Siege of Heaven (31 page)

‘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.

‘If we get any nearer those horses they’ll be shitting on our heads,’ said Sigurd.

Count Raymond must have thought the same; soon one of his knights came riding back to order us to slow down even more.

‘You must not leave the pilgrims behind,’ he chided, shooing us back like chickens. His horse danced skittishly in the road. ‘If anything were to befall them—’ He broke off as startled shouts rippled back from the men ahead. ‘What?’

With a hiss and a blur of speed, something sharp and dark flew across the road and struck him square between his shoulders. The knight looked down, his hands grasping instinctively for the new limb that seemed to have sprouted from his chest. Blood dribbled out of the wound; then the weight of the shaft sticking from his back unbalanced him and he toppled from his saddle.

We did not stare for more than a moment. I flung myself at Helena and Zoe and dragged them to the ground, covering them with my body. Somewhere underneath me the baby squealed. I pulled my shield free and held it as a roof over us while I clambered to my feet. Sigurd was beside me, his shield in one hand and a small throwing axe in the other. His long battleaxe lay on the ground beside him. The other Varangians had formed a tight circle around us, crouching low as a ragged rain of arrows began thudding into the leather. When I had satisfied myself that Anna, my daughters and Nikephoros were safe, I edged my head around the side of the shield and peered out.

A loose cordon of Saracen archers had appeared on the northern side of the valley, a little way up the slope. They must have been lying in wait, for they could not have descended from the castle so quickly, but they did not seem to have come in strength. Not unless we had more unpleasant surprises awaiting us.

But the attack seemed to have been more a squall than a storm; it was already beginning to blow itself out. Either the Saracens had only intended to harass us or they had not expected the speed of our reaction: few armies ever can have matched the Army of God for discipline on the march. Ahead of us, Count Raymond’s men had begun a furious counter-fire of arrows, pinning down the Saracen archers while dismounted knights advanced up the slope, shields held aloft. In the face of such an onslaught, most of the Saracens turned and began scrambling up the hill towards safety. Many were too slow to reach it.

A young knight came sprinting up the road and squatted beside Nikephoros.

‘Count Raymond says we must climb this hill and capture the castle above.’ The youth gulped a quick breath, glancing over our shield wall. ‘He wants the Varangians to advance on his right flank.’

‘Capture the castle?’ Nikephoros echoed. ‘The count will never be able to hold his men together on that hill, and who knows how many men the Saracens have up there? You cannot even see it in that cloud.’

It was true: although the mist had lifted from the road, it still cloaked the upper reaches of the valley. As the
retreating Saracens reached its height, they vanished into cloud.

‘It would be madness,’ said Nikephoros, voicing all our thoughts.

‘It is what Count Raymond requires.’

Nikephoros swore, looked up at the hillside once more, then turned to Sigurd. ‘Take your men and protect the count’s flank as best you can. Try not to get killed. And you,’ he said, staring at me, ‘find Count Raymond and persuade him to call off this lunacy.’

I looked down the road. The ordered ranks of the Provençal army had broken apart and were swarming up the hill like a flock of birds. Mounted on a bay horse among them, his body thrust forward in the saddle, was Raymond.

My heart sank. ‘Can I take some of Sigurd’s men?’

‘Take Aelfric and Thomas. And make sure you reach Raymond before he gets himself killed.’

The slope grew rapidly steeper as we climbed, and the air around us thickened with fog. Soon we could see little more than shadows – or occasionally a ball of golden haze where a shaft of sunlight struck through. We could hear the clash of arms and the screams of battle close ahead, but the fog hid all sight of it from our eyes. It was as if we had stumbled into some ancient battlefield, where armies of ghosts still waged a forgotten war. I held up my shield, wary of stray arrows.

A dark shadow came stumbling out of the mist – a Frank, his helmet cut open and blood streaming down his
face. He clutched his head, one hand trying to staunch the blood while the other tried to wipe it from his eyes.

‘
Count Raymond!
’ I shouted at him. ‘Have you seen Count Raymond?’

He ran past us, stumbling down the hillside without answering.

We carried on, moving an arm’s length apart so we had free hold of our weapons. The mist no longer formed an impenetrable wall but was breaking up, pulling apart in shreds and coils. Some drifted along a few feet off the ground; others settled over the bodies of the fallen like shrouds. Soon even those dissolved, blown apart by a rising breeze as we came over a crest and looked out on the hilltop.

It was a lonely place to die, a small stretch of rugged, broken ground rising and narrowing to a promontory. A grey castle stood at its tip, its walls built so close to the cliffs that it seemed to sit on the clouds that filled the surrounding valley. It reminded me of the monastery at Ravendan. One corner of its main tower was missing, and a breach in the stone curtain wall had been filled with wood. Perhaps the garrison relied on lofty isolation to protect themselves, but they had underestimated the Franks. Raymond’s charge up the hill had overtaken many of the fleeing Saracens, and even as the last remnant squeezed through the open gate they had to turn to defend themselves from the Provençal vanguard. Archers tried to shoot from the walls, but the Franks repulsed them with a merciless bombardment.

‘The count.’ Aelfric pointed, though I had seen him too. He was still mounted, riding back and forth to avoid the darts and arrows that peppered the ground around him. He waved his spear in the air and urged his men on.

‘Should we deliver Nikephoros’ message?’ said Thomas. It was easy to understand the doubt in his voice. In their hasty repairs to the castle wall, the Saracens had left a pile of rubble at its foot to form a natural ramp to the mended breach. A company of Frankish knights had climbed it, and were hacking at the crude repair with axes and mattocks. Hewn masonry and wood tumbled from the gap, building their platform still higher. The defenders had at least managed to close the gate, I saw, though there too the Franks were pressing hard.

‘There’s no gain risking our lives telling Raymond he should not have won his victory,’ I decided. At the end of the promontory, I could see the mass of Frankish knights pulling the gates open. Raymond raised his spear and began to trot forward; cheers and cries of
Deus vult
– God wills it – rose in anticipation. And above all the shouts and artificial clangour of battle – stone, steel, leather and iron – I heard the bleating of sheep.

The gates swung out like two arms. The horde of knights drew back to let them open, spears and swords raised. Some men actually cast aside their shields to allow themselves free hands to kill or plunder.

The bleating I had heard seemed to grow louder, the murmur now punctuated by the bark of dogs. I could see a commotion by the gate: the knights had not delivered
their killing blow but were milling about in confusion, some moving forward, some back, some spinning away as if parrying unseen enemies. Cracks appeared in their line; many of them seemed to be looking down around their feet instead of at their enemies.

A knight reeled away from the back of the throng, pursued – so it seemed – by a shaggy white dog bursting out from the hole he had left. But the dog galloped straight past him, and the knight, rather than returning to the attack, began chasing after it. Nor was it a dog, I saw, as it charged panic-stricken towards us – it was a sheep.

Aelfric saw it too and laughed out loud. ‘Are these their best troops?’ he marvelled. ‘If so, we could be in Jerusalem in a fortnight.’

‘Eating mutton,’ added Thomas, a rare grin spreading over his face.

‘We’ll be sick of it by then. Look at them.’

A second animal had followed the first through the split in the Frankish army; two more came after it, widening the gap. Some of the knights ran after them, distracted on the brink of victory, but that left space for more panicked sheep to drive through the ranks. They split the Franks apart, surging through them like high water smashing through a dam. Many in the Frankish wall were carried away with them, either unable to resist the charging beasts or drawn along with them by greed. The castle was forgotten.

Raymond alone stood against the retreat, an island in the torrent of sheep and men, railing against them in
impotent rage. ‘This is not a foraging expedition,’ he screamed. ‘Come back! Come back and fight!’

But madness had seized them and they did not turn. They chased after the sheep like men who had not eaten in months, and more sheep followed after them. After the sheep came the dogs, snapping at their legs, and after the dogs, like shepherds, came the Saracens.

In little more than an instant, victory turned to rout. Many of the Franks had cast aside their weapons to grab onto the sheep with both hands; some were on their knees trying to hold the animals fast or slit their throats. They died first as the Saracens overtook them, slaughtered animals and slaughtered men tumbling indiscriminately over each other. I saw several of the stragglers brought down by dogs and mauled on the ground until the Saracens ended it.

It had happened so fast that I still stood immobile, hypnotised by the savage speed of fortune’s reverse. Then an arrow clattered off a rock near by – the Saracen archers on the walls, driving on the Franks – and I saw our danger.

‘We have to go.’

‘Down the hill,’ said Aelfric. A little way down, the sea of cloud still ebbed against the slope, thick and impenetrable. ‘Into that. It’s our best chance.’

As soon as I moved, all became chaos. Fleeing knights and soldiers were spilling off the hilltop and cascading down the slope around us, tripping and stumbling in their panic. The slope would have been dizzyingly steep in daylight, but in the mist it became a vertiginous world
where every direction was down. We could not stand upright for fear of falling; we turned our backs to the mist and pressed ourselves against the crumbling earth, scuttling like ants on the face of the hill. Muted echoes of ghastly sounds filled the air: all around us men were screaming, falling, dying, but we could not see them. A helmet tumbled past, clanging like a church bell as it bounced from rock to rock.

Suddenly, I came over a hummock to see a standing shadow looming in the mist, its dark arm poised to strike me. I cried out in fear but my reactions were true: my shield came up, parrying his attack, while I scythed my sword at his knees to cut his legs from under him. He did not flinch, did not even make a sound, though my blade had cut so deep I could not pull it free. Terror overwhelmed me as I found myself suddenly defenceless – I tugged on my sword but it would not come. Instead, in my clumsy desperation I lost my footing and tumbled forwards, splayed out to receive the killing blow.

Another figure appeared in the fog. It stood over me, and I heard a familiar laugh.

‘Well done, Father-in-law. You’ve killed a tree.’

His voice trembled on the brink of hysteria, but it was true what he said: the arm I had thrust aside with my shield was no more than a hanging branch, and the legs I had sliced into its trunk. White sap oozed onto the blade. I put my foot against the tree and pulled the sword free, cursing. As I tried to wipe the sticky sap on my tunic, I
heard another sound in the fog near by. The shrieking, sawing braying of a horse in agony.

There was only one man I knew on that hillside on horseback. Praying Aelfric and Thomas would manage to keep close, I dashed towards the noise. It was not easy to follow – the cold screams sounded all around me, tangling with the fog and addling my senses, in my eyes and in my ears, until I could hardly tell if the fog was the sound incarnate, or the sound the howl of the fog.

Gradually, though, the noise grew louder. The closer I came the more unbearable was its anguish and the more I raced on, as if by finding the noise I might at last silence it. Damp earth and pebbles scattered under my feet; in my haste, I began to lose my footing. The only way to keep upright was to blunder on, faster and faster and ever more unbalanced, straight into the fog. A root snatched at my foot; I flung out my arms and threw myself back, but momentum carried me forward and down. I thumped into the ground with a bruising shock, slid a little way on my belly, then stopped abruptly, brought up against a warm, writhing mass blocking the path.