by Tom Harper
‘Perhaps he wanders witless with grief. Perhaps he has gone to Saint Simeon for food. Perhaps he has returned to his kinsmen in the Provençal camp. Seek him there, if you must.’
In council, Count Raymond had been one of the few princes to speak in defence of Tatikios and the Emperor, but the enthusiasm did not extend to his Provençal army. Everywhere I turned among the endless rows of tents, his followers seemed to delight in refusing me. Some pretended not to understand my efforts at their language, for even among the Franks their dialect was considered outlandish, but I could see in their eyes that they understood me. Others directed me falsely, often to the mute or blind, while most just looked away when I spoke of Sarah or Rainauld.
Throughout the fruitless afternoon, my mood worsened. Rain started to fall again and I cursed myself for having attempted the errand with neither guide nor cloak. I tried to believe that sufficient time would eventually yield something, but as the hours wore on and the mud climbed up my legs I made no headway.
Eventually, in a forlorn corner of the camp near the river, something found me. I had been sent there by my last informant, who swore that a woman named Sarah lived there, but it was merely another ruse to mock me. There were few tents, none occupied, and by the smell in the air I guessed it was where the Provençals made their latrine. The river bank had been gouged out with the tracks of men and beasts going down to drink or defecate, and the ground was soggy with the rising melt water. I almost lost a boot in the mire. Glad at least of the solitude, I spent a couple of minutes watching the traffic on the road on the far bank. The men and horses were barely two hundred yards away, yet the green waters of the Orontes between us could have been an ocean.
I turned to go back, and stopped. The soft earth had hushed their footsteps, and they had approached to within a stone’s throw: five knights, swords hanging at their sides, unsmiling. They had spread out into a loose line before me, so that I could run nowhere save into the fast-flowing torrent of the river. I dropped my hand to my belt and fumbled for the knife that Sigurd had given me, but it would avail nothing against armed knights.
They halted a little distance away and eyed me grimly. ‘Demetrios Askiates?’ their leader challenged.
I tried to meet his gaze, though his eyes were in shadow under his helmet. ‘I am Demetrios.’
‘My lord the Count of Saint-Gilles will speak with you.’
As befitted the richest man in the army, Count Raymond had not spent the winter shivering in a leaky tent. He had made his billet in an abandoned farm in the midst of his camp, where the council had been held the night before. It was a crude building, its rubble walls bound with timber, but its roof tiles must have been sound enough. A thick plume of woodsmoke rose from the chimney, sharpening the air.
We crossed the courtyard formed by the house and the barn, threading our way between the grooms, heralds, horses and soldiers who thronged it. Two guards with long spears flanked the door, but they did not delay me. I ducked under the lintel, grateful to have relief from the rain outside, and found a stool in the dim room within. Tables and benches were pushed back against the walls, and the floor was covered with mouldering reeds. In the corner a fire hissed and crackled, though there were so many servants and petitioners gathered in the room that we could probably have warmed it ourselves.
After some minutes a scribe emerged from behind and oak door. All in the room fell silent and tensed themselves in hope as his gaze skimmed the assembled faces. I wondered whether he could distinguish one dirty, dark-haired, bearded face from another but his look settled on me and an arm reached out. ‘You. Come.’
The inner room was much the same size as the first, though it seemed at least twice as spacious simply by its emptiness. On a wooden bed in one corner sat Bishop Adhemar in his red cap and cope; behind a table, staring at him with his single, unyielding eye was Count Raymond. He neither stood nor offered me a seat, but contented himself with a grunt.
‘My men found you.’
‘Yes, Lord.’
‘Hah! More than they manage with the Turks. One of their spies broke into our camp and drove away seven horses last night. Many more and we will have to walk to Jerusalem.’
‘Your garrison in the new tower will deter them,’ suggested the Bishop. He made me uneasy, for I did not know what to expect from a prelate of the Latin church, yet his manner was calm, almost gentle.
‘Little will deter the Turks while they see how feeble we are.’ Raymond stood, and walked to a small window in the wall. Through it I could see the sheer slopes of Mount Silpius rising to the clouds. ‘Doubtless the thieves will be back tomorrow dressed as merchants, to sell our own beasts back to us and observe our strength. Wine?’
I was slow to realise that he was offering the drink to me, and fumbled my words trying to accept too hastily. His face twitched with impatience, unbalancing my thoughts still further, and it was only once a servant had brought two cups that I began to settle. The wine was warm, and I gulped it like a camel. It had been many months since I had enjoyed such luxury.
‘Sit,’ said Raymond. There were no other seats, so I had to perch on an unsteady leather saddle beside the door.
‘You are working for Bohemond. He wishes you to discover who killed the Norman Drogo.’
I could not tell if these were questions or accusations. I answered with an indistinct murmur.
‘Do you know why he would have you do this?’ The count stroked a finger over his cheek. Almost uniquely among the Franks, he had continued to shave throughout the siege, but he often allowed his beard to grow as far as a silvered stubble, as though iron sprouted from his very skin. ‘Do you guess his purpose?’
The eye fixed me with a hostile stare.
‘I . . . He is keen that there should be no unanswered crimes to fester among the army,’ I stammered, clenching my hand about the cup.
‘Of course. Bohemond’s care for the unity of the army is well known. Doubtless you noticed it at the council last night.’
‘I . . .’
‘He would see the armies united under a single general. Whom do you suppose he intends?’
I struggled for an answer that would not draw contempt, but the count sneered at my delay and continued unchecked. ‘The mightiest?’ Raymond thumped a fist against his chest. ‘The holiest?’ He pointed to the Bishop ‘No. That Norman upstart, whose own father deemed him unworthy of the least inheritance, would subordinate the armies of the greatest lords in Christendom to his ambition. And why?’
‘The better to prosecute our war against the Turks?’ I hazarded, sinking under the onslaught of his bile.
He pushed himself out of his chair and leaned forward across the table. ‘If you believe that, Master Greek, then Drogo’s killer can indeed sleep peacefully. Bohemond is a brigand, a pirate like his bastard ancestors. He has already tried to seize your country; when that failed, he rebelled against his own brother.’ He gestured to the window. ‘Look out there. An impregnable city, a fertile valley, a port at the mouth of the river and command of the spice roads east. Who would not want this for his kingdom?’
‘Would you?’ I asked. It was an unthought response, and I regretted it the moment I said it, yet its temerity seemed to provoke some spark of respect in Raymond. He seated himself, and waved the servant to splash more wine into my cup. When he spoke again, it was with more restraint.
‘I am master of thirteen counties, Duke of Narbonne and Marquis of Provence. In my own country I am Caesar, and I have earned my due: now I am willing to render the Lord God His. Of course I would covet Antioch for myself, but I do not forget the oath I swore to your Emperor to return the lands that are rightfully his. I will not dishonour my oath while I wear the Lord’s cross.’
The bishop, who had attended our conversation in silence, now stirred. ‘Bohemond swore the same oath.’
Raymond snorted. ‘And you trust him? To Bohemond, oaths are mere vessels for his ambition.’
‘There is still Tatikios to wat
ch him,’ I said.
Whatever regard I had earned from Raymond vanished. ‘How many men does your eunuch have? A thousand? Half that?’
‘Three hundred,’ I admitted.
‘Bohemond has ten times that number. And there would be more than just his army to oppose you. The men of Flanders, Normandy, and Lorraine would stand beside him – even among my own Provençals, your Emperor is not well-loved.’
I thought back on my afternoon of scorn and misery in Raymond’s camp, and nodded.
‘Could you defy Bohemond if he claimed the city?’ Raymond taunted me.
Adhemar stirred again. ‘You are lucky, Demetrios, that the Count of Saint-Gilles honours his duty to the Emperor so.’ His bearded face was solemn, yet even with the foreign words I thought I sensed a current of humour, as though he teased Raymond.
The count scowled. ‘I do honour my duty, Bishop. To the Emperor, to Pope Urban, and to God. But I need not answer for it to a Greek hireling. I summoned you to speak of Drogo. You have discovered – or perhaps Bohemond has graciously told you – that one of his companions was a Provençal, Rainauld of Albigeois?’
‘Yes.’
‘And doubtless by the same effort you have discovered that the man has not been seen since Drogo’s death.’
I had, though I was more intrigued by how Raymond came to know it.
‘What do you infer by it, you whom Bohemond hired for your secret wisdom?’
I paused, feeling the full force of Raymond’s eye on me. Even Adhemar watched with interest.
‘He would seem a likely culprit,’ I conceded.
‘He would even now have undergone the ordeal of fire, if only he could be found. Did you know he was one of my men?’
‘I thought he served Lord Bohemond.’
‘He does now. He lost his horse at Albara, and afterwards had to fight on foot. I would have found him a new mount eventually, but Bohemond offered one sooner, so he sold his allegiance to the Normans.’ Raymond swirled the wine in his cup. ‘Bohemond delights in stealing my men, and the winter has sent many opportunities.’
There was silence as I considered this news. ‘What would it profit Bohemond if Rainauld had killed Drogo?’
‘Are you such a fool? I may have a single eye, Askiates, but it seems that I see more clearly than you. If a Provençal, even one who has left my service, has murdered a Norman, then Bohemond will use it to diminish me. My army will not mutiny, and my priests will not excommunicate me, but when I speak in the council my voice will weigh less with other men. Whatever lessens my authority benefits him – that is his purpose.’ Raymond stabbed a finger heavy with rings at me. ‘And you, Greek, you are his willing pawn.’
I looked to Adhemar, but his head was bowed in prayer.
ζ
Tatikios was in a peevish humour that evening, and spent an hour dictating another petition for relief to the Emperor. Christ help us, I thought, if the Franks ever saw the correspondence. It was well after dark before I was able to return to my tent, damp and famished, to see what humble supper awaited me. Anna and Sigurd were there, with a few Varangians clustered around a single candle. The shadows were deep in the canopy above.
‘Welcome to my mead hall,’ said Sigurd mirthlessly. ‘Have you found out who killed the Norman?’
I lowered myself onto the ground and took the wooden bowl that Anna passed to me. The broth in it was long cold, and the only trace of meat seemed to be the scum of fat on its surface.
‘One of the companions who shared his tent has been missing for two days. Even you, Sigurd, might guess something was suspicious from that.’
Sigurd waved his crooked knife at me, but before he could retort Anna was speaking.
‘If one Norman killed another then there is hardly reason for you to involve yourself. Bohemond must be satisfied – has he paid you?’
After my conversation with Count Raymond, I was no longer so certain what would satisfy Bohemond. ‘The man was not a Norman – he was a Provençal who had taken service with Bohemond.’
‘Hah.’ Sigurd’s knife flashed in the candlelight as he held it up and licked the crumbs off it. I looked for the bread it had cut, but in vain. ‘Bohemond did not hire you to prove that his Normans were ill-disciplined barbarians intent on murdering each other. That we knew. There is an answer he wants you to find, Demetrios, and my guess is that he already knows it far better than you.’
‘And what of it?’ Anna interrupted. Though there were men present, she had unwrapped the palla from her head so that her black hair hung loose behind her neck. It shimmered in the candlelight, but her face was firm with anger. ‘What does it matter if it was a Norman or a Provençal or a Turk or even a Nubian who killed that man? Bohemond and Raymond and the other princes have killed far more men by their impatience and ambition.’
‘This is a war, and men die in it,’ said Sigurd.
‘Of course men die in war. But it should not be because we gorged ourselves when there was plenty, and now suffer famine. Where were the princes five months ago, when our gravest danger was gluttony? Before the orchards were reduced to firewood?’
She looked around, challenging us to argue, but there were none in that group who would defend the Franks. Besides, it was the truth. When we had arrived at Antioch, the land had been fat with fruit: trees bowed with apples and pears, vines dripping grapes, pits and granaries bursting with the newly gathered harvest in every village. Within two months, the fertile plain had become a wasteland. No animals grazed the fields or sat in their barns for they had all been slaughtered, and our horses had devoured the winter hay. The granaries had been ransacked until not one seed remained, and the withered vines had been gathered and burned. We had plagued the land without thought for the future, and the greasy soup now in my hands was our reward.
‘It was not even that their strategy was frustrated,’ Anna continued. ‘There was no plan then for getting into Antioch, any more than there is now.’
‘Enough.’ I raised my arms in barely exaggerated horror. ‘I have just spent an hour hearing Tatikios make the same complaints.’
‘Perhaps they expected God to deliver them,’ Sigurd suggested. ‘They seem to know His mind uncommonly well.’
I thought of Drogo’s naked body in the cave, the long cross scarred into his back. I thought of all the others whom I had seen make similar professions on their bodies, knights and pilgrims alike. ‘You cannot deny their piety.’
Sparks spat into the gloom as Sigurd rasped his knife against a stone. ‘When the Norman bastard came to conquer England he carried a banner of the cross – a personal gift from the Pope in Rome – and the relics of two saints. If you had seen what the Normans did to my country in the name of their church, you would not acclaim their piety.’
‘And the most pious of them all is that dwarfish hermit,’ Anna added. ‘The man who led ten thousand pilgrims to their death, all the while promising them they were invulnerable. That is the sort of piety they practise. They forget that reason and will are divine gifts no less than faith.’
There were times when I thought that Anna had spent so long peering at the blood and flesh of men that she neglected the spiritual realms, yet I never came away the winner when I challenged her.
Sigurd must have seen the darkness that crossed my face. ‘Better not to mention the dwarf priest who orphaned Thomas.’
It was a kind thought, though too late. Thomas was my son-in-law, a Frankish boy whose parents had followed Little Peter to their doom in his expedition against the Turks. After the massacre, a series of misadventures had at last led Thomas to my house. Gratitude for my hospitality – not least for my daughter, though I had not known it then – had driven him to betray his countrymen in the Frankish army, after which I could deny him neither my daughter nor a place in the Varangian guards. He had married Helena three days before I crossed into Asia, at a small church in the city. I had ached to give her up, even to a man who had saved my life, and ached doubly to leave them so so
on afterwards. But Thomas was safest where the Franks were furthest away and by staying he had at least saved himself the horrors of march and siege. The Army of God had left too many young widows already: I did not need Helena added to their number.
Sigurd was watching me. ‘Has Thomas sent word recently? Have you become a grandfather yet?’
I shrugged, though the question weighed keenly on me. ‘There has been nothing from Constantinople in weeks. Winter has closed the passes, and who knows what storms have wracked the coasts?’
A frown of concern was on Anna’s face. ‘The child will come any day now. I should be there.’
‘Helena will be perfectly safe.’ Though Sigurd’s voice never lacked force, this time I thought he seemed a little too insistent. ‘You will worry Demetrios needlessly if you think otherwise. Helena will have her sister present, and her aunt, and probably a legion of other women to assist the birthing.’
Anna nodded, though to my mind it was without conviction. I knew she fretted about my daughter’s child, so much so that she could not hide it from me. It did nothing to soothe the tension every man feels when faced with the mysteries of birth. Nor could I forget the sight of Maria, my late wife, lying white in a lake of her own blood as she tried to bear me a third child. She was often in my dreams now.
Anna stroked my cheek, her expression now recomposed. ‘Helena will be well protected,’ she said. ‘Thomas will see to it.’
‘If he hasn’t beheaded himself trying to wield his axe,’ said Sigurd, trying – in his own fashion – to lighten the mood.
With a glance at how low the candle had burned, Anna rose. ‘I should return to my tent. No doubt the sick and the hungry will be there before dawn, seeking succour.’
A glance passed between us: mine half pleading, hers half regret. Perhaps in a different year we would have been married by now, but I had not wanted to diminish Helena’s wedding with another ceremony so soon afterwards. Then we had left for war, where marriage seemed inappropriate, and so we lived more like brother and sister than husband and wife. Though not entirely without error.
