Siege of Heaven (28 page)

Raymond pressed his hands together as if in prayer, and bowed his head. At a sign from Peter Bartholomew, the pilgrims fell silent.

‘Ready your arms and gather up what food you can find.’ His voice trembled, perhaps from piety, though it sounded more like the edge of tears. ‘In three days, we will march to Jerusalem.’

The chains of tension that had bound the crowd fell away, and all at once they erupted in a frenzied outburst of cheers, hymns and wild prayers. Banners waved in front of the fires, fanning the flames; Count Raymond was carried from his horse and lifted up to the church roof, where he stood beside Peter Bartholomew to receive the jubilant acclaim of the crowd. All memory of his reluctance was forgiven in an instant. Even those around me, at the very fringe of the gathering, had tears of joy glistening in their eyes as they prostrated themselves before Raymond and Peter.

I felt a tug on my stirrup and looked down to see Aelfric. I had not noticed him leave, but he must have gone somewhere and returned in haste, for he was breathing hard. His breath made clouds in the cold night air.

‘Come with me,’ he gasped. ‘I have found them.’

Aelfric led me to a door in a sandstone wall. I could not see the house above, but it seemed untouched by the mob – perhaps because of the two black crosses daubed in ashes on either side of the entrance. Aelfric thumped twice on the door. After a moment it cracked open, then swung in so fast I almost lost my balance. The room inside was dark; I could not make out the figure within, though I could see the gleam of armour and the familiar half-moon silhouette of a Varangian axe in his hands.

‘Sigurd?’ He looked slighter than I remembered, and I wondered how long it had taken him to recover from his wounds.

He stepped forward into the street. The glow from the fires that illuminated the night sky made his beard seem to
copper, the same colour as Sigurd’s – but it was an illusion. Instead of Sigurd’s mane, his hair – which in daylight would be the colour of straw – hung in girlish curls to his shoulders. Instead of battle-scars, his smooth face was marked by nothing more than pimples and unpractised shaving.

It was a year and a half since I had seen him. Then he had been a boy, just starting to resemble the man he would become. Now he was almost unrecognisable.

‘Thomas?’ I stammered.

‘
Petheros?
Father-in-law?’

Wary disbelief shrouded his face. We were close enough that his armoured chest almost brushed mine, but we did not touch.

‘How . . . ?’

‘The emperor sent my company from Byzantium. We arrived two days after you left for Egypt.’

‘I wish you had not come.’ Belatedly, and somewhat awkwardly, I clasped his arm. ‘But it’s good to see you. Have you had news of Helena and Zoe? How were they when you left? What of the baby? Was it delivered safely?’ The questions poured out of me, a year’s worth of hopes and fears written in each one. But Thomas was shying away. His eyes flickered down to the ground, then looked up defiantly as I fell silent.

‘The baby is healthy, praise God. It was hard for Helena–especially the journey so soon afterwards – but she’s well now. She will be happy to see you safely returned from Egypt. When we heard where you had gone, she was almost
inconsolable.’

In the flood of emotion, it was hard to keep hold of everything he said. But even so, I could tell there was something wrong in what he said. ‘How did she know where I had gone?’

I suddenly remembered Tancred’s taunt on the road from Rugia.
Have you had news of your family recently? They are not as safe as you suppose.
I had thought he meant Anna, who was not family but should have been. Instead . . .

‘Where are my daughters?’

Thomas stepped back. While we spoke, someone had lit lamps inside the room, and the household had gathered to see who had called so late. They stood in the middle of the room, staring at me. Sigurd, as vast and imposing as I remembered him, dressed in his armour even at that hour of the night. Anna, her dark hair tumbling loose over her face, not hiding the tears. And beside them, two smaller figures with blankets around their shoulders. One clutched a perilously small baby to her breast, and both were staring at me like Mary and Martha at Lazarus. My daughters: Zoe and Helena.

It was eighteen months since I had seen my children. When I left Constantinople Helena had been a bride, barely out of the church. Though only three years separated them, Zoe had seemed so young she might equally have been Helena’s daughter as her sister. Now Helena was a mother: new cares had chiselled away the curves of her face, leaving it lean and serious, while a taut strength imbued the arms that cradled the baby. Zoe’s face too was creased with concern,
but in her it had the perverse effect of making her look younger, more innocent.

‘What did you call the baby?’ I asked at last.

‘Everard. It was Thomas’s father’s name,’ said Helena.

‘Everard,’ I repeated, manipulating the foreign sounds around my mouth. Thomas’s father, the baby’s grandfather, had been a pilgrim in the vanguard of the Army of God, part of a rabble who fell under the spell of a charismatic holy-man and believed they were invincible because he told them so. The Turks had shattered that illusion as soon as they crossed into Asia Minor, and paved a road with their bones. Thomas had been one of the few to survive: he had escaped to Constantinople, where I had found him and he had found Helena.

‘Ever since I left home I’ve longed to see you,’ I said at last. ‘But not here. I was . . . on my way back to you. You should not have come for me.’

I saw immediately that I had said something wrong. Zoe took a bunch of hair in her mouth and began chewing it, while Helena looked up defiantly.

‘We didn’t come for you.’

‘Then why . . . ?’

‘We came because of Thomas,’ Zoe blurted out. ‘He made us.’

I rounded on Thomas. ‘You? What have you done? My daughters—’

Thomas’s face darkened. ‘
My
wife – and
my
son. Their place is with me.’

‘Their place is in safety. At home.’

In my anger, I had spoken too loudly and disturbed the baby. He pulled away from Helena’s breast and began to squeal, while Helena dabbed at his mouth and rocked him in her arms.

‘I didn’t marry Helena to lift her on a pedestal and then carry her with me in my memories,’ said Thomas. ‘I have left enough family behind. I married her to live with her. And this is where we are.’

‘Only because you brought them here.’

‘I am a Varangian now. I go where the emperor commands. Like you. You should thank me,’ he added aggressively. ‘If I had not brought Helena and Zoe here, you might never have seen them again. Or your grandson.’

I put out my arm and leaned on the door frame to steady myself. Outside, I could hear excited shouts echoing off the square, and the crash and tumble of more walls being torn down. It sounded like the end of the world.

‘You should not have come,’ I said again. ‘In three days’ time, Raymond’s army will set out for Jerusalem. I will have to go with them – Nikephoros will not give me a choice. As for you . . .’ I tried to think my way out of the dark labyrinth I had fallen into, but every way I turned, the way was blocked. The Normans controlled the ports and Antioch, while Duke Godfrey’s army sat camped on the road north. I could not send my family that way. Nor could I abandon them in the ruins of Ma’arat.

Sigurd laid his axe on the table and began unlacing his boots. ‘It looks as though we’ll all see Jerusalem.’

‘Or die in the attempt.’

The smoke still rose over Ma’arat when we left it three days later. Defeated by Bohemond and humbled by Peter Bartholomew, Raymond had indulged his pique by completing the work the pilgrims had begun. He razed the town, so that none should have it if he could not. A chill fog came down, mingling with hot smoke from the burning until you could not tell one from the other, but walked everywhere wrapped in cloud.

Trumpets sounded, and after a few minutes a dim figure appeared as a shadow in the mist. He was on foot – barefoot, I saw as he drew closer – and the only sound he made was the slow staccato beat of his staff tapping the ground. He did not wear armour, nor any of his magnificent finery, but merely a grey pilgrim’s robe. His bare head
was
slumped low, either in contemplation or because he could not bear to see his army watching him thus. With smoke in the air and a warm breeze breathing out of Ma’arat, he might have been Lot fleeing fire and brimstone in the punished city of Sodom. He did not look back.

Next, seated on an emaciated donkey, came Peter Bartholomew, carrying the reliquary of the holy lance on a purple cushion. There was no humility in his bearing, forced or otherwise: he stared at the soldiers lining the road with aloof dignity, almost defying them to adore him. None of the Varangians indulged him, but many of the Provençals offered shouts of praise or threw stalks of grass– there were no flowers – at his feet. Some even sank to their knees as he passed and offered ostentatious prayers for his safety.

Nikephoros, mounted beside me, leaned across and murmured in my ear, ‘Count Raymond looks more like Peter’s groom than his lord.’

I nodded, nervous of speaking ill of Peter Bartholomew among that crowd. ‘At least he has done what we could not, and forced Count Raymond on to Jerusalem.’

‘Hah.’ Nikephoros broke off and inclined his head respectfully as the count came level with us. When he had passed, Nikephoros continued, ‘Raymond should be more careful. If he allows himself to be seen looking like Peter Bartholomew’s servant, soon people will start to believe it.’

‘I think Peter Bartholomew already does.’

‘All the more danger. And what do you suppose he intends next?’

I looked at Nikephoros in surprise. ‘Intends?’

‘He has a hold on the pilgrims’ affection. Count Raymond has leaned on that as a crutch to his popularity for some time. Now that Peter Bartholomew has seen that he can bend the count to his will, do you think he will stop there?’

I shrugged. ‘Something has changed. He used to be content with his fame, to soak up the adulation he earned by finding the lance.’

‘Then perhaps he got a fright when it began to seep away from him.’ Nikephoros gave a grim, self-mocking laugh. ‘It can be a painful ordeal, losing the power you once enjoyed.’

For the next week the Army of God trudged south. There was little pretence at haste – some days we made so little progress that at dusk the rearguard pitched their tents where the vanguard had camped the night before – but day by day we inched our way further from Ma’arat, closer to Jerusalem. Peasants, priests and soldiers mingled freely, so that it felt not like a military expedition but as if a whole town had been uprooted and set in motion. Smiths loitered at the roadside offering to re-shoe horses or sharpen blades; peddlers and barterers conducted a lively exchange of clothes, boots, tools and gold; women brought baskets of bread or eggs or even chickens to sell, for now that we were out of the well-scoured lands of Ma’arat food was plentiful.

But for all we might be a wandering town, it was a town
under constant siege. Every day, bands of Saracens would descend from their hilltop castles to harry our column, peppering us with arrows, breaking our carts and stealing livestock or unfortunate stragglers. Once or twice Tancred’s cavalry sallied out to try and punish the attackers and free the captives, but after two of his knights were killed he called off the sorties. It was even worse in the dark. However closely we huddled our camp together and however many fires we lit, each dawn revealed fresh losses: sentries with their throats cut, stores ransacked and women missing. Though I should have been happy to see my family again, it preyed on my nerves to have them there. I slept little, standing watch outside the tent into the dead hours until Sigurd or Thomas relieved me, then lying awake with my ears pricked open, trying to warm myself against Anna’s body. At least Sigurd seemed restored to his natural humour. Moody and abrasive he might be, but against the uneasy cloud that hovered over my family he was a simple, reassuring bulwark.

Five days out of Ma’arat, we reached a place called Shaizar. High bluffs rose on either side of a broad river valley, and on a spur a formidable castle commanded the crossing. Sigurd looked at it from a distance and groaned.