Tom Harper - Siege of Heaven

‘It is not easy living as Christians in a heathen land.’

‘I’m surprised the caliph allows it,’ I said.

The abbot gave me a sharp look, alive to any insult. ‘We pay our tributes, as he requires, and he leaves us to practise our vocation.’

I looked around at the encompassing wilderness, silent and vast. ‘You found a good place for it.’

‘Yes.’ The abbot nodded eagerly. ‘Yes. Here we can be apart from the world and live as Christ taught.’

‘And did Christ teach you to cast out the wretched and wounded who crawled to your doorstep?’ barked a voice from over my shoulder.

I turned to see Nikephoros and Aelfric walking towards me, and immediately had to stifle a laugh. Both of them were dressed as I was, in novices’ grey habits, but where mine was a little snug across my shoulders, theirs rode high above their knees and elbows, more like labourers’ smocks. Nikephoros, in particular, seemed utterly ridiculous — though his face was as proud as ever.

‘My Lord.’ The abbot bowed low — evidently Nikephoros had already impressed his rank on the man. ‘My Lord, you know we have extended you every kindness. But we live here to escape the snares of the world. We cannot allow them to intrude in our community, or they will destroy it.’

‘You will have to run further than this if you want to escape the cares of the world. How much do you pay the caliph to leave you alone?’

The abbot swallowed. He was young, and too used to ruling unchallenged over his little kingdom in the desert, I guessed.

‘We render Caesar his due, as Christ commanded.’

‘And if Caesar demands the three men who escaped his captivity?’

Three men? I glanced at Aelfric and mouthed Jorol’s name. Aelfric gave a small shake of his head.

The abbot was backing away along the balcony. ‘No. No! I would never betray fellow Christians to the Egyptians. It is for your own safety that you must go, as much as ours.’

Nikephoros stared at him and said nothing.

‘A caravan will come past the monastery this afternoon. They will take you to the coast. There are men there — Christians — with ships.’

‘And what use are ships in winter?’

‘Winter does not trouble these men. They are accustomed to it. They will take you. .’ He shrugged, perhaps uncertain where three vagabonds who had crawled out of the desert might want to go. ‘Home.’

Despite myself, my hopes leaped to hear it. Nikephoros, meanwhile, took two quick strides and stared close into the abbot’s face. They were almost the same height, and for a moment their eyes met on a level plane.

‘If you betray us, master abbot, or deal unfairly with us, I will personally march back across this desert with a legion of the emperor’s troops at my back, and tear apart every brick of your monastery.’

The abbot dropped his gaze. ‘I will not betray you. I only want peace, and for my community to be left to their Christian lives.’

Before we left, I sought out Brother Luke the infirmarian to thank him for his care.

‘You saved me from death.’ I wished I had something to give him but I had nothing.

The infirmarian smiled a gentle rebuke. ‘God saved you; I merely dressed the wound. I pray it is enough. I have little call here to practise on the wounds you brought me.’

‘You could come with us. Your skills would save many lives, especially among the Army of God.’

‘My vocation. .’

‘It would not be betraying your vocation,’ I insisted. ‘It would be serving God — more than sitting comfortably in the desert and tending to men who have blistered their knees with too much prayer. It would be a mercy to many.’

Brother Luke looked down in embarrassment, and I realised I had spoken with too much passion. ‘I’m sorry. I only meant — ’

‘I know what you meant. And what you say has its truth. But God has called me here to withdraw from the world. That is my vocation; whatever small skill I have to heal proceeds from that.’

A bell tolled through the high windows. Brother Luke gave a smile. ‘Now, however, I am called to prayer.’

‘Let me join you,’ I said impulsively. For all the prayers I had hurled at God in recent days, it was an age since I had entered the warm womb of a church, wrapped in candlelight and incense. Suddenly, I longed for it.

But Brother Luke shook his head. Outside, down the hill, I heard the creak of a gate and the tramp of many hooves.

‘I think you are called back to the world.’

Above us, the stern Christ stayed fixed in his firmament. One hand clutched the sealed book, in which were written all things; the other was raised, as if in farewell.

After the strange familiarity of the monastery, it was something of a shock to meet our new escorts: a dozen Saracens dressed all in black, with crooked faces and fearsome swords. They rode on camels, with another two score of the beasts roped together in a train laden with sacks and bundles. Just walking past them brought a feast of exotic scents to my nose: sweet, musky and forbidden. It was like walking up the eastern end of the main avenue in Constantinople, outside the palace gates where the perfume-sellers kept their shops.

‘Who are these men?’ Nikephoros demanded, bristling with suspicion.

The abbot sniffed. ‘Spice traders from Arabia. They are on their way to the coast.’

There was a brief delay while the abbot negotiated with the Saracen leader. We could not understand a word, but the exchange of a purse full of coins seemed to decide the matter. The Saracen leader gestured to a riderless camel, and with much unloading and rebalancing of their burdens, two more were found for the rest of us. I noticed that a couple of the sacks were not reloaded, but remained beside the abbot. Servants filled the caravan’s waterskins from the monastery well; then we mounted our camels and rode out. With only one arm free to cling to the reins, my balance was precarious, but I managed to turn myself enough to see the monastery receding behind us. Looking back, seeing it alone in the empty desert, its mammoth walls and towering gate seemed more folly than ever — defences against an invisible siege. Yet they had not been built against the armies of men, but against the world itself, and for that even those bulwarks were no more than sand before a tide. Perhaps mindful of that fact, the monastery’s builders had sited it artfully in the lee of a low ridge, almost the same colour as the faded mudbricks of the ramparts. It seemed extraordinary that anything so vast as those walls could disappear, yet already it was hard to tell where the walls ended and the ridge began. The next time I looked back, it had vanished completely.

Nikephoros must have seen my glance, for he brought his camel alongside.

‘Fools.’ He jerked his head back towards the monastery. ‘If God was obliged to come into the world and toil as a human, I doubt he intended that abbot and his flock to be spared.’

‘Perhaps.’ I was unsure whether I envied the monks their vocation, or pitied them for it. I tried to change the subject, nodding towards our Saracen guards. ‘Who are these men?’

‘Smugglers.’ Nikephoros’ camel began to drift back, and he swatted it with a short stick to bring it level with me again. ‘No doubt when we reach the coast they’ll find some pirate who will spirit their cargo across the sea.’

‘But they are Ishmaelites. Why should they have to skulk about in their own country?’

‘Because Ishmaelites hate taxes just as much as Christians and Jews. And also because the Saracens of Arabia follow a different sect of Islam, the same as the Turks. They are the Fatimid caliph’s bitterest enemies.’

‘Are they the same as the men who rescued us from over there?’ I pointed to the west, where the outcropping rock was now a small blot on the horizon.