Siege of Heaven

by Tom Harper

  We descended to the harbour. A great quantity of crates, sacks and barrels had been piled on the dock, together with some long timbers. In the corner where the harbour walls turned across the bay, an unused sail had been draped over a frame of lashed-together oars to make a rough awning. As we reached the bottom of the hill and stepped out onto the hot stone of the wharf, the figure resting in its shade rose; he did not approach, but stood there waiting, watching while we crossed towards him. The ships’ crews lounged among the cargo, and the smells of salt and alcohol were thick in the air.

  Saewulf had not changed much in the six months since we parted on a freezing January day near Antioch. The leather band was still bound across his forehead, tying back his long brown hair; he had shaved off his beard, though perhaps that had to do with the fresh scar that ran livid down his right cheek. Many men would have been disfigured by the wound, or would have hidden it in self-conscious shame. With Saewulf, it was simply one more line among many. He stood with the same cocky posture, his hands thumbed into his belt and his shoulders thrust back, and still watched the world with the same amused detachment I had seen on that beach in Egypt.

  In contrast to his easy confidence, we must have seemed an awkward and ill-tempered group. Gathered behind Sigurd, we shuffled to a stop in front of the awning and waited nervously, our gazes darting about our surroundings, while the two captains stood and stared each other in the eye in some sort of unspoken contest. All around, the sailors put down their tools and cups to watch us.

  ‘I thought I’d got rid of you twenty years ago, when you deserted Byzantium to go back to the ruin of England.’ Sigurd’s words were slow and clear, carrying to every corner of the harbour.

  Saewulf shrugged. ‘If you had stayed in Byzantium, you would have kept rid of me.’ His eyes played across the group of Varangians behind Sigurd; he saw me and Aelfric and smiled.

  ‘At least two of your men already have reason to be grateful to me. And now perhaps I can help you again – unless you came to Jaffa for fish.’ He swept a hand around the harbour. ‘All the fishermen have gone, I’m afraid. But perhaps I can interest you in my cargo.’

  ‘Why are you here?’ Sigurd stepped closer, looming over his countryman. The Varangians around me put their hands on their axes. ‘Why has a coward like you happened upon this port, five hundred miles from any friendly harbour, with enough supplies to besiege Constantinople? Are you still working for the Normans – or have you whored yourself to someone else since then?’

  Saewulf let Sigurd’s outburst break over him like spray from the bow.

  ‘I work for myself – as I always have.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re very good at it.’ Sigurd had not backed away.

  ‘Good enough to see that when a desperate army besieges a city without any trees, they’ll pay well for wood. Unless, as I said, you came for the fish.’ He squinted at us. ‘What did you do with the men I sent to Jerusalem?’

  ‘We sent them on to Jerusalem to fetch men to carry back your supplies.’

  ‘If they can carry the gold to pay for this, they’ll have enough men to carry back what they buy.’ He saw Sigurd’s scowl of disdain. ‘I’m offering them the keys to Jerusalem. They should pay well enough for that. Besides, it wasn’t easy to bring it here. There are Fatimid ships swarming all over these waters. Three nights ago they would have sunk us, if the wind hadn’t turned.’ He patted one of the nearby casks. ‘If God does want the Franks to have this, then He surely wants them to pay for it.’

  Saewulf glanced out of a narrow window in the seaward wall. It had taken us most of the day to reach Jaffa and the sun was setting, a golden bowl pouring out its rays on the burnished water.

  ‘The Franks won’t be here before tomorrow morning. Stay with us tonight, and I’ll tell you about England.’

  Whatever quarrels he and Sigurd might have had, Saewulf feasted us royally. His men had been out in the hills that day and brought back two boars and a small deer, which they roasted over a fire at the end of the dock. There was no lack of wood here. Waves lapped against the stone piers, fat sizzled in the flames and wine poured freely into cups, spilling as they clashed in toasts, then draining into thirsty throats. For all their captains’ hostility, Saewulf’s crew and Sigurd’s Varangians met each other with the joy of longlost friends, proving their delight in the quantities they drank. Many of the sailors, like Saewulf, had served in the Varangian guard at one time or another, and the rest all seemed to share cousins, half-sisters or friends in common.

  ‘To England,’ Saewulf toasted, raising his glance and then emptying it. ‘You should come back, Sigurd – see what a green country looks like. Escape all this dust and rock.’

  ‘Not while there’s a Norman sitting on the throne,’ said Sigurd. He emptied his own cup and poured another, splashing the wine in his haste.

  ‘You would never see him. You would walk in English fields, eat and drink English bread and beer, and see your grandchildren grow up where they belong. What does it matter who sits in the castles?’

  The wine had infused passion into Saewulf’s usual detachment. His face was flushed, and he waved his hands earnestly as he spoke.

  ‘The Normans stole our country,’ Sigurd insisted.

  ‘England is still there. The white cliffs still stood when I sailed away. The only person who is keeping you out of your home is you, sitting here and sulking over injustices you suffered more than thirty years ago.’

  ‘What should I have done? Surrendered to them like you did?’

  ‘Surrendered?’ Saewulf laughed, the cup swaying in his hand. ‘Do you think I got down on my knees in front of King William and swore him allegiance? I have never seen him in my life. If I sailed you back to England tonight, do you think he would be standing on Pevensey beach to meet you – to fight you in single combat for the crown of the realm?’ Sigurd made to interrupt, but Saewulf carried on over him. ‘You’re no more to him than the mud on the sole of his boot. The only person who cares about your righteous exile is you. And when you’re on your deathbed, what will you tell your grandchildren? That you wasted your life because you could not bear to let go of your hatred? That your pride would rather you served a foreign king in a foreign land than live in your own?’

  ‘I would rather serve the man I choose, than the man who tore away my country, who killed my father and raped my family.’

  ‘That man died twelve years ago. One of his sons rules England now – and another, as I hear it, is a prince in your Army of God. Have you noticed that the emperor you adopted to escape the Normans has now sent you to fight beside them?’

  ‘The emperor takes his allies as he needs them,’ said Sigurd tightly.

  ‘And he abandons them when they’re no more use to him.’ Saewulf rose, swaying, though whether that was the effect of wine or his habit of being at sea I could not tell. ‘I know what you think of me – that you stand fast and defend your oaths while I go where the wind blows.’

  ‘And where the money calls.’

  ‘And where the money calls,’ Saewulf agreed. He was slurring his words now, slopping wine over the rim of his cup as he waved his arms. ‘But there’s nothing noble clinging to a rock when the tide is rising. Especially if the rock turns out to be nothing but sand.’

  Sigurd lumbered to his feet, his face red in the firelight. ‘I came to Byzantium as an orphan: without family, without a home, without even a country. Now I am a captain of the guard in an empire that was young when our ancestors hadn’t even learned to build boats.’

  ‘An empire that has only survived so long by buying barbarians like you in the dark times – then throwing you out with the night soil the moment they see the dawn.’

  ‘Liar!’ bellowed Sigurd. ‘The emperor has never betrayed me. I stood beside him at the battle of Paradunavum, when almost every other man in his army had deserted or been slaughtered, and when we took our revenge four years later at Lebunium, I was at his side again. Are you telling me that instead of
that, I should have spent those years scratching at soil that the Normans had left barren, grovelling in the dust each time a Norman rode by and praying his eye wouldn’t fall on my daughter?’

  ‘I’m telling you that when you’re among your own people, you know who your enemies are.’ Saewulf reached out and grabbed the golden ring on Sigurd’s arm, pulling him forward like a bull. ‘The emperor you love so much may have thrown you some crumbs when he was in trouble, but now he has betrayed you. Do you know why I have arrived here with a ship full of siege equipment?’

  They were standing almost chest to chest now, Saewulf’s fingers still tight on Sigurd’s arm. I was amazed at his boldness. Sigurd towered over him; for a moment I thought he might slam his forehead against Saewulf’s skull in rage. But the sea-captain’s question had surprised him.

  ‘Did the emperor send you?’

  Saewulf laughed. ‘The emperor sent the siege weapons – but not to Jerusalem, and not on my ship. I took them off a Cypriot convoy we surprised two weeks ago at sea.’

  ‘Piracy.’ Sigurd almost spat the word in Saewulf’s face. Saewulf shrugged it off.

  ‘Where do you suppose the Cypriot captain told me he was going with his cargo? To Jaffa, to help the poor Franks? No. He was going to Alexandria, to deliver these supplies to the Fatimid caliph to use against the Franks when he brings his army up to Jerusalem.’

  Sigurd tried to pull away, but Saewulf kept a tight hold on his armband. ‘The emperor you love so much has betrayed the Franks – and you. You can hardly move on the seas out there for all the imperial grain ships hurrying to Egypt. The emperor has found new allies; now he will cast his old ones into the fire.’ He laughed again, a taunting, harrowing laugh. ‘At least he has betrayed the Franks because he wants to get Antioch back from them. You, who served him so faithfully, have been discarded simply because he cannot be bothered to save you.’

  With a roar of anger, Sigurd tore himself from Saewulf’s grip, picked him up and hurled him against a pile of barrels. They tumbled over and rolled around the wharf like pigs on their backs. Sigurd bounded towards his opponent, but this was not the first dockside brawl Saewulf had fought. He was already on his feet, crouching low; he ducked aside as Sigurd sprang past him, kicking the Varangian’s feet from under him so that he sprawled on the stones.

  I looked around. Dozens of ruddy faces were watching the fight, but none moved.

  Sigurd got up, brushing dirt from his tunic. ‘Liar,’ he shouted again at Saewulf. ‘Why should I believe the word of a pirate and a traitor?’ He looked around, defying anyone in the crowd to defend Saewulf. ‘Would we be here if the emperor had betrayed us? Would we have spent the last two years fighting beside the Franks, crawling through deserts and over mountains?’ He was staring straight at me, and my face must have revealed the truth for he took a step towards me and demanded again, more loudly, ‘Would we?’

  I had never told him what Nikephoros revealed to me the night before he died. I couldn’t have. How can you knock down the pillar of a man’s world? But my silence told him enough. All I could do was shake my head in misery.

  Howling like a wounded ox, like Samson chained in the temple, Sigurd raised his arms and charged. Saewulf tried to sidestep him again but was too slow; Sigurd thumped into him and together, grappling and struggling, gouging and biting, they lurched across the dock. The men about them leaped to their feet, but none moved to help. They knew this was not their fight. I stood with them, watching, numb with desolation. How had it come to this?

  Sigurd and Saewulf staggered to the edge of the dock. Ripples of light reflected on the water below, as if the sea itself had turned into a pool of fire. For a moment I saw them silhouetted against it, two dark shapes locked in inexorable combat. Then, with a cry and an almighty splash, they toppled off the edge of the wharf and fell into the water.

  We rushed to the side and looked down. Two heads bobbed in the harbour, their arms flailing around them to keep afloat. The shock of the water and the risk of drowning had finally driven them apart, each more concerned with saving himself than destroying his opponent. With much splashing and spluttering, they paddled across to the harbour stairs and hauled themselves out.

  ‘Drowning me won’t change the truth,’ said Saewulf. ‘Nor will drowning yourself.’

  Sigurd shook himself like a dog, and stalked away.

  There were no more songs that night. The sailors and Varangians scattered around the harbour, making their beds wherever they could or wherever the wine overtook them. Sigurd found himself a niche in the wall and collapsed there alone, cursing away any man who came near him. As for me, the fire had burned low before I got to sleep. But once I did, I found to my surprise that I slept more peacefully than I had in weeks. Perhaps it was the wine; perhaps I had simply reached a place beyond hope or fear. Either way, I lay on the deck of one of the ships, letting it rock me like a cradle, and slept without dreams until the sun had climbed over the knuckle of the hill and started to warm my face.

  But perhaps it was just another trick of the fates. For if I had slept less, and listened more closely to the darkness, maybe it would not have been so late before I discovered our new danger.

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  ‘How badly do you want my cargo?’

  I opened my eyes. Saewulf was crouching over me, the dawn light soft on his scarred face. Red weals and bruises bore witness to his struggle with Sigurd the night before.

  ‘How badly do you want your siege equipment?’ he asked again.

  I lifted myself on one elbow. My mouth was dry, my head uneasy from too much wine the night before. ‘What do you mean?’ A horrible thought struck me. ‘Do you want money?’ I looked to see if he had a knife in his hands. He did not, but the fish-handled dagger was still tucked in his belt within easy reach. Had Sigurd been right about him?

  He bared his teeth at me. ‘This isn’t about money. Come.’

  He dragged me to my feet and led me onto the dock, up a crumbling flight of stairs to the rampart atop the harbour walls. He pointed out to sea.

  ‘That is what I mean.’

  It was a scene the ancient poets could well have recognised. The rose-fingered dawn reached down to the water, her caresses stirring rippling waves. The sea shone with a blinding light, and a fresh wind blew in from the west. Birds soared in the cloudless sky, then swooped down in search of fish, barely disturbing the waves as they dived beneath them. And there, black as flies against the shimmering water, a fleet of ships sailed towards the harbour.

  ‘Are they . . . ours?’

  Saewulf shook his head soberly. ‘Egyptian.’

  I counted them – eight, against six of Saewulf’s ships in the harbour behind me. Glancing back, I could see his crew still sprawled around the docks, slowly beginning to stir as word of their danger spread.

  ‘Can we fight them?’

  ‘Not at sea – not with an onshore wind.’ He turned to me. ‘So, how badly do you want that cargo?’

  If it would help me get inside Jerusalem and reach my family, more than life. But I could not carry it back singlehanded – nor stand alone against the Fatimids.

  ‘How badly do you want your gold?’

  Saewulf grinned, though there was no humour behind it. ‘That cargo cost me nothing. I could as easily have thrown it overboard as bring it here.’

  ‘But you did bring it here.’

  ‘And now I’m trapped.’ Saewulf looked around, his eyes ever calculating. ‘Each one of those Egyptian ships carries more men than my entire crew. They’re armed with catapults and naphtha throwers. If they get into the harbour’ – he gestured to the hawser, which sagged across the harbour mouth – ‘they’ll burn us down like haystacks.’ He brushed his hand over the rampart. A trickle of mortar and rubble crumbled away at his touch. ‘We won’t get much defence out of these walls. If you value your life, you’ll run inland as fast as you can. They won’t risk straying too far from their ships – unless they’ve got allies on shore on the way.’<
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  ‘But we have allies coming too. If your men reached Jerusalem, then the Franks should have sent men to collect the cargo. They might even come this morning.’

  ‘And if they don’t?’

  I shrugged, helplessly. Looking out to sea, I could see the Fatimid ships roving towards us, ever closer. ‘I would not count on them to save us.’

  ‘Then we’d better fight hard.’

  I stared at him. ‘You’ll stay?’

  Saewulf shrugged. ‘I’m a sailor – I’ll stay with my ships. And hope your reinforcements come quickly.’

  As if to mock his words, a crack echoed from the deck of the foremost Egyptian ship. A clay canister, pink like the sun, sailed through the air over our heads. We spun about to follow its arc, watching it drop into the harbour just past the hull of Saewulf’s flagship. It seemed to bounce on the surface of the water, then slowly sank. Steam blew from its spout as the water met the burning oil inside.

  ‘Christ’s shit.’ Saewulf looked down at the docks, at the drowsy sailors stirring themselves from sleep. The cargo lay stacked all about them; suddenly all the timber, sacking and barrels looked like nothing so much as piles of kindling waiting for the match.

  ‘We’re sitting on top of our own pyre,’ Saewulf muttered. ‘We need to clear it off the docks.’

  I hardly cared for myself, but the siege materials were our last, best chance of breaking into Jerusalem. If they turned to ash, so did all our hopes. Even as I watched, another oil canister shot out from the Fatimid fleet. This one carried all the way over the harbour and smashed against one of the warehouses that lined the shore. There was a flash as the pottery vessel exploded into shards, and then a burst of oily smoke. Liquid fire slithered down the stone wall. Over my shoulder, out to sea, three splashes rose as a ranging flight of arrows dipped into the water. With the white feathers on their tails, they almost looked like the diving gulls.