by Tom Harper
‘You won’t see him growing as you watch.’
‘Him? She may be a girl.’ Though I would not tell Helena so, I wanted a girl. Her mother would have wanted a granddaughter, I thought.
A shadow of worry drifted over me, and I looked at the steep valleys around us for any hint of an enemy. It would have been an easy place for the Ishmaelites to ambush us, but once again they chose not to.
I squeezed Helena’s hand — and then, so she would not feel left out, Zoe’s. Of all of us, I think the journey had been hardest for her. Anna had come for me, and Helena for Thomas, but Zoe had come because she had to. Looking at her now, I could see how it had changed her. At home in Constantinople she had been much the livelier of my daughters, teasing Helena and me to distraction, but ever able to defuse our anger with a grin and a hug. Now the mischief and vitality had gone; she spoke rarely and laughed less. Often in our camps she seemed to disappear into the background, not absent in person but not present in spirit. Though her body had grown in the past two years — even the past few months — her face seemed thinner, as if age and experience had somehow pinched it shut.
I smiled at her, trying to prompt the smile I remembered so well. ‘Soon,’ I promised. ‘Soon this will be over.’
The sun waned, breathing its dying light into the dust that surrounded us so we seemed to walk in a golden cloud. I stared forward obsessively; with every turn in the road I expected to see Jerusalem before us, shining on its hilltop, but it did not appear. Then scouts who had ridden forward came back, and announced it was still ten miles to Jerusalem. Many wanted to press on through the night, but the princes would not allow it. Haste was peril, they said: the road was too dangerous, our enemies’ intentions unknown. We made our camp near a village, though few pitched their tents. One word hung on everybody’s lips — spoken with excitement, with awe, with reverence and with fear. Tomorrow.
‘Anyone would think we’re to find Jerusalem as empty as Aramathea,’ Sigurd grumbled. We had built our fire in a rocky circle near the road and sat on the surrounding boulders. Thomas had caught two pigeons, which we roasted on spits over the coals. ‘The journey doesn’t end just because we arrive.’
‘Ours does.’
I looked around. Nikephoros was standing behind us, dim against the twilight. Perhaps because I was in mind of endings, I remembered the first time I had seen him: the magnificence, the power and the arrogance of his presence. The new beard he had worn had grown full; the cushions and gilded furniture that had decorated his quarters then had long since been lost or abandoned on the road. That evening he had not even pitched his tent, but laid out his blankets on the ground like the rest of us. In the soft haze, dressed only in a plain linen tunic, he almost looked humble.
‘Our journey ends here,’ he said again, perhaps thinking we had not heard him. He looked at Sigurd. ‘Have your men formed up to march at dawn. We will make for the coast and find a ship there. Perhaps we will find the grain fleet; otherwise there are English ships in the emperor’s service still patrolling these waters. One of them will take us home.’
For a moment his only answer was the sound of boiling fat sizzling on the coals.
‘But. . Jerusalem.’ I pointed foolishly, as if it stood not fifty yards up the road. ‘What about Jerusalem?’
‘Jerusalem was not my destination. My orders were to see that the Franks reached it and now, praise God, I have. Even they should be able to find it from here.’
‘And what will they do then?’ asked Sigurd. ‘They have not won any victory yet.’
Nikephoros shrugged. ‘Thirty Varangians more or less will not decide the battle. To fight it would be a waste — it does not even matter who wins now. Be ready to march at dawn.’
I hardly knew what to feel. For two years and more I had longed to see Jerusalem and go home, until the two desires, once contradictory, wound themselves so tight around me that they became inseparable. It had become my purpose: to be denied it now felt almost as though Nikephoros had ripped out part of my soul. Looking at the others, I saw the same disbelief reflected on all their faces — Thomas’s most of all.
Yet in my shock, one part of me still saw clearly. It does not even matter who wins now. Even Nikephoros’ diplomatic guile could not hide the true emotion beneath the words: not indifference, nor resignation, but savage glee.
I ran after Nikephoros, away from the campfire, and halted him.
‘Achard told the truth,’ I said slowly. ‘You did go to Egypt to make an alliance with the Fatimids. What was the bargain? That we would bring the Franks to the altar at Jerusalem if the Fatimids would wield the sacrificial knife?’
Darkness shrouded Nikephoros’ face, but his voice was clear and unrepentant. ‘The emperor was a fool ever to consider taking the Franks as allies. Wise counsellors warned him against it, but he was too weak.’
‘So you took it upon yourself to break the emperor’s alliance, to finish what your wise counsellors failed to do at Constantinople.’
Nikephoros laughed, and the contempt in his laughter told me I was wrong again. ‘I took nothing upon myself. I am the emperor’s obedient servant. There is nothing I have done that he did not order me to do.’
I felt as if I had been dropped into a void without bounds or depth. ‘The emperor?’
‘When the barbarians refused to surrender Antioch, he saw his mistake at last. You can hunt with wild dogs, but you cannot be surprised if they take your quarry for themselves. And when they do, there is only one solution.’
I shook my head, trying to clear the confusion within. Nikephoros thought I was contradicting him.
‘Jerusalem is nothing — a bauble to dangle before barbarians. Alexios thought it would bring them to his aid, but it has served just as well to lead them to their destruction. Now the Fatimids will finish it, and those grain ships you saw by the coast will sail to Alexandria as their reward.’
‘But the Fatimids rejected our bargain — they drove us into the desert. Or was that part of the deception too?’
‘The caliph did not want to make an alliance with Christians. While his vizier was away he tried to sabotage it.’
‘But the vizier had revealed your bargain to Achard.’
‘He thought his interests were best served by discord among the Christians. He would rather have kept us quarrelling far away from his borders. But now the barbarians are here, he will do what he must. He has no choice. That is the simple perfection of the emperor’s scheme.’
He moved closer to me, a pale blur in the gathering darkness.
‘Did you really ever style yourself the unveiler of mysteries?’
A rumble sounded like thunder, and the earth trembled beneath my feet. I stepped back, just as the noise resolved itself into the pounding of many hooves. A column of horsemen swept around the turn in the road. A fiery aura surrounded them from the torches they carried, though I could see little inside it save a host of spears and helmets, flying manes and churning hooves.
‘What is happening?’ I shouted up. ‘Are we under attack?’
One of the knights reined in his horse and drew aside to let the others pass. ‘We are going to Bethlehem.’ He shook his head in wonder at what he had just said. ‘The Christians there have sent messengers: the Fatimids have abandoned it. Come with us and see.’
I glanced at Nikephoros, revealed now in the flaring torches. He shrugged.
‘Go with them, if you like. Stay here and fight for Jerusalem, if that is what you believe in. I give you my permission. Or you can come home with me.’
‘Be quick,’ warned the knight. Most of the column had already passed by, and the light they had brought was fading. ‘I cannot wait.’
I stared at the ground. My cheeks burned with shame; my eyes ached to cry, but no tears would come.
‘I. .’ I could hardly speak. My only solace was darkness. ‘I will go home.’
37
No one slept that night. Like ice after winter, the army had already begun
to break up. Some followed Tancred’s men to Bethlehem; others, unable to endure one more hour of waiting, rose from their beds in the middle of the night and hurried on along the dark road to Jerusalem. I lay on my blanket, unsleeping, and heard them go — first dribbling away in their twos and threes, then growing to a trickle which eventually became a flood. I stayed in my bed.
As with all sleepless nights, the darkness seemed to last for ever — and still be over too soon. After so many hours of wretched waiting, no sooner had my thoughts finally quieted into sleep than a dirty light began to spread from the east, and Sigurd was shaking my shoulder, urging me up. Well before the dawn Nikephoros had appointed for our departure, we were ready to leave.
We did not delay; we might have lost our nerve. As we marched through the camp many called that we were going the wrong way, that Jerusalem was behind us. When they realised our purpose their shouts became angrier. They lined the road to watch us go, hurling abuse: we were traitors, cowards who did not dare look upon Jerusalem for fear of God’s judgement. He would find us, they warned. One or two of them threw rocks, and I feared for a moment that in their fervour they might stone us to death, but a few glares from the Varangians cowed them enough and they soon lost interest. They had better things to do that day.
By mid-morning we had gone several miles down our road, unpicking the threads of the previous day’s journey. Nikephoros rode at the head of our little column; the rest of us walked, for I had sold my horse the night before to a Provencal knight who had lost his. The Franks would have reached Jerusalem by now, I thought. I wondered what they had found there.
‘Twenty-thousand Egyptians waiting to massacre them,’ said Sigurd, when I voiced my question aloud.
A fresh stab of betrayal lanced through me and I glanced ahead to Nikephoros. I had not repeated what he had revealed to me, not even to Sigurd. He loved the emperor he served and he loved his honour: I could not imagine how he would accept the ignoble truth of our mission. As for the others, how could I tell them that everything they had suffered for had been a lie? Thomas had not spoken a word since Nikephoros announced we were going home; his face was hard and still as stone. White knuckles clenched the haft of his axe, and several times I saw him angrily kick out at pebbles in the road. I think he would have deserted in an instant if it had not been for Everard, Helena and her unborn baby.
Just before lunch, the road turned into a steep-sided valley. A stream-bed meandered along the bottom of the embankment, though nothing but dust flowed there now, and on the far bank the flat ground was planted with many fruit trees. It seemed an arid sort of garden, but water must have lingered somewhere in the recesses of the earth, for many of the trees had blossomed. Some already even bore fruit. We called a halt and scrambled across the stream, into the welcome shade of the orchard.
Once again, I saw what secret miracles lingered in this land. June was only a week old, but the fruits had swollen so ripe you could not tell if they would break free of their branches or burst from their skins. Anna plucked a pomegranate from a gnarled tree and cut it open. The seeds glistened inside like a cupful of rubies; she scooped them out and fed them to me, and afterwards I licked the red juice from her fingers. Zoe and Helena gathered dates and apples in their skirts, while the Varangians laughed and shied rotten figs at each other.
I could have stayed all afternoon in that drowsy orchard. Leaning against a tree, Anna’s head cradled in my lap, I realised that what I really longed for was not to go home, nor to Jerusalem, but simply to not go anywhere: to lie down and rest and be still. I swatted away a wasp that was buzzing around my ear and closed my eyes, wishing I could stay there for ever.
Anna lifted her head. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘What?’ I stroked the skin on the back of her neck, still smooth and pale where her hair had covered it against the sun. ‘I can’t hear anything.’
She shook my hand away. ‘Listen.’
I listened. The wasp buzzed as it hovered over a fallen apple; further off, I could hear Sigurd’s men laughing, and the enthusiastic babble as Everard chattered away beside Helena. And further still, from up the road, I heard a low rumble, like wind gusting through a rocky cleft. But the day was still, and there was no wind.
I clambered to my feet and stepped out from under the tree, shading my eyes. To my right, Nikephoros had stood up in his stirrups and was waving impatiently, signalling we should be on the march again. Despite the heat, he had chosen to wear his full imperial regalia: the heavy dalmatic embroidered with gold, and the jewelled lorum sparkling in the sun. A few of the Varangians had already answered his summons; others were slowly drifting back through the trees. To my left, Thomas was walking with Helena and Zoe: Everard sat on his shoulders and snatched at butterflies. And beyond him, where the road came around a turn in the valley, a plume of dust was rising into the blue June sky.
‘Demetrios.’ Sigurd’s voice called me from somewhere to my right. ‘Get down!’
Wrapped in the dust they churned beneath their hooves, a company of horsemen swept around the bend in the road. I could hardly see them at all through the cloud — little more than flashes of spears and armour in the billowing dust — but there was something terrible and hungry in their speed, like an eagle hastening on to devour its prey. I crouched low, frantically waving Thomas and the girls to do likewise.
Perhaps, in their haste, the horsemen might have missed us if not for Nikephoros. He sat on his mount beyond the cover of the orchard, tall in his saddle and shining like a beacon. Even the most casual traveller would have seen him and gawped — these men were looking for him. They reined in on the far bank of the dry stream and pulled around into a loose line opposite us. I counted about twenty of them, and as the dust settled I saw that every one was dressed for battle. They seemed to be Franks, though they carried no standard.
‘Who are you?’ Nikephoros’ challenge echoed out — imperious and aloof, but strangely dead in the arid valley. No one answered. At the end of the line, the knight who had led them drew his sword and lifted it over his head. Instinctively, I looked to his shield to see if it bore any tell-tale device.
He did not carry a shield — could not have, for his left arm ended in a grotesque stump barely inches from his shoulder. That told me more than any insignia. His eyes were hidden in the shadow of his helmet, but in my mind I could almost see their bulging stare looking down on us in triumph, the veins livid with the joy of revenge.
‘Traitors!’ he shouted, and the valley walls chorused his words so that wherever I turned the accusation bombarded my ears. ‘You abandoned me to the Ishmaelites once before. You will not do it to the Army of God.’
He waved his sword forward. The row of spears swung down. Opposite them, Nikephoros raised a single arm as if he could somehow hold them back. And, for a moment, it seemed that he did — on either side of the dusty stream, not a man moved.
The dark note of a horn blasted through the silence, but not from the Franks. It sounded from high on the hillside opposite, behind us. I turned to look. At the top of the northern slope, facing the noon sun, a new line of horsemen had appeared. The spikes on their helmets and the bosses on their shields glittered like knives. One of them angled forward a spear, and the black banner of the Fatimids unfurled before him.
The horn sounded again.
‘Christ preserve us,’ murmured one of the Varangians beside me.
Perhaps this was the battle we deserved. For so many months Nikephoros had schemed to bring the Franks and the Fatimids into the same place, to destroy each other for his benefit. Now, in that dry valley, they would meet at last — and we would be nothing more than dust to soak up their blood. A cloud of arrows flew up into the June sky and dipped into the valley, gathering deadly speed as they fell. The Egyptians plunged after them, leaning far back in their saddles as they spurred their horses through the gorse and scree, nimble as goats. They might have managed to surprise us, but the Franks were no strangers to ambush. With shouts
of ‘Deus vult’ they kicked forward, down the embankment and across the dry stream to the orchard.
‘To me!’ shouted Sigurd. He stood between two trees with his legs apart, his axe swaying in his hands, and for a moment I was not sure if he was calling for help or summoning his enemies. ‘To me!’
I could not help him — I had to get to my family, and I had no weapon except my knife. I held Anna’s hand and dragged her after me as I ran through the orchard, desperately calling for Helena and Zoe. Horsemen closed from both sides. The ground was hard and flat, perfect for them; they came gliding through the trees like snakes, their spears stabbing like forked tongues. There was no time for the Varangians to form a line to resist them — they were scattered through the orchard, mostly unarmed, and could do nothing.
A flash of blue in the yellow grass ahead caught my eye — Helena’s dress — but before I could reach her a rider galloped out between the trees in front of me. It was a Fatimid — not an Ethiopian like Bilal, but lighter skinned, a Turk or an Armenian. He hauled on his reins and swung the horse around, raising his spear over his shoulder like a javelin. I pushed Anna away, hoping the horseman would ignore her, then turned and started running. My heart screamed that I was going the wrong way, away from my daughters, but I had little choice. The sound of charging hooves rose up like a wave behind me, climbing higher until I was sure I must feel the life-ending blow of a hoof smashing open my skull, bone to bone. Still I ran. I shuddered with the tremors rising up from the earth; at the very last moment, when I was sure I had left it too late, I flung myself to my right, tumbling away into the shade of a fruit tree. The horse thundered past me; the Turk gave a howl of anger and tried to reverse his spear for a thrust, but too late — his momentum carried him on. As he tried to turn, another rider rode out of the fray. A sword flashed and the Turk’s head flew from his shoulders, rolling several yards before it finally came to rest among the fallen fruit beneath a tree.