Siege of Heaven

by Tom Harper

  ‘The question is: do we have the strength to fight our way to Jerusalem, and then into the city itself?’ said Godfrey.

  ‘And even if we do, how many will be left when we have finished?’ asked Raymond.

  The red-haired priest, who showed not the least awe at being in such exalted company, sniffed. ‘We should count each of the fallen as nothing less than a blessing from God. You know Pope Urban’s promise: all who die in battle against the Ishmaelites shall have remission of sins, and will feast on the fruits of the kingdom of heaven.’

  ‘Even if we did want to accept the Egyptians’ offer,’ said Godfrey, ‘how are we to know it is honest? “Come to Jerusalem unarmed, in small groups,” he says. But what if when we step into the holy city we find a host of Ishmaelites waiting to cut us down?’

  There were murmurs of agreement around the tent.

  ‘What do we know of the way the Fatimids honour their oaths? A year ago we sent four of our most trusted knights to negotiate with them. Only three have returned. Why not ask them if the caliph’s offer is sincere?’

  The others nodded. Achard pushed through to the front and stood before the princes, his bulbous eyes staring at them. He had not washed or changed since his journey: he stood before them in the same dusty tunic, the same dirty bandage tied over the stump of his arm, his face still unshaven. Every man watched him, yet none would meet his gaze.

  ‘I will tell you how much you can trust the king of the Egyptians.’ He twitched his stump. ‘He is the enemy: he was born in Babylon and he has come to Jerusalem to take his seat in the temple of God. I have seen it.’

  For a moment a stunned silence overtook the crowded tent; then it erupted in an incredulous clamour.

  ‘You have seen Jerusalem?’ Godfrey asked, when the noise had subsided.

  The scars on Achard’s face were set hard with pride. ‘I have. We passed through it on our way here.’

  ‘Praise be to God,’ the Duke of Normandy murmured, touching the cross he wore. ‘Then you have walked the holy way, and knelt by the tomb of Christ.’

  Achard lifted his head with disdain. ‘I have not. I refused to set foot in the city while it lay captive to the pagans. When I enter it, I will come as a conqueror fulfilling the destiny of Christ – not as a hostage.’

  ‘Then you would reject the Egyptians’ offer?’ Godfrey asked gently.

  Achard answered with a horrible, sneering laugh. ‘Their presence in the city is an abomination before God: and the city will not be cleaned or made new until it has been washed in their blood.’

  The chamber erupted in approval. Men stamped their feet on the ground and clapped their hands together; they shouted amens and cried to the Lord to bring them swiftly to Jerusalem.

  ‘You should go at once,’ Achard agreed, when he could be heard again. ‘God has opened the way.’

  ‘Has He?’ asked Raymond. Through all the cheering he had barely made a sound, tapping one hand half-heartedly on the arm of his chair.

  ‘Yes.’ The tumult seemed to have fired Achard’s soul: he stood straighter, his shoulders stiff and his face burnished with colour. ‘Do you think the Egyptians would have allowed us to return, or sent you this offer now, if they were as strong as they pretend? I did not set foot inside Jerusalem, but I saw the garrison there. The walls are fearsome, yes, but not impregnable. The Ishmaelites took the city after a siege of only forty days. Surely God would deliver it to us even faster.’

  ‘And the road from here to Jerusalem?’ pressed Raymond. ‘What of that?’

  Achard shrugged. ‘The Fatimids say they have mastered all of Palestine. But when we came here from Jerusalem, we travelled by night and camped in hidden places. I do not think the coastal cities are loyal to Egypt. If we arrived at their gates and said we had come to overthrow the Egyptian invaders, I think they would welcome us with food and speed us on our way.’

  The tent was suddenly alive with optimism, babbling with questions and hope. Several of the princes declared that they would march on Jerusalem that very night. Achard shook off their enthusiasm, lifting his one arm like a gallows to recapture their attention.

  ‘I have not reported everything I learned on my travels.’ His voice was severe; the colour had drained from his face, so that the scars stood out in a livid web against the skin. ‘While I was held captive in Egypt, a delegation of Greeks arrived to treat with the caliph. Two of them are in this room now.’

  He swung around to fix his bulging stare on Nikephoros, and me behind him. The men around us seemed to shrink away: others craned their heads to stare.

  ‘We went to Egypt for the same reason as you,’ said Nikephoros. ‘Because we thought the Egyptians might join us against the Turks, when the Turks still held Jerusalem.’

  ‘So you said. But I learned differently. Your real purpose was to make an alliance with the Ishmaelites against us, to annihilate our army and divide the lands we had conquered between you.’ As shock and anger hissed around the room, he stepped forward and stabbed a finger towards us. ‘Do you deny it?’

  Standing behind Nikephoros I could not see his face, but I saw him stiffen as though an arrow had ripped through his heart. Before he could answer, Raymond said uncertainly, ‘This is a solemn charge against our closest allies. How could you know it?’

  ‘Because their treachery was too much even for the Fatimid vizier to stomach. When he granted the Greek an audience, he hid me in a secret room behind his chamber so that I could see and hear it for myself.’

  A silence of condemnation gripped the crowded tent. Nikephoros held himself still, swaying slightly like a man on a high wall trying to keep his balance.

  ‘Yes, there was treachery in Egypt.’

  A hiss, confirmation of every wickedness and evil the Franks had ever imputed to the Greeks.

  ‘But it was not mine. The viper king of the Egyptians, the high priest of their heresy, has tried to confound us at every turn. He has dangled alliances or threatened war as his whim permits. And now that he fears his black hands are about to be prised off the holy city, he has tricked this poor broken knight into thinking he saw something he did not. He has tried to break apart the holy union at the heart of this army, the alliance of all Christians from east and west.’ He looked around at the assembled princes, knights and bishops. ‘I trust you will have the wisdom to recognise the lies of the devil when they creep into your councils.’

  ‘The lies of the devil?’ screeched Achard. ‘These are not lies. These are things I saw and heard with my own eyes and ears. Does anyone say I have been possessed by the devil?’

  ‘You have been in his power – as we all were in Egypt. The devil is the prince of illusions. In his palace, how could you be sure of anything you saw? Was there a fire burning in the room?’

  ‘It was October.’

  ‘And there was a sweet smell in its smoke – as if spices or incense had been sprinkled on the flames?’

  ‘There was. But–’

  ‘And candles burning?’

  ‘You seem to know a great deal about the scene,’ said Godfrey.

  ‘I know how the devil works his snares – the better to resist them. I am not ashamed of it. The emperor Alexios made sure that I did not go to the arch-fiend’s palace unprepared.’

  ‘Or perhaps you went to meet one of your own,’ snapped Achard.

  Nikephoros looked around. ‘Everyone can see that Achard has suffered terribly at the hands of the Fatimids. Perhaps he blames the Greeks, because God ordained that some of us should escape while he did not. Perhaps he was enchanted by demons, or perhaps his tormented mind conjured memories of things that never happened. But you do not have to choose his word or mine against each other. Look around you: use reason. If the emperor had turned against you, would his grain ships be crowding the seas between here and Cyprus to bring the food you rely on to support your armies? Would he be sending you subsidies of gold, fresh arms and horses?’

  He dropped his voice. ‘You can believe the word of
an addled knight who has spent too long in the bosom of the enemy, or you can believe the word of a lord of Byzantium. For the sake of our great undertaking, I hope you see clearly when you choose the truth.’

  A fresh silence descended on the tent as the princes considered his words. Raymond looked eager to speak, even opened his mouth to do so, then retreated as he realised his word would carry less weight than others’.

  ‘No one can question the emperor’s generosity to us,’ said Godfrey. ‘It has sustained us through many hardships, and – God willing – will help speed us to Jerusalem. Achard must have been mistaken.’

  The others nodded, though without enthusiasm. Achard, however, looked mortified. The stump of his arm tensed and quivered, as if he were shaking an invisible fist; his eyes bulged so far out that it seemed only the veins around their edges held them in.

  ‘I was not enchanted,’ he screamed. ‘I walked freely into the heart of Babylon, into the palace of the damned. I suffered torments you can barely imagine and I did it willingly, for the glory of Christ. And now you tell me that I did not see what I saw?’ He slammed the palm of his hand against the stub of his truncated arm, never wincing. ‘What about this? Will you say that there is a healthy arm here, that my leg does not ache each time I step on it, that the burns and scars that the caliph’s torturers carved into my body are figments of my imagination? Did I dream it?’

  ‘No one questions what you endured,’ said Raymond hurriedly. ‘The ancient martyrs themselves would stand in awe of your strength. You will be honoured with gold, with lands, with men – I will give you a company of my own knights to command.’ He stood and walked forward, embraced Achard and offered him the kiss of peace. ‘But the Greeks are vital allies. Loyal allies. What you say about them cannot be true.’

  He retook his seat, so that Achard stood alone in the ring of princes. I could see two attendants hovering behind him, waiting to take him away, though they did not dare approach. He looked around wildly, his staring eyes accusing every man in the room. No one met his gaze. Tears ran down his cheeks; out of habit he lifted his left arm to wipe them away, then realised he could not. He turned, and ran out of the tent.

  ‘God go with him,’ said Godfrey softly. ‘This was not his fault.’

  λδ

  The Fatimid envoys departed that afternoon: it was not safe for them to stay longer in the camp. Count Raymond sent a troop of cavalry to escort them to a safe distance and I rode with them – though Nikephoros berated me for it afterwards. It was not good for Byzantines and Fatimids to be seen in company, he warned me.

  ‘Will you return to Egypt?’ I asked Bilal. We rode together, he on his camel and I on the dirty-grey palfrey I had commandeered at Saint Simeon and ridden ever since.

  ‘No.’ He did not look at me as he spoke; his eyes were forever scanning the road ahead, the undergrowth by the wayside, the slopes above, always searching for danger. ‘I will join the army at Jerusalem.’

  ‘Then we may meet again.’

  ‘I hope not. Not there.’

  We rode on. ‘If only Christ had gone to die on a rock somewhere out at sea,’ I said.

  ‘And if the prophet had been taken up to heaven from some scrap of sand in the desert.’

  I gave a sad laugh. ‘Then men would have built shrines and castles over those places, and found some reason to fight each other for them.’

  ‘Truly.’ Bilal’s gaze wandered over the trees to our left. Suddenly, he stiffened. ‘What is that?’

  ‘Where?’

  Without answering, Bilal swung himself out of his saddle and leaped down. His sword seemed to be in his hand before he had even touched the ground. He ran into the forest but did not go far – I could see his yellow cloak bright between the branches. With a great rustling and squawks of protest, a startled flock of crows rose up into the air.

  ‘Well done,’ I called. ‘You’ve saved us from an ambush by birds.’

  ‘It wasn’t the birds,’ he shouted back, and the grimness in his voice silenced my humour utterly. ‘Come and see.’

  I dismounted and followed cautiously through the gap he had entered. The air was cooler in the forest, and darker: I needed a moment before my eyes could adjust. Though even before I could see, I could smell what was coming.

  Bilal pointed into the air, his other hand holding his cloak over his mouth to block out the stench. A few feet off the ground, a foul object hung from the branch of an oak tree. I could not call him a man: the crows and carrioneaters had seen to that. His skin was blackened, his belly bloated and his toes eaten away. A brown tunic, sprayed with blood and soaked with his bile, hung in tatters from his shoulders – it seemed the only things holding the body together were the noose around his neck and the belt about his waist.

  Driving back my horror, I looked closer at the belt. It was made of black leather, finely made and with the design of an eagle worked into it. A belt that I had seen before, clasped around a camelskin robe.

  ‘I knew this . . . man. He was . . .’ It was too hard to explain. ‘He assisted a holy man in our camp.’

  ‘Did he owe you money?’

  Bilal pointed to the ground. A little distance from the body, a small pool of silver trickled from the mouth of an open sack.

  ‘Whoever did this, it was not thieves.’ Bilal turned to me. ‘You said you knew him. When did he go missing?’

  I thought back to our encounter in the clearing. ‘About a week ago.’

  ‘Then he must have come here soon afterwards.’

  ‘He had plenty of reasons to flee. He must have hanged himself in remorse.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Bilal pointed to the corpse, twisting this way and that with the flex of the rope. ‘But did he tie his hands behind his back first?’

  An impatient voice called from the road in Arabic.

  ‘I must go,’ said Bilal. ‘We have many miles to travel, and I should not be seen with the body. You will bury him?’

  I nodded.

  Bilal sheathed his sword and walked back to the road. ‘This is a bad omen at the start of a journey.’

  ‘I will pray you arrive safely.’

  ‘And I will pray to God that you travel safely too.’ Bilal clapped me on the shoulder. ‘But not to Jerusalem.’

  Sigurd and I buried what remained of John in the forest. I hesitated as to whether to put a cross over his grave, for I was not sure he had been true to Christ either in life or in death, but in the end I decided it was not for me to judge. I tied a branch across the trunk of a tree and let that stand for a marker, though the only rope I had to use was the one that had hanged him. Then I returned to the camp, and went up the hill to pay a last visit to Peter Bartholomew.

  It had been a full week since his ordeal. A few of his followers still held vigils outside the tent, but it was easy enough to thread my way through them. The three tents still stood in their rough horseshoe, though the ground around them was churned to dust like a battlefield. Eight knights from Count Raymond’s household guarded the door.

  ‘I want to pray a while with Peter Bartholomew,’ I told them. A thick spear-point swung down to discourage me.

  ‘Peter Bartholomew is close to God. No one is allowed in his presence.’

  ‘I would pay for the privilege.’ I held up the purse and the guard felt it, pleased and surprised by the weight. He did not even trouble to haggle. ‘You are only buying a few moments with Peter Bartholomew,’ he warned me. ‘And no souvenirs.’

  I ducked into the tent. The guard watched from the door, though I could hardly have stolen anything. By the light coming in through the open flap I could see that the room was as bare as a monk’s cell. Peter Bartholomew lay on a low bed, covered in a linen sheet that would surely become his shroud. Only his face protruded, swaddled in bandages, which left only his eyes and nose exposed. Even that hardly seemed necessary, for his eyes were shut and his breathing faint.

  I looked around, then back at the guard.

  ‘Where are his possessi
ons?’

  The guard stiffened. ‘I told you: no relics.’

  ‘I don’t want relics. But I heard he had a manuscript, a sacred text that foretold many things to come. I hoped to see it.’ I glanced down at Peter to see if he had heard me, but he had not moved.

  ‘The priest took all Peter Bartholomew’s belongings for safe-keeping – to protect them from thieves and relic-hunters. You said you came to pray,’ he added pointedly.

  I knelt beside Peter’s bed, careful not to touch him, and offered a silent prayer for his soul. He had raised himself up like Lucifer to dizzying heights of pride, until he vied with God Himself. But I wondered if that was truly the cause of his demise – or if it had been brought on not by his threat to God, but to men.

  I leaned forward, stifling my nose against the stench of burned and rotting flesh, and kissed him on his bandaged cheek.

  ‘God forgive you, and bring you to His peace at last,’ I whispered.

  Five days later, Peter Bartholomew died. They buried him in the high valley, beneath the scorched earth where he had suffered his passion. Many in the army scoffed and said that death had proved him a fraud, but for every man who disbelieved there was another who held that Peter had survived the fire, that he only died from being trampled by his disciples when he emerged. And every day that we were in Arqa, and for years afterwards, pilgrims would gather at his grave and wait, praying for a miracle that never came.

  But by then, I had other concerns.

  λε

  The siege of Arqa was failing: everyone knew it. Everyone, at least, except Count Raymond. He had suffered the death of Peter Bartholomew as an almost personal affront, and would not countenance leaving Arqa until he had restored his reputation by its capture. And so his reputation only suffered more.

  One evening, three weeks after Peter Bartholomew had been laid in the earth, Raymond summoned Nikephoros and me to his quarters. There was still light in the sky, but in Raymond’s tents all the lamps were lit. His melancholy seemed to have subsided: his eye was bright, and he moved with more energy than I had seen in months. He held a thick piece of paper, with cut strings and broken seals dangling off it like cobwebs.