Siege of Heaven

by Tom Harper

As Peter’s condition worsened, so too did Raymond’s spirits. He kept to his tent and let it be known he was praying for Peter Bartholomew. Up on the mountain our siege engines stood silent, while down in the valley the army held its breath and waited.

  At dusk on the Thursday after Easter, Nikephoros lost patience and demanded an audience. As we walked through the camp I could not help looking up the northern hill where Peter Bartholomew still clung to life. There was nothing to see: his tent was dark, and none of the surrounding pilgrims had lit fires. It was said that even the least wisp of smoke sent Peter into paroxysmal fits, clawing at his skin and screaming like a demon.

  Raymond’s tent, by contrast, was ablaze with light – golden candlesticks inscribed with the sharp-figured script of the Arabs, looted from their churches; wrought ivory lamps that must have been gifts from the emperor Alexios; and a host of other vessels burning oil, wax, tallow and coals, banishing the shadows from every corner of the room.

  He would not have admitted us; indeed, his stewards tried to turn us away three times, but Nikephoros was more than a match for Frankish functionaries and harangued them into submission. We found Raymond alone in his chamber: if he had been praying, he had not coupled it with fasting, for the furniture and carpets were strewn with plates and bowls, half-finished meals congealing within them. Red wine stained Raymond’s tunic and blushed his lips like a harlot’s.

  ‘Is there any news of Peter Bartholomew?’ His voice was dull and empty, his words slurred.

  Nikephoros shrugged. ‘He is only delaying the inevitable. Not for much longer, I think.’ He swept a plate of gawping fish-heads from the chair where it rested and sat down opposite Raymond. I stood behind him.

  ‘But there is still hope?’ The desperation in Raymond’s voice was pitiful.

  ‘No!’ Nikephoros slammed a fist on the arm of his chair, rattling the cups on the floor beside it. ‘Forget Peter Bartholomew. If you never spoke his name or thought of him again, it would be a great blessing to you.’

  Raymond staggered out of his chair. Nikephoros rose to meet him, and for a moment they stood facing each other, one face blazing bitter fury, the other cold with contempt.

  ‘I am the lord of thirteen counties and captain of the Army of God.’ Raymond invoked the titles without strength, as if they had become no more than the hollow shell of a lost faith. ‘You cannot speak to me–’

  ‘I am speaking to you as a friend,’ Nikephoros insisted. He raised a hand, and though he did not touch the count he shrank away, dropping back into his chair. Nikephoros remained standing.

  ‘Peter Bartholomew betrayed you,’ he said, more softly now. ‘He tricked you, as he tricked so many others. Forget him.’

  Raymond sank his face into his hands. ‘Why did he insist on that ordeal? He did not have to, and he should not have let himself be goaded into it. What of it if some of the princes were jealous of his power? The pilgrims trusted him. That was all that mattered. Who will guide them now that Peter Bartholomew has gone?’

  ‘Who cares? They are just peasants – a rabble.’

  ‘But put enough peasants together and they will become a power to be reckoned with. They have nothing to offer save their faith – but that can be a mighty weapon when you are fighting for God. Peter understood that. While he lived, the pilgrims put their faith in him, and through him in me. They paid me no tribute and added no spears to my army, but their loyalty proved my greatness to the other princes.’

  ‘Then send one of your priests to minister to them. They may have abundant faith to give, but it is easily won. If you do not, someone else will.’

  Raymond looked up in hope. ‘And there is still the lance. Peter carried it intact from the flames; I have it in my chapel.’

  ‘Forget the lance!’ Nikephoros kicked out at a cup that stood on the floor: it flew against the side of the tent and spattered a dark stain down its wall. ‘Forget Peter Bartholomew. Forget the lance. Forget Arqa. They are only distractions, poisoning the army with false hopes and lies. All that matters is Jerusalem. That is where you should be looking.’

  ‘But without Peter Bartholomew–’

  ‘Without Peter Bartholomew you are free of a treacherous ally. If he did one good thing in his life, it was to walk into that fire and rid us of his madness.’

  Nikephoros looked around wildly, seeking something else to kick. Finding nothing, he strode towards the door. Just before he reached it he turned. His cheeks were flushed in the lamplight, and his breath was faster than it could ever have been in the courtyards of the imperial palace. With great effort, he tried to check his anger.

  ‘You are still the greatest lord in this army. You still command more men, and more honour, than any of your rivals. If you lead them to Jerusalem now, everything that has happened here will be forgotten.’

  He turned to go, and almost walked straight into a servant hurrying in through the door. Nikephoros cursed the unfortunate and cuffed him aside, while Raymond fixed him with a weary glare.

  ‘I told you to leave me alone.’

  The servant bowed, rubbing his ear where Nikephoros had hit it. ‘Mercy, Lord. There are men outside you must see.’

  ‘What men? If it is Godfrey or Tancred come to gloat, I will not give them that satisfaction. If they have come to pity me, I do not need it.’

  ‘Forgive me, Lord, but these men are not from Duke Godfrey’s camp – or Tancred’s or Duke Robert’s.’ He swallowed. ‘They say they have come from Egypt.’

  The Egyptians were waiting for us outside the tent, on a makeshift parade ground illuminated by many torches. I could see at once why the servant had trembled with such wide-eyed awe: even to me, who had sailed up the Nile and walked in the shadows of the pharaohs’ glory, there was something savage and exotic in their appearance. Some were still mounted on the camels they had ridden, perhaps all the way from Egypt; others had dismounted and stood proudly in front of their animals. As for their masters, their silver armour moved like dragon scales, their swords were curved like lions’ teeth, and their solemn faces were black as the depths of Sheol. One of them carried the black banner of the Fatimids, though the fabric disappeared in the darkness so that the white writing seemed to flutter over their heads as if by witchcraft. If they had announced they came not from Egypt but from the deepest reaches of hell, and not on an embassy but to reap the earth, few would have disbelieved them.

  But three men stood among them who did not look like spectres of the apocalypse. Two of them, indeed, wore thick wooden crosses over their tunics to prove their true faith. Their faces were pale, like moons against the darkness, and pitted by hardship. One in particular seemed to have suffered terribly. His left arm had been reduced to a stump, not even reaching the elbow, and his once-powerful frame was now stooped and skewed. Some tufts of his hair still grew russet-brown, but the greater part was white, like dust. Worst of all were the eyes, bulging out of his face and interrogating the world with a terrible, candid bitterness.

  ‘Achard?’

  I spoke tentatively, hardly believing what my own eyes told me. In my mind I was suddenly transported many hundreds of miles away, to a moonless night and a river, a desperate battle and monsters from the deep feasting on the dead. Achard had called on me to save him.

  I looked away, ashamed by the memory. As I did, I saw another face I knew. He had been watching me, waiting for me, and his white teeth smiled broadly in the darkness.

  Two hours later I sat by my fire with Anna, Thomas, Sigurd and Bilal. Sigurd eyed him warily, and made a great display of oiling and polishing his axe-blade while we talked – though in truth, despite the extremes of their skin, the two men had much in common. Both were built like warriors, and held themselves with the easy confidence of strong men. Anna, who had always maintained that God made all men the same beneath their skins – Christian or Ishmaelite, orthodox or heretic – covered herself modestly and watched. Only Thomas seemed troubled: he stared at the ground, fidgeted with whatever came to hand, and
said almost nothing.

  ‘You escaped, God be praised,’ said Bilal, and I remembered that the last time he saw me I had been going to my death. ‘I knew that you never reached the other side of the river; and I heard that a detachment of the caliph’s horsemen had been massacred by Nizariyya bandits in the eastern desert. But there was no way of knowing . . .’ He gave a tight smile. ‘Many men get lost in the desert.’

  I thought back to those terrible days: the thirst, the heat, the emptiness that flayed away the layers of my soul until the hollow core was stripped bare. In the deepest places of my heart I still bore the scars.

  ‘Bilal saved us,’ I told Anna. ‘I owe him my life.’

  Bilal shrugged off the compliment with a graceful lift of his shoulders. ‘With the vizier away the caliph had lost his senses. Al-Afdal approved what I had done when he returned. Though not before the Franks had suffered cruelly in the caliph’s dungeon.’

  I shivered as I remembered the sight of Achard’s tormented body. ‘What did the caliph want from them?’

  ‘Revenge for those who had escaped. To win the love of his people by persecuting Christians. To show his independence of the vizier.’ Bilal flicked his hand at the empty air. ‘Who can say?’

  ‘What happened to Achard?’

  ‘They dragged him half-dead from the river. The crocodiles had torn off one of his hands, and part of his leg as well. They healed him as best they could but the arm became infected. They had to amputate three times to cut off the poison. When that was done they sent him to the caliph’s torturers.’ Even Bilal, hardened to suffering by a lifetime on the battlefield, did not hide his pity. ‘His body may have been broken, but his will did not suffer. If anything, his ordeal only strengthened his faith. And not through any mercy of the torturers.’

  Thomas picked up a stick and began scoring the earth by his feet.

  ‘How long was he in there?’

  ‘Only a week. It was long enough. Then the vizier returned and freed them. He was furious with the caliph for making enemies where we did not need them.’

  ‘Then perhaps he should have arranged it so that Achard never returned.’

  ‘He considered it,’ Bilal admitted. ‘Achard’s anger is like a tumour inside him, feeding on itself and consuming him. I have known violent men, and good men driven to anger, but never such a hate-filled man as that. The world offers him nothing but revenge. He is not a man I would want to face in battle.’

  He leaned forward, locking his gaze on mine. ‘And you should fear him too, Demetrios. He has not forgotten that you escaped and he did not.’

  λγ

  News of the Fatimids’ arrival spread quickly through the camp – and even beyond. At first light next morning, the garrison of Arqa – which had not troubled us for almost a fortnight while we broke off the siege work to celebrate Easter – began a furious bombardment of rocks and arrows.

  ‘They are afraid we have come to make an alliance with you to steal their lands, Christians and Fatimids against the Arabs,’ said Bilal.

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  Count Raymond had his men erect a new tent to receive the ambassadors, on the northern ridge well beyond the main camp. He claimed it was sited to be safe from attack, though I suspected he was more worried about what the pilgrims would think if they saw their leaders sitting down with Ishmaelites.

  Though it was hardly a private affair. Jealousy and distrust had fractured the army: no man was willing to come alone, or to appear with the smallest retinue. The princes brought their guards, their secretaries, their bishops, priests and chaplains, their knights and standardbearers. It did not help the atmosphere in the room: by the time we had climbed the slope, and then crowded ourselves into the confines of the tent, the air was sweltering and ill-tempered. What must the Fatimid ambassador have thought of us? I wondered. He sat on a cushion near the door, a round-faced man with a soft beard and hard eyes.

  ‘In the name of the one God, the almighty and merciful, greetings,’ he said. An aide relayed his words in translation. ‘And greetings from my master, the caliph al-Mustali, and his faithful servant the vizier al-Afdal.’

  Each of the princes introduced himself in turn. Even that took almost half an hour, for none was inclined to brevity. Expressions of welcome quickly meandered into self-aggrandising bravado, mixed with clumsy innuendo at the backward errors of the Muslims. The Fatimid ambassador listened more courteously than they deserved, giving the appearance of attending every word, though it seemed from his eyes that he already knew exactly who they all were.

  ‘My master has followed your progress with interest,’ he said, when at last it was his turn to speak again. He did not say that his master had been amazed at how faltering and shambolic that progress had been, though he somehow managed to insinuate it in his face. ‘From here, you are only forty miles from his border.’

  ‘All we desire is to reach Jerusalem.’

  The ambassador nodded. ‘And Jerusalem is in my master’s possession.’

  ‘For the moment.’

  There was an awkward pause.

  ‘There does not need to be a war between us,’ the ambassador tried again. ‘We have many enemies in common. Far better to destroy them than each other.’

  ‘If the caliph hands over Jerusalem, we will gladly make an alliance and fight beside him,’ Godfrey offered.

  The ambassador replied with a smile of totally insincere regret. ‘The caliph cannot do that. Jerusalem is one of the holiest cities of Islam. The heir of the prophet, peace be upon him, would dishonour both Allah and his people if he surrendered it. Even to worthy men like you.’

  ‘He will be dishonoured a great deal more when we cast him out of it in ruin,’ Tancred warned.

  ‘We pray that will not be necessary,’ Raymond added quickly. ‘But if the caliph has followed our progress, he knows how far we have come and what trials we have suffered. We did not come for riches or glory or conquest.’ He tapped the white cross sewn onto his robe. ‘We came for this: for the love of Christ, and the humble desire to worship where he died. We cannot turn away now, so close to our goal.’

  ‘Not as close as you think. You cannot measure the distance to Jerusalem in miles alone.’ The Fatimid leaned forward on his cushion. ‘Even if you take Arqa, there are a dozen cities just as strong between here and Jerusalem. Will you reduce them all? Then there are the natural obstacles. You have heard of the Raz-ez-Chekka, the Face of God? It is two days’ march from here, a place where the coastal road runs so close between the cliffs and the sea that you can only pass in single file. Twenty men there could block your passage for ever. And even if you did reach Jerusalem, you would find yourselves in a desolate land, dying of thirst before impregnable walls.’ He shook his head, as if he could not comprehend the hardships he described. ‘You have come a long way through extraordinary dangers, yes. But that does not mean the worst is behind you.’

  ‘All the more reason to hurry on then,’ said Tancred, staring at Raymond. Many in the tent muttered their agreement.

  ‘You would only hurry on to your doom. And you would make enemies where you do not need them. When I spoke of the hardships you have suffered, it was not to belittle them. My master the vizier’ – I noticed he had dropped the pretence of serving the caliph – ‘has seen how you long to pray at your shrines in Jerusalem. He can see it would be neither just nor prudent to deny you your goal after you have come so far.’

  ‘It is not for him to deny or grant. Only God has that power,’ said Godfrey.

  ‘God is truly strongest and most mighty,’ the envoy agreed. ‘But, mashallah, al-Afdal controls Jerusalem and its approaches.’

  ‘Not for long,’ Tancred interrupted.

  The envoy’s face hardened, and he lifted his hands as if calming a misbehaved child. ‘Please. I did not come here to swap boasts and insults. I have come, at the command of the vizier, to make you this offer – if you will hear it.’

  Ta
ncred smirked. ‘What could an Ishmaelite have to say that was worth hearing – except his death cry?’

  ‘Silence!’ Raymond swept his stern eye around the room, before returning his gaze to the envoy. ‘What does your master propose?’

  The envoy sat very still for a moment, so that only his eyes moved, darting about the tent like a snake sizing up its prey.

  ‘If you will swear peace with the Fatimid caliphate, al- Afdal will give safe conduct and protection to any man who wishes to see Jerusalem. All he asks is that you leave all weapons, except what is prudent for a traveller to carry, at the borders of his lands; and that you come in small numbers, no more than twelve at a time.’

  He pressed his fingers together and leaned forward earnestly. ‘You have won many victories, but you have also suffered many losses. How many men have died already so that you can see Jerusalem? How many more will die if you insist on fighting your way to the end?’ All trace of impatience was gone from his voice; his eyes pleaded with us to accept his offer. ‘You call the prophet Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace. What better way to honour him, and yourselves, than if you come to Jerusalem in peace?’

  ‘Christ may have been the Prince of Peace, but he also said, “I bring not peace but the sword.”’

  The Fatimid ambassador had been sent out while the princes considered his proposal. But instead of the princes it was a humble priest who had spoken first – Arnulf, the red-headed priest who had challenged Peter Bartholomew’s claims to divine authority. He had never spoken in a council before; I wondered who had given him permission to do so now.

  Worry creased the Duke of Normandy’s brow. ‘We swore an oath to pray at the Holy Sepulchre. How will God judge us if we choose to fight, and lose, when the Egyptian offered us a way to fulfil our oath.’

  ‘You cannot honour an oath by dishonouring yourself,’ Tancred jeered. ‘Do you remember what this signifies?’ He tapped the cross sewn on his tabard. ‘We swore to liberate the holy city from the vile race who possessed it – not to go and gawp as sightseers.’