Siege of Heaven da-3

by Tom Harper

  We came to the foot of the bridge. There was no way onto it from this side of the valley, for it projected straight out from the summit of the Temple Mount above us, but I could see a flight of stairs climbing to join it on the far side. We stumbled down the valley, through the weeds and wildflowers that grew around the piers of the bridge. For an unreal moment I could almost believe I had left the city, that I was wandering through a pleasant meadow on a sun-baked hillside. Then I heard the clash of devastation rising ahead, and the illusion broke. The Franks had spread through the city like wildfire. Shouts and screams rose from the quarter in front of me; smoke began to taint the air. They could not be far from the house where Anna and the girls were kept, and I did not have to imagine what the Franks would do if they seized them before I got there. I was beyond exhaustion; I could barely lift my sword, let alone carry the great weight of my armour, but still I tried to increase my pace.

  We staggered up the slope of Mount Zion, found the stair and clambered to its summit. To our left, the bridge ran back above the valley to the gate in the Temple enclosure; to our right, a dusty avenue led further into the city. I could barely see it for the great crowds that swarmed down it, men and women all fleeing across the bridge to the Temple Mount. The Noble Sanctuary, I remembered Bilal calling it, but they would not find sanctuary there.

  On the far side of the bridge the street runs west, to a corner where two tamarisk trees grow. We turned right, against the flow of the crowd. Aelfric battered through with his shield, while Sigurd and I followed in his path. Though the Ishmaelites on that road must have outnumbered us a hundred to one, they ignored us. All they could think of now was saving themselves.

  Thomas was still out in front of us, twisting and weaving through the crowd. Looking ahead, across the sea of oncoming faces, I saw he had reached a crossroads. More crowds poured in from the side-streets, pushing and screaming to get through, but that was not what I saw. On the corner of the streets two spindly trees protruded above the mob, their silver-green leaves preternaturally still in the uproar around them.

  If you go right, there is a house with an iron amulet in the shape of a hand nailed to its door. That is where you will find your family.

  The force of the crowd was so great we could barely move against it. Several times, even the combined weight of Aelfric and Sigurd could not keep us from being pushed back. My heart tightened, and a trembling seized my limbs: every passing second seemed to spell my family’s doom. Thomas, meanwhile, had vanished from sight completely — all I could do was hope that he had reached the house in time.

  At last, with a final heave, we broke through to the crossroads and turned the corner. The crowds were thinner here and we could move more easily. I stared around, desperately searching for the door with the iron amulet.

  ‘Over here.’

  Halfway up the street, Sigurd had stopped outside a square, two-storey house. A wooden balcony veiled the door in shadow, too dark to see from where I stood. I ran there, urging my floundering limbs into one last effort. There was the door, as Bilal had said, with an iron hand nailed neatly to its centre. An unblinking eye stared out of the palm, surrounded by an inscription in Arabic. I barely noticed it. The door was open: the frame was splintered where it had been kicked in, and one hinge hung loose from its post.

  ‘Are we too late?’ I croaked the question, barely able to move my cracked lips.

  An anguished cry echoed from the darkness inside the house. Before I dared to look, I heard swift footsteps running towards the door. Thomas tore it open, pulling it so hard that it broke free and fell to the ground with a shattering bang. He stepped over it into the light.

  ‘It’s empty.’

  The desolation as he howled his discovery cut open my soul like a knife. He shook like a wild animal; tears rolled down his cheeks. He tore his helmet from his head and dashed it to the ground, whirled around and lashed out at the wall with his boot. The ground itself seemed to tremble with the impact. ‘Where are they?’ He turned to me in fury. ‘You promised they would be here.’

  The power of his rage drove me back. I lifted my sword, fearing he might spring on me, and he might well have done if something else had not happened then. Most of the Ishmaelites had fled that street, though we could still see others hurrying past the crossroads towards the bridge; now, suddenly, two more came running towards us from the far end of the road. They were soldiers, the first I had seen since entering the city. Their scale armour was badly torn, and their faces were black with soot. With a howl of rage, Thomas took up his axe and ran towards them.

  They were barely a dozen yards from me when they met: close enough that I could see it all, far enough that I could do nothing to stop it. One of the Fatimids, the taller of the two, raised an arm to ward off Thomas’s assault. For a strange moment it almost looked as if he was offering a salute or a greeting, as if he had seen something he recognised. He did not even lift his sword.

  Thomas bore down on him. Still neither man tried to protect himself. Surprise cut through my exhausted anguish and compelled me to see more clearly. It was not just soot that blackened their faces — it was the very skin itself. And there was something wrenchingly familiar in the figure of the taller man — the pride in his stance, even through battle-weariness and defeat.

  There might have been hundreds — thousands — of the caliph’s African soldiers in Jerusalem that day, but only one who would have come to that house. I staggered towards them; I tried to call out but my mouth was too dry. I told myself afterwards that Thomas would not have heard me anyway. He was screaming like a demon, a wild gibbering that only rage could interpret. Despair made the axe light in his hands. It flashed in the sun as it swept down against Bilal’s neck, slicing through the collarbone and cleaving so deep it must have touched his heart. Even at the last, Bilal did not try to defend himself. He collapsed without a sound, the axe still embedded in him.

  I ran towards them, too slow and too late. Thomas put his boot against Bilal’s side and hauled on the axe haft, his rage not yet satisfied. But he had cut too deep, and it would not come loose. He tugged again, screaming at it to come free as he kicked Bilal’s lifeless corpse. I doubt he saw anything else. Certainly he did not see the soldier who had accompanied Bilal. If he did not understand why his captain had died, he understood enough to avenge him. He lifted his short stabbing spear and lunged. With no shield, no axe, not even a helmet to protect him, Thomas never had a chance. The spear entered under his chin, drove through his skull and erupted through the top of his head with a burst of blood. His screaming choked off and he fell instantly.

  The man who had killed him whipped around, saw he was outnumbered and fled down the street. I would have let him go, but before I could speak a small curved axe had flown from Sigurd’s hand, overtaken the unfortunate Egyptian and planted itself in the base of his neck. He stumbled, fell, but did not die. Like a butterfly without wings he tried to pull himself forward, wriggling on his belly as the life gushed out of him. Then, mercifully, Aelfric ran to him and ended it with a blow of his axe. For a moment, silence descended on the street.

  I reached Thomas and crouched beside him, though one glance was enough to tell I was too late. He must have died instantly. His blue eyes were wide, defiant to the last, but his face seemed strangely tranquil. Perhaps it was a trick of my disordered mind, but what I saw most in those last moments was his youth, as if his beard had receded and the angry furrows softened to give a glimpse of the boy he had been when I dragged him from a fountain in Constantinople. I had saved his life then; now it was gone.

  I reached out two fingers and pulled his eyelids closed. At least he lived to see Jerusalem, I thought, and wondered if that was enough.

  A gurgling moan intruded on my grief, and I turned. Bilal lay behind me — not dead, but dying rapidly. The axe was still stuck in his shoulder, its haft standing erect and casting a long shadow. I twisted around to kneel at his side. There were so many things I wanted to say to him
— my guilt, my gratitude, my bitter anguish that I had failed his kindness — but need beat back all care with one overwhelming question.

  ‘My daughters,’ I whispered. ‘Anna. Where are they?’

  Blood dribbled from Bilal’s mouth and seeped from his wound. I would have pulled the axe free but I did not dare: I feared it was all that wedged open the door between life and death. Reaching under him, I tried to lift his shoulders to make it easier to speak, but that only twisted the blade in his body and brought fresh screams of agony. I whispered in his ear again. ‘Is my family safe?’

  Bubbles rose from the crack where iron and flesh met. Bilal convulsed as he tried to gulp more air, but it was escaping far faster than he could regain it.

  ‘Where are they?’ I hissed, and for all my compassion I would have shaken him if I did not think it would have killed him.

  He closed his eyes. And then, just before he gave up his spirit, he whispered a single word: ‘Sanctuary.’

  ‘What sanctuary?’ In this city of churches there must have been a hundred sanctuaries. But even as I saw that my question was useless, that Bilal would never speak to me or any other again, I saw the answer. For him, there could only be one sanctuary in the city.

  ‘Mount Moriah,’ I said. ‘The Temple Mount — the Noble Sanctuary. That was where the Fatimids would have made their last defence.’

  ‘Then let’s hope they’re still making it,’ said Sigurd. He had retrieved his throwing axe from the corpse of Bilal’s companion and wiped it on the quilted tunic he wore beneath his armour.

  I leaned over and kissed Bilal on the cheek. Laid out in the sun, his flesh was still deceptively warm — as warm as life — but I could feel the death creeping through beneath.

  ‘What shall we do with the bodies?’ asked Aelfric.

  ‘Leave them.’ I made the sign of the cross over Thomas and offered the briefest prayer. I did not know what to do for Bilal, so in the end I did nothing. I hoped God would take pity on him.

  We left the dead to bury themselves, and went in search of the living.

  48

  We turned back towards the bridge, but we had barely gone ten paces when a great uproar stopped us. At first it sounded like waves surging over rocks; a second later it resolved into the shouts and cries of a great host. They came into sight at the end of the street and poured through the crossroads, the fleeing remnant of a routed army. Count Raymond must have broken through on the southern walls at last.

  ‘We won’t get through there,’ said Aelfric. Indeed, while most of the army seemed to be retreating to the Temple Mount, several men had broken away and were streaming towards us. There was no thought of resisting them.

  ‘This way.’

  We turned north and ran. Shouts rose as the Fatimids saw us and followed. Perhaps they thought they could still save the city, or that they might yet blunt our triumph; maybe they just wanted to die with honour. We fled from them, up the street, down an alley, through a gate that turned out simply to be a house built over the road, and into the heart of Jerusalem.

  If I learned one thing that day, it was that Peter Bartholomew, Arnulf, even Saint John the Divine had all been wrong. The world did not have to end with tenhorned beasts and dragons, angels and fantastical monsters. The prophets who foretold those things had succumbed to the extravagance of their imaginations, and it had played them false. Nothing on earth could be so terrible as men. The whole city shook to the sounds of pain and torture as the Franks wrote their triumph in the blood of its people. They did not just murder the populace: they destroyed them. They tore them apart, child from mother, husband from wife, limb from limb until not one morsel of humanity remained. Not content with mere slaughter, they made games of their cruelty; they inflicted pain and studied it, then marvelled at their own ingenuity until even the most savage degradation bored them. Then, when there was no one left to kill, they fought each other for the division of the spoils.

  Perhaps it would be kindness to say that they did not know what they did — that a madness had seized them, or blood-lust overwhelmed them, or that the many terrors of their pilgrimage had warped their souls. I do not believe it. They entered Jerusalem in full knowledge of what they would do. They came to end the world, impatient with the world allotted them, and if, in fact, it did not end that day it was not for want of their trying. They came in Christ’s name, every one of them marked with the cross, but they had forgotten the sacrifice He offered and made a new god for themselves — one who could only be satisfied with blood. Like the rebel angels in the first age of heaven, they reached for a thing they could not possess, and in doing so forsook it utterly.

  Through all these horrors, Sigurd and Aelfric and I tried to find a path back to the Temple Mount. Frenzied crowds of Franks and Saracens filled the streets; in some places we could barely get through for the great heaps of corpses that choked the way. In one place, I saw a group of men and women who had stacked pillaged furniture and timbers around a tall basilica. They danced around it, singing obscene songs about Jews, while the fire they had set billowed up through the house. A child was wailing inside, and I could hear his mother singing to comfort him even as the flames reached in through the windows. The sound made me think of Helena and Everard: for a moment, I wanted to rush in to the house and snatch the child and his mother away. But as soon as I stepped towards it, the joyous faces in the firelight became threatening, turning angrily towards me. I hurried on my way, though not so quickly that I did not hear the screaming as the first people began to burn.

  But in all the slaughter, there was one man who did not take part. We met him by chance, in a narrow street that descended what I thought must be the western side of the valley we had crossed earlier. The pitch of destruction here ran high as ever: blood sluiced through the gutters like rain in a storm, spilling out over the road whenever a body or a severed limb clogged its path. With my eyes to the ground, as much to pick my way over the human debris as to avoid seeing the abominations around me, the whiteness of the horse as it made its way through the stream of blood was almost unnatural. Blood had splashed over its hooves and fetlocks, staining the white hair red, but its flanks and mane remained ghostly white, untouched by the massacre. It was the colt I had seen Duke Godfrey training in his camp. Now, in the hour of his triumph, he rode it along the same road that Christ had walked with his cross to Calvary. He had abandoned his hauberk and his linen battle tunic, replacing them with a robe of shimmering white silk. His eyes were fixed ahead, impervious to the atrocities that surrounded him, his face set with furious concentration. On the hand that held the bridle I saw that he wore two rings: the ancient black gemstone of his ancestor Charlemagne, and a brighter, gold ring with the seal of the emperor Alexios engraved on its face.

  Men paused in their labours as he went by, watching the strange procession wend its way up the bloody street. He had few attendants — only three knights, and Arnulf the priest carrying the gold cross, which he must have rescued from the siege tower. He wore a white cassock, though blood spattered it almost up to his knees.

  They passed out of sight and we hurried on down the road. At the foot of the hill I could see the great ramparts of the Temple Mount rising up to the sky. We came through a devastated market and arrived in an open courtyard at its base. There must have been a cistern beneath the square, for the paving was riddled with dozens of open holes where the people could draw water. The plaintive moan of drowning souls echoed up through the well holes. On one side of the square a flight of steps led down into the cavern, where laughing Franks forced their victims into the water at spear-point. It was one of the myriad small cruelties of that day that some drowned while others burned.

  On the far side of the square, a flight of steps led up into the heart of the Temple Mount. The gates that held it had been smashed in, and the only men who guarded it now were corpses littered on the stairs. We ran up, and emerged at last in the great courtyard of King Solomon’s palace.

  The first
thing that struck me, even then, was its size. It must have been a full quarter of a mile long, and wide in proportion. Broad arcades lined its sides, hiding the rest of the city from us, while the courtyard itself was dominated by the octagonal Temple of the Lord, and the Temple of Solomon beyond. After the narrow maze of streets below, it was like coming out into a high valley among mountains — like ascending to the court of heaven from the confines of the world. But this was a heaven to make men weep to reach it. It had been overthrown: the Franks had broken in and, at last, brought their impieties back to the place where the first foundation of the world was laid. Mutilated corpses strewed the sacred ground, and the gentle arcades echoed with screams.

  ‘There’s no sanctuary here,’ murmured Aelfric.

  I found one of the Franks, a Norman knight trying to drag away a golden lamp half as high as he was himself. ‘Where are they?’ I shouted. ‘Are there any left alive?’

  He started like thief; if he had not been burdened with the lamp he might have drawn his knife and run me through. ‘I’m alive,’ he answered proudly. ‘Praise God.’

  Sigurd stepped forward and grabbed the knight’s shoulders. He dropped the lamp, howling to see a crack appear in its crystal window. I glanced around nervously, hoping none of his companions would come to his aid, but they were too busy with their own treasures to notice or care.

  ‘What about the prisoners?’

  The knight laughed, careless of his danger. ‘Prisoners? Look around you.’ The sneer died on his lips as Sigurd’s axe caressed his throat. ‘Some took refuge on the roof of the Temple of Solomon. Tancred gave them his banner for protection.’

  I stared at him. ‘Tancred offered to protect them?’

  ‘He thought they might fetch a ransom.’

  I ran. It was like running in a dream, every stride falling short of where I stretched it, while the pursuing terror grew ever closer behind me. The Temple of Solomon was at the furthest end of the great courtyard, on its southern side — though near to the bridge, I saw with hope. If Anna and the girls had managed to cross it, they might have found their way to safety. But for how long? The Franks had been too perfect in their slaughter: I could not see any Saracens left alive in the courtyard now, and groups of knights were milling about in angry confusion. It would not be long before they went in search of new violence.