by Tom Harper
I scrambled to my feet. Damn Nikephoros, I cursed. Damn the emperor and his treachery. This was the world he had wished into being, a world without friends or allegiance, faith or honour. Two horsemen, one a Turk and one a Frank, charged down a fleeing Varangian, riding so close their knees almost touched. The Turk loosed an arrow and the man fell; as they rode over him, the Frank plunged his spear into his back and I saw the two hunters share a look of exultation before galloping after their next quarry. Through the trees a Varangian and a Frank pulled a Turk from his horse and butchered him, then turned their bloody blades on each other. Everywhere I looked the world was spiralling into the chaos from which God called it — and somewhere inside it were Anna and my children.
‘Here.’
The voice spoke behind me and I whipped around, almost plunging my knife into him before I saw who he was. Aelfric stood there, his axe in one hand and a bloodied sword in the other. He offered it to me.
‘I have to find my daughters.’ I had to shout to be heard over the roar of hooves and the hiss of arrows. ‘And Thomas and Anna.’
‘Thomas was in the trees over there.’ Aelfric jerked a thumb behind him. ‘With Beric and Sigurd.’
‘But Helena and Zoe were. .’ I looked around, disoriented. Where had they been?
The ground rumbled again as another horse cantered by. His rider must have been following some other prey for he did not see us under the tree. Without so much as a glance, Aelfric swung his axe in a low scything arc, straight into the horse’s fetlock. It ploughed into the ground in a spray of blood and braying screams.
Aelfric pressed the sword into my hand. ‘Make sure he’s dead. Both of them,’ he added, as the wounded horse screamed its agony to the sky.
He ducked out under the branches and ran across to where one of his comrades was trying to fend off two dismounted Franks. Too numb to do otherwise, I ran over to the fallen horse. Its master had been a Turk — not that it mattered now. He was trapped in his saddle, his left leg crushed under the horse’s weight. His brown eyes stared up at me, imploring. I raised my sword to finish him, but found I did not have the will. I killed the horse instead.
‘Helena!’ I shouted. ‘Zoe! Anna!’ The only answer was clashing steel and the shouts of men. Somewhere through the din I thought I heard a child crying, and I stumbled towards it. But in the dizzying cacophony of battle I could not follow any sound for long — soon it was gone, leaving me more desperate than ever. Where were they?
Dazed and anguished I wandered through the orchard, slipping on grass that had become slick with blood. Men were dying all around me but I barely noticed — the world was dark to my eyes. Where were my family? My sword hung limp in my hand, unused. Where were they? Two knights chased each other straight across my meandering path, barely a foot away. Though I was an enemy to them both, they did not even look at me. Was I invisible? Had I died and become a ghost?
I had not. I came around a pomegranate tree, and there was Achard staring at me. A broad grin split open the lower half of his face; he looked down, and it seemed all the contempt, resentment, envy and anger that the Franks harboured towards Byzantium was distilled into that triumphant sneer. He pulled back his spear a little, testing his grip. There was nothing I could do.
And then several things happened at once. From somewhere ahead of me, not too far, a girl screamed. Almost simultaneously, a horn sounded from up the valley. And just afterwards, an apple flew out of the sky, arced through the air and struck Achard on the side of the helmet where it covered his ear.
It was not a heavy blow. Even bareheaded it would barely have bruised him. But he felt it — and, not knowing what it was, turned instinctively to see. It was all the time I needed. I lunged forward and grabbed hold of the spear, trying to wrest it from his grasp. Even before he realised what was happening his fingers had clenched around it; for a moment we pulled against each other. But I had two hands to his one, and I was pulling down. With a cry of triumph I felt it slip out of his hand; I stepped back, swung the spear around and lunged for his throat. Blood showered over me, blinding me. I let go the spear, and as I wiped the blood from my eyes I saw his horse cantering away, the one-armed corpse still bouncing in its saddle.
The horn sounded again. Something had changed — I could hear it all around me. The clash of arms had faded almost to nothing, drowned out by the rising drumming of hooves. Through the trees I could see dark shapes rushing by, like a shoal of fish seen from a boat. Then they were gone; the sound faded up the valley, and an unbearable stillness settled on the orchard.
I looked around. Sigurd was standing a little to my right, his axe leaning against his side and an apple in his hand. He waved it at me, then took a large bite.
Through the fog of my thoughts I vaguely understood he must have saved me, but that was of little consequence. I ran over and gripped his arm like a madman, staring in his eyes. ‘Where are they? Where are Anna and the girls?’
All triumph vanished from his face. ‘I thought they were with you.’
‘I couldn’t reach them. I thought Thomas-’
I broke off as I heard footsteps running through the trees. My heart kicked twice — once in fear of some new enemy, once in hope it might be my daughters. It was Thomas. His face was flushed; he had a cut on his cheek and another on his arm, but they were not what troubled him.
‘Helena?’ he gasped. ‘Have you seen her? My son?’
Our eyes met in a moment of shared torment. Then, by spontaneous accord, we turned away and began sprinting through the orchard, shouting their names.
‘Wait,’ called Sigurd anxiously. ‘You don’t know if it’s safe.’
Safe — what was that? All around me, the dappled sunlight shone on the wreckage of the battle: a Frankish knight sliced almost in two by a gaping axe-wound; another crushed under his horse; two Varangians impaled on a single spear, and others still wet with the wounds that had killed them. Panic rose in my soul — now I moved not like a ghost but like a fury, overturning corpses indiscriminately, spilling guts from gaping holes and inflicting fresh wounds on men who had suffered enough. I shouted their names over and over, until the words ran together, lost all form and became meaningless. I shouted them anyway — and did not realise Sigurd had been calling me until he sent one of his men to fetch me.
‘Over here,’ was all the Varangian said. His face was grim. He led me through the orchard to the eastern end, where a low wall divided it from the uncultivated wilderness beyond. Just inside, a thorn tree grew against the stones — and even in my madness I could see there was something different about it. Amid all the gnarled and curling branches, one stuck out longer and straighter than the others. As I came closer I saw it was no branch but a spear, driven into the tree with such force that it had stuck cleanly even after passing through the body it pinned against the bark. The sun shone through the branches and picked out some of the jewels and gold on his robe, but only a few: many of the jewels had been cut away, and the golden threads were soaked with blood. The spear had gone straight through his belly into the tree; it still quivered there, rising and falling each time he breathed.
‘We found this on the ground beside him.’ Sigurd passed me a silk cord, such as a woman might use to tie her dress. Anna’s belt. I snatched it with a cry and pressed it to my face, then knelt beside Nikephoros. His face was almost white, his eyes closed against the sun. With every breath, air and blood bubbled up from around the protruding spear shaft.
‘Anna. My daughters. What happened to them?’ I murmured in his ear. ‘Did you see?’
The eyes blinked open and I held up my hand to shade them. A milky film had begun to cloud his sight; of the raking scorn with which he had watched both princes and pilgrims, almost nothing remained.
‘Hostages,’ he whispered.
My guts clenched within me. ‘They were alive? Who took them? Franks?’ I could not bear to imagine what revenge they might wreak on Anna and my daughters.
But I had aske
d too many questions — and Nikephoros had neither strength nor breath to answer them. His head lolled to one side; he half raised it again, then let it slump back. I realised he was trying to shake it.
‘Not Franks.’ The dying eyes widened in affirmation. ‘The Egyptians? Where did they take them?’
Afterwards, I wished I had not made Nikephoros waste his last breath saying it. There could only ever have been one answer to that question. Coughing blood into my face, he twisted his head around and — agonisingly slow — lifted his left arm so that it pointed east, back up the valley. A vile soup of blood, bile, air and water slurped out of his wound; I thought I would vomit again, but I could not drop his gaze. He was grasping for breath, his chest heaving as he tried to snatch enough air for one final word.
‘Jerusalem.’
Then his arm dropped, his eyes closed, and the spirit left him for ever. We buried him under one of the fruit trees, then turned back to Jerusalem.
III
Zion’s Gate
June — July 1099
38
‘Behold Jerusalem, the navel of the world. The royal city that Christ the Redeemer exalted by his coming, beautified in his life, consecrated with his death and glorified by his resurrection. All the lands about it give forth their fruits like a paradise of heavenly delights. Behold it now.’
I sat on the blessed soil of the Mount of Olives and gazed down on the holy city.
Mere reality had not inspired the priests to change their sermons. Perhaps the land around Jerusalem had once been a fertile paradise of delights; now it was barren. From the heights of the Mount of Olives I could see the treeless, lifeless summits of the mountain range stretching far into the distance, rising and falling like waves. The broken ground was parched a dirty white, stippled with scrub and bushes, which produced nothing but thorns and poison. And there in its midst sat Jerusalem.
It was smaller than I had expected — a fraction of the size of Antioch. It spread over two hilltops, Mount Zion to the west and Mount Moriah to the east, lower than the surrounding ridges but divided from them on three sides by deep ravines, so that it stood proud on its promontory, a jewel in the crown of mountains. Just within its walls, on the eastern side nearest where I sat, I could see a vast open courtyard, built so high that its floor was equal with the height of the walls. An octagonal church surmounted by a bulging dome stood in its centre, sheathed in tiles that shone blue and green like the sea. With the still expanse of the courtyard setting it apart, lifting it above the jumbled dwellings in the city beyond, it was the most magnificent structure to be seen; I had assumed at once that it must be the church of the Holy Sepulchre. In fact, I learned, from men who had been to Jerusalem before on pilgrimage, it was the Temple of the Lord, built on the place where the great temple of Solomon had once stood. Now the Ishmaelites had taken it for their own. Beyond the great courtyard the city dipped into a shallow valley, then rose again in the slopes of Mount Zion. A stone bridge spanned the divide between the two mountains.
The holy slopes of Mount Zion had long since disappeared under the city; the buildings were packed so close together that from a distance I could not even tell if there were any streets between them. Christ’s tomb must lie somewhere in that warren — buried, like the cave it had once been. And somewhere near by, amid all the marvels, relics and incense-soaked churches, was my family.
It had been the middle of the night, four days earlier, when we finally reached Jerusalem. Despite the late hour I went straight to Count Raymond’s tent. I had expected to have to wake him — in my grief I would have woken the dead if necessary — but when I got there I found the lamps inside were lit. The guard who admitted me told me the count was with someone, and as I waited in the antechamber, I could hear muffled voices through the curtain that divided the tent into its different quarters.
Despite my surroundings, I found myself suddenly shivering from head to toe. Tears ran down my cheeks and I hugged my arms to my chest, hoping Raymond would not hear. The numbness that had gripped me since the battle in the orchard was wearing off, and the black wave of emotions it had held off now reared over me. Exhausted as I was, I tried to hold it back.
A sound from the next room snatched my attention back. Count Raymond’s voice was suddenly raised, and in the midnight silence his words carried clear through the flimsy curtain which hid him.
‘Have you come this far just to sit on the doorstep? The holy city is over there, barely a bowshot away. Everything we have fought for. Are you now suggesting we should balk at taking it?’
The reply came more quietly. Drawn by instinct, I moved closer to the curtain to hear. It sounded like Duke Godfrey’s voice. A shard of ice froze in my soul to hear it.
‘I want to get inside that city as much as you or any man. But I will not throw away the prize just as my hand is closing around it. Have you forgotten why it took us two years to get here? We needed eight months to reduce Antioch, almost two months to take Nicaea. Even Ma’arat needed two weeks. As for Arqa-’
‘That was different — they were merely waymarks on the holy road. Now we are at Jerusalem, God will surely win the victory for us. Besides. .’ Raymond lowered his voice. ‘Every man in this army, pilgrim and soldier alike, has waited years for this moment. Many are almost sick with longing. They cannot wait — if we do not lead them, they will take matters into their own hands.’
‘When God made us princes it was so that our wisdom would govern lesser men’s passions,’ said Godfrey scornfully. ‘Wait a few days. Once your men get used to the miraculous fact that they have come to Jerusalem, they will be less impatient. Then we can invest the city properly, prepare siege engines and ballistas-’
‘Siege engines and ballistas?’ Raymond mocked him. ‘And what will we build them out of — dust? There was a reason King Solomon sent all the way to Mount Lebanon for cedarwood when he wanted to build his temple. You will not find timber within twenty miles of this place.’
‘Then we will go further — all the way back to Antioch, if we have to. But we will not risk everything in a premature assault. Patience is the companion of wisdom.’
‘And faith is more important still. God is so powerful that if He desires it, we will scale the walls with a single ladder. He will help us.’
‘Only if we help ourselves.’
I heard a movement and quickly scurried away from the curtain. A second later it pulled back, and Duke Godfrey stepped through. His eyes narrowed with suspicion when he saw me, then widened in surprise.
‘I heard you had gone to Byzantium.’
‘I came back.’
He shrugged, as if to show it was no concern of his. ‘And Nikephoros? Has he returned?’
‘He has not.’
You did this, I wanted to scream at him. My arms ached to strike him, to pound him and kick him until his bones were like wax and his flesh like water, until he screamed for forgiveness for the evil he had done me. But I could not — not there. He left the tent, while by the opening in the curtain I saw Raymond watching me carefully.
‘What happened to Nikephoros?’
He must have guessed from my expression. He brought me into his private chamber and sat me on his couch, calling his servants to bring wine. I held the cup in my hand but barely drank as I told him everything that had happened. Almost everything.
The lines on Raymond’s face deepened as I told my story. When I described how my family had been taken hostage, he rose and stepped towards me as if to comfort me, then turned aside and poured himself another cup of wine instead.
‘That’s all they have in this country,’ he muttered. ‘No water, only vines.’
I carried on. When I had finished, he fixed me with his good eye.
‘But why would Achard have done such a thing?’
‘Because Duke Godfrey ordered him to.’ I blurted it out, my words burning hot with anger. I cursed Duke Godfrey. I cursed Nikephoros, who had refused to confront him after the ambush at Ravendan and had
now paid the price. Most of all, I cursed myself. I had known the danger Godfrey threatened, and I had led my family into its shadow.
Raymond started. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘Because he hates the Greeks. He tried to seize Constantinople from the emperor. When that failed, he tried to kill me at Ravendan. Now he has murdered Nikephoros and sent my family into slavery. I will kill him,’ I raged.
Raymond was watching me closely, and not only with sympathy. ‘But why were you on the road away from Jerusalem? Where was Nikephoros going?’
I could only hope my distraught face hid any guilt. What sort of man have you become, I wondered, using your grief for deception?
‘Nikephoros needed to speak to the supply ships from Cyprus. He thought you would want them to bring siege equipment — timbers for building,’ I added, remembering what Godfrey had said.
Raymond looked at his hand, scraping dirt from under his fingernails. ‘Then he died on a wasted errand. By God’s grace, we will have taken the city by the end of the week.’ He pulled me to my feet and clamped his hands on my shoulders, staring me straight in the eye. ‘I know Achard has done a terrible thing to you, but you cannot lay it at Duke Godfrey’s door, not before the city is taken. We rely too much on his strength. And the sooner Jerusalem falls, the sooner you will be reunited with your family.’
Back on the Mount of Olives, the priest had finished his sermon. His congregation — ten thousand knights and men-at-arms — muttered ‘Amen’, then broke into an excited chatter as they saw a small party walking up to the outcropping knoll that served as a pulpit. The red-headed priest, Arnulf, led them, a golden cross radiant over him; the princes followed and arrayed themselves in a semicircle on the outcrop. Arnulf stood in their centre, turning the cross this way and that so that golden rays flickered over the front ranks of the watching army. An acolyte knelt before him and held up an open Bible.