Knights of the Cross

by Tom Harper

  ‘It’s falling over Kerbogha’s camp,’ said Sigurd.

  It fell from the sky, passing across the canvas of stars behind and growing ever larger in our sight. Falling from heaven like Lucifer, I thought.

  ‘Look.’

  Through some divine magic, the star was no longer whole. It had split into three, branching out like the prongs of a trident as it plummeted to the ground. Each fragment still glowed with the residue of its starlight and behind them I saw little tails, like cloaks billowing in the wind.

  ‘The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch,’ murmured Anna.

  ‘The Triune God descends on Kerbogha’s camp,’ said Mushid. ‘There is hope for you yet, it seems.’

  ‘Or else the star of Bohemond falls from its firmament,’ Sigurd countered. ‘Its ruin comes from the north.’

  Mushid smiled. ‘What was it that the angel said at the birth of the prophet Jesus? “Be of good cheer.” Your god has spoken to your peasants, to your priests, and now He gives a sign to every man in this city that He is with you. The time of dreams and miracles is upon you.’

  I stared at him. In those last words his mild voice had strengthened, deepened, as if resonating to some deeper truth. He sounded almost like a prophet, or an oracle.

  ‘Little less than a miracle will save us,’ said Sigurd.

  Anna looked at him, her gaze impenetrable. ‘You had better pray, then, that God does not disappoint when they excavate the church tomorrow.’

  Later, while the others slept, I descended the tower and crossed the road behind the wall. We had commandeered one of the houses here: a low, square building set around a courtyard. Under the Varangians’ hammers, the doorway had been enlarged to admit a horse and the courtyard turned into a makeshift stable. Only three of the animals survived, gaunt and weak, but their warm scent on the night air comforted me. As I passed, I heard one of them huffing in his byre.

  Beyond the horses, in a long room whose furniture had long since become firewood, Anna had set up her infirmary. I spoke a few quiet words with the Varangian who guarded it and let myself in through the open door. I walked hesitantly, afraid lest I should step on the wounded who lay on the floor, but my eyes were well used to the dark and I disturbed no one.

  At the far end, a little removed from the others, I found Quino. He lay wrapped in a white blanket, an indistinct bundle like a butterfly in its cocoon. His head was raised on a balled-up tunic, and he breathed in short, ragged bursts. I feared that Anna was right, that it would not be long before even that was too much effort.

  ‘What do you know?’ I asked softly. ‘Who led you into your impiety? Was it Drogo?’

  Quino did not answer, and without another miracle I feared he might never speak again. Anna had said he had a fever; the bandages around his belly were soaked with the blood and bile which oozed from his wound, and there was no food to feed his strength.

  The guard had come over, and joined me looking down on Quino.

  ‘Has he said anything?’ I asked. ‘In his dreams, perhaps?’

  ‘No.’ The guard poked Quino with the toe of his boot. ‘Nor will he. He’ll die tomorrow, I think.’

  I remembered Mushid’s words. The time of dreams and miracles is upon you.

  ‘Perhaps his life will return.’

  But even in the realm of miracles that had only happened once.

  λ γ

  Certainly no miracles happened overnight. Next morning Quino was still in the grip of his wound, silent as ever. After a few minutes watching him I left Anna and her patients and made my way towards the church of Saint Peter.

  Long before I reached the church, I felt the change that had come over Antioch. A day earlier, it had been a city choked in the last throes of a siege, squeezed in Kerbogha’s fist. The strain had told on every face – human, animal – even the walls had seemed about to crumble to powder. Now it had the air of a holiday. Men walked with a surer purpose, neither crawling in despair nor running in terror. Women braided bright cloths into their hair – all the flowers had long since been eaten – and did not pull their children back when they tousled in the street. The sun, which yesterday had scorched us with unyielding fire, now seemed to bless us with its warmth, and the blue sky offered unblemished promise.

  At the main avenue, between the colonnades, I found crowds gathered in anticipation. They lined the road as if for a saint’s day, and for a moment I was transported to the Mesi in Constantinople, waiting for the Emperor and five hundred burnished Varangians to parade by. It was strange to think that my road to Antioch had begun with just such a procession.

  We did not have long to wait. After about quarter of an hour I heard trumpets sound near the palace, and shouts rise down the road to my right. They rippled nearer like gusts of wind, though no breeze disturbed the heat of the morning, and burst out all around as the column came into view.

  Four Provençal knights came first, pushing back the crowds to clear a way. They wore clean white tabards emblazoned with crosses, though when the cloth billowed out I saw dried blood on the armour beneath. Next came Bishop Adhemar on a white horse. Doubtless he intended it to be a magnificent steed, its coat as bright and soft as wool, but in truth it was a mangy beast, half-lame. In those days, any horse that walked was miraculous enough. Adhemar sat erect in the saddle, though he grimaced with the effort; he seemed weighed down by the enormous cope, stitched in gold with images of the saints and prophets and the resurrection, that he wore. There was a sword at his side and a cross in his hand, and a horn bow slung from his shoulder.

  Behind him, on a pair of emaciated mules, were the blessed visionaries, Stephen the priest and Peter Bartholomew. Each bore an icon of the apostle who had blessed him: Saint Peter and Saint Andrew. Stephen did not look to be enjoying the attention of the crowds: his head was hunched down into his cassock, and his lips seemed to move with the words of some silent prayer. Peter Bartholomew had no such humility. His chin was as high as Stephen’s was low; he faced the sun and mirrored its beam onto the surrounding pilgrims, serene in its countenance. In emulation of his namesake, Little Peter, he had even put on a hermit’s short cloak over his tunic.

  In two lines, the dozen men who were to dig the hole came next. They were humbly dressed, though in an artful, deliberate way different to the mass of pilgrims around them. Certainly there was nothing lowly in their station. Count Raymond himself led the near column, and a bishop the other; priests and knights filed behind them. After them came more priests, seven of them, chanting the liturgy with their eyes closed. Lord hear my prayer, and let my cry come unto thee. It had resounded through the city so often in the past three days that I had learned the unfamiliar Latin.

  The crowd surged after the priests, flowing in the wake of the procession as it marched on to the church. I stepped out from the shadow of the colonnade to join them, and was carried along the road in a tumult of hymns and prayers. From deep within their parched bodies the pilgrims discovered new wells of strength to which they gave voice with an almost desperate frenzy. They had found hope, and the agony of its frailty only made them sing harder.

  With every yard we travelled, the pace of the procession slowed, and by the time we reached the square in front of the church it was barely moving. There was no hope of entering the sanctuary itself, for those who had gone before were crammed between its pillars and spilling out down the steps, but that did not deter the crowd. They stood in vigil, waiting for the miracle. When Adhemar began to pray at the altar all fell silent, though none could hear him.

  The prayer finished. Somewhere, far beyond my sight, Count Raymond lifted his pick to break open the foundation of the church. At that moment, I doubt there was a single soul in Antioch who did not believe the lance was there, where he struck. There was little alternative.

  The blow rang out, faint and feeble at that distance. A pause, and then another. Then others joined in, hammering at the stone. The noise was curiously mute
d, like a child banging a pot with a spoon, but it held us absolutely in its thrall.

  A whisper came back through the crowd. ‘They have cracked open the paving.’

  I sighed. Even with twelve men digging, I feared it would be a long wait.

  The sun climbed higher. The shadows slipped away, and with them, little by little, the expectant audience. Hope waned in the faces around me; prayers turned to gossip, and then to a despairing silence. The chime of hammers and picks gave way to the muffled sliding of spades in earth. The heat in the square was savage, unbearable, and even in the church it must have sapped the will of the diggers. I wondered if Count Raymond and his priests were regretting their great show of piety.

  I lingered for an hour, stifling my rising doubts with protestations of faith. Then I succumbed and returned to the house by the tower. Anna was there, wiping Quino’s forehead with a damp cloth. There seemed little else she could do: his bandages had been changed recently, but already blood had fouled them again.

  ‘Has he spoken?’ How many times had I asked that in the last three days?

  ‘He can barely open his mouth to drink. Have they found the lance?’

  ‘No. It seems that Saint Andrew did not specify how deep it might be buried.’

  I paused, interrupted by a fit of choking by my feet. Quino’s hand shot out from his side and scrabbled on the floor; his eyes opened, and he seemed to be staring on me with horror. I bent low and inclined my ear, but there were no words, only the hiss and gurgle of air. His eyes closed, and he lapsed back into whatever dreams possessed him.

  Afternoon came, and with it a stillness that settled over the city like dust. The festive atmosphere of the morning had gone; when I drifted back to the church of Saint Peter, there were no crowds to keep me from its door. A cluster of watchful pilgrims stood in a circle before the altar, but it took little effort to push through them and look down into the pit which the diggers had excavated for themselves. A rampart of earth and broken stones surrounded the hole, and I thought I could see a stump of bone among the rubble. Had they disturbed the grave of some early saint or martyr? It would be an unfortunate beginning.

  On the opposite side of the hole, I saw Count Raymond stand back from his labour and mop his face. The cloth must have been stained with the red soil they had excavated, for it left a weal of earth across his grizzled cheek. His tunic was likewise smeared with sweat and mud. He pushed out his chest and tipped back his head, and I could see the weariness in his aged limbs. It was in his face, though, that he seemed oldest.

  ‘I must go,’ he said.

  ‘My lord!’ said Peter Bartholomew indignantly. ‘We do Christ’s work here, as commanded by His most holy saints. You cannot leave it unfinished.’

  Tired and worn he might have been, but there was strength enough in Raymond’s eye that even a man as shameless as Peter stepped back under its glare. ‘I am called to defend this city – and you – from the Turks. That too is Christ’s work.’

  ‘It is right to do so.’ Adhemar sat in front of the altar on his episcopal chair, staring down on the diggers like a stone saint. ‘Count Raymond should relieve Bohemond’s watch on the citadel.’

  ‘But in my dream the saint commanded twelve men to accompany me.’

  There was a spade in Raymond’s hands and for the briefest instant I thought he might swing it, mace-like, into Peter’s self-righteous face. Or perhaps that was my hope.

  The count pulled himself out of the pit and wiped the earth from his hands. He pushed through the onlookers, followed by a gaggle of his knights and attendants. As he passed me I saw bitterness in his features, disappointment that he had sought but had not found.

  Another knight was found to take Count Raymond’s place and the digging went on. The heat under the silver dome grew and the watching crowd thinned. From out in the city, I heard the terrible squeals of a mule or donkey being slaughtered, and wondered if it was the one that Peter Bartholomew had ridden that morning. It would have been no use for war, and there now seemed little hope that we would need a baggage train again.

  The hole deepened. The men who dug were in it up to their waists now, and still they turned up nothing but potsherds and gravel. They stabbed at the earth; had they actually found the lance, they would probably have struck sparks from it. Anger and defeat and misery filled the pit, and spilled out to infect the few pilgrims who remained to watch.

  I left, and for an hour I wandered without purpose through the streets. I walked in the shadow of the walls, hearing snatches of conversation from the guards above. I found a small church tucked behind an abandoned bakery and entered its stifling gloom to offer a few private prayers. After a time, I found myself near the quarter which Bohemond had burned down two days earlier, and I marvelled that already shoots of life were growing back from the ashes. Tents had been pitched on clear ground, and awnings stretched from the walls and timbers which still stood. Mothers sat on scorched rocks feeding their babies, and children black as Nubians chased each other through the ruins. Their shouts seemed uncommonly loud in the open, silent space.

  As the shadows began to creep back over the city, I retraced my aimless steps to the church of Saint Peter. A single glance confirmed that no miracle had occurred in my absence. The knot of watchers around the hole was thinner than before, and even from the door I could see Adhemar’s impassive figure beyond them. He and Raymond had gambled on a charlatan, and their last effort to thwart Bohemond and the Turks had failed. No wonder the bishop seemed so forlorn, alone on his chair above the low business of digging.

  I walked back to the house by the walls, feeling the copper gaze of the setting sun on my face. I did not need Sigurd’s knowledge of portents to ascribe it a meaning.

  As soon as I came within sight of the door, the guard hailed me. ‘Demetrios. Anna has been seeking you. The Norman has woken.’

  In an instant, the lethargy of a hot afternoon was washed from my mind. ‘How long since?’

  The Varangian shrugged. ‘Not long. But it will not last long, either. She said it was the last coil of his strength unravelling.’

  I ran through the gate and across the courtyard, under the plane tree into the infirmary. In my haste, I may have kicked against some of the other patients on the floor, but I was heedless of their cries. I came to the end of the room, where Quino lay, and knelt beside him. His black eyes were open and the dullness that had glazed them was wiped away. He tried to raise himself on his elbow as he saw me, but the effort was too much.

  ‘Quino.’ I spoke gently, as to a child, though desperation consumed me.

  ‘I am dying.’

  ‘Yes.’ Sometimes it is a mercy to deceive the dying, but I sensed that Quino craved only honesty.

  ‘You are the scorpion, Greek. Now you have stung me to my grave.’

  I did not argue. ‘Will you give me your confession?’

  A gurgling, choking sound rose from Quino’s throat, and he screwed up his face in agony. Wishing Anna were there, I put my arm about his shoulders and lifted him upright. The coughing subsided.

  ‘I do not think . . . I do not think God will grant me life enough to confess my sins.’

  ‘Then tell me what you can. Tell me who killed Drogo.’

  Quino’s eyes rolled back in his skull, and I tightened my grip on him. Every fibre of my being implored Christ to save him long enough to answer me.

  ‘Who killed Drogo?’

  Though I had him cradled in my arm, the strength to keep upright was still beyond Quino. As tenderly as I could, I laid him back on the ground.

  ‘Do you repent it? Your heresy?’ I remembered him on the tower, even before the Turkish arrow had pierced him. A man broken by his conscience.

  ‘I am beyond . . . repentance.’ His life was measured in words now, each one bringing him nearer death. ‘Soon . . . I will know.’

  ‘Who killed Drogo?’

  ‘He took us to the cave. In the valley. He knew the ancient magic. The old gods.’

/>   ‘Who? Drogo?’

  ‘He offered truth.’ Impossible though it seemed, I thought I saw a smile touch Quino’s fractured lips. ‘But I will find it first.’

  ‘Who offered truth? Did he kill Rainauld also?’

  ‘He killed the bull. He took us to the cave. He—’

  Another spasm racked him. I looked around, hoping desperately that Anna would return to minister to him, but there was no sight of her. There was only the guard, standing by the door and watching uncomprehendingly.

  But the coughing seemed to have dislodged some canker on Quino’s soul, for when he spoke again it was with a firmer voice. ‘He knew our sins. He swore that if we betrayed him we would burn in flames. But already I am falling into the fire. His hold is broken.’ Again, the ghostly smile. ‘It is funny, is it not, Greek? I came so many miles, through desert and starvation and war, to follow the cross. And here, in this godless waste, I lost my soul to an Ishmaelite.’

  ‘An Ishmaelite?’

  ‘The swordsmith.’

  Afterwards, I despised myself for leaving a broken man to die alone. At the time, I had no other thought. Without even pausing to tell the bewildered Varangian what had happened, I ran out of the building and up the stairs to the walls. An absent guard had left a spear leaning against the battlements, and I had the presence of mind to seize it before I stepped through the door.

  After so many months of searching and ignorance, I found my quarry with disarming ease. Mushid was sitting on a stool in the guardroom, his face fixed in concentration as he rasped a whetstone along the edge of his swordblade. He looked up in surprise as I burst in.

  ‘What is it? Has Kerbogha entered the city?’ He saw the spear in my hand. ‘Is this the holy lance which pierced the side of the prophet Jesus? Have you stolen it?’

  I levelled the spear at him. ‘Put down your sword.’