Knights of the Cross

by Tom Harper

  The minutes passed. Damp began to seep into my cloak; the figures on the opposite shore cast and recast their lines without success. A flock of birds wheeled overhead and a bough from an olive tree drifted down the river, spinning lazily in midstream. Suddenly, I heard a scrabbling sound from beneath the bank. As I watched, a grimy pair of hands reached over the rim and grasped a tree root which the flood waters had exposed. A shock of black hair followed, then a face so dirty that it was unrecognisable, and finally the whole dripping body. He was naked, yet his modesty was preserved by the extraordinary quantity of mud that clung to him. Was this how Adam had looked when the Lord first breathed life into him? For a moment he was oblivious to my presence, reaching under the root to pull out a folded tunic, but as he turned he yelped and almost tumbled back into the river. My own surprise was hardly less.

  ‘Simon,’ I said, conjuring the name as I at last recognised the face beneath the dirt.

  ‘What?’ He was bent forward as though he had been kicked in the groin, one hand protecting his privacy. He edged backwards, trying to work his way behind a low boulder. As a servant, in a camp with few partitions, he surely could not be so squeamish. Perhaps he had believed the endless Norman jibes about the vices of the Greeks.

  ‘Dress yourself,’ I told him. I made great show of prising a few pebbles from the earth and watching them skip across the water while he pulled on his tunic. Lines of mud were streaked across it.

  ‘What were you doing?’ I asked. ‘The current is strong – you could have been swept all the way to the sea at Saint Simeon. Can you swim?’

  He shook his head. Water sprayed from his ragged locks as off a dog. In his hand, I noticed, he clasped a wilted bunch of green plants.

  ‘What are those?’

  ‘Mine!’ The fear as he recoiled at the question was evident. ‘They grow in the river bank, in places few can see.’

  ‘I do not want your herbs,’ I assured him, though it was hard to hide my hunger. I could smell onion grass, and wild sage; the aromas were like hot coals in my stomach. ‘I want to speak with you.’

  His gaze darted over my shoulder, back towards the Norman camp. ‘If I speak with you, Quino will beat me. He swore it.’

  ‘Did he?’ If there were secrets that Quino wanted hidden then I especially wanted to hear them. ‘What will he do if he learns you gather food in his ignorance? That you keep it from him?’

  ‘He . . .’

  ‘I am charged by Bohemond, your master’s lord, to discover all I can concerning Drogo’s death. Two men from that tent are now dead, and the longer that rumours persist the worse it will be for all of us. Tell me what you know, and Bohemond will see that no harm befalls you.’

  ‘What do I know?’ A tear cut a pale scar through the mud on his cheek. ‘If I knew who killed my master, would I hide it?’

  ‘A man may unwittingly know more than he believes. And a servant hears much. Tell me the truth.’

  Simon sniffed, and wiped his arm across his face. ‘You sound like Drogo. He often spoke of truth.’

  ‘Yes? He was devout? There is no shame speaking of your master’s virtues,’ I encouraged him.

  ‘He prayed often. Especially after his brother died. He – he was different after that.’

  ‘How so?

  ‘There was a burden on his soul. We all suffered on the march, and here at Antioch, but always it seemed that he suffered more.’

  ‘He was not an easy man to serve,’ I suggested.

  ‘He was fair.’ Simon looked down at his feet, so that his hair curtained his face. ‘I think . . . I think perhaps a demon assailed him.’

  ‘A demon?’ I echoed, astonished. ‘Did you see it?’

  Simon’s voice was now a whisper, yet it beat with the urgency of confession. ‘Often in the night I heard him wrestle with it. He called out to the Lord God, begging him to see truthfully, but the demon blinded him to light.’

  ‘The cross!’ I exclaimed, my mind fusing together two thoughts. ‘The cross on his back. Was that part of his penance? His struggle with the demon?’

  Simon lifted his head and stared at me. A few solitary hairs hung forlorn from his chin: he must have been trying to grow his beard in mimicry of his elders, yet the effect was only to make him seem younger. ‘How do you know of the cross on his back?’

  ‘I saw his corpse. And I know that Rainauld bore the same mark. Did Quino and Odard carry it too?’

  The boy did not move, yet still he seemed to shrink. ‘I do not know how the mark came to be there. It was in December, near the feast of Saint Nicholas. All four returned to the tent one night with their backs bound in bandages. Next morning, when they dressed, I saw the sign of the cross seeping through. I thought it was a miracle, that God had favoured them.’

  ‘Did you find out how it happened?’

  ‘They never spoke of it. Once I asked my master. I thought he would want to celebrate such a sign of divine grace, but he beat me with a stirrup. I did not ask again.’

  Behind him the river flowed its course. The two boys opposite had given up their fishing, and were now throwing rocks at some piece of debris floating on the water. A crow flew down and perched on the fish trap.

  ‘Had they suffered any arguments in the past weeks? Had one taken against the others? Did they quarrel – over food, perhaps, or spoils? Or a woman?’

  Simon’s gaze dropped again. ‘There was no quarrel.’

  ‘A disagreement?’ As he spoke, I had heard the sharp edges of words carefully chosen.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But there was some discord among them.’

  ‘There was . . . anger.’ Still refusing to meet my gaze, Simon reached up and pulled a piece of dried mud from his skin. It came away smooth as a scab.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I do not know!’

  I had grown so used to Simon’s mumbling and whispering that his sudden shout stunned me. The crow on the fish trap fluttered squawking into the air.

  ‘Five weeks ago they went to Daphne. They were gone all day. When they came back, they were different. They would not speak to each other, but cursed me for every straw that was out of place in their beds. I have never seen Quino so angry.’ Simon trembled as the torrent of words poured out of him. ‘After that day, they did not often come in the tent together. They ate apart, and chose different watches. I rarely saw Quino and Odard – that was good. Drogo found other friends.’

  ‘A swordsmith?’ I hazarded.

  Simon looked at me curiously. ‘A swordsmith, yes. He was a Saracen, an Ishmaelite. It was another thing to make Quino angry.’

  ‘And they never spoke of what had passed at Daphne?’

  ‘Never. One or two times, I heard Rainauld mention a house of the sun. I think it was a place they had been that day, for always it drew the same silence from the others.’

  ‘“The house of the sun.” It meant nothing to you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He paused, looking at the wilting herbs in his fist. ‘I should go back. Quino is not as good a master as Drogo.’

  ‘Come with me.’ I spoke on impulse: I did not know how I could pay the boy, and I could not even feed myself, but the pain in his face was more than I could ignore. I took his arm. ‘Come and serve me, and I will see you are kept safe from Quino’s rages.’

  He shook free of my grasp. ‘I am bound to Quino. If I left him, he would think it a betrayal. His vengeance would be unforgiving. I must go.’

  At that I wanted to snatch him by the shoulder and drag him away from the Normans. But I resisted the impulse. However miserable the fate he chose, I could not compel him. ‘A final question. Did you ever see a woman named Sarah visit Drogo?’

  Simon’s head jerked up like a rabbit’s; his stare fixed on my face, then swiftly switched to my boots. ‘Never.’

  He was lying, I was sure of it, but I could not in conscience risk causing more delay and provoking Quino’s wrath. I watched him run across the field, back towards the grey rank
s of canvas, and wondered what malevolent power swayed the occupants of that cursed tent.

  That evening I went to see Tatikios. The lamplight was bright on the gilded fabric of the room, but he was in a dark mood. He paced before his ebony chair, muttering to himself and constantly darting glances towards the door. In every corner a Patzinak stood holding a spear.

  ‘Demetrios,’ the eunuch snapped. ‘Did you see anyone outside the door?’

  ‘None worth remarking. Why?’

  ‘Bohemond came here. He warned that sentiment in the armies turns against us.’

  Irreverently, I thought that Tatikios ought to find a goldsmith to recast his golden nose in a more imposing form. At present it only served to make him seem petulant.

  ‘The Franks have ever been jealous of our civilisation,’ I answered. ‘When the war goes amiss, it is natural that they blame us.’

  ‘My position is impossible.’ Tatikios had not paid me the least attention. ‘The barbarians blame me because the Emperor does not join their siege, but I can achieve nothing. With less than half a legion at my disposal I am forced to follow a strategy I did not recommend. And the Emperor is deaf to my pleas for aid.’

  I thought back to the courtyard in the palace. When you make allies of your enemies, every battle is a victory. Whom did the Emperor truly wish to see broken by the siege, I wondered?

  ‘I am between Scylla and Charybdis,’ the eunuch continued. ‘And now Bohemond warns that the barbarians may purpose violence against us.’

  ‘Did he name any conspirators?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then it is nothing more than gossip. I walk daily through the Norman camps and I see the hatred they bear us. That does not mean they will slit our throats in our beds.’

  Tatikios slumped into his chair. ‘This is no place for a general of Byzantium. I should be at the Emperor’s side in the queen of cities, or commanding great armies on the frontiers. Belisarios did not conquer Africa with three hundred mercenaries and a horde of murderous barbarians. Will my exploits here ever be carved on the great gate of the palace, or lofted high on a column? I do not think so.’

  He fell into silence. After a minute to allow his self-pity free rein, I said: ‘I would like to take a troop of Varangians to Daphne tomorrow. There may be food there as yet untouched.’

  Tatikios waved an arm dismissively. ‘As you wish, Demetrios. We will not need the men here. The city will not fall tomorrow, nor any other day if this course persists. Go to Daphne, if you will. I doubt that you will find anything.’

  θ

  We had to walk to Daphne, Sigurd and I and a dozen Varangians, for our horses were too few and feeble to waste. We passed the new mound opposite the bridge, where two wooden towers had now risen on the rubble of the cemetery, and followed the Saint Simeon road south-west until we had left the city well behind us. By a plane tree a path forked down to the ford, and we splashed our way through the waist-deep water. The river was cold and urgent, harrying our steps and always threatening to dislodge our feet from the weed-green rocks, yet there was something pleasing in its eagerness. Though I was not thirsty, I stopped midstream where a boulder gave me purchase and scooped a palmful of water into my mouth. The chill trickling down my throat was exhilarating, though it stirred my stomach to fresh pangs of hunger.

  As we climbed the slopes of the far shore, my mood sobered. None of the lands south of Antioch were safe, but the eastern bank of the Orontes especially was the preserve of the Turks. I had chosen a minimal company to escort me, for I had little confidence in my errand, but I regretted it ever more as we advanced down the empty road. The rising sun crossed our path so that we could see barely more than the stony ground at our feet, while the flashing bows of light from the Varangians’ axes would have acted as a clear beacon – or target – to any spies in the hills.

  Sigurd, whose own axe twitched in his hands, gestured down the long valley to where the river now turned towards the sea. ‘It could be worse,’ he grunted. ‘The march from Dorylaeum – that was bad.’

  It had been. For six weeks in high summer we had limped across the Anatolian highlands, chasing a beaten army which spoiled or destroyed every living thing in its path. Without food or water, men and beasts had died in unnumbered thousands, their bones left by the wayside because we were too weak to dig graves. We could not travel by night for fear of ambush so the July sun shrivelled our bodies as hard as olives, the sweat wrung from us until we could sweat no more. The jaws of cisterns gaped empty where the Turks had cracked them open; we lacerated our cheeks trying to chew the spiny bushes for moisture. My tongue had become like a splinter in my mouth, so dry that I had imagined I might snap it in two between my teeth. In the evenings we did not pitch camp but fell where we stopped. Not all of us rose in the mornings. Oxen became the steeds of lords, and dogs were our pack animals. And every day the land around remained unchanged: a waste of dust and thorns, broken only by mountains on a horizon which never approached. None of us who emerged from that desert would ever entirely wash away the dust on our souls.

  ‘There.’

  Thankfully Sigurd’s voice recalled me from bitter memories. Shielding his eyes, he pointed ahead to where a gaggle of low houses had come into view at the top of the ridge. We walked on towards them, crossing a wooden bridge over a stream and climbing to the village between terraced fields overrun with weeds. It was a humble place, a dozen stone cottages built together in pairs and a score of timber shacks surrounding them. Even at mid-morning there was an unnatural quiet about it: no women drew water from the well, no goats bleated in the enclosures, and nothing pulled the ploughs which lay rotting by the barns. Sigurd slung his shield on his arm and lifted his axe in caution.

  ‘We need to find the house of the sun,’ I said, uneasy at the sound of my voice in the silence.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  I shrugged. ‘Perhaps a house which faces east. Or one with no roof.’

  A sudden squawk tore away the stillness. With a ruffling of wings, a brown hen ran around the corner of the nearest house, stopped abruptly, and began pecking at the muddy ground.

  ‘Get her,’ Sigurd shouted. One of his men was already moving forward, his blade poised to chop away the bird’s head, but at that moment a new voice began screaming abuse. The door to the house had opened and a wizened woman stood on the doorstep, waving her fist and shouting every manner of curse. She ran forward under the Varangian’s axe, scooped up the hen in the folds of her skirt, and stared defiance at us.

  ‘Why do you do this?’ she spat. Though much corrupted, her language seemed to be Greek. ‘Why do you try to starve us? You have torn up our fields and slaughtered our animals – are you now taking my last hen? In the name of the Christ and his blessed mother, are you not ashamed?’

  ‘We do not want to steal from you,’ I assured her, though fourteen hungry faces belied my words. I had to repeat myself thrice before she could understand me. ‘We are looking for a house – the house of the sun. Helios,’ I emphasised, pointing to the sky.

  ‘In the valley.’ She threw out an arm, pointing further down the road. Her skin was almost black, and wrinkled beyond every vestige of youth, yet the strength of her voice made her seem little older than me – younger, even.

  ‘You will find it in the valley of the sinners. By the water. The road will take you.’

  I wanted to ask for further description, to learn how I might know the house that I sought, but she would give us nothing more. Lifting her skirts, she turned and stamped back into the house, never loosing her grip on the hen.

  ‘That should have been our lunch,’ Sigurd complained.

  ‘We cannot steal from these people,’ I snapped. ‘They are Christians – Greeks. These are the people we fight to save.’

  Sigurd looked at the desolate village, and laughed.

  On the far side of the hilltop, the road descended into a steep ravine. It was as though the lips of the earth had been prised apart, opening a glimp
se onto a world utterly removed from its terrestrial surrounds. The slopes were thick with pines, bay trees in blossom and fig trees budding with fruit. In a gully beside the path a multitude of streams tumbled down through moss-covered rocks, touching and parting until they at last united on the valley floor. Wood-birds sang, and the smell of laurel blossom was heavy in the air. It was a garden, as near to paradise as anything I had seen in my life.

  ‘It doesn’t look like the valley of sin,’ said Sigurd. He had snapped off a sprig of laurel and stuck it into his unruly hair, like a victorious charioteer at the hippodrome.

  ‘Does that disappoint you?’

  Sigurd kicked a pebble from our path and watched it tumble down the slope into one of the brooks. ‘If there’s sin to be had, it’s best to know what I forsake.’

  The road levelled out as we reached the bottom of the valley. The vegetation was as thick as ever: broad oaks overhung the stream, and vines trailed in the water. Every few hundred paces, though, there were gaps in the foliage where once the villas of our ancestors had stood. Their ruins were still there, gradually receding beneath the green tide. Some were now little more than rubble under the ferns and ivy; others had walls still standing, or columns poking out of the bushes. There were about ten in total, all shaken down over the centuries by war and time and the tremors of the earth.

  I remembered the words of the woman in the village. ‘One of these must be the house of the sun.’

  ‘None of them has a roof,’ Sigurd observed.

  We walked on, scanning the remains for anything that might suggest a sun. Above us the true sun arced in its course, slowly pushing back the shadows cast by the steep walls of the ravine. Different features drew our attentions – a yellow flower with radiate petals, a star carved into a fallen lintel, a fragment of golden mosaic tiles – and we began to drift apart. It was hard to feel danger in the sweetness of that place.