Siege of Heaven (23 page)

‘Much harder. But wasting my life with anger would have been too easy.’

There was no amusement on Saewulf’s face now. He glared at Aelfric, and the Varangian returned the gaze, both men trembling like drawn swords.

‘Even so, you are a long way from England.’ Nikephoros spoke with forced calm.

Saewulf spread out his hands, peering at them as if looking for signs of weakness. ‘I am no longer a soldier. I am a merchant.’

Mercenary
, I thought I heard Aelfric mutter, but the crackling fire drowned it out.

‘But I am still in the business of war. Armies need food and weapons. New conquests open new opportunities.’ He nodded to the Saracen camel-drivers, who sat by their own fire a little way down the beach. ‘And in wartime, luxuries become dearer.’

‘And tax-collectors less vigilant,’ said Nikephoros.

The knowing smile returned to Saewulf’s face. ‘New opportunities.’

‘And if the opportunity came to earn gold and the emperor’s favour?’

Saewulf scowled. ‘I told you: I do not serve your emperor any more.’

‘But you sail in his waters, where his fleets patrol. One day, it may matter that he looks kindly on you.’

‘And the gold?’

Nikephoros spread open his cloak. ‘You see I have nothing – not now. But when I reach home – ’

‘No.’ Saewulf cut through Nikephoros’ calm persuasion. ‘I cannot take you to Constantinople. It would take weeks, and with the winter winds against us we might not even be able to enter the Hellespont. You offer me an opportunity, Greek, but I think there are greater profits to be made elsewhere.’

Under the chill of his words, the fire seemed to dim and the night breeze grow sharper. Aelfric turned away in disgust, as if he had expected no less, while I held myself still. Only Nikephoros remained unaffected.

‘I do not want you to take me to Constantinople.’

Saewulf looked surprised. ‘Where, then?’

‘We are going to Antioch.’

Saewulf rested his chin in his hands and stared into the fire. ‘And what will you do there? The last time I passed by Antioch, Franks and Normans controlled it.’

‘We will prise them out,’ said Nikephoros confidently, ‘and put them on the road to Jerusalem. With the caliph turned against us, there is no alternative.’

The next day we loaded the Saracens’ cargo onto the ships, and set sail for Antioch.

January – June 1099

We returned to Antioch early in January. We were tired from the journey: the endless days beating against sharp winds, the damp and shivering, the constant watch for pirates and storms. It was the very dead of winter, and a freezing rain fell on us as we disembarked at the port of Saint Simeon. On the higher ground there would be snow. We stood by the empty harbour, three bedraggled figures in borrowed clothes, with borrowed horses bullied from the local innkeeper. Somewhere in the gloom, a church bell tolled.

‘What now?’

Nikephoros looked at the dreary town. ‘We must find out how far the Frankish army has advanced and follow. With God’s grace, they may even be at the gates of
Jerusalem.’ He gave a cold laugh, like the drumming of raindrops. ‘But we will ask at Antioch.’

For over a year Antioch had been the pole around which my life turned: by turns unattainable, irresistible and inescapable. Now I reached it for the last time, at a noon that was darker than dusk. The slopes of Mount Silpius rose up into the cloud, its triple-crowned peak invisible, while the city below lay still and sullen in the twilight. Whatever violence had been worked there in the past, it seemed peaceful enough now. That did not lessen my misgivings.

Though the rain had stopped, there was no break in the cloud, and it was not until we had approached within a bowshot of the gate that we noticed anything amiss. A red banner, as tall as a mounted rider, hung above the gate like a portcullis. Rain had wrung the fresh dye from the cloth, filling the ruts and craters below with crimson pools, but the design still stood clear. A white serpent, writhing down the middle of the banner like a tear or a scar.

I shook my head in confusion. ‘This was Count Raymond’s gate. Why is Bohemond’s standard over it?’

Nikephoros trotted forward and thumped his fist on the gate. The age-blackened wood loomed above him, eternal and unmoving, and the sound of his knock quickly died. At the feet of the towers, beside the gate, white gouges pocked the stonework.

‘Who are you?’

A suspicious voice rang in the still air. It must have
come from the gatehouse, but even when I craned my neck back I could see no one.

Nikephoros glanced at me and nodded. I licked my lips, then shouted: ‘Ambassadors from the emperor Alexios.’

With a crack and a hiss, something ripped through the air and buried itself in the mud. My horse reared up; I flung my arms around its neck and hugged it tight, clenching my knees against its flanks. Beside me, I saw a small feathered arrow sticking up from the ground.

‘Antioch is closed to you,’ said the disembodied voice.

Nikephoros circled his horse back a little, trying to see between the battlements. ‘Antioch belongs to the emperor. Who has closed it?’

There was no answer except the ominous creak of a bowstring being drawn back and snapped into position. A chill gust of wind blew over us, and the serpent banner flapped against the stone as the breeze lifted it.

None of us spoke as we rode south. It took all my concentration simply to stay in my saddle: my soul was trembling like a broken sword, while my body shivered in the deepening cold. I could barely keep hold of the reins. We forded the Orontes and rejoined the main road from Antioch, now rising towards the mountains. The rain had eased, but a thick, freezing fog replaced it as we climbed higher, and we had no warning of the men ahead until we saw dark shapes staggering through the fog.

It could so easily have been an ambush, and we would have been powerless to stop it. On the miry road and with
flagging mounts, we could not even have run. But there was something shambolic and frantic in the shadows before us that did not speak of menace. We spurred our horses forward, and a dozen men turned in the mist to look at us.

They were not brigands. Nor were they Turks. All were dressed in mail hauberks, and most carried weapons, but they posed little danger. Dirty cloths and bandages hung off their bodies like flags; one man’s head was bandaged thick as a turban where he had apparently lost an eye. Their faces were wretched: had they not been armed, you would have taken them for a slave coffle. Only the ragged crosses sewn on their sleeves told their true allegiance.

I gestured to their wounds. ‘Where have you come from? Was there a battle?’

The foremost of the Franks leaned heavily on his spear, burying it in the mud. ‘They attacked two nights ago. There was nothing we could do.’

‘Where?’ Had the Army of God been routed? Was this its last remnant, a handful of survivors spared to tell of its terrible fate?

‘Antioch,’ he mumbled. ‘They have taken Antioch from us.’

‘Who?’ I could guess the answer, but I asked it anyway.

‘The Norman traitor. Bohemond.’

Nikephoros twitched his reins. ‘What did he say?’

I ignored him. ‘And the Greeks in Antioch – what happened to them? What did Bohemond do to them? What – ’ I broke off as I heard my voice become shrill
with panic. It did no good; the soldier dismissed my question with a careless shrug that was worse than any answer.

‘And you – you are Provençals? Count Raymond’s men?’

He nodded. Behind him, I could see his men shivering, and trying to keep their sodden bandages in place. There had never been any love between the Normans and Provençals, least of all between their leaders, but could Bohemond really have launched a war on his fellow Christians?

‘Where is Count Raymond? Was he at Antioch?’

The Provençal shook his head. ‘The count is at Ma’arat.’

‘Where is that?’

‘Further along this road.’ Even in his despair, he seemed surprised that I had not heard of it. ‘Two days’ march from here.’

A cold gust of wind blew rain in my eyes, and my mount pawed at the ground in her eagerness to be moving again.
Two days’ march
, I thought, listening to my own words as I translated for Nikephoros. We had been away more than four months, seen palaces, kings and wonders; crossed deserts and seas just to return. While in all that time, the invincible Army of God had moved just two days forward.

Snow fell in the mountains that night. Next morning, a brittle crust covered the ground, and our horses picked their way anxiously over the frozen ruts in the road. The skies above were grey, unyielding, but the air was clear. When we came to an outcrop on the mountain road, we
could see a high plateau opening out below us. The whole earth sparkled white, made new by the snow.

‘What’s that?’

While I had been staring into the distance, Aelfric’s practical gaze had been examining the road ahead. Immediately before us it plunged into a pine forest, but it emerged again below, heading south-east across the plain. At the bottom of the slope a river flowed around the mountains’ feet, and where river and road met there stood a small town.

‘Do you see there?’ Aelfric was pointing to the meadows just beyond the town. I looked, but saw nothing. Squinting against the sullen winter light, I stared closer until suddenly, like a ship emerging from fog, foreground and background split apart and I saw what Aelfric meant. Tents – scores of them, white as the snow. Deceived by the distance, I had taken them for the furrows of some farmer’s field, and the specks moving among them to be crows. In fact, they were not nearly so far off.

We had found the Army of God.

Whatever ordeals we had endured in the past months, the Franks must have suffered worse. As we rode through their camp towards the town we were surrounded by haggard faces and ragged bodies. Even in the midwinter cold, many did not have enough clothes to cover themselves: ribs like curved fingers pressed out against skin, while the bellies of the worst-affected swelled up in cruel mockery of satiety. Black toes and fingers poked from dirty bandages
that had long since become useless, while twice I saw bodies so still they must have been corpses, lying unheeded and unburied in the mud.

Aelfric stared at the miserable faces, which turned towards us as we passed. ‘Has nothing changed?’

I knew what he meant. There was a horrible familiarity in these scenes: we had suffered exactly the same way a year ago outside Antioch. It seemed almost inconceivable that for all the victories we had won in that time, the miracles that had sustained us, the Army of God now found itself suffering the same torments only a few dozen miles distant. Nothing had changed – except that there were many fewer tents now than there had been a year ago. The river of humanity, which had forced its way across deserts, broken down the walls of Antioch and swept away all opposition, had flowed into the earth. A few lingering pools were all that remained – and soon they, too, would drain away.

I glanced at Nikephoros, wondering how his life in the immaculate confines of the palace would have prepared him for this. He held his head rigid, his eyes fixed ahead, but it was not shock or compassion that his mask was worn to hide. The corner of his lip twitched, and his pitiless eyes stared on the wretches around us with something like disgust. And, I could have sworn, satisfaction.

Beyond the camp, at the entrance to the town proper, a guard challenged us. With relief, I saw he was a Provençal, one of Count Raymond’s men.

‘Is this Ma’arat?’ I asked eagerly.

He looked puzzled. ‘Ma’arat? Ma’arat is another day’s march from here. This town is called Rugia.’

Two days’ progress in four months, and now they had lost one of them. ‘Has there been a battle? A defeat? Why has the army retreated here?’

The guard laughed at my panic. ‘We have not retreated. The bulk of the army is still camped at Ma’arat.’ He gestured at the rows of tents in front of him. ‘Did you think this was all that survived of the Army of God? These are just the princes’ bodyguards.’

‘The princes?’ My hopes rose. ‘Is Count Raymond here?’