The Sword of Damascus (2 page)

‘He says, Master,’ someone whispered from behind, ‘that they will all go away tomorrow morning if we but open the gate and let them take what they have come across the wide northern seas to obtain. They also ask for food.’

I looked round as far as my neck would turn. It was Edward. His words had come out in a strangled gasp, and I’d not recognised the voice. His face carried a look of alarm – which was natural enough, but also of confusion, and just a little of fascinated curiosity.

‘They want food, eh?’ I snarled. ‘Well, they can go fuck themselves!’ I looked back to Joseph. ‘Any chance of getting an arrow in the big man?’ I asked. He shook his head. I’d guessed already the wet leather was as good at this distance as plate armour. But it had been worth asking. ‘Then see to poor Tatfrid,’ I said. Before he could protest further, I took Benedict by the arm and moved with him until we were looking again at the distant fire.

‘Where is King Aldfrith?’ he wailed, pulling on the few strands of hair his tonsure had left. ‘Why has he not sent men to protect us?’

It was a stupid question. Even if word had reached the royal court, they were all probably still too hung over from Christmas to set out to the rescue. And according to the villagers who’d made it through the gate, the attack party had come ashore at Yellow Tooth Creek. It was one of those darting attacks from across the northern sea that are over before anyone outside the immediate area even notices. We were on our own. If I’d believed a word of what I now daily recited, it was for us to huddle within the thick walls of the monastery and pray for a miracle.

‘If we’d just done as they asked,’ Benedict struck up again, ‘if we’d but listened to their plea for food, they might even now be back on their ship.’

‘Might?’ I sneered. ‘Might?’ I paused at the twang of Joseph’s bow and the soft thud a moment later. I listened to the low, terrified murmur of the other monks and boys behind us. I didn’t bother turning. I’d already seen Joseph in action. He didn’t miss. ‘My dear Benedict,’ I said with a change of tone, ‘you
never
open a gate to these animals. You’ve seen what they did to the other villagers they caught. My age and your vows may have made them a superfluous treasure. But I rather fancy dying with my testicles still attached.’

I looked again at the fire. The mist was blotting out most of the sound. But if I listened hard, I could hear those dancers barking like a whole pack of rabid dogs.

Chapter 2

Down in the great hall, Brother Cuthbert was making trouble again.

‘O ye of little faith!’ he bellowed, waving his arms in what he doubtless thought a dramatic gesture. ‘Do you not see the sinful folly of sheltering within these walls? Are not these devils sent here to call us to our duty? Do they not hold out, though in reeking hands, the violet crown of martyrdom?’ He wheeled round and, as if in supplication, held out both arms to the barred and bolted gate. ‘Let us cast aside this pitiful shelter and receive the blessings that are without. Why fear ye death when it is but a second birth – a birth to a new and glorious life in the world that is to come? Every cutting and searing of the flesh, every snapping of bones, every dismemberment – what can it be to us but so many steps on the hard ladder that leads to Paradise?

‘For all of us, our heavenly birthday is at hand. O Lord, Thy will be done! O Lord, Thy will be done!’

I got to him just as he was pretending to pluck out his eyes. With a hard prod of my walking stick to the back of one of his knees, I had him on the floor. As he rolled over, I jabbed hard into his belly and looked down at the face creased into a mask of unexpected agony.

‘If you value your front teeth,’ I said softly, ‘you’ll keep your cunty mouth shut.’ I glanced briefly about the hall. The local villagers were huddled into a tight mass at the end furthest from the brazier. Cuthbert had been raving in Latin, and they hadn’t followed a word. The other monks and boys, though, were looking decidedly scared. Worse, I could sense that many of them felt at least a vague duty to agree with him. I took in their pale, tense faces and looked back down to Cuthbert.

‘Haven’t you lived long enough already?’ he jeered up at me, his breath recovered.

‘No,’ I said shortly. I could have quoted Lucretius on the unending sleep that is death. But it would only have confirmed his opinion about my own beliefs. ‘Let me tell you,’ I went on instead, ‘that if I hear you so much as breathe another word of this nonsense, I’ll set the boys on you with sticks. If you go anywhere near that gate, I’ll have Brother Joseph strike you dead.’

‘You wouldn’t dare!’ he cried, sitting up. ‘You know that my person is sacrosanct. You know the damnation due to any who lay hands on a man of—’

I shut him up with the best knock I could deliver to his chest. He fell back again, his head smacking nicely on the flagstones. No point, for sure, in quoting Lucretius or any of the poets. Certainly none in pointing out the inconsistency of not wanting to be killed before he could commit suicide.

‘Don’t presume to tell me what I would and wouldn’t dare,’ I said, now louder. ‘Joseph will have a knife in your back before you lay hands on that gate. And I’ll see he gets the sort of penance for it that boys get for scrumping. If you don’t believe that, you still don’t know me.’

I left him nursing his head and made my way to the top of the table. It was evening, and we’d be safe enough now till morning. Benedict was up in the bell tower – as if the lookouts needed any encouragement to stay awake – and he’d not be down to claim his place. I carefully seated myself. Just behind me, the brazier was glowing bright. I looked round. Just three evenings before, Benedict had sat here. Then, he’d been all smiles and jollity as he dispensed the Christmas bounty of the Church to us and anyone else of quality who felt inclined to join us.

Now, the cups and platters were gone. The lamps were burning low. No one had thought to move the big table back into the refectory. But the few who were sitting round it picked nervously at the stale crusts that had been doled out. The other monks and boys stood about clutching at their rosaries or trying not to cry with terror.

Joseph poured me a cup of hot cider mixed with beer. I motioned him into a chair beside me and looked at the jug. He poured another cup for himself. We drank awhile, keeping to our own various thoughts.

‘My Lord is still convinced,’ Joseph asked eventually, his cup now empty, ‘there will be no proper attack?’ He spoke again in Greek – not that anyone was paying attention to us. I looked about the hall. It had been so very jolly on Christmas Eve. I’d been too pissy drunk at first to follow what the boy was saying when he’d burst in unannounced with the dreadful news. But I’d staggered out into the damp night air and had seen the flames of the village not a half-mile away. I’d seen the more fortunate villagers hurrying towards us with whatever they’d been able to pick up and carry. The arrival, come dawn, of the raiders outside the gate had finalised the gulf between the secure jollity of Christmas Eve and the impending horrors of the present.

‘A regular storming of the walls?’ I asked with a faintly satiric smile. ‘By these wankers? Even with fewer men than the dozen of that rabble outside, you or I would have had the gate smashed open days ago.’ As if on cue, the slow banging started again. The gate was at an angle to its porch that made a battering ram useless. Instead, it was a matter of trying to hack into three inches of seasoned oak. With the more vigorous blows, the bars on our side shifted slightly in their housing. We could hear the muffled shouting of the attackers as they went about their work.

‘Oh, I’ll not deny we’re in a weak position,’ I went on. ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere. There’s only one of us who’s up to fighting.’ I nodded towards one of the monks. He’d covered his ears to blot out the sound of the horrors that just a few inches of wood held at bay, and was rocking backwards and forwards in his place. ‘We can be sure these people won’t fight. As for the villagers’ – I wrinkled my nose – ‘it’s their people who got carved up out there. But they’ve no discipline or experience for fighting.’ For just one moment, I let my defences slip, and thought again of that poor gutted boy. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced the bleakness and despair back out of mind. I looked Joseph in the eye.

‘Against all this,’ I said, ‘the walls of the monastery are high and solid. We’ve no shortage of piss and shit to pour on the heads of anyone who tries climbing them. Gone at with hand weapons, the gates should hold till Easter.’ I took a sip and burped. This was good stuff. Whatever it might later do to my head, it dulled my wits now. I giggled softly and took another sip. ‘And do bear in mind that time is on our side. It’s cold out there, and we know there’s a growing shortage of food. Aldfrith will eventually get wind of the attack, and prestige requires him to do something about it. Given luck, he’ll get here before these creatures can run back to their little boat. We can then look forward to a most edifying public spectacle. All we have to do is sit here and wait – and hope the gates remain shut on our own side.’

‘My Lord thought more activity in order at his last siege,’ Joseph responded, a strange tone to his voice. I raised my eyebrows and looked at him. The fire had now dried my clothing, and I could feel it was beginning to toast my shoulders. He looked back at me, then broke the silence. ‘It was at the last moment in the crisis. The Great City, cut off from its remaining provinces, had the barbarians on the European shore and the Saracens everywhere else. They were outnumbered in men and ships. All food supplies within the City were exhausted. Just as the orders had been given for the final assault, I saw you appear at the highest point on the sea walls.’ He shut his eyes and thought back. ‘I saw you on a white horse, dressed in golden armour that caught the morning sun. I saw you raise your sword and how, in answer, the chain went up, unblocking the Golden Horn. Five ships came forth – five ships against ninety. Straight they raced at the Saracen flagship. The laughter of seventy thousand Saracens was like thunder that rolls across the water. Then I saw—’

‘Fuck all good it did
me
!’ I cut in with a bitter laugh. I scratched and looked at my fingernails. The light in here wasn’t good, and I couldn’t tell if there was blood on them or just dirt. ‘And even if it were needed again, this isn’t Constantinople. And that was an age ago and half the world away.’

‘It was
eight
years ago, My Lord,’ he prompted. ‘Even then, the world believed you were half as old as time itself.’

I looked hard into the bearded face. Joseph had turned up in Jarrow six months before. I’d soon worked out he had military experience. But if it was nice to have someone around who knew Greek, I hadn’t so far got this much out of him.

‘Well, well, my dear Joseph,’ I said. The heat was turning uncomfortable, and I got unsteadily to my feet. My stick was on the far side of the chair, and I couldn’t be bothered to stretch over for it. I walked a few feet down the long table and paused beside one of the less unprepossessing novices. He stared up at me, seeming as scared of the syllables of an unknown language as of the horrors that lurked beyond the three-inch thickness of the gate. I laughed and turned back to Joseph, who remained sitting – still recalling, perhaps, how I’d made my dramatic gesture from the walls of Constantinople and saved an empire on which even the Church had given up.

‘My dear friend,’ I went on, now in Syriac, ‘you’ve a talent for narrative. But to have seen what you describe, you’d need to have been up there on the sea walls beside me, or on the Asiatic shore in the main Saracen camp. I’d place your accent to Antioch – which, like all of Syria, has been in Saracen hands since before you were born. I’ll agree that it’s rude of one refugee to ask another too much about the past. But since you’ve raised the matter of my last public service to the Empire, I might wonder just how much of your fighting was done in the
Imperial
Service.’ I sat down. I scratched again. This time, I tried not to look at my fingernails.

‘Perhaps My Lord is right,’ he said, still in Greek, with another of his bows. ‘Perhaps the past is best not revisited.’

I nodded and pushed my empty cup towards him. He muttered something about my years, and I scowled at him. After a momentary hesitation, he poured out the second refill. He’d dropped the matter, and I’d not take it up again. I had little doubt, though, that Joseph had fought for the Saracens before taking holy orders. But where was the shame in that? Syria had been out of our hands so long, it could no longer be considered a shame for Christians to fight for its new rulers – even if it was to spread the Desert Faith. And I really was too old and out of things to care. It was all too far away – thousands of miles from Jarrow. Even with the Emperor’s agents snapping at my heels, it had taken me months to get across the wild desolation that was the fate of what had been the Western Provinces. So what if Joseph had been on the other side in my last stroke of Imperial policy? I was glad to have him here and now. But for him, I’d be all alone with these wretched women – young and old – of the male sex.

‘I’m going to my cell,’ I said, heaving myself to my feet. I sat down again. ‘No. Before I go, I want you to bear in mind the threat I made to Cuthbert. If he goes near that gate again, I look to you to see that he doesn’t undo it. And’ – I dropped my voice, although we were speaking in Greek – ‘I want you to keep an eye on young Edward.’ I noticed the slight questioning look. ‘He’s the pretty one with big hands.’ I paused again. ‘You kicked him out of mathematics for idleness.’ Joseph nodded. I went on: ‘Well, he may not be up to learning any of the languages I can teach. But he’s good enough in whatever it is those savages speak. I’d like you to keep an eye on him as well.