Siege of Heaven

Anna laughed, and wiped away the droplets that beaded my beard. ‘Didn’t you know? This is the Orontes.’

‘I thought we had left it behind at Antioch.’ I imagined kicking out into the river and letting it carry me back, beneath the walls we had besieged so long and all the way out to the sea.

Anna pulled up her knees and hugged them to her chest. ‘Sometimes it seems we’ll be wandering in circles for ever, until even the last of us is dead.’

It was unlike Anna to be so morose. I slipped my hand into hers and held it. Marry me, I wanted to say. Marry me now. Find a priest, even a Frankish one, and have him marry us before God. I did not dare.

‘At least we’re on the road to Jerusalem again.’

‘We’ve been on the road for the best part of two years.’ Anna pulled her hand free. I edged away, pretending to peer in the water for fish.

‘Two years of our lives,’ she repeated. ‘Two years when we should have been playing with our grandchildren and laughing with our families. And now that we have them with us at last, it only makes things worse.’

‘You should have sent them home.’

Anna shook her head. ‘They arrived just after you left for Egypt. I was in Antioch, caring for the plague victims. By the time I knew they had arrived there were no ships to take them away – and they would not have gone in any case.’ She touched my arm gingerly. ‘It is not what I would have chosen for them. But you must understand Thomas. He has already lost his family once; he could not bear to be parted from them again.’

‘Even if all that meant was being with them at their death?’

‘Even so.’

‘He is not the only man who loves Helena.’ I pressed my bare foot into the river bed, feeling cold mud ooze around it. ‘And his son may have a Frankish name, but he has my blood in his veins as well.’

‘Do you think I haven’t told Thomas all this? And Helena, too. But she would follow him wherever he asked– even if he didn’t ask – and he loves her too much to let her go.’

‘He’ll be left holding onto her corpse if he clings so tight.’

Anna gave a sad smile. ‘That is the risk we all take. But you should be kinder to him. When you were his age and the emperor’s armies stormed Constantinople, did you send your daughters away to safety? Your wife?’

I had never been happy discussing Maria with Anna. It always felt that I was trying to squeeze them both into the same place in my soul, a place where only one could fit. I could see immediately from Anna’s face that she regretted it, but that did not temper the anger in my words.

‘I protected my wife and child in our home – as men are supposed to do. I didn’t drag them a thousand miles away from home to die in a famished, plague-stricken wilderness of barbarians and Ishmaelites.’

Tears gleamed in the corners of Anna’s eyes as she rose. ‘It’s too late to tell him that. Too late for any of us.’

I sat there for a time after she had left, until even the river no longer numbed my cares. Then I pulled on my boots and walked back towards our tent. It lay on the far side of the pilgrim camp: I tried to avoid going that way if I could, but night was hastening on and there was no good reason to fear anything – only a vague sense of unease. For so long the pilgrims had been an encumbrance, a mute and obedient shadow behind the main army. Now, in Peter Bartholomew, they had begun to find their voice, and it was an unsettling sound.

I was almost at the far edge of the pilgrim camp when suddenly I came around a row of tents and found my way barred by a knot of peasants. They had gathered around a preacher: I did not think he was a priest, for he wore only a simple white tunic, but he held his audience rapt.

‘Think of the mustard seed. When you sow it in the earth it is the least of seeds, yet it grows to greatness. In the same way, the kingdom of God will grow from the least of his people. The last shall be first, and the first last.’

I was about to slip away and find another route, when suddenly I noticed two familiar figures standing at the edge of the gathering. Thomas and Helena, watching intently. Helena held Everard in her arms.

‘The time will come when the Lord will send two great prophets, Enoch and Elijah, back into the world. They will prepare God’s elect for the coming storm with three and a half years of teaching and preaching. Three and a half years,’ he repeated ominously. ‘When did we set out from our homes?’

‘Three years ago,’ someone called from the crowd.

‘Three years ago.’ He leaned forward, lowering his voice. ‘The prophets are already abroad. First Enoch – and now Elijah. There is not much time.’

I had almost reached Helena, when a voice in the crowd beside me asked: ‘But where will we find the prophet?’

The preacher answered with a gap-toothed smile, as if he had expected the question. ‘Come with me, and I will show you. He has much to teach you, and little time.’

He beckoned them on. Several stepped forward immediately, hope bright on their faces; others hung back. The preacher gave them a pitying smile.

‘Have you forgotten the prophecy of Isaiah? You will listen but never understand; you will look but never perceive. Come now and see.’

He turned around, and began shepherding his converts deeper into the camp. Some of the waverers hurried after him, while others – shamefaced and sullen – drifted away. Thomas and Helena looked as though they were about to follow, when my hands gripped their shoulders and spun them around.

‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded. ‘You were supposed to be fetching firewood.’ I pointed to their empty hands. ‘Did you have nothing better to do than listen to charlatans preaching nonsense?’

Thomas’s face hardened but he said nothing. Helena was less restrained. ‘What are you doing spying on us? I am not your girlish daughter any more. I will go where I choose, hear what I choose and believe what I choose.’

I looked at Thomas. ‘You, most of all, should know the dangers of following self-ordained prophets on the path to heaven. Your parents certainly found it out.’

Thomas looked at me as if he could have cut my throat. His hateful stare transfixed me, until at last Helena took his hand and pulled him away into the twilight.

* * *

Later that night, I crawled across to Helena’s corner of the tent and lay next to her.

‘I’m sorry. I should not have said what I did.’ I spoke softly, trying not to wake the baby. For a long moment I thought I had been too quiet, for the only reply was slow breathing, but I did not dare repeat myself.

At last, still lying with her back to me, she whispered, ‘You cannot teach Thomas the lessons of his own past.’

But why doesn’t he learn them? I did not say it. Instead: ‘I don’t want you to die like his mother and father.’

‘Neither do I. But he is my husband, and I am the mother of his son. You cannot expect me to live locked away from the world like a nun.’

I thought of the monks in the Egyptian desert, invisible to the outside world. ‘There are places on this earth between the convent and the front line of battle.’

She rolled over. ‘Not where Thomas is. And not where you are.’

We lay there in silence, facing each other a few inches apart. Once there had been no distance there, when she and her mother and a newborn Zoe and I all shared the same bed.

‘I cannot make Thomas learn the mistakes of his parents, any more than I can make you learn from mine.’

Helena gave a small laugh, which reminded me of younger, happier times, then broke off as she remembered the baby. ‘A lifetime would not be long enough to learn from your mistakes,’ she teased.

‘Probably not.’ I fumbled in the dark for her hand and squeezed it. ‘I know Thomas has suffered pains and horrors I can barely imagine. He has my pity.’

In the darkness of the tent, I sensed Helena stiffen. ‘He does not need pity. He needs love.’

‘Love, too. But he must not let his hurt drive him to oblivion. He has too much to lose.’

On Helena’s far side, the baby started to cough. She turned over, and I heard a tapping as she patted its back, like soft footsteps approaching.

Four days after leaving Shaizar, we reached a crossroads. To the south, a broad road followed the river valley; to the west, another road led towards the snow-capped mountains we could see in the distance and thence, our guides assured us, to the sea. Raymond summoned Tancred, Robert of Normandy and Nikephoros to debate our choice. As ever, I accompanied Nikephoros to translate. Though a month in the Franks’ company must have taught him something of the common dialect, I think he would rather have cut his tongue out than allowed the barbarian sounds to touch it.

‘The southerly road looks easier.’ Duke Robert craned his head and stared, as if he might see all the way to Jerusalem if he looked hard enough.

‘But that road goes by Damascus,’ said Nikephoros. ‘There you would find yourselves trapped before another Antioch. You could besiege it for a year and never take it.’

‘Perhaps the lord of Damascus would give us safe passage, like the lord of Shaizar,’ Robert suggested.

Raymond twitched his head to dismiss the idea. ‘He might – if Bohemond had not slaughtered half his army at Antioch a year ago.’

‘Then what lies the other way, past the mountains?’

‘The coast,’ answered Nikephoros. ‘Go that way, and the emperor’s grain ships can supply you from the sea.’

‘If we can capture a harbour. The coastal road is guarded by a chain of fortified ports. Arqa, Tripoli, Sidon and Tyre, Acre, Caesarea, Jaffa.’ Raymond’s face darkened as he recited them. ‘If we besiege every one of them, we’ll have exhausted the emperor’s granaries long before we reach Jerusalem.’

‘We will not need to capture each of them,’ said Tancred confidently. ‘The reputation of Antioch and Ma’arat will carry before us and open their gates. Otherwise, we’ll sack the first city we see, raze it to the ground and teach the rest what awaits them if they resist us.’

Raymond nodded absent-mindedly, distracted by a movement behind us. A rider had ridden out from the army to join us, with half a dozen acolytes scampering on foot behind him. It was Peter Bartholomew, who seemed to have exchanged his donkey for a full-grown horse, a snow-white mare. He perched awkwardly in the saddle, unaccustomed to the motion or the height, and struggled to rein in his mount as he reached us.

‘Why have we stopped?’ he demanded.

‘We heard that the crown of thorns was hidden in a thicket near by, and thought you might be able to find it,’ said Tancred.

Peter Bartholomew flushed, and made a fumbling sign across his chest to ward off evil. Saying nothing to Tancred, he turned and looked at the fork in the road. ‘Which way leads to Jerusalem?’

‘Both of them.’

Peter considered this for a while, staring at the different paths. It was the same gaze that he could fix on a man – frank, penetrating and overwhelming – as if you could not imagine the thoughts and judgements that passed behind his eyes. No one interrupted him, not even Nikephoros.

At last he blinked, and pointed towards Damascus. ‘We should go that way.’

‘Who asked you?’ growled Tancred. He turned to Count Raymond. ‘When I offered you my service I thought I would be led by the Count of Toulouse, not an ignorant peasant. Who is in command of this army?’

‘The Lord God,’ said Peter primly.

‘I am in command.’ Raymond’s eye raked over the watching faces; no one, not even Peter Bartholomew, contradicted him.

‘Then which way do you say we go?’ A blade of insolence hovered under Tancred’s question.

Raymond jerked his head around, first to the wending road to Damascus, then the steep path that descended past the mountains towards the sea.

‘We will camp here tonight. I will announce my decision in the morning.’

κδ

But there was no decision the next day, nor even the day after. Word went out that this was to allow us to replenish our supplies, for the inhabitants of this country had fled before our advance and abandoned their granaries for us to plunder. That was fortunate for Count Raymond, for even the most ardent pilgrim would not complain of the pause if given the chance to fill his belly.

‘But he cannot delay much longer,’ Nikephoros told me on the second day. ‘Once the pilgrims have eaten, they will be doubly eager to march on to Jerusalem.’

‘What do you think Raymond will decide?’

Nikephoros leaned forward. Even on campaign he wore a dalmatic sewn with a crust of gems, which stretched and sank above his shoulders as they moved. ‘The road to Damascus is a dead end: the only way we will ever reach Jerusalem is by the coast. Raymond knows that. He only delays because he is too frightened to contradict Peter Bartholomew.’

When did peasants learn to direct the affairs of armies? I wondered. Perhaps the preacher had been right: perhaps the meek had inherited the earth and the mighty fallen from their seats. Perhaps.

‘Have you tried to convince him?’

‘Every day.’ Nikephoros snapped a stick of sealing wax in two. ‘If force of argument could move a man, I would have propelled him all the way to the gates of Jerusalem by now. He will not listen to me.’

There was a pause. Nikephoros squeezed the broken wax in his hand, crumbling it over the desk.

‘I could try,’ I said at last.

He looked up. ‘You? What could you say to Count Raymond that I have not?’

‘Not Count Raymond: Peter Bartholomew.’

Nikephoros said nothing but gestured me to go on. The wax had stained his hand red.

‘Peter Bartholomew has not always been the pillar of righteousness he is now. His past has been . . . erratic.’ I shrugged. ‘Perhaps if I remind him of it he will prove more amenable.’

I did not trust my powers of persuasion so much that I would go alone. I tried to find Sigurd, but he had gone foraging; instead, I took Thomas. We walked without speaking. The silence weighed on me desperately, but I could not think of anything to say that was not trite or patronising.

Soon we crossed the open ground that divided the two camps and entered the pilgrims’ domain. A hostile atmosphere seemed to menace us all about. Even when we could see no one I felt the prickling sense of being watched; elsewhere, wide-eyed peasants sat under their makeshift shelters – sheets tied to branches, or awnings hung in the spaces between larger tents – and stared openly. But no one touched us or tried to stop us.

We found Peter Bartholomew in the very heart of the camp – but he was not alone. In a circle of open ground among the tents, a large crowd had gathered around a makeshift stage. A tall cross towered over it, high enough to crucify a man, and there, in its shadow, stood Peter Bartholomew. He was speaking, his voice reaching every corner of the crowd.

‘This morning, before the sun was up, the holy Saint Peter appeared again before me.’

A murmur of expectation ran through the crowd.

‘I had prayed, in all our names, that the Lord God would show His servant the way to Jerusalem.’

With Thomas behind me, I pushed my way into the crowd. It swayed and heaved as if possessed by a vital spirit all its own.

‘And suddenly Saint Peter was there in a haze of golden light. Two keys swung from his belt, and he held the staff of judgement in his hands. I dropped to my knees.’

Enraptured by the memory, Peter sank to his knees. Every man and woman in the crowd did likewise.

‘“Command me, Lord,” I said, and in an instant I was lifted up high into the air.’ Peter stood and stretched out his arms; the crowd remained kneeling. ‘The wizened earth lay beneath me, her mountains like pebbles and her oceans like pools of rainwater. In the south, a thin river snaked away towards a great city, from where I heard cries and lamentations.

‘“What city is that?” I asked, and the saint answered, “Jerusalem.”

‘“And why does she cry out?”

‘“Because the king of Babylon has come to her. He has set his throne in Solomon’s temple, and has slain every true Christian who resisted him,” said the saint. “You must hasten and relieve her distress.”

‘We fell from the sky like thunder and were back in the tent. “This sacred journey is only for the pure of heart,” the saint warned me. “If you wander and are lost, it is because there are sinners among you. You must root them out like weeds among the corn.”

‘“My followers are pure and devout,” I protested, but he silenced me with a flash of his eyes. “There are some among your flock who even now blaspheme and sin against the Lord,” he told me. “This very night, the knight Amanieu of Vienne has lain in adultery with the wife of Reynauld the blacksmith.”’

Anger hissed through the crowd and they stood, as two people shuffled onto the platform. Both their heads were shaved bare: it was only when they turned to face the audience that I saw to my shock that one was a woman. She stood there in a flimsy grey shift, her eyes swollen and her skull scraped red. A young man, little older than Thomas, stood beside her in a similar state – only the rise of the woman’s breasts under the shift marked them apart. Peter Bartholomew stood between them, holding out his arms so that it looked as if he embraced them.

‘The penalty for adultery, laid down in the law of Moses, is death.’

The crowd stirred, nodding their agreement.

‘But Christ taught us to love the sinner. That through true repentance, we could overcome the sinful clay of our flesh and perfect the spark of divine spirit within.’

He looked slowly at each of his prisoners in turn. Both stood there in silence.

‘All sins must be laid bare.’

Rough hands reached forward, tearing away the grey shifts the adulterers wore. A gasp of sanctimonious delight shot through the crowd. The two lovers stood naked before them, trembling in the chill air but otherwise unmoving. The man wore a cloth tied around his hips, but the woman was entirely naked. Her breasts pricked up in the cold, while the white lines of childbearing spidered her belly like scars. I wondered if her children were in the audience now to see their mother’s shame.

All around me I felt a charge in the air, the smouldering iron taste on my tongue I had sometimes felt before a storm or a battle. I turned to Thomas.

‘Go and find Count Raymond,’ I whispered. ‘Tell him to come with his knights. Go.’

Thomas’s eyes darted over my shoulder to the stage, mesmerised by the spectacle. I cuffed him on his cheek. ‘Go.’

He tore his gaze away and pushed out of the crowd. Back on the stage, the adulterers were now on their knees. Two men stood over them with switches in their hands, the green wood quivering.

Peter Bartholomew stepped back and lifted a hand as if in blessing.

‘Thy will be done, O Lord.’

The hand dropped. An involuntary moan of excitement rose from the crowd and they pushed forward. The switches came down, rose, and dropped again, rising and falling in ever faster rhythm. The crowd had fallen silent, holding themselves still, as though they did not trust themselves even to breathe. Their lips and cheeks were flushed with blood, their bodies taut and erect. Even the women watched without modesty; many seemed more passionate than the men, flinching as each blow struck home. The only sounds were the hiss of wood in the air, and the abrupt snap as it cut into the naked flesh beneath. Soon every blow produced a spray of blood, though not a single droplet stained the whiteness of Peter Bartholomew’s robe. His hands were crossed penitently before him, his lips parted in rapture, but he never closed his eyes or lifted his gaze from the punishment before him. Where was Raymond?

I suppose I had seen many men beaten in my time, but this sickened me. I could not watch the naked wretches, for even that felt like complicity. I looked over my shoulder, praying that Raymond would come. When I turned back, my gaze involuntarily fell on the stage. The noise of the blows had stopped, and the beaters had lifted up the victims to display their punishment. It was a gruesome sight. Blood had run down their sides and embraced them all around: it trickled down the woman’s breasts, smeared her belly and matted in the fair hair between her thighs. With her bare head, she reminded me terribly of a newborn baby fresh from the womb. The man was in little better state.

Peter stepped forward. He held himself very still, the quivering restraint of a man who knew the slightest touch might cause him to disgorge himself. A bead of spittle dribbled from his mouth.

‘Truly it is said, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents than ninety-nine who never strayed.’ He stretched out his arms again. ‘Do you repent?’

The battered man cleared his throat, spitting gobs of blood on the stage. ‘I repent,’ he croaked.

‘And you?’ Peter turned to the woman, struggling to keep the leer from his face. ‘Do you repent of your sins?’

She mumbled something I could not hear. It evidently satisfied Peter. He crouched down, and appeared to draw or write something in the blood on the stage with his finger. ‘Your flesh has been made clean, purged with suffering and redeemed in blood.’

He crooked a beckoning finger towards the crowd. Three men climbed onto the stage, carrying a brazier between them, and set it down beside Peter. He pulled the poker from the fire. A dull orange heat smouldered in its tip, which I saw was forged in the sign of the cross. Two men took the woman by the arms, though she did not resist or even flinch, and turned her to face Peter.

‘Receive the mark of Christ as a sign of your penitence. Let it live in your flesh, as He lives in your soul.’

Somewhere in the distance a rumbling began. Some in the crowd looked to the heavens; others glanced over their shoulders and made the sign of the cross. Peter paused.

A host of mounted knights broke into the clearing. Tents tottered and collapsed as flying hooves kicked over the stakes and pegs that held them. As they met the pilgrim throng the horsemen turned aside, riding around the fringe of the crowd like dogs herding sheep. Last of all, flanked by four knights in full armour, came Count Raymond. He lowered his lance and trotted forward, using the tip to prise a path between the pilgrims until he could look down at the blood-soaked figures cowering on the stage.

‘Amanieu? Amanieu of Vienne? What have these peasants done to you?’ He swung around towards Peter. ‘How dare you touch a knight of mine, let alone inflict . . . this?’ For all the vicious battles he had fought and the blood he had spilled, there was genuine shock in Raymond’s voice.

Peter put the branding iron back in the brazier. Sparks flew up from the coals. ‘This man was caught in adultery. The laws of Moses and of Christ demand punishment.’

For all I would willingly have stabbed the branding iron through Peter’s heart at that moment, a part of me marvelled at the transformation wrought in him. Not so long ago he had been a snivelling, pox-scarred wretch of no consequence, who might have died a hundred times over on the march from Constantinople and never been remembered. Now he stood on the dais in his spotless robe and serenely traded words with the greatest prince of the age. What could have changed a man like that?

Raymond pricked his horse with his spurs and pulled on its reins, so that it reared up. Its hooves flailed in the air, terrifyingly close to Peter Bartholomew’s head.

‘I am the authority,’ Raymond snarled. ‘I say who is guilty and what their punishment will be. As for you, even to touch one of my knights is death.’

‘This was not my doing,’ protested Peter. ‘My disciple Amanieu, and the woman he lay with – they sinned, and they knew they must be punished. It is to save their own souls. Do you see any bonds restraining them?’

Raymond turned to the knight.

‘Is this true, Amanieu?’

The knight, naked and streaked with blood, nodded. Raymond spat onto the stage.

‘Then you are a fool. A fool for sleeping with that whore, and a thrice-cursed fool for submitting to this peasant’s madness. As for you,’ he hissed at Peter Bartholomew, ‘I raised you from nothing and I can return you to nothing. Do not dare challenge me again.’

Through all this confrontation, the accused woman had stood at the edge of the stage, bleeding, shivering, naked and forgotten. Now, suddenly, she took three steps towards the brazier and snatched the branding iron from the fire. She held it with both hands, the burning cross pointed towards her, then plunged it into the soft flesh of her breast.

I never thought a noise alone could rupture a man’s soul, but the woman’s scream of terrible, euphoric agony hit me like poison. I leaned forward and retched, my body unable to stomach the evil. When the scream stopped, I looked up.

The woman lay sprawled unconscious on the platform, the smoke of burned flesh rising from her wound. Peter Bartholomew stood over her, a beatific smile adorning his face.

‘Go,’ he declared, ‘and sin no more.’

κε

Raymond gave his decision that night; the next morning, we struck our camp and headed west for the coast. The road led us down from the plateau where we had camped, into a green, steep-sided valley. To our left, the valley climbed away until it merged with the lower slopes of the distant mountain, while opposite it rose to a series of commanding bluffs and hilltops. We could only see them in snatches, though, for the warmer air in the valley brought a thick mist down over us. Ragged fingers drifted by, curling round as if beckoning us on. From behind, the low melody of the pilgrims’ psalms droned in the fog.

‘I hate that sound,’ said Anna. ‘Like a wasp, hovering over your shoulder and waiting to sting.’

Soft hoofbeats cantered down the line towards us. I half-drew my sword, then let it slide back in its scabbard as I saw Aelfric emerge from the mist. He dropped down from the saddle to walk beside us, leading his horse by its reins.

‘The scouts say there’s a castle ahead.’ He jerked a thumb to our right, to the northern side of the valley. ‘High up on those bluffs.’

I groaned. The ordeal of the day before had drained me as much as any battle, and I could not countenance the thought of having to fight now. ‘Will the castellan let us pass in peace?’

Aelfric shrugged. ‘I don’t think anyone asked him.’

‘Will Raymond attack?’

‘He’s a fool if he does. The castle’s perched up there like a crow’s nest. Cliffs on three sides, high walls all around, and probably a garrison ready to roll us straight back down the hill with rocks and boiling pitch. They’ve had plenty of time to know we’re coming.’

‘Perhaps they won’t see us in this mist,’ said Sigurd hopefully. Though he untied the leather cover from his axe soon afterwards.

The fog seemed to lift higher as we moved down the valley. It did little to relieve my spirits. The crest of the ridge to our right was still obscured, and I was constantly glancing up to reassure myself there were not hordes of Saracens waiting to slaughter us. Gradually our pace slowed and our column squeezed up on itself, until even in the lingering mist I could see the clustered banners of Count Raymond’s bodyguard close ahead of us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘It is what Count Raymond requires.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘We have to go.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I screamed, thinking I must have come up against a corpse, though my screams vanished in the mad welter of sound around me. It was not a fallen soldier; it was a horse, crying out its distress like a newborn child. Sweat stained its flanks, foaming white in places, and I had no sooner raised my head than I had to duck to avoid a flailing hoof in the fog.

Somewhere in my fall I had dropped my sword, but mercifully it had slid down after me, close enough that I could see it. I crawled away from the horse and reached for the weapon, feeling a flood of relief as my hand closed around the hilt. I stood, feeling the grazes and bruises where I had fallen.

I was not alone. As the horse’s cries weakened, I heard another sound in the cloud: the sound of running feet. It might have been Thomas or Aelfric, both of whom I had lost in my descent, but it came from down the slope and I did not think they had passed me. I skirted around the dying horse and edged down the hill. I had barely moved a yard when I saw two men: one lay on the ground, hardly stirring, the other stood over him, his sword poised for the kill.

I could not see much of either man: a bulge in a helmet where a turban might have wrapped it, the curve of a sword, a half-seen device on a discarded shield. It was a poor basis to choose who would die – but if I did not, there would be no choice to make. I stepped forward, deliberately kicking a cluster of pebbles downhill to distract my opponent, and as he half turned I lunged forward with my sword. The slope added weight to my thrust: the point of my sword struck his breast, forced its way through the scale armour, and I felt the sudden rush as the blade sank into the vital flesh beneath. I straightened, planted my foot on his chest and pulled my sword free as he sank to the ground, heeled to one side and rolled a little way down the hill.

I turned to his opponent. He lay on his back, one hand clutching his ribs and the other reaching helplessly for the shield that had fallen out of reach when the horse threw him. The single eye looked up at me from his grizzled face.

‘Count Raymond?’

His eye never blinked, staring with such intensity that I thought for a terrible moment he must be dead, and I had killed a man over a corpse.

‘My knights,’ he croaked. His voice was old and brittle. ‘Where are my knights?’

Where were his knights? How had the greatest lord in the Army of God come to lie abandoned on a hillside, facing a solitary death at the hands of a lone Saracen? It was not how men like him were supposed to die.

‘What happened?’ I asked at last.

Raymond shrugged. ‘We were retreating. One minute, all my bodyguards were beside me, the next they had vanished in the fog. I was trying to find them when my horse fell. Then a Saracen found me – and then you.’

I heard the scrape and rustle of someone crashing down the hillside above. With weary arms I snatched up Raymond’s shield and tensed myself for an attack, but it was only Aelfric, with Thomas behind him. As they descended into view, Aelfric took in the scene at a glance.

‘We have to get down from here.’

Our progress was agonisingly slow. With Thomas in the lead we edged across the hillside, flinching each time one of us rustled a clump of grass or kicked a pebble. Every few paces Thomas would pause, his young eyes and ears straining for any sign of danger. Count Raymond still lagged behind. The fall from his horse had not injured him badly, but it had left him with a limp, which seemed to grow worse as we continued. Several times I froze with terror as I heard his foot drag across a patch of loose ground; if any Saracens had been nearby they would surely have found us. The fog that had caused us so much confusion was now our salvation, a blanket hiding us from danger, and I looked at it with new eyes, praying it would not lift.

Though we could barely see it, our way led gradually down into a cleft in the hillside where a thin stream trickled between boulders. We followed it, hoping it would lead to the valley floor and the road. We had not gone far, when suddenly I heard the tumble of rocks, a cry, a splash and a resounding clang. Three of us turned in horror. A little way up the gully Count Raymond lay sprawled in the stream. He must have stepped on a loose rock and upended himself.

We froze, listening for signs we had been heard. Even Count Raymond lay still and let the stream trickle over him. For long seconds there was nothing save the babbling water and a wounded horse braying in the distance. I began to relax, glancing down the stream and wondering if it was too treacherous to attempt. And then, just as we had convinced ourselves we were safe, a spear ripped through the fog and struck the soft earth of the stream bank. It stuck there, quivering with the impact, scant inches over Count Raymond’s head.

We had not heard a sound; now, suddenly, it engulfed us, rushing down both sides of the gully as our enemies emerged from the mist. Aelfric moved fastest; he plucked the spear from the earth, reversed it, and, as the first Saracen appeared, drove it into his belly. The man’s momentum carried him on, impaling him so deep that Aelfric had to let go the spear and leap clear before his enemy barrelled into him. The man fell writhing in the stream.

‘Make a line,’ shouted Raymond. He was on his feet, his sword in his hand, his armour dripping wet. Another Saracen stumbled down the slope with a spear, too fast to control himself; Raymond parried the thrust easily, kicked the man’s feet from under him and plunged his sword into his neck. Blood bubbled into the stream.

‘Back!’ Aelfric stood shoulder to shoulder with Raymond, swinging his axe as more attackers poured in. He wielded it awkwardly, not with the usual scything cuts but with short, spasmodic darts. In our desperate defence he could not commit himself, for a single mistimed stroke would leave him mortally vulnerable. I prayed it was a lesson Thomas had learned, but I had no time to look, for I was under desperate siege myself. Two Saracens charged towards me along the stream bank; I punched one in the face with my shield and watched him skid on the slippery ground, exposing his neck to the kiss of Aelfric’s axe. His companion paused, his sword hovering between us; I pounced on his indecision, swinging out my shield to check his sword while stabbing forward with my own. But he was too fast: he twisted away from the attack, at the same time grabbing on to my shield and tugging. I lost my footing on the slimy stream bed and was hurled onto my knees. Cold water rushed into my open mouth, choking off the scream; I tried to push myself up, but the water seemed to suck me down. In a second I would be dead.

Something splashed into the stream beside me, and a salt tang tainted the fresh water. For a moment I let it fill my mouth; then, realising what it was, I gagged in horror. The convulsion jerked my head up, out of the stream, and I looked around as the bloody water cascaded off my head. Thomas was standing over me, a bloodied axe in his hands. Just upstream from me, the Saracen lay unmoving. A great gash, from his collarbone to his navel, cleaved him almost in two.

‘Come on,’ said Thomas. Blood streaked his armour and his face was wild. In that instant, I barely recognised him. Half a dozen Saracens lay dead about his feet, though he could not have killed them all. They clogged the stream and added their blood to the reservoir filling up behind them. No more came to share their fate.

‘Thank you.’ My lungs burned from the water I had swallowed, and the words came out awkwardly.

Thomas scowled. ‘You should be more careful next time.’

We clambered out of the stream and edged our way down the muddy bank. My feet were sodden and numb; I felt like some bedraggled animal as I hauled myself over rocks and around roots. The taste of blood and water fouled my mouth; I tried to spit it out but still it remained. Several times my weary legs gave way and my lumpen fingers could not seize a handhold: then I would slide or tumble a little way down the slope, smearing myself in mud, until at last a stone or hummock stopped me. Each time, getting up proved harder and harder, until at last I slithered my way into a small hollow where Aelfric and Raymond were waiting.

‘Have we escaped them?’

As if in answer, Aelfric dropped to one knee, dragging Raymond down with him, and threw his shield over them. I thought he was joking; then, as I looked up, my heart almost died. The mist was thinning, and on the ridge above I could see a line of men, a company of dark shadows looking down on us.

I pulled my shield over me like a blanket, too weary to do more. A voice rang out from above, calling a challenge in some barbarous tongue.

Aelfric laughed, put down his shield and shouted back an answer. I waited to see what would come of it.

The voice from above sounded again, this time in Greek. It was accented, but wholly familiar.

‘Let’s get out of this bastard fog.’

κς

Wounded and humbled, the Provençal army drifted back to the main column. By noon the sun had burned away the ceiling of fog, so that all could see the hillside strewn with bodies, and the proud castle triumphant on its promontory. Anna and Zoe ran to greet me as we returned, while Helena embraced Thomas without thought for the blood that stained her dress.

As soon as he had removed his armour, Raymond summoned his shamefaced army. Standing on a boulder, his arms spread apart in anger, he looked like nothing so much as Christ on Golgotha.

‘I thought I had seen every piece of cowardice and treachery that men could devise.’ He held his voice calm, but there was a throbbing tremor in the words which threatened to shake it apart. ‘I thought there was nothing shameful on the battlefield that I had not seen. But today . . .’ His shoulders slumped; his head dropped, before rising slowly to fix its hate-filled gaze on the watching army. ‘Is this how the Army of God fights? If you were not creatures of lust we would be feasting in that castle this very moment, and I would be drinking to your valour. Now, we have nothing to feast on but our wounds.’

He paused and surveyed his host, daring them to disagree. No one spoke.

‘Where are my bodyguard?’

Half a dozen men shuffled forward from the ranks. They had removed their armour and quilted jerkins, and wore only woollen tunics with crosses sewn on the sleeves.

‘Two hours ago I was lying up there with a Saracen’s sword at my throat. All alone.’ The last two words resonated deep with anger, as if he had had to wrench them from his soul. ‘If not for the grace of God, I would be one more corpse on the hillside.’ He pointed up behind him, where flocks of crows wheeled above the ridge, then looked back at the six men standing before him. ‘Where were you then?’

One of them, a stocky man with a ruddy face, looked up. ‘We lost you in the fog and could not find you.’

‘Really?’ With a coiled energy far beneath his years, Raymond leaped down from his boulder and advanced towards the man. ‘All six of you?’

Six faces stared back at him. Several flushed with something like embarrassment, but none showed shame or begged forgiveness.

‘Have you forgotten your oaths to me?’ Raymond’s voice was sharp as ice. ‘I chose every one of you, to sleep by my bed, eat at my table and fight at my side. You—’ He turned to one of them. ‘Your father served me every day of his life; he fought beside me in seventeen battles, and when the eighteenth claimed him I was beside him. And now, in my greatest danger, you leave me blundering among my enemies like a blind man.’

The ruddy-faced man edged forward a little. ‘My lord, we—’

‘Your lord? Who is your lord? A knight who abandons his lord is no knight at all.’ Without warning that he even considered it, he punched the man square in the face. Age may have lined his skin and stooped his back, but it had not corroded the strength in his arm. The knight stumbled backwards, blood trickling from his nose.

‘Stand up,’ Raymond ordered. ‘Stand fast, if you have not forgotten how.’

The knight shook his head to clear it, licking away the blood that stained his lip. Swaying slightly, he stepped forward again and snapped his feet together.

‘Where was your courage on the mountain?’ Raymond jeered. ‘Did you forget it?’ He swung his fist straight into the knight’s chin. His head spun away with a sickening crack, but still he stayed standing.

‘Do you remember the oath you took to me? To fight as my sword and serve as my shield? To suffer my wounds?’ Raymond clasped his hands on either side of the knight’s bloodied face and held it inches from his own. ‘Why did you betray me?’

The knight looked as if he wanted to clear the blood from his mouth, but Raymond held him so close and tight he could not have done so without spitting in his master’s face. He swallowed, and mumbled, ‘We did not mean to lose you.’

Raymond loosed his grip, running his hand over the knight’s cheek almost lovingly. ‘You did not lose me in the fog – you abandoned me. Admit it.’

The knight whispered something I could not hear. Raymond shook his head, cupped one hand around the back of the knight’s head and smacked him hard with the other.

‘Liar,’ he shouted. Beneath the grey stubble his cheeks had flushed crimson. ‘Who told you to betray me?’ He let go the knight and wheeled round. ‘Was it him? An upstart peasant who thinks himself touched by God? Raymond stepped back, but only to give himself more room to drive his next blow into the knight’s stomach. The man gagged and stumbled forward; Raymond could have caught him, but instead stood aside so that the knight fell at his feet.

‘Was he trying to warn me?’ He lashed out with his boot, kicking the knight in the face. A gasp rose from the watching army, but no one moved. The other five guards stood in a row and stared straight ahead, stiff as corpses. ‘Crawl back to him, worm, and tell him I have heard his message.’ Another kick. ‘Does he think he will usurp my power?’ Another kick, this time so hard that it rolled the knight over with its force. ‘Does he think he will steal my army from me, even my own household?’ A kick. ‘My handpicked knights.’ Kick. ‘My dearest friends.’

He drew back his leg as if to kick the man in two, then instead pivoted away to face the army. No one moved to help the knight, who lay broken and whimpering in a pool of blood and mud.

‘Is there anyone else who questions my authority?’ Raymond demanded. He was breathing hard, spent with his violence. ‘If so, let him see that I am in command here. I am in control.’

He paused, then repeated it more quietly, almost like a prayer.

‘I am in control.’

Raymond’s fury at the men who had deserted him was not matched by gratitude to those who had saved him. He said nothing to me, and I received precious little thanks from Nikephoros when I found him. ‘You were supposed to stop the count ever going up that hill,’ was all he said after I had told him the story. ‘Now he will not leave here until that castle falls, even if he has to spend half his army taking it.’

Thankfully, it did not come to that. Late that night we crept up the hillside once again, clambering between the bodies of the fallen, and as the first smudge of light began to crease the horizon we climbed onto the ridge. Two companies ran forward, carrying their scaling ladders under a roof of shields against the expected onslaught, but it never came. No defenders rose from behind the battlements, and no arrows rained down on the tiled shields.

‘Perhaps they’re still asleep,’ Aelfric suggested.

The assault parties planted the ladders in the ground and raised them to the ramparts. At a sign from Count Raymond, another company of knights ran to the rubble ramp that led to the breach they had attacked the day before. Behind them, our archers waited with arrows nocked and strings tensed. Their arms strained with the effort – too much for one, who lost his grip and sent his arrow aimlessly towards the castle. It clattered into the walls and provoked a furious rebuke from Raymond – but no answer from within.

The first knights climbed tentatively to the tops of their ladders, paused for a moment, then vaulted through the embrasures. More followed on their heels; others ran up the incline and burst through the breach. Still we heard no shouts, no challenge or sound of battle.

‘Is it a trap?’ I wondered aloud.

Raymond waved more companies forward. Their feet fell softly on the dewy ground, and they held their weapons carefully so as not to make a sound. Birds had begun to sing in the grass; a swallow flew up from a tower and wheeled above it, but otherwise the dawn stillness still gripped the hilltop, and men moved as if in a dream.

A rumble from the gatehouse dispelled that. The gates began to move and a ghostly, disjointed clangour rippled through our army. ‘Here it comes,’ men warned each other. A crack of light opened between the gates, widening as they swung out. Every man among us strained forward to see what would emerge.

A single figure in Provençal armour stood framed in the gateway, silhouetted against the grey morning light. Behind him, I could see that the courtyard was empty, save for a single sheep tethered to a stake in the ground, grazing on the weeds that grew between the cobbles.

The knight pulled off his helmet. ‘It’s empty. There’s nothing there but ghosts and the spoils of war.’

Sigurd spat on the ground, then deliberately began wrapping the deerskin cover over his axe head.

‘Let’s hope Jerusalem is as easy.’

It was a strange outcome – to have lost a battle we should have won, and won a battle we did not fight. Every man in the army, from Count Raymond to the humblest groom, seemed disoriented and frustrated. We had prepared ourselves for a great assault, our passions raised high with expectation; without a battle, the passions remained unspent, and curdled in our hearts. Many quarrels broke out that week, even among the Varangians, and a sullen disappointment clung to the army as we plundered the fertile valley for food.

Two slow weeks after the battle we came out between the arms of the mountains and looked down on the coastal plain. From early in the morning I could see the blueglazed expanse of the sea ahead, with a river running eagerly to meet it, while to our left a walled town stood precariously on a narrow spur protruding from the mountain.

‘Arqa,’ said Nikephoros, riding beside me. ‘From here, we can be at Tripoli by nightfall, and then only ten days’ march to Jerusalem.’

A heaviness seemed to lift from my heart. Though it was only the middle of February, I thought I could feel spring welling up in the roots of the leafless trees and vines around me. The sea sparkled in the distance, offering its promise of infinite journeys, and the sun seemed warm on my face.

But we did not reach Tripoli that night. Instead, we made our camp below Arqa, the fortified town on the mountain. And there, Count Raymond decided, we would go no further.

Another siege. Sometimes I thought there must only be one wall in all the world, spiralling around itself like a snake, and that however often we broke through, we would only advance to confront it again. I stood on a ridge in the shadow of the mountain and felt the warm February sun on my cheek. To my left, the foot of the mountain swept out to form the natural buttress on whose formidable heights the town was built. The only approach was by a thin neck of land little wider than a bridge, carved away by the fast river that flowed along its base. The Provençals had tried to force their assault across the promontory and failed, losing many men. Now, two weeks later, they had resigned themselves to the familiar toil of siege work.

A heavy crack sounded behind me, like rock breaking off the mountain. I did not bother to look. I heard the familiar whiplash of coiled rope unspooling, the whoosh of the sling and the creak of timbers. A flock of starlings squawked their protest, though even they must have grown used to it. A heavy stone flew close over my head and sailed over the deep ravine that divided us from the town, spinning and tumbling in the air.

It struck Arqa’s wall with a thump and an eruption of dust. A few dislodged bricks fell into the bushes at the base; otherwise, there was no discernible effect. Behind me, I heard the Provençal engineers begin the laborious effort of winding back the catapult.

‘Even if you make the breach, you’ll never get your men up that slope.’ Tancred sat on a black gelding and surveyed the town across the ravine. Beside him, Raymond and Nikephoros tried to calm their own steeds after the noise of the catapult. I stood attentively by Nikephoros’ stirrup, more an ornament than an aide, and absent-mindedly stroked the horse’s flank.

‘We’ll wear it down,’ said Raymond shortly.

Tancred rolled his eyes. ‘Not if we wear ourselves down first. What does Peter Bartholomew say to this delay?’

He pulled on his reins, turning his horse to face north. Beneath the heights of Arqa the road wound along the plain, lined with the tents and baggage of the Provençal army. Beyond, a little apart, more tents and makeshift shelters covered a rounded hill, enclosed by a low wall of wood, wattle and rubble. In its centre, on the crown of the hill, a large cross stood empty to the sky, almost as if waiting for something.

‘Well?’ pressed Tancred. ‘What does the peasant messiah say?’

‘Do not call him that,’ Raymond snapped. ‘And what he thinks does not matter.’

‘Even when what he says is true?’ Tancred looked to the south, where an ancient bridge carried the road towards the coast and Jerusalem. ‘We should have kept moving.’

Nikephoros, who had learned to prefer silence during Tancred and Raymond’s arguments, stirred. ‘Not with this army. You would be walking into the lion’s mouth. Better to wait until you are large enough that his jaws cannot devour you.’

Raymond slapped the pommel of his saddle impatiently. These were not new debates. ‘Listen to what the Greek says. Your youth makes you impatient.’

‘My poverty makes me impatient. I entered your service because you promised conquest and plunder – not to sit at the foot of a fortress of no consequence and throw stones at it.’

Another whip-crack from behind launched another boulder into the air. This one actually bounced off the wall, landing on the slope below and tumbling slowly down among the gorse and sagebrush until it came to rest at the foot of the spur. A cloud of dust rolled down the hillside after it. Above my head, I heard Nikephoros mutter something about Sisyphus.

‘You entered my service because I paid you five thousand sous,’ said Raymond to Tancred. ‘What happened to those?’

‘I spent them on my army. A good lord is bountiful to his vassals.’

The slight was not lost on Raymond. ‘And so I will be. Arqa belongs to the emir of Tripoli. When we have made an example of it, he will see our might and offer a rich ransom to be spared.’

‘I heard he had already offered gold to let us pass.’

‘When we have taken Arqa, he will offer more.’

‘And how much will he offer if we do not take it?’

A bang echoed across the ravine, and a white projectile flew up from within the town. At first it appeared to rise straight into the air; then, gathering pace, its trajectory became clear. It seemed to move much faster from the receiving end, I noticed: there was no thought of trying to avoid it. The three lords on horseback stood still as stone, trapped at the mercy of an unswerving destiny.

The rock rushed over our heads and struck the cliff behind us. The earth shivered under our feet; I heard a crack as the rock split in pieces, and a rain of stone fell to the ground. A surprised cry rang out among the clatter, then choked off suddenly. Looking back, I saw a knight lying on the ground amid the fallen rubble. A dent in his helmet was the only damage I could see, but he did not move. Others ran over to help him, though their efforts did not last long.

‘Their catapult is stronger than yours,’ said Nikephoros, stroking his agitated mount.

‘Then we will break it,’ snapped Raymond. His face was pale, his single eye roving over the chaos behind him. ‘We will break this feeble town, and make such an example of it that every lord from here to Jerusalem will grovel in the dust as we pass by. Godfrey and Bohemond will see they have no choice but to hasten here and submit to my standard, and you’ – he jabbed a finger at Tancred – ‘will have your gold.’

Behind him, two knights began rolling another rock up the slope to load into the catapult’s sling.

‘Raymond is more visionary than Peter Bartholomew if he thinks besieging Arqa is the answer to his troubles.’ Nikephoros strode across the carpeted floor of his tent. In the lamplight, monstrous shadows mimicked his movement on the wall behind. ‘He does not know what he wants.’

It seemed to me that Raymond knew too much what he wanted: to be master of Antioch, unrivalled captain of the Army of God, impregnable warlord and conqueror of Jerusalem. I kept silent.

‘And meanwhile, his gamble – our gamble – has failed. Bohemond, Godfrey and the others say they will follow Raymond south – but they do nothing. Bohemond is waiting for Raymond to overreach himself and tip into disaster, while Godfrey watches to see which way the dice will fall. Who can blame him? While they wait, Raymond can go no further. If they come, he will lose his cherished authority over the army. So he waits here, throwing stones at Arqa like a boy at a bird’s nest.’ He kicked the table in the corner of the room, shaking the candles on it. A shower of wax fell like snow. I had rarely seen his passion so unreined.

‘If we are not careful, Raymond’s army will wither at Arqa and Bohemond will have all the excuse he needs to stay at Antioch for ever. Do you know what the emperor would say to that? We have to break this stalemate.’

Nikephoros dropped into his ebony chair and slumped back, more like a soldier in a tavern than an imperial dignitary. ‘You must speak to Peter Bartholomew.’

I had not expected it, though perhaps I should have. ‘Raymond hates Peter Bartholomew now. He will not listen to him.’

‘Raymond hates Peter Bartholomew,’ Nikephoros agreed. ‘But only because he fears his power. And because he fears him, he will do what Peter demands.’

Despite the heat of the bygone day, the night was cold as I crossed our small camp to my tent. Thomas and Helena were inside, Helena with the baby gurgling at her breast. I dropped my eyes: even after a month living and travelling together, I was still not used to the sight of her nursing. Thomas sat beside her, running a whetstone along the rim of his axe. He still concentrated hard at the task, I noticed, squinting and frowning, though his fellow Varangians could do it with no more thought than breathing. The weapon looked vast and ravenous beside the tiny child in Helena’s arms.

‘Where are Anna and Zoe?’ I asked.

Helena lifted the baby away, flashing a view of shining raw-red skin before she pulled her dress closed.

‘Anna took Zoe for a walk.’

‘She shouldn’t have.’ Why did I always sound so humourless with my children? ‘Not after dark. It’s dangerous.’

‘Aelfric went with them.’ Thomas kept his head down as he spoke, rasping his axe and concentrating more studiously than ever.

That could be dangerous in different ways. ‘I hope I won’t have another daughter marrying a Varangian.’ It was supposed to be a joke, but no one smiled. I reverted to the task at hand. ‘Nikephoros has ordered me to visit Peter Bartholomew’s camp.’

‘That could be dangerous,’ said Helena sternly. She wiped the baby’s mouth.

‘That’s why I want Thomas to come with me.’

Thomas took two more long strokes with the stone before looking up. Even then, he did not look at me but instead glanced at Helena. She nodded, and he rose.

‘Leave the axe,’ I told him. ‘I doubt the pilgrims will welcome it in their camp.’

Thomas scowled, but laid it back down on the blanket. Its blade winked as it caught the flame of the solitary candle in the tent.

We did not speak as we climbed the hill to the pilgrim camp. Thomas had always been quiet, but I felt a growing distance between us now and I did not have the words to bridge it. Perhaps there were none that could. He walked one step behind me, never complaining, but his very presence seemed a constant reproach.

A line of stakes marked the edge of Peter Bartholomew’s domain. Crude axe blows had sharpened their tips to points, which seemed sharper still in the flickering light of the watch fire. A guard challenged us as we approached the opening in the fence: he wore no armour, but his spear was real enough. So was the laugh that answered my demand to speak to Peter Bartholomew.

‘Do you want to speak with Saint Michael and all the angels as well? Peter Bartholomew’ – the guard crossed himself with his free hand – ‘does not receive visitors.’

As if to encourage us away, the guard stepped towards us, into the firelight. Thomas gasped, and I had to hold my face stiff to hide my shock. Even with the fire plain on his face, more than half of it remained dark – not in any shadow, but stained with bruises as if someone had tipped a bottle of ink over it. Scars and scabs rose among the bruises, and thick welts lay open on his cracked nose.

‘Count Raymond did this to you?’ I murmured, taking in the stocky figure and the matted hair that had once been fair.

The guard grimaced, making his face even more grotesque. ‘It is better to suffer for doing good than evil. That is what Peter says.’

‘Raymond has expelled you from his service?’

‘He stripped me of my rank, my armour, my servants. He says that when we return to Provence he will take away my lands as well.’ He cracked a ghastly smile. More than half his teeth were missing, and blood still oozed from his gums. ‘But that will not happen. Not once we reach Jerusalem.’

‘If we reach Jerusalem.’

He leaned forward on his spear. ‘We will reach Jerusalem. It has been prophesied.’

I stared him in the eyes – one swollen and half-shut, the other wide open. Perhaps Raymond had kicked out more than his teeth, for I saw no craft or machination behind them, just innocent faith. I leaned closer.

‘If you want to reach Jerusalem, you will let me speak to Peter Bartholomew.’

He shook his head, though this time with some semblance of regret. ‘I cannot. He will not be disturbed.’

‘I will not disturb him,’ I lied. ‘But you can see that our path is faltering again.’ I pointed up behind me, where the watch-fires of Arqa burned high on the mountain spur. ‘Count Raymond will not give that up lightly. What I have to tell Peter Bartholomew could change his mind.’

The guard hesitated, but I could see the doubt I had sowed. He glanced at me and Thomas, then back to the encampment, then to us again.

‘Peter Bartholomew will not see you,’ he reiterated. ‘But I will take you to him.’

He called another guard to take his place, and led us up the hill into the heart of the camp. Raymond’s beating had broken more than his face: he walked with a heavy limp, dragging his foot and learning on his spear like an old man’s staff.

‘I have a friend who would make sure that mended properly,’ I told him. But he only muttered something about the healing of Christ, and shuffled on through the camp. Though it must have been a camp of thousands, sprawled all down the slope, there was neither sound nor light save the flap of our footsteps, and a golden glow from the very top of the hill.

‘Are all the pilgrims in their beds?’ I wondered.

The guard touched a finger to his cracked lips. ‘Peter Bartholomew has ordered it.’

The camp thinned as we neared the top of the hill. By some twist of the landscape the summit was hidden until we were almost upon it: then, suddenly, I could see three solitary tents set to form an open-sided square, with the vast cross I had seen from the mountain at its centre. The tents on either side flickered dimly with the light of lamps within, but the third shone like a beacon. A regal light burned through its delicately spun walls so that it appeared as a pyramid of light, celestial in its radiance. I could hear a soft song rising within, like a psalm or a lullaby – many overlapping voices, though no shadows darkened the golden walls save for the black silhouette of the cross.

‘Is that Peter Bartholomew’s tent?’ Thomas’s voice rang with suspicion and wonder.

The guard did not answer, but took me by the arm and pulled me towards the dim tent on the left. Even he seemed awestruck to be there: his grip was slack, and the light beamed on his shattered face to make it seem almost whole again. He lifted the flap of the tent, called something inside, then beckoned us in.

After the still beauty outside, the tent we entered was a mean and shabby place. Its lamps hissed and spat, filling the space with an oily smoke; the cloths that divided the apartments were stained yellow, and hung crooked from the ceiling. Tangled heaps of carpets and furs lay discarded on the floor, and at least half the furniture seemed to have been knocked over as if in a brawl. An unpleasant odour hung in the air, despite the oversweet perfumes that tried to mask it.

‘Wait here,’ said the guard. His ease had vanished, and he scuttled out of the tent before we could answer. Through the cloth partition I could hear rustles and a low grunting, like a pig rooting in the ground – and occasionally a high-pitched whimper. I did not dare look at Thomas.

The grunting stopped. I looked to the canvas flap, expectant and dreading, but there was no sign of anyone emerging. And then, suddenly, a voice from the tent door behind us.

‘What do you want?’

Thomas and I spun around. He had arrived with startling silence, but he did not look like a quiet man. His pockmarked face was bloated and heavy, his belly likewise, though the rest of him was meagre enough. His eyes were too small for his face and his mouth too large. Something sticky seemed to be smeared on his chin. He wore a long camelskin robe tied with a leather belt: he hooked his thumbs in it, and puffed out his chest.

‘I have a message for Peter Bartholomew,’ I said. ‘It will help the army reach Jerusalem.’

The man’s eyes fixed on me. ‘Peter Bartholomew, bless his holy name’ – he tapped a perfunctory sign of the cross across his chest – ‘is at prayer. He will not be disturbed.’

‘He will want to hear my message.’

‘Then you can tell it to me.’ His voice was coarse, even by the standards of the Provençals. There was no poise in his manner, only blunt strength.

‘It is for Peter Bartholomew alone,’ I insisted.

‘No one comes to Peter Bartholomew, bless his name, except through me.’ He gave an ugly smile. ‘I am his steward and his prophet.’

‘I have seen him many times.’ I spoke mildly. Despite his obvious dissolution, there was a menace in the man’s face I did not want to provoke.

‘That was in the past. Now that the time of trial is coming, he must gather his strength and devote himself to God. If he saw every disciple who sought his blessing he would never sleep.’

‘I am not his disciple.’

The steward gave what was meant to be an indulgent look; it emerged more like a leer. ‘We are all his disciples – though some do not know it yet.’

‘Then will you tell him Demetrios Askiates has brought a message for him.’

He shook his fat head. ‘Tell it to me.’

‘It is for him only.’

My obstinacy was beginning to irritate this selfproclaimed prophet: his small eyes narrowed, his hands began to ball into fists by his side. Thomas saw it too and edged closer, but I flicked my head to keep him back.

‘Raymond cannot advance to Jerusalem unless Bohemond and Godfrey come to reinforce him. But they will not come until Raymond asks – and his pride will not bend to that.’

The prophet folded his arms across his chest. ‘So?’

‘Peter Bartholomew–’

‘Bless his name.’

‘. . . has influence Raymond cannot ignore. If he commands Raymond to send for Bohemond and Godfrey, to ask for their help, Raymond will do it.’

The prophet stared at me. ‘Is that all?’

‘It is enough.’ I hoped that was true. I had little faith that the fat prophet would relay what I had said, and less still that Peter Bartholomew would act on it.

But the next day, Aelfric reported he had seen a knight leave Count Raymond’s camp and ride north to Antioch.

κη

The boy stood between his mother’s bare legs, his arms wrapped around them. His young face was screwed into a mask of concentration as he surveyed the ground in front of him. Worry furrowed his face like an old man’s – though these furrows were plump and fertile, ripe for planting, not the arid, barren lines of age. With a hiccup of resolve, he suddenly unlatched himself from his mother and lurched forward, flailing his limbs like a newborn foal. One step, two, three – and the beginnings of a fourth before the momentum undid him. He sprawled face-first into the carpet of pine-needles, a plaintive bawl lamenting his failure. Helena ran forward and picked him up, dusting the pine needles off his blue tunic.

‘Soon he’ll walk better than his grandfather,’ said Sigurd.

I picked up a pinecone and threw it at him, but he swatted it away with the palm of his hand. The boy – my grandson – stopped wailing as he watched it fly into a patch of tall grass.

‘With an arm like that, you should be throwing rocks at Arqa,’ Sigurd teased me. ‘You’d do no worse than the catapaults.’

I waved the insult away. We were sitting in a glade in the forest that covered the lower slopes of the mountain – Thomas and Helena with the baby Everard; Zoe, picking the scales off pinecones to get at the nuts within; Sigurd, and Anna sitting on a fallen log beside me. We had brought baskets of bread and fruit, for it was a rare escape from the grim confines of the camp.

‘There was a full moon two nights ago,’ said Sigurd. ‘A whole month we’ve been here now.’ He pointed to Everard, who had balanced himself against his mother and was teetering forward, summoning courage for his next advance. The anticipation and delight in his young face seemed to have forgotten all memory of ever having fallen, though his knees were black with earth.

‘If that boy set out for Jerusalem now, he’d still be there before this army.’

Everard obliged Sigurd’s pessimism by choosing that moment to launch himself into another doomed run. This time he only managed two steps before the inevitable collapse. Helena stepped forward and wrapped him in her skirt, hushing the cries.

I smiled, trying not to let Sigurd’s pessimism sour the mood in the glade. What he said was true enough. In the nine weeks since we had set out from Ma’arat we had come, by Sigurd’s reckoning, less than a hundred miles. In the past month we had not moved at all. The Army of God’s resolve, once a keen and indomitable blade, had been bent so far that it had snapped. It could not be remade, not with the same strength, and the men who had swung and slashed their way across Asia Minor now prodded forward like blind men. The first incarnation had been terrible, terrifying to witness. This agonising decrepitude was simply a slow, aimless death.

Everard was ready to try again. He pushed off from Helena and ran forward, flapping his arms like an injured bird. Four steps, five, and then – just as it seemed he could defy his limitations no longer, he reached the sanctuary of my knee. He clung on desperately, and I had to prise his little hands away to hoist him up on my lap. I ruffled his hair – fair like Thomas’s, though already growing steadily darker – and pointed through a gap in the trees where the slope fell away to the plain, and the coast beyond.

‘That is where you need to go,’ I told him. ‘To Jerusalem.’

He snatched hold of my outstretched finger and began pulling on it. Anna reached over and tickled his chin, while Helena seated herself on the ground, leaning against the fallen log and chewing on a crust of bread. She looked well, I thought. Her face, sallow during the winter, had begun to brown again in the spring sun, and there was new vigour in her arms when she picked up her son. Anna had told me that Helena had struggled for a long time with feeding the baby, unable to nourish his body without enfeebling her own. It had been worst during the lean weeks at Ma’arat, and our subsequent travels had allowed little chance for recovery.

‘What’s that?’

I craned forward so that I could see what Sigurd had seen from his vantage on the opposite side of the clearing. A disgruntled fist tugged on my finger, trying to recapture my attention, but I ignored it. Thomas was on his feet beside Sigurd and staring over the tops of the pine trees to the west.

‘An army.’

I passed the baby onto Anna’s knee and ran over. My eyes were not as sharp as Thomas’s, but even so I could see the procession winding stiffly out of the valley and down towards our camp. Sunlight gleamed on their weapons like the scales of a snake, with two white banners like fangs at their head.

‘Can you see the device?’ I asked. In the camp below, men were running out of their tents and staring, but I could not tell if they were preparing for battle.

‘The cross of the Army of God,’ said Thomas. ‘And beside that, the banner of the five wounds.’

Godfrey’s standard. I looked at my family in the glade, trembling that he should have come so near them. ‘And the Norman serpent banner? Is that there too?’

Thomas shrugged. ‘Not that I can see.’

I pulled on my boots. ‘I had better go. Nikephoros will want me.’

Anna hoisted Everard down from her lap and set him on the ground. He swayed, then dashed resolutely forward towards his mother – as if he had never fallen before, would never fall again. But of course he did.

I was summoned almost immediately. Duke Godfrey’s arrival occasioned a council of the princes, and Nikephoros required me to be his mouth and ears. They met in Count Raymond’s tent – not his great pavilion, with its silk curtains and rich furnishings, but a small, square tent erected in a field a little distance from the camp. The princes watched each other warily.

‘But where is Bohemond?’ asked Raymond. He said it lightly, as if referring to a well-renowned horse he had been curious to see. No one was deceived.

Godfrey looked up. Where the trials of the past two months had slowly twisted the roots of Raymond’s soul, so that his whole body appeared crooked and misshapen, Godfrey seemed to have benefited from the interlude. His bearing was firm, his face bright, his blond hair thick as a lion’s mane and his blue eyes unyielding with purpose.

‘Bohemond set out with us from Antioch two weeks ago. Three days later, he turned back.’

Raymond breathed a slow sigh, like a warm summer wind. His hunched shoulders relaxed and his bearing straightened, so that he seemed taller, more noble again.

‘He will not come,’ he declared softly, almost to himself. ‘He has shown himself at last.’

‘He swore he would honour his oath to worship at the tomb of Christ,’ said Godfrey.

‘When better men have captured it.’ Raymond laughed in savage triumph. ‘Bohemond’s part in this enterprise is over. Our names will ring in history as the conquerors of the holy city; Bohemond’s will be forgotten, or remembered only in the annals of traitors and cowards. As soon as Arqa is taken we will fall on Jerusalem like wolves.’

‘As soon as Arqa is taken? I did not bring my army here at a forced march to defend you against a few Saracen villagers marooned on a hilltop. We should go now.’

Several of the other princes nodded their agreement. Raymond stiffened, bending forward like a bow drawn tight.

‘I have besieged this town for a month; I will not see all that effort wasted now.’

‘Better than seeing it wasted two months from now,’ said Tancred.

Raymond looked as if he might strike Tancred – and Tancred, equally, as if he would relish fighting the old man. Fortunately, at that moment the council was interrupted by a commotion among the guards. A small knot of men were trying to push through, their voices raised in indignant protest. The guards waved their spears and shouted them back; for a moment I feared this might be the moment that the entire army broke apart in open battle. But Raymond must have recognised one of them, for he angrily called the guards to let the newcomer in.

A short, pot-bellied man shrugged his way between them and marched across to the tent. The camelskin tunic flapped around his knees, bulging out over the leather belt that tied it, and his small eyes surveyed us from the illtempered face. He seemed different in daylight, smaller in every part except his belly, but I recognised him at once as the man I had seen in the pilgrim camp – Peter Bartholomew’s self-styled prophet.

He did not have the air of a peasant approaching the great princes of the earth. He held his head high and sure, his fat lips pouting as if he had already detected some slight against his dignity. All the princes stayed seated, save Raymond who was already standing.

‘What is happening here?’ he demanded. He turned on Count Raymond. ‘Why have you summoned secret councils without my lord Peter Bartholomew’s presence, bless his name?’

In any other place, to speak as he did to a man of Raymond’s station would have been death. Instead, Raymond choked back his obvious anger and said simply, ‘This does not concern Peter Bartholomew.’

‘That is for him to judge.’ The prophet’s eyes swept around the gathering, defying them to argue.

Godfrey ignored him. ‘Who is he?’ he asked Raymond. His face was a mask of distaste.

‘I am John, disciple and prophet of Peter Bartholomew, bless his name.’ He rounded on Godfrey, who somehow contrived to evade the accusing stare and fix his gaze just over the man’s shoulder.

Godfrey stood. ‘I thought this was to be a council for princes – not paupers and rabble.’

‘Wait,’ Raymond pleaded. ‘At our councils at Antioch, we always had leaders from the pilgrim host present.’

‘If Peter Bartholomew is their leader, why is he not here himself?’

Raymond was about to offer an excuse, but the prophet John spoke more quickly. ‘The time is not yet ready for Peter Bartholomew to reveal himself. He is preparing for the time to come – the time foretold by the prophecy. The time when the last shall be first and the first last.’ He spun around, fixing his small eyes on the princes. ‘You know what is coming. The King will ascend Golgotha. He will take his crown from his head and place it on the cross, and stretching out his hands to heaven he will hand over the kingdom of the Christians to God the Father.’

Godfrey moved so quickly I did not see what he did. One moment the peasant was standing, the next he was writhing on the ground, squealing in outraged agony until Godfrey’s boot on his throat choked off the sound.

‘Who told you that?’ he demanded. ‘Where did you hear it?’

He half lifted his foot from John’s neck so that the wretch could speak. ‘Mercy,’ he spluttered. ‘It is what Peter Bartholomew preaches. It is written in his book.’

‘What book?’

‘The book of prophecy,’ squealed John.

‘Liar!’ Godfrey’s cheeks were flushed; I had never seen him lose his temper like this, not even on the mountaintop at Ravendan. ‘That is not his book.’ He took his boot off John’s throat and delivered a sharp kick to his ribs. ‘You should keep your dogs better trained,’ he hissed at Count Raymond, ‘or they will pull you down and devour you. Bring Peter Bartholomew to me.’

Raymond squirmed. ‘I cannot–’

‘He will not come.’ John had struggled to his feet. ‘Not until the appointed hour.’ He circled around like a cornered dog, keeping his eyes fixed on Godfrey. ‘And then, Duke Godfrey, beware, for his revenge will be terrible. The good wheat he will gather into his granary, but the chaff’ – he almost spat out the word – ‘he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

κθ

There were no councils after that. Godfrey’s army crossed the bridge and made their camp to the south-east of the city, well away from the Provençals, while Tancred extricated his men from Raymond’s camp and took them south on foraging raids. Peter Bartholomew and the pilgrim horde stayed aloof on their hilltop. On the twenty-fifth of March, the Feast of the Annunciation, the Franks celebrated the start of their new year. It seemed to bring new life to the world: wildflowers bloomed on the hillside among the pines, and in the valley green buds began to sprout from the skeletal boughs of fig trees. A white sun shone from cloudless skies, warming the earth to dust. Even the crack and thud of siege weapons was, for a time, drowned out by birdsong. But it did nothing to brighten the mood of the Army of God. You had only to look at their faces to see the thunderclouds that gathered over them, to feel the charge in the sultry calm that gripped them. Soon, I feared, the storm would break.

It came on Holy Wednesday, the Wednesday before Easter. That morning I ate the stale, presanctified bread and listened to the priest read the gospel. The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness does not overtake you. Afterwards, I sat with my family in our camp, while Helena wove daisies into a crown for Everard.

‘I don’t like Holy Week,’ Zoe declared. ‘Everything is pain and death.’ She had never been shy of speaking her mind, though her thoughts seemed more provocative now than they once had. I had learned to choose when to answer and when to ignore her; Helena, however, could not restrain herself.

‘Without the passion there is no resurrection. The sufferings of holy week are the foundations on which the church is built.’

I said nothing; I had my own reasons for disliking Holy Week. It was then, eighteen years ago, when the emperor Alexios had captured the imperial throne while his troops sacked the city where my wife and newborn daughter lived, and it had been Holy Week too when, sixteen years later, the Franks had tried to seize Constantinople. Instead of humility and love, this festival of exalted suffering seemed more likely to provoke violence and frenzy. I had seen too much of it.

‘What’s that?’

I looked where Helena was pointing. From the hill to the north, where Peter Bartholomew and the pilgrims had their colony, a long procession had emerged and was winding its way towards the main Provençal camp. There must have been thousands of them, and even at that distance I could hear the melody of the hymn they sang.

‘What does it mean?’ Zoe asked, tugging my sleeve. ‘What are they doing?’

‘I don’t know.’ It might have been nothing more than a rite for Holy Week, some Frankish custom we did not know, but I doubted it. Already, at the foot of the hill and in the valley, I could see knights and soldiers emerging from their tents to stare in surprise.

‘They look so solemn,’ said Helena. ‘More like an army marching to war than a host of pilgrims.’

She was right: rigid discipline gripped the pilgrim line, and they walked as if moved by a single, solemn purpose. A terrible foreboding rose in my heart; I shook off Zoe’s hand and broke into a run, threading my way first between the tents, and then through the thickening crowds who flocked towards the same place. Up on the mountain spur men abandoned their siege tools and descended to meet us, while others poured over the bridge from Duke Godfrey’s camp.

The pilgrim column reached the north side of the camp, where the valley floor began to rise, and halted. The crowd of knights and soldiers gathered around. Raised above all, on a rocky outcropping, stood Peter Bartholomew. He wore a long robe of pure white wool, with only a rope belt for adornment. His hair and beard had been washed, combed and tied straight with bands of cloth, and his sallow skin had been embalmed with oils and perfumes. Only his misshapen nose broke the picture of perfection, and betrayed the man he had once been.

He lifted his arms. The long sleeves of his gown hung down like wings.

‘Rejoice, my brothers. The Lord came to me last night in dreams. Our deliverance is at hand.’

The pilgrims erupted in cheers and jubilation, hosannas and amens. Many of the facing knights joined in, though at least half – mostly the men of Normandy and Lorraine – remained impassive.

‘Bring out the relic, the holy lance that pierced our Saviour’s side, so that I may swear the truth of my vision.’

Three priests brought the golden reliquary that contained the fragment of the holy lance. One knelt on the ground and held up the casket to Peter, who laid both hands on its lid. Waves of light rippled from the crystal and gold, bathing his face in celestial radiance. A sigh shivered through the crowd.

‘I swear by the holy lance . . . No!’

He broke off, snatching his hands away as if they had been burned. The crowd gasped – could this be punishment for a false oath? – but before they could move Peter had unlatched the reliquary, thrown back the lid and plunged in his hand. He pulled it out and held it in the air, his fist clenched around something too small to see.

‘I swear on the holy lance.’

The crowd erupted in a turmoil of euphoria. The din must have carried all the way to the lofty walls of Arqa far above us on the mountain, perhaps even to heaven itself. No one could see the lance – it was only a fragment, after all, no longer than a nail – but no one doubted that he held it. Even I felt a trembling in my heart, as if by touching the relic Peter had plucked a string that resonated in all our souls.

The light on Peter’s face burned brighter than ever. Still holding his fist aloft, he turned to survey his congregation. Wherever he looked, the noise seemed to redouble.

‘The way of truth is a thorny path. Will you receive this vision? Will you hear the words the Lord spoke to me, and believe them?’

I thought I felt an edge to his words, a sharpness like the mouth of a trap. But my thoughts were drowned by the commotion around me, thousands of voices all crying out that they would hear Peter’s vision.

Peter bowed his head. Behind him, for the first time, I noticed his lieutenant, the self-styled prophet John. I scanned his face for signs of what was to come, but could read nothing in it except pride.

‘I saw the Lord,’ Peter declared. ‘Last night, while I prayed.’

Several in the crowd shouted ‘Amen’, though the majority stayed still and silent, their heads lowered and their hands clasped before them, as if they could not trust themselves to let go. Many of the women swayed with eyes closed, transported by mystic rapture.

‘A black cross stood before me, its wood rough and ill fitted. I trembled to see it, but the Lord commanded me: “Look up on the cross you seek.”’

His far-seeing eyes stared up as if he could look through the vault of the sky all the way into heaven itself.

‘And suddenly, there upon the cross, I saw the Lord stretched out and crucified, just as in the gospel. He hung naked, save for a black and red linen cloth tied around his loins, bordered with bands of white, red and green. Saint Peter supported Him on the right, and Saint Andrew on the left.

‘Then the Lord spoke to me in a voice as deep as thunder. “Why do the Franks fear to die for me, as I died for them? I went to Jerusalem; I did not fear swords, lances, clubs, sticks or even the cross. Why do they fear to follow me?”

‘I had no answer to give.’ Peter’s voice was desolate; he stood stooped and hunched like an old man. ‘But the Lord said, “The army is riven by doubters and unbelievers. The covetous, the jealous, the cowards and the wicked. They have forgotten their calling: pretending caution, they corrupt even the bold and tempt them away from the righteous battle.”’

Peter raised his head defiantly, staring straight ahead at a point in the crowd. I could not see who stood there, but I could guess.

‘“But these evil men infest the body of this army like maggots,” I said. “How can we root them out?”

‘Then the wounds of Christ reopened, and blood gushed out from his hands, his feet and his side.’ Peter waved the hand that still clasped the fragment of the lance. ‘He asked, “Do you see my wounds?” And by some divine power my hand was stretched forward so that my fingers penetrated the wound. My arm became sticky with blood; within I could feel the bones of his ribs and the soft flesh of his intestines.’

His face lit up with sickened wonder. At the back of the crowd, I heard someone retching.

‘The Lord continued, “As you see these five wounds, you must command Count Raymond, Duke Godfrey and all the princes to order their army in five ranks, as if for battle. Then the heralds will shout the war cry, Deus vult, three times, and the Holy Spirit will move across the face of the army, dividing them. And in the first rank you will see the best men, those who do not fear swords or spears or the torments of battle. They reside in me, and I in them, and at their deaths they will take their rightful places by my side.

‘“In the second row are the auxiliaries, a rear-guard to protect the front rank. They are the apostles, who followed me and ate at my table. Behind them come their servants, who bring food and weapons to the front line – they are like the ones who pitied me on the cross but did not have the courage to act. All these men, I tell you, are worthy to be saved.”’

Peter surveyed his audience, breathing in their adoration. Then something changed: the beatific smile vanished, and anger clouded his face.

“‘In the fourth rank are the cowards and hypocrites, those who shut themselves up when the war comes because they do not trust in my strength to bring victory. It was they who crucified me, who said I deserved death because I claimed to be king, the Son of God. I am the Son of God.”’

Peter seemed to rip those last words from the very depths of his soul, shouting with such adamant defiance that you might have forgotten he was merely recounting the words of a vision. He breathed hard as if pressed down by a great burden, and his face was wet with sweat. His whole body convulsed with a raging energy.

With a visible effort he calmed himself. ‘“At the back, in the last rank, you will find the worst of men. Men who are not content to flee the battle themselves, but who use their guile to seduce others, braver and better, to abandon their duty. They are snakes, poisoning the army against me. They are the true brothers of the traitor Iscariot, the heirs of Pilate, and I will show them no mercy.’”

Once again, Peter’s burning gaze was trained on that place in the crowd to my left, where Duke Godfrey’s knights were gathered thickest.

“‘What shall we do with them?” I asked.’

Peter raked his eyes over the audience, revelling in their dread anticipation. He licked his lips – his throat must have been parched from the effort, but when he spoke again his voice was deep and vivid, a terrible sound that seemed to come not from within him but through him, like a great wind funnelled through a doorway.

“‘Kill them all.’”

λ

A shocked silence fell upon the crowd. Eyes downcast, they began to edge away from Peter like a receding tide, while the princes pushed their way forward and gathered in front of him for a council. I attached myself to Nikephoros and watched discreetly from the margin.

‘Does God say that I should massacre the fifth part of my army?’

The Duke of Normandy, normally reserved, stamped his foot and pounded a fist into his palm. ‘Have I mortgaged my birthright, left all I held dear behind, and come so far through such torments, only to be told that my men are not worthy?’

From high on his rock, Peter Bartholomew stared back implacably. ‘Not the fifth part of your army – only those the Lord knows as traitors. He did not say there would be equal numbers in all the ranks.’

‘I say there is only one traitor we need to be rid of – the sooner the better.’ Tancred touched one hand to his sword hilt, while the other sliced a gruesome gesture across his throat.

‘Why?’ asked Peter. ‘Are you afraid of justice? You will stand in the front row when the army assembles, but where will you find yourself when God has winnowed His field?’

‘Enough!’ Raymond stepped to the front of the princes and swung around to face them. ‘God has already showed the high favour in which He holds Peter Bartholomew. It was through him that He revealed the holy lance.’

It was not the definitive argument he had hoped. Several of the princes sniggered audibly, and at the back I heard a voice that sounded like Tancred’s muttering something about a roofer’s nail. Raymond’s single eye glared at them, but the insult was too much for Peter Bartholomew. He leaped down from his boulder, almost shouldering Raymond aside in his haste to confront his doubters.

‘Does anyone dare question the sanctity of the holy lance? You all saw it – you witnessed these very hands dig it from the ground. If any man doubts me, let him say so to my face, so that I may know my enemies.’

‘Nobody doubts the lance.’ Raymond made to lay a soothing hand on Peter’s arm, then thought better of it. ‘We all saw the miracle it brought at Antioch, our Godgiven victory against the Turks.’

‘Nobody denies that God granted us the victory at Antioch,’ Duke Godfrey agreed.

‘Through the lance,’ Peter insisted.

Godfrey shrugged. ‘He works in mysterious ways. I do not presume to read them.’

Another man, a priest with bright orange hair who stood beside Godfrey, spoke up: ‘Even Bishop Adhemar, bless his memory, doubted the authenticity of your iron splinter.’

That was almost true: he had certainly doubted the authenticity of Peter Bartholomew. Perhaps Peter knew that, for the priest’s charge only inflamed his temper further.

‘It is not an iron splinter,’ he raged. ‘It is a fragment of the lance of Longinus. That splinter touched the living flesh of our lord Jesus Christ. It was there on Golgotha when the destiny of the world was remade with His blood, and it has come back to us now, after a thousand years buried in the mud of Antioch, to show that the consummation of that destiny is at hand.’

More than once, then and afterwards, I wondered if God – or some other power – truly did speak through Peter Bartholomew. How else to explain the transformations he underwent, the sudden energy that could illuminate his mean body like the sun coming from behind a cloud? One moment he was a braying peasant, the next a pillar of righteousness effortlessly dominating his audience.

‘Did God strike you deaf when I preached my vision? Were you so blind to its meaning? The Lord is not coming to winnow our army, but to reap the whole world. You know what is written: when the Son of Man comes in His glory, He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep at His right hand and tell them, “Come and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” But the goats He will send into the eternal fire.’

Such was the force and conviction of his words that it was impossible to tell if he was reciting the Gospels, recounting a past dream, or witnessing the horrors he foretold even as he spoke them. The priests and princes drew back, cowering from the assault of his vision. Raymond seemed bewildered; Godfrey looked shocked, while the other faces watched with doubt, fear, hope and guilt.

The red-haired priest stepped forward tentatively. ‘I did not mean to question the truth of your vision.’

‘Or of the lance?’

‘Or of the lance.’

Peter’s face still blazed with righteous fervour. ‘Does any man?’

None did.

‘Besides,’ said the priest, ‘you were not the only man to dream of the lance. There was a priest at Antioch named Stephen of Valence who also received a vision of it, before we uncovered it.’

‘Stephen of Valence received a vision that promised deliverance to come,’ Peter corrected him sternly. ‘He did not see the lance. That was confided to me alone.’

‘But it corroborated your story.’

Peter sniffed. The radiance had departed again, and he seemed diminished. ‘For most men, my word was enough.’

‘But none doubted Stephen. He was so sure of his truth that he willingly offered to undergo the ordeal of the air or the ordeal by fire to prove it.’

‘I would have done the same if anyone had demanded it. Who says I would not?’

‘Nobody,’ said the priest. He spoke reasonably, earnestly. ‘I only said that Stephen volunteered to suffer the ordeal.’

All the men in the crowd stood silent, watching Peter Bartholomew. A new fire pulsed in his face, different and angrier than the celestial glow when he prophesied. He moved towards us, his arms twitching.

‘Is that what you want? To see me thrown down from a high tower or set on a pyre? Do you think you will see my body destroyed, broken on rocks and burned in flame? You seek to test me, as the scribes and Pharisees tested Christ once before. But I will have the victory. I will fly through the air and walk through fire – let any man who doubts me come and witness it. But let him be warned that when the trial is over, it will be visited on him tenfold for his disbelief.’

Raymond looked appalled. ‘That is not necessary. No man doubts you. We have your word.’

‘And soon you will have the word of God. You know what is written in the psalms: He will command His angels to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up on their hands so that you do not dash your foot against a stone.’

‘It is also written, in the same place: Do not put the Lord your God to the test,’ said Raymond’s chaplain severely.

‘And you should heed those words. Any man who doubts me doubts the Lord himself. Anyone who tests me, tests God.’

Godfrey looked ready to hit him for his audacity. ‘That is blasphemy.’

‘Light the fires and we will see.’

‘No!’ said Raymond. Godfrey rounded on him.

‘Do you have so little faith in your tame peasant that you fear to put him to the ordeal? Do you fear that your authority might die with him, when all men see that the lance was a hoax concocted by charlatans, connived at by princes who should have known better. If you truly wished to preserve your authority you would not be trying to protect this peasant from roasting himself on his own pride – you would lead your army from Arqa this very afternoon, and not halt until you were at the walls of Jerusalem.’

The corner of Raymond’s dead eye-socket twitched, but before he could answer Peter had shouted, ‘Count Raymond protect me? Why should I need it, when I am robed in the armour of God? Build your pyres, stoke them up as high as you can. Two days from now I will pass through the flames and not one hair on my head will be singed. The flames will burn away your lies. The heavens will part with thunder, every element will be dissolved with fire, and all things will be revealed.’

* * *

They built the fire in the valley, at the narrowest point where its slopes offered plenty of vantage for the curious. Olivewood boughs were stacked four feet high and doused with oil, laid in two parallel rows just far enough apart that a man could walk between them. It was full thirteen feet from one end to the other – more than enough time for God to prove his favour, as Sigurd observed.

Good Friday dawned clear and warm, though it was one of those days when the senses and the soul misalign themselves, and even sunshine feels overcast. A grim expectation gripped the camp – long before the appointed hour, the audience had gathered thick as crows, many thousands of them rising far up the slope like the crowds in the hippodrome. Like the hippodrome, the nobles had the choice places nearest the arena, while the mass of peasants thronged the heights above. A cordon of barefoot priests stood around the pyre and held back the onlookers, singing the psalms appointed for that holy day.

Be wise, O kings,

Be warned, you rulers of the earth.

Serve the Lord with fear,

And trembling kiss His feet,

Or He will be angry, and you will perish,

For His wrath is quickly kindled.

Many of the pilgrims joined in that verse with relish, while the lords touched their swords and looked anxiously around them.

There was no place of honour for me. I sat with my family about halfway up the hill, looking down into the cauldron of the valley. Up there the atmosphere was like a village festival or a fair. Peddlers picked their way through the crowd with trays and baskets of nuts, olives and water. Others offered less wholesome wares: one man carried nothing but an enormous tray of bones. I beckoned him over.

‘What are those?’ I asked.

The peddler, a ruddy-faced man whose rough features seemed set in simple, honest contentment, gave a gaptoothed smile. ‘Relics.’

‘Relics of whom?’

He nodded down to the waiting pyre. ‘Of him. These bones’ – he picked one out and offered it to me for inspection – ‘come from the lepers and cripples who Peter Bartholomew, bless his name, healed with his touch.’

‘Not very well if this is all that remains of them.’

Anna reached into the tray and took another bone, a tiny thing barely larger than a comb’s tooth. ‘Has Peter Bartholomew healed many squirrels?’

Rather than take offence, the peddler gave a broad, innocent grin. ‘He knows all the birds of the air, and all that moves within the field is His.’

Anna rummaged some more in the tray. ‘And these?’ She pointed to an assortment of half a dozen mismatched pebbles.

‘Stones that Peter Bartholomew, bless his name, has himself touched. And here . . .’ The peddler leaned forward confidentially and extracted a thin clay vial from inside his tunic. He uncorked it and held it to Anna’s nose. ‘A few drops of his most precious blood. I was walking behind him in the forest when he pricked himself on a briar; I gathered it fresh from the thorn myself.’

‘I thought it was usual to wait for a saint’s death before distributing his relics,’ I said.

‘Only because you have never been in the presence of a living saint. Although . . .’ He knelt down, rearranging the bones and stones in his tray. ‘I have an agreement with one of the chaplains. If Peter Bartholomew, Christ preserve him, does not survive his ordeal, I am to get a bone from his forearm – and possibly his left hand. A Narbonnese priest offered me ten ducats for the arm, but if you were interested . . .’

I shook my head, smiling to hide my disgust. ‘I’m sure Peter Bartholomew will triumph in his ordeal.’

The relic-seller beamed. ‘I pray he does.’

The sun climbed higher and hotter, so hot that I feared it might set the fire alight before the appointed hour. The still air was drenched with the stink of oil and sweat; flies swarmed all around us. The mood of the crowd grew impatient: some wondered when their saviour would appear, while others taunted them that he had run away rather than be revealed as an impostor. In the sweltering heat the arguments became angry, and several men had to be pulled apart from their quarrels. Others let their purses speak for them, and laid wagers as to whether Peter Bartholomew would survive, how long it would take him to traverse the corridor of flame, and whether the angels who carried him up out of the blaze would be seen by the audience.

A little after noon we heard a shout go up from the camp. In an instant, every man was on his feet, watching the solemn procession climb the valley. A cohort of Provençal soldiers led the way, forcing a path through the throng. Behind them came Count Raymond and a bishop, then a knot of priests huddled around a figure I could not see. They proceeded slowly, in a cloud of foliage where the peasants showered them with olive leaves and wildflowers. The air sang with adoration and the valley echoed with hosannas like the highest sphere of heaven.

At last the procession reached the open space around the fire. The watching crowd fell silent, and the only sound came from the cordon of monks who still sang their psalms. Wicked and deceitful mouths are open against me, speaking against me with lying tongues. They beset me with words of hatred, and attack me without cause.

The priests separated. In their midst, revealed like the stamen of a flower, stood Peter Bartholomew. The shining white robe had gone, and he wore only a simple tunic, which barely hung to his knees. His beard had been shaved close to the cheek, no doubt so it did not catch fire, and he had cropped his hair short. I could not see his face, but there was no strut or defiance in his posture, only humble concentration. He did not acknowledge either the praise or the insults of the crowd, but kept his gaze fixed on the ground.

‘For the love of Christ, call it off,’ Anna murmured beside me. ‘You cannot tempt God like this.’

The priests and soldiers who had escorted Peter fanned out, forming a loose circle a little way from the fire. Four men stood at its centre: Raymond; the harelipped priest who served as his chaplain; a robed bishop and Peter Bartholomew. Peter knelt before the bishop, while the chaplain announced solemnly, ‘If Omnipotent God talked to this man in person, and Saint Andrew revealed the true holy lance to him in vigil, let him walk through the fire unharmed. But if he has lied, let Peter Bartholomew and the lance he carries be consumed by fire.’

The crowd bellowed out a resounding ‘Amen’. The bishop snapped open the golden reliquary, and laid the invisible fragment of the lance in Peter Bartholomew’s cupped hands. Impervious to the building tension, the monks still chanted their psalms.Let all who take refuge in you rejoice;Let them ever sing for joy.Spread your protection over them,So that those who love your name may exult in you.You bless the righteous, O Lord;You cover them with favour as with a shield.

Now it was Peter Bartholomew’s turn to speak. On previous occasions before such vast crowds his voice had carried effortlessly, somehow amplified to reach the furthest corners of his congregation. Now, that brightness was gone. I could barely see him behind the monks and priests who circled him, and his mumbled words were inaudible to all save the closest bystanders. The passage between the logs loomed before him like a tunnel.Search me, O God, and know my thoughts.See if there is any wickedness in me,And lead me in the way everlasting.

The chaplain had carried a clay lamp, its light invisible in the brightness of the day. Now he presented it to the bishop, who spoke a few words of prayer over it and hurled it against the waiting pyre. The vessel shattered; for a second I saw twin tongues of flame racing along the tops of the corded wood, then the entire edifice erupted. A pillar of fire rose up, devouring the birds who had circled too low over it, and black smoke choked the sky. The crackle of wood was like the gnashing of great teeth.

A gust of wind blew smoke in my face, stinging my eyes. I squinted through the tears, so that Peter became little more than a dark blur at the foot of the flames. He must have been touched by God, for how else could he have stood so close to that blaze. Though I heard many things afterwards from those who had stood closer, I did not see him throw out his arms to embrace his fate; I did not see his eyebrows catch fire or his tunic start to smoulder, and I did not hear the last words he said before entering the inferno. Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.

I do not know how long Peter Bartholomew stayed in that fire. Afterwards, some claimed they could see his shadow through the flames, striding serenely forward and laughing, as if the fire and coals did little more than tickle him. Others swore that he had not passed through the ordeal alone: they had seen dim figures walking beside Peter, holding his hand or leading him on. For myself, I saw nothing but a glowing curtain of flame.My hands and feet have shrivelled;I can count all my bones.They stare and gloat over me,And divide my clothes among themselves.

Had the monks resumed their chant, or did I merely hear the words in my heart? I no longer knew: everything was ash. I was vaguely aware of Anna’s hands gripping my arm – I saw the bruises later – and a murmur swelling around me as the crowd began to voice their doubts. Where was Peter Bartholomew? Surely he could not have survived in there so long. Had all his boasts been in vain? Had the lance failed him? Some men dropped to their knees and prayed for his survival; others sat in the grass and wept. Why had God forsaken them?

With a cloud of sparks and a shriek of unutterable pain, a black figure stumbled from the fire. He was naked as a child, his hair and clothes burned away, his skin turned to cinders. He could barely stand; as he stepped away from the flames, he flung out his arms for balance as if he had never stood on his own before.

‘God help us!’ he screamed.

The crowd of pilgrims howled with triumph. As one, they rose up, poured down the hillside and engulfed him.

λα

A pall of smoke from the smouldering fire covered our camp for the rest of the afternoon, shrouding the sky and bathing us in a sickly twilight. That did not deter the pilgrims, who flocked around the dying fire in their thousands. As the heat retreated they would run in and snatch at the coals or charred branches, holding them aloft like trophies, even as the embers burned into their skin. Afterwards, they showed these scars like wounds won in battle. I thought they were trying to find the fragment of the lance, which Peter must have dropped in the flames; Thomas explained that they were taking the ashes as relics of the holy ordeal, fragments of Peter Bartholomew’s own cross. They stripped the fire bare, until by evening all that remained was a black scar on the earth.

‘But he failed the ordeal,’ Sigurd objected as we sat by our tents that night. ‘Who would want a relic of that?’

‘Sometimes the battles you lose are more glorious,’ said Anna – mocking him, for she had never in her life thought any battle glorious.

Thomas did not laugh. ‘Peter Bartholomew did not lose his battle, and he did not fail the ordeal.’ He spoke very deliberately, straining to check his obvious emotion. ‘We saw him emerge from the flames. If he has lied, let Peter Bartholomew and the lance he carries be consumed by fire – that was the test. The flames burned him, yes, but they could not overcome him.’

I sighed. The ordeal was supposed to have been a test, absolute proof one way or the other, yet now it seemed it had only added new layers of doubt and confusion. Was that an admonition that I should have more faith – or a warning against credulity? Show me your way, 0 Lord, I prayed, and grant me wisdom to see. Once I had styled myself an unveiler of mysteries, a seer of truths that other men were too obtuse or blind to see. Now I could not even be sure what had happened before my own eyes.

Anna laid a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. ‘Time will tell. If Peter–’

She broke off. All evening the camp had murmured with the songs of lamentation for Good Friday. Priests and pilgrims had gathered in their congregations, as the disciples must have gathered in their homes one evening long ago, after they had come down from Golgotha. The music filled the air with melancholy; they wept for themselves, as much for Peter. But now one sound grew louder, a solemn chant swelling above the rest. I jumped to my feet. A train of lights was snaking its way down from the valley and I ran to the road to watch them pass.

It reminded me of a funeral, of that procession I had seen in Antioch half a lifetime ago when they laid Bishop Adhemar in the ground. Barefoot priests led the way with veiled crosses, and acolytes carried long candles beside them. Behind came Peter’s prophet John, his camelskin coat covered with a black gown that had been artfully torn in many places; after him a dozen men I did not recognise, and then the mass of pilgrims. Not just pilgrims, I saw – many knights and soldiers walked among them too. Candlelight flickered on their faces, windows in the darkness revealing their grief: cheeks smudged with soot, eyes shining with tears, hearts stricken with disbelief. They carried a bier, and for a shocked moment I thought it must be Peter Bartholomew’s corpse. Then it came past me, and I saw it was only an effigy of Christ’s tomb, with a high crucifix towering above it. They had garlanded the crucifix with flowers – poppies, narcissi, dandelions and roses; the flowers shivered and swayed as the bier moved, so that with the colours of their petals it appeared that the cross was wreathed in flame.

‘The dead shall live,’ they sang, ‘their corpses shall rise. Awake, you who dwell in dust, and sing with joy.’

Peter Bartholomew was not dead, but he barely lived. According to rumour he lay in his tent on the hill, a burnedout ember of a man, and awaited God’s judgement. That was not enough for Anna, who insisted on going to him to see if she could ease his suffering. ‘He was my patient once before,’ she reminded me. But the crowds about his tent were so great we could not get within two hundred paces of it – and anyway, we were told, he had refused all salves and ointments, saying that the Lord alone would decide his fate.

‘If he spurns medicines, he has made Christ’s decision for Him,’ Anna complained. But every hour on Easter Saturday the crowds around his tent grew, so many that the pilgrim camp could barely contain them. The surrounding tents were stripped back to make room, first from the top of the hill, then ever further down the slopes, until Peter’s tent stood in solitude on the bald summit.

Unexpectedly – for he had not even attended the ordeal – it was Nikephoros who showed the greatest interest in Peter’s fate. He summoned me to his quarters on the Saturday morning and questioned me at length; he even asked what Anna thought, which was extraordinary, for until then I had not realised he knew she existed.

‘She is certain that without a doctor’s attention he will die of his wounds?’ he pressed me.

‘Even if he did accept it he would hardly have much hope. Any other man would have died already of those wounds. That he has survived until now is . . . fortunate.’ I could not bring myself to say miraculous.

Nikephoros seemed satisfied. ‘The sooner the better.’

‘But if Peter Bartholomew dies, and the lance is discredited, Raymond will be much weakened.’

Nikephoros dripped wax on the dispatch he had just written. ‘Raymond is weakened anyway. He built his house on shifting sands, and now they have swallowed him. No doubt he will salvage what he can by claiming that the peasant in fact survived the ordeal, but few will believe him once they see Peter Bartholomew laid out in his tomb.’

‘But then–’

‘Peter Bartholomew’s death will weaken Raymond. As he is the only barbarian who even pretends to support the emperor, that would be a setback. But if Peter Bartholomew survives, if tomorrow he appears to his peasant congregation resurrected . . .’ Nikephoros pressed his seal into the soft wax. ‘What do you think will happen then?’

I rose early on the Sabbath just as the day was dawning. Helena wanted some herbs for the Easter lamb, and I had said I would find them. I slipped out of our tent alone and walked quickly towards the mountain. I told myself that I remembered seeing some wild rosemary growing in the forest there, though I might not have remembered it so well if the path had not led close to the pilgrim camp. Though I had heard Anna’s diagnosis, a deep and unanswerable part of me still whispered that the Lord made all things possible. I scanned the hilltop, seeking a sign: thousands of pilgrims still kept their vigil on its slopes, many of them prostrate with prayer or exhaustion, and the faint melodies of hymns drifted down to me in the dawn stillness. But the songs were scattered and tentative, their message nothing more than fading hope.

Disappointed, and disgusted with myself for it, I turned away towards the place where I thought I had seen the rosemary. I was not alone. As Easter dawned without its Messiah, men and women had begun to trickle down from the hill and return to their camps. I tried not to look at them – the disappointment in their faces was too painful to see – but one caught my eye. Despite the warmth of the April morning he wore a cloak that hung to his ankles, its hood raised to cover his face. As I watched, his course seemed to drift imperceptibly towards the forest on the mountain ridge to the north-east, gradually taking him away from the army.

Perhaps he was no more than a pilgrim looking to relieve himself in private; perhaps he wanted to pick herbs too. But there was something surreptitious about him, something deliberately evasive that I had seen before in men who had had good reason to avoid discovery – the same reason, most often, as I had had for finding them. And so, more from habit than anything else, I followed him into the forest.

It was not difficult. The trees were thick enough that he could not see me, and my footsteps were silent on the thick carpet of pine needles. Thin columns of sunlight filtered through the foliage; if I had not been so intent on my pursuit, I might have paused to marvel at the simple beauty of a spring morning. But I pressed on, pausing twice when the fluttering of birds in the branches above temporarily frightened me – and a third time when I came to a bend in the path and heard voices ahead.

‘He hasn’t recovered?’ As the voice spoke, I heard the abrupt bite of a shovel breaking earth, and then the rasp of iron on loose stone.

‘There’ll be no resurrection for him.’ The shovel dug into the stony ground again, harder this time. ‘If I could have tied a rope on him and dangled him in front of the crowds like a puppet, I would have. That would have been enough. But he won’t get up from that bed again, except to fall into his grave.’

The second voice sounded familiar, though I could not place it. I crouched low and moved off the path into the undergrowth, trying to find a place to see. Every branch I touched or leaf I brushed caused a stab of fear, but the sounds of digging drowned out any noise I made. I came closer, and eventually found a place where if I lay on my belly I could just see through the gap beneath a squat bush. I had brought a knife with me to cut the herbs; I pulled it from my belt, and watched.

Two men stood in the clearing with their backs to me, one in a brown tunic and the other in blue. They had already dug out a sizeable pile of earth. As I watched, one of them knelt and reached into the hole with both hands, pulling out a bulging sackcloth bag. Its contents shifted and clinked as he set it on the ground and brushed the dirt from it.

‘Where will you go?’ asked the man in the blue. He drew a knife and sliced through the cords that tied the neck of the bag.

‘North to Tortosa. I can find a boat there to take me home. I’ve had enough of this adventure.’

The man in the brown tunic pulled out an empty sack he had kept looped over his belt. He held it open while the other shared out the contents of the buried bag. I heard the trickle of a stream of a coins.

The man wrapped a rope around the neck of the bag and tied it fast. ‘It may not be eternal life, but at least we have some inheritance from Peter Bartholomew.’

‘Bless his name,’ added his companion instinctively.

‘Curse his name! He would have ruined us – and might still, if anyone thinks to look for us. He may have convinced us he was the one foretold in scripture and the prophecy; he may even have convinced himself. But he did not convince God.’ He lifted the two sackcloth bags in his hands. ‘Thank Christ he convinced men with deeper pockets.’

He tested the weight of the bags. ‘This is fair.’

‘Then we should go. Before the others think to look for us.’

The two men embraced. ‘God go with you.’

‘And with you.’

They spoke the farewells quickly, mechanically. Then, without a second glance, they parted and left the clearing, one taking a path to the north and the other heading east. I counted towards twenty under my breath, wondering which to follow. I had only reached eighteen when I heard a sound from ahead. Dropping down on my stomach again, I saw the man in the brown tunic re-emerge from the path he had taken. He looked around cautiously, then hurried over to where the shovel still lay on the ground. As he bent down to take it I saw his face for the first time: only for a second, framed between branches, but I knew it at once. The prophet John. He had lost his camelskin robe and cut his hair much shorter than before, but the puffy face was as unpleasant as ever. It was his voice I had remembered.

He walked across to another place in the clearing, a few yards away from the first hole, and began digging. I edged around through the undergrowth so that I was behind him again, trying to time my movements to the strokes of the shovel, and waited until he had finished his hole. It did not take him long – whatever he was excavating was not buried deep. He put the shovel aside, glanced over his shoulder, then dropped to his knees and scrabbled in the earth.

I only needed four strides to cover the distance between us. Distracted by his buried treasure he barely heard me coming: the first he properly knew was when he felt my weight pinning him down, one hand on the back of his head and the other holding a knife to his throat.

‘Did you forget something?’

‘Thaddaeus?’ His voice was frightened, pathetic – not the voice of a man who had presumed to lecture princes. ‘I forgot about this bag, Thaddeus; I would have come after you to give you your share, I swear to you.’

‘I do not want your gold.’

Through his terror, he must have realised I was not his cheated companion returning for vengeance. ‘Who are you?’

I didn’t answer. ‘You were Peter Bartholomew’s selfannointed prophet.’

‘No,’ he squealed. ‘No!’

I twisted the knife so that the flat of the blade was against his throat, and pressed hard. ‘Liar. I saw you with him.’

I loosed the pressure a little so he could breathe to answer. ‘I never knew him.’

‘You stood in his tent and told me that no one came to Peter except through you.’

I doubt he remembered me from that, but it was enough to puncture his feeble resistance. All energy left him and his body sagged forward, so limp that I had to pull the knife away lest he slit his own throat.

‘Why were you stealing away so fast?’ I demanded. ‘Shouldn’t you be at your master’s side, in the hour of his greatest suffering?’

‘Peter Bartholomew is dead!’ He cried out the words like a wounded animal.

‘When I left the camp, Peter Bartholomew still lived.’

‘Yes – if you can say a man lives because his heart beats and his lungs breathe. He will cling to life as long as he can, and who can blame him? He knows what awaits him in the world to come.’

‘Angels and seraphs hymning his praise, and a seat at the right hand of the Father? Or is he bound for the dark places where false prophets and deceivers languish?’

John mumbled something I could not hear. I made him repeat it.

‘For what he has done, he will be cast in the deepest pit of hell.’

Even for one bent on apostasy, it was a terrible thing to say – and spoken with savage hurt.

‘Why? What lies did he tell you?’

John writhed and whimpered in my grasp but did not answer.

‘Was it the lance?’

He nodded eagerly. ‘Yes – the lance.’

‘What else? Did he claim he was a saint? A prophet?’

‘At first he said he was only a messenger sent to proclaim the things to come. But the more the Lord spoke to him, the greater his claims grew. First that he was a saint – then that he had been possessed by the spirit of Elijah to prepare the world for its tribulations.’

‘Did he tell this widely?’

John shook his head. ‘Only to us, his closest disciples. He said the time to reveal himself had not yet come.’

He spilled out his words, unburdening himself with the eager gratitude of the penitent. But I had heard enough confessions to know when a heart had given up all its secrets – and when it had not.

‘Elijah was not the limit of Peter Bartholomew’s ambition,’ I guessed. ‘He went further.’

I twisted John around so that he lay on his back. I wanted to look in his eyes. I took the knife from his throat and stepped back, though not so far that he could hope to escape me.

‘He told us he was the one foretold by the prophecy.’ John whispered the words, as if afraid to hear himself saying them. ‘The last and greatest of all kings, who will come at the end of days to capture Jerusalem.’

‘The son of God?’ Even I was whispering now.

John did not answer directly. ‘When the Son of Perdition has risen, the King will ascend Golgotha. He will take his crown from his head and place it on the cross, and stretching out his hands to heaven he will hand over the kingdom of the Christians to God the Father. This will be the end and the consummation of the Roman and Christian Empires, when every power and principality shall be destroyed.’

His gaze was distant, and he recited it with the familiarity of well-worn verses of scripture. But I had spent my youth in a monastery, had heard every word of the Bible so many times it was as familiar as my own name – and I had never heard that passage.

‘What is that?’

John’s eyes refocused on me. ‘The prophecy,’ he said simply.

‘Whose prophecy? Peter Bartholomew’s? Was it another thing revealed in his dreams?’

He thought for a moment, as if he had never questioned its provenance before. ‘No. It was written down in a book – and Peter could not write.’

‘But he could read.’

John gave a sly smile. ‘He pretended he could not, but I often saw him alone in his tent poring over the book. And how else would he have known what it said?’

‘Did he show it to you?’

‘Only once.’ John shrugged. ‘It made no difference – I do not have to pretend to be illiterate. But I saw the images that illuminated it. Terrible things. Monsters with the heads of Saracens and the bodies of lions ripping women’s bellies with their claws and devouring the unborn children. Locusts with tails like scorpions; a red dragon with seven heads and ten horns. Men dressed as women lying unnaturally with each other in pools of blood, even as the carrion birds picked out their entrails.’ He trembled with the memory. ‘And at the bottom of the page, a radiant king on a white horse. He wore two crowns; his left hand wielded a lance with which he dispatched the Saracens and Ethiopians who assailed him, while his right stretched out to the cross on Golgotha.’

I knew what they illustrated. ‘The last days. And how did Peter Bartholomew come by this manuscript?’

‘He said he found it in a cave after a dream.’ Again that sly, slightly rueful smile. ‘But I also heard that he stole it from one of the princes.’

I remembered Godfrey’s sudden fury when John had quoted a passage of the prophecy at him in Raymond’s council. ‘Do you know who he stole it from?’

‘No.’

‘But he came to believe that he was the king foretold.’

‘Perhaps.’ John sat up, raising his hands in ignorance. ‘By the end, I do not know what he believed. The way he walked into that fire, he might have thought he was Christ himself reborn. He fooled us all – even me, who knew better than most what he was.’

His voice faltered. It might merely have been self-pity, a lament for the power he had lost, but I thought I detected grief as well for the visionary betrayed by his own dreams. For a moment I almost felt sorry for him. Then I remembered that this was the man who half an hour earlier had spoken of stringing up Peter like a puppet to preserve his authority. I remembered the woman caught in adultery, so bewitched and brutalised that she had plunged the hot brand into her breast; the knights from Count Raymond’s bodyguard who had broken their oaths and abandoned their lord in the fog. There had been no pity in the faith Peter Bartholomew preached.

I jerked my knife at the fallen prophet. ‘Go.’

He scrambled to his feet. One hand reached for the sack of coins he had taken, then paused as he caught my eye. He contrived a pitiable, beseeching gaze.

‘Take it.’ I would have liked to count out thirty pieces of silver for him, but at that moment I only wanted to be rid of him. He snatched up the bag, took a last look around the clearing, then crossed quickly to its edge. Just before he disappeared into the trees, he looked back.

‘The prophecy says that the king will come when we wrest Jerusalem from the forces of Babylon.’

‘So?’

His fat face twisted in an unpleasant smile. ‘Don’t you wonder? If Peter Bartholomew was not the promised king, who is?’

λβ

As Peter’s condition worsened, so too did Raymond’s spirits. He kept to his tent and let it be known he was praying for Peter Bartholomew. Up on the mountain our siege engines stood silent, while down in the valley the army held its breath and waited.

At dusk on the Thursday after Easter, Nikephoros lost patience and demanded an audience. As we walked through the camp I could not help looking up the northern hill where Peter Bartholomew still clung to life. There was nothing to see: his tent was dark, and none of the surrounding pilgrims had lit fires. It was said that even the least wisp of smoke sent Peter into paroxysmal fits, clawing at his skin and screaming like a demon.

Raymond’s tent, by contrast, was ablaze with light – golden candlesticks inscribed with the sharp-figured script of the Arabs, looted from their churches; wrought ivory lamps that must have been gifts from the emperor Alexios; and a host of other vessels burning oil, wax, tallow and coals, banishing the shadows from every corner of the room.

He would not have admitted us; indeed, his stewards tried to turn us away three times, but Nikephoros was more than a match for Frankish functionaries and harangued them into submission. We found Raymond alone in his chamber: if he had been praying, he had not coupled it with fasting, for the furniture and carpets were strewn with plates and bowls, half-finished meals congealing within them. Red wine stained Raymond’s tunic and blushed his lips like a harlot’s.

‘Is there any news of Peter Bartholomew?’ His voice was dull and empty, his words slurred.

Nikephoros shrugged. ‘He is only delaying the inevitable. Not for much longer, I think.’ He swept a plate of gawping fish-heads from the chair where it rested and sat down opposite Raymond. I stood behind him.

‘But there is still hope?’ The desperation in Raymond’s voice was pitiful.

‘No!’ Nikephoros slammed a fist on the arm of his chair, rattling the cups on the floor beside it. ‘Forget Peter Bartholomew. If you never spoke his name or thought of him again, it would be a great blessing to you.’

Raymond staggered out of his chair. Nikephoros rose to meet him, and for a moment they stood facing each other, one face blazing bitter fury, the other cold with contempt.

‘I am the lord of thirteen counties and captain of the Army of God.’ Raymond invoked the titles without strength, as if they had become no more than the hollow shell of a lost faith. ‘You cannot speak to me–’

‘I am speaking to you as a friend,’ Nikephoros insisted. He raised a hand, and though he did not touch the count he shrank away, dropping back into his chair. Nikephoros remained standing.

‘Peter Bartholomew betrayed you,’ he said, more softly now. ‘He tricked you, as he tricked so many others. Forget him.’

Raymond sank his face into his hands. ‘Why did he insist on that ordeal? He did not have to, and he should not have let himself be goaded into it. What of it if some of the princes were jealous of his power? The pilgrims trusted him. That was all that mattered. Who will guide them now that Peter Bartholomew has gone?’

‘Who cares? They are just peasants – a rabble.’

‘But put enough peasants together and they will become a power to be reckoned with. They have nothing to offer save their faith – but that can be a mighty weapon when you are fighting for God. Peter understood that. While he lived, the pilgrims put their faith in him, and through him in me. They paid me no tribute and added no spears to my army, but their loyalty proved my greatness to the other princes.’

‘Then send one of your priests to minister to them. They may have abundant faith to give, but it is easily won. If you do not, someone else will.’

Raymond looked up in hope. ‘And there is still the lance. Peter carried it intact from the flames; I have it in my chapel.’

‘Forget the lance!’ Nikephoros kicked out at a cup that stood on the floor: it flew against the side of the tent and spattered a dark stain down its wall. ‘Forget Peter Bartholomew. Forget the lance. Forget Arqa. They are only distractions, poisoning the army with false hopes and lies. All that matters is Jerusalem. That is where you should be looking.’

‘But without Peter Bartholomew–’

‘Without Peter Bartholomew you are free of a treacherous ally. If he did one good thing in his life, it was to walk into that fire and rid us of his madness.’

Nikephoros looked around wildly, seeking something else to kick. Finding nothing, he strode towards the door. Just before he reached it he turned. His cheeks were flushed in the lamplight, and his breath was faster than it could ever have been in the courtyards of the imperial palace. With great effort, he tried to check his anger.

‘You are still the greatest lord in this army. You still command more men, and more honour, than any of your rivals. If you lead them to Jerusalem now, everything that has happened here will be forgotten.’

He turned to go, and almost walked straight into a servant hurrying in through the door. Nikephoros cursed the unfortunate and cuffed him aside, while Raymond fixed him with a weary glare.

‘I told you to leave me alone.’

The servant bowed, rubbing his ear where Nikephoros had hit it. ‘Mercy, Lord. There are men outside you must see.’

‘What men? If it is Godfrey or Tancred come to gloat, I will not give them that satisfaction. If they have come to pity me, I do not need it.’

‘Forgive me, Lord, but these men are not from Duke Godfrey’s camp – or Tancred’s or Duke Robert’s.’ He swallowed. ‘They say they have come from Egypt.’

The Egyptians were waiting for us outside the tent, on a makeshift parade ground illuminated by many torches. I could see at once why the servant had trembled with such wide-eyed awe: even to me, who had sailed up the Nile and walked in the shadows of the pharaohs’ glory, there was something savage and exotic in their appearance. Some were still mounted on the camels they had ridden, perhaps all the way from Egypt; others had dismounted and stood proudly in front of their animals. As for their masters, their silver armour moved like dragon scales, their swords were curved like lions’ teeth, and their solemn faces were black as the depths of Sheol. One of them carried the black banner of the Fatimids, though the fabric disappeared in the darkness so that the white writing seemed to flutter over their heads as if by witchcraft. If they had announced they came not from Egypt but from the deepest reaches of hell, and not on an embassy but to reap the earth, few would have disbelieved them.

But three men stood among them who did not look like spectres of the apocalypse. Two of them, indeed, wore thick wooden crosses over their tunics to prove their true faith. Their faces were pale, like moons against the darkness, and pitted by hardship. One in particular seemed to have suffered terribly. His left arm had been reduced to a stump, not even reaching the elbow, and his once-powerful frame was now stooped and skewed. Some tufts of his hair still grew russet-brown, but the greater part was white, like dust. Worst of all were the eyes, bulging out of his face and interrogating the world with a terrible, candid bitterness.

‘Achard?’

I spoke tentatively, hardly believing what my own eyes told me. In my mind I was suddenly transported many hundreds of miles away, to a moonless night and a river, a desperate battle and monsters from the deep feasting on the dead. Achard had called on me to save him.

I looked away, ashamed by the memory. As I did, I saw another face I knew. He had been watching me, waiting for me, and his white teeth smiled broadly in the darkness.

Two hours later I sat by my fire with Anna, Thomas, Sigurd and Bilal. Sigurd eyed him warily, and made a great display of oiling and polishing his axe-blade while we talked – though in truth, despite the extremes of their skin, the two men had much in common. Both were built like warriors, and held themselves with the easy confidence of strong men. Anna, who had always maintained that God made all men the same beneath their skins – Christian or Ishmaelite, orthodox or heretic – covered herself modestly and watched. Only Thomas seemed troubled: he stared at the ground, fidgeted with whatever came to hand, and said almost nothing.

‘You escaped, God be praised,’ said Bilal, and I remembered that the last time he saw me I had been going to my death. ‘I knew that you never reached the other side of the river; and I heard that a detachment of the caliph’s horsemen had been massacred by Nizariyya bandits in the eastern desert. But there was no way of knowing . . .’ He gave a tight smile. ‘Many men get lost in the desert.’

I thought back to those terrible days: the thirst, the heat, the emptiness that flayed away the layers of my soul until the hollow core was stripped bare. In the deepest places of my heart I still bore the scars.

‘Bilal saved us,’ I told Anna. ‘I owe him my life.’

Bilal shrugged off the compliment with a graceful lift of his shoulders. ‘With the vizier away the caliph had lost his senses. Al-Afdal approved what I had done when he returned. Though not before the Franks had suffered cruelly in the caliph’s dungeon.’

I shivered as I remembered the sight of Achard’s tormented body. ‘What did the caliph want from them?’

‘Revenge for those who had escaped. To win the love of his people by persecuting Christians. To show his independence of the vizier.’ Bilal flicked his hand at the empty air. ‘Who can say?’

‘What happened to Achard?’

‘They dragged him half-dead from the river. The crocodiles had torn off one of his hands, and part of his leg as well. They healed him as best they could but the arm became infected. They had to amputate three times to cut off the poison. When that was done they sent him to the caliph’s torturers.’ Even Bilal, hardened to suffering by a lifetime on the battlefield, did not hide his pity. ‘His body may have been broken, but his will did not suffer. If anything, his ordeal only strengthened his faith. And not through any mercy of the torturers.’

Thomas picked up a stick and began scoring the earth by his feet.

‘How long was he in there?’

‘Only a week. It was long enough. Then the vizier returned and freed them. He was furious with the caliph for making enemies where we did not need them.’

‘Then perhaps he should have arranged it so that Achard never returned.’

‘He considered it,’ Bilal admitted. ‘Achard’s anger is like a tumour inside him, feeding on itself and consuming him. I have known violent men, and good men driven to anger, but never such a hate-filled man as that. The world offers him nothing but revenge. He is not a man I would want to face in battle.’

He leaned forward, locking his gaze on mine. ‘And you should fear him too, Demetrios. He has not forgotten that you escaped and he did not.’

λγ

News of the Fatimids’ arrival spread quickly through the camp – and even beyond. At first light next morning, the garrison of Arqa – which had not troubled us for almost a fortnight while we broke off the siege work to celebrate Easter – began a furious bombardment of rocks and arrows.

‘They are afraid we have come to make an alliance with you to steal their lands, Christians and Fatimids against the Arabs,’ said Bilal.

‘Have you?’

‘Wait and see.’

Count Raymond had his men erect a new tent to receive the ambassadors, on the northern ridge well beyond the main camp. He claimed it was sited to be safe from attack, though I suspected he was more worried about what the pilgrims would think if they saw their leaders sitting down with Ishmaelites.

Though it was hardly a private affair. Jealousy and distrust had fractured the army: no man was willing to come alone, or to appear with the smallest retinue. The princes brought their guards, their secretaries, their bishops, priests and chaplains, their knights and standardbearers. It did not help the atmosphere in the room: by the time we had climbed the slope, and then crowded ourselves into the confines of the tent, the air was sweltering and ill-tempered. What must the Fatimid ambassador have thought of us? I wondered. He sat on a cushion near the door, a round-faced man with a soft beard and hard eyes.

‘In the name of the one God, the almighty and merciful, greetings,’ he said. An aide relayed his words in translation. ‘And greetings from my master, the caliph al-Mustali, and his faithful servant the vizier al-Afdal.’

Each of the princes introduced himself in turn. Even that took almost half an hour, for none was inclined to brevity. Expressions of welcome quickly meandered into self-aggrandising bravado, mixed with clumsy innuendo at the backward errors of the Muslims. The Fatimid ambassador listened more courteously than they deserved, giving the appearance of attending every word, though it seemed from his eyes that he already knew exactly who they all were.

‘My master has followed your progress with interest,’ he said, when at last it was his turn to speak again. He did not say that his master had been amazed at how faltering and shambolic that progress had been, though he somehow managed to insinuate it in his face. ‘From here, you are only forty miles from his border.’

‘All we desire is to reach Jerusalem.’

The ambassador nodded. ‘And Jerusalem is in my master’s possession.’

‘For the moment.’

There was an awkward pause.

‘There does not need to be a war between us,’ the ambassador tried again. ‘We have many enemies in common. Far better to destroy them than each other.’

‘If the caliph hands over Jerusalem, we will gladly make an alliance and fight beside him,’ Godfrey offered.

The ambassador replied with a smile of totally insincere regret. ‘The caliph cannot do that. Jerusalem is one of the holiest cities of Islam. The heir of the prophet, peace be upon him, would dishonour both Allah and his people if he surrendered it. Even to worthy men like you.’

‘He will be dishonoured a great deal more when we cast him out of it in ruin,’ Tancred warned.

‘We pray that will not be necessary,’ Raymond added quickly. ‘But if the caliph has followed our progress, he knows how far we have come and what trials we have suffered. We did not come for riches or glory or conquest.’ He tapped the white cross sewn onto his robe. ‘We came for this: for the love of Christ, and the humble desire to worship where he died. We cannot turn away now, so close to our goal.’

‘Not as close as you think. You cannot measure the distance to Jerusalem in miles alone.’ The Fatimid leaned forward on his cushion. ‘Even if you take Arqa, there are a dozen cities just as strong between here and Jerusalem. Will you reduce them all? Then there are the natural obstacles. You have heard of the Raz-ez-Chekka, the Face of God? It is two days’ march from here, a place where the coastal road runs so close between the cliffs and the sea that you can only pass in single file. Twenty men there could block your passage for ever. And even if you did reach Jerusalem, you would find yourselves in a desolate land, dying of thirst before impregnable walls.’ He shook his head, as if he could not comprehend the hardships he described. ‘You have come a long way through extraordinary dangers, yes. But that does not mean the worst is behind you.’

‘All the more reason to hurry on then,’ said Tancred, staring at Raymond. Many in the tent muttered their agreement.

‘You would only hurry on to your doom. And you would make enemies where you do not need them. When I spoke of the hardships you have suffered, it was not to belittle them. My master the vizier’ – I noticed he had dropped the pretence of serving the caliph – ‘has seen how you long to pray at your shrines in Jerusalem. He can see it would be neither just nor prudent to deny you your goal after you have come so far.’

‘It is not for him to deny or grant. Only God has that power,’ said Godfrey.

‘God is truly strongest and most mighty,’ the envoy agreed. ‘But, mashallah, al-Afdal controls Jerusalem and its approaches.’

‘Not for long,’ Tancred interrupted.

The envoy’s face hardened, and he lifted his hands as if calming a misbehaved child. ‘Please. I did not come here to swap boasts and insults. I have come, at the command of the vizier, to make you this offer – if you will hear it.’

Tancred smirked. ‘What could an Ishmaelite have to say that was worth hearing – except his death cry?’

‘Silence!’ Raymond swept his stern eye around the room, before returning his gaze to the envoy. ‘What does your master propose?’

The envoy sat very still for a moment, so that only his eyes moved, darting about the tent like a snake sizing up its prey.

‘If you will swear peace with the Fatimid caliphate, al- Afdal will give safe conduct and protection to any man who wishes to see Jerusalem. All he asks is that you leave all weapons, except what is prudent for a traveller to carry, at the borders of his lands; and that you come in small numbers, no more than twelve at a time.’

He pressed his fingers together and leaned forward earnestly. ‘You have won many victories, but you have also suffered many losses. How many men have died already so that you can see Jerusalem? How many more will die if you insist on fighting your way to the end?’ All trace of impatience was gone from his voice; his eyes pleaded with us to accept his offer. ‘You call the prophet Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace. What better way to honour him, and yourselves, than if you come to Jerusalem in peace?’

‘Christ may have been the Prince of Peace, but he also said, “I bring not peace but the sword.”’

The Fatimid ambassador had been sent out while the princes considered his proposal. But instead of the princes it was a humble priest who had spoken first – Arnulf, the red-headed priest who had challenged Peter Bartholomew’s claims to divine authority. He had never spoken in a council before; I wondered who had given him permission to do so now.

Worry creased the Duke of Normandy’s brow. ‘We swore an oath to pray at the Holy Sepulchre. How will God judge us if we choose to fight, and lose, when the Egyptian offered us a way to fulfil our oath.’

‘You cannot honour an oath by dishonouring yourself,’ Tancred jeered. ‘Do you remember what this signifies?’ He tapped the cross sewn on his tabard. ‘We swore to liberate the holy city from the vile race who possessed it – not to go and gawp as sightseers.’

‘The question is: do we have the strength to fight our way to Jerusalem, and then into the city itself?’ said Godfrey.

‘And even if we do, how many will be left when we have finished?’ asked Raymond.

The red-haired priest, who showed not the least awe at being in such exalted company, sniffed. ‘We should count each of the fallen as nothing less than a blessing from God. You know Pope Urban’s promise: all who die in battle against the Ishmaelites shall have remission of sins, and will feast on the fruits of the kingdom of heaven.’

‘Even if we did want to accept the Egyptians’ offer,’ said Godfrey, ‘how are we to know it is honest? “Come to Jerusalem unarmed, in small groups,” he says. But what if when we step into the holy city we find a host of Ishmaelites waiting to cut us down?’

There were murmurs of agreement around the tent.

‘What do we know of the way the Fatimids honour their oaths? A year ago we sent four of our most trusted knights to negotiate with them. Only three have returned. Why not ask them if the caliph’s offer is sincere?’

The others nodded. Achard pushed through to the front and stood before the princes, his bulbous eyes staring at them. He had not washed or changed since his journey: he stood before them in the same dusty tunic, the same dirty bandage tied over the stump of his arm, his face still unshaven. Every man watched him, yet none would meet his gaze.

‘I will tell you how much you can trust the king of the Egyptians.’ He twitched his stump. ‘He is the enemy: he was born in Babylon and he has come to Jerusalem to take his seat in the temple of God. I have seen it.’

For a moment a stunned silence overtook the crowded tent; then it erupted in an incredulous clamour.

‘You have seen Jerusalem?’ Godfrey asked, when the noise had subsided.

The scars on Achard’s face were set hard with pride. ‘I have. We passed through it on our way here.’

‘Praise be to God,’ the Duke of Normandy murmured, touching the cross he wore. ‘Then you have walked the holy way, and knelt by the tomb of Christ.’

Achard lifted his head with disdain. ‘I have not. I refused to set foot in the city while it lay captive to the pagans. When I enter it, I will come as a conqueror fulfilling the destiny of Christ – not as a hostage.’

‘Then you would reject the Egyptians’ offer?’ Godfrey asked gently.

Achard answered with a horrible, sneering laugh. ‘Their presence in the city is an abomination before God: and the city will not be cleaned or made new until it has been washed in their blood.’

The chamber erupted in approval. Men stamped their feet on the ground and clapped their hands together; they shouted amens and cried to the Lord to bring them swiftly to Jerusalem.

‘You should go at once,’ Achard agreed, when he could be heard again. ‘God has opened the way.’

‘Has He?’ asked Raymond. Through all the cheering he had barely made a sound, tapping one hand half-heartedly on the arm of his chair.

‘Yes.’ The tumult seemed to have fired Achard’s soul: he stood straighter, his shoulders stiff and his face burnished with colour. ‘Do you think the Egyptians would have allowed us to return, or sent you this offer now, if they were as strong as they pretend? I did not set foot inside Jerusalem, but I saw the garrison there. The walls are fearsome, yes, but not impregnable. The Ishmaelites took the city after a siege of only forty days. Surely God would deliver it to us even faster.’

‘And the road from here to Jerusalem?’ pressed Raymond. ‘What of that?’

Achard shrugged. ‘The Fatimids say they have mastered all of Palestine. But when we came here from Jerusalem, we travelled by night and camped in hidden places. I do not think the coastal cities are loyal to Egypt. If we arrived at their gates and said we had come to overthrow the Egyptian invaders, I think they would welcome us with food and speed us on our way.’

The tent was suddenly alive with optimism, babbling with questions and hope. Several of the princes declared that they would march on Jerusalem that very night. Achard shook off their enthusiasm, lifting his one arm like a gallows to recapture their attention.

‘I have not reported everything I learned on my travels.’ His voice was severe; the colour had drained from his face, so that the scars stood out in a livid web against the skin. ‘While I was held captive in Egypt, a delegation of Greeks arrived to treat with the caliph. Two of them are in this room now.’

He swung around to fix his bulging stare on Nikephoros, and me behind him. The men around us seemed to shrink away: others craned their heads to stare.

‘We went to Egypt for the same reason as you,’ said Nikephoros. ‘Because we thought the Egyptians might join us against the Turks, when the Turks still held Jerusalem.’

‘So you said. But I learned differently. Your real purpose was to make an alliance with the Ishmaelites against us, to annihilate our army and divide the lands we had conquered between you.’ As shock and anger hissed around the room, he stepped forward and stabbed a finger towards us. ‘Do you deny it?’

Standing behind Nikephoros I could not see his face, but I saw him stiffen as though an arrow had ripped through his heart. Before he could answer, Raymond said uncertainly, ‘This is a solemn charge against our closest allies. How could you know it?’

‘Because their treachery was too much even for the Fatimid vizier to stomach. When he granted the Greek an audience, he hid me in a secret room behind his chamber so that I could see and hear it for myself.’

A silence of condemnation gripped the crowded tent. Nikephoros held himself still, swaying slightly like a man on a high wall trying to keep his balance.

‘Yes, there was treachery in Egypt.’

A hiss, confirmation of every wickedness and evil the Franks had ever imputed to the Greeks.

‘But it was not mine. The viper king of the Egyptians, the high priest of their heresy, has tried to confound us at every turn. He has dangled alliances or threatened war as his whim permits. And now that he fears his black hands are about to be prised off the holy city, he has tricked this poor broken knight into thinking he saw something he did not. He has tried to break apart the holy union at the heart of this army, the alliance of all Christians from east and west.’ He looked around at the assembled princes, knights and bishops. ‘I trust you will have the wisdom to recognise the lies of the devil when they creep into your councils.’

‘The lies of the devil?’ screeched Achard. ‘These are not lies. These are things I saw and heard with my own eyes and ears. Does anyone say I have been possessed by the devil?’

‘You have been in his power – as we all were in Egypt. The devil is the prince of illusions. In his palace, how could you be sure of anything you saw? Was there a fire burning in the room?’

‘It was October.’

‘And there was a sweet smell in its smoke – as if spices or incense had been sprinkled on the flames?’

‘There was. But–’

‘And candles burning?’

‘You seem to know a great deal about the scene,’ said Godfrey.

‘I know how the devil works his snares – the better to resist them. I am not ashamed of it. The emperor Alexios made sure that I did not go to the arch-fiend’s palace unprepared.’

‘Or perhaps you went to meet one of your own,’ snapped Achard.

Nikephoros looked around. ‘Everyone can see that Achard has suffered terribly at the hands of the Fatimids. Perhaps he blames the Greeks, because God ordained that some of us should escape while he did not. Perhaps he was enchanted by demons, or perhaps his tormented mind conjured memories of things that never happened. But you do not have to choose his word or mine against each other. Look around you: use reason. If the emperor had turned against you, would his grain ships be crowding the seas between here and Cyprus to bring the food you rely on to support your armies? Would he be sending you subsidies of gold, fresh arms and horses?’

He dropped his voice. ‘You can believe the word of an addled knight who has spent too long in the bosom of the enemy, or you can believe the word of a lord of Byzantium. For the sake of our great undertaking, I hope you see clearly when you choose the truth.’

A fresh silence descended on the tent as the princes considered his words. Raymond looked eager to speak, even opened his mouth to do so, then retreated as he realised his word would carry less weight than others’.

‘No one can question the emperor’s generosity to us,’ said Godfrey. ‘It has sustained us through many hardships, and – God willing – will help speed us to Jerusalem. Achard must have been mistaken.’

The others nodded, though without enthusiasm. Achard, however, looked mortified. The stump of his arm tensed and quivered, as if he were shaking an invisible fist; his eyes bulged so far out that it seemed only the veins around their edges held them in.

‘I was not enchanted,’ he screamed. ‘I walked freely into the heart of Babylon, into the palace of the damned. I suffered torments you can barely imagine and I did it willingly, for the glory of Christ. And now you tell me that I did not see what I saw?’ He slammed the palm of his hand against the stub of his truncated arm, never wincing. ‘What about this? Will you say that there is a healthy arm here, that my leg does not ache each time I step on it, that the burns and scars that the caliph’s torturers carved into my body are figments of my imagination? Did I dream it?’

‘No one questions what you endured,’ said Raymond hurriedly. ‘The ancient martyrs themselves would stand in awe of your strength. You will be honoured with gold, with lands, with men – I will give you a company of my own knights to command.’ He stood and walked forward, embraced Achard and offered him the kiss of peace. ‘But the Greeks are vital allies. Loyal allies. What you say about them cannot be true.’

He retook his seat, so that Achard stood alone in the ring of princes. I could see two attendants hovering behind him, waiting to take him away, though they did not dare approach. He looked around wildly, his staring eyes accusing every man in the room. No one met his gaze. Tears ran down his cheeks; out of habit he lifted his left arm to wipe them away, then realised he could not. He turned, and ran out of the tent.

‘God go with him,’ said Godfrey softly. ‘This was not his fault.’

λδ

The Fatimid envoys departed that afternoon: it was not safe for them to stay longer in the camp. Count Raymond sent a troop of cavalry to escort them to a safe distance and I rode with them – though Nikephoros berated me for it afterwards. It was not good for Byzantines and Fatimids to be seen in company, he warned me.

‘Will you return to Egypt?’ I asked Bilal. We rode together, he on his camel and I on the dirty-grey palfrey I had commandeered at Saint Simeon and ridden ever since.

‘No.’ He did not look at me as he spoke; his eyes were forever scanning the road ahead, the undergrowth by the wayside, the slopes above, always searching for danger. ‘I will join the army at Jerusalem.’

‘Then we may meet again.’

‘I hope not. Not there.’

We rode on. ‘If only Christ had gone to die on a rock somewhere out at sea,’ I said.

‘And if the prophet had been taken up to heaven from some scrap of sand in the desert.’

I gave a sad laugh. ‘Then men would have built shrines and castles over those places, and found some reason to fight each other for them.’

‘Truly.’ Bilal’s gaze wandered over the trees to our left. Suddenly, he stiffened. ‘What is that?’

‘Where?’

Without answering, Bilal swung himself out of his saddle and leaped down. His sword seemed to be in his hand before he had even touched the ground. He ran into the forest but did not go far – I could see his yellow cloak bright between the branches. With a great rustling and squawks of protest, a startled flock of crows rose up into the air.

‘Well done,’ I called. ‘You’ve saved us from an ambush by birds.’

‘It wasn’t the birds,’ he shouted back, and the grimness in his voice silenced my humour utterly. ‘Come and see.’

I dismounted and followed cautiously through the gap he had entered. The air was cooler in the forest, and darker: I needed a moment before my eyes could adjust. Though even before I could see, I could smell what was coming.

Bilal pointed into the air, his other hand holding his cloak over his mouth to block out the stench. A few feet off the ground, a foul object hung from the branch of an oak tree. I could not call him a man: the crows and carrioneaters had seen to that. His skin was blackened, his belly bloated and his toes eaten away. A brown tunic, sprayed with blood and soaked with his bile, hung in tatters from his shoulders – it seemed the only things holding the body together were the noose around his neck and the belt about his waist.

Driving back my horror, I looked closer at the belt. It was made of black leather, finely made and with the design of an eagle worked into it. A belt that I had seen before, clasped around a camelskin robe.

‘I knew this . . . man. He was . . .’ It was too hard to explain. ‘He assisted a holy man in our camp.’

‘Did he owe you money?’

Bilal pointed to the ground. A little distance from the body, a small pool of silver trickled from the mouth of an open sack.

‘Whoever did this, it was not thieves.’ Bilal turned to me. ‘You said you knew him. When did he go missing?’

I thought back to our encounter in the clearing. ‘About a week ago.’

‘Then he must have come here soon afterwards.’

‘He had plenty of reasons to flee. He must have hanged himself in remorse.’

‘Perhaps.’ Bilal pointed to the corpse, twisting this way and that with the flex of the rope. ‘But did he tie his hands behind his back first?’

An impatient voice called from the road in Arabic.

‘I must go,’ said Bilal. ‘We have many miles to travel, and I should not be seen with the body. You will bury him?’

I nodded.

Bilal sheathed his sword and walked back to the road. ‘This is a bad omen at the start of a journey.’

‘I will pray you arrive safely.’

‘And I will pray to God that you travel safely too.’ Bilal clapped me on the shoulder. ‘But not to Jerusalem.’

Sigurd and I buried what remained of John in the forest. I hesitated as to whether to put a cross over his grave, for I was not sure he had been true to Christ either in life or in death, but in the end I decided it was not for me to judge. I tied a branch across the trunk of a tree and let that stand for a marker, though the only rope I had to use was the one that had hanged him. Then I returned to the camp, and went up the hill to pay a last visit to Peter Bartholomew.

It had been a full week since his ordeal. A few of his followers still held vigils outside the tent, but it was easy enough to thread my way through them. The three tents still stood in their rough horseshoe, though the ground around them was churned to dust like a battlefield. Eight knights from Count Raymond’s household guarded the door.

‘I want to pray a while with Peter Bartholomew,’ I told them. A thick spear-point swung down to discourage me.

‘Peter Bartholomew is close to God. No one is allowed in his presence.’

‘I would pay for the privilege.’ I held up the purse and the guard felt it, pleased and surprised by the weight. He did not even trouble to haggle. ‘You are only buying a few moments with Peter Bartholomew,’ he warned me. ‘And no souvenirs.’

I ducked into the tent. The guard watched from the door, though I could hardly have stolen anything. By the light coming in through the open flap I could see that the room was as bare as a monk’s cell. Peter Bartholomew lay on a low bed, covered in a linen sheet that would surely become his shroud. Only his face protruded, swaddled in bandages, which left only his eyes and nose exposed. Even that hardly seemed necessary, for his eyes were shut and his breathing faint.

I looked around, then back at the guard.

‘Where are his possessions?’

The guard stiffened. ‘I told you: no relics.’

‘I don’t want relics. But I heard he had a manuscript, a sacred text that foretold many things to come. I hoped to see it.’ I glanced down at Peter to see if he had heard me, but he had not moved.

‘The priest took all Peter Bartholomew’s belongings for safe-keeping – to protect them from thieves and relic-hunters. You said you came to pray,’ he added pointedly.

I knelt beside Peter’s bed, careful not to touch him, and offered a silent prayer for his soul. He had raised himself up like Lucifer to dizzying heights of pride, until he vied with God Himself. But I wondered if that was truly the cause of his demise – or if it had been brought on not by his threat to God, but to men.

I leaned forward, stifling my nose against the stench of burned and rotting flesh, and kissed him on his bandaged cheek.

‘God forgive you, and bring you to His peace at last,’ I whispered.

Five days later, Peter Bartholomew died. They buried him in the high valley, beneath the scorched earth where he had suffered his passion. Many in the army scoffed and said that death had proved him a fraud, but for every man who disbelieved there was another who held that Peter had survived the fire, that he only died from being trampled by his disciples when he emerged. And every day that we were in Arqa, and for years afterwards, pilgrims would gather at his grave and wait, praying for a miracle that never came.

But by then, I had other concerns.

λε

The siege of Arqa was failing: everyone knew it. Everyone, at least, except Count Raymond. He had suffered the death of Peter Bartholomew as an almost personal affront, and would not countenance leaving Arqa until he had restored his reputation by its capture. And so his reputation only suffered more.

One evening, three weeks after Peter Bartholomew had been laid in the earth, Raymond summoned Nikephoros and me to his quarters. There was still light in the sky, but in Raymond’s tents all the lamps were lit. His melancholy seemed to have subsided: his eye was bright, and he moved with more energy than I had seen in months. He held a thick piece of paper, with cut strings and broken seals dangling off it like cobwebs.

‘A rider has just delivered this.’ He held it out; Nikephoros reached for it, but instead Raymond passed it to his chaplain who cleared his throat and began reading.

‘From his most serene holy majesty, the basileus and autokrator, the emperor of the Romans Alexios Komnenos; to his brothers in Christ, the princes and captains of the Army of God: blessings and greetings.’

‘Greetings,’ Raymond muttered, waving him on.

‘Though we have been absent from your campaign, not a day has passed when the great deeds you have worked to the glory of God have not been present in our heart. All our empire rejoices at your victories. And now that we have heard your army is poised on the borders of the holy land, ready to strike towards Jerusalem itself, piety and duty command us to leave the comforts of our city and join you in the holy task appointed. Wherefore we ask you to remain in your camp, to gather your strength, and await our arrival on the feast of Saint John the Baptist, the twenty-fourth day of June. Then Greeks and Romans shall be united in one host, the kingdom of Babylon will tremble, and the arch-enemy’s forces will be scattered and destroyed.’

The priest looked up. ‘That is all.’

‘May I see the letter?’

Nikephoros took the paper from the chaplain’s hands and read it silently, fingering the seals between thumb and forefinger. ‘You said the messenger who brought it was Greek. Where is he now?’

‘He said he could not delay. He galloped away the moment I had taken the package from him.’

‘Did he?’ There was a dangerous edge in Nikephoros’ voice, but Raymond did not appear to notice it.

‘This is the best news we could have had. How long have I pleaded with Alexios to come to our aid, to prove his loyalty and to silence those who question his friendship? This gives the lie to Achard’s false accusations. At last the emperor’s authority will bring unity to our fractured host.’

‘The other princes will not wait for the emperor,’ said Nikephoros. He strode beside me as we walked back to our tent. ‘Even if they cared about Arqa – or Raymond – they would crawl over coals to reach Jerusalem before the emperor arrived.’ He gave a dry laugh.

‘Strange that a messenger who had ridden all the way from Constantinople should deliver the message to Raymond’s door, and then gallop away at dusk without even looking in on the Byzantine camp,’ I said noncommittally. I had an unpleasant idea that I knew who had written the letter – and it was not the emperor whose seal adorned it.

‘Stranger still that it was sealed with wax. The emperor seals his correspondence with gold. But the seals were genuine. Not the emperor’s personal seal, but one used by the palace.’ He lifted his hand so I could see the gold signet ring gleaming on his finger. ‘I have one. So did my predecessor, Tatikios.’

‘The ring Duke Godfrey stole from me,’ I murmured. Was this why? Surely that could not have been his purpose when he lured me to Ravendan all those months ago.

Nikephoros walked on in silence, so long that I wondered if he blamed me for what had happened. ‘The letter was a forgery,’ he said at last. ‘So obvious I am surprised even the Franks did not see it. There were half a dozen mistakes in the grammar alone.’

‘But if you saw it was a forgery, why not say so to Count Raymond?’

Nikephoros swung around. ‘Because it served my purposes. Do you think I want to spend the next six months rotting outside Arqa because an old man is too stubborn and too blind to give up a lost cause, and because none of his companions has the strength or will to defy him?’

‘But if Duke Godfrey forged the letter, aren’t you curious as to why?’

He shrugged the question away. ‘Probably because he’s as sick as I am of waiting.’ His voice dropped. ‘The emperor did not send me here as a mark of favour. It was an exile, a diplomatic way to remove me from his court for as long as possible. I think it appealed to his humour to send me to Jerusalem as penance.’

Unconsciously, he played with the embroidered hem of his sleeve. ‘Perhaps I deserved it. But I have served my sentence, and I would like to return to Constantinople. So if a letter appears that will force the barbarians to act, however mysterious and fraudulent it may be, I will not question it.’ He touched me on the shoulder, perhaps the most sincere gesture I ever had from him. ‘We have both been away from home too long.’

I could not argue with that, but it did not soothe my worries.

Sigurd threw a handful of dry grass on the embers of the last night’s fire and poked at it with a stick. Even in the dim half-light before dawn, the coals barely glowed.

‘In England, in my father’s time, the kings could only raise their army for forty days in a year. That concentrated their minds wonderfully on the business of making war.’

‘Do you still miss it?’ I asked.

‘England?’ Sigurd sounded surprised by the question. ‘Of course. In the same way that a one-armed man misses his limb.’

‘When you left, did you know you would never see it again?’

‘I …’ Sigurd paused. ‘I don’t remember. There was too much confusion, and I was too young. But I must have thought I would see it again, or I would never have left.’ He grimaced. ‘Even so, I clung to a tree that grew beside the water when it was time to leave. My uncle thought he would need to chop it down I held on so tight.’

‘I would have done the same to Constantine’s column in the forum if I had known it would be so long before I saw it again. I thought I wanted to see my family – but now they are here, I think it was the city I wanted really.’

Sigurd balled his fingers into a fist and stared at it.

‘Don’t worry yourself too much with your family. They don’t know where they are and they’re frightened. Even if we were all in Constantinople, it would not be perfect. Helena would still be struggling to understand where her allegiance to her husband ends and to her father begins.’

‘I would have been happy for her to abandon me for her husband completely, if only he’d kept her safe in Constantinople.’

‘You should watch Thomas. He is too eager for battle.’

‘Whereas you, of course, have harnessed your axe to an ox and made it a plough.’

Sigurd looked serious. ‘I have been in enough battles that I know what to do – and even, though you may not believe it, when to step back. If Thomas charges into his next battle thinking he can avenge his wounds with every sweep of his axe, he will make an easy kill for some Ishmaelite.’

‘He saved my life,’ I said, ducking away from Sigurd’s warning.

‘And you saved his. But it will mean precious little if you and he don’t live long enough to make the debt worthwhile.’

I made a final attempt to reinvigorate the fire, then stood and wiped the ash from my face. Down the slope, I saw Zoe returning from the river where she had been sent to fetch water.

‘Your daughter will be strong enough to join the Varangians soon,’ said Sigurd. ‘Look at the way she carries that water jar – almost as if it was empty.’

It was true: she held the jar one-handed, and it bounced freely as she ran towards us though no water spilled out. Forgetting the fire, I ran to meet her, instinctively checking for any sign of injury.

‘Are you all right?’ I called. ‘Are you in danger?’

She shook her head, her loose hair flying across her face. ‘The camp across the river – Duke Godfrey’s camp.’ She gulped a deep breath. ‘It’s gone.’

Duke Godfrey’s camp, which for the last two months had stood on the southern side of the mountain spur, was a ruin. A film of smoke hung over the ground like a dawn mist: through it I could see scraps of charred cloth hanging from the ribs of tents, beds of ash still smouldering, bare patches in the earth where tents had once stood. I rubbed my eyes.

‘Did the Saracens creep down from the city and burn the camp in the night?’ I wondered. ‘Why didn’t we see any flames?’

Sigurd gestured to the bulk of the spur behind us. ‘That would have hidden it.’

‘But we would still have heard the battle.’

‘If there was a battle.’ Sigurd stepped forward and walked a little way forward. ‘Do you see anything strange about this battlefield?’

I looked closer. Though the embers still smouldered and the ash was fresh, the carcass of the battle had already been picked impossibly clean. There were no bodies.

‘What’s that?’

I looked up. A man in a white cassock was walking towards us between the rows of ruined tents, striding the battlefield like the angel of death – though I did not think the hem of an angel’s robe would have been soiled grey by the ash he kicked up as he walked. Nor, in my image, would he have been old and balding, with a pronounced wart on his left cheek.

He reached us and made the sign of the cross. ‘Good morning, brothers.’

‘What happened here?’ I asked.

He looked around, as if seeing the wreckage for the first time. ‘Praise God, the Holy Spirit moved in the hearts of the faithful last night and roused them like a great wind. As one, they rose from their camp and set out on the road to Jerusalem.’

‘And this?’ I gestured to the ruin.

‘Whatever they could not take they burned. They will not be coming back.’

‘So Duke Godfrey has gone …’

‘And the Duke of Normandy, and the Count of Flanders, and Tancred–’

‘Tancred was in Count Raymond’s service,’ I interrupted.

‘He left it – they all left. I was the only one who stayed behind, to tell you what has happened. And now that I have done so …’ He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. A grey horse, which had been grazing on the sweet grass by the river, trotted over. The priest lifted himself into the saddle, with surprising ease for a holyman, and took the reins. As his cassock rode up over his boots, I saw the glint of spurs on his heels.

He offered a crooked smile. ‘Tell Count Raymond this: the time for vanity and hesitation has passed. If any man from his army, knight or peasant, wishes to see Jerusalem, let him hasten after us: the other princes will welcome his service. But there will be no more delays now. They must come quickly, before the whole world falls away to ash.’

He turned his horse and kicked its flanks. Dust and cinders billowed up behind him as he left, so that the pale horse and its pale rider vanished in the cloud. By the time it had settled again he was gone, though the drum of his hoofbeats seemed to echo for a long time afterwards in the valley. Not only echo, but grow louder, swelling out until they sounded all around me.

I looked around, and saw the reason. It was not the departing priest I had heard, but Count Raymond, galloping down towards us with a score of his knights and nobles behind. They thundered over the bridge, then reined themselves in.

‘What has happened here?’ Raymond demanded. His face was white, glistening with sweat. He gestured up to the promontory behind us. ‘Have the Saracens done this?’

I told him what I had heard, though he barely seemed to listen. He paced his horse around me, this way and that, glancing distractedly at the remains of Duke Godfrey’s camp. His knights kept their distance and watched.

Only when I had finished did Raymond go still, though he would not look at me.

‘Tancred went?’ he said bleakly.

I nodded.

‘He took an oath to me!’ A terrible groan, like the cry of a wounded boar, tore the air. Raymond doubled over in his saddle, clutching his arms to his stomach, then suddenly jerked upright and threw out his hands as if grasping at the air for balance. The men around him drew back.

‘They have abandoned me,’ he whispered.

One of his knights edged tentatively forward. ‘They have only been gone a few hours. If we march quickly we could overtake them by sunset and join our armies for the final charge.’

‘And what about Arqa?’ Raymond looked up at the walled town on its promontory above us, as inviolable as ever; then at the road winding away towards the coast and Jerusalem. A solitary tear seemed to trickle from his eye – though perhaps it was just sweat, for the sun was already hot.

‘Give orders to strike the camp.’

λς

We caught up with the other princes the following day. The Flemings, Normans and Lotharingians embraced the Provençals gladly, rejoicing to see the army reunited, but Count Raymond rode in the midst of his bodyguard and remained unseen. That evening the princes concluded a peace with the emir of Tripoli, and the next day we proceeded on to the coast. This was the place the Fatimid envoy had warned us against, a treacherous spot where the rampart of the mountain met the sea in a dizzying cascade of fractured cliffs and crevices. A stiff onshore wind drove waves against the rocks, filling the air with spray, while sea birds called mournful cries from above. Here the road seemed to disappear into the rock: even standing at the foot of the mountain, we could not see where it went until our guide showed us a path, which the breaking waves had carved out of the cliff. It was little more than a ledge, barely two feet above the surging sea and scarcely wide enough for two men to walk even in single file. The stronger gusts of wind whipped the waves so high that they overflowed onto the path, so that boiling white water foamed about our feet, snatching and sucking at our ankles as it tried to drag us into the sea. When a few men lost their balance and fell screaming into the water, no one dared leap in to save them; we could only watch them drown.