Tom Harper - Siege of Heaven

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Too much wine, too little sleep — and then the grim shock of being dragged before the raging caliph: a dark mist seemed to hang before my eyes as the guards bustled us out of the caliph’s throne room. As we reached a turn in the passage, I managed to draw ahead of my guards long enough to catch up with Nikephoros. He glanced back over his shoulder and tried to force a reassuring smile. That worried me more than anything.

‘Al-Afdal will be back within the week,’ he said. ‘He will bring the caliph to his senses.’

But there are many factions, and al-Afdal cannot always master them all . I remembered Bilal’s words with a shiver as the guardsmen pulled me back.

Once again, a fleet of litters awaited us by the palace gate. I climbed into mine without resistance and settled onto the cushions — like a corpse being laid on his funeral bier, my mind whispered. I thought of Bishop Adhemar draped in his shroud, but that took me to Antioch and that was too much to bear. Until the seas open in the spring , the caliph had said. After my hopes had been raised so high, my soul flinched even to think of it. I looked out from under my canopy at the other litters — squat boxes scattered around the courtyard like tombs in a necropolis. Why were all my thoughts of death? Then a guardsman drew the curtains, and the view was shut away from me.

They carried us from the city at great speed, the litters swaying and shuddering: the streets must have been entirely empty that deep into the night, and we travelled them unseen and unseeing. When we emerged at the dock, though, all was bustle and activity. Torches had been lit, and a great throng of slaves and guardsmen milled about on the wharf. In a knot in their midst, I saw the four Frankish envoys and their attendants. They must have been hauled from their sleep as peremptorily as we had, for they wore the same disarray of under-shirts and mismatched boots, and the same harried confusion on their faces. Achard stood among them, his head darting about like a cornered cat’s.

Our guards hustled us towards the Franks and gestured us to wait. Out on the water I could hear the approach of splashing oars, and nearer to me, a low and ragged chant.

Help me, O Lord my God. Save me according to your steadfast love .’

All of the Franks were murmuring the same prayer, intensity fixed on their faces. The sound mingled with the harsher, wilder voices of the Berber guards, different currents in the dizzying babble that washed over me, as inconstant and elusive as the flickering firelight. I was so dazed I did not even think to pray.

A dark and familiar figure strode onto the dock, his yellow cloak billowing around his shoulders and his gold armband shining in the torchlight. He passed by us without a glance, but my heart leaped all the same at the sight of him. An angry shout was enough to bring the Berber captain hurrying out; they met in the middle of the wharf, so close they could have whispered their conversation if they had wanted. Instead, they began a furious discussion, which every man on the dock could hear. I understood almost nothing, but I did hear al-Afdal’s name mentioned often by Bilal, and the caliph’s name invoked each time in reply by the Berber captain. A circle of the guardsmen formed around them, thickest behind their captain, and I saw Bilal begin to edge backwards. Even his commanding presence could not deter so many.

With a final, sharp comment, he turned his back on the guards and marched towards us. His face was grey in the smoke.

‘I cannot counter the caliph’s order,’ he said loudly. ‘Even if he has fallen under the influence of evil counsellors. I have sworn to obey him in all things.’ Then, more quietly: ‘They are taking you to your deaths. If you reach the far bank of the river, it will only be to step into your graves.’

He spoke so softly, almost conversationally, that I had nodded before I even realised what he had said. By then he had turned away and vanished out of the light, while a host of guards gathered about us and began shepherding us towards the river with their short spears.

‘What are they doing?’

The voice, small and frightened, cut through the fog of terror that gripped me. Achard was beside me, shuffling forward and looking up with fearful expectation. His staring eyes had lost their intensity; now they only made him look horribly innocent. He had not heard Bilal’s warning: perhaps that was a mercy.

Before I could answer, we were pulled apart again. We had reached the steps, and had to descend in single file. Three boats awaited us at the bottom, small craft, already half-filled by the slaves who sat by their oars. Their hunched backs gleamed in the dark. Without regard for rank or race, the Berbers herded six of us into the first boat: Nikephoros and Aelfric, Achard, two of the Patzinaks and me. An equal number of guardsmen accompanied us. Even in our utter helplessness, they clearly had orders to risk nothing.

A hand closed around my arm, tight as a noose. ‘What are they doing?’ Achard repeated. ‘What did the black savage say?’

‘That we will be murdered.’ I spoke furtively and in Frankish, praying none of the Berbers understood. As long as they thought we remained ignorant of our fate, I hoped they might postpone it.

Achard closed his eyes. ‘Into your hands, O Lord, we commit ourselves.’

I wished I could share his faith. My hands were trembling, and I almost had to lean over the side of the boat to vomit up the bile that had gathered in my stomach. I started to recite a prayer in my head, but the familiar words were no comfort to me and I could say no more than the first line before thoughts of death crowded out thoughts of God.

The boat cast off — I could see the other Franks, and some of our Patzinaks, climbing into the next one — and we pulled into the river. I felt the force of the current immediately, far stronger than in the fat barges that had carried us before, and the rowers had to lean hard on their oars to keep a straight course.

I glanced at Nikephoros. He was sitting very erect in the stern of the boat, his eyes fixed on the darkness ahead as if he could already see the saints lifting back the veil to the next life. I was not ready to die with such composure. I looked to Aelfric, seated on the bench opposite me, and our eyes met in agreement.

Out in the night, the oars dipped and swept through the water; further off our bow, I could hear fish rising to the surface. We were in the middle of the river now: far enough from the men on shore, I hoped. Feigning only a touch more despair than I actually felt, I bowed my head and rocked forward so that my face rested on my knees and my arms dangled beside my ankles. My fingers dug into my boot and closed around the handle of Bilal’s knife. My heart was beating so fast that I felt sure it must almost tip the boat over, and I heard a suspicious growl from the guard in the stern. This was madness — pure, desperate suicide. But there was no choice.

For a blissful moment, I prayed as clean and perfect a prayer as I have ever prayed. Then I straightened, lifted my blade and stabbed it into the neck of the guard beside me. His mouth sprang open, pouring out blood like a fountain, and in that instant Aelfric had lunged across the boat and snatched the short spear from his hands.

Everything after that was blind instinct and reaction. I saw the guard beside Nikephoros twist around to strike him, but the commotion in the boat unbalanced his arm and the spear thudded harmlessly into the transom. The guard was still trying to pull it free when one of the Patzinaks seized his legs and pitched him into the river. Something surged in the water; I thought it was the guard trying to clamber aboard, and stepped forward to knock him away. Then I glimpsed a vast, scaly body, ancient and terrible, rising from the midst of a cloud of foam in the water. Two jaws opened like shears, so close that I swore afterwards I could smell the rotting flesh between the teeth, and snapped shut in a spray of blood and screams.

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