Siege of Heaven (24 page)

‘They all are.’ He gave me a crooked look, taking in our travel-stained clothes and weary faces. ‘They’ve come here for a council – though to call it a parley would be nearer the mark. All of them: Count Raymond, the Count of Flanders, the Duke of Normandy, Tancred, Bohemond . . .’ He paused, counting them off on his fingers. ‘And Duke Godfrey.’

A Provençal knight led us to a high-walled villa in the centre of the town, where the blue banner of Provence and the white standard of the Army of God hung by the gate. Aelfric waited outside, while a small priest with a harelip brought us through many guarded doors to a wide chamber deep in the house. Rich carpets laid three or four deep covered the floor and lined the walls, steaming slightly where the lamps had been placed too close to them. A smouldering brazier filled the room with hot smoke; at the back, on a table of its own amid a constellation of candles, sat the golden reliquary with the fragment of the holy lance.

The harelipped priest motioned us to stay by the door and advanced to the middle of the room, where a slumped
figure sat in a chair beside the brazier. A thick blanket was drawn over him, though he still seemed to shiver underneath it. The priest whispered in his ear, then beckoned us closer.

Whatever had happened in the months we had been away, it had not been kind to Count Raymond. He had always been the oldest of the princes – twice my age, I thought – but now the years showed. There was little trace of the vigour that had held together his army outside Antioch, and no authority in his bearing. His iron-grey hair had turned white, and his single eye was kept half closed.

‘You have returned from Egypt,’ he mumbled. ‘I thought you had died there.’

Nikephoros did not even bother to bow. ‘We nearly did. What has happened in our absence?’

‘Bohemond has taken Antioch.’ The cry rose from within him as if dragged out by torturers’ hooks. Nikephoros remained impassive.

‘I know. We were there two days ago.’

The count leaned forward, spilling the blanket off his chest. ‘Then you know what must be done. In Constantinople, I bowed to the emperor as my liege-lord and offered him homage. Now is the time for him to honour his obligation and come to my aid.’

‘The emperor knows you are his closest ally and most faithful servant.’ Nikephoros contrived to look suitably sympathetic. ‘But you forget, my lord count, that we have just returned from four months’ absence. There are too
many things we do not understand. Why you and Bohemond and all the Army of God are not at the gates of Jerusalem, for example.’

Count Raymond stiffened, but ordered his servants to bring us seats and hot wine. Nikephoros took only the merest sip.

‘It is all Bohemond’s doing,’ Raymond began. ‘Everything – or rather nothing – that we have accomplished since summer is his fault. It was madness to trust him – a man who came without an acre of land to his name; a man his own father disinherited. He never meant to go to Jerusalem. He has used us to sustain his ambition, and now that he has his prize he has turned on us.’ Raymond gestured to the gilded casket behind him. ‘He has even questioned the authenticity of the relic of the holy lance.’

Nikephoros drummed two fingers against his cup. ‘This is not news. Bohemond had more than half of Antioch before we had even left. You were supposed to draw him out by leading the army on to Jerusalem.’

‘That is what Bohemond wants!’ Raymond thumped a fist on the wooden arm of his chair. ‘Nothing would satisfy him more than if I set out for Jerusalem now. You have seen the state of my army here – and the rest, at Ma’arat, are no better. The Saracens would massacre them before we even reached the coast. Bohemond would sit safe in Antioch, unchallenged, and your emperor would have lost his last ally.’

Nikephoros pursed his lips. ‘What happened to Phokas?
My colleague, the eunuch? He was supposed to stay here and advise you.’

‘Much use he was. He should have advised himself to stay away. The plague took him almost before you’d left for Egypt.’

And what of Anna and Sigurd?
I ached to know. But Nikephoros had already continued. ‘And Duke Godfrey? The other princes? Where do they stand?’

‘Hah! Without Bishop Adhemar, each looks to his own interests. Every day they come out and announce they want nothing more than to reach Jerusalem. Then they retire to their tents to sniff their own farts, trying to divine if it will be Bohemond or me they should support. I am sixty-six years old, and I am the only man with the balls to withstand him. Until the emperor comes.’

‘No.’ Nikephoros rose. ‘Even if I could get word to the emperor straight away, he would not be able to come until the summer. You cannot afford to wait that long. You are locked in this struggle with Bohemond, but his feet are planted on the rock of Antioch and yours are in the mire of Ma’arat. You will not win this test of strength.’

‘What would you have me do then?’ Raymond’s defiance was gone, and I heard only an old man’s despair.

‘If someone is pushing against you with all his might, it is easier to unbalance him by stepping backwards than forwards.’

‘Not when you’re standing on the edge of a cliff.’ His words choked off in a fit of haggard coughing. He wiped his mouth on his blanket and continued. ‘There are many
voices that say the same as you. The soldiers offered to acclaim me as leader of the whole army if I would lead them to Jerusalem. Did you know that?’

‘What did you say?’

‘I accepted, of course. I
will
lead the Army of God to Jerusalem, and if God wills it we will take it for Christ. As soon as Bohemond surrenders Antioch.’

‘You do not need Antioch,’ Nikephoros persisted. ‘It is a distraction.’

‘Of course I do not need Antioch,’ Raymond hissed. ‘But that is not a reason why Bohemond should have it either.’

A thought struck me. ‘What do the pilgrims say?’

The great swarm of peasants who followed the army like flies had never been happy with delay: rightly, for they only ever suffered or starved by it. At Antioch their frustrations had led many to question the authority of the princes – and some to ask still more dangerous questions.

‘The pilgrims can afford a simpler view of affairs,’ said Raymond shortly. ‘They hunger for Jerusalem, but my priests trim their appetites with a diet of humility and obedience. And Peter Bartholomew holds great sway over their thoughts.’

‘The visionary? The same Peter Bartholomew who found the holy lance?’ I glanced at the reliquary again in its shining forest of candles.

Raymond’s single eye swivelled towards me with suspicion. We both knew that Peter Bartholomew’s journey to sanctity had been a circuitous one. ‘The same.’

‘Do you trust him to keep the pilgrims quiet?’

‘I hold the lance: he is bound to me. Besides, what do peasants know? They are unhappy, of course; they always are. They say we should have taken Jerusalem months ago, and that all our quarrels are just the vanity. But these are the same simpletons who believed that God would give them an invulnerable shield against Turkish arrows. When I see spears and arrows bouncing off them like rocks, then I will let them dictate my strategy.’

‘And if they do not let you wait that long?’

Nikephoros was giving me a strange look, irritated by my interruption but intrigued by my purpose. I kept my eyes on Raymond, who had half-risen from his chair in anger.

‘I will wait as long as I choose, until the last peasant has rotted into the mud if necessary. I am the lord of thirteen counties, honoured by popes and the rightful captain of the Army of God. When Bohemond takes down his banners from Antioch and surrenders the keys to the citadel, and marches out his army, then we will join him on the road to Jerusalem. Until then, I will stay here and throttle him.’

‘His fixation with Bohemond will be his ruin,’ said Nikephoros darkly as we walked away. In a side-street, two women were fighting over what looked like a dog’s leg. One held the paw while the other pulled on the haunch, their thin faces scarlet with the effort. The woman with the paw let go and her adversary tumbled back into the
mud, screeching with triumph that turned to anguish as the first woman stepped over her and stole the trophy away.

‘Does that matter?’ All I cared about now was finding Anna and Sigurd – and then going home. Other men could quarrel over Jerusalem if they chose – though I doubted they would ever see it.

Nikephoros stopped in the road and turned to look at me. ‘Of course it matters. Nothing has changed, except that we must try even harder to work Bohemond out of Antioch. And Count Raymond, Christ help us, is our last hope for doing that.’

I let my eyes sweep across the street, to the woman still lying in the mud lamenting her lost meal, and a ramshackle troop of Provençal soldiers picking their way up the slope. One had no boots and two others had no weapons. I gestured to them.

‘Do you think we will take Antioch with those?’

‘Of course not.’ Nikephoros turned away impatiently and continued on. ‘Did you listen to what I told the count? We must draw Bohemond out of Antioch.’

‘How?’

‘By going to Jerusalem.’

I ran after Nikephoros and stepped in front of him, blocking his path. ‘Jerusalem is a myth, a lie concocted by priests and sold to peasants.’ I realised that I was shouting, that passers-by were looking with crooked eyes at the mad Greek raving in a foreign tongue. I did not care. ‘This army will die here. Not one man will ever see Jerusalem and
even if they do, it will not solve one single thing.’

Nikephoros’ cold eyes looked down on mine; clouds of air formed and dispersed between us as he breathed out.

‘The man who conquers Jerusalem will be a legend through the ages – a hero to rank with Caesar and Alexander. His power and authority will be boundless.’

‘Powerful enough to take on Bohemond?’

Nikephoros gave the cruel laugh I had heard so often. ‘Powerful enough that Bohemond will not allow it to be anyone but himself. If he sees Raymond is about to conquer Jerusalem, he will flay his horse alive to be there first.’

‘But if Bohemond takes Jerusalem it will be his power that is magnified.’

Nikephoros shrugged. ‘What does it matter? He will be out of Antioch. That is all the emperor cares for.’ He leaned closer, almost whispering in my ear. ‘Yes, Jerusalem is a myth for peasants. But it is also a myth peddled to kings and princes, a myth that inspires men to greatness and folly. This army will reach Jerusalem. You and I will see that it does – even if we have to carry Count Raymond every mile ourselves.’

A gust of wind howled down off the mountains, whipping the snowflakes around us into turmoil. In the field beside us, a tent broke free from its guy ropes and billowed up, snapping like ravenous jaws, while men ran about in the firelight trying to hold it down. Nikephoros clapped his hands to force warmth into them.

‘But hopefully it will not come to that. Not if we can persuade others to do our work for us.’

The snow was falling more thickly now, the flakes spiralling down like dust in the silver moonlight. The world closed off: the only sound was the faint protest as the snow underfoot yielded to our boots. I did not know where we were going, and I did not ask. How long had I been walking? I had marched across the plains and steppes of Anatolia in the legions; I had tramped the streets of the queen of cities, from sewers and slums to the imperial palaces, seeking wickedness and finding it all too often. I had walked – barely – over mountains, through the gates of Antioch and into the deserts of Egypt. Snow touched my face, melted, and ran down my cheeks like tears. Ahead of me, always two paces away, Nikephoros walked on. Snow had filled the folds of his cloak, so that spidery white lines crossed his shoulders like scars. He did not say a word to me, did not even turn to see that I was with him. I was a ghost, lingering unseen and unnoticed, haunting the footsteps of great men.

We passed shivering sentries and came to another field where scattered fires burned holes in the blanket of snow. In the centre, beside the largest fire, stood a tent so white it stood out even against the surrounding snow. A banner emblazoned with five red crosses – the five wounds of Christ – hung from a spear before it.

I stopped, as if the incessant press of snow had finally overwhelmed me and turned my soul to ice. Suddenly the
smoke from the fire was no longer woodsmoke on a winter’s evening, but the smog of smouldering ruins and burned flesh. As the wind moaned in the trees, it seemed to carry Pakrad’s screams all the way from the mountaintop at Ravendan.

‘That – that is Duke Godfrey’s banner.’

Nikephoros paused and looked back. Beyond him, I saw the guard at the tent door ready to challenge us, caught off balance by the sudden halt. ‘Of course it is Duke Godfrey’s banner. Who else can help us now?’ He frowned, remembering. ‘Keep quiet – and if you ever hope to see Constantinople again, do not repeat your accusations.’

No doubt, in the village, counts and dukes would be feasting on roast boar, hot wine and honey cakes. Here, we might have been in a monk’s cell. No rugs or carpets covered the floor – only a thin cloth, which bore the imprint of every rock and hummock beneath it. The sole concession to comfort was a small brazier in the corner, though it did not even give enough heat to melt the snow that weighed down the canvas ceiling. Otherwise, a handful of stools, a table that might have been dragged by its legs all the way from Lorraine, and a dusty book lying open on a reading stand were the only furnishings.