by Tom Harper
The voice was so close, the question so much in my own mind, I thought it must have been spoken to me. It was only when I turned that I saw my error: the speaker was standing with his back to me, oblivious to my presence, while his companion stood beside him. Both were dressed in richly woven robes, and golden threads picked out the sign of the cross on their sleeves. With a start, I recognised Duke Godfrey and Bohemond.
‘I took my oath to pray beside Christ’s tomb,’ Bohemond answered Godfrey. ‘But I am not in a hurry. Too many questions demand my attention in Antioch for the moment.’
‘Count Raymond may have his own answers to those questions.’
Bohemond made a swatting gesture with his hand. ‘There will only be one lord in Antioch, and it will not be Count Raymond. Nor the king of the Greeks either.’
Godfrey made no sound of argument. Instead: ‘The road to Jerusalem will be longer and harder without your army.’
Again, Bohemond waved his concerns away. ‘Our victory over the Turks has broken them for a generation. With a strong Antioch defended at your back, you could be in Jerusalem in a fortnight. If you still mean to go.’
From behind, I saw Godfrey nod slowly. ‘I will go.’
‘To honour your oath?’ There was a taunt in Bohemond’s voice.
‘To honour God — and to answer the destiny written for me.’
Bohemond laughed. ‘Written in your book?’
‘Written in my book,’ Godfrey agreed. There was no laughter in his voice.
‘And what book is that?’
The cheerful question rang out behind me. Godfrey and Bohemond turned with a start, and suddenly I was trapped between them and the patriarch, who had emerged from the crowd unnoticed and now stood there, smiling and expectant.
‘A book of wisdom,’ Godfrey answered brusquely.
The patriarch nodded. ‘Good. We need God’s wisdom to guide us, especially now that Adhemar has gone. He was a good and wise man. Your army will miss him.’
Bohemond pursed his lips and made a noise like a horse farting. ‘A good man? You can’t kill Turks and Saracens with goodness. Or even wisdom.’
‘It takes wisdom to hold an army together — especially if it is to reach its destination.’ The patriarch stared at Bohemond calmly. ‘But perhaps that is no longer your concern.’
‘As if it was ever a concern of the Greeks.’ Without waiting for a reply, Bohemond drained his cup and barged away into the crowd. Godfrey waited a moment, fixing me with a harsh gaze of suspicion, before following. Though it seemed I had not been the only one eavesdropping: as Godfrey moved away, I saw Peter Bartholomew loitering artlessly nearby.
‘Demetrios.’ The patriarch was still there, watching me expectantly. ‘Let me introduce you to. .’ He trailed off as he scanned the crowd. Whoever he was seeking, he did not find him; instead, on the other side of the courtyard, Count Raymond caught his eye and came limping towards us. The patriarch sighed.
‘But here comes Count Raymond. He is upset to hear you will be leaving us.’
‘I’m glad there will be someone who misses me.’
Count Raymond halted and swivelled his single eye towards me. Even after his illness it still retained a furious power. ‘I have been your emperor’s most constant ally, and it has won me few friends among the other princes. It has even tested the loyalty of many of my own men. If you leave now, you as good as surrender the city to Bohemond.’
‘The emperor has not abandoned you,’ I assured him. ‘He has sent a new ambassador to Antioch. When he arrives, I will go home.’
‘An ambassador? Not the emperor himself?’ For a man who had fought more battles than Caesar, Count Raymond seemed suddenly vulnerable, like an expectant child looking for his father.
‘The emperor has an empire to govern. He is needed in Constantinople, and cannot allow himself the journey to Jerusalem.’
‘Hah. It will be a long time before we see Jerusalem. First we must decide what to do with Antioch. Bohemond will not surrender it easily.’
‘Would you fight him for it?’ I asked.
Raymond’s eye narrowed. ‘I have the noblest title, the largest army and the richest treasury. I have the support of both your emperor and the peasant mob. Most of all, I have the holy lance. It is a compelling claim. Hard to resist, if any man was so foolish.’
In my mind’s eye, I saw Adhemar’s shrouded body in the cold earth beneath the cathedral. These were exactly the wounds he had struggled to bind together: he would be turning in his grave to hear them torn open again so soon.
‘If you are not careful, there will be nothing left to fight over,’ observed the patriarch quietly. ‘Adhemar will not be the last victim of the disease that claimed his life. In the fields outside the city there are already more gravediggers than farmers.’
I had noticed it too. Hardly had we seen off the physical threat of the Turkish army than a new, invisible enemy had insinuated itself into our ranks. At first in ones and twos, then in dozens and scores, men had started to sicken and die. Flush with victory, we had ignored it too long — and soon we would be dying in our thousands. Out of habit, I reached to my chest to touch the silver cross that had hung there but it was gone, gifted to a dead man, and could not help. Grant me time enough to see my family again, I prayed silently. At least that.
‘Even Bohemond cannot fight the plague,’ said Raymond. ‘The rumour is that he will retreat up the coast until it has passed.’
‘It would be unwise to try to take advantage of his absence,’ warned the patriarch.
Raymond laughed, a wet and ragged old man’s laugh. ‘Never fear, Father. I have not survived sixty-three winters to throw my life away conquering a plague city. I will go south a little way, and watch Bohemond from there.’ He swept his arm around the gathering. ‘I will not be the only one. Now that the funeral is done, they will scatter. By nightfall there will not even be a squire left in Antioch.’
He excused himself to go and speak with some of his lieutenants. The patriarch watched him go.
‘The sooner he reaches Jerusalem the better.’
‘Why?’ I asked. ‘So that he and Bohemond are out of your way?’
The patriarch shook his head. ‘Because otherwise he will tear himself in two. He has sworn to reach Jerusalem and free it from the Turks, and that is a sacred oath. But he cannot bring himself to let go of Antioch. He must choose between his conscience and his pride. I fear the choice may break him.’
‘It had better not, he is the only ally we have here.’
‘Then we must pray for him.’
For a few moments, we both watched the milling crowd in silence. Then, with a murmur of recognition, the patriarch tugged on my sleeve and led me briskly across to the colonnade at the edge of the courtyard. A tall man in a black habit lounged against one of the pillars, stripping a chicken bone with his teeth.
‘This is the man I wanted you to meet — Brother Pakrad.’
The patriarch seemed delighted to have found him; I was more wary. He did not look much like the monks I had known during my own brief spell as a novice, fragile souls with faded eyes and stooped backs from their lifetimes of poring over manuscripts and prayers. The black stains beneath his fingernails and on his cracked teeth were not ink but grime, and there was a strength in his arms that had not come from carrying a breviary. The bald patch of skin on the crown of his skull seemed fresh and livid, with little welts of blood where the razor had cut.
‘Brother Pakrad has come from the monastery of Ravendan. In the mountains, north-east of here.’ The name meant nothing to me. ‘It is in ruins. The Turks sacked it when they captured Antioch.’
I glanced at the monk. He was surely too young to have been even a novice at the time. Nor did the memory seem to stir him much.
The patriarch leaned closer, lowering his voice. ‘The Turks razed the monastery and plundered it, but they did not find its greatest treasure. The relic of Saint Paul’s hand.’
‘His right hand
,’ added the monk. ‘The same hand that held the pen that wrote the epistles.’
I sighed. I did not want to offend the old patriarch’s faith, but nor could I hide my dismay. ‘I have seen enough relics on this campaign.’
To my surprise, the patriarch nodded. ‘Of course. The hand of a saint, even the greatest of saints, can only point a man towards God. It cannot make him holy. But sometimes we must be shown the way.’ He gave a weary smile. ‘I hold an ancient office, Demetrios, established by Saint Peter himself. Compared to the men who have held this seat, I am like a child scrambling over his father’s chair.’
‘No one could fault you,’ I objected. The words sounded clumsy.
He waved my intervention aside. ‘Who can say how God will judge us? For now, I must try to rebuild the church in this ruined city. There is no lack of piety among the Franks, but they have little faith in Greeks.’ He sighed. ‘Saint Paul’s hand will not make them love us, but at least it will add weight to our cause.’
The crowds around us had ebbed away, drawn towards the hall where the feast was almost ready. The three of us were alone in the sweltering courtyard.
‘I need you to find this relic for me.’ The patriarch fixed me with his tired eyes. ‘Brother Pakrad knows where it is hidden.’ He lifted a hand to halt my argument. ‘Take a dozen men and travel quickly. You will need four days to reach the monastery, and four days to return. By then, God willing, your replacement will have arrived and you can go home.’
A bell tolled, summoning us to the feast.
2
From the moment we arrived in Antioch, we had made our camp on a stretch of the western walls between two towers. At first it had protected us from the besieging Turks, though latterly it was threats from within the city we had to guard against. The walls made austere lodgings, but we had stayed there long enough now that their hard lines and heavy stones had taken on some of the comfort of familiarity. A faded eagle flew on a banner above the northern turret, and the sweet smell of figs was ripe in the afternoon air.
I climbed the stairs at the base of one of the towers, quickening my pace. I reached the guard chamber at the top and was about to step out onto the walls when a challenge rang out.
‘Stop there.’
I stopped still. The voice was not the deep-throated bellow of a guardsman, but clear and delicate, a woman’s voice. She stepped out from behind the door, watching me carefully. Her face was mostly hidden in shadow, but I did not need to see it to know it. The long black hair bound back with a ribbon, the quick eyes that forever seemed to see an inch further than mine, the lips that could smile or frown with equal force: they were all intimately familiar to me from long hours of contemplation. Anna.
She stood about three yards from me, as though an invisible orb surrounded me.
‘You’re late, Demetrios.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Even after eighteen months’ intimacy, there were still times when she assumed the cool detachment of a physician with me. It always unsettled me. I was a widower and she had never wed: we should have married a year ago, but I had been ordered to follow the Army of God and there had been no time. I had gone with the army and she had accompanied me but even that did not soothe my anxiety. Every day we were away only stretched my fear that her patience would wear out.
She took two steps to her right, skirting an invisible boundary. ‘Did you touch anyone?’
‘I was in a crowd. It was impossible not to.’
‘Take off your clothes.’
It would have been a ridiculous demand from anybody else but I did not argue. I pulled off my boots, then unbuckled my belt and pulled my tunic and my undershirt over my head. Meanwhile, Anna had retreated behind the door and now reappeared carrying a wooden bucket and a sponge. Beyond her, loitering on the wall, I saw a group of fair-skinned men gathering to watch. No doubt they found it hilarious.
Anna stepped up to me and dipped the sponge in the bucket. I smelled the styptic fumes of vinegar, and my skin tightened as she began wiping it over my body. The soft brush of the sponge might have been erotic, but for the raw bite of the liquid and the stifled giggling in the background. When she knelt to dab at my groin, the spectators exploded with ribald mirth.
‘If I get the plague, will you wash me like that?’ one of the men called.
‘Only once I’ve amputated the infected organ,’ retorted Anna, who had spent a year living with soldiers and knew how to speak to them. She stood. ‘Open your mouth.’
I obeyed, though I doubt she saw anything but a mouthful of dust. She peered closely at my face, then walked around behind me as if examining a horse at auction. At last she was satisfied.
‘Did you eat at the funeral feast?’
‘I said I was fasting.’
‘Good.’ She took a cloth she had draped over her shoulder and tossed it to me. ‘A new tunic. I’ll wash the other in vinegar.’
‘As if I didn’t stink enough already.’
Barefoot, I followed her onto the wall, into the next tower and up to its summit. A troop of long-haired, pale-skinned barbarians lounged by the battlements. Some still wore their armour, though there had been no fighting in weeks, and most had long-hafted axes lying near them, the precious blades wrapped in fur coverings. They were the Varangians, the emperor’s elite barbarian guardsmen, my companions.
One of the men was standing with a cup of wine in his hand. In a pack of wolves you would have known he was the leader by his size; in this pack of barbarians you could tell it by the easy arrogance of his face, the commanding set of his mighty shoulders and the thick gold band around his left forearm. He had taken it from a Turkish corpse at the battle of Antioch, though I was surprised he had found one that fitted the girth of his arms. He was called Sigurd — named, he had once told me, for a legendary dragonslayer of his ancestors. Looking at him now, his beard the colour of fire, it was easy to imagine.
‘Demetrios. Late, naked and stinking of old wine.’
‘I’d rather be naked than dead.’ I pulled on the new tunic and sat back against the wall. One of the barbarians passed me a flask of wine and I drank it eagerly.
‘How was the funeral?’ asked Anna, sitting beside me and squeezing herself into the crook of my arm. ‘Did many go?’
‘Thousands.’ I wondered how many would die regretting it.
‘And the princes?’
‘They were all there. The one thing they feared more than the plague was failing to parade their piety before the masses. I doubt a single one is left in the city now.’
‘We should follow them quickly,’ said Anna. ‘The plague clouds are already gathering over this city. With no one to govern them, the mob will run riot.’
‘The clergy will stay to minister to them.’
‘Much good they will do. Those pilgrims and peasants have been too far from home too long. They are losing all restraint and reason. You can see it in their faces.’
I stretched out my tired legs. ‘We’ve all been too far from home too long. Did any ships arrive today?’
‘Three from Venice docked in Saint Simeon, I heard. They brought no one but pilgrims.’
I swore softly. Every day it was the same, waiting for the ship from Constantinople that would bring the emperor’s new emissary and free me to go home with Anna. Every day that it did not come, my spirits grew more brittle.
‘The patriarch spoke to me at the funeral feast. He has an errand for me.’ Briefly, I repeated what he had told me. When I mentioned the relic, Sigurd snorted.
‘The hand he used to wipe his shit. If the patriarch thinks that’ll win the Franks’ affection, he’ll be disappointed.’
I had known Sigurd long enough that I should not have been shocked by his irreverence, but it still made me uneasy. ‘It’s a sacred object.’
‘It’s another week before we can go home.’
‘But only a week.’ Besides, in my heart, I knew that Sigurd and I had not distinguished ourselves as guardians of the emperor’s intere
sts at Antioch. The Turks were gone, but to have Bohemond controlling the city in their place was hardly an improvement in the emperor’s eyes. At least if we found the saint’s hand for the patriarch we might salvage something from the campaign.
I looked to Anna, hoping for support. Her face offered nothing.
‘If you die in some folly in the mountains, when you should both be sailing home to your families. .’ She stood. ‘Anyway, while you go digging out old bones, I have living flesh and blood to attend to.’
I held her sleeve. ‘In Antioch? What about the plague?’
She shook free of me. ‘Even I know better than to imagine I can cure the plague. But there is a woman whose child is two weeks past due, and I promised I would see her.’
‘Be careful.’
‘You too. There are more than dead saints and ruined monasteries in the mountains.’
‘We’ll be back soon.’
‘And gone sooner.’ Sigurd rose. ‘If we leave now, we’ll have the cool of the evening to speed us on. Aelfric!’ He beckoned to a sergeant playing dice on a board he had scratched into the stone rampart. ‘Find a dozen men and have them ready to march in half an hour.’
He turned back to us. ‘The sooner we go, the sooner we come back. And the sooner we leave this cursed city for ever.’
3
The Varangians could be entertaining travelling companions, but that evening they marched in single file and said little. Perhaps, after all the months spent waiting at Antioch, even they struggled to be on the march again. Perhaps it was the high rampart of the Anti-Taurus mountains looming ahead that dispirited them. Each hour that we marched, the mountains seemed to grow higher, but never closer. As for Brother Pakrad, he struck out ahead of us and stayed there, always fifty yards or so in front, his head bowed and his hands wrapped in his cowl. All I heard from him were occasional snatches of mumbled prayers when the breeze blew them back to us.
On the third day from Antioch, we reached the mountains. The air was cooler now, though the sun was no kinder, and jagged peaks towered over us. Crude terraces embanked some of the lower slopes, and a few hardy goats grazed the grass that pushed through the broken stones, but otherwise there were few signs of life.
