Siege of Heaven

by Tom Harper

  ‘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.’

  κδ

  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.

  We found Peter Bartholomew in the very heart of the camp – but he was not alone. In a circle of open ground among the tents, a large crowd had gathered around a makeshift stage. A tall cross towered over it, high enough to crucify a man, and there, in its shadow, stood Peter Bartholomew. He was speaking, his voice reaching every corner of the crowd.

  ‘This morning, before the sun was up, the holy Saint Peter appeared again before me.’

  A murmur of expectation ran through the crowd.

  ‘I had prayed, in all our names, that the Lord God would show His servant the way to Jerusalem.’

  With Thomas behind me, I pushed my way into the crowd. It swayed and heaved as if possessed by a vital spirit all its own.

  ‘And suddenly Saint Peter was there in a haze of golden light. Two keys swung from his belt, and he held the staff of judgement in his hands. I dropped to my knees.’

  Enraptured by the memory, Peter sank to his knees. Every man and woman in the crowd did likewise.

  ‘“Command me, Lord,” I said, and in an instant I was lifted up high into the air.’ Peter stood and stretched out his arms; the crowd remained kneeling. ‘The wizened earth lay beneath me, her mountains like pebbles and her oceans like pools of rainwater. In the south, a thin river snaked away towards a great city, from where I heard cries and lamentations.

  ‘“What city is that?” I asked, and the saint answered, “Jerusalem.”

  ‘“And why does she cry out?”

  ‘“Because the king of Babylon has come to her. He has set his throne in Solomon’s temple, and has slain every true Christian who resisted him,” said the saint. “You must hasten and relieve her distress.”

  ‘We fell from the sky like thunder and were back in the tent. “This sacred journey is only for the pure of heart,” the saint warned me. “If you wander and are lost, it is because there are sinners among you. You must root them out like weeds among the corn.”

  ‘“My followers are pure and devout,” I protested, but he silenced me with a flash of his eyes. “There are some among your flock who even now blaspheme and sin against the Lord,” he told me. “This very night, the knight Amanieu of Vienne has lain
in adultery with the wife of Reynauld the blacksmith.”’

  Anger hissed through the crowd and they stood, as two people shuffled onto the platform. Both their heads were shaved bare: it was only when they turned to face the audience that I saw to my shock that one was a woman. She stood there in a flimsy grey shift, her eyes swollen and her skull scraped red. A young man, little older than Thomas, stood beside her in a similar state – only the rise of the woman’s breasts under the shift marked them apart. Peter Bartholomew stood between them, holding out his arms so that it looked as if he embraced them.

  ‘The penalty for adultery, laid down in the law of Moses, is death.’

  The crowd stirred, nodding their agreement.

  ‘But Christ taught us to love the sinner. That through true repentance, we could overcome the sinful clay of our flesh and perfect the spark of divine spirit within.’

  He looked slowly at each of his prisoners in turn. Both stood there in silence.

  ‘All sins must be laid bare.’

  Rough hands reached forward, tearing away the grey shifts the adulterers wore. A gasp of sanctimonious delight shot through the crowd. The two lovers stood naked before them, trembling in the chill air but otherwise unmoving. The man wore a cloth tied around his hips, but the woman was entirely naked. Her breasts pricked up in the cold, while the white lines of childbearing spidered her belly like scars. I wondered if her children were in the audience now to see their mother’s shame.

  All around me I felt a charge in the air, the smouldering iron taste on my tongue I had sometimes felt before a storm or a battle. I turned to Thomas.

  ‘Go and find Count Raymond,’ I whispered. ‘Tell him to come with his knights. Go.’

  Thomas’s eyes darted over my shoulder to the stage, mesmerised by the spectacle. I cuffed him on his cheek. ‘Go.’

  He tore his gaze away and pushed out of the crowd. Back on the stage, the adulterers were now on their knees. Two men stood over them with switches in their hands, the green wood quivering.

  Peter Bartholomew stepped back and lifted a hand as if in blessing.

  ‘Thy will be done, O Lord.’

  The hand dropped. An involuntary moan of excitement rose from the crowd and they pushed forward. The switches came down, rose, and dropped again, rising and falling in ever faster rhythm. The crowd had fallen silent, holding themselves still, as though they did not trust themselves even to breathe. Their lips and cheeks were flushed with blood, their bodies taut and erect. Even the women watched without modesty; many seemed more passionate than the men, flinching as each blow struck home. The only sounds were the hiss of wood in the air, and the abrupt snap as it cut into the naked flesh beneath. Soon every blow produced a spray of blood, though not a single droplet stained the whiteness of Peter Bartholomew’s robe. His hands were crossed penitently before him, his lips parted in rapture, but he never closed his eyes or lifted his gaze from the punishment before him. Where was Raymond?

  I suppose I had seen many men beaten in my time, but this sickened me. I could not watch the naked wretches, for even that felt like complicity. I looked over my shoulder, praying that Raymond would come. When I turned back, my gaze involuntarily fell on the stage. The noise of the blows had stopped, and the beaters had lifted up the victims to display their punishment. It was a gruesome sight. Blood had run down their sides and embraced them all around: it trickled down the woman’s breasts, smeared her belly and matted in the fair hair between her thighs. With her bare head, she reminded me terribly of a newborn baby fresh from the womb. The man was in little better state.

  Peter stepped forward. He held himself very still, the quivering restraint of a man who knew the slightest touch might cause him to disgorge himself. A bead of spittle dribbled from his mouth.

  ‘Truly it is said, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents than ninety-nine who never strayed.’ He stretched out his arms again. ‘Do you repent?’

  The battered man cleared his throat, spitting gobs of blood on the stage. ‘I repent,’ he croaked.

  ‘And you?’ Peter turned to the woman, struggling to keep the leer from his face. ‘Do you repent of your sins?’

  She mumbled something I could not hear. It evidently satisfied Peter. He crouched down, and appeared to draw or write something in the blood on the stage with his finger. ‘Your flesh has been made clean, purged with suffering and redeemed in blood.’

  He crooked a beckoning finger towards the crowd. Three men climbed onto the stage, carrying a brazier between them, and set it down beside Peter. He pulled the poker from the fire. A dull orange heat smouldered in its tip, which I saw was forged in the sign of the cross. Two men took the woman by the arms, though she did not resist or even flinch, and turned her to face Peter.

  ‘Receive the mark of Christ as a sign of your penitence. Let it live in your flesh, as He lives in your soul.’

  Somewhere in the distance a rumbling began. Some in the crowd looked to the heavens; others glanced over their shoulders and made the sign of the cross. Peter paused.

  A host of mounted knights broke into the clearing. Tents tottered and collapsed as flying hooves kicked over the stakes and pegs that held them. As they met the pilgrim throng the horsemen turned aside, riding around the fringe of the crowd like dogs herding sheep. Last of all, flanked by four knights in full armour, came Count Raymond. He lowered his lance and trotted forward, using the tip to prise a path between the pilgrims until he could look down at the blood-soaked figures cowering on the stage.

  ‘Amanieu? Amanieu of Vienne? What have these peasants done to you?’ He swung around towards Peter. ‘How dare you touch a knight of mine, let alone inflict . . . this?’ For all the vicious battles he had fought and the blood he had spilled, there was genuine shock in Raymond’s voice.

  Peter put the branding iron back in the brazier. Sparks flew up from the coals. ‘This man was caught in adultery. The laws of Moses and of Christ demand punishment.’

  For all I would willingly have stabbed the branding iron through Peter’s heart at that moment, a part of me marvelled at the transformation wrought in him. Not so long ago he had been a snivelling, pox-scarred wretch of no consequence, who might have died a hundred times over on the march from Constantinople and never been remembered. Now he stood on the dais in his spotless robe and serenely traded words with the greatest prince of the age. What could have changed a man like that?

  Raymond pricked his horse with his spurs and pulled on its reins, so that it reared up. Its hooves flailed in the air, terrifyingly close to Peter Bartholomew’s head.

  ‘I am the authority,’ Raymond snarled. ‘I say who is guilty and what their punishment will be. As for you, even to touch one of my knights is death.’

  ‘This was not my doing,’ protested Peter. ‘My disciple Amanieu, and the woman he lay with – they sinned, and they knew they must be punished. It is to save their own souls. Do you see any bonds restraining them?’

  Raymond turned to the knight.

  ‘Is this true, Amanieu?’

  The knight, naked and streaked with blood, nodded. Raymond spat onto the stage.

  ‘Then you are a fool. A fool for sleeping with that whore, and a thrice-cursed fool for submitting to this peasant’s madness. As for you,’ he hissed at Peter Bartholomew, ‘I raised you from nothing and I can return you to nothing. Do not dare challenge me again.’

  Through all this confrontation, the accused woman had stood at the edge of the stage, bleeding, shivering, naked and forgotten. Now, suddenly, she took three steps towards the brazier and snatched the branding iron from the fire. She held it with both hands, the burning cross pointed towards her, then plunged it into the soft flesh of her breast.

  I never thought a noise alone could rupture a man’s soul, but the woman’s scream of terrible, euphoric agony hit me like poison. I leaned forward and retched, my body unable to stomach the evil. When the scream stopped, I looked up.

  The woman lay sprawled unconscious on
the platform, the smoke of burned flesh rising from her wound. Peter Bartholomew stood over her, a beatific smile adorning his face.

  ‘Go,’ he declared, ‘and sin no more.’

  κε

  Raymond gave his decision that night; the next morning, we struck our camp and headed west for the coast. The road led us down from the plateau where we had camped, into a green, steep-sided valley. To our left, the valley climbed away until it merged with the lower slopes of the distant mountain, while opposite it rose to a series of commanding bluffs and hilltops. We could only see them in snatches, though, for the warmer air in the valley brought a thick mist down over us. Ragged fingers drifted by, curling round as if beckoning us on. From behind, the low melody of the pilgrims’ psalms droned in the fog.

  ‘I hate that sound,’ said Anna. ‘Like a wasp, hovering over your shoulder and waiting to sting.’

  Soft hoofbeats cantered down the line towards us. I half-drew my sword, then let it slide back in its scabbard as I saw Aelfric emerge from the mist. He dropped down from the saddle to walk beside us, leading his horse by its reins.

  ‘The scouts say there’s a castle ahead.’ He jerked a thumb to our right, to the northern side of the valley. ‘High up on those bluffs.’

  I groaned. The ordeal of the day before had drained me as much as any battle, and I could not countenance the thought of having to fight now. ‘Will the castellan let us pass in peace?’

  Aelfric shrugged. ‘I don’t think anyone asked him.’

  ‘Will Raymond attack?’

  ‘He’s a fool if he does. The castle’s perched up there like a crow’s nest. Cliffs on three sides, high walls all around, and probably a garrison ready to roll us straight back down the hill with rocks and boiling pitch. They’ve had plenty of time to know we’re coming.’

  ‘Perhaps they won’t see us in this mist,’ said Sigurd hopefully. Though he untied the leather cover from his axe soon afterwards.

  The fog seemed to lift higher as we moved down the valley. It did little to relieve my spirits. The crest of the ridge to our right was still obscured, and I was constantly glancing up to reassure myself there were not hordes of Saracens waiting to slaughter us. Gradually our pace slowed and our column squeezed up on itself, until even in the lingering mist I could see the clustered banners of Count Raymond’s bodyguard close ahead of us.