Knights of the Cross

by Tom Harper

  There was a long pause. Sigurd was peering out at the citadel, looking anxious, and I felt the weight of every passing second.

  ‘Did you kill Simon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  His voice was so hoarse that I thought for a moment it was merely his armour scraping over the stone.

  ‘Because you thought he had betrayed your heresy to me?’

  ‘Yes.’ If this was a confession, there was no taint of remorse in it.

  ‘You followed the priestess Sarah in her false religion. You received her baptism and knew their mysteries.’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a ritual in his answers like the rhythm of a prayer. I looked to see if he even heard my questions but his eyes were shut, his head bowed.

  ‘The gates are opening,’ Sigurd warned.

  ‘Did you kill Drogo and Rainauld as well? Because they threatened to confess? What was the mark you put on Drogo’s forehead?’

  ‘No.’ His voice had been ground down to a whisper.

  ‘Was Drogo unwilling to follow you in your blasphemy?’

  ‘Hah.’ Quino looked up, a terrible smirk contorting his skull. ‘In pursuit of secret truths, Drogo followed none save the priest. It was Drogo whom Sarah first converted, and Drogo who tired of her religion soonest.’ He grimaced. ‘After we had scarred ourselves with their cross.’

  ‘And afterwards you turned to the pagan gods – at the cave in Daphne?’

  Quino nodded, like a condemned man offering his neck to the executioner.

  ‘You did not take the bullock to eat. You sacrificed him to Mithra, according to some ancient evil rite.’

  ‘Mithra?’ Quino’s voice was parched of all emotion, yet he seemed confused. ‘He said we sacrificed to Ahriman.’

  ‘Who said this? Drogo?’

  ‘The priest. The priest who led us there.’

  A strange reticence, almost like fear, seemed to have come over Quino. My whole mind was stretched taut, screaming to hear who this priest had been, but a sharp crack from the far side of the tower broke my train of thought. Sigurd was crouching by the battlements, struggling to reload the crossbow.

  ‘They’re coming.’

  I took another bow from the floor and braced my feet against its horns, then tugged back like a rower on the galleys. The string snapped into its lock, and I slipped the bolt into the groove. From within the tower, I could hear feet hurrying up the ladder.

  ‘Look to the east,’ croaked Quino. He still sat slumped against the walls; I doubted there was enough strength in his arms even to nock an arrow. ‘They will try and gain the walls.’

  I glanced down. As he had said, there were companies of Turks running towards us in loose order, ladders held between them. Archers followed behind them, loosing arrows into the sky to keep us pinned down. One arced into the nest of the turret, though it struck no one.

  ‘More over here,’ shouted Sigurd. I crawled across to join him. Inside the walls, in the valley between the summits, Turks were pouring out of the citadel. There seemed no end to them: they covered the land in a wave of steel and iron. There was no tactic or strategy, for the ground did not allow it – they simply surged forward, borne on their own momentum.

  Yet even within a wave there are eddies and currents. The cistern in the middle of the valley which Bohemond had smashed open served as a breakwater, and the Turkish advance slowed as they split around it, squeezed against the walls on one side and the precipice on the other. Many were caught at the foot of our tower.

  ‘Fire,’ I shouted, though I doubt whether anyone heeded me. We were no longer Byzantines and Normans, merely desperate men trapped in an ocean of our enemies. What the Emperor’s diplomacy and Adhemar’s prayers had failed to achieve, battle now wrought. Quino had called me a scorpion, and a scorpion I had become, trapped in a corner and stabbing my sting at all who approached. I had never been an archer, but the crossbow is an easy weapon with which to kill. Stretch, lock, load; kneel by the battlements, thrust the bow between them, and fire. Aim a little above the target, to correct for the angle of flight – though with so many Turks bunched below our walls, a blind man could hardly have missed. That was my rhythm, my whole life reduced to half a dozen movements in endless repetition, and the single remnant of my humanity was the terror I felt each time I revealed myself at the embrasures, that an enemy arrow might fly through and strike me down. It was not an idle fear: the Norman garrison and Sigurd’s Varangians were all around me now, firing with whichever bows and crossbows came to hand, and already two were sprawled out dead or injured.

  Afterwards, I realised how tangential we must have seemed to the generals watching from their hilltops: Bohemond to the south, and Kerbogha in the citadel to the north. The real battle was down in the valley, though I saw it only in brief flashes framed by the battlements, and then only as a background to the men I aimed for. First the Turks were pressed back behind the cistern, struggling to squeeze their numbers past it; then, when I next looked, they were far beyond, charging up the opposite slope against the Norman defences. Such was the power of their charge that I almost expected to see them cresting the mountain on my next glance. But instead they seemed to have faltered. Their front rank was in ragged disarray, and eroding ever further as the Norman archers above poured arrows into them. Bohemond must have built a wall or a barricade, I realised, hidden among the low scrub just high enough to hold the attackers beyond the Norman line.

  I had watched too long. In battle, the only spectators are the dead. I ducked back, pressing myself against the wall, and felt a breeze stroke my cheek as a Turkish arrow whistled through the battlements beside me. It flew across the tower and struck deep into the back of one of the Normans. He slumped over the parapet.

  There was no time for relief or guilt. I was already bent forward trying to stretch the bowstring back. Load. Kneel. Now the Turks had passed Bohemond’s obstacle, and were face to face with the Normans. I could not even see where the armies joined: they were a seamless expanse of shields, helmets, flashing blades and death, while the white serpent writhed on its crimson banner above.

  ‘Look to the walls!’

  On my right, a wide-eyed Norman with a patchwork tabard was pointing down to the wall which led to the citadel. I crawled over and looked out. A company of Turks was running along the rampart, a ladder carried between them. I snatched up my bow and fired at them, but against moving targets my aim was poor.

  The rest of our men crowded against the wall and loosed their arrows down on the Turks, desperate to escape this new threat. Some of the attackers fell, dark shadows on the pale stone of the rampart, but most did not. Now they were at the door where the tower met the wall, and they could lift their shields over their heads to ward off our stream of arrows. In vain we tried to dislodge them by casting down rocks which had been gathered onto the turret. With one we unbalanced a Turk’s shield, opening his defence to the fatal arrow that followed, but otherwise they clung on. I could hear them battering on the wooden door, though it was barricaded with stone and would not yield.

  ‘Ladder coming up,’ shouted one of the Normans.

  There were no more rocks to throw, and the Turks were so close to the tower that we could not fire down on them. I looked around. Quino was on his feet, sword in hand, his bones animated by new life.

  ‘You, you, you.’ He pointed at three of the Normans. ‘Come down to the next level. They will try and climb in through the window. You—’ His claw-arm swept over the rest of us. ‘Keep their reinforcements at bay.’

  ‘I will go with him,’ said Sigurd. He was beside me, though I had not noticed him there.

  ‘Make sure you come back.’ I felt a stab of self-pity at losing him, as if my shield had been cut away, but I did not try to stop him. As a soldier, Sigurd valued archery as a tool of victory. As a warrior, he despised it for a coward’s trick.

  The five men disappeared into the gloom below, and for a moment afterwards there was peace in the tower. Four men lay
where they had been struck by Turkish arrows, two dead and two dying. I would have given them water, but there was none to give; I tore strips of cloth from the dead men’s tunics and tied them about the wounds of the living to staunch the flow of blood. Then I peered out the other side of the tower. The battle still raged on the slopes of Bohemond’s mountain, though its clamour seemed curiously remote. The Turks were still checked; perhaps they had been pushed back a little, though it was hard to tell. But more companies were issuing forth from the citadel to join them, while Bohemond had no reserves.

  There was a crash from below, and I glanced down through the opening in the floor. The planks over the window had been splintered away, and a shaft of light poured into the guardroom. By it, I could see a dead Turk hanging over the sill. Sigurd stood with his back to the wall and his axe raised, ready to strike down any who came through the window. Opposite, a Norman waited in the shadows with a loaded crossbow. Our besiegers would need more than a high window and a ladder to take this tower from us, few though we were.

  I looked again to the rampart between us and the citadel. There were no more Turks coming to our corner of the battlefield. Kerbogha was concentrating all his might on Bohemond’s standard. I stared at the fortress, the round buttresses rising out of the rock of the mountain and the square towers above. Tatikios once told me that it had been built by the great Justinian five centuries earlier: it seemed strange that a Turkish warlord and his Frankish enemies should now contest it.

  There was another commotion in the guardroom. I heard the crack of a crossbow, and then a scream as an arrow struck flesh. The Norman opposite the window had been pitched forward onto his knees, and had his hands pressed to some wound I could not see. The dead Turk on the windowsill had been pulled away, clearing the opening, and as I looked at it a volley of arrows – four or five at least – swept through. I heard them clatter against the walls. A Turk hurled himself in after them; Sigurd’s blade swept down and he was dead. But there must have been another Turk crouched on the ladder behind, for before Sigurd could pull his axe free the man had vaulted into the room. For a second there was no one to oppose him, and it was all the time he needed to bring his sword up. Sigurd’s axe was loose again; he lunged at the Turk, but he had hurried his blow and it was easily dodged.

  Another Turk was at the window. They had their bridgehead, and they would not lightly let it go. I tried to fire my crossbow, but Sigurd was too close and my aim not so true. Then the Turk had leaped down into the fray, and was lost in the confusion of clashing swords and shouts.

  ‘Up the ladder!’ Above all the noise, Sigurd’s voice rang out. If he called the retreat, their situation must be grave. I saw a Varangian mount the ladder, with others climbing after him. I knelt by the opening, crossbow in hand, and tried to make out my enemies. Almost all our men had gained the top of the tower now: below, there was a hand on the ladder, but I could not see the arm, let alone the face. It climbed two rungs, paused, and was dragged down again. Then it reappeared, and this time it came high enough that I could see tufts of an orange beard under the helmet. Still someone tried to pull him back. With a blow that might have cracked the ladder in two, he stamped down and was free. He flew up the ladder one-handed and bounded onto the turret top.

  ‘Close up that hole,’ he shouted.

  I looked around the tower, which was strewn with spent arrows and bodies. Several shields, too cumbersome for the archers, lay abandoned amid the debris. I hauled them across the floor. Sigurd was crouched by the ladder, axe in hand, and as a Turkish head appeared he brought the weapon down so hard that it cleaved both helmet and skull in two. The man fell back into the hole.

  ‘Quick.’

  Sigurd and I dragged the shields into place over the opening. Almost immediately, one was thrust aside by the next attacker on the ladder. Without thinking, I picked up my crossbow and fired it into his chest. The effect of the bolt at close range was terrible: it drove through the scales of his armour and exploded into his flesh with a spray of blood. The last I saw was an anguished face falling away.

  ‘More weight.’ Quite callously, Sigurd had lifted one of the corpses by its feet and was pulling it over the shields. Numbed, I did likewise, and was startled when the body let out a scream of pain. I had forgotten that some still lived.

  ‘How many crossbows?’ Sigurd asked. It was a needless question, for he could see as well as I that there were three, in addition to the one I held. He threw one towards the Varangians who had taken up longbows by the parapet, where they could still fire on Kerbogha’s army below.

  ‘Load that.’

  ‘What will we do?’ I asked. The fighting in the guardroom must have been terrible, for of the dozen Varangians we had brought only five still stood, together with two Normans. I could already hear the thud of a spear or axe hammering on the shield barricade, and most of our arrows were spent.

  ‘We fill this tower with their dead.’ Sigurd wiped his axe clean on the skirt of his tunic. The battle-craze that possessed him was beginning to relax its hold, but only a little. ‘We kill them until we have made a stair of their corpses, or until they set the whole tower alight as our pyre.’

  There was a blast of trumpets. A great shout interrupted Sigurd’s doom-saying. I looked out over the parapet to the south, and my heart almost died with hope. Battles, like fires, must move to endure; they abhor stasis. It had been clear that the Turks and Normans could not remain locked in combat, that eventually one or other must force themselves forward. I had expected it to be Bohemond’s forces who broke first, but instead they seemed to have prevailed. The Turks were streaming back to the citadel in disarray, their courage gone, while exultant Normans chased close on their heels.

  ‘Bohemond is making a mistake,’ said Sigurd, resigned. ‘It is a feint. The Turks will draw his men from their positions, then turn and slaughter them.’

  But for once his gloom was misplaced – or Bohemond’s luck too strong. The Turkish army was routed; I could see them vying with each other to press through the citadel’s gate to safety.

  ‘Listen.’

  The pounding on our makeshift barrier had stopped. I crossed to the northern battlements and saw Turks running back along the wall. When none followed, Sigurd and I pulled the bodies and the shields aside, while the Varangians kept crossbows ready against any enemies who remained.

  The room below was empty, at least of the living.

  ‘We had better be swift,’ I said. My voice rang hollow in my ears, as if my soul were watching my body from a great distance. I remembered what the priestess had said of the angelic spark captive within our clay, and shook my head. This was not the time for such thoughts.

  As gently as we could, though not nearly so gently as to stop them weeping with pain, we manhandled the wounded down the ladder, then repositioned it against the outer window. Those who were not hurt lowered the injured onto the walls, while Sigurd and I examined the fallen in the guardroom, seeking the living.

  There was only one: Quino. We found him slumped in a corner, his tabard soaked in blood where a Turkish sword had pierced his belly. At first I thought he was dead, but some movement of my shadow must have stirred his senses for I heard a gurgling moan. It seemed incredible that there had been anything in him to bleed, so skeletal had he appeared at the top of the tower. Then, he had looked almost eager for death, yet now that it had come for him some stubborn remnant of his soul clung to life. We bound his wound with the clothes of the dead, passed him down through the window, and began our long trudge back across the valley.

  λ α

  Sigurd carried Quino in his arms – he was so frail that he could have weighed little more than a child – while the rest of us bore the other wounded between us. It was a hard journey over the broken landscape, and we jolted them terribly as we picked our way over hummocks of the dead. Once a Varangian’s bandage caught on a briar and was torn from his side, spilling yet more blood into the red earth. Mercifully, no one attacked us. Onl
y scavengers and devourers of carrion shared the field with us: crows and flies and lean-faced women stripping the fallen of their possessions.

  Even the Norman lines were deserted. With Kerbogha’s army forced back into its citadel, the Normans had retreated onto the mountain top. We passed in silence through their defences, makeshift barricades of heaped stone and masonry. They would not have served to pen a flock of sheep, but they had been enough to break the Turks, whose corpses in some places were piled higher than the walls themselves.

  Pausing for a moment, I looked ahead. The Normans seemed to have gathered in a great crowd on the crest of the mountain, hundreds of them ranged in a circle around a figure I could not see. Were they celebrating the victory? They were remarkably muted – almost solemn.

  We laid the wounded in the shade of a boulder, where the women could bring water, and hurried up the slope. The crowd was thick; the blood and sweat that stained their armour almost steamed off them in the heat. Nonetheless, Sigurd and I managed to push through until we found a small rise from where we could see the centre of the circle.

  All the princes I had seen earlier were there: Raymond and Bohemond, Hugh, Robert and Tancred – and Adhemar, seated on a rock between them. Beside him stood a priest in white robes, a slight man with a mop of dark hair. Like all of us in those days, his cheeks were sunken and his eyes dull, but there was a twitch in his shoulders that bespoke nervousness, the anticipation of some spectacle to perform. I knew him: he was the priest Stephen, one of Adhemar’s chaplains. I had seen him often in the bishop’s tent.

  Adhemar was speaking. ‘Christ has granted you this victory. But like all the works of man, it will soon become dust. Kerbogha’s forces are so legion that he may fling them at us as often as he likes, heedless of loss. We cannot match him man for man. For the eternal victory, we must implore God’s aid.’