by Tom Harper
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 Provencal 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.
27
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 Provencals 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 Provencal 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 Provencal 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?’
