by Tom Harper
It was eighteen months since I had seen my children. When I left Constantinople Helena had been a bride, barely out of the church. Though only three years separated them, Zoe had seemed so young she might equally have been Helena’s daughter as her sister. Now Helena was a mother: new cares had chiselled away the curves of her face, leaving it lean and serious, while a taut strength imbued the arms that cradled the baby. Zoe’s face too was creased with concern, but in her it had the perverse effect of making her look younger, more innocent.
‘What did you call the baby?’ I asked at last.
‘Everard. It was Thomas’s father’s name,’ said Helena.
‘Everard,’ I repeated, manipulating the foreign sounds around my mouth. Thomas’s father, the baby’s grandfather, had been a pilgrim in the vanguard of the Army of God, part of a rabble who fell under the spell of a charismatic holy-man and believed they were invincible because he told them so. The Turks had shattered that illusion as soon as they crossed into Asia Minor, and paved a road with their bones. Thomas had been one of the few to survive: he had escaped to Constantinople, where I had found him and he had found Helena.
‘Ever since I left home I’ve longed to see you,’ I said at last. ‘But not here. I was . . . on my way back to you. You should not have come for me.’
I saw immediately that I had said something wrong. Zoe took a bunch of hair in her mouth and began chewing it, while Helena looked up defiantly.
‘We didn’t come for you.’
‘Then why . . . ?’
‘We came because of Thomas,’ Zoe blurted out. ‘He made us.’
I rounded on Thomas. ‘You? What have you done? My daughters—’
Thomas’s face darkened. ‘My wife – and my son. Their place is with me.’
‘Their place is in safety. At home.’
In my anger, I had spoken too loudly and disturbed the baby. He pulled away from Helena’s breast and began to squeal, while Helena dabbed at his mouth and rocked him in her arms.
‘I didn’t marry Helena to lift her on a pedestal and then carry her with me in my memories,’ said Thomas. ‘I have left enough family behind. I married her to live with her. And this is where we are.’
‘Only because you brought them here.’
‘I am a Varangian now. I go where the emperor commands. Like you. You should thank me,’ he added aggressively. ‘If I had not brought Helena and Zoe here, you might never have seen them again. Or your grandson.’
I put out my arm and leaned on the door frame to steady myself. Outside, I could hear excited shouts echoing off the square, and the crash and tumble of more walls being torn down. It sounded like the end of the world.
‘You should not have come,’ I said again. ‘In three days’ time, Raymond’s army will set out for Jerusalem. I will have to go with them – Nikephoros will not give me a choice. As for you . . .’ I tried to think my way out of the dark labyrinth I had fallen into, but every way I turned, the way was blocked. The Normans controlled the ports and Antioch, while Duke Godfrey’s army sat camped on the road north. I could not send my family that way. Nor could I abandon them in the ruins of Ma’arat.
Sigurd laid his axe on the table and began unlacing his boots. ‘It looks as though we’ll all see Jerusalem.’
‘Or die in the attempt.’
κγ
The smoke still rose over Ma’arat when we left it three days later. Defeated by Bohemond and humbled by Peter Bartholomew, Raymond had indulged his pique by completing the work the pilgrims had begun. He razed the town, so that none should have it if he could not. A chill fog came down, mingling with hot smoke from the burning until you could not tell one from the other, but walked everywhere wrapped in cloud.
Trumpets sounded, and after a few minutes a dim figure appeared as a shadow in the mist. He was on foot – barefoot, I saw as he drew closer – and the only sound he made was the slow staccato beat of his staff tapping the ground. He did not wear armour, nor any of his magnificent finery, but merely a grey pilgrim’s robe. His bare head was slumped low, either in contemplation or because he could not bear to see his army watching him thus. With smoke in the air and a warm breeze breathing out of Ma’arat, he might have been Lot fleeing fire and brimstone in the punished city of Sodom. He did not look back.
Next, seated on an emaciated donkey, came Peter Bartholomew, carrying the reliquary of the holy lance on a purple cushion. There was no humility in his bearing, forced or otherwise: he stared at the soldiers lining the road with aloof dignity, almost defying them to adore him. None of the Varangians indulged him, but many of the Provençals offered shouts of praise or threw stalks of grass– there were no flowers – at his feet. Some even sank to their knees as he passed and offered ostentatious prayers for his safety.
Nikephoros, mounted beside me, leaned across and murmured in my ear, ‘Count Raymond looks more like Peter’s groom than his lord.’
I nodded, nervous of speaking ill of Peter Bartholomew among that crowd. ‘At least he has done what we could not, and forced Count Raymond on to Jerusalem.’
‘Hah.’ Nikephoros broke off and inclined his head respectfully as the count came level with us. When he had passed, Nikephoros continued, ‘Raymond should be more careful. If he allows himself to be seen looking like Peter Bartholomew’s servant, soon people will start to believe it.’
‘I think Peter Bartholomew already does.’
‘All the more danger. And what do you suppose he intends next?’
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.