so well if the path had not led close to the pilgrim camp. Though I had heard Anna’s diagnosis, a deep and unanswerable part of me still whispered that the Lord made all things possible. I scanned the hilltop, seeking a sign: thousands of pilgrims still kept their vigil on its slopes, many of them prostrate with prayer or exhaustion, and the faint melodies of hymns drifted down to me in the dawn stillness. But the songs were scattered and tentative, their message nothing more than fading hope.

  Disappointed, and disgusted with myself for it, I turned away towards the place where I thought I had seen the rosemary. I was not alone. As Easter dawned without its Messiah, men and women had begun to trickle down from the hill and return to their camps. I tried not to look at them — the disappointment in their faces was too painful to see — but one caught my eye. Despite the warmth of the April morning he wore a cloak that hung to his ankles, its hood raised to cover his face. As I watched, his course seemed to drift imperceptibly towards the forest on the mountain ridge to the north-east, gradually taking him away from the army.