Tom Harper - Siege of Heaven

Someone must surely have told him as much already, but he affected indignant surprise. ‘What folly took you there?’

‘A terrible folly.’ I guessed he did not want to hear the whole ordeal, that its filthy details would bore his refined sensibilities. I told him anyway.

‘It was a trap,’ I concluded. ‘Set by Duke Godfrey in concert with the Armenian brigands. Tancred was there too.’

My voice died away. The two envoys stared at me, their faces as flat and all-powerful as the saints in the icons around them.

‘You are sure it was Duke Godfrey?’ the eunuch, Phokas, asked at last. His voice was high, though not shrill, pitched in that indeterminate range between a man’s and a woman’s.

‘I stood as far from him as I am from you now.’

That did not impress Nikephoros. ‘It was a fool’s errand anyway. What did you mean by going to Ravendan?’

‘I was trying to defend the church’s interests — and the emperor’s. I did not know that his so-called allies would use the opportunity to try and kill us.’

‘It hardly matters.’ Acid disdain etched his voice. ‘Though it is a pity you lost the emperor’s seal that was entrusted to you. He will not be pleased.’

Had I been half my age, I would have broken his nose for his snide dismissal of our sacrifices. As it was, the cowardice of wisdom stilled my hand — but I could not keep all the heat from my voice. ‘Six days ago I watched Duke Godfrey and Tancred mutilate the survivors of the battle and leave them to die on a mountaintop. They would have done worse to us, if Pakrad’s greed had not spoiled their plan.’

‘Perhaps you have spent too long with the barbarians — what else did you expect from them? This does not change anything.’

‘Four of the emperor’s men are dead. Does that change nothing?’

‘You cannot cleanse your mistakes by washing them in your friends’ blood,’ Nikephoros retorted coolly. ‘Do you really think the empire’s interests have changed because — you say — a Frankish lord took against you? The emperor does not put down his hunting dogs just because they snap at his slaves.’

An agonising rage gripped me. I clenched my fists and dug my long nails into the palms of my hands trying to force a pain excruciating enough to match the pain in my heart. But the harder I pressed, the less I felt.

The eunuch must have seen my anguish. ‘Do not blame yourself too much. You were swimming in seas too strong for you. You did not have the wit to see what should be done.’

I stared at him, wondering if he had poked my wounds in malice or just in clumsy kindness. His polished face revealed nothing.

‘Have you come to replace me?’ I asked at last. The audience had barely begun, but I already longed for it to be over.

Nikephoros leaned forward in his chair. ‘We have come to supersede you. The emperor has placed you under our command.’

His words struck me like arrows. ‘I thought. .’ I wanted . ‘I understood I was to go home, once you had arrived.’

The eunuch spoke. ‘Go home? You cannot go home. You have not finished.’

‘Finished what?’

‘Your mission was to see that the Franks reached Jerusalem — not settled themselves in Antioch.’

Nikephoros picked up the thread. ‘That is why your expedition to Ravendan was worthless, even before it proved to be a trap. The emperor does not want relics and trinkets to make the Franks love the Greeks.’ Suddenly animated, he thumped his fist on the arm of his chair. ‘He wants Antioch itself. For its strength, its commerce, its harbours and its lands — yes. But most of all because it is his by right, and the Franks swore to return it to him. If we wanted it owned by a rabble of hateful, godless barbarians, we could have left it to the Turks. The Franks will have Jerusalem, that will be their reward. But Antioch must be ours. That is why it would not matter if Duke Godfrey, Count Raymond and all the Frankish captains hung you from a tree and let the birds devour you inch by inch. The emperor would still smile, and pay them flattery and gold, and pray they dislodged Bohemond from Antioch.’

His smooth neck was suddenly lumpen with taut sinews, and his head jerked with emphasis on every word. The diplomatic reserve seemed stripped away, though I could not tell if that was a calculated effect. Nor did I care. I was still numb from the sting of what the eunuch had said. You cannot go home .

‘I must go home,’ I mumbled, pathetic and uncaring. ‘I cannot stay here.’

Nikephoros gave me a scornful look. ‘Go home — and then what? You will not have the comfortable life you imagine in Constantinople if you return now. The emperor is furious that the Franks hold Antioch. He is famously quick to forgive his enemies, but he does not lightly forgive those who fail him.’

‘How have I failed him? Was I supposed to hold Antioch against the Franks with a few dozen Varangians and the force of an oath the Franks never meant to uphold?’

Nikephoros rolled his eyes. ‘Do you know Pythagoras? With a stave and sufficient distance, a single man can move a boulder that would resist the strength of armies.’

‘Then why does he want me to stay?’ Like a prisoner broken on the rack, I suddenly felt a disgraceful willingness to say anything, to admit any charge and suffer any insult just to go free. I hated myself for it — but I hated the thought of staying more.

The eunuch leaned forward. ‘Because he is merciful.’

Craven desperation kept me from laughing in his face, though my disbelief must have shone through.

‘Your superior, the general Tatikios, made a full report to the emperor after he left Antioch,’ the eunuch continued. ‘He left little doubt where the blame for the Franks’ success should lie.’

I had suffered so many blows to my hopes and pride that I should have been immune, but I still felt the bruise in my gut. ‘He blamed me?’

‘Suffice it to say the emperor felt it would be kinder to you to give you a chance to redeem yourself, rather than allowing your return.’

‘But surely he must know-’

The eunuch raised a sanctimonious hand, as if pushing me back from an unseen precipice. ‘The emperor can only know what his subordinates tell him. Tatikios is a great nobleman: he has many allies at court to support him.’

And I did not. I had seen the emperor many times and inhabited his palace, had saved his life and once or twice even spoken with him almost as an equal. I did not think him a bad man, for what such judgements were worth. But he had not survived eighteen years on his tenuous throne by bowing to sentiment. If Tatikios commanded a faction — and legions to boot — then the emperor could not antagonise him on my account. Perhaps he truly did believe it was kindness to keep me away from Constantinople.

‘If the Franks leave Antioch, there will be no problem and no blame to be attached,’ the eunuch concluded. ‘The only lever we have to prise them out is Jerusalem. We must see that they get there.’

I bowed my head, as if putting it through a noose. ‘How?’

Nikephoros barked orders to his slaves, who scurried from behind the gauzy curtains and brought a map, a table and a low wooden stool for me to sit on. After so long marching, its hard seat was like a feather mattress to me. Lamps were set beside the unscrolled map, flickering over the ragged oblong of the Mediterranean Sea and the three continents that bordered it to the north, south and east. Nikephoros pulled a golden pin from his robes and leaned forward, tapping the pin against the map to illustrate his narration.

‘Antioch is here.’ Tap. ‘Jerusalem here.’ Tap. ‘The lands in between — Syria, Lebanon, Palestine — are controlled by the Turks and Saracens.’ The point of the pin scratched back and forth over the Mediterranean’s eastern coast. ‘They are weakened by the Franks’ victory at Antioch, but they still have castles and fortified cities all along the coast.’ A succession of pinpricks perforated the paper between Antioch and Jerusalem. ‘And, of course, they have Jerusalem.’