Tom Harper - Siege of Heaven

That much I knew. Far stranger was the sensation of seeing the canvas of my life laid out before me, my past and future journeys drawn in inky lines. Too often, my eyes drifted north and west to the ornately painted cross at the junction of Europe and Asia. Constantinople.

‘But beyond Palestine, the Turks and Saracens face an older enemy. The Fatimids of Egypt.’ The pin inscribed a circle in the south-eastern corner of the Mediterranean, centred on the cobweb of lines that marked the course of the Nile. ‘You know the Fatimids?’

I had heard of them, but ignorance was easiest. I shook my head.

‘The Saracens consider them heretics — if there can be a heresy against a heresy — and hate them above all others. Once, they drove the Fatimids out of their kingdoms all the way to Libya, but the Fatimids regrouped, invaded Egypt and conquered it. They will not be content until they have imposed their faith all the way to Baghdad and Mecca. The Saracens, likewise, will not rest until they have destroyed the Fatimids.’

I had been drawn into the invisible, eternal quarrel between the different Ishmaelite creeds once before, and the wounds had only recently healed. Even without Constantinople tempting me home, I did not like the sound of this.

‘If we can make an alliance with the Fatimids, then the Saracens will be trapped between enemies to their north and south. We can squeeze them out of Palestine and the way will be open for the Franks to seize Jerusalem. When they hurry south to claim it, Antioch will be ours again. The stain of your incompetence will be wiped clean.’

Whatever bitterness I felt at the jibe, I swallowed it. ‘And how will we achieve that?’

In answer, Nikephoros jammed the golden pin into the map, at the place where the different strands of the Nile delta braided themselves into a single thread heading south into Africa. The pin stuck in the wooden table and stayed upright, its trembling shadow crossing over Egypt and almost touching Jerusalem.

‘That is the Fatimid capital, al-Qahira. That is where we must go.’

I came out of the tent in a daze, like a defeated soldier leaving a battle. My soul was falling through an endless chasm, and though it was sickening it did not hurt yet. That would come when I hit the bottom. For now, I wandered across the hill until I found the Varangians’ tents. Aelfric was there.

‘How is Sigurd?’ I asked, forcing the words through my constricted lungs.

‘Unchanged. The fever seems a little less.’

‘Has Anna seen him?’

Aelfric fixed me with his uncompromising blue eyes. ‘She isn’t here.’

My tumbling soul knocked against a looming cliff, careered off it and continued its descent. ‘Where is she?’

Aelfric turned his eyes away, looking over my shoulder and into the darkening east.

‘In the cloisters behind the cathedral.’

I stared at him.

‘In Antioch.’

I ran.

Whatever excesses I had expected from the plague city — baying mobs hunting through the streets, doomed men and women tupping like dogs in doorways, corpses burning on open fires or lying unburied at the roadside — the reality was different. Moonlight washed over empty streets, and most of the houses were dark — though the city was not empty. Unseen creatures scuffled in shadowy corners. Shutters creaked, doors slammed, clay vessels shattered and steel rang on steel. And, more than anything else, there was a constant tapestry of mourning that hung in the background: soft moans of despair, shrieks of anguish, plaintive sobbing and quiet prayer. A profound and angry melancholy gripped the city — it was like walking through the sinews of a broken heart.

At several points along my way, carts and boxes and rubble had been tipped across the street to form makeshift barricades. Some were abandoned, others guarded, but Antioch was not a city made for containment and I always found my way around them, until at last I reached the cathedral and a small door in the wall behind it. A frightened voice behind the door answered my knock.

‘I want to see the doctor — Anna. Is she here?’

‘She’s asleep.’

‘Wake her. Tell her Demetrios is here.’

He did not answer, but beyond the door I heard receding footsteps. I waited in the dark for what seemed an age, each second lengthened tenfold by uncertainty. Eventually I even started to probe the tip of Aelfric’s knife into the door jamb, wondering if I could force it.

I heard the footsteps returning and pulled the knife away. A bolt slid back on the other side of the door, though it did not open.

‘Wait here for a hundred-count, then come through. She will be in the cloisters.’

Once more, the footsteps retreated. I doubted the delay was necessary, but I honoured the doorkeeper’s request and counted to a hundred as quickly as I could. Then I pushed the door open, padded down a short passage and emerged into the broad colonnades of the cloisters. Moonlight shone onto the columns’ faces so that they appeared like steel bars around the square, while behind them all was darkness. On the far side, directly opposite me, stood Anna.

She was thinner than I remembered, though we had been apart less than two weeks. In the hot summer air her white shift clung to her body, divulging every rise and shadow beneath: her dark hair was tousled wild by her pillow. She appeared like an icon of everything I loved and craved; I pulled off the cloth that covered my face and ran towards her.

‘Stop.’

A large figure stepped out of the darkness behind her, levelling a silver-tipped spear towards me. Desperation almost overpowered my instinct for survival, but at the last I reined myself in and halted just short of the spear’s point.

‘Stay there,’ the figure ordered.

I stared at Anna, bewildered. Why did she not come forward? ‘What is this?’

She closed her eyes. ‘My guard.’

‘Against what? Me?’

‘No — he is protecting you.’

‘Against what?’

‘Against me.’

I stumbled back, though the guard’s spear had not moved. There were hot tears on my face.

‘What could you possibly do to me?’ Even as I spoke the question, I began to guess its answer, and dread it.

Anna folded her hands penitently before her. She was crying too: the moon caught her tears and scarred her cheeks silver.

‘I have become a plague doctor.’

The last spark of hope died in my soul. A voice that was hardly my own asked, ‘Have you. .?’

‘Have I caught the plague?’ Anna shook her head. ‘God willing, not yet.’

I gestured to the guard. ‘Then why is he here?’

‘They insisted on it.’

‘Who?’

‘The Franks. They would not let me tend the sick without a guard to make sure I didn’t touch the healthy.’

‘You volunteered for this?’

She gave a joyless laugh. ‘Do you really think I’m such a saint? I had no choice. The woman I went to see the day you left, the one whose baby was overdue — she was infected. She was almost dead when I found her — the baby, too. The Franks barred the doors and would not let anyone leave the house. They only allowed me out when I agreed to tend the other victims. Then I came here.’

Anna’s guard had moved around to my left, standing between us and a little way apart with his spear outstretched, while she and I faced each other across the cloistered square. I needed an iron grip over every muscle in my body not to run to her and embrace her, heedless of consequence.

In a firmer voice, she asked, ‘Did you find your relic?’

‘There was no relic. Ravendan was a trap. The monk attacked us and took us prisoner.’ With the guard watching, I did not mention Duke Godfrey’s part. At that moment, it hardly seemed to matter. ‘We only just escaped.’