The Waste Land

by Simon Acland

  The terror in the two younger prisoners’ faces turned momentarily to relief. The eldest of the three narrowed his eyes in surprise. Baldwin laughed malevolently.

  “I’ll leave one messenger able to see the way, one to open barriers, and one to speak the message.”

  When Bagrat had translated, the Pechenegs began to squirm with fear again. In unison the two younger men began to plead for mercy in their broken guttural Greek. As the two braziers were set on either side at Baldwin’s command, the older man cracked too, gabbling prayers so fast that strings of spittle dribbled from his mouth. The terror in their squat faces was lit in high relief from below by the red light cast from the braziers. Torches held high by some of the soldiers completed the flickering illumination of this infernal scene. Baldwin gestured to the men holding the older prisoner. They pushed him forward and forced his arms out in front of him. Baldwin’s sword swung twice, cutting through the back of each hand and severing fingers and thumb. For a moment the shock silenced his victim. Then high-pitched screams pulsed out in time with the blood from his wounds.

  “Stop his bleeding before he soils my surcoat,” Baldwin ordered. His guards lifted their prisoner bodily to plunge his mutilated limbs into the nearest brazier, filling the air with the stench of burning flesh and ratcheting his screams to a climax. At Baldwin’s gesture Bagrat passed over a short poker from the second brazier. Its red hot end disappeared sizzling into the unfortunate’s eyes. The screams stopped, to be replaced by pitiful whimpering.

  I felt disgust and horror, but somehow mixed with an awful fascination that would not let me tear my gaze away. They dragged the first of the younger men forward blubbering to lose his hands by Baldwin’s sword. Then Bagrat forced open his jaws and grabbed his tongue with a pair of pincers, wrenching it forward for Baldwin’s dagger. Blood bubbled from his mouth. Baldwin read the brutal gleam in Bagrat’s eyes and handed the dagger over to his acolyte. I saw the Armenian shaking with excitement as he dragged out the third prisoner’s tongue and sliced it off before exchanging pincers and dagger for poker and burning out his eyes too. Now I understood that Bagrat received more for his services than just the monetary recompense offered to me as a bribe at Bouillon. And the expression of arousal on the master’s white face as he watched his henchman was awful to behold.

  “Even the Emperor should understand this message,” sneered Baldwin.

  My hatred was swamped by my shame that I stood there as an impotent observer of this perverted scene. I turned into the darkness beside my tent to hide my tears of horror and retched violently.

  At least this atrocity marked the end of this period of savagery, for three days after Christmas, Alexios heard the cries of his subjects – or the wiser counsel of his advisers – or perhaps he had just sated himself in his own Christmas revels and was prepared to turn his attention to the plight of his citizens. In any event, ambassadors arrived again in our camp. This time they introduced a consignment of provisions, and brought the offer to provide comfortable accommodation in the suburb of Pera. Godfrey was cheered by this small triumph.

  “You see how the Emperor responds to a firm hand. Now we’ll have a solid roof over our heads, and my troops will be sheltered out of this damned north wind.”

  So we struck camp. Our army filed past the ancient hospital monastery dedicated to the pharmacist brothers Saints Cosmos and Damian, across the fortified bridge over the Golden Horn. I was despondent, for I was determined to find a way inside the walls in search of the friar, and knew the geography of the city well enough now to understand that I would have to retrace my steps to do so. Then my heart sank further, for no sooner had we settled in our new lodgings than an imperial missive arrived to make it known in no uncertain terms that any of Godfrey’s men found on the southern side of the Horn would be subject to summary execution. I read the message out to an indignant Duke’s council, knowing myself that I would be one of the first transgressors to risk his neck. I would find news of Blanche or die trying.

  SAINT LAZARUS’ COLLEGE

  The Modern Languages Tutor drew back his narrow shoulders in an attempt to look firm and unconcerned.

  “I need some rat poison,” he said to the assistant behind the counter. He did not often come into the hardware shop, but on the few occasions when he had cause to do so it was normally to buy a cigarette lighter. The old-fashioned shelves, stacked apparently at random behind a scarred wooden counter, had always rather appealed to him.

  “Rat poison, sir? Oh dear. I am so sorry to hear that you have a problem in that department at Saint Lazarus’. What sort would you like?”

  The Modern Languages Tutor had not considered the possibility that there might be more than one type on offer and was momentarily confused.

  “Mmm…the strongest you have, I suppose.”

  “Well, that would be one of the modern warfarin derivatives. Now if we were in China you could get some tetramethylene disulfotetramine – it has been used regularly there for bumping off unwanted enemies but it is so lethal has been banned everywhere else in the world.”

  The shop assistant laughed loudly at his own joke, but seeing the sudden concern on the Modern Languages Tutor’s face, he changed his tune and became serious again.

  “Don’t worry Professor, difethialone will do the job for you. You are not going to put it down in an area where pets might be? It’ll kill pretty much anything, you know. And I don’t suppose that the problem is just confined to your rooms. Normally these creatures range quite widely. Why don’t you mention it to the College Steward and have him deal with it?”

  “No, well, I thought I’d better sort it out myself. He is such a busy man, you know.”

  The Modern Languages Tutor essayed a smile of reassurance but the shop assistant’s slightly startled look told him that his lips were twisting unconvincingly. He dropped his gaze and fumbled in his coat pocket for a cigarette.

  “I can put it on the College account, if you like, sir. Seeing as I know you so well. And because it is poisonous, I am obliged to enter the sale in my dangerous substance ledger here.”

  The Modern Languages Tutor began to stammer, so that the unlit cigarette now bobbed up and down on his lower lip. He decided to capitulate.

  “Oh, don’t worry. Maybe you are right. It should be one for the Steward. I’ll report it to him. I expect he’ll be in soon.”

  He turned abruptly and scampered out of the shop, leaving the assistant scratching his head and muttering about the eccentricities of university academics.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ENTERING THE WHIRLPOOL

  Later I wondered whether I had tempted fate by preferring my own concerns amidst such barbarity and suffering. Would I have done better to bury my own emotions under my duty to others? After all, that was what I had been taught to do by mother and monk. Yet I was driven by an irresistible compulsion to find news of Blanche. Then nothing else mattered. Now perhaps I have paid the price for my selfishness.

  I chose the Feast of the Epiphany in early January for my undertaking. I thought that the day when the Magi succeeded in their quest might also be auspicious for me. More practically, it was dark and gloomy, and a thick fog swirled off the black waters of the Golden Horn. I could not make use of the cover of night, because I would have to penetrate the walls before dusk, when the gates were locked until dawn. I saw no way to pass in daylight back across the single fortified bridge over the Horn. It was well guarded, and however cleverly I disguised myself, however fluent my Greek, I would surely be discovered as one of Godfrey’s men by the garrison. They must have been given orders to keep careful watch for such as me.

  Instead I would have to cross on the water. This filled me with trepidation. I was no waterman. I could not swim and had never handled a boat. So my courage was in shreds as I donned my old black habit. Trying to pull myself together, I made a silent prayer of thanks for the instinct that had made me decide not to discard it and to stow it in my pack. With dismay I realised that I woul
d have to leave behind my precious sword and my mail. Without them, I felt bare and unprotected. I pulled my sword’s scabbard off its belt, leaving just the dagger which hung opposite at my right side. This I strapped around my waist under my robe. I tested a couple of times how fast I could get the dagger out. It was slow because I had to hitch the skirt of my habit right up to get at the handle. I’d just hope to avoid using it. Nevertheless, feeling it through the material of my habit provided some reassurance. Then I set off down towards the shore. Godfrey’s pickets stationed there posed no problems for me – they had no reason to doubt my story about embarking on a secret task for the Duke. Indeed they willingly helped me to find a boat. I expect their respect turned to hidden mirth behind me when they saw how I struggled to control the coracle I selected.

  Every movement I made, every effort to paddle, threatened to upset the fragile craft. In the fog I could not see across to the further shore. Indeed I had little idea of how far away it was. A brisk swell rippled the shore. The noises were all unfamiliar – the harsh mewing of seabirds overhead, the sucking and slapping of the water. Rocking and wobbling, I came close to turning about but mastered my fear better than my boat. Eventually I made out the sea walls of the city through the murk and began to paddle against the current so that I could beach below the bridge but beyond the walls. To my alarm I found myself scarcely moving forward. When I stopped paddling for a moment to see what was wrong I was disconcerted to find myself moving rapidly in the wrong direction. I was being carried downstream. Realising the speed of the flow, I feared that I would be swept out into the open waters of the Bosphorus, adrift with the turning tide. I set to with vigour renewed by panic, and bit by bit, sweating in spite of the cold, muscles cracking from the unaccustomed motion of paddling, I pulled towards my goal. To my relief, the current weakened near the shore, and the stretch of bank seemed unguarded, so I was able to beach my little boat behind some bushes just beyond the water’s edge. A rat crept softly through the vegetation dragging its slimy belly on the bank.

  I paused to gain my breath and looked carefully round to confirm the absence of guards. Clearly no waterborne approach from Pera had been anticipated. Awkwardly I fished my dagger out from under my robe and cut a blaze on one of the stunted trees by the water’s edge. That would help me find my boat again. Then I pulled my cowl over my head and struck out briskly through the fog in the direction that I estimated would bisect the road from the fortified bridge to the northernmost city gate. Reaching it, I slowed to a more monkish pace. The gradual approach of the gate grated on my impatience. Nevertheless, I forced myself to remain in character, my head humbly bowed, my hands folded across my chest and each thrust into the opposite sleeve. In this guise I attracted no attention from the small number of passers-by travelling the road in the hostile weather. The feverish activity in my brain made up for the slow pace of my feet, as I worked to construct a story to tell, should I be stopped and challenged. As the square gate towers loomed out of the gloom I mouthed a silent prayer of thanks that I had done so, for every traveller was being curtly asked his business by the guards. When it was my turn, I stepped up and made a Sign of the Cross in benediction. I forced myself not to grasp the dagger through my garment. The guard spat a question at me. At first I could not understand his guttural Greek. Frustration showed in his narrow eyes as he spoke again more slowly and I realised with relief that the language was as foreign to the Pecheneg as to me. I was not the only one who found him difficult to understand. Any strange tone in my own accent was likely to go unnoticed by him.

  “I come from the Monastery of Saint Cosmos and Damian. I was sent there by my abbot to recover from a high fever.”

  The wheezy voice I affected and the news of my illness caused my questioner to draw back a little.

  “I am now better, much better…” I burst into a fit of coughing “…so I have been sent to return to my own cloister.”

  Eager to remain clear of sickness, the guard waved me brusquely through. Lifted by the success of my subterfuge, I turned my mind to my next challenge – how to find the man I hoped to be Peter the Hermit.

  ‘Monks lodge with other monks,’ I said to myself. I remembered my sojourn with my abbot in Clermont and felt a rush of loneliness. ‘So I will just make enquiry at the first ecclesiastical establishment I reach.’

  A little further down the street, I came upon a small church and cloister. As I hammered on the door, my heart seemed to pound in my chest as hard as the heavy knocker against the wood. A peephole swung open to reveal a single eye that rotated disconcertingly in its socket, studying me cautiously before disappearing again. I was about to resume my hammering when a larger panel opened and the rest of a face appeared. The eye’s owner was a monk with a wrinkled face of gentle simplicity. His expression was so childlike and kindly that I felt myself smiling in return in spite of my nervousness.

  “Brother, greetings on this Holy Day. I seek the French Friar Peter, known as the Hermit. Have you heard of him? He came here at the head of a Christian army. I am an old acquaintance of his with news from his homeland. I was told that he was lodged in this part of the city.”

  The old monk’s artless expression turned to deep sorrow as he shook his head softly.

  “Sadly Friar Peter does not lodge with us. Our establishment here is too small and humble…”

  My heart sank. Then his previous beatific expression returned.

  “…but he will be staying at Saint Saviour in Chora just down the street. It lies just beside the Emperor’s Palace of Blachernae…”

  Here he crossed himself in respect.

  “…so that is where his important ecclesiastical guests are housed.”

  I was cheered by the goodness that radiated from my informant. My faith in human nature temporarily restored, I turned away with a lighter step. The monastery of Saint Saviour in Chora was scarcely a hundred paces further on, and was indeed far grander, so that its arched doorway might have passed for the entrance of some nobleman’s palace. Its gatekeeper was equally grand and lacked the holy humility of the old monk. He eyed my tattered habit with some distaste before summoning one of his fellows to take me to Peter. Prayers of thanks were still on my lips when I was ushered into the Friar’s chamber. I filled with optimism, sure that God would not have brought me safely to Friar Peter to receive other than positive news. The room more luxurious by far than any of the cells at Cluny. I glanced at a sacred picture of a strange saint hanging on the wall. My appreciation turned to unease at the large limpid eyes which bored me through, following me around the room wherever I moved, at the long straight nose, and the narrow lips pursed in apparent disapproval.

  The Hermit’s eyes were more alarming still. They would not stay still in his close-cropped head, but widened and narrowed, darting from place to place as if expecting danger from any direction. A tick in one cheek completed the impression that this little man, scarcely larger than a child, was a bundle of uncontrolled nerves or even close to insanity. Unsettled, I bowed to introduce myself.

  “Friar Peter, I am honoured to find you here. I was once a novice at Cluny, and had the privilege to act as secretary to the holy Abbot Hugh.”

  At the word Cluny, Peter grimaced in disgust and spat. His glutinous spittle made a small slug on the floor. Shaken, I hurried on with my explanation.

  “I am now fortunate enough to perform the same function for Lord Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine.”

  It seemed that Peter had no more respect for my secular master, for two more slimy gobbets landed on the flagstones. I struggled hesitantly on.

  “Before he joined you, Brother Peter, Walter Sans Avoir lodged with my master Duke Godfrey at Bouillon. They became fast friends. That’s why I have been sent to you to ascertain his whereabouts on the Duke’s behalf.”

  Peter the Hermit now twitched and jiggled.

  “Sans Avoir,” he quavered, “Sans Avoir was meant to answer to me. He ignored my orders. There were hordes of them. Arrow
s brought down his horse. They had to stick him over and over before that vast body would be still. Over and over…. He should have obeyed my orders.”

  The Friar’s eyes widened as he looked directly at me, perhaps because I was now shaking almost as much he.

  “And his retinue, what about them? What about his family, his womenfolk?”

  “All gone, all gone, all lost. No more.”

  The Hermit curled up on his bed, turned his face to the wall, and would not speak another word. I stepped forward and shook his shoulder in desperation.

  “Please. I must know what happened. He has…had…a ward…tall, slender, blonde. Look, her hair was this colour.”

  I pulled the precious lock from under my garment. Roughly I dragged the Hermit’s little body round and brandished Blanche’s keepsake under his nose.

  “Look, damn you.”

  But his eyes were blank and glassy, his expression frozen. I raised my free hand to strike him, but when my movement produced not the slightest sign of awareness I let it fall again in resignation. Helpless I stood there, under the mocking gaze of the icon. The saint’s fingers pointed at me in accusation. Then I could stand it no longer and I turned and fled.

  I wandered miserably through the streets, careless where they led me, until I noticed that the murk was thickening. I remembered that I had to get back out of the city before the gates closed at dusk. Quickly I pulled myself together and made my way back to the Adrianople Gate. I arrived just as it was closing. I hurried through the gate unchallenged, but followed by strange looks, for the traffic was all now in the opposite direction, made up of citizens and visitors eager to gain the shelter of the city walls before they closed for the night. Nobody other than I was venturing into the falling night outside. Forgetting to dissemble, I hurried onwards at a pace more military than monastic. Once at a safe distance from the thicket of poor dwellings and hovels outside, and now enveloped in the dark, I turned off the road towards the place where I had hidden my boat. Already I dreaded the watery crossing back to camp. This time I had no hope left to sustain me. I made the shore, close I was sure to the right spot. I found the scraggy bushes where I had concealed the coracle. But my craft was not there. My first thought was that I was in the wrong place – but no, the blaze that I had cut was clear. Then I feared that it must have been discovered. I froze still, knowing that whoever had found the boat must be lying in ambush for its owner. I stayed there motionless in the mist, expecting to hear at any moment hostile cries raising the alarm, and to be seized by the Emperor’s guards. I peered into the murk, straining my eyes and ears, but could hear nothing except the slow slurping of the water.