Knights of the Cross (34 page)

‘This was not that sort of heresy,’ I said. ‘It was deeper. Darker.’

Anna banged her fist on the stone beside her. ‘It does not matter, Demetrios! The ship founders, and all you care about is the set of the sail.’

‘If we are bound to die, it is important to die piously,’ I insisted.

‘Are we bound to die?’

I looked out across the ravaged city again. It was not a quiet night: screaming and crashing and shouting still resounded in the darkness, punctuated by the occasional clash of steel. Who could guess the calamities they signalled, the battles raging unseen around the fragment of wall we sat on? For all I knew, we could be the last Christians left in the city.

‘I do not know if we are doomed. All we can do is stay here as long as our defences stand, and see who comes to find us.’

‘Nonsense,’ Sigurd growled. ‘Feeble nonsense. If we are to die, we should die like men, taking our fight to the enemy. When I come to see my ancestors, I will not have them scorn me as a coward.’

‘And what will you do if they condemn you for rushing too fast to meet them?’ Anna demanded. ‘You will not be able to come back.’

‘You fear to die too soon. I only fear to die badly.’

‘Enough!’ I lifted my hand to still them, and in the pause I heard shouts from below. I scrambled to my feet and looked down through one of the embrasures. Two horses stood patiently in front of the tower door; I could not identify their riders, for both wore cloaks even though the night was hot. One leaned forward to speak with our guard, and whatever he said must have satisfied the Varangian for he took the horses’ bridles and tethered them to a ring in the wall, then ushered the men into the tower. The slap of footsteps rose from the stairwell behind me, sounding ever louder, until a cowled head popped up through the opening. It looked around, blinking in the firelight, then fixed on me.

‘Demetrios. I hoped to find you here.’

The man’s hands came up and pulled the hood back from his face. He wore neither hat nor helmet beneath it: his grey hair was matted and tousled. At his neck, behind the beard, I saw the gleam of mail. Clearly he had not changed his clothing since we had met by the palace.

‘Are there not more important matters in Antioch to attend, your Grace?’

Adhemar climbed out of the stairwell and, glancing at me for permission, seated himself against the wall between me and Sigurd. His companion sat beside him. He did not pull back his hood, and Adhemar did not name him.

‘What news of the city?’ Anna’s impatience swept her manners aside. ‘Has it fallen?’

Adhemar shook his head slowly. The flames reflected on his face dug out every crevice and wrinkle, the deep pits around his eyes: he seemed immeasurably old.

‘We hold it, praise God. We have tried Him sorely.’

‘Bohemond tries God like none save the Devil,’ added Adhemar’s companion, with a rasping anger that I recognised immediately as Count Raymond’s. ‘And for now it earns him the Devil’s luck.’

‘How many men were lost tonight?’ I asked.

‘Who knows? Those who burned to death in the flames will never be found; those who escaped will never be numbered, unless Kerbogha finds them and sends trophies of their bodies. But I fear that Bohemond has lost more through the fire than he has gained.’

‘And those who do remain have lost what hope they had,’ said Raymond savagely. His hood had slipped back a little, and I could see the glint of his single eye staring at me. ‘They had little enough before; now there is nothing. In a rout, men become like cattle and even the bravest falters. If their miseries are inflicted by their own captain, what confidence can they have?’

‘Bishop Adhemar, Count Raymond – you have not come here, so late on this night of fire and death, to seek commiseration in our shared peril. Why have you come?’

My blunt speaking silenced them for a moment. Raymond hunched his legs to his chest and fiddled with the straps of his boots, while Adhemar stroked a finger over his cheek and stared at the fire. At length, speaking carefully, he said, ‘It concerns a pilgrim, a Provençal named Peter Bartholomew.’

There was a speculative note in his voice which implied that we had entered a negotiation, that he sought to barter for information. I tried to hide my surprise. Bartholomew had turned up so often: in the cathedral, in the heretics’ cave, in the tumult by the palace – why not also in the Bishop’s cares?

‘I know Peter Bartholomew. He came to Anna for relief from a boil. I saw him again as I left you in the square by the palace this evening.’

‘Is that all you know?’

‘Should I know more?’

Adhemar sighed. ‘As you saw, he threw himself at me in the square by the palace. He was greatly agitated. Much of it seemed to come from you, from a fear of what you might have told me.’

‘I told you nothing,’ I said evenly.

‘I know that – but he did not. And I wonder how much it affected the fabulous story he insisted that I hear.’

‘What story was that?’

I was giving Adhemar no help, but there was nothing he could do. Reluctantly, he unclasped his cloak – it must have been stifling in the June heat, even at night – and began.

‘He told me he had seen a vision. More accurately, he told me that the Lord had sent him a vision. Now, many men see visions, the poor and simple more than most. Certainly, some are divinely inspired, others the product of credulous enthusiasm or wishful thinking. And sometimes, I fear, of calculated interest.’ He spoke these last words with special emphasis. ‘As a bishop, a shepherd of souls, my duty is to establish the truth of such visions.’

‘Christ manifests himself in many ways,’ I said solemnly. Count Raymond scowled at me.

‘I need not trouble you with the details of his vision,’ Adhemar continued. ‘Enough to say that Saint Andrew had visited him in a dream and had spoken of a holy relic, a glorious artefact of our Saviour’s life. The saint told him this thing was concealed within Antioch itself, and gave Peter instructions on how it might be found. No fewer than four times, apparently.’

‘He is nothing if not persistent,’ muttered Raymond.

‘So?’ I asked. ‘Follow the saint’s commandments. You will know soon enough if the vision came from Christ.’

Adhemar pressed his fingers together. ‘It is not so easy. If we seek it in secrecy, and only reveal it when it is found, who will believe that it is the relic we claim? If we seek it openly, and do not find it, we shall be scorned and reviled. You have seen the sentiment of the army, Demetrios. The panic is calmed, but their courage balances on a single straw. If they lose faith in their leaders, or believe that God has deserted them, the straw will break and we shall be plunged into a pit from which we will not rise. That is why I must know what I can of Peter’s motives.’

He fixed his gaze on me, demanding an answer. Still I prevaricated.

‘This relic might be valuable.’

‘
In
valuable,’ said Adhemar. ‘As a sign of God’s continuing favour, a symbol that He is with us still, it would be beyond measure. It would lift the hearts of the army, restore their trust. And as a standard in battle it would surely bring us victory.’

‘And great honour to the men who found it,’ I observed. ‘A Provençal pilgrim’s vision, received by a Provençal count and his bishop. The men who say that Bohemond should lead would be silenced; Count Raymond’s prestige would be unchallenged.’

‘If you say we do this only for gain, you are a fool, spat Raymond.

‘If you say you have no thought for gain, you take me for a fool.’

‘No,’ said Adhemar. ‘Of course we will gain. But that is not our motive. What benefits us benefits the army.’

‘Now you sound like Bohemond,’ Sigurd said.

Raymond rose in anger. ‘Perhaps we do. Who better than a mercenary to understand his wiles? But we are not so alike as you think. What serves Bohemond well serves your Emperor ill. What serves us serves Alexios better.’

I thought of Bohemond’s instructions to his brother-in-law on the wall, the treacherous gamble he had devised. Bohemond’s star would only rise at the Emperor’s expense. And if his fixation was such that he would cut himself off from all hope of relief, he would not hesitate to be rid of the only Byzantines remaining with his army.

Yet still I waited. Peter Bartholomew was no friend of mine: he was a heretic, and he had conspired with heretics to keep me captive. But could I condemn him to be burned alive for that? I had been the instrument of so much death already.

I looked up. In the surrounding silence, all gazes had come to rest on me: Sigurd’s, Anna’s, Raymond’s and Adhemar’s. All I desired was to be free, to be away from Antioch and safe with my family. It seemed that even so simple a prayer could not be answered without more killing.

‘Only God can judge the truth of Peter Bartholomew’s vision.’ I saw Count Raymond about to speak again, thinking that I spoke platitudes to delay him, and hurried on. ‘But as to why he might fear me, I will tell you this. It will not please you to hear it. Heresy has infested your flock. For two days the heretics held me in a cave under the city. I saw their rites, and heard their lies.’

Adhemar had gone very still and his skin was pale as the moon. ‘What manner of lies?’

‘That the world was made not by God but by the Devil. That every fleshly thing is evil. That we are children of Satan.’ I struggled against my revulsion to remember more, but every word of it was like chewing mud. It was enough.

‘That is a wicked heresy indeed,’ whispered Adhemar. ‘How could the Army of God . . . ?’

Under his hood, Count Raymond’s reaction was better hidden. ‘That is bad. But what does it have to do with Peter Bartholomew’s tale?’

Through his horror, Adhemar had guessed. ‘He was one of the heretics. He saw you talking to me and feared that you had betrayed his secret. He invented the vision to impress me with his piety, to stall his punishment. Well? Was it so?’

His question hung unanswered. Sigurd lifted the spear he had used to roast my meat and thrust it into the flames like a blacksmith, stoking the embers. They chattered and crackled, spitting sparks into the air above. I shivered.

‘If I tell you that he was a heretic, you will burn him alive.’

‘If he believes what you say he believes and has taught its corruption to others, he deserves it,’ said Raymond.

‘What can I do?’ Adhemar spoke as much to himself as to any of us. ‘If I try him for his crimes, if I roust out this nest of heretics, there will be more hatred and more killing among us when unity is our greatest need. If enough schismatics adhere to their foul church, there might even be war between us. We would gift Antioch to Kerbogha.’

Anna looked at him without pity. ‘Enough Christians have died in flames already. If Peter Bartholomew reports this vision, perhaps it is a sign of his repentance.’

‘Or of his fear of execution,’ said Sigurd.

Adhemar stood. ‘I will think on what you have told me and make my decision in the morning.’ He looked up at the sky, though a pall of smoke still hid the stars. ‘I fear it is already not far off.’

‘I have told you nothing,’ I warned him. ‘I have not accused Peter Bartholomew of anything.’

‘I know. Be assured I will not treat him as if you had. Not yet.’

The bishop began to make his way down the stairs. He stooped terribly, I noticed, as if under an enormous burden.

‘A dishonest man may still be granted a true vision,’ I called, on impulse.

Adhemar did not answer.

‘I thought you were dead.’

It was too hot to sleep. Anna and I lay naked on the tower, alone. We did not touch, but faced each other resting on our sides. The gully of air between us seemed charged with heat, and my chest ran with sweat.

‘Perhaps I should have died.’ So many others had, by my hand or my acts.

Before I could move, Anna had lifted her arm and slapped me hard on my cheek. ‘Never say that. Never.’ Her voice trembled. ‘It is awful enough being in this cursed city. Without you . . .’

‘You do not know what I have done.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘I have killed men, and I have let them die. I have consorted with heretics. I have heard things—’

Anna raised her hand again, and I did not try to avoid the blow. ‘Be quiet. If you must give in to despair, do not try and draw me into it.’ She rolled over, setting her back to me. Now there was only silence between us.

A yearning to confess my part in the downfall of the city, a guilt such as I had not felt since I was a boy, overwhelmed me. In my mind, I formed the words a hundred times over; sometimes I opened my mouth to speak them, but each time fear choked them back. Even as she loved me – because she loved me – Anna hated me for the pain that my absence had inflicted on her. It would be many days, I feared, before she could forgive me, and the vice of Antioch was not a place for loosing emotions.

‘What shall we do?’

‘Await our fate. Face it when it comes. I have overheard Bohemond conspiring with his brother-in-law. He will go to the Emperor, and he will announce that we are slaughtered. The Emperor will not come.’

Anna turned back to me. ‘How can he do that? We are already drowning – must he pile on more stones to speed us down?’

‘He would rather die than give up Antioch.’ I remembered the promise that he had made to the princes. ‘If the Emperor comes, Bohemond’s title will be snatched away.’

I sensed Anna shivering in the darkness – was it fear or rage? At last, in a faint voice, she asked again: ‘What shall we do? How can we await our fate if there is no hope?’

‘How can we do otherwise?’

‘You sound like Sigurd – obsessed with dying.’

‘It is hard not to think of it.’

‘Think of life – think of your children, your new grandchild. Surely you cling to the hope of seeing them again?’

‘No.’ I shook my head, though she could not see it. ‘That would make it unbearable.’