Tom Harper - Siege of Heaven

‘The emperor knows you are his closest ally and most faithful servant.’ Nikephoros contrived to look suitably sympathetic. ‘But you forget, my lord count, that we have just returned from four months’ absence. There are too many things we do not understand. Why you and Bohemond and all the Army of God are not at the gates of Jerusalem, for example.’

Count Raymond stiffened, but ordered his servants to bring us seats and hot wine. Nikephoros took only the merest sip.

‘It is all Bohemond’s doing,’ Raymond began. ‘Everything — or rather nothing — that we have accomplished since summer is his fault. It was madness to trust him — a man who came without an acre of land to his name; a man his own father disinherited. He never meant to go to Jerusalem. He has used us to sustain his ambition, and now that he has his prize he has turned on us.’ Raymond gestured to the gilded casket behind him. ‘He has even questioned the authenticity of the relic of the holy lance.’

Nikephoros drummed two fingers against his cup. ‘This is not news. Bohemond had more than half of Antioch before we had even left. You were supposed to draw him out by leading the army on to Jerusalem.’

‘That is what Bohemond wants!’ Raymond thumped a fist on the wooden arm of his chair. ‘Nothing would satisfy him more than if I set out for Jerusalem now. You have seen the state of my army here — and the rest, at Ma’arat, are no better. The Saracens would massacre them before we even reached the coast. Bohemond would sit safe in Antioch, unchallenged, and your emperor would have lost his last ally.’

Nikephoros pursed his lips. ‘What happened to Phokas? My colleague, the eunuch? He was supposed to stay here and advise you.’

‘Much use he was. He should have advised himself to stay away. The plague took him almost before you’d left for Egypt.’

And what of Anna and Sigurd? I ached to know. But Nikephoros had already continued. ‘And Duke Godfrey? The other princes? Where do they stand?’

‘Hah! Without Bishop Adhemar, each looks to his own interests. Every day they come out and announce they want nothing more than to reach Jerusalem. Then they retire to their tents to sniff their own farts, trying to divine if it will be Bohemond or me they should support. I am sixty-six years old, and I am the only man with the balls to withstand him. Until the emperor comes.’

‘No.’ Nikephoros rose. ‘Even if I could get word to the emperor straight away, he would not be able to come until the summer. You cannot afford to wait that long. You are locked in this struggle with Bohemond, but his feet are planted on the rock of Antioch and yours are in the mire of Ma’arat. You will not win this test of strength.’

‘What would you have me do then?’ Raymond’s defiance was gone, and I heard only an old man’s despair.

‘If someone is pushing against you with all his might, it is easier to unbalance him by stepping backwards than forwards.’

‘Not when you’re standing on the edge of a cliff.’ His words choked off in a fit of haggard coughing. He wiped his mouth on his blanket and continued. ‘There are many voices that say the same as you. The soldiers offered to acclaim me as leader of the whole army if I would lead them to Jerusalem. Did you know that?’

‘What did you say?’

‘I accepted, of course. I will lead the Army of God to Jerusalem, and if God wills it we will take it for Christ. As soon as Bohemond surrenders Antioch.’

‘You do not need Antioch,’ Nikephoros persisted. ‘It is a distraction.’

‘Of course I do not need Antioch,’ Raymond hissed. ‘But that is not a reason why Bohemond should have it either.’

A thought struck me. ‘What do the pilgrims say?’

The great swarm of peasants who followed the army like flies had never been happy with delay: rightly, for they only ever suffered or starved by it. At Antioch their frustrations had led many to question the authority of the princes — and some to ask still more dangerous questions.

‘The pilgrims can afford a simpler view of affairs,’ said Raymond shortly. ‘They hunger for Jerusalem, but my priests trim their appetites with a diet of humility and obedience. And Peter Bartholomew holds great sway over their thoughts.’

‘The visionary? The same Peter Bartholomew who found the holy lance?’ I glanced at the reliquary again in its shining forest of candles.

Raymond’s single eye swivelled towards me with suspicion. We both knew that Peter Bartholomew’s journey to sanctity had been a circuitous one. ‘The same.’

‘Do you trust him to keep the pilgrims quiet?’

‘I hold the lance: he is bound to me. Besides, what do peasants know? They are unhappy, of course; they always are. They say we should have taken Jerusalem months ago, and that all our quarrels are just the vanity. But these are the same simpletons who believed that God would give them an invulnerable shield against Turkish arrows. When I see spears and arrows bouncing off them like rocks, then I will let them dictate my strategy.’

‘And if they do not let you wait that long?’

Nikephoros was giving me a strange look, irritated by my interruption but intrigued by my purpose. I kept my eyes on Raymond, who had half-risen from his chair in anger.

‘I will wait as long as I choose, until the last peasant has rotted into the mud if necessary. I am the lord of thirteen counties, honoured by popes and the rightful captain of the Army of God. When Bohemond takes down his banners from Antioch and surrenders the keys to the citadel, and marches out his army, then we will join him on the road to Jerusalem. Until then, I will stay here and throttle him.’

‘His fixation with Bohemond will be his ruin,’ said Nikephoros darkly as we walked away. In a side-street, two women were fighting over what looked like a dog’s leg. One held the paw while the other pulled on the haunch, their thin faces scarlet with the effort. The woman with the paw let go and her adversary tumbled back into the mud, screeching with triumph that turned to anguish as the first woman stepped over her and stole the trophy away.

‘Does that matter?’ All I cared about now was finding Anna and Sigurd — and then going home. Other men could quarrel over Jerusalem if they chose — though I doubted they would ever see it.

Nikephoros stopped in the road and turned to look at me. ‘Of course it matters. Nothing has changed, except that we must try even harder to work Bohemond out of Antioch. And Count Raymond, Christ help us, is our last hope for doing that.’

I let my eyes sweep across the street, to the woman still lying in the mud lamenting her lost meal, and a ramshackle troop of Provencal soldiers picking their way up the slope. One had no boots and two others had no weapons. I gestured to them.

‘Do you think we will take Antioch with those?’

‘Of course not.’ Nikephoros turned away impatiently and continued on. ‘Did you listen to what I told the count? We must draw Bohemond out of Antioch.’

‘How?’

‘By going to Jerusalem.’

I ran after Nikephoros and stepped in front of him, blocking his path. ‘Jerusalem is a myth, a lie concocted by priests and sold to peasants.’ I realised that I was shouting, that passers-by were looking with crooked eyes at the mad Greek raving in a foreign tongue. I did not care. ‘This army will die here. Not one man will ever see Jerusalem and even if they do, it will not solve one single thing.’

Nikephoros’ cold eyes looked down on mine; clouds of air formed and dispersed between us as he breathed out.

‘The man who conquers Jerusalem will be a legend through the ages — a hero to rank with Caesar and Alexander. His power and authority will be boundless.’