Knights of the Cross

by Tom Harper

  ‘And his life? Did he lose that too?’

  ‘Why should I care if he had? He was no use to our army.’

  ‘Where can I find him?’ I pressed.

  The Norman shrugged. ‘Perhaps among the peasants and pilgrims. Try the hermit, Little Peter: the lunatic and the feeble are his congregation.’

  I did not like to have dealings with the mule-faced mystic who had orphaned Thomas, but my desire to speak with Odard was stronger. I found Little Peter at the cathedral, standing on the steps with a great crowd of Franks in front of him. They looked to be pilgrims rather than knights, though the lines between the two were dissolving: their clothes were torn and their bodies gaunt, and in their hands they carried a brutish armoury of slings and farm tools. Their faces were little friendlier. One of their number, a tall man with a cloth tied over his head to ward off the sun, seemed to be shouting at the hermit.

  ‘If Christ is with us, why do we cower in this city? Is it the princes? If they are too timid, if their greed blinds them to their duty, then let them surrender their power to the faithful, the humble beloved of God. Our place is on the road to Jerusalem, not in this place of the heathen.’

  Little Peter clambered onto the base of a column, raising himself above the throng, and looked down. His voice was shrill and anxious, far removed from the mystic certainty with which he had chided the princes.

  ‘You are ignorant,’ he snapped. ‘Or blind. Have you not seen the ten thousand Turks who bar the way to Jerusalem?’

  ‘Has the devil stolen your balls, Little Peter? Is that why you have grown no taller?’ Cruel laughter rang in the square. ‘When I first heard you preach, you promised we would be borne to the Holy Land on the wings of angels.’

  ‘I told you that the path of the pilgrim is a thorny road that only the pure may tread.’

  ‘Then why do we not tread it? Why does God curse and afflict us? Why do the Turks starve us and smite us?’

  ‘I will tell you.’ Another voice spoke up, that of a woman I could not see. ‘Because our leaders are corrupted by sin – by pride and greed. Their sin draws down God’s wrath from the heavens.’

  ‘I have told them this,’ said Peter. His feet were slipping from the pedestal, and he had to fling his short arms around the pillar to stay upright. ‘I prophesy, but they do not hear.’

  ‘There is only one true king, and the princes of the Earth are nothing before Him. Prophesy them that.’

  ‘It is better to die a martyr than a slave,’ someone else shouted. ‘If the princes are too fearful to trust in the hand of God, let them open the gates and we will be His army.’

  ‘No!’

  Surprise murmured through the crowd as the stooped figure of the bishop appeared at the top of the steps. With the great door behind him he seemed little taller than Peter, and his crimson robes were pale in the glare. Only his staff kept him upright.

  ‘A martyr’s death is a gift of God, not to be snatched cravenly from Him. The true Christian does not fear death, but nor does he embrace it.’

  ‘Do you say we should not trust in Christ?’ one of the pilgrims challenged him.

  ‘I say you should trust in Him to work His purpose. You should not presume to anticipate that purpose. You could fling open the gates of Antioch and rush out, so that the Orontes flowed red with your blood, but then you would die as suicides, not martyrs or Christians. Look at yourselves. Each one of you wears the cross. You have undertaken this journey, at great cost and peril, for the salvation of your souls. But the path of the cross, the road to Calvary, is neither short nor easy.’

  A fit of coughing convulsed him, and he broke off. His words were faint, barely audible even halfway across the square, but no one took advantage of his silence. ‘The greatness of our object does not lift stones from our path. It is the torments in our way that make the object great. All the terrors that assail us, all the sufferings we endure – it is these things you will think on when you reach Jerusalem and bend your knee at the holiest shrine, these things that will sanctify your journey. Do not think that by seeking certain death in battle you will cheat suffering, or win the martyr’s crown. The way of oblivion is the way of the Devil. The way of Christ is patience, humility, and obedience. Now go.’

  With these final words, he lifted his staff as if to part the sea of faces before him. But he was too weak: before he had raised it a foot in the air his strength was gone, and he let it swing back onto the ground. The crowd muttered, but none approached. Instead, in twos and threes, they began to drift away.

  I pushed against them, hastening to the bishop. By the time I reached him, one of his priests had taken his arm and guided him to a stone bench. Sweat beaded his forehead below the rim of his mitre, and his hands trembled.

  ‘You are losing control of your pilgrims, Little Peter.’ Close to, his voice still bore some of its former strength.

  The hermit had clambered down from the plinth, and now stood bolt upright in front of the pillar. ‘What can a shepherd do when his flock deserts him, even in the midst of ravening wolves?’

  ‘Get a dog,’ I suggested.

  Adhemar smiled, his dry lips cracking with the effort. ‘Ever a practical answer, Demetrios Askiates.’

  ‘It seemed to me that your sheep were a greater threat than the wolves just now,’ I said to the hermit.

  ‘And rightly so. When they are led into disaster by the lords of folly, when the precepts of the Lord are everywhere forgotten, it is right and lawful that they should rebel against wickedness.’ He stabbed a filthy finger towards Adhemar. ‘Be warned, Bishop: you and your princes cannot afford to neglect the care of those who follow you.’

  ‘Be warned yourself!’ Adhemar still had the power to summon anger when it was needed. His staff inclined towards Little Peter so that the silver tip hung over him, and his face was black with fury. ‘Why do you think that you, a peasant, are invited to our councils? You come because you command the allegiance of the pilgrims, the poor and the weak who follow this army. If you cannot keep them obedient, your power is broken. The good shepherd does not abandon his flock, but when his flock abandon him he is no longer a shepherd.’

  ‘I am commissioned by God for this task,’ the hermit squealed.

  ‘I am ordained by the church. I do not threaten you: I speak plainly. Outside these walls are countless hosts of Turks. We are beset by enemies, and the only path of salvation is unity. If you cannot deliver it, I will find others who can.’

  He rose, pain creasing his body. The priest who had lingered nearby ran to aid him, but the bishop shrugged off his hand and hobbled away. He disappeared into the church.

  ‘The Lord sends plagues on those who displease Him,’ said Little Peter to the air. He turned to go.

  ‘Little Peter,’ I said. ‘A question.’

  ‘What?’ His round blue eyes, at once clear and utterly fathomless, peered into mine. Involuntarily, I felt myself edging back.

  ‘There is a knight named Odard. Odard of Bari. He served Bohemond, but now he has left that army. He lost his horse and his arms; he must have joined the ranks of the pilgrims. Do you know him?’

  Little Peter’s long nose twitched. ‘There are many pilgrims. Though each may love me as a father, I cannot know them all as sons. His name was Odo?’

  ‘Odard.’

  ‘He lost everything?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘And he was a Norman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then perhaps he has joined the Tafurs.’ Little Peter gave a leering smile as he saw the horror spreading across my face. ‘You have heard of them?’

  ‘Who has not?’

  ‘Few dare venture into the realm of the Tafur king. Fewer, perhaps, emerge. Who can tell? But I tread there. Christ is with me, and I fear no evil.’

  ‘Will you take me?’

  The hermit cackled. Spit ran down his chin, but he affected not to notice it. ‘I will take you there, Greek. Whether they let you leave – that is in God’
s hands.’

  κ ε

  Accompanying Little Peter was an uncomfortable experience. We met near the palace, and within minutes we had plunged away from the main roads into a labyrinth of alleys and passages below the slopes of Mount Silpius. Wooden balconies hung crooked from the mud-brick walls; rubble and filth littered our path. Not so long ago it must have been a Turkish quarter; now their only relic was their absence. Their homes and streets had been filled with Franks, in such poverty as I had never seen even in the worst slums of Constantinople. Children ran naked around us, throwing mud and excrement at each other, while their mothers sat with breasts shamelessly bared in the doorways. I blushed, my eyes seeking in vain for a safe refuge, but Little Peter seemed immune to sinful thoughts and moved serenely on with his lolling, limping gait. We struggled to make progress. The alleys were barely wide enough for a dray cart, and wherever Peter went the Franks clustered so close that the narrow paths became impassable. Some were satisfied to feel the hem of his short cloak, but others fell on their knees before him and implored favours or benediction. With eyes shut and palms outstretched, his face turned in bliss towards the sun, he touched their wounds and murmured comforting words. He was like some shrunken, shrivelled effigy of the Christ, and his congregation of the desperate seemed to adore him for it. No wonder so many had followed him so far – and at such cost.

  At a pinched crossroads, deep in shadow, we found a sign. It hung from the web of criss-crossed ropes that stretched overhead: a splintered plank daubed with the words Regnum Tafurorum. Two long shields bearing white crosses hung at either side of it, while on a nail above the plank was mounted a grinning skull.

  ‘The realm of the Tafurs.’ Even Little Peter seemed cowed by the name as he spoke it.

  ‘Is there really such a man as the Tafur King?’

  Peter shrugged his misshapen shoulders. ‘His name is often spoken.’

  That much I knew. Early in the siege, around December, rumours had sprung up of a new leader among the poor, an impoverished knight who had made himself master of the dispossessed. It was said that their desperation knew no restraint: that they sliced open the bellies of corpses in search of swallowed gold, and pulled the dead from their graves to eat in times of famine. That they existed was beyond doubt: I had seen them, barefooted and shirtless, labouring on the siege works and fighting in battle, where their reputation for savagery was well earned. Most had vowed silence and would not talk to outsiders, but still the whispered stories of their king seeped through the army, and at night every howl and scream was believed to rise from their camp.

  ‘Have you seen him, this king?’ I asked. It was said that Little Peter was the only man allowed to pass their borders.

  ‘He sits on a throne of bones as high as a man and wears a crown forged from spears. He drinks from a cup made from the head of a Turk, and his tent is sewn from their skins.’ Peter’s voice wavered between horror and awe, and his eyes were wide.

  I felt a kick of disbelief. ‘Surely those stories cannot be true?’

  He frowned. ‘Why not?’

  ‘You have seen it?’

  ‘Perhaps. If I had, I would be sworn to secrecy. No one tells the Tafur king’s secrets.’

  Unwilling to be questioned further – or perhaps reluctant to incur the Tafur king’s revenge – Peter hurried on. I kept close, for I did not want to be lost in that place.

  I do not know how long we walked in the heat and the stink. Sometimes Tafurs passed us, staring at me with hostile eyes as they answered Peter’s brief questions. All were dressed alike in white loincloths and wooden crosses, which they hung around their necks on thick ropes like yokes. At last, after many turns, Peter stopped at a door. Waving me to be still, he rapped on the carved panel. It cracked open and I heard a short challenge, which Peter answered in the Provençal tongue. The door swung in and led us through a short passage into a central courtyard.

  For all the tales of skeletal thrones and human cups, the reality of the Tafurs was at once far more ordinary and yet more terrible than I had imagined. The square was strewn with wood and stone where the surrounding windows had been hammered out, and half a dozen Tafurs, barely clothed, lounged on the rubble. One was sucking on a bone that might have been a cow’s. All were watching another of their number, who knelt in the centre of the yard, and the woman on all fours in front of him. The only sound was the regular slap of his cross as it swung against his chest: the man showed no more emotion than if he had been digging a patch of weeds, while the woman stared ahead, unblinking. From the blood crusted on the inside of her thighs and the bruises on her ribs and breasts, I guessed that every trace of feeling had long since been raped out of her.

  I cannot say exactly what happened next. A hundred fractured pictures exploded in my skull: my wife Maria lying on her bed, her skirts soaked red; my baby daughter cradled in my arms as victorious legionaries sacked Constantinople; the silver cross that hung around my own neck, a symbol which had comforted me so often. Unthinkingly, I reached for the knife at my belt. All the Tafurs were watching me, and even before the blade was out of its sheath one had risen and thrown himself towards me. A fist swung at my face, struck my chin and knocked me on my back. As I lifted myself on my elbows, I tasted blood on my lip.

  ‘Demetrios!’ Little Peter whimpered with terror, darting about like a wasp. ‘Has the Devil possessed you?’

  ‘Perhaps he was jealous,’ said a voice above me. Would you like to take your turn with the Turkish bitch, Greek? Or is it only boys that rouse you?’ A bare foot planted itself in my groin and squeezed down; I tried not to moan. ‘Are you a eunuch? If not, I have a knife. I could make you so.’

  ‘Let him be,’ squeaked Little Peter. I had not expected him to have the courage to speak out. ‘He is a friend of the bishop, and I have sworn him my peace.’

  ‘But I have not – and I am no friend of the bishop.’ With a last, agonishing jab of his foot, the man stepped away. My eyes were clenched shut with pain, but above me I heard the voice asking Little Peter: ‘Why have you come?’

  ‘We . . . He seeks a man named Odard, a Norman. I have heard he joined your band.’

  ‘He did – though much use he has been. His senses have been torn away, and he jabbers nothing but riddles and nonsense. What does the Greek want with him?’

  I opened my eyes. The man who had struck me now stood over me, watching with malicious interest. Behind him the Turkish woman had crawled into a corner and now lay curled up like a corpse while her assailant wiped himself with a cloth.

  ‘Two of Odard’s companions were murdered,’ I said, speaking slowly as the blood slid over my tongue. ‘I seek to know who killed them.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Drogo of Melfi, and Rainauld of Albigeois.’

  The Frank disappeared through a broken door into the house. I staggered to my feet and seated myself on a lump of stone, clutching my groin where it still ached. A dozen dull eyes watched me. The hermit perched in the corner and made himself still, fixing his gaze on heaven and muttering unintelligible incantations. I hoped that he was praying for me.

  The Frank emerged back into the courtyard. Behind him, shuffling reluctantly, came Odard. He too was naked to the waist, and though he could not have eaten any better than I had in the past months he seemed larger than I remembered. Perhaps it was merely that I had shrunk more. He still looked like a walking skeleton, his skin barely binding the bones within: I could have counted each one of his ribs, while his fingers had become talons.

  ‘What will you ask him?’ said the Tafur.

  ‘Why the boy who served him, Simon, died by the river six days ago.’

  ‘And why should I let you, Greek?’

  I stared hard at the crude cross around the Tafur’s neck. ‘Because Odard has committed deeds that are abominations in the sight of God. He has worshipped on pagan altars and sacrificed to ancient idols. If we are abandoned now by Christ, it is because of Odard’s evil.’

  Odard, who h
ad hovered in the Tafur’s shadow, now darted forward. ‘Lies! Lies!’ he shrieked. ‘You are the crow, Greek, trilling lies and death. Curse you! Curse you!’

  ‘You did not go down to that temple to eat, did you? You prostrated yourself before the Antichrist, and gave yourself into his power.’

  Behind Odard the Tafur band had begun to rise. Suddenly their leader stepped forward and hooked his arm around Odard’s neck. It seemed so thin, and the grip so firm, that I thought it might snap off his shoulders.

  ‘Truly?’ hissed the Tafur in his ear. ‘Has the Devil broken your mind and brought curses upon us?’ He turned to me. ‘Or is it you who speaks for the prince of lies and darkness?’

  All my attention was on Odard; I did not notice the Tafurs sidling up to me until it was too late. I jerked back with a cry as one of them stepped behind me and locked my head in the same vicelike grip as held Odard. A second man pinned my arms at my sides. Little Peter had vanished.

  ‘I speak the truth.’ My throat burned, and the arms clamped around my stomach made me want to retch, but it was nothing against the fear of what I would suffer if they disbelieved me. I directed my words to Odard again. ‘Was it Quino? Did Quino come to you, tell you I guessed your secret? Did you fear that Simon had betrayed you – that his testimony would see you burned on a pyre? Was it you who drew the bowstring while the boy picked herbs on the river bank? Tell me. Confess it, and win mercy.’

  The hand on my neck choked short my words, so that I feared Odard had not even heard them. Certainly he did not heed me: without regard for his safety he twisted and fought against the Tafur’s grip. It availed him nothing.

  ‘Those are solemn charges,’ said the Tafur. A callous smile belied his concern. ‘You swear its truth; he denies it. Who can decide?’

  ‘It would be easier to judge if he answered me.’

  Odard stamped his foot on the Tafur’s, and was rewarded with a blow to his belly. His head jerked about like a puppet’s.

  ‘He will not answer you. His wits are broken.’