Siege of Heaven

‘I did not know you spoke our language so well. I am surprised you need bother with an interpreter.’

Al-Afdal gave an ingenuous smile. ‘I would speak it more often, but it is hard for me. I would not want you to misunderstand what I say.’

‘Your Greek is flawless. Everything you say is perfectly clear.’

Al-Afdal took another sweet from the tray and kept his eyes fixed on Nikephoros.

‘Although the caliph’s obligations to his people kept him from leading the campaign personally, he is delighted by its result. Jerusalem is the holiest city in the world after Mecca and Medina: possessing it exalts the caliph and disgraces the Turks with their heretic Sunni faith.’

Nikephoros glanced at the cup of wine in his hands, but did not drink. ‘The caliph would be reluctant to give it up, even to a loyal ally?’

Al-Afdal nodded a profession of regret. ‘If Jerusalem was yours, would you surrender it?’

‘The emperor might – if he gained by the transaction.’

I glanced at Nikephoros in astonishment, then remembered my place and hastily hid my face behind my wine glass. How could he contemplate giving up Jerusalem, even speculatively? A cunning edge had crept into his tone; I could not understand it, but al-Afdal seemed to have noticed, for he was sitting straighter and nodding slowly.

‘But – forgive me – I do not see how the caliph could gain by surrendering his claim to Jerusalem. What does the emperor have to offer besides promises and protestations?’ He lifted a stout hand in apology. ‘You understand the caliph does not belittle the emperor’s promises of friendship; he cherishes them. But the two halves of a bargain must balance each other. A promise for a promise, a city for a city. A war for a war.’

Al-Afdal rearranged himself into a more elegant repose on his cushions. ‘I am grateful for your embassy, but I fear that events have overtaken us. It would be cruel to keep you here pretending otherwise. No doubt you yearn to see your homes and families again, and autumn will soon close the seas. If you have nothing else to discuss with the caliph, you could start for the sea tonight.’

The strain of concentrating on the shifting conversation, the heat of the sun beating through the awning and the sour bite of the wine in my mouth had contrived to raise a throbbing ache in my skull. For the past few minutes I had been staring at the cool water running through the fountains, wishing I could forsake protocol and plunge my head in. But the vizier’s final words swept away all pain and care in an instant: for the first time in weeks I could think of Anna and Sigurd with hope. I looked expectantly at Nikephoros.

But Nikephoros was frowning and shaking his head. ‘I am grateful for your kindness, but our duty to the emperor must overcome thoughts of home. Your great victory over the Turks has changed matters, but I do not think it means we cannot be allies. Perhaps, by your leave, we could talk further on this. Who knows what common interests we may discover?

‘In the meantime, if the caliph permits it, we would be honoured to remain here as his guests.’

ιγ

I did not know then how Nikephoros thought he could persuade al-Afdal to give up Jerusalem, but he certainly had no lack of time to consider it. After that first audience, the vizier showed little interest in continuing the conversation. Days lengthened into weeks, and gradually we forgot even to think of expecting another meeting. It did nothing to ease the burdens on my soul. I found that I slept later and later into the mornings; even when I did wake, I would pretend otherwise. I began to hate our quarters, though on the infrequent occasions that we were allowed out I suddenly found the prospect filling me with dread. All of us suffered from the long confinement, of course, and the perpetual pressure of being among enemies, but I seemed to feel it worst. Perhaps I only handled it worst.

Even when we did venture out into the palace grounds or the wider city, we never saw Achard and the other Frankish emissaries. Had they given up when they heard of al-Afdal’s victory and returned to the Army of God? Or had they concluded their own bargain with al-Afdal, one that would turn him against us? I tried to ask Bilal one day, but all he would say was that he had not been assigned to guard them. There was much more I wanted to ask him – had the murdered Turks ever been found? were we suspected? – but before I could think of a way to broach it, he put a finger to his lips and shook his head. He too seemed under strain – as did many of the Fatimid courtiers. If Nikephoros ever managed to speak with them to ask when al-Afdal might receive us again, their eyes would flicker in alarm and their faces crease with tight, automatic smiles. Al-Afdal had many things to attend to, they said: the welfare of the caliph’s subjects demanded his full energies. He would see us as soon as he could be sure of giving us the attention we deserved.

In the meantime, we were cast adrift on a sea of supposition and conjecture. We did not know why al-Afdal continually deferred us, we did not know how he would respond to whatever Nikephoros offered him, we did not know if he even still controlled Jerusalem, or whether the Army of God might have finished their journey and captured it for themselves by then. In which case, I thought, we would be left as mere flotsam, thrown up on a strange shore by the currents of distant storms.

* * *

One question, though, we did eventually answer. The Frankish envoys had not departed, nor been murdered in their beds, but remained at the palace in much the same condition as we did. We did not discover it by accident; instead, we found them waiting for us at the royal wharf on a river barge. I remembered Nikephoros’ dark warnings from before, that the vizier would not have allowed us to meet the Franks except to further his own designs, and wondered whether this portended some new change in our mission. Nikephoros himself was not there to see it – he had declined the invitation, claiming he had letters to compose, though he had not asked me to stay behind and write them.

Aelfric and I climbed into the boat and seated ourselves on cushions in the bow with Achard and another of his companions. Achard’s staring eyes followed Bilal as he went aft to relay some orders to the steersman, and he crossed himself fervently.

‘How can you stand to be around that black devil?’ he whispered in my ear. ‘To live among the Ishmaelite heretics is perilous enough – but I never expected to see the demons of hell walking the earth. The devil is gathering his strength for the final contest. When demons walk the earth, the last days are near.’

‘Not too near, I hope.’

‘Closer than you think. No man will know the day or the hour – but there are signs, for those who can read them.’

I looked at him in astonishment, wondering if the long months of confinement had unhinged his mind. He appeared to be in deadly earnest, but before I could question him further Bilal returned, and Achard lapsed into a sulky silence.

As the barge crawled upstream, the brick walls of the city faded behind us and we came into the wasteland beyond. Saplings had already grown tall in the disused fields, and toppled waterwheels lay broken beside siltedup channels. In the distance, to the south, I could see the ruined walls of the abandoned city.

‘A destroyer of nations has come forth to lay waste your lands, and your cities will be ruins without inhabitants,’ Achard muttered. I glanced at Bilal, but he showed no sign of understanding the Frankish – only the weary indifference of a man used to half-heard whisperings behind his back.

If I peered out from under the barge’s awning I could see the three fangs of the pyramids rising on their summit above the river valley. Closer to us, though, the river forked around a thin island, which seemed to have escaped or repaired the ravages of the civil war: low mud-brick warehouses lined the shore, and dozens of wooden jetties marched out into the water on stilts. Between them, a score of boats in various states of progress sat lifted on wooden cradles in shipyards. Some of them were little more than bare-ribbed hulls, but most seemed almost ready to sail to Constantinople if required. They were certainly large enough for the task.

I did not hear any order, but the boat suddenly slowed and stopped in midstream. There was no splash of an anchor; instead, the rowers kept their oars in the water and manoeuvred them gently to keep us steady. Even with the river so low and sluggish, it was an impressive feat.

‘Is this where we are going?’ Achard did not look at Bilal as he addressed him.

‘The caliph was keen that you should see his dockyards,’ said Bilal heavily.

I waved towards the shore. ‘All these ships are his?’

‘Of course. They will be ready for the next campaign season, when spring opens the seas again.’

I looked again. Of the ships that were nearing completion, all had heavy rams attached to their bows and fortified towers amidships. There was no mistaking their purpose. ‘I am not surprised he wanted us to see them.’

One of Achard’s companions tapped him on the arm and whispered in his ear. I could not hear the words, but I guessed them. When the Franks advanced on Jerusalem – if they had not already – they would have to take the coastal road, for the emperor could only supply them from the sea. I remembered the vast supply fleet I had seen gathering in Cyprus, and tried to imagine these skeletal vessels of the caliph encountering them at sea. One, even larger than the others and wanting only her oars, had a prow carved like a ravening eagle, and a copper-tipped ram which gleamed with menace.

We sat awkwardly in midstream and said little, listening to the creak of the thole-pins, and the hammering and sawing and songs drifting across from the shipyard. We were well into October now, and though the temperatures had cooled a little since our arrival it was still almost too hot to move. At home, autumn would be descending on Constantinople with falling leaves and shorter days, but here the sun shone and the palm fronds stayed green as ever in the still air. Only a few wispy clouds, far off on the sky’s horizon, hinted at a changing season.

I dropped my arm over the boat’s side and dipped my hand in the brown water. The current was stronger than I had expected; I felt a spark of pity for the rowers and their imperceptible efforts to keep us still.

‘No!’

I had been staring into the knots and whorls on the river’s surface and could not see behind me. Suddenly, a strong arm reached around my chest and hauled me backwards, yanking my trailing arm out of the water. I fell on my back, paddling my limbs in the air like an upturned crab while Achard and Aelfric and the others stared down on me in surprise. I rolled away and looked back to see Bilal lifting himself off the deck and smoothing down his cloak.

‘What was that for?’ I asked, breathing hard.

‘It is not wise to touch the river.’

‘Why not?’

Keeping his arm well clear of the water, Bilal gestured over the side. ‘Do you see that?’

I looked, but could see nothing in the swirling silt. Perhaps there was a dark smudge beneath the surface, like a fish or sunken log, but I could not be sure. It might have been the shadow of a cloud.

‘The river is infested with crocodiles – and too many careless unfortunates have given them a taste for human flesh.’

‘What are they?’ I had heard the name of crocodiles, but only in the company of mythic beasts: leviathans, basilisks, griffins and the like. ‘Is it a fish?’

‘A lizard. Longer than a man, and with jaws that could tear a horse in half.’

Even in this strange and ancient land, where men built mountains and the seasons never changed, it was hard to believe. ‘Do they really exist? Have you ever seen one?’

‘I can see three at this very moment.’

The Franks, who had been pretending not to listen, glanced over their shoulders and shifted in their seats, away from the side of the boat. But Bilal’s gaze was fixed on the far bank. With a tremor of terror I looked up, half expecting to see a trio of winged dragons snorting fire as they ripped a horse limb from limb. Instead, there was nothing – only the sloping shore and a few tree-trunks that had floated away from the shipyard lying on the mud.

‘Are you trying to make fools of us?’ Achard demanded.

‘They are sleeping at the moment.’

‘And do they become invisible when they sleep?’

‘They lie still as logs.’

I pointed to the long shapes I had taken for fallen trees. ‘Those?’ I squinted harder, shading my eyes against the sun, but even under close scrutiny they looked nothing like the monsters Bilal had described. Their bodies tapered into what might have been snouts, and there were small bulges by their sides which could have been stunted feet, but otherwise they looked no more alive – or dangerous – than rotten wood.

Achard evidently thought so too. ‘I have seen mice more dangerous than your monsters.’ He leaned back against the side of the boat and draped an arm provocatively over its edge – though when I peered down, I saw that he took care to keep his hand just above the water. I wondered if he was trying to goad Bilal into an outburst he would regret.

Bilal simply looked at him seriously. ‘I hope you never have to learn otherwise.’ He glanced across to the island. ‘But I think we have admired the caliph’s shipyard long enough. There is something on shore you should see.’

He spoke a command, and the crew hauled the boat forward against the current. The island slowly slid past, ending at a wooded point with a slim minaret rising through the trees and a dock by the water. The barge steered towards it, and soon bumped up beside a flight of stone steps. Bilal stepped out and beckoned us to follow.

At the top of the stairs, a broad and well-paved path led between orange and citron trees towards an arched gateway. Here it was easier to believe that autumn was coming: the desiccated leaves had curled back on their stems, tinged with brown; others had fallen and lay in heaps at the side of the path. They barely rustled as we passed in the still air.

We halted at the gateway, though there were no gates to stop us. Stone walls led away in both directions, framing a wide courtyard. A small mosque stood in one corner, and a square tower rose on the far side opposite us.

‘Wait here,’ said Bilal. He disappeared through the arch.

The six of us – the four Franks, Aelfric and I – stood in silence. The heat in the air and the flies buzzing around us made a strange contrast with the dead leaves by our feet, as if we had entered a new world where seasons collided without reason. It was an uncomfortable feeling – not helped by the weight of Achard’s unblinking eyes on me.

I had to speak eventually to dislodge that stare. ‘Do you ever wish you’d taken the vizier’s offer and returned home?’

Contrary to what I had intended, my words only seemed to double the force of Achard’s gaze. ‘What offer?’

I paused, wishing I had kept silent. I tried a noncommittal shrug, but Achard’s interest was as fixed as his stare. ‘Did the vizier say you could return to the Army of God?’

‘There seemed little purpose staying here when . . .’ In the back of my mind I could almost hear Nikephoros’ jeering laugh as I plunged towards another indiscretion. I wished Bilal would return, but there was no sign of him. I took a deep breath.

‘You know that al-Afdal has conquered Jerusalem?’

‘Of course.’ Achard’s studied indifference could not have been entirely contrived, but I noticed that for the first time he had dropped his gaze.

I shrugged. ‘There seemed little left to negotiate.’

‘But you chose to stay.’

I didn’t choose to stay, I wanted to scream. I would give half my life to be back in Constantinople now. ‘While there is any prospect of peace, we must work to achieve it,’ I said piously. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’

Achard looked surprised. ‘You cannot make peace with Babylon – only destroy her, as was prophesied.’

Now it was my turn to stare at him. Did he mean the abstract, biblical Babylon or the kingdom where we stood at that moment? Either way, it was a foolish thing to say, and I looked around anxiously. I did not know whether to be relieved or alarmed when I saw that Bilal had reappeared.

‘Come.’

He led us across the courtyard to the tower opposite. As we approached, I saw that its walls were not the evenly cut masonry they looked from a distance, but were built from a host of different stones, which seemed to have been plundered from across the ages and hammered, chiselled or cemented into one. Some of the lower stones were carved with shocking pagan images: men with heads like birds and jackals; men bowing prostrate with sheaves of corn; crows and beetles. Others were decorated with scrolls and rosettes, and curved as if they had once framed windows or doors. One of the stones even bore an inscription in Greek, though so old I could not read it. It unsettled me to see it there amid all those relics.

An old man in a white robe awaited us by a doorway. He bowed courteously, though there was anxiety in his eyes as he spoke to Bilal in Arabic. Whatever his concerns, I saw Bilal dismiss them with a shake of his head, and the man reluctantly stepped aside. Just before we entered, Bilal turned to us.

‘This is one of the most important sites in Egypt. Few outside the court are allowed to see it.’

His words seemed at odds with the sight that greeted us as we ducked through the doorway. Inside was a dim, square-sided chamber that seemed to rise the full height of the tower and, more curiously, to drop away almost an equal distance below. Broad windows had been cut into the tower’s walls, and though they seemed to admit less sun than they should it was enough for me to see that the entire tower was one tall shaft, with a staircase winding around its edges until it disappeared into a pool of blackbrown water at the bottom. From its centre, an eight-sided column rose to a stone beam above our heads.

‘Is this a well?’ I asked. Now that we were all inside and the noise of our entry had subsided, I could hear the water lapping against the stones – and a steady gurgling, as if somewhere it was pouring through a spout.

‘This is where we measure the rising and falling of the Nile.’ Bilal pointed to the central column. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the light, I could see it was scored with hundreds of parallel lines, each a finger’s breadth apart from the next. ‘By this, we know how strong the harvest will be even before it is sown. Look.’

I peered down. The measuring marks reached right to the top of the column, though if the river ever reached that high then there would be no hope of reading it, for the entire island would be inundated. That had evidently never happened, for the upper reaches of the column were clean and smooth, gleaming with a sheen of moisture from the damp air. Further down, the high-water marks of the past stained the marble a dirty grey, progressively darker as it descended. Finally, a still-living scum coated the pillar a few feet above the water where the river had only recently subsided. Even at its height, it seemed a great deal lower than the floods of previous years.

Achard coughed, perhaps overcome by the dank and spore-filled air. ‘Is this what you brought us to see?’ He glanced uneasily at the plaques mounted on the wall, filled with inscriptions in the Arabic script, as if they might be written with spells to damn his soul. ‘I have seen villages with more impressive wells.’

‘Perhaps you would like to wait outside. The air is cleaner there.’ Bilal turned to me. ‘But there are some carvings you have not seen. You will like them.’

‘I do not need to see the works of demons and heretics,’ declared Achard. With another fit of coughing, he led his Franks back out through the door. Aelfric looked after them, then back at me; I nodded to him, and he followed them out, leaving me alone with Bilal.

I sighed. ‘I had forgotten how rude the Franks can be.’

Bilal laughed. ‘And these are their diplomats. Come.’

He led me down, skirting the sides of the central well until the stairs vanished into the dark water. He sat down by the water’s edge, a few steps up, and beckoned me to do likewise.

‘I cannot see any carvings,’ I observed.

‘I needed to speak with you.’ Bilal glanced up to make sure that we were not overheard; I could see the priest’s shadow hovering by the doorway, but that did not seem to trouble him.

‘You are not safe. None of you.’

‘What?’ I craned my head around and looked into his face. I saw no trace of deceit.

‘The vizier’s capture of Jerusalem has changed many things. There are voices at the palace who say that we are strong enough now to challenge all our enemies. They are stirring up old grievances to breed hatred – it is not difficult.’

‘Does al-Afdal support this?’

Bilal shook his head. ‘He knows our strength too well. It is those furthest from the armies who are keenest to use them.’

‘But I thought . . .’ I paused, unsure how frankly I could speak.

‘You thought al-Afdal controlled the palace? He does. But there are many factions, and al-Afdal cannot always master them all.’ Bilal looked across the water and gave the column an appraising look, as if counting off the exposed notches. ‘And there are other pressures on our kingdom, too.’

A wave of bitter helplessness swept over me. ‘Why have you told me this? Is there anything I can do?’

Bilal glanced up again at the shadow by the door. ‘You can be careful. And take this.’

He reached inside his cloak and pulled out a short knife in a leather sheath. He handed it to me. It was a plain weapon, with no carving or ornament on its bone handle, but the blade looked sharp enough when I slid it out.

‘Is this yours?’

‘I bought it in the bazaar. No one will know where it came from, unless you tell them.’

‘I will not tell them.’

‘It will not be much use if the caliph’s guards come for you, but . . . it may be helpful. I hope you do not need it.’

I tucked the knife into my boot, wondering if the bulge was too obvious. ‘Thank you. You did not have to.’

A movement above our heads caught my eye, and I looked up. Nothing stirred, but it seemed that the shadow by the door had moved. Bilal noticed it too.

‘We should go.’

As we climbed the stairs, I looked around the great stone well once more. Even in the time we had been there, the river level seemed to have dropped further down the column.

‘How old is this measure?’

Bilal shrugged. ‘Who knows? But it was here before the Fatimids came. Perhaps the same men who built the pyramids erected it.’

We came out into the courtyard. In the short time we had been inside, the sun had sunk lower and dusk was hastening on. I could see our companions loitering impatiently by the gate.

‘Thank you for showing it to me,’ I said.

‘The vizier thought you would find it interesting. It is a shame your master Nikephoros did not see it. You should tell him about it.’

‘I will give him a full account.’

We rejoined the others and walked down towards the boat, while a too-hot October sun stained the clouds with a mess of bloody colour.

ιδ

I told Nikephoros everything as soon we returned. His impatience soon turned to interest, particularly the account of the Nile measure, though he rolled his eyes when I repeated Bilal’s warnings of danger.

‘That is just part of their tactics. Like the men in Constantinople who convince you your house is on fire so they can rob it when you flee.’

‘He seemed serious enough.’

‘Of course he did – there would be little point in the lie if he did not.’ Nikephoros took a piece from the tray of sweetmeats before him. ‘I am surprised the ape had the wit for it.’

He flashed a sly glance as he said it, quick as a razor, but I did not rise to the provocation. Not that I let him see, anyway.

‘But why show us that their harvest is failing?’ I said. ‘Surely that weakens their position?’

Nikephoros gave me a withering look. ‘Is that all you saw? If you had looked out of the boat two months ago you would have seen as much.’

Even after so much experience of it, his vitriol could still sting me. I waited, wondering if he would explain himself or grow bored.

‘Al-Afdal will negotiate.’

‘How do you know?’

Nikephoros took the last two sweetmeats off the tray and crammed them in his mouth. ‘Because he has finally shown us what he wants. And because he sent word while you were away. He will see me tomorrow.’

Whatever Nikephoros had to say to al-Afdal, he did not need me to hear it. He went alone, and when he returned a couple of hours later he said nothing except to call for wine and retreat to his own room. The meeting must have pleased him, though, for when he came out for supper he was in a better humour than I had seen him for weeks. The setting sun filled the room with a bright copper glow, moulded into intricate shadows on the wall by the carved window screens. The caliph’s slaves kept us well supplied with wine, and the feeling in the room was of an army on the last night of its campaign. Even I found myself caught up in the false and easy camaraderie. I looked around at the laughing faces and thought that if this was to be our last night in Egypt, it was at least a happy ending.

Afterwards, like the others, I regretted drinking so much wine, but it was the wine that made me bold enough to question Nikephoros directly.

‘What came of your meeting with the vizier?’

If the wine had made me incautious, it had evidently mellowed Nikephoros’ humour. Or perhaps he did not want to cut into the good feeling. He waved an arm expansively and said, ‘Good things.’

‘Will he take our grain in exchange for Jerusalem?’

Even with the mist of alcohol in his mind, Nikephoros was alert enough to give me a keen look. I could see he was minded not to answer my guess, but eventually he acknowledged it with a shrug. ‘He will take the emperor’s grain to relieve the famine here.’

‘And surrender Jerusalem in return?’ I pressed.

‘Al-Afdal has been called to Alexandria for a few days. When he returns here he will give me his answer.’

Aelfric, sitting in the corner, raised his cup. ‘And then we can go home.’

I drank to that.

I woke craving water. Lifting myself from my mattress, I fumbled my way across the room and felt around until I found the alcove where the palace slaves had left a jug and a pair of cups. I splashed some water into the cup, spilling it in the dark, and drank gratefully. Between the privations we had suffered at Antioch, and the recent hospitality of the Fatimids who seemed to drink alcohol rarely if at all, it had been an age since I drank so much wine. I shook my head to clear it, and immediately wished I had not.

I was about to return to my bed when a noise outside the door drove all thoughts of sleep from my head. I heard a rush of footsteps, and the ominous clattering of spearshafts on stone. The guard in the passage issued a challenge, and was instantly answered by a sharp torrent of unintelligible words.

I did not know what was happening – I barely knew if I was dreaming or not – but I knew that I wanted to be armed. I let the cup drop from my hand and ran to my bedside, rummaging under the mattress where I had hidden Bilal’s dagger. Around me, the others were stirring uncertainly, their dreams interrupted by the shattering cup and the noises in the passageway, but it was not until the double doors flew open in a blaze of shouts and torchlight that they realised what was happening. By then, I had managed to pull on one boot and slip the knife inside it.

A couple of our Patzinak guards managed to leap to their feet, but they were quickly pinned back against the walls by the incoming horde. They wore long hauberks of quilted leather and carried short stabbing spears with leafshaped heads. The caliph’s personal bodyguard – not al-Afdal’s men, but Berbers from the deserts of Africa.

Two of the guards tore open the curtain to Nikephoros’ private quarters. I thought they would find him in bed, but either he had heard the intrusion and acted quickly, or he had expected it. He stood there dressed in a plain tunic, his arms by his side and anger burning across his face. He might be a bully, I realised then, but he was not a coward.

‘What in Christ’s name are you doing?’

The words were lost on the Berber guards. Their hard faces never flinched as they stepped forward and seized him between them. Nikephoros shrank instinctively from their grasp; then he mastered himself, and let them lead him with silent dignity. Two more guards took hold of me, while others rounded up Aefric and the Patzinaks and herded them after us with spears. It was too soon to feel shock: the whole business had taken barely a minute, and I saw men still rubbing the sleep from their eyes as they left the room. In the corridor, the guard who had been assigned to watch us – one of Bilal’s men – stood back and watched in disbelief, his wide eyes like moons in the dark. He had not expected this any more than we had.

‘Fetch Bilal,’ I called to him as we passed.

The eyes blinked, but otherwise there was no acknowledgement.

The Berbers brought us quickly to the hall where the caliph had first received us. Circles of torchlight overlapped to form a bright arena in the open space before the dais, while the myriad columns stretched away like a forest at midnight around us. From above, the caliph looked down from his low throne, flanked by a chamberlain. His face was drowned in darkness.

‘This is an unexpected honour, Your Highness.’ Nikephoros could not disguise the fear in his words. ‘With a little more warning, we might have prepared ourselves more as your dignity demands. As it is—’ He broke off, as he saw the chamberlain had not bothered to translate his words. An ominous silence overtook the dark room. The caliph let it grow until even Nikephoros began to fidget. Then he spoke.

‘The vizier, my loyal servant’ – he sneered as he said it – ‘has told me your proposal.’

Nikephoros licked his lips and glanced nervously around. ‘The illustrious vizier had me understand you looked kindly on our offer, Your Highness.’

‘Al-Afdal does not speak for me,’ barked the caliph, and even before I heard his words transmitted into Greek, I heard the aggrieved petulance in his voice, and remembered how young he had seemed at our first audience.

Nikephoros offered a too-humble bow. ‘Forgive me, Your Highness, I—’

‘You are a snake, Greek – a snake and a liar. You glide into my court and offer sweet promises of friendship and aid, but you are lying, waiting to strike when I am vulnerable. Jerusalem belongs to me; I who am descended from the Prophet himself by the line of the seven true Imams.’

The caliph had leaned so far forward on his throne that his face was almost in the light. ‘You have listened to the rumours spread by my enemies. The harvest is not failing. Not one of my subjects will go hungry this winter. Not one!’

‘We – ’

‘And even if we did suffer famine, I would sooner scrabble for seeds in the ground with my own fingers than beg your emperor for relief. Do you think I have forgotten what happened in my father’s time? All Egypt starved – even for a thousand dinars you could not find a loaf of bread. The Greek emperor offered to send us two million bushels of grain and we gratefully accepted – but the ships never came. He betrayed us to appease the heretic Turks. I would rather slaughter every horse in my stable to feed the poor, pawn my treasury and send my wives to work in the bathhouses than beg your emperor’s help again. Who will he not betray if it is to his advantage? He is like Satan: he says to a man, ‘Do not believe!’, but when the man obeys and forsakes God, he says, “I disown you.”’

The caliph stood, rising into the darkness. His voice had become a fevered shriek, a disorienting counterpoint to the calm monotone of the chamberlain’s translation. ‘You are faithless hypocrites. You say that if we are attacked, you will help us; but when we are attacked you soon turn tail and flee. Truly, it is written: “You who believe, do not take the disbelievers as allies and protectors.”’

Nikephoros stepped forward and looked defiantly up at the caliph. Even stripped of his magnificent robes, with no jewelled lorum wound about him like armour, his pride was enough to clothe him in self-righteous dignity.

‘We came in peace and friendship, as ambassadors of the emperor Alexios. It is unwise to renounce that friendship – but if you do, I ask you to at least honour our safe-conduct as ambassadors. We will leave in the morning, as soon as you permit it.’

They were the words I had longed to hear for two months; now I barely noticed them. The caliph was still standing, though his twitching movements had calmed, and when he spoke there was more reason in his voice.

‘You cannot leave. Winter has closed the seas, and all the harbours are shut.’

The words struck me like a blow to my stomach. Even Nikephoros looked uncertain now. The caliph continued: ‘But you cannot stay in my city. I have issued an edict that all unbelievers must leave. Your presence here disturbs my kingdom.’

Nikephoros stared at him. ‘Then where shall we go?’

‘I have a hunting lodge on the western bank of the river. My guards will take you there immediately – your possessions will be sent after you in the morning. You will wait there until the seas open in the spring.’

Too much wine, too little sleep – and then the grim shock of being dragged before the raging caliph: a dark mist seemed to hang before my eyes as the guards bustled us out of the caliph’s throne room. As we reached a turn in the passage, I managed to draw ahead of my guards long enough to catch up with Nikephoros. He glanced back over his shoulder and tried to force a reassuring smile. That worried me more than anything.

‘Al-Afdal will be back within the week,’ he said. ‘He will bring the caliph to his senses.’

But there are many factions, and al-Afdal cannot always master them all. I remembered Bilal’s words with a shiver as the guardsmen pulled me back.

Once again, a fleet of litters awaited us by the palace gate. I climbed into mine without resistance and settled onto the cushions – like a corpse being laid on his funeral bier, my mind whispered. I thought of Bishop Adhemar draped in his shroud, but that took me to Antioch and that was too much to bear. Until the seas open in the spring, the caliph had said. After my hopes had been raised so high, my soul flinched even to think of it. I looked out from under my canopy at the other litters – squat boxes scattered around the courtyard like tombs in a necropolis. Why were all my thoughts of death? Then a guardsman drew the curtains, and the view was shut away from me.

They carried us from the city at great speed, the litters swaying and shuddering: the streets must have been entirely empty that deep into the night, and we travelled them unseen and unseeing. When we emerged at the dock, though, all was bustle and activity. Torches had been lit, and a great throng of slaves and guardsmen milled about on the wharf. In a knot in their midst, I saw the four Frankish envoys and their attendants. They must have been hauled from their sleep as peremptorily as we had, for they wore the same disarray of under-shirts and mismatched boots, and the same harried confusion on their faces. Achard stood among them, his head darting about like a cornered cat’s.

Our guards hustled us towards the Franks and gestured us to wait. Out on the water I could hear the approach of splashing oars, and nearer to me, a low and ragged chant.

‘Help me, O Lord my God. Save me according to your steadfast love.’

All of the Franks were murmuring the same prayer, intensity fixed on their faces. The sound mingled with the harsher, wilder voices of the Berber guards, different currents in the dizzying babble that washed over me, as inconstant and elusive as the flickering firelight. I was so dazed I did not even think to pray.

A dark and familiar figure strode onto the dock, his yellow cloak billowing around his shoulders and his gold armband shining in the torchlight. He passed by us without a glance, but my heart leaped all the same at the sight of him. An angry shout was enough to bring the Berber captain hurrying out; they met in the middle of the wharf, so close they could have whispered their conversation if they had wanted. Instead, they began a furious discussion, which every man on the dock could hear. I understood almost nothing, but I did hear al-Afdal’s name mentioned often by Bilal, and the caliph’s name invoked each time in reply by the Berber captain. A circle of the guardsmen formed around them, thickest behind their captain, and I saw Bilal begin to edge backwards. Even his commanding presence could not deter so many.

With a final, sharp comment, he turned his back on the guards and marched towards us. His face was grey in the smoke.

‘I cannot counter the caliph’s order,’ he said loudly. ‘Even if he has fallen under the influence of evil counsellors. I have sworn to obey him in all things.’ Then, more quietly: ‘They are taking you to your deaths. If you reach the far bank of the river, it will only be to step into your graves.’

He spoke so softly, almost conversationally, that I had nodded before I even realised what he had said. By then he had turned away and vanished out of the light, while a host of guards gathered about us and began shepherding us towards the river with their short spears.

‘What are they doing?’

The voice, small and frightened, cut through the fog of terror that gripped me. Achard was beside me, shuffling forward and looking up with fearful expectation. His staring eyes had lost their intensity; now they only made him look horribly innocent. He had not heard Bilal’s warning: perhaps that was a mercy.

Before I could answer, we were pulled apart again. We had reached the steps, and had to descend in single file. Three boats awaited us at the bottom, small craft, already half-filled by the slaves who sat by their oars. Their hunched backs gleamed in the dark. Without regard for rank or race, the Berbers herded six of us into the first boat: Nikephoros and Aelfric, Achard, two of the Patzinaks and me. An equal number of guardsmen accompanied us. Even in our utter helplessness, they clearly had orders to risk nothing.

A hand closed around my arm, tight as a noose. ‘What are they doing?’ Achard repeated. ‘What did the black savage say?’

‘That we will be murdered.’ I spoke furtively and in Frankish, praying none of the Berbers understood. As long as they thought we remained ignorant of our fate, I hoped they might postpone it.

Achard closed his eyes. ‘Into your hands, O Lord, we commit ourselves.’

I wished I could share his faith. My hands were trembling, and I almost had to lean over the side of the boat to vomit up the bile that had gathered in my stomach. I started to recite a prayer in my head, but the familiar words were no comfort to me and I could say no more than the first line before thoughts of death crowded out thoughts of God.

The boat cast off – I could see the other Franks, and some of our Patzinaks, climbing into the next one – and we pulled into the river. I felt the force of the current immediately, far stronger than in the fat barges that had carried us before, and the rowers had to lean hard on their oars to keep a straight course.

I glanced at Nikephoros. He was sitting very erect in the stern of the boat, his eyes fixed on the darkness ahead as if he could already see the saints lifting back the veil to the next life. I was not ready to die with such composure. I looked to Aelfric, seated on the bench opposite me, and our eyes met in agreement.

Out in the night, the oars dipped and swept through the water; further off our bow, I could hear fish rising to the surface. We were in the middle of the river now: far enough from the men on shore, I hoped. Feigning only a touch more despair than I actually felt, I bowed my head and rocked forward so that my face rested on my knees and my arms dangled beside my ankles. My fingers dug into my boot and closed around the handle of Bilal’s knife. My heart was beating so fast that I felt sure it must almost tip the boat over, and I heard a suspicious growl from the guard in the stern. This was madness – pure, desperate suicide. But there was no choice.

For a blissful moment, I prayed as clean and perfect a prayer as I have ever prayed. Then I straightened, lifted my blade and stabbed it into the neck of the guard beside me. His mouth sprang open, pouring out blood like a fountain, and in that instant Aelfric had lunged across the boat and snatched the short spear from his hands.

Everything after that was blind instinct and reaction. I saw the guard beside Nikephoros twist around to strike him, but the commotion in the boat unbalanced his arm and the spear thudded harmlessly into the transom. The guard was still trying to pull it free when one of the Patzinaks seized his legs and pitched him into the river. Something surged in the water; I thought it was the guard trying to clamber aboard, and stepped forward to knock him away. Then I glimpsed a vast, scaly body, ancient and terrible, rising from the midst of a cloud of foam in the water. Two jaws opened like shears, so close that I swore afterwards I could smell the rotting flesh between the teeth, and snapped shut in a spray of blood and screams.

Even with all that came after, it was the hardest battle I ever fought. Even in the worst battle, there are some certainties: the ground you stand on, the men beside you, the sword in your hand. Here, all those were gone. The boat bucked and squirmed like a fish on a line, and more than once I thought we would all be tipped into the river to die together. In those heaving confines, the battle lines stretched no further than the end of your arm, and if you waited to see if the man next to you was friend or foe he would most likely have killed you. A horde of monsters circled us in the water, snapping and tearing at any man who fell overboard. Most strangely of all, only half the men there actually fought. All the rowers stayed rooted to their seats, bowing over their oars and covering their heads while the battle raged over them. The briefest whimpers as boots stamped on stray fingers or spear-butts knocked against shoulders was all the contribution they made to the battle.

One of the caliph’s guards drove towards me with his spear, holding it two handed. Without sword or shield I had only one resort: I dropped to my knees and tried to roll away – straight into the side of the boat. That was my saving. The guard’s feet tripped over me and he sprawled onto the deck. Praying there was not another behind him, I rolled back, crouched astride him and reached round to slit his throat. I was too slow: with a great heave of his shoulders he shrugged me off, pinning my knife hand as he did. I lay beside him, clinging to his back like a lover, while he wrestled to free his weapon from beneath the tangle of limbs. Then a shadow fell over us, a spear stabbed down, and I found I could pull free from the suddenly limp body. I looked up to thank my saviour; instead of Aelfric or one of the Patzinaks, I saw a Berber guardsman holding the dripping spear. His young face was dazed with guilt as he realised his mistake – but there is no place for guilt in battle, or wars would never be fought. I did not trust my knife; I lowered my shoulder and slammed it into his stomach. He staggered backwards. The backs of his legs caught on the side of the boat and he tottered for a moment, before a last kick from my boot plunged him into the water.

‘Demetrios!’

How many more enemies could there be? I swung around, stepping left and trying to keep my balance on the rocking deck. It felt like trying to stand upright on a charging horse, and barely wider. Thankfully, there was no enemy behind me – the shout had been for help. Achard was standing at the stern of the boat; he had managed to get hold of a short sword, and was frantically parrying a furious onslaught of jabs and spear-thrusts from the man opposite. After six months locked up in the caliph’s palace, I was surprised he even remembered how to hold the sword; he did not look as though he would last much longer.

His opponent stepped back a moment, and he risked the briefest sideways glance. ‘Help me!’

I began to move towards him. On any normal battlefield I would have been at his side in an instant, but here I had to contend with the rolling deck, the slippery planking slick with blood, and the tangle of oars, corpses and cowering slaves. Achard was only a few paces away, yet it could have been miles.

‘Demetrios.’

The sound seemed to have come from out on the water. A bedraggled figure in a white robe lay half-submerged in the river, his hands clinging to an oar and his feet kicking frantically in the water. Nikephoros.

‘For God’s sake, get me out,’ he bellowed. He reached to try and haul himself up the oar, but it was slippery with river water and he could not get a purchase.

I glanced around. At the stern of the boat, Achard was still fending off his assailant, though with a weary lack of strength in his arms. At the opposite end, in the bow, Aelfric and another man I could not see were wrestling with a guardsman. In between, apart from the slaves, I was the only man standing.

‘What are you – ’ Nikephoros’ plea choked off as he swallowed a mouthful of water. For a moment I thought he had been seized by one of the river monsters, and that alone was enough to break my indecision. I knelt by the side, pressing my knees against the planking, and stretched out for Nikephoros like a pilgrim reaching for a relic. I was horribly vulnerable; I prayed that the others would keep their opponents away from me, and that there were none lurking in the darkness at the bottom of the boat. I could hear shouts and screams above my head but I did not dare look. Nikephoros lunged for my outstretched hand, but desperation made him wild: he missed, knocking my hand away and bruising it against the pole of the oar. I groaned, and reached again.

This time Nikephoros mastered his panic. His hand closed around my wrist and hauled, with such strength that I was almost pulled into the river after him. With a final effort, I braced my feet against the planking and threw myself backwards. Nikephoros sprang forward as if he had somehow found purchase on the water itself, while I sprawled on the deck. The blow had knocked the air from my body, and I lay there a second with my eyes shut, before the realisation that I could no longer feel Nikephoros’ grip on my wrists forced me to look. I almost wept with relief. Nikephoros’ chin was resting on the lip of the boat, and his arms dangled over the side. He hauled himself inboard and collapsed in a heap beside me, spewing curses and river water.

I looked around, aware of a sudden silence ringing in my ears. Aelfric and one of the Patzinaks crouched in the bow, wiping blood from their blades with quiet satisfaction. Nikephoros and I were all who remained amidships, apart from the petrified rowers. And at the back of the boat –

‘Where is Achard?’

There was no sign of him, nor of the guard I had seen him fighting. Aelfric shrugged, pointing to the river with grim resignation. Out in the night, I could hear roaring and splashes as the river monsters feasted.

Later, I might feel a prick of remorse that I could have saved Achard. But there was no time. We must have drifted well downstream, far from the following boats, but once they reached the opposite bank and realised we had not arrived they would come after us. No one asked if we should go back to rescue the others. Aelfric and the Patzinak began tipping the corpses overboard, while I searched out the lightest skinned slave and seized him by the shoulder. Glancing down, I saw why they had avoided the battle raging between them: they were all shackled to their benches.

‘Do you speak Greek?’

He looked up at me, quivering with terror, and shook his head. Mutely, he pointed to a man two rows in front of him.

‘You?’

The slave flinched. ‘A – a little. Not in . . . much years.’

‘Tell the rowers to pick up their oars and head downstream.’

‘Tell them to pull as if their lives depend on it, or we will throw them to the river monsters and row this boat ourselves,’ growled Nikephoros. He spoke quickly, and his voice was hoarse from screaming through mouthfuls of water, but the slave must have understood the brutal sense of his words. As one, the rowers leaned over their oars and began pulling us down the river.

When the bodies were cleared, we gathered in the stern of the boat for a council. As well as Achard, we had lost one of the Patzinaks; that left the other Patzinak, whose name was Jorol; Aelfric; Nikephoros and myself. We huddled together, smeared with the stains of combat, while a thin mist began to rise off the river around us. The night was not cold, but I suddenly found myself shivering.

‘How long until dawn?’ Aelfric asked.

No one answered. There was no way of knowing how much of the night had passed: you cannot measure a nightmare.

‘Not enough time to reach the sea, at any rate,’ I said.

Perhaps, because I had just saved his life, Nikephoros held some of his scorn in check. If so, I did not notice. ‘Reach the sea? Even if the night hid us for ever, we would never find our way through the tangled mouths of this river. And if, by God’s grace, we did reach Tinnis, what would we find there? A chain across the harbour, and every ship hauled out of the water for winter. Did you hear what the caliph said? The seas are closed.’

Aelfric stirred. ‘What about the ship we came on?’

‘The emperor’s fleet is no use to him penned up in an enemy port. The ship’s master had orders to sail home if we had not returned when winter came.’

‘It was the caliph who turned on us,’ I said tentatively. ‘Al-Afdal was willing to bargain. If we hide until he returns he may protect us.’

Nikephoros shook his head. ‘Al-Afdal would have bargained with us, but now the caliph has declared war on us and we have killed Fatimid soldiers. He cannot protect us now.’

‘Much good his protection did us anyway,’ Aelfric muttered.

‘If al-Afdal finds us, he will have to kill us.’

A glum silence descended between us. Oars squeaked, the rowers sighed the unheard sighs of slaves, and mist drifted across our bow. The moon had set, and though I could not see the stars I guessed that morning could not be far off.

‘So what shall we do?’

Nikephoros, who had been idly stroking his fingers through the tendrils of fog, looked up. ‘We cannot go north, we cannot stay where we are, and we certainly cannot go south. West only takes us further from home. We will go east.’

‘I have heard that there is only desert to the east,’ said the Patzinak warily.

‘So there is. But it has been crossed before. And you know what lies beyond?’ Sodden, battered and doomed though he was, Nikephoros gave a wolfish grin.

‘The promised land.’

ιε

We rowed on as long as we dared, then nosed the boat into a patch of reeds at the water’s edge. Before we disembarked, I forced the point of Bilal’s knife into the lock that fastened the slaves’ chain and pried until it opened. A dozen blank-faced slaves stared up at me, apparently unable to comprehend their freedom; we almost had to haul them off their benches and drive them ashore. When the boat was emptied, Aelfric and I waded into the water, keeping a cautious watch for the crocodiles, and rocked it back and forth until we capsized it. Then, with a final heave, we pushed it out into the stream and watched it drift into the darkness.

‘If we’re lucky, they may think we were all drowned.’

‘Or eaten,’ Aelfric said.

Nikephoros snorted, gesturing to the muddy ramp we had trampled out of the river bank. ‘And will they think that this was made by cattle? We should hurry.’

We left the slaves still huddled together in their herd and struck out across the adjacent field. Dark cracks split the ground at our feet, but despite the river’s failure to flood, the earth was still damp, and we left a perfect trail of footprints moulded into the soil. It would have been easier to walk on the embanked causeway that rose to our right – but then we would have been exposed to pursuing eyes.

As we had seen by the pyramids, the fertile ground extended no further than the edge of the river valley. We scrambled up the escarpment where the fields ended, and paused. Directly opposite, on the far side of the world, the sun climbed over the rim of the earth and faced us. An amethyst sky soared above us, fragile and new, while pink and golden light flooded across the horizon. The promised land, Nikephoros had said, and at that moment I could believe it.

But before that was the desert. It sprawled as far as we could see, all the way to the glittering horizon, a desolate wilderness of sharp stones and dust. Soon the heat of the day would boil the dregs of moisture from it, softening the scene with a haze, but for now we could see every peak, crag and broken hillside with savage clarity. Beside me, I heard the Patzinak groan.

‘Are we going to cross that?’

‘The Israelites did,’ said Nikephoros.

‘The Israelites struck water from the rock,’ I said. ‘Will we do the same?’

‘There is no need for blasphemy.’ Nikephoros pointed to our left, to the next ridge, where the splayed legs of a wooden tripod stood silhouetted against the new horizon. ‘We can drink at the well.’

But the well was not unguarded. As we came to the top of the rise, into the glare of the rising sun, we heard a splash, and moments later saw a woman standing by the edge of the well. She was dressed entirely in black, her hair covered with a shawl, so that only a single bone-white hair escaped. She must have seen us struggling towards her long before that, but she did not flee. She waited a moment for her bucket to fill, then began hauling on the rope. The sleeves of her dress rode up her thin arms as she struggled with the weight. Without a word, Aelfric stepped forward and took the rope. The woman edged away with a reproachful look but said nothing. Now that she faced us, I could see wizened cheeks and a furrowed brow in between the black wrappings.

Aelfric hoisted the bucket onto the stone rampart. Water spilled over its edge, but he steadied it with his hand and gestured the woman to take it. With a wary glance, she tipped the contents into a clay jar by her feet. Beside it, I saw two deflated goatskins lying on the sand.

The gushing sound of pouring water stirred my thirst. I took the empty bucket, threw it down into the well and drew myself a fresh draught. In my haste, the bucket came up half full, but I hardly cared. I tipped it to my lips and drank greedily, so fast that water splashed over my face and chin, dribbling down over my filthy tunic. I emptied it far too soon, and would have refilled it for myself had I not felt the envious eyes of my companions. Reluctantly, I let them take it in turn, while the woman crouched by her jar and watched cautiously.

I prodded one of the goatskins with my toe. ‘Will you sell us this?’

Blank eyes stared out at me from beneath her shawl. Beside me, Nikephoros shook the water from his beard and sniffed. ‘Do you think she will understand you? Why should she? What can she do against us if we take her goatskins?’

Ignoring him, I threw down one of the spears we had stripped from the caliph’s guards. She stared at it in terror, and I realised too late I had forgotten to wipe the blood from its tip. Trying to smile, I reached down for the two goatskins and pulled them towards me. I pointed to them, then to myself, then to the spear and then to the woman.

She stretched a bare foot from under her dress and pushed the spear back towards me. The goatskins she left untouched.

‘What use is a spear to her?’ Nikephoros jeered. ‘Do you think she will march to the palace and ask to join the caliph’s guard?’

‘He has some spaces in his ranks to fill after last night,’ said Jorol, the Patzinak.

‘The steel in the blade is worth something.’

‘Only trouble.’ Aelfric took the spear off the ground and earned a grateful glance from the woman. ‘If the caliph’s guards come chasing us and find that spear in her house, what do you think they’ll do to her?’

‘No worse than they’ll do to us if we wait any longer,’ said Jorol, looking pointedly over his shoulder. Long shadows stretched out behind us, but they were shortening every minute.

With an apologetic bow to the woman, Aelfric tossed the leather bucket into the well and drew three quick measures. When the goatskins were filled, he and Jorol heaved them onto their shoulders while I gazed uncertainly at the woman.

‘What if she tells someone she saw us?’ Nikephoros’ voice was harsh.

Aelfric shrugged. ‘They’ll see us for themselves if we don’t go soon.’

Just before we left, I reached into my boot and pulled out the knife Bilal had given me, which I had retrieved from the bilge of the boat after the fight. I was loathe to part with it now: it had brought me luck in battle, and might be needed again in the desert. But the woman had given us water, and bad bargains bring bad luck. Bilal had bought the knife from a market stall, he had said, and there was nothing to mark it as ours – or his. I threw it to her; she caught it in her bony hand, examined it, then tucked it into the folds of her dress. Nikephoros stared at me with bare contempt.

‘If you have finished giving alms . . .’

We walked into the desert.

* * *

Fifteen months earlier, I had marched with the Army of God across the barren plains of Anatolia in August, when we chewed thorns for moisture and slaughtered dogs for food because the horses were already dead. Turkish cavalry had harried our column every day, ants trying to strip the army’s body one crumb of flesh at a time, and we had left a trail of corpses on the road behind us, mile after mile, because we had neither the time nor the strength to bury our dead. After surviving that, I had thought nothing could ever be so terrible again.

But that misunderstood the desert. Heat, thirst and hunger can kill a man, but it is the everlasting emptiness that flays his soul. The desert draws up life like a sponge, sucking until the heart dries up and turns inside out. Then it confronts you with the skeleton that remains. Some men find their revelation there and become prophets; some are driven mad. Most do not survive the ordeal.

How did the Army of God survive the march across Anatolia? Not through strength or courage or faith, but merely because it was too big to kill. However much we suffered individually, the sheer mass of humanity around us, in all its lumbering, screaming, stinking pain, proved we were still alive. We drove a column of life through the desert, and the desert could not overcome it. Four men, battered and hungry, with barely a day’s water between them, were a different matter. Almost immediately, the desert began to reduce us. My limbs shrivelled and burned like sticks in a fire as the sweat was wrung out of them; my tongue felt as though it was baking in my mouth. I tore a strip from the bottom of my tunic and wound it around my head to shield the sun, though it did little good. Jorol went further still: he pulled off his tunic completely and ripped it in two, draping one half over his head and shoulders like a woman’s shawl and tying the other around his waist for modesty. It made him look blasphemously like Christ.

By midday, we could go no further. We staggered into the shade of a rock in a shallow depression and lay there, too tired to stay awake and too hot to sleep. Flies crawled out of the sand to bite us, and rivulets of sweat slithered over my skin like snakes. And always I was listening out for the drumming hooves or jangling armour that would spell the end of our mad flight.

We pretended to sleep until dusk. Then we rose, brushed the dust from our clothes, and continued on.

At first we navigated by our shadows, following where they pointed as the sun sank behind us. They became so long it seemed they must reach all the way home; then, abruptly, they vanished. Stars came out, impossibly familiar in that lonely place, and we struggled on, keeping the pole star forward and to our left as much as the fractured terrain allowed. We walked in a single column for the most part, but every so often a steep slope or high obstacle would knot us together again. At one of those places, I asked Nikephoros about our course.

‘We have to reach the coast,’ he said. None of us had spoken a word all day, and his voice cracked with exhaustion.

‘What will we find there?’

‘Water.’ He tried to smile, but his dry lips would not oblige. ‘And perhaps a boat.’

‘Then what? None of us is a sailor. Even if we were, you said the sea is closed.’

‘We can make our way up the coast. The Fatimids control it, but their ships will be in harbour.’

With good reason, I suspected. I did not ask any more questions.

The desert had been a hostile place by day; in the dark, it became a nightmare. A land that had seemed unable to nourish a single stalk of grass now brought forth a host of living beasts: strange, unseen creatures, which scuttled, squealed and grunted all around us. Soon I became convinced that if only we had had a lamp to kindle we would have seen ourselves surrounded by a writhing mass of all the carrion birds, flesh eaters, beetles, snakes and worms of Hell. As it was, we saw none of them, though once I felt my boot step on something furry, which screamed and squirmed under my foot before scurrying away. Somewhere, perhaps half a mile away, something like a wolf howled to the stars.

The air itself seemed to mock us. We had waited for dusk to avoid the heat of the day; what we had not expected was that the night could be so cold. The empty dark seemed to suck all warmth from the air, so that the clothes that had felt like plates of burning iron now seemed flimsy and inadequate. Jorol untied the torn half-tunic from his head and draped it over his shoulders; it did not reach as far as the loincloth at his waist, and in the dark the gap between the two pieces of white cloth made it look as though his torso had been sawn in half.

We marched through the night. When the blood-red fingers of dawn began to reach over the horizon, we found another shelter and curled up for the day.

Many men enter the wilderness seeking answers. Some, I suppose, find them. For myself, I found that the emptiness of the desert left only questions. Words and images tumbled unbidden into my mind, as if every thought and memory I had ever had was being flushed through me. I saw Anna and Sigurd, sometimes alive and sometimes as ghosts; I saw my daughters, as they were and as they had been, cradled in their mother’s arms. I even saw my parents, though I thought I had forgotten what they looked like. In one memory, or dream, I had thrust my hand into a bees’ nest; I ran down the hill between spring wildflowers, crying with pain even as I licked the honey from my stinging fingers. A woman hugged me, so close that I could not see her, and I dried my tears on the folds of her skirt.

I opened my eyes and was back in the desert.

The second night’s march was worse than the first. A chasm of hunger had been opening inside me since the previous morning; now it engulfed me. Cramps of pain shot through my stomach and I was forced to bend almost double, leaning on my spear for support like an old man. Halfway through the night we ran out of water. We had hoarded it as long as we could, taking sips so small they barely wet our lips, but even so we could not eke it out for ever. Unfortunately for Aelfric, he was holding the goatskin when it happened – and he did not help matters by upending the empty sack and shaking the last few drops out into his mouth. Jorol stared at him with covetous anger.

‘Who said you should have more than your share?’

Aelfric met his stare with haggard eyes, but did not answer. That in itself was a goad to Jorol. The Patzinak stepped towards Aelfric, snatched the empty skin from his hands and dashed it to the ground.

‘What will we drink now? Dust?’

‘You can drink my piss if you like.’

Even through the haze of despair and exhaustion, Aelfric must have known what he said; indeed, his fists were already rising as he spoke. But Jorol was too demented by thirst to be satisfied with that. He swung his spear around and lunged towards Aelfric.

The sneer died on Aelfric’s face and he flung himself away. He tripped on a stone, lost his balance and sprawled backwards. Jorol sprang after him, and the wild look on his face left no doubt what he intended.

A heavy staff swept through the moonlight, humming with its speed. It struck Jorol in mid-air, square on the chest, and he dropped like a bird felled by a sling. As he bent over in pain, Nikephoros slapped the spear-haft across his shoulder blades; then he turned to Aelfric, still lying on the ground, and kicked him hard in the ribs.

‘If you lose your discipline again, it will be the sharp end of this spear you feel. Get up.’

The two men staggered to their feet, breathing hard. For a moment, I feared they might both attack Nikephoros, but the desert had not yet stripped all habits of obedience from them.

‘If we quarrel among ourselves, we will never escape this desert,’ said Nikephoros.

‘We will never escape anyway. Not without water to drink.’ Beneath the despair, I sensed a sly mischief in Jorol’s words, like a child who cannot help provoking his father to beat him.

Nikephoros’ shoulders stiffened, and the spear twitched in his hand.

‘Say that again, and I will see your body rot in the desert.’ Before Jorol could decide whether to test the threat, Nikephoros spun around to face me. ‘We will take the waterskins with us in case we find another well. You will carry them.’

I started. ‘Why me?’

‘Because the others carried them when they were full.’

Behind him, I saw Aelfric and Jorol smirking with satisfaction. I did not think we would find another well, but I shouldered the two empty waterskins without a word.

The next day, we did not stop at dawn. Without water, every hour brought death closer. Nikephoros led the way, his hand perpetually raised to shield his eyes as he scanned the horizon. Aelfric followed, then Jorol, then me. Even empty, the waterskins I carried weighed as much as a coat of armour.

The desert had already broken my defences; now it began to devour me. My sight closed in, so that despite the glaring sun the world seemed indistinct around me. I could barely see beyond Jorol in front of me; he had lost the half of his tunic that covered his head and looked more like Christ than ever with only a single white cloth wrapped about his waist.

I began to hate Him. How could He have brought me to die in this wilderness? Surely even a grave in Babylon would have been better than this torment? After all my prayers, my faithful service, was this all I had earned at the close of my life? Did He delight in inflicting this pain on me – and on my family, my daughters, and the grandchild I would never see? Would He watch over Anna’s shoulder as she stood at the harbour at Saint Simeon, day after day, searching in vain for the ship that would never bring me home? Would He laugh at her? How did I deserve this?

But you are a sinner, an unbidden voice hissed in my mind. You have killed and lain with whores. What else do you deserve? Christ has turned his back on you and left you desolate. See?

I lifted my eyes. The world was dark around me, as though a black cloth had been tied over my eyes, but through the haze I could see a hunched figure dressed only in a loincloth, walking away alone across the sands. He looked back at me for a moment, and behind his ragged beard I thought I saw him smile. Then he turned away.

I would not let him abandon me. Anger seized my limbs and drove me forward; the soft sand swallowed the noise of my footsteps, and he did not hear me until I was almost upon him. He twisted around, just as my shoulder thumped into his side, and we went down together. He screamed in surprise, and screamed some more as I began beating him with my fists. Famished by the desert, I had little strength to punish him, but he had little more strength to resist. He wrapped his arms around his face and drew his knees in like a child, while I rained down feeble blows.

Strong arms pulled me back and wrestled me to the ground. I could not resist them.

‘What are you doing?’ Nikephoros was bellowing with anger, his face almost touching mine, but his words were faint and vague. I had lifted myself on one arm and was staring over his shoulder, to where a column of dust rose across the horizon behind us. I pointed.

‘A pillar of cloud,’ I murmured, dazed. ‘A pillar of cloud to guide us.’

Nikephoros glanced back, then gave a savage laugh and kicked my hand out from beneath me, so that I collapsed back to the ground. ‘Fool. That is not your salvation. That is the dust rising from beneath the wheels of Pharaoh’s chariots. Our pursuers have come.’

Nikephoros was right: it was not a pillar of cloud, but billowing dust kicked up by a squadron of horsemen. As yet they were little more than specks against the storm, but that would not last long. I turned around and looked east, as if some vestigial piece of faith still expected God to provide a refuge, a sea to cross or a flight of angels to carry us up. Instead, all I saw was a solitary rock, rising like a boil out of the desert a mile or so distant. I had not seen it before, though it was the only feature on an otherwise flat plain, and I realised that the impending danger – or perhaps the prospect of release from my suffering – had at last swept back the darkness that shrouded my eyes.

‘That’s as good a place as any to die,’ said Aelfric.

At last I knew how I had survived Antioch. Not because I was stronger, or because my faith was more steadfast, but because I had no choice. How else to explain the new strength that seized me? After the shadows that had engulfed it, the world seemed bright again – brighter even than it had before. I dropped the waterskins in the dust, for we would have no need of them now or ever again, and felt that I grew instantly a foot taller. Even my stride seemed longer.

But wherever you look in the desert, the sights deceive you. The land between us and the outcropping rock was furrowed with row upon row of dunes and ridges: from a distance they looked like little more than ripples blown by the wind, but once among them we found ourselves toiling up and down long, grinding inclines. Even at their summits there was no respite, for there we saw how far we still had to go. And all the while, the pursuing dustcloud menaced us ever closer.

Even fear can only drive a man so far. I found I could no longer breathe except in the shallowest gasps, as if my lungs had filled so full of sand that there was no room for air. My legs buckled and swayed; I fell, dragged myself to my feet, fell once more and might never have risen again if a firm hand had not pinched around my neck and hauled me up. Still holding me, Nikephoros spun my face so that it was barely an inch from his own. His eyes blazed with demented purpose; he did not speak, but pursed his lips and spat a thin gob of saliva straight at me. It landed on my lips, and before I knew what I was doing I had licked it off, sucking the moisture greedily in.

‘Come on.’

We staggered forward to the top of the next rise and halted, leaning on each other for support. Even the desert could not disguise our situation now. From the ridge where we stood, a gentle slope descended away, until it ended abruptly in the sheer wall of rock, barely three hundred yards away.

I cannot tell where we found the strength to run, but run we did. Arms flapping, legs splaying, shoulders hunched and faces contorted in gruesome snarls, we ran like men possessed by demons. All I could hear was the thump of my footsteps and the roaring blood in my ears. Halfway to the rock I looked back and saw the dust cloud billowing up; when I looked again, the horsemen had crested the ridge. Lances glittered in the sun, while the archers among them loosed a volley of arrows. They dropped harmlessly into the sand behind me – but near enough that I could see where the next flight would fall.

A square black banner waved them forward. The horsemen charged down the slope, and I ran.

More arrows flew; I could hear them striking the ground, stalking up behind me, drawing level and overtaking me. I thought to try and weave between them, to make a harder target for the archers, but that would have cost me precious speed. I had to hope my lurching progress was enough to confuse them. Now the sound changed: ahead of me, I heard the crack of an arrow striking stone. I looked up. A wall of rock rose before me – and splitting open its face, a ravine. I hurled myself in as a hail of arrows clattered on the walls beside me.

The world went dark again. The two halves of the fractured rock rose so steep and close that even the sun could not prise its way between them, except to touch the very tops of the walls high above me. As my eyes balanced the gloom, I saw where I had entered: a sandy lagoon cupped between the rocky walls. Grasses and flowers grew out of the rock above me – stunted and pale, but the first green things I had seen since the Nile. There must be water somewhere, though that was my last concern at that moment.

I had been the last of our company to enter the ravine. Ahead of me, where the gap widened, I saw Nikephoros and the others scrambling up the steep slope, trying to find a path to the top. I followed them, though it seemed a hopeless task. Even if we had the strength to climb this mountain, the Egyptian archers would shoot us off its side long before we reached the summit.

But not yet. Whether they feared to bring their horses into the narrow defile, or whether they had sent some men around the rock to be sure we did not escape through the other side, they did not follow us in straight away. Meanwhile, Nikephoros seemed to have found some sort of goat path up the cliff, and we climbed it desperately, crawling on our hands and knees as it steepened. How could goats ever have come here? I wondered.

About a third of the way up, the path ended. I would have surrendered there, but Nikephoros was already moving on, scuttling up the sheer cliff like a spider. I was astonished, until I saw what he had seen: a ladder of recesses and handholds cut into the cliff, rising straight to the sky. Some were so freshly made I could still see the chisel scrapes on them, though I did not think to question who had carved them.

Fifty feet below, the horsemen swept into the ravine and dismounted. With cruel deliberation, I saw the archers pull fistfuls of arrows from the quivers on their backs and plant them in the sand beside them. They would not need so many, I thought. The others were already halfway up the cliff, caught like flies, while I still stood on the ledge where the path ended. I was safer there from the archers below – but that was no solace, for soon the spearmen scrambling up the path would reach me. The sharp snap of bowstrings echoed around the ravine, immediately drowned by the quick-fire rattle of iron on stone. Not only stone – several hit flesh, and a mortal screaming joined the cacophony that filled the air. A shadow fell from the sky as the arrows plucked one of my companions from the wall above. I did not see who it was; he fell into the sand at the foot of the cliff, and in its soft embrace I did not even hear his neck break.

Pebbles rained down on me as my companions climbed on. To my right, the spearmen were only a few yards down the path, though something seemed to have delayed them. They crouched behind their shields, looking up and across the ravine. Following their gaze I saw the dark shapes of more archers silhouetted against the sky on the opposite summit. Now they could rain arrows on us from above and below. There would be no escape.

Yet even where there is no hope of escape, men will try beyond reason. I could not get past the spearmen; the only other path was up. I scooped a handful of pebbles and threw them down on the archers in the ravine, a vain gesture of defiance, then turned and began hauling myself up the cliff.

It was easier than I had thought it would be. Whoever had cut the footholds had placed them well, so that my feet found grooves and fissures exactly where they expected. I pulled myself up, hand over hand, deaf now to the sounds of battle, to the arrows around me, to the voice in my heart that pleaded this was madness. The discipline of climbing brought a rare order to my body, and I embraced it eagerly. Perhaps I might even reach the summit, I thought, though I did not know what I would do when I reached it.

An arrow tore into my shoulder, and as I screamed my hand let go of the rock. I tried to cling on with my other hand, but I did not have the strength. I fell, felt a rush of air and then a life-emptying thud.

I lay back, and let the desert take me at last.

ις

Angels hovered over me in a golden sky, their faces still and solemn as they circled the bearded man in their midst. In his left hand he clutched a thick book, bound with many seals, while his right was raised as if in blessing or judgement. There was a seriousness about him, which I had expected, but also a sadness, which I had not: his mouth seemed to droop away from his gaunt cheeks, and dark bags ringed his sunken eyes. In the distance, and seemingly all around me, I could hear the quiet chanting of prayers.

‘Christ?’ I asked uncertainly. I had thought I would recognise him immediately, but now I was not sure.

‘You are in the presence of Christ.’

His lips did not move, nor did the voice even seem to emanate from him. Instead, I heard it whispering in my ear.

A bolt of terror sparked through me. I tried to bow, or kneel, but at once an invisible force pushed me back. I did not resist.

‘Will you judge me, Lord?’

He chuckled, though his drooping mouth did not move. ‘It is not for me to judge you. And your time has not yet come.’

‘Not yet . . . ?’

‘Wake up,’ said the voice. ‘Wake up, Demetrios Askiates.’

Christ seemed to recede away into the sky as a larger, gentler face leaned close over me. There was no ethereal stillness in this man’s features: his head swayed from side to side, and his blue eyes darted about as if searching for something within me.

‘Are you Saint Peter?’ I guessed.

He chuckled – the same laugh as I had heard before, but this time his cheeks creased and his mouth opened wide with mirth. His breath smelled of onions.

‘I am Brother Luke. The infirmarian.’

I tried to rub my eyes, though only one hand obeyed. The other seemed to be tied down to something. I turned my head to look.

The golden sky disappeared. Instead, I saw a row of stern-faced prophets lining a long wall, and afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows above their heads. In front of them, at my bedside, an elderly monk in a black habit was pouring something from a jug into a plain cup.

‘Where am I?’

The monk set the cup down on a wooden table and turned back to me. ‘At the monastery of Mount Abraham.’

‘I thought I saw—’ I broke off, uncertain if it was blasphemy. The monk, however, showed no offence.

‘Perhaps you did. You were half dead when they brought you here.’

‘Who brought me?’

‘The Nizariyya.’

I did not understand, but before I could ask anything else he had crooked an arm around the back of my head, lifted it forward and was tipping the contents of the cup into my mouth. I tasted honey and rosemary, and something bitter I did not know. It was only as the cool liquid touched my throat that I realised I was no longer thirsty – or hungry.

‘How long have I been here?’

‘Three days.’

Unbidden, I suddenly pictured a dark chasm filled with screams and the hiss of stinging arrows. ‘And my companions?’

The monk dabbed at my mouth with a napkin. ‘They both survived – better than you. You will see them tomorrow. Now, rest.’

There was much more I needed to find out, so much that all the questions seemed to choke in my mouth and I could not say one of them. A heavy hand drew a veil over my eyes, and sleep claimed me.

* * *

The angels were flying above me again but now the sky was dark, illuminated only by a dim orange haze like sunset after a storm. I twisted in my bed, testing my invisible bonds. If I went to my right I could turn quite easily; if I tried my left, I could barely move without igniting a horrible pain in my shoulder. I looked to my right. Iron lamps hung from a high ceiling, and by their light I could see the columns and vaults of a spacious room, and the shadowy throng of prophets and disciples painted on the surrounding walls. I rolled up my eyes – there were the angels again, inlaid on a half-dome above my head, and the Christ in their midst. His hand was still poised in unmoving judgement, and his face still told unspeakable sadness.

‘When will he be healed?’

The voice came from my left, where I could not see. I twisted my neck cautiously, trying not to disturb my shoulder, but all I could make out were two dark figures in shapeless robes, silhouetted in front of a brazier. One was short and round; the other, taller and leaner, towered over his companion and leaned forward with authority.

‘It will take weeks for him to heal – if the wound does not fester,’ said the shorter man. I recognised the kindly fastidiousness in his tone – Brother Luke, the infirmarian.

‘He must be ready to leave tomorrow.’

This distressed the infirmarian a great deal. His head bobbed back and forth, and he twisted his hands together. ‘He cannot leave. If his wound opens before the flesh has rebound itself, he will die.’

‘They cannot stay. Even as much as we have done already threatens our community if the caliph hears of it.’

‘But where will he go? Will you cast them out into the desert?’

‘A caravan passes by here tomorrow afternoon. Bind him tight, and make sure he is ready.’

‘And if he dies on his journey?’ The infirmarian’s voice tightened with anger.

‘Then he will not lie on my conscience. He should have chosen a safer path.’

Brilliant sunshine beamed through the high windows; outside, I could hear a bell tolling the office of the day. I sat up in bed, supported by two novices, while Brother Luke unwound the bandages from my shoulder. I peered down, digging my chin into my collarbone. As the cloths came away I saw what they had bound: a round hole, so wide you could poke a thumb into it, about halfway between my nipple and the crook of my arm. I flinched even to look at it – a few inches closer in, and it would have passed clean through my heart. The cherry-red surface was waxy and cracked, but I saw none of the black rot that would have doomed me. Brother Luke examined the bandage, looking pleased enough, then took green ointment from a jar and smeared it over the wound. His fingers were merciless, pushing hard and pressing the medicine into every corner, and I had to bite my lip not to yelp. I wished it were Anna tending to me. When he had finished with my chest, he reached around, and I felt his fingers repeating the procedure on my back.

‘Did the arrow go clean through me?’ I asked, gasping out the words before the pain became too much.

Brother Luke pursed his lips. ‘If you mean to ask whether it went straight through you, then almost: we had to push it through to get the tip out where we could remove it. As to whether it went cleanly through,’ he shrugged, ‘only God knows, and time will reveal. But I pray, and I am hopeful.’

I did not ask whether his hopes rested on his prayers or his skill.

When the ointment was applied to his satisfaction, he brought fresh bandages and wound them about me: first around my shoulder, then across my back, then around my upper arm to bind it to my side. By the time he had finished I was swaddled like a baby – and almost as feeble.

‘Now . . .’ Under his supervision, the two novices helped pull me around so that I could swing my legs out of bed. They tugged on my boots, then lifted me as I tottered to my feet. My vision darkened again and I swayed, as if my legs had forgotten how to stand during their three days in bed – I tried to thrust out my arms for balance, but only one was free to obey.

Trying to hide his smirk, one of the novices reached out and steadied me while the other fetched some clothes. I watched them – they must have been about thirteen, the same age as I had been when I had worn those robes. Now, more than twenty years on, it was as if time’s edifice had collapsed, so that my past and present selves found themselves face to face inside those monastery walls.

And in the same clothes – for when the second novice returned he brought another grey habit like his own, which the two of them wrestled over my head. I managed to poke my right arm through the sleeve, though my left remained bound up inside the robe.

Brother Luke looked at me enquiringly. ‘Does it fit?’

‘A little tight.’ I had been smaller twenty years ago.

He nodded. ‘That will help support your shoulder.’ He squinted at me, tilting his head right and left as though judging my balance. Then he picked up a wooden staff that leaned against the wall and placed it in my hand.

‘There. Now you look a proper pilgrim.’

‘But where am I going?’

Brother Luke pointed to a door under the windows. ‘You can begin by getting some fresh air.’

I shuffled uncertainly to the door, onto a shaded balcony which ran along the front of a wide building. Behind me, regular doors studded the whitewashed wall, no doubt leading to the monks’ cells and offices; over the balustrade, the rest of the monastery sloped away down a gentle incline, a jumble of squat buildings, domes and faded tile roofs. It was a true fortress of God, bounded by a massive mud brick rampart whose single gate might have been ripped from the walls of Constantinople herself. Beyond it, a few miles distant, I could see the solitary hump of the rock where we had fought our desperate battle. Otherwise, the monastery stood alone in the desert.

I heard the quick slap of sandals and turned, expecting the infirmarian had come to examine me. Instead, I saw a monk I did not recognise, a tall man in a black habit, with a heavy gold cross swinging around his neck and a ruby ring on his finger. He walked with a brisk, confident stride, though his close-trimmed beard masked a face no older than my own. He came level with me and extended a rigid arm, holding his hand just low enough that I had to stoop to kiss the ring. It was an awkward movement with one arm tied to my side, and I almost overbalanced attempting it. He snatched his hand away with an affronted tut.

‘Are you the abbot?’ I asked.

He nodded, and tried to force a smile. It did not keep the disapproval from his eyes. ‘How is your wound recovering?’

I touched my good hand to my shoulder. ‘With God’s grace the infirmarian thinks it will heal. Though he tells me it will take weeks.’

The abbot avoided my gaze. ‘In a just world, you would of course remain with us until your wounds were whole.’

I thought I had recognised something about him, the way he stooped forward, too eager to cow you with his authority. I had seen him arguing with the infirmarian in the night. ‘You want me to leave.’

‘In a just world . . .’ He twisted his hands together. ‘Your presence here is dangerous. You must know that.’

‘I don’t even know how I came to be here.’

‘The Nizariyya brought you.’

It was the second time I had heard that name. ‘Who?’

‘They are rebels . . . brigands. Your friends will explain. But when the caliph’s men do not return, he will send others to search for them. If they come here and find you . . .’ The abbot turned and stared out into the desert, as if he was expecting to see the full might of the caliph’s army thundering across the horizon. But there was only a hawk, circling in the cloudless sky.

‘It is not easy living as Christians in a heathen land.’

‘I’m surprised the caliph allows it,’ I said.

The abbot gave me a sharp look, alive to any insult. ‘We pay our tributes, as he requires, and he leaves us to practise our vocation.’

I looked around at the encompassing wilderness, silent and vast. ‘You found a good place for it.’

‘Yes.’ The abbot nodded eagerly. ‘Yes. Here we can be apart from the world and live as Christ taught.’

‘And did Christ teach you to cast out the wretched and wounded who crawled to your doorstep?’ barked a voice from over my shoulder.

I turned to see Nikephoros and Aelfric walking towards me, and immediately had to stifle a laugh. Both of them were dressed as I was, in novices’ grey habits, but where mine was a little snug across my shoulders, theirs rode high above their knees and elbows, more like labourers’ smocks. Nikephoros, in particular, seemed utterly ridiculous – though his face was as proud as ever.

‘My Lord.’ The abbot bowed low – evidently Nikephoros had already impressed his rank on the man. ‘My Lord, you know we have extended you every kindness. But we live here to escape the snares of the world. We cannot allow them to intrude in our community, or they will destroy it.’

‘You will have to run further than this if you want to escape the cares of the world. How much do you pay the caliph to leave you alone?’

The abbot swallowed. He was young, and too used to ruling unchallenged over his little kingdom in the desert, I guessed.

‘We render Caesar his due, as Christ commanded.’

‘And if Caesar demands the three men who escaped his captivity?’

Three men? I glanced at Aelfric and mouthed Jorol’s name. Aelfric gave a small shake of his head.

The abbot was backing away along the balcony. ‘No. No! I would never betray fellow Christians to the Egyptians. It is for your own safety that you must go, as much as ours.’

Nikephoros stared at him and said nothing.

‘A caravan will come past the monastery this afternoon. They will take you to the coast. There are men there – Christians – with ships.’

‘And what use are ships in winter?’

‘Winter does not trouble these men. They are accustomed to it. They will take you . . .’ He shrugged, perhaps uncertain where three vagabonds who had crawled out of the desert might want to go. ‘Home.’

Despite myself, my hopes leaped to hear it. Nikephoros, meanwhile, took two quick strides and stared close into the abbot’s face. They were almost the same height, and for a moment their eyes met on a level plane.

‘If you betray us, master abbot, or deal unfairly with us, I will personally march back across this desert with a legion of the emperor’s troops at my back, and tear apart every brick of your monastery.’

The abbot dropped his gaze. ‘I will not betray you. I only want peace, and for my community to be left to their Christian lives.’

Before we left, I sought out Brother Luke the infirmarian to thank him for his care.

‘You saved me from death.’ I wished I had something to give him but I had nothing.

The infirmarian smiled a gentle rebuke. ‘God saved you; I merely dressed the wound. I pray it is enough. I have little call here to practise on the wounds you brought me.’

‘You could come with us. Your skills would save many lives, especially among the Army of God.’

‘My vocation . . .’

‘It would not be betraying your vocation,’ I insisted. ‘It would be serving God – more than sitting comfortably in the desert and tending to men who have blistered their knees with too much prayer. It would be a mercy to many.’

Brother Luke looked down in embarrassment, and I realised I had spoken with too much passion. ‘I’m sorry. I only meant – ’

‘I know what you meant. And what you say has its truth. But God has called me here to withdraw from the world. That is my vocation; whatever small skill I have to heal proceeds from that.’

A bell tolled through the high windows. Brother Luke gave a smile. ‘Now, however, I am called to prayer.’

‘Let me join you,’ I said impulsively. For all the prayers I had hurled at God in recent days, it was an age since I had entered the warm womb of a church, wrapped in candlelight and incense. Suddenly, I longed for it.

But Brother Luke shook his head. Outside, down the hill, I heard the creak of a gate and the tramp of many hooves.

‘I think you are called back to the world.’

Above us, the stern Christ stayed fixed in his firmament. One hand clutched the sealed book, in which were written all things; the other was raised, as if in farewell.

After the strange familiarity of the monastery, it was something of a shock to meet our new escorts: a dozen Saracens dressed all in black, with crooked faces and fearsome swords. They rode on camels, with another two score of the beasts roped together in a train laden with sacks and bundles. Just walking past them brought a feast of exotic scents to my nose: sweet, musky and forbidden. It was like walking up the eastern end of the main avenue in Constantinople, outside the palace gates where the perfume-sellers kept their shops.

‘Who are these men?’ Nikephoros demanded, bristling with suspicion.

The abbot sniffed. ‘Spice traders from Arabia. They are on their way to the coast.’

There was a brief delay while the abbot negotiated with the Saracen leader. We could not understand a word, but the exchange of a purse full of coins seemed to decide the matter. The Saracen leader gestured to a riderless camel, and with much unloading and rebalancing of their burdens, two more were found for the rest of us. I noticed that a couple of the sacks were not reloaded, but remained beside the abbot. Servants filled the caravan’s waterskins from the monastery well; then we mounted our camels and rode out. With only one arm free to cling to the reins, my balance was precarious, but I managed to turn myself enough to see the monastery receding behind us. Looking back, seeing it alone in the empty desert, its mammoth walls and towering gate seemed more folly than ever – defences against an invisible siege. Yet they had not been built against the armies of men, but against the world itself, and for that even those bulwarks were no more than sand before a tide. Perhaps mindful of that fact, the monastery’s builders had sited it artfully in the lee of a low ridge, almost the same colour as the faded mudbricks of the ramparts. It seemed extraordinary that anything so vast as those walls could disappear, yet already it was hard to tell where the walls ended and the ridge began. The next time I looked back, it had vanished completely.

Nikephoros must have seen my glance, for he brought his camel alongside.

‘Fools.’ He jerked his head back towards the monastery. ‘If God was obliged to come into the world and toil as a human, I doubt he intended that abbot and his flock to be spared.’

‘Perhaps.’ I was unsure whether I envied the monks their vocation, or pitied them for it. I tried to change the subject, nodding towards our Saracen guards. ‘Who are these men?’

‘Smugglers.’ Nikephoros’ camel began to drift back, and he swatted it with a short stick to bring it level with me again. ‘No doubt when we reach the coast they’ll find some pirate who will spirit their cargo across the sea.’

‘But they are Ishmaelites. Why should they have to skulk about in their own country?’

‘Because Ishmaelites hate taxes just as much as Christians and Jews. And also because the Saracens of Arabia follow a different sect of Islam, the same as the Turks. They are the Fatimid caliph’s bitterest enemies.’

‘Are they the same as the men who rescued us from over there?’ I pointed to the west, where the outcropping rock was now a small blot on the horizon.

‘No. Those were Nizariyya.’

It was the third time I had heard that name. ‘Who?’

‘Four years ago, when the old caliph died, his chosen heir was his eldest son, a prince named Nizar. But the vizier al-Afdal, whom we met, preferred the youngest son who had only recently come of age.’

‘He thought the younger son would be more easily governed?’

‘And the boy was married to al-Afdal’s sister. Al-Afdal installed the boy on the throne – the same throne where we saw him; Nizar fled to Alexandria, raised a revolt and proclaimed himself the true caliph.

‘Al-Afdal crushed the revolt easily enough, but it was only half a victory. To the Fatimids, the caliph is not just their king but also their high priest, the imam. There can only be one lawful imam at a time, and each must proceed from the last. They claim that the line stretches unbroken all the way from the heresiarch Mohammed. Supporting a caliph is not only a question of politics, but also of faith. And that is much harder to defeat.’

I considered this a moment. ‘What happened to Prince Nizar?’

‘He was captured and disappeared.’ Nikephoros grimaced. ‘No doubt in the same manner, perhaps the same place, as we would have done if we had not escaped. Al-Afdal hoped he would be forgotten; instead, his partisans believed that Prince Nizar had been concealed by their God until he could return in glory and vengeance. Naturally, that only redoubled their determination in their war against the caliph, though they were scattered and weak.’

‘And these partisans: they are the Nizariyya who rescued us?’

‘They have a hidden camp on the heights of that rock. When they saw that we had been pursued by the caliph’s troops, and fought against them, they spared us.’ He laughed. ‘They are also the caliph’s bitterest enemies.’

‘There seem to be many.’

‘And more now that he has offended Byzantium. When the Nizariyya realised we were Greek, they brought us to the monastery. The abbot did not say as much, but I guess there is an understanding between the monks and their neighbours.’

‘And Jorol?’

‘He fell from the cliff. They could not say whether it was the fall or the arrows that killed him. The monks buried him in their cemetery.’

We rode for two days, resting in the hottest hours of each day and the darkest hours of each night. Then, just before dusk on the second day, we came to a rise and saw a sight I had almost forgotten existed. Trees. Olive groves scattered the valley before us, and on the opposite ridge I could see a row of date plams swaying softly in the breeze. The same breeze blew across my face – not a parching desert wind, but a cool, wet wind flavoured with salt and fish.

Even with one arm tied to my side, I would have flogged my camel bare to gallop across that final stretch more quickly. Instead, we had to endure the painstaking pace of the pack animals as they picked their way among the crumbling stone terraces and irrigation channels in the valley. Up the far slope the ground became sandier – not the floury dust that coated the desert, but paler and coarser sand, which ground and crumbled underfoot.

We reached the line of date palms I had seen and looked out, onto a few low sand dunes, a flat beach and the sea beyond. If I had been standing I would have dropped to my knees to thank God; as it was, I stared at the water, unblinking, until my eyes wept from the salt breeze. To our left, I could see a small village of ramshackle huts thatched with palm leaves. Children played in the sand dunes, while women knotted broken nets and men caulked the boats they had hauled up to the top of the beach.

But those were not the only vessels. Drawn up at the water’s edge where waves rippled between their hulls lay five ships – much bigger than the fishing boats, with stout masts and high, curving prows. Their sails were furled and their oars stowed, but one flew a green banner showing a man with outstretched arms at her masthead. Seeing it, Aelfric gave a small cry; he leaped down from his camel, almost tumbling into the sand in his haste, and ran across the beach.

The men by the boats saw his approach and advanced to meet him. Some snatched up their swords, and several carried long axes. It did not deter Aelfric: he ran straight into the throng, shouting something I could not understand. The nearest man stared in astonishment – but it was the astonishment of recognition, not fear. He dropped his axe, spread his arms and wrapped Aelfric in an engulfing hug.

‘What . . . ?’ Nikephoros slipped out of his saddle and strode after the Varangian. For myself, I could not dismount unaided but kicked my camel forward, overtaking Nikephoros and reining in just behind Aelfric, who was now deep in conversation. I paused and listened. It was not a language I could speak or understand, but it was familiar to me nonetheless. I had heard it spoken among the Varangians many times.

Nikephoros pushed forward. ‘Who are these men?’

Aelfric broke off and turned to us, his eyes shining with excitement. A circle had begun to form around us as the men from the ships gathered. Looking at the assembled faces, I saw that many bore more than a passing resemblance to Aelfric: fair hair, light skin tanned red by wind and sun, and broad shoulders, which held their weapons easily.

Aelfric pointed to the man who stood at the centre of the throng. ‘This is Saewulf. These are his ships.’

The man called Saewulf stepped forward. His chestnut-coloured hair hung lank over his shoulders, tied back by a leather thong, while his beard was so thick it almost covered his mouth. He wore a green tunic and red leggings, and a dagger with a handle carved like a fish tucked into his braided belt. He stood with his legs far apart, his shoulders back and his chest out-thrust. I suppose it was a posture learned from many months balancing on a heaving deck, but the effect on land was vaguely obscene.

‘Is he English?’ I blurted out.

Aelfric nodded.

No doubt it would take many questions to establish why an English sailor and his fleet had made their camp on the shores of Fatimid Egypt. But at that moment, there was only one question that mattered, and Nikephoros asked it with his customary brusqueness.

‘Will he take us home?’

ιζ

That evening, Saewulf’s men built fires on the beach and roasted goats. It was the first meat I had tasted since we fled the caliph’s palace and I forced myself to eat it cautiously, though I could have devoured it in a mouthful. I licked the fat from my fingers while Nikephoros and Aelfric talked with Saewulf. He had avoided Nikephoros’ question, insisting we could not speak before eating; and once we were seated around the fire he had asked to hear our entire story. Nikephoros told it, with some explanation from Aelfric in English but mostly in Greek, for Saewulf’s voyaging profession had taught him many languages. For all his barbaric appearance he made a charming host: he filled our cups with beer, cut us the choicest pieces of meat, and gave us fresh cloaks and tunics to replace the ill-fitting novices’ clothes we wore.

When Nikephoros had finished his account, he fixed his gaze on Saewulf. ‘That is our story. But why has an English seafarer beached his ships on these shores, at this time of year? You are a long way from safe harbours.’

‘So are you.’ Saewulf grinned; the goat-grease on his teeth gleamed in the firelight. ‘I came to fish.’

Nikephoros gestured towards the ships, though all we could see of them were high prows sweeping up into the darkness. ‘Are those fishing boats?’

‘For me – yes.’ Saewulf leaned forward. ‘I was in England when I heard that the Pope had preached his holy pilgrimage – ’

‘I thought all of your people had been driven out of England when the Normans invaded,’ I interrupted.

‘Even William the Bastard could not kill every Englishman. He needed us to plough his fields and quarry stone for his castles. And sail his ships.’ He shrugged. ‘I carry many cargoes, but I have never profited from carrying a grudge.’

Aelfric stirred. ‘Sigurd Ragnarson would disagree with you.’

‘Which is why I left the Varangians.’ He saw my look of surprise. ‘Yes, Demetrios Askiates, I have seen your city and stood beside your emperor, in the palace and on the battlefield. As close as I am to you now. But do you know what I realised? That if I was to live under a foreign king, it might as well be in my own country.’

‘Even though he raped that country?’ Aelfric murmured.

Saewulf gave a harsh laugh. ‘Better that than living in perpetual exile, brooding on injustices that will never be undone and pretending that I can atone for my country’s shame by giving my life for a king who cared nothing for it. That was why I left the Varangian guard – it was like living in an open grave.’

‘I wonder, was it as hard for you to live under the king who murdered your family?’

‘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.

II

The Golgotha Road

January – June 1099

ιη

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?’

‘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.’

ιθ

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.

Nikephoros eyed our surroundings dismissively. ‘Is the duke of Lorraine such a pauper?’

It was fortunate he had spoken in Greek, for at that moment one of the curtains swung back and Duke Godfrey strode into the room. I stared at him, unable to hide my hatred despite Nikephoros’ warning. He had not changed much: the weatherbeaten face that seemed set in a permanent look of disapproval, the stocky shoulders more like a ploughman’s than a duke’s, the pale blue eyes. I tried to imagine him standing over the captives at Ravendan, watching his henchmen burn out their sight, but though the memory was sharp the details were clouded.

He looked at Nikephoros. ‘Welcome,’ he said courteously. He closed the book on the stand and covered it with a cloth. ‘I had not expected I would host an ambassador of your rank on this frozen evening, or I would have made preparations. As it is, all I can offer you are the spartan comforts that I require myself.’

Evidently the attendant who announced our arrival had not troubled to mention my presence – why would he? – and Godfrey’s noble gaze was well-practised at ignoring servants in the background. Only as I started speaking, translating his greeting, did his eyes flick across to notice me. I was ready for him: though my voice never wavered, I held his gaze and watched with savage delight as recognition bit. Even he, schooled in the wiles of courtly intrigue as he was, could not hide his shock. Just for a second, the mask slipped: colour drained from his face and his eyes widened in panic. By the time I finished relaying his welcome he had collected himself.

Nikephoros, standing in front of me, could not see my expression. ‘Tell him I am grateful he has received me so late and unannounced.’

I repeated it in the Frankish dialect. ‘No doubt you did not expect to see us.’

‘You had been gone so long I feared you might be dead.’

‘As you see, I survived.’

Two servants moved the brazier to the centre of the room, bringing chairs for Nikephoros and Godfrey and a wooden stool for me. Though outwardly calm, I could see the uncertainty in Godfrey’s eyes as they darted between me and Nikephoros, gauging who was the greater threat. He had never seen me at the monastery, I realised; he did not know how much I knew or guessed of his role, and it troubled him. There at least I had the advantage.

He offered Nikephoros a taut, insincere smile. ‘What brings the ambassador of Byzantium to my tent on this bleak night?’

‘The same thing that has brought all the princes to this forsaken town.’

‘The council?’ He laughed. ‘If you have come to persuade me to side with Count Raymond, you could have saved yourself a cold journey. I am not interested in who rules Antioch.’

‘You swore an oath to return the emperor his lands.’

Godfrey’s face soured at the memory. He had spent months trying to escape having to make that oath, and had only relented at the point of a sword. I wondered if his theft of the emperor’s ring was somehow meant to revenge that defeat. ‘Bohemond swore the same. If he has not honoured his word, it is a matter for his soul and conscience. Not mine.’

‘Of course,’ said Nikephoros calmly. ‘The question of Antioch is a side issue – a distraction. As you say, it does not concern you.’

‘No.’

‘It concerns Count Raymond and Bohemond. But while they wrestle together, each trying to choke the other, we are all sinking into the mire.’

‘Did you come all this way on a winter’s night to tell me that?’

‘Antioch is not worth losing this war for. Already, while you wasted the summer and autumn, the Fatimid vizier marched on Jerusalem and took it. He has already had six months to repair its defences and stuff it full of his men. If we wait another six months he will have made it impregnable.’

Godfrey leaned forward and stirred the coals with a poker, tapping it against the brazier’s edge to clear the ash. I tensed, memories of Tancred and the blinding iron rushing back to me, then wondered if Godfrey had deliberately done it to provoke me. I glanced at him, but his expression betrayed nothing.

‘Six months or six years or six thousand years: it does not matter. The caliph cannot make Jerusalem impregnable. Jerusalem is the city of the living God. He will deliver it to us in His own time.’

‘Only if we reach it.’

‘We will reach it,’ said Godfrey stubbornly. He paused. ‘Do you know the emperor Charlemagne?’ He must have seen me perplexed by the barbarian name, for he added: ‘The emperor Charles the Great. I know the Greeks did not recognise that title, but he was emperor of the west long after you had surrendered your right to it. He was my ancestor.’

With a solemn face, he stretched out his hand palm down. On his fourth finger, a black stone bulged from the heavy ring he wore, its gold scratched to an ancient dullness. Once again, I wondered if he was testing me by provoking memories of another ring. ‘This was Charlemagne’s ring.’

Nikephoros bowed his head in respect. ‘I knew your own reputation, Duke Godfrey – long before I met you – but I admit I did not know your ancestry.’

Godfrey gave a smug smile. ‘That was centuries ago. After his death there was not a man alive who possessed even half as much authority or ability. The empire he had ruled alone he divided between his three sons, who divided it among themselves and among their heirs until all that remained was my own duchy of Lorraine. But that is history. While he lived, the emperor Charlemagne made a pilgrimage of his own to Jerusalem. That is where he took the banner of the five wounds, which you saw outside. And that,’ he concluded, ‘is why you do not need to question my passion to see Jerusalem. I will never rule over the empire of my ancestors. I would not wish it and I doubt I could manage it. The world was smaller then, or the men bigger. But in this small thing at least I can follow his example, and honour his memory.’

Godfrey leaned forward on his stool, his eyes half closed, perhaps imagining the great exploits of his ancestor. Nikephoros pressed his fingers together.

‘My master the emperor never doubted your zeal – or your faith. Indeed, he relied on you to carry this campaign forward when he knew other men would falter. Which is why – ’

Godfrey held up a hand. Lamplight gleamed where it caught the band of his ring. ‘When I go to Jerusalem, it will be of my own will and desire, not under duress from any man – Norman, Provençal or Greek.’

‘What of the unity of the Army of God?’

‘What of the unity of the Army of God? If there was such a thing, you would not be here now. When there is, I will happily follow the army where it chooses to go. But I will not drop to my knees and beg. When God ordains the time they will do what He requires.’

His tone was measured and his words precise, but there was no mistaking the unbending pride behind them. He rose; Nikephoros and I followed.

‘Thank you for coming to speak with me,’ Godfrey said, with the same efficient courtesy he had shown when we arrived. ‘If we all spoke more often together, things would go better with us.’

‘Then I will hope tomorrow brings accord.’

Nikephoros bowed again, and was about to go when Godfrey said, ‘You said you were in Egypt, at the caliph’s court. Did you hear any word of my liege-man, Achard of Tournai? He travelled there nine months ago as part of our embassy, but I have heard nothing from him since the summer.’

Nikephoros halted in surprise, then crossed himself. ‘While we were in Egypt, the caliph turned against all Christians at his court and tried to kill us. A few of us escaped; Achard did not. He drowned in the Nile while we fought the caliph’s guards.’

Godfrey lowered his eyes. ‘By the waters of Babylon I lay down and wept. It was a risk he took, but I will mourn his loss. He was a good man and a zealous servant.’

‘He fought bravely to the end.’ Nikephoros, so practised in the nice phrases and smooth lies of diplomacy, sounded unexpectedly false when discussing a man’s death.

‘I am glad to hear it.’

Godfrey inclined his head to dismiss us and we retreated from the tent. We had not gone six paces when a servant scuttled out and called, ‘You have forgotten your cloak, Demetrios Askiates.’

I touched a hand to my shoulders, feeling the thick wool of my cloak clasped where it should be. Nikephoros raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

‘I had better fetch it.’

Every muscle in my body tensed as I stepped back into Godfrey’s chamber. He would not harm me with Nikephoros waiting outside and half the Frankish army camped nearby, I told myself. I still could not keep from shivering as I saw him standing over the brazier, stirring the coals. How many hours had I spent during our captivity in Egypt brooding over his treachery and pondering my revenge? Yet now that I stood face to face with him, alone, I could not touch him.

‘Did I forget my cloak?’ I asked.

‘You were supposed to be dead.’

‘By God’s mercy, we escaped the Egyptians.’

‘I was not talking of the Egyptians.’ He raked me with a long, searching look. ‘I do not know how you survived, or what you learned, but if you say one word against me I will make you wish you had died in the fires at Ravendan.’

I kept silent, fixing him with a stare of plain hatred.

‘You do not want to make an enemy of me,’ he warned.

‘I never did.’

He banged the poker against the rim of the brazier. It rang with a mournful, hollow clang. ‘You had something that I needed. Now that I have it, there is no reason for us to be enemies.’ He jabbed the poker towards me and I flinched. ‘Go home, Demetrios Askiates. Go home to your family. Leave behind these things that do not concern you. No good will come of it if you stay here.’

He nodded his head to dismiss me and I went. My last sight was of him pacing around the room, pinching out the candles with his fingers.

κ

The princes met next morning. It was the last time they would all sit together under the same roof, though none of us knew it. Afterwards, we might look back and see the signs of what was to come, but on that dazzling morning there seemed genuine grounds for hope. The storm had passed: the morning sun shone gold on the dappled snow drifts, and pearls of ice hung from the trees like berries.

One by one, the Franks made their way to the centre of the village, striding through the knee-deep snow. They had been forbidden from carrying arms to the council, but they compensated by bringing hordes of their knights, who stood in small knots around the village square and glared at their rivals.

‘They should have allowed the princes their swords and forbidden them their followers,’ said Aelfric. ‘Then we would have been safer.’

‘At least if it comes to a fight they’ll have nothing more dangerous than snowballs.’

The bright morning did not last long. Clouds came up, chilling our spirits, and soldiers’ boots soon ground the snow to a grey-brown gruel. Still we waited, all eyes watching the western road. Bohemond had not come. The princes clustered around the edges of the square, huddled with their men as they wondered what it signified. Only Raymond, standing outside the church doors flanked by his guards, did not seem troubled by the absence of his rival.

After half an hour, Raymond walked to the centre of the square and called the princes forward. I accompanied Nikephoros to translate for him; the others came alone. All were wrapped in vast thicknesses of bristling furs, swelling them to twice their actual size, and they sniffed at each other like a pack of wolves in the snow.

‘Where is Bohemond?’ said the Duke of Normandy. He was a stout man who had been prominent by his absence during most of the hard campaigning. Now his face was creased with worry.

‘What does it matter?’ Raymond’s single eye swept around the gathering. ‘I am too old to be kept waiting in the cold by a Norman whelp.’

‘Without Bohemond there is nothing to discuss.’

Raymond’s face flushed an angry red under his irongrey beard. ‘Are we beholden to one man? Are we children without Bohemond’s hand to guide us? Bishop Adhemar, rest his soul, used to preach that the only commander of the Army of God is God Himself. I do not think that includes Bohemond – unless he has added divinity to his self-appointed honours.’

Several of the princes looked uneasy at the impiety of this suggestion. Tancred merely laughed, and murmured audibly, ‘I would not put it past my uncle.’

His comment drew a disapproving stare from Duke Godfrey, and surprised looks from the others. Unabashed, Tancred continued, ‘I agree with Count Raymond. If my uncle wishes to come then he will be here. He would not want us to delay on his account: he knows our cause is greater than any single man.’ A smile curled at the edge of his lips. ‘Even him.’

‘Then it is decided.’ Raymond turned and strode towards the church without looking back. The others hesitated, glancing at each other in indecision. No one made to follow Raymond until he was more than halfway across the square, a proud and lonely figure in the dirty snow. Then, like a gaggle of unruly children, they made their way into the church.

Once, during the great trials at Antioch, the princes’ councils had been commonplace affairs, consumed with questions of detail and the care of the army. In those desperate times a short prayer from Bishop Adhemar had sufficed to consecrate the occasion, and the only men in attendance had been the princes and their closest aides. Now, a bishop led a full mass in Latin while all the princes’ followers crowded into the church. When the service was over, a space was cleared in the middle of the church and the crowd penned back by four benches set in a square. In its centre, on a marble pedestal, sat the golden reliquary which held the fragment of the holy lance. I noticed many of the princes refused to look at it as they seated themselves, fidgeting under the eyes of the crowd and staring at the empty space where Bohemond should have been. I took my place behind Nikephoros, and thereafter whispered all that was said in his ear.

The bishop, whom I did not recognise but who sounded like a Provençal, began with a long and disjointed speech invoking the glorious deeds the Franks had worked. Had they not fought four great battles against the impious Saracens and – with God’s aid – prevailed every time? Had they not taken the fortress city of Antioch, which all men thought impregnable, and then defended it against the mightiest army of Ishmaelites the world had ever seen? Had God not bestowed miracles – true miracles – to demonstrate His favour?

It was not an inspiring speech. After five minutes of it, Nikephoros signalled I did not need to translate any more. The bishop’s oratory mixed extravagant hyperbole with flat-footed phrases, and dwelt too long on events that were known to every man there, so that it seemed even the most extraordinary feats must have been tedious and banal affairs. Each time the bishop mentioned Antioch, Raymond’s head twitched with annoyance, and when he invoked the holy lance as the climax of his argument, several of the princes smirked openly. In the packed space around us, I heard yawns and muttering.

A crack like thunder on the outer door shattered the tedium in the church and silenced the hapless bishop. The double doors swung in as if giant hands had thrown them open, and a dazzling light flooded in to the gloomy chamber. Silhouetted against the glare, the huge figure of Bohemond sat in the centre of the doorway on a pale horse. Even in a congregation of battle-hardened knights, several men cried out with fear.

Bohemond urged his horse forward into the church. Its hooves rang on the flagstones and echoed off the dome above. All the princes were on their feet, staring at the newcorner. He rode a little way into the sanctuary, then swung down from his saddle, thrust its bridle into the hands of a gaping bystander and strode through the throng. It opened before him like a well-oiled door. The mottled red skin on his face was livid, engorged by excitement and the attention of the crowd, while a wicked grin pinched the edges of his mouth. A blood-red cloak flowed from his shoulders, and where it parted over his chest a sliver of silvered armour gleamed through.

Count Raymond stood and faced Bohemond across the square, two bears in a ring. The old man’s chest rose and fell under his fur cloak, his face riven with anger.

‘Bohemond.’ Stark syllables spat out the name. ‘Are you so grand now that God Himself must wait for you?’

Bohemond shrugged. Rings of armour rippled beneath his cloak like serpent’s scales. ‘If I have offended the council, I am sorry. Truly. In my haste to be here I lamed my horse and had to find another.’

Count Raymond stared pointedly at the horse, which still stood obediently in the doorway. It was a battle charger, a white stallion that had carried Bohemond into every battle we had fought. In the snow and ice that covered the ground, he would not have ridden it more than a hundred yards.

Duke Godfrey rose, stretching out his arms so that he bridged the space between the two antagonists. ‘We are grateful you came. We will need our full strength if we are to confront the challenges God asks of us.’

Raymond looked as if he would happily have lifted Duke Godfrey and thrown him at Bohemond in fury. Instead, he swallowed his anger and sat back down on his bench. Godfrey and Bohemond did likewise, Bohemond taking his seat on the opposite side of the square to Raymond. When he had arranged the folds of his cloak behind him and smoothed them down, he turned to the bishop with a mocking gleam in his eye.

‘My apologies, Your Grace. I think perhaps my late arrival interrupted you.’

The bishop’s mouth flapped open; his head popped forward like a man trying to force a cough, but he made no sound.

‘The bishop was reminding us of our sacred obligation to march on Jerusalem,’ said Godfrey.

Bohemond looked puzzled. ‘Had any of us forgotten it?’ His gaze touched on Count Raymond, who sat up with indignation.

‘I have not forgotten my duty. I have not spent the last six months sitting in Antioch.’

‘Only because my men threw you out.’

The crowd around us bridled at Bohemond’s jibe, muttering their displeasure like spectators in the hippodrome. Though scattered among the jeers I heard laughter, and several men squawking like chickens. They could not have been Bohemond’s knights, for he had brought none.

‘Antioch does not belong to you,’ snapped Raymond, upset by the noise.

‘Come and claim it, if you want it. I will be ready for you.’ Bohemond tapped a fist against his waist, where his sword should have been. ‘But I did not come here to talk about Antioch. I thought our object was Jerusalem. Perhaps Count Raymond has forgotten that.’

‘Antioch and Jerusalem are inseparable.’ The Count of Flanders, one of the lesser princes, pronounced what everyone knew. ‘If we cannot agree how to leave Antioch, then there is little point discussing how we reach Jerusalem.’

The hapless bishop, all but forgotten, rose to his feet. Raymond was quicker.

‘Why dance around the truth? The Count of Flanders is right. Bohemond holds Antioch in defiance of our oaths to the emperor, and of all our claims. If he does not surrender it to us, we will stay here until he compels us.’

‘Do not speak too freely for other men,’ Godfrey cautioned him. ‘I besieged Antioch for eight months and led my men in the battle against Kerbogha. By rights of conquest, I have as much claim as any man to Antioch. But I renounce it. I would rather have ten minutes’ prayer in the Holy Sepulchre than a lifetime owning all the lands and riches of Antioch. Who else can say the same?’

For a moment, his challenge echoed in the silent church. Godfrey’s face shone with righteousness as he stared around at his colleagues, then looked down to his right where Tancred sat.

Tancred shrugged. ‘I have no claim to Antioch.’

One by one, the princes repeated the declaration – some with careless ease, others, mostly those who had fought hardest in the siege, with obvious reluctance. Eventually only Raymond and Bohemond had not spoken. Godfrey looked to Raymond.

‘We have all made our vow. For the cause of Christ and the unity of the Army of God, will you join us?’

Raymond stuck out his chin. ‘If Bohemond renounces his claim.’

All eyes turned to Bohemond. He sighed.

‘Nobody doubts Duke Godfrey’s piety. But it is easy for him to renounce what he does not have. I possess Antioch, by right of conquest and of fact. I will not give it up.’

‘Then I will stay here until you do.’

Three eyes – two hot with anger, one hard as iron – stared at each other. The lance’s reliquary glittered on its pedestal between them, while murmurs of disappointment swelled all around. Most of it seemed to me to be directed at Count Raymond. Bohemond evidently thought the same, for the sound brought a cruel smile to his lips as he sat down again. Raymond remained on his feet, trembling like an oak tree under the first touch of the forester’s axe.

‘There will be a reckoning for this,’ he warned. ‘You are a thief, Bohemond – even your cursed father knew it when he disowned you. But you will not enjoy the spoils of your crime.’

Bohemond’s face flushed crimson as his cloak, and though the smile remained fixed on his face I saw his curled fingers clenching involuntarily into fists. Even after rising from obscurity to become lord of Antioch and first among the princes, he could not forgive the father who had disowned him in preference to a younger half-brother from a second marriage. But he said nothing.

Godfrey rose. In the grey light of the church the princes’ faces were dark and distraught – all except Bohemond, who seemed to glow with a savage energy. ‘We came here to make peace: not to start a war. Have we grown so complacent since we defeated Kerbogha? We are beset by enemies on all sides. If you pursue this quarrel with Bohemond, Count Raymond, we will all die.’

‘Not all of you,’ said Bohemond. ‘Only those who fight against me.’

‘Jerusalem,’ squeaked the bishop. ‘Keep your hearts on Jerusalem. That is where we must go.’

‘When we have finished our business here.’

The bishop stamped his foot, though you could not hear it above the rising noise. He looked close to tears, as if he could not comprehend his impotence. ‘In the name of Christ, I implore you, mend your quarrel and—’

‘I will go to Jerusalem.’ Bohemond’s voice rose over the din and smothered it. ‘I took an oath to capture the holy city or die, and I will fulfil it.’

The bishop stared at him hopefully. Raymond’s face was dark with suspicion.

‘But no army marches in January. Look out there.’ He pointed through the church doors, which no one had thought to close since his entry. ‘Can an army march through that? Let us wait until March, until the spring of the new year. When the earth has thawed and we can feed off the land, then we will go up to Jerusalem. I will lead the army there myself.’

‘Hah!’ Raymond strode to the centre of the square of benches and spun around, looking at each man in turn. He lifted the reliquary from its pillar and hugged it to his chest. ‘It was a Provençal pope who preached this great pilgrimage, a Provençal bishop who guided us through our greatest perils, and a Provençal pilgrim who found this holy relic. It will be a Provençal who leads the army to Jerusalem, and it will be a Provençal who first stands atop its walls and looks down on the holy soil that Christ trod.’

He put the reliquary back down, hard, and leaned on its pedestal. His gaze bored into Bohemond, who did not quail but gave a short, dismissive laugh.

‘I will not follow any man to Jerusalem. But I will go there with the Army of God.’

The Duke of Normandy stood. The worried expression that had creased his face from the start now threatened to fold it in two. ‘I do not care who leads us to Jerusalem.’ Approving cheers sounded around the church, though he did not seem to draw comfort from them. ‘But I do not want to delay. In August we said we would wait until September. In September we delayed to November, in November we deferred to January and now Bohemond wishes us to wait again until March.’ He spread his palms, showing empty hands. ‘I mortgaged my dukedom to my dearest enemy, my brother the king of England, to pay for this pilgrimage. All I have earned by it are debt and suffering. If it brings me at last to Jerusalem, I will not begrudge one penny of it. But if our quest ends here, in pride and hatred, then my sacrifices and all our sacrifices will have been for nothing. Does any of us want that? I say we should march immediately, before I can no longer afford to keep my army.’

A wave of sympathetic murmurings echoed around the church. Embarrassed but grateful, the Duke of Normandy sat down and looked expectantly at Raymond.

Raymond hesitated. Without anger animating it, his face seemed old and haggard. ‘I swear before Christ that I would march through storms and fields of ice to reach Jerusalem, fasting all the way. But I cannot leave injustice and usurpation behind. However . . .’ He raised his arm. At the back of the church, I heard a commotion, and the grating of heavy boxes being dragged forward. ‘If any man will follow me, then I will give him his reward.’

On cue, four knights appeared at the edge of the square of princes. Manoeuvring their way through a gap between benches, they manhandled two heavy strongboxes into the middle of the square. With fat keys they undid the locks that bound them, and pulled open the lids.

Every man in the church was standing, craning to see, as Count Raymond dug into one of the chests. A cascade of gold and silver coins fell from his hand as he lifted it.

‘Who will join me in the battles to come?’

Bohemond moved forward, stepping around the reliquary so that he stood almost touching the count. Both men were tall but Bohemond had the advantage: he stared down on Raymond, cold scorn written across his face.

‘It will take more than gold to buy you friends.’

‘I did not offer it to you.’

‘I would not have taken it.’ Bohemond glanced around at the princes, perhaps sensing that he was looking on some of them for the last time. ‘Take his money, if you like. Take it and make yourselves his servants. Feed his vanity and his envy. But when his gold runs out, or you tire of being an old man’s pawn, come to Antioch and join me. I will be waiting there.’

He spun on his heel and walked to the door. Every footstep echoed like a hammer blow. He led his horse outside, hoisted himself into the saddle, and cantered away. The last I saw of him was his cloak swirling behind him, a blood-red stain against the white snow.

A cold breeze swept through the doors, as if the entire congregation had drawn breath. I glanced back at Raymond, who stood still as a statue over his chests of treasure, his face vivid with triumph.

‘We are well rid of him,’ he declared, trying to force a jovial tone that did not suit the mood around him. ‘But surely you will not spurn my generous offer. There is no shame in it,’ he assured them.

The other princes glanced at each other uncertainly, refusing to meet his cajoling stare.

‘I cannot take your gold.’ All attention turned to Duke Godfrey. ‘I refused the emperor of the Greeks when he offered his treasure, and now I refuse yours. I am the Duke of Lorraine from the line of Charlemagne himself; I cannot be any man’s vassal.’

‘You need not be my vassal,’ Raymond pleaded. ‘I do not need any return for my charity. All I want is the unity of the Army of God, and the speedy conquest of Jerusalem.’

‘Then we want the same thing. But your gold will not make me want it more, and I can afford to pay my army myself. When you are ready to march to Jerusalem, and only then, I will join you – as a free man beholden to no one but God.’

Godfrey was not a natural orator: in public as in private, his manner felt brusque and detached. He had none of Bohemond’s showmanship, nor the ability to whip up crowds to his cause. But his restraint, which too often seemed the product of arrogance, did confer a certain dignity. He bowed to Count Raymond, nodded to his fellow princes, and walked stiffly to the church door. His knights followed him out, threading their way through the thinning crowd.

‘Duke Godfrey is right.’ Now it was the Count of Flanders who spoke. ‘I do not say that Bohemond is above reproach – but nor are you, Count Raymond. If you offer money to go to Jerusalem, then I am going there anyway; if you offer the money to fight Bohemond, then I reject it utterly.’ He pushed his way out of the square, followed by his knights.

The triumph drained from Raymond’s face though the smile remained fixed there, the skeleton of emotion. His hand trembled as he leaned on the reliquary’s column for support.

‘Is there any sensible man among you?’ Desperation flecked his voice. ‘Is there anyone whom Bohemond has not poisoned with his lies and malice?’ As if to remind them of his riches, or perhaps out of nervous instinct, he dug his hand into the chest of gold again and let the coins trickle through his fingers.

‘I will take your gold.’ Tancred sauntered forward, immune to the stares of surprise and suspicion he drew. ‘I am not too proud to accept aid if it will bring me closer to Jerusalem.’

He knelt before Raymond, putting his hands in the older man’s. ‘I swear—’

For the second time that day, the council was interrupted by the sound of hooves. Tancred broke off, while men looked back in fear lest Bohemond had returned with his knights to finish his feud. But there were no Norman hosts, only a single rider on a spent horse. Reining it in, he flung himself down and pushed his way into the church. He wore no hat or helmet: his hair was tangled and filthy, and matted with crusts of ice. He must have ridden through the night.

He dropped to his knees before Count Raymond. ‘Mercy, Lord,’ he gasped, crossing himself. ‘There is a mutiny among the pilgrims at Ma’arat. They have risen against your garrison and are tearing down the defences. They say they will not wait to proceed to Jerusalem, but must go immediately. God has willed it.’

κα

The council ended in uproar. Count Raymond’s men rushed to their camp and began pulling it down, churning the snow to slush, while grooms saddled horses and squires stuffed their belongings into saddlebags. With nothing to pack, I stood by my horse with Nikephoros and Aelfric and watched as, one by one, the princes hurried out of the town. Whatever hopes had existed for the union of the Army of God died in the snows of Rugia. Some marched north towards Antioch, others west to the coast. A few followed Raymond south to Ma’arat.

For all our haste, it was well after noon before we set out, and the sky was already darkening. Even then, we could not travel quickly. The fresh snow cast a treacherous veil over the ruts and holes in the road, and we had not gone far when we found it blocked completely by a fallen fir tree. I clutched my reins tighter, fearing an ambush, but it was only the weight of snow that had toppled the old tree. A company of Norman knights had already dismounted and were hacking at it with axes, while their captain walked his horse around them and shouted angry orders. He wheeled around as he heard our approach, and trotted up the road to meet us. Unruly curls stuck out from beneath his fur hat, and his dark eyes were alive with malice – which only deepened as he recognised me.

‘Can it be Demetrios Askiates?’ A soft, dangerous laugh. ‘I saw you at the council. I had heard you were dead – or perhaps that you had gone to whore yourself to Ishmaelites.’

I fought back a wave of hatred and bile. I had not forgotten the vision of Tancred toying with Pakrad as he seared out his eyes at Ravendan. Nor was that the worst atrocity I had seen him inflict on captives during this campaign. I gestured to the tree. ‘Has Count Raymond made you his forester, now that you have taken his gold and made yourself his servant?’

Tancred’s horse shivered. Behind him, his men had managed to chop the tree free of its splintered stump. With a heave, they lifted the trunk off the road and rolled it into a ditch.

‘You should be more careful when you address your betters,’ Tancred warned me. ‘Perhaps you do not know how much you have to lose.’ Again the dangerous laugh. ‘Have you had news of your family recently? They are not as safe as you suppose. If I were you, I would hurry to Ma’arat as quickly as I could.’

He had spurred his horse and was already moving, his last words almost drowned by wind and the beat of hooves. I kicked my own mount to follow, but she was a feeble creature compared with his. Before I had gone a hundred yards, he was lost from sight.

A chill dread held me in its grip for the rest of our ride. Night fell; further down the valley the snow had fallen as rain, turning the road to a bog, but Count Raymond insisted we press on through the darkness. Long before we reached Ma’arat, a writhing skein of flames in the sky ahead served as our beacon.

By midnight we had come close enough to see the individual fires burning ahead, and to make out the shadows of torn buildings around them. Soon, half a dozen fires seemed to break away from the main blaze like sparks, but they did not fly up and fade to cinders. Instead they drew nearer, growing larger and brighter until they resolved themselves into a troop of horsemen with torches in their hands. They halted before us and saluted.

‘What has happened to my city?’ Raymond demanded. ‘Is this Bohemond’s doing?’

The knight looked surprised. ‘Bohemond has not been here. I thought he was at the council. This is Peter Bartholomew’s work.’

Raymond pounded a fist on his saddle pommel, so hard that the horse below almost unseated him in its fright. ‘Peter Bartholomew was under my patronage and my protection,’ he raged. ‘I sponsored his vanity so that he would keep the pilgrims obedient. Has he lost his command of them entirely?’

‘Not at all. He preached this.’

All the men around Raymond edged back, anticipating another eruption of fury. Instead, he sat very still.

‘It was yesterday evening, at sundown,’ the knight continued. ‘He summoned all the pilgrims and recounted a vision, how Saint Peter had appeared to him and revealed God’s anger that His people suffered and delayed because of the avarice of princes.’ The knight shot Raymond a fearful look. ‘Forgive me, my lord, but that is what he said.’

‘Go on.’

‘He preached that a house built on error cannot stand. All at once a devilish madness seized the pilgrims and they spread through the town, grabbing mattocks and axes and firebrands – anything they could find that would destroy. They ran to the walls and began tearing them down, even with their bare hands.’

‘And you did nothing to stop it?’

The knight swallowed hard. ‘We tried, my lord. But the pilgrims were devious. Wherever we went they fled, only to reappear at another corner of the walls. We hanged any that we found but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘It has been going on a day and a night now. They are too many and we are too few. And there was nobody with your authority here to command them.’

Raymond heard all this in silence. The light from the flickering torches did not reach his empty eye-socket, which loomed like a hole bored through his face.

‘Come,’ he said at last. ‘Let us see what disaster Peter Bartholomew has worked.’

We rode on into the ruins of Ma’arat. Perhaps, before the Franks arrived, it had been a middlingly prosperous place on this lonely plateau; now it was a ruin. A ghoulish amber light filled the air like dawn, and by its glow we could see the devastation the pilgrims had wrought. At first sight, the destruction seemed wild, indiscriminate: some sections of wall were all but intact; in other places gaping holes rent the stone like cloth. Wisps of smoke rose from beneath the rubble, as though the very earth burned, and long stretches of the moat had been filled in with the debris.

Aelfric, riding beside me, gestured to the ruined defences. ‘Frenzied peasants didn’t do this.’

‘No?’ I was paying little attention, for I had other concerns. Tancred’s taunt still echoed in my mind. What if Anna was somewhere in this smouldering chaos?

‘Not unless the devil possessed them with the spirits of siege engineers. It takes more than zeal and a hammer to collapse ten-foot-thick walls, and I never heard of a wild crowd taking it into their heads to dig sapping tunnels. Look.’ Aelfric pointed ahead of us, to where a felled gate now made a makeshift bridge over the moat. The towers that had flanked it were dissolved completely, and even the rubble had been carted away or used to fill in ditches.

‘They couldn’t have done that alone. Whatever the count’s steward protests, they had help from men who knew what they were doing.’

‘Bohemond’s agents, do you think?’

Aelfric shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’

A sense of dread began to build in me as we approached the centre of the town. The streets were eerily empty, but the sounds of ruination were all around us: long screams abruptly choked off, shouts of alarm, the crackle of fire and the crash of tumbling stone. Somewhere near by we could hear singing, a sad sound like a lament for the ruined town. We followed the noise, listening to it swell as we rode down deserted streets. Where was Anna? I scanned every alley, every window and every door, desperate for a glimpse of her, but the shadows were too deep.

We came around a corner into the main square of the town. Suddenly, all the life that had been hidden in the empty town was thrust before us. A host of pilgrims packed the square, singing the mournful song that now engulfed us, staring at the church on the eastern side where two bonfires burned brightly. The flames played over the stone like sunlight on water, while a tall figure dressed all in white stood on the roof and stared down at the congregation. His hands were folded into his sleeves and his head was turned to heaven, as if it were he whom the pilgrims hymned.

Not one of the pilgrims turned around as Raymond rode in, yet they parted before him like waves before a ship’s prow. Their song grew louder, almost deafening. I could not make out the words – perhaps it was a psalm, thought it might have been the tongue of angels for the fervour with which they sang it. On the dais at the front, Peter Bartholomew stood in a white robe.

Raymond had ridden to within about twenty yards of the church when suddenly he found the crowd would yield no further. He looked back, but that path had vanished. The pilgrim ranks had closed in, and he was marooned in their midst.

The man on the church stretched out his hands. For a moment it seemed that he did not have the mastery of the congregation I had expected, for they persisted with their song, rendering it louder still until the noise was almost deafening. And then, with a discipline so abrupt it left me breathless, they stopped, and there was nothing but an overwhelming silence.

A thousand pairs of eyes turned to Count Raymond.For a moment I feared he would buckle under the weight of their stares, but he recovered himself enough to call out in a ringing voice, ‘Peter Bartholomew, what have you done?’

The man on the church stared down at him as dispassionately as an icon – though not nearly as beautiful. He had let his hair and beard grow long; his nose was misshapen where it had once or twice been broken, and the erratic firelight could not soften the hard pox marks on his face. Even so, he had climbed a long way since he crawled out of the pit at Antioch clutching the fragment of the holy lance.

‘What I have done is God’s will,’ he declared. His voice was deeper than I remembered it, echoing off the surrounding walls. ‘For lo, I will send a man to make straight the way of the Lord …’

Raymond sat up straight. ‘That is blasphemy.’

A quiet sigh carried through the crowd, and they seemed to press closer around the count. He looked down uncertainly.

‘It is prophecy,’ Peter answered calmly. He seemed to be clutching something in his right hand: a tablet, or maybe a book. ‘Look around you. The Lord has sent these men out as sheep among wolves, and now their shepherd has abandoned them. You have tried to make your kingdom here, and forsaken the celestial kingdom that awaits us in Jerusalem.’

‘I have not forsaken Jerusalem,’ Raymond protested. His voice was brittle. ‘I have the unity of the Army of God to consider.’

‘Listen to your people. They are crying out to go to Jerusalem. You built your house here and they tore it down, stone from stone, because it was not built on the rock of faith. If you will not lead us to Zion then we will leave you here, abandoned and defenceless, for your enemies to pick over.’

‘The time is not right,’ Raymond murmured, almost to himself. ‘It is madness to campaign in winter. None of the other princes will support this folly.’

‘Then your glory will be all the greater.’ Peter’s voice was warm, the coaxing voice of a sympathetic friend. ‘But if you do not go, your name will be ignominy, and your reputation dust.’

His hold on the crowd was astonishing. When he spoke kindly they stood there as docile and comforting as sheep, but as soon as he uttered a threat you could almost feel the anger ignite. I began to wonder what would happen to me if Count Raymond provoked Peter Bartholomew to violence.

Raymond looked away from Peter, scanning the crowd in the desperate hope of allies. Among the peasants’ hoods and straw-brimmed hats I saw a good number of armoured helmets, but none of them showed the least impulse to help their lord.

‘You have disobeyed my laws and offended against my authority,’ he said, addressing the crowd directly. ‘But disperse now, remake what you have broken and yield up the wicked men who led you astray and I will show mercy.’

It was a brave gesture from an old warrior, but he had been lured into a battle he could not win. Peter Bartholomew did not even need to reply: the sea of impassive, upturned faces around Raymond was all the answer he needed. From somewhere near the back a voice whispered ‘Jerusalem’, and very quickly the word spread until it resounded through the host like the crash of waves.

Raymond pressed his hands together as if in prayer, and bowed his head. At a sign from Peter Bartholomew, the pilgrims fell silent.

‘Ready your arms and gather up what food you can find.’ His voice trembled, perhaps from piety, though it sounded more like the edge of tears. ‘In three days, we will march to Jerusalem.’

The chains of tension that had bound the crowd fell away, and all at once they erupted in a frenzied outburst of cheers, hymns and wild prayers. Banners waved in front of the fires, fanning the flames; Count Raymond was carried from his horse and lifted up to the church roof, where he stood beside Peter Bartholomew to receive the jubilant acclaim of the crowd. All memory of his reluctance was forgiven in an instant. Even those around me, at the very fringe of the gathering, had tears of joy glistening in their eyes as they prostrated themselves before Raymond and Peter.

I felt a tug on my stirrup and looked down to see Aelfric. I had not noticed him leave, but he must have gone somewhere and returned in haste, for he was breathing hard. His breath made clouds in the cold night air.

‘Come with me,’ he gasped. ‘I have found them.’

κβ

Aelfric led me to a door in a sandstone wall. I could not see the house above, but it seemed untouched by the mob – perhaps because of the two black crosses daubed in ashes on either side of the entrance. Aelfric thumped twice on the door. After a moment it cracked open, then swung in so fast I almost lost my balance. The room inside was dark; I could not make out the figure within, though I could see the gleam of armour and the familiar half-moon silhouette of a Varangian axe in his hands.

‘Sigurd?’ He looked slighter than I remembered, and I wondered how long it had taken him to recover from his wounds.

He stepped forward into the street. The glow from the fires that illuminated the night sky made his beard seem to copper, the same colour as Sigurd’s – but it was an illusion. Instead of Sigurd’s mane, his hair – which in daylight would be the colour of straw – hung in girlish curls to his shoulders. Instead of battle-scars, his smooth face was marked by nothing more than pimples and unpractised shaving.

It was a year and a half since I had seen him. Then he had been a boy, just starting to resemble the man he would become. Now he was almost unrecognisable.

‘Thomas?’ I stammered.

‘Petheros? Father-in-law?’

Wary disbelief shrouded his face. We were close enough that his armoured chest almost brushed mine, but we did not touch.

‘How . . . ?’

‘The emperor sent my company from Byzantium. We arrived two days after you left for Egypt.’

‘I wish you had not come.’ Belatedly, and somewhat awkwardly, I clasped his arm. ‘But it’s good to see you. Have you had news of Helena and Zoe? How were they when you left? What of the baby? Was it delivered safely?’ The questions poured out of me, a year’s worth of hopes and fears written in each one. But Thomas was shying away. His eyes flickered down to the ground, then looked up defiantly as I fell silent.

‘The baby is healthy, praise God. It was hard for Helena–especially the journey so soon afterwards – but she’s well now. She will be happy to see you safely returned from Egypt. When we heard where you had gone, she was almost inconsolable.’

In the flood of emotion, it was hard to keep hold of everything he said. But even so, I could tell there was something wrong in what he said. ‘How did she know where I had gone?’

I suddenly remembered Tancred’s taunt on the road from Rugia. Have you had news of your family recently? They are not as safe as you suppose. I had thought he meant Anna, who was not family but should have been. Instead . . .

‘Where are my daughters?’

Thomas stepped back. While we spoke, someone had lit lamps inside the room, and the household had gathered to see who had called so late. They stood in the middle of the room, staring at me. Sigurd, as vast and imposing as I remembered him, dressed in his armour even at that hour of the night. Anna, her dark hair tumbling loose over her face, not hiding the tears. And beside them, two smaller figures with blankets around their shoulders. One clutched a perilously small baby to her breast, and both were staring at me like Mary and Martha at Lazarus. My daughters: Zoe and Helena.

It was eighteen months since I had seen my children. When I left Constantinople Helena had been a bride, barely out of the church. Though only three years separated them, Zoe had seemed so young she might equally have been Helena’s daughter as her sister. Now Helena was a mother: new cares had chiselled away the curves of her face, leaving it lean and serious, while a taut strength imbued the arms that cradled the baby. Zoe’s face too was creased with concern, but in her it had the perverse effect of making her look younger, more innocent.

‘What did you call the baby?’ I asked at last.

‘Everard. It was Thomas’s father’s name,’ said Helena.

‘Everard,’ I repeated, manipulating the foreign sounds around my mouth. Thomas’s father, the baby’s grandfather, had been a pilgrim in the vanguard of the Army of God, part of a rabble who fell under the spell of a charismatic holy-man and believed they were invincible because he told them so. The Turks had shattered that illusion as soon as they crossed into Asia Minor, and paved a road with their bones. Thomas had been one of the few to survive: he had escaped to Constantinople, where I had found him and he had found Helena.

‘Ever since I left home I’ve longed to see you,’ I said at last. ‘But not here. I was . . . on my way back to you. You should not have come for me.’

I saw immediately that I had said something wrong. Zoe took a bunch of hair in her mouth and began chewing it, while Helena looked up defiantly.

‘We didn’t come for you.’

‘Then why . . . ?’

‘We came because of Thomas,’ Zoe blurted out. ‘He made us.’

I rounded on Thomas. ‘You? What have you done? My daughters—’

Thomas’s face darkened. ‘My wife – and my son. Their place is with me.’

‘Their place is in safety. At home.’

In my anger, I had spoken too loudly and disturbed the baby. He pulled away from Helena’s breast and began to squeal, while Helena dabbed at his mouth and rocked him in her arms.

‘I didn’t marry Helena to lift her on a pedestal and then carry her with me in my memories,’ said Thomas. ‘I have left enough family behind. I married her to live with her. And this is where we are.’

‘Only because you brought them here.’

‘I am a Varangian now. I go where the emperor commands. Like you. You should thank me,’ he added aggressively. ‘If I had not brought Helena and Zoe here, you might never have seen them again. Or your grandson.’

I put out my arm and leaned on the door frame to steady myself. Outside, I could hear excited shouts echoing off the square, and the crash and tumble of more walls being torn down. It sounded like the end of the world.

‘You should not have come,’ I said again. ‘In three days’ time, Raymond’s army will set out for Jerusalem. I will have to go with them – Nikephoros will not give me a choice. As for you . . .’ I tried to think my way out of the dark labyrinth I had fallen into, but every way I turned, the way was blocked. The Normans controlled the ports and Antioch, while Duke Godfrey’s army sat camped on the road north. I could not send my family that way. Nor could I abandon them in the ruins of Ma’arat.

Sigurd laid his axe on the table and began unlacing his boots. ‘It looks as though we’ll all see Jerusalem.’

‘Or die in the attempt.’

κγ

The smoke still rose over Ma’arat when we left it three days later. Defeated by Bohemond and humbled by Peter Bartholomew, Raymond had indulged his pique by completing the work the pilgrims had begun. He razed the town, so that none should have it if he could not. A chill fog came down, mingling with hot smoke from the burning until you could not tell one from the other, but walked everywhere wrapped in cloud.

Trumpets sounded, and after a few minutes a dim figure appeared as a shadow in the mist. He was on foot – barefoot, I saw as he drew closer – and the only sound he made was the slow staccato beat of his staff tapping the ground. He did not wear armour, nor any of his magnificent finery, but merely a grey pilgrim’s robe. His bare head was slumped low, either in contemplation or because he could not bear to see his army watching him thus. With smoke in the air and a warm breeze breathing out of Ma’arat, he might have been Lot fleeing fire and brimstone in the punished city of Sodom. He did not look back.

Next, seated on an emaciated donkey, came Peter Bartholomew, carrying the reliquary of the holy lance on a purple cushion. There was no humility in his bearing, forced or otherwise: he stared at the soldiers lining the road with aloof dignity, almost defying them to adore him. None of the Varangians indulged him, but many of the Provençals offered shouts of praise or threw stalks of grass– there were no flowers – at his feet. Some even sank to their knees as he passed and offered ostentatious prayers for his safety.

Nikephoros, mounted beside me, leaned across and murmured in my ear, ‘Count Raymond looks more like Peter’s groom than his lord.’

I nodded, nervous of speaking ill of Peter Bartholomew among that crowd. ‘At least he has done what we could not, and forced Count Raymond on to Jerusalem.’

‘Hah.’ Nikephoros broke off and inclined his head respectfully as the count came level with us. When he had passed, Nikephoros continued, ‘Raymond should be more careful. If he allows himself to be seen looking like Peter Bartholomew’s servant, soon people will start to believe it.’

‘I think Peter Bartholomew already does.’

‘All the more danger. And what do you suppose he intends next?’

I looked at Nikephoros in surprise. ‘Intends?’

‘He has a hold on the pilgrims’ affection. Count Raymond has leaned on that as a crutch to his popularity for some time. Now that Peter Bartholomew has seen that he can bend the count to his will, do you think he will stop there?’

I shrugged. ‘Something has changed. He used to be content with his fame, to soak up the adulation he earned by finding the lance.’

‘Then perhaps he got a fright when it began to seep away from him.’ Nikephoros gave a grim, self-mocking laugh. ‘It can be a painful ordeal, losing the power you once enjoyed.’

For the next week the Army of God trudged south. There was little pretence at haste – some days we made so little progress that at dusk the rearguard pitched their tents where the vanguard had camped the night before – but day by day we inched our way further from Ma’arat, closer to Jerusalem. Peasants, priests and soldiers mingled freely, so that it felt not like a military expedition but as if a whole town had been uprooted and set in motion. Smiths loitered at the roadside offering to re-shoe horses or sharpen blades; peddlers and barterers conducted a lively exchange of clothes, boots, tools and gold; women brought baskets of bread or eggs or even chickens to sell, for now that we were out of the well-scoured lands of Ma’arat food was plentiful.

But for all we might be a wandering town, it was a town under constant siege. Every day, bands of Saracens would descend from their hilltop castles to harry our column, peppering us with arrows, breaking our carts and stealing livestock or unfortunate stragglers. Once or twice Tancred’s cavalry sallied out to try and punish the attackers and free the captives, but after two of his knights were killed he called off the sorties. It was even worse in the dark. However closely we huddled our camp together and however many fires we lit, each dawn revealed fresh losses: sentries with their throats cut, stores ransacked and women missing. Though I should have been happy to see my family again, it preyed on my nerves to have them there. I slept little, standing watch outside the tent into the dead hours until Sigurd or Thomas relieved me, then lying awake with my ears pricked open, trying to warm myself against Anna’s body. At least Sigurd seemed restored to his natural humour. Moody and abrasive he might be, but against the uneasy cloud that hovered over my family he was a simple, reassuring bulwark.

Five days out of Ma’arat, we reached a place called Shaizar. High bluffs rose on either side of a broad river valley, and on a spur a formidable castle commanded the crossing. Sigurd looked at it from a distance and groaned.

‘If we have to capture castles each time we ford a river or climb a mountain, Christ himself will have returned to Jerusalem before we get there.’

But for once his pessimism was misplaced. The local emir had heard of the Franks’ exploits at Antioch and Ma’arat, and drawn the conclusion that cooperation was his wisest course. He offered us safe passage through his lands and plied the princes with gifts.

We made our camp by the river that evening, in the shadow of the castle. While Thomas and Helena went to find firewood, and Zoe prepared food, Anna and I walked down to the river bank. In all the time since I had returned we had had few moments alone together, and even those had been fleeting and awkward. However much we might resist the idea, months of separation had driven a distance between us.

We clambered out on a rocky point and sat by the water’s edge. A little way downstream a group of women were washing clothes, singing as they worked, but we were alone. I pulled off my boots and let the stream cool my weary blisters.

‘I wonder what this river is called.’ I leaned forward, scooping the water up in my hands and drinking. ‘Is it one of the four rivers of Eden, do you think?’