Shadows on a Sword (14 page)

In this way, Yaghi-Siyan learned of the crusaders’ reluctance to attack until reinforcements came, and he began to organize sorties against them. Turkish soldiers crept out from the western gate to cut off any small bands of foraging knights. The governor was clever enough, as well, to plant rumors among the Byzantine Christians that massive Turkish reinforcements were on the way. As the autumn weather turned to winter, and their second Yuletide season found them still so far from Jerusalem, the crusaders’ initial optimism died and many began to lose heart.

“I did not become a man in order to sit and stare at city walls,” Emma grumbled as she and Theo sat beside their dying fire one evening.

“You have not become a man at all,” Theo answered. His words were short. The wait was hard on him as well. He had celebrated Yuletide in the camp with the priests, but he had not celebrated it in his heart. “And you will have no part in the fighting when it comes,” he added.

“That’s another thing I want to know about. Why won’t you talk about the battles? You have fought now, you’ve even been wounded. What was it like? Was it glorious?”

“Glorious?” Theo considered the word. “Not glorious. No.”

“But to wield a sword! To charge into battle! What could be more spendid?”

“It’s what comes after that is not so splendid.” Theo paused. “I have killed men, Emma.”

“Of course you have. But only your enemies. Only those who would kill you. That is what war is all about, surely.”

“You speak more truth than you know. That
is
what war is all about.” Theo stirred the embers of the dying fire with the toe of his boot. “I did not know what it would be like when we left Ardennes. My head was full of pomp and glory. We were doing God’s bidding …”

“And so we are!”

“The first man I killed looked at me as I struck him, Emma, and he knew he was dying. I saw it in his eyes. He was not the enemy then. He was just a man, like me. And there have been so many others—so many.”

“I do not understand. I would give anything to be a man and wield a sword for the glory of God.” Emma leaped to her feet. “We are fighting God’s war, and you—you will be one of the privileged ones to restore Jerusalem to the true faith. How can you speak so gloomily? How can you look so torn?”

In the heat of the moment, she had forgotten all caution. She stood, hood thrown back, face aglow in the light of the fire. A startled voice called out from the edge of their campsite.

“By all that’s holy—Emma!” Emma gave a cry and turned away. She pulled the hood over her head. Too late. Amalric stood across the fire from her, eyes wide with shock.

“This is madness. Madness.” Amalric had repeated the words a dozen times. “You cannot do this, Theo. A servant girl!”

Theo’s patience snapped. “She is no mere serving wench. She is kin to Baldwin himself.”

“Even worse! Dressed as a man, living with the troops. What if Lord Baldwin finds out? She should be with him, safe under his care. You have lost your wits, Theo.”

“She was not safe with him.” Theo glared at Amalric. “It is far safer for her to be with me.”

“Far more convenient for you, you mean,” Amalric said with a sneer, “to have your little wench nearby at night.”

Theo reached for his dagger, but Emma forestalled him. So far she had not spoken, but now she put herself between Amalric and Theo, eyes blazing.

“Things are not what you think! Not at all! I cast myself on Theo’s mercy because I knew very well what Lord Baldwin’s designs on me were. Theo has protected me and cared for me well.”

“I’ll wager he has.”

Emma’s hand flashed out. The sound of the slap was echoed by a sudden cracking from a log on the fire. Amalric put a hand to his cheek, eyes wide with astonishment. For a second, there was absolute silence. The three stood frozen. Then Amalric reacted. He raised his own hand and would have struck Emma back if Theo had not leaped forward and grabbed it.

“You would stop me from slapping this insolent slut as she deserves?”

“She is no slut. She is well born and virtuous. You will not touch her.”

“The count will hear of this. I promise you that.”

Amalric wheeled as if to leave.

“Stay!” Theo called out. “Amalric! We are friends—you cannot leave like this!”

“You ask me to overlook this insult?” Amalric was breathing so hard the words came with difficulty.

“I do, for the sake of our friendship. I would not lose that. She will apologize.”

“I will not.” Emma’s voice cut through theirs.

“I do not accept apologies from servants,” Amalric growled.

“I do not apologize to those who insult me!”

“Amalric. Emma. We have all lost our tempers. Pray, let us cool down and talk about this.” Theo grasped Amalric’s arm. “We will drink a little of the wondrous wine they make here, and think about what we must do.” His mind was in a fever, trying to find a way out. Emma
will
apologize, he was about to add, but the look on her face silenced him.

“Emma,” he said instead. “Please. Fetch us wine. And for yourself as well.”

Amalric’s eyes followed Emma as she whirled away. They were still hot and angry.

“You are laying up trouble for yourself, my friend.”

“Possibly,” Theo agreed. “But I knew not what else to do. She appeared at my campsite attired as a groom and determined to accompany me.” He had mastered his temper now, and was determined to settle the argument. “I could not send her back to Baldwin, Amalric. Without the lady Godvere there, he would have used her as he wished and then cast her off. I had to protect her.”

“She will be discovered. What will you do then?”

“We will be more careful. As long as you say nothing …”

Emma returned with skins of wine for Theo and Amalric.

“Join us,” Theo said to her.

“No,” she replied. She fastened her eyes on Amalric. “I will not apologize,” she said. “If I do not defend my own honor, who will? But I will beg of you not to give me away. You were probably within your rights to assume things, but it is not as you think. I serve Theo as his groom, nothing more. And I am a good groom, am I not, Theo?”

Theo managed a nod.

“I beg of you not to give me away,” she repeated. The words were humble, but her stance was not. Her eyes were still locked onto Amalric’s.

He was the first to look away. He shrugged and laughed.

“I do not make war with maids,” he said. “I think you both mad, but I will not interfere. I forgive you.” He tossed the last words out as he raised the skin of wine and drank it down.

“I did not ask for forgive—” Emma caught Theo’s eye and stopped. “Thank you,” she said instead. She turned to go back into her own tent. “And I forgive you,” she threw back over her shoulder.

Amalric stiffened. He glared after her. Theo held his breath.

“Truth, that is no ordinary maid,” Amalric said finally. His face lightened. “And this is no ordinary wine. Do you have more?”

I
t did not snow in Antioch, but the rains set in just after Christmas. Every day, every night, it poured down incessantly. Every piece of clothing Theo and Emma owned was wet; it was impossible to dry anything. The damp cold seeped into their bones. Emma developed a cough that caused her to double over in pain, gasping for breath, until it was over. Duke Godfrey was seriously ill. His healers were at his bedside continuously but, despite all their efforts, he seemed not to improve. Bohemond and Raymond sent out a foraging army, but it ran into a Turkish contingent coming to relieve the troops in the city. Weak from hunger and taken by surprise, the crusaders were badly beaten. They suffered enormous losses; the survivors were too weak to continue foraging. Theo and Amalric watched as the remnants of the army straggled back into camp. Emma, hood low over her face, hovered in the background.

“The news?” Theo called to a passing knight.

“Not good,” the knight replied. He passed a hand over a forehead caked with dry blood. He was horseless, walking awkwardly with pain or exhaustion, or both.

Amalric strode away without a word.

As Theo, followed closely by Emma, made his way back to his tent, he felt a sudden shifting of the ground under his feet. A curious, rumbling noise began, low at first, then increasing in volume.

“Theo!” Emma cried. The tent in front of them began to sway as if a wind were inside it, then collapsed. Theo reached for a tree to steady himself, but the tree itself was shuddering! He had a moment of complete disorientation. The world was tilting, slipping away from underneath him.

As suddenly as it began, it was over. The rumbling died away, leaving an unnatural silence. For a moment, the camp was completely without sound; not even a bird sang. Then the screaming began. Theo and Emma rushed for their tents. The whole camp was in chaos. Cooking pots had fallen into fires; tents had collapsed, trapping those inside. People were running to and fro in a frenzy, screaming. Miraculously, Theo saw no one who had sustained any injuries. Indeed, there seemed to be more danger to the people in this panic now than there had been during the upheaval.

When Theo and Emma reached their campsite, they found it intact. Centurion grazed imperturbably on the few scrabbly weeds that remained. If the earthquake had bothered him, he showed no signs of it now. Emma’s nag side-stepped nervously away from them as they approached, jerking against its tether. It rolled its eyes wildly.

“Stay here, Emma,” Theo said. “I must go and see if my foster father is all right.”

The count’s campsite was adjacent to Theo’s. He reached it in a few steps, and was relieved to see that there, too, all seemed in order. Aimery and some of the other men were calming down horses and hysterical servants.

“Theo! Is all well with you?” Aimery called out as he caught sight of him.

“All well, thanks be to God,” Theo replied. “Where is my father?”

“He has just left to see the duke and ensure that his camp, also, suffered no harm.”

Theo looked around. Aside from one tent that lay in a heap, all was in order. Two of the servants were busy setting it to rights.

“An earthquake, they’re calling it. Have you ever seen the like before?” Aimery asked. “Truly, I thought it was the end of the world.”

“I’ve heard of such things,” Theo replied, “but never felt one before.” He was making an effort to appear calm, but his knees still shook and he had trouble keeping his balance. It was as if his body no longer trusted the stability of the earth.

Around him, the screaming had stopped, and the shouts were gradually dying down. The camp was beginning to return to its normal level of noise and bustle.

But that was not the end of it. That night, as Theo and Emma sat by their campfire, scraping the dregs of a watery stew from their bowls and talking of the incredible thing that had happened, Theo became aware of a crackling intensity in the air. He stopped speaking and looked up, beyond the trees. The rain had ended and the sky was clear.

“Emma,” he breathed. “Look!”

Emma raised her head. Above them, the heavens shimmered and shivered with curtains of color. Sheets of green and blue stretched from the horizon to the sky above them. As they watched, the bands dimmed, narrowed, faded to yellow and silver, then blossomed again into vibrant color.

“What does it mean?” Emma asked in a whisper. “First the earth moves, and now this. Is it a portent from God?”

“I know not,” Theo answered. “The earthquake—it was as if God was displeased with us. But this—this is such beauty!”

The next morning, Theo was awakened by a clamor of voices.

“They can’t do this!”

“Sacrilege!”

He thrust his head out of his tent to see men, women and children running toward the edge of the camp nearest the city walls. He pulled on his tunic and ran to join them.

“What’s happening?” Emma materialized out of the morning mist beside him.

“Pull down your hood,” Theo barked. “Do not speak!” He glanced around quickly to make certain no one had seen or heard her, but the people were too fevered to notice.

“It is the patriarch of Antioch himself!” a woman cried as she rushed by them.

In the general confusion and pandemonium, it was impossible to determine what was happening, but as they reached the walls, the situation became all too clear. Hanging over the wall, suspended in midair, was a cage constructed of rough planks bound together with rope. It swayed in the morning breeze. Inside, a man crouched, clad in a long, brown mantle, clasping a golden cross. As Theo and Emma drew near, they could hear him chanting. One horrified look was enough.

“It
is
the patriarch!” Theo gasped. “How could they inflict this indignity on him! How could they insult God Himself in this manner!”

The patriarch of Antioch, one of the holiest of God’s priests—Theo could not believe his eyes. People were dropping to their knees all around; Theo and Emma followed their example.

“God is displeased with us,” Bishop Adhemar declared at that morning’s mass. “He has set the earth itself to shaking, and the heavens to display His warning. Now He allows the holiest of His servants to be punished for our sins. We are living in sin here. Our soldiers are pillaging and stealing instead of working toward the completion of God’s will. There is sloth and laziness instead of planning for the conquering of Antioch and the liberation of Jerusalem. We will fast for three days and pray for His mercy.”

Fast they did, but with famine already stalking the campsites, their self-denial made little difference. By February, the crusaders were starving. The countryside all around had been stripped of food, and the peasants’ and villagers’ winter supplies were exhausted, despite Adhemar’s injunctions against thievery. Some began to eat their horses. Sorties from the camp were met with continual ambushes set by the Turks. The loss of knights and troops mounted daily.

“The monk Peter tried to flee,” Theo reported to Emma one evening after he had returned from the daily meeting in Godfrey’s tent. “Bohemond’s brother, Tancred, brought him back.”

“Why bother?” Emma answered. “He has been nothing but trouble since he joined us.”