Knights of the Cross

by Tom Harper

  ‘Then let me take him away, to see what I may coax from him.’

  The Tafur shook his head, chuckling. ‘No. You say he has profaned his holy faith. If he has not, then you yourself are an enemy of Christ. The Lord is just in all His works – He will decide.’

  Fear began to warm my veins. ‘How?’

  ‘You will suffer the ordeal of combat. God’s favour will decide it.’

  Before I could argue, the hands that held me dropped away. My knife, which lay on the ground where it had been struck, was picked up and placed in my fist. The Tafur pulled a similar knife from his own belt and passed it to Odard, keeping his arm gripped tight so that he did not turn the blade on his captor.

  The rest of the Tafurs stepped away and leaned against the walls, watching with undisguised anticipation. Two of them blocked the gate by which I had entered, while another barred the inner door. Even the brutalised Turkish woman had sat up, staring at us through a curtain of torn hair.

  ‘This is not justice.’ The words seemed to fall from my mouth unnaturally fast now the pressure on my throat had been released. ‘This is sport.’

  ‘It is the will of God,’ said the Tafur solemnly. ‘Only the man who doubts His cause fears Him.’

  I set my hands by my side. ‘I will not fight.’

  ‘Then pray that God defends you.’

  The Tafur let Odard go and stepped back. Even before I could lift an arm to defend myself Odard had flown forward, his knife poised to rip me open. I ducked, spinning away from his flailing blade, and as he stumbled past me I kicked out at his knee. He fell with a howl onto a pile of rubble.

  I glanced at the Tafur. ‘Is it enough?’

  He did not need to answer. The tension coiled into Odard’s frame made him quick as a whip: he leaped to his feet and moved towards me again, more carefully this time. Grime and blood were smeared on his face where he had fallen.

  ‘I have no quarrel with you,’ I said loudly. ‘Tell me the truth of Simon’s death, why he died, and we will set our blades aside.’

  Odard screamed something indistinct and charged. He feinted to his right, then swung left, but I had read it in his eyes and avoided him.

  ‘Fight honestly,’ called one of the watching Tafurs. ‘Fight to kill.’

  ‘Whom did you worship in the cave?’ I persisted. ‘Was it Mithra?’

  Odard lifted his drooping face and fixed his stare on mine. ‘What was he to you?’

  He ran at me, moving right again, and this time it was no feint. His blade sliced across my arm, but I did not feel the welling blood. His momentum had brought him crashing into me and we both collapsed to the ground. Sharp stones bit into my back. I tried to roll him over, tried to escape his pressing weight – who would have thought so scrawny a man could be so heavy? His right hand, his sword hand, was trapped under my shoulder, and as it wriggled free I saw that his fist was empty. That was brief respite. Fingers and nails scratched my wrist as he sought to prise away my own knife.

  Odard’s bare torso pressed close against my face. The smell of his sweat and of my own blood mingled in the air about me as my right hand jerked against the attack. If he seized my knife now I would die.

  ‘Drogo. It is time to finish this, Drogo.’ His black eyes seemed to spin in their sockets. ‘You led me into the path of sin, the way of death. Now it is yours.’

  He swooped down, leaning across me and sinking his teeth into my arm. I cried out, and before I could master the pain my fingers sprang open. The knife dropped from my grasp and in an instant Odard snatched it away.

  ‘What have you done to me?’ he whispered. Strange contortions wracked his face, as if a demon struggled to escape, but now his eyes were still. I wondered if it was me he saw, or Drogo or Quino or none of us. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Nothing. Odard, I have done nothing to you, I swear it.’

  ‘He is innocent, Quino. What has he done to us?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  I saw Odard’s gaze sidle over to his right, to the hand which held my knife. Surprise creased his brow.

  ‘This is not mine.’

  His thoughts were shattered, so much so that I could not guess whether he would throw the knife away or plunge it into my heart. I doubt whether he knew himself. I would not wait to discover it. Drawing on his distraction, on the fact that he had released my arm, I drove a fist into his jaw. As he reeled backwards I pushed myself off the ground, trying to shake him off me. I unbalanced him, but did not dislodge him: instead we rolled over and over, locked together in each other’s arms like lovers. Dust rose around us and filled my eyes; splinters dug into me, while Odard’s hands snatched at my tunic. The knife seemed to be lost.

  And suddenly there was no more struggle. I had come to rest on top of him, and my first thought was that my arm had bled more than I realised, for the sweat ran red on his chest. Then panic struck me, as I saw the blood spreading between us. That did not come from my arm: had I been stabbed without knowing?

  At last I saw the truth: the knife was buried to the hilt in Odard’s chest. Whether it had been my hand or his that had guided the weapon I would never know, but somewhere in our frenzied grappling it had pierced his heart. He was still breathing, just, but his head was still and his eyes were closed. His left arm flapped limply, like a broken wing.

  I bent my mouth close to his ear. ‘Why did Simon die?’

  Odard did not answer. He had joined Drogo, Rainauld, Simon and the other denizens of that cursed tent. I wondered what he would say to them in the world beyond.

  I hauled myself to my feet and glanced around.

  The Tafur leader watched me, smirking. ‘The Lord has spoken. Truly, this man was a heretic. Now, Greek, you may ask your questions.’

  His ringing laughter chased me from the courtyard. None of the Tafurs tried to stop me.

  My arm still bled a little, but there were deeper cuts to my soul which I could not bind. Nonetheless, I tried. As if my pain was not a part of me, as if I could escape my very self, I ran. Through Antioch’s alleys and passageways, past houses, mansions, churches and empty markets, I ran until my lungs faltered and my legs burned. Even then I could not free myself from my torment, though at least the ache in my body dulled it.

  I might have run for miles, or merely in circles; at last I stopped to see where I had gone. I was on the eastern outskirts of the city, against the foot of the mountain. At the end of the road I could see orchards and olive groves rising in stepped terraces over the lower slopes, the sheer cliffs looming above them. A golden light washed over the landscape and the air was still, yet the beauty only sharpened my feeling of desolation. I had killed men before, of course – for war, for money, for pride and for hate – but never had I slain a witless innocent in such vicious entertainment.

  I could not dwell on it now. I was far from our camp on the walls, and soon the light would dissolve into shadow. I did not know whether I had left the realm of the Tafurs or not, but it had been terrible enough in daylight. By night, it must have been beyond imagining. I would go back to Anna, though I dared not think what I would say.

  It should have been an easy journey, for the sinking sun pointed straight to the walls, but in the maze of streets I soon lost sight of it. I tried to remember the bearing and tread a straight path, but that was impossible: this quarter of the city was so tangled that I could barely walk fifty paces before I was spun around a corner, or found the road blocked. Within ten minutes my sense of direction was uncertain; after twenty, I had lost it completely. The hazy shadows deepened, the houses melted together, and my pace grew ever more hesitant. A rising panic drove the guilt and pain from my heart, which now beat only with the urgency of escape. Though I had seen no Tafurs, I feared there might be other Franks keen to take advantage of a solitary Greek.

  At a crossroads I found a man squatting by a wall. He was wrapped in rags; his teeth were gone and the skin on his bare head was mottled purple with disease. Had it been any darker, I might have thou
ght him a pile of discarded refuse.

  ‘Which way to the church of Saint Peter?’ I asked.

  He said nothing, but after a few moments a single arm extended to his right.

  ‘Thank you.’

  I hurried on the way he had indicated. Either I was more badly lost than I had feared or this was a little-travelled short cut, for the way quickly narrowed until barely two men could have walked abreast. High walls towered on either side, unbroken by windows or doors, and though I could see a ribbon of blue sky stretched above none of its light reached into those depths.

  The road ended abruptly in a brick wall. I cursed. I had been played false by the derelict at the crossroads, and doubtless he would think it a fine joke when I returned. I turned to go back.

  Two men were standing in my path, pressed shoulder to shoulder against the confining walls, their faces hidden in the gloom. I had not heard them arrive.

  I opened my palms to show that I was harmless. Perhaps that was a mistake.

  ‘It’s a dead end,’ I said. ‘I have come the wrong way.’

  They did not answer. The man on the right stepped forward, cocked his head, and drove a fist into my stomach. As I doubled over, I sensed his companion moving closer.

  A hard blow struck me on the back of my skull, and I fell into darkness.

  κ ς

  ‘Drink.’

  I had slept without dreams. When the voice came, I did not know if I heard it or imagined it. I could not even tell if I had opened my eyes, for whatever I did the darkness remained complete.

  ‘Drink.’

  The rough grain of a carved cup pressed against my lip. An unseen force tipped back my head, and I felt cool water pouring in. My mouth was dry as stone, and I held the water on my tongue to let it seep into the flesh.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Alive.’

  The voice was soft, feminine. Was it Anna’s? I leaned forward, knocking my teeth on the cup, but still the night rebuffed me.

  ‘Who are you?’

  The cup eased away without answer.

  When I next awoke, it was to the feel of fresh air on my cheek. I was sitting beside a lake surrounded by high mountains, grey and blue in the distance. Low clouds scudded over the peaks, and birdsong blew in on the breeze that furrowed the water. I could smell charred smoke, as if a candle had recently been extinguished nearby.

  A woman in a white shift walked towards me along the shore. A hood covered her hair, and her face was strangely indistinct. Even when she drew near it seemed as though I looked at her through smeared glass, though I could see nothing between us.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘You are lost in the wilderness. You must find the path that will take you away, to Jerusalem.’

  I looked around. There was no break in the mountains. ‘I see nowhere to go.’

  She laughed – a soft, half-mocking laugh whose meaning I could not fathom. ‘You do not see because you walk in darkness. You must kindle a flame, a light to see by.’

  ‘How?’

  She did not answer; instead, she vanished, and in her place I saw Rainauld and Odard standing a little way off. Their heads lifted in recognition and they began to approach. Panic flared down my spine; I began running across the shingle beach, my feet sliding and jarring on the rounded stones. Behind, I could hear them striding effortlessly after me.

  I was dreaming.

  I opened my eyes, and was back in darkness.

  The cup was at my lips again, but this time when I drank the water was bitter. I spat it out, but immediately a soft hand was pressing against my forehead, tipping it back so that my mouth hung open. The liquid splashed down my throat, and I held my breath so that I would not taste it.

  ‘You must drink this. It will release you from your pain.’

  ‘I have no pain.’

  ‘Then it is working.’

  I was laid out on a bed or a table, I realised. I could feel hard boards under my back, softened a little by a thin cloth. I tried to lift myself, but my arms were powerless.

  ‘Let me go.’

  ‘You are free to go, if you wish. It is only the bonds of sin which hold you.’

  Something in the darkness rippled like woven silk, though it might have been my mind imagining it. My thoughts seemed to be ebbing away from me, and when I tried to grasp them they merely flowed through my hands like water.

  Three candles had been lit in an alcove at the far end of a low room. They cast a feeble light, but after the hours of darkness I had endured they were bright as the sun to my aching eyes. Their orange glow shone on coarse walls, humped and gouged where chisels had carved the stone, and on ranks of bowed heads facing away from me, row upon row stretching back into the shadows. Before them, her face towards me, stood a woman in a white woollen robe. Her eyes were closed, her head tipped back in a rapture that was at once sublime and wholly sensual. She was chanting something, a liturgy perhaps, though it was in no language that I could comprehend.

  Two men came forward from the congregation and knelt. One was older, and looked to be some sort of acolyte, for he wore the same kind of white robe as the priestess. The other was a youth, dressed as a peasant. I could see his shoulders trembling beneath his tunic. The woman took a jug and poured water over his hands, then over the acolyte’s, and then her own. The acolyte knelt and rose three times in front of her. Turning aside, he repeated the obeisance at a stone altar covered in a white cloth. There was a book sitting on the altar; the man lifted it, and with more bows passed it to the woman. She raised it above her, then held it flat over the youth’s head, declaiming her strange rite. The words were still foreign to me, but as I listened more closely patterns of repetition began to emerge. Despite the unknown sounds, there was something familiar in the voice as well. It sounded like the woman in my dreams – and somewhere else. I could not think where.

  She passed the book back to the man, and laid her hands on the youth’s forehead. More phrases were repeated. Then she took him by the arm and lifted him to his feet, turning him to face her congregation.

  ‘Resolve in your heart that you will keep this holy baptism throughout your life, according to the usage of the Church of Purity, in chastity, in truth, and in all other virtues which the Lord ordains.’

  I sank back on my harsh bed. For a few moments, my thoughts had run almost clear: now they were agitated beyond reason. A baptism? How could it be a baptism? There had been no chrism – nor any priest that I had seen. And the language had been neither Greek nor Latin, for I had heard the latter tongue often enough in the past months to know its sound.

  Whatever unnatural service it had been, it was now finished. The worshippers who had knelt on the floor rose. The woman stepped away from the candles and steered the youth, the initiate, into the midst of the congregation. The older man who had assisted her turned to follow, and as he did so the candlelight illuminated his face. It was hard to see through the throng and by the unsteady light, but I had seen him recently enough, and the crooked nose and blistered face were quite distinctive. It was Peter Bartholomew.

  I surrendered to confusion and lay back.

  Later, after the cave had emptied, I heard the voice from my dream again. This time I was not at the lake in the mountains; I was in darkness. It had the same earthy smell as the cave, and I wondered if for once I was not asleep. There was little way of knowing.

  ‘How is your pain, Demetrios?’

  ‘Endurable.’ The ache at the back of my head was the least of my discomforts. For the rest of me, my arm throbbed where it had been cut by Odard’s knife and my back was stiff from lying still so long, but I could survive that. My stomach, I noticed, was pulled tight as a drumhead. How long had it been since I ate?

  ‘How long have I been here?’

  ‘A night and a day.’

  No wonder I felt hungry. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘In the church of the pure.’

  ‘In Antioch?’

  She hesitated. ‘Beneath i
t.’

  ‘How did I come here?’

  ‘We found you at the roadside. You had been robbed and beaten and left for dead. We saved you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I thought back to the two men looming over me in the alley, and flinched.

  ‘I must go,’ I said. ‘My companions will fear for my life, if I have not returned in almost two days.’

  Warm breath played over my cheek – she must have been mere inches away.

  ‘You have witnessed our service, Demetrios. You have seen our secrets. We cannot release you now to betray us.’

  I jerked up, ignoring the agony racking my skull. I tried to leap off the bed, but though my arms and legs were free there was some cord around my waist binding me down. I fumbled at it, but I felt no knot, and in the darkness I could see nothing.

  ‘Do not struggle. You will suffer no harm here. In truth, you are probably safer. Kerbogha arrived yesterday. His army is on the mountain, trying to force the walls. They say the fighting is very terrible.’

  ‘All the more reason that I must find my companions.’ If Anna were left defenceless when the Turks broke in . . . ‘Let me go.’

  ‘It is for your own good. Once, you asked me to help you. I told you then that I could do nothing until you were willing to discard the deceptions worked on you by the priests. I can help you now, but again, only if you will receive it.’

  At last I knew the voice. Sarah, the priestess who had ministered to Drogo and his friends. Had they been baptised in the same rite that I had just seen?

  ‘What deceptions? I am a Christian.’

  She laughed. ‘Have you ever spoken of God to an Ishmaelite? They say that we worship the same god, but that they alone know the true way to venerate Him.’

  I slumped back. ‘Are you an Ishmaelite?’ How could she be, when her followers carved their backs with crosses?

  ‘No.’ Her voice was sharp, insulted. ‘But they are right that one may name God truthfully and worship him in error. That is what you have done.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Are you thirsty?’