Tom Harper - Siege of Heaven

‘Where?’

Without answering, Bilal swung himself out of his saddle and leaped down. His sword seemed to be in his hand before he had even touched the ground. He ran into the forest but did not go far — I could see his yellow cloak bright between the branches. With a great rustling and squawks of protest, a startled flock of crows rose up into the air.

‘Well done,’ I called. ‘You’ve saved us from an ambush by birds.’

‘It wasn’t the birds,’ he shouted back, and the grimness in his voice silenced my humour utterly. ‘Come and see.’

I dismounted and followed cautiously through the gap he had entered. The air was cooler in the forest, and darker: I needed a moment before my eyes could adjust. Though even before I could see, I could smell what was coming.

Bilal pointed into the air, his other hand holding his cloak over his mouth to block out the stench. A few feet off the ground, a foul object hung from the branch of an oak tree. I could not call him a man: the crows and carrioneaters had seen to that. His skin was blackened, his belly bloated and his toes eaten away. A brown tunic, sprayed with blood and soaked with his bile, hung in tatters from his shoulders — it seemed the only things holding the body together were the noose around his neck and the belt about his waist.

Driving back my horror, I looked closer at the belt. It was made of black leather, finely made and with the design of an eagle worked into it. A belt that I had seen before, clasped around a camelskin robe.

‘I knew this. . man. He was. .’ It was too hard to explain. ‘He assisted a holy man in our camp.’

‘Did he owe you money?’

Bilal pointed to the ground. A little distance from the body, a small pool of silver trickled from the mouth of an open sack.

‘Whoever did this, it was not thieves.’ Bilal turned to me. ‘You said you knew him. When did he go missing?’

I thought back to our encounter in the clearing. ‘About a week ago.’

‘Then he must have come here soon afterwards.’

‘He had plenty of reasons to flee. He must have hanged himself in remorse.’

‘Perhaps.’ Bilal pointed to the corpse, twisting this way and that with the flex of the rope. ‘But did he tie his hands behind his back first?’

An impatient voice called from the road in Arabic.

‘I must go,’ said Bilal. ‘We have many miles to travel, and I should not be seen with the body. You will bury him?’

I nodded.

Bilal sheathed his sword and walked back to the road. ‘This is a bad omen at the start of a journey.’

‘I will pray you arrive safely.’

‘And I will pray to God that you travel safely too.’ Bilal clapped me on the shoulder. ‘But not to Jerusalem.’

Sigurd and I buried what remained of John in the forest. I hesitated as to whether to put a cross over his grave, for I was not sure he had been true to Christ either in life or in death, but in the end I decided it was not for me to judge. I tied a branch across the trunk of a tree and let that stand for a marker, though the only rope I had to use was the one that had hanged him. Then I returned to the camp, and went up the hill to pay a last visit to Peter Bartholomew.

It had been a full week since his ordeal. A few of his followers still held vigils outside the tent, but it was easy enough to thread my way through them. The three tents still stood in their rough horseshoe, though the ground around them was churned to dust like a battlefield. Eight knights from Count Raymond’s household guarded the door.

‘I want to pray a while with Peter Bartholomew,’ I told them. A thick spear-point swung down to discourage me.

‘Peter Bartholomew is close to God. No one is allowed in his presence.’

‘I would pay for the privilege.’ I held up the purse and the guard felt it, pleased and surprised by the weight. He did not even trouble to haggle. ‘You are only buying a few moments with Peter Bartholomew,’ he warned me. ‘And no souvenirs.’

I ducked into the tent. The guard watched from the door, though I could hardly have stolen anything. By the light coming in through the open flap I could see that the room was as bare as a monk’s cell. Peter Bartholomew lay on a low bed, covered in a linen sheet that would surely become his shroud. Only his face protruded, swaddled in bandages, which left only his eyes and nose exposed. Even that hardly seemed necessary, for his eyes were shut and his breathing faint.

I looked around, then back at the guard.

‘Where are his possessions?’

The guard stiffened. ‘I told you: no relics.’

‘I don’t want relics. But I heard he had a manuscript, a sacred text that foretold many things to come. I hoped to see it.’ I glanced down at Peter to see if he had heard me, but he had not moved.

‘The priest took all Peter Bartholomew’s belongings for safe-keeping — to protect them from thieves and relic-hunters. You said you came to pray,’ he added pointedly.

I knelt beside Peter’s bed, careful not to touch him, and offered a silent prayer for his soul. He had raised himself up like Lucifer to dizzying heights of pride, until he vied with God Himself. But I wondered if that was truly the cause of his demise — or if it had been brought on not by his threat to God, but to men.

I leaned forward, stifling my nose against the stench of burned and rotting flesh, and kissed him on his bandaged cheek.

‘God forgive you, and bring you to His peace at last,’ I whispered.

Five days later, Peter Bartholomew died. They buried him in the high valley, beneath the scorched earth where he had suffered his passion. Many in the army scoffed and said that death had proved him a fraud, but for every man who disbelieved there was another who held that Peter had survived the fire, that he only died from being trampled by his disciples when he emerged. And every day that we were in Arqa, and for years afterwards, pilgrims would gather at his grave and wait, praying for a miracle that never came.

But by then, I had other concerns.

The siege of Arqa was failing: everyone knew it. Everyone, at least, except Count Raymond. He had suffered the death of Peter Bartholomew as an almost personal affront, and would not countenance leaving Arqa until he had restored his reputation by its capture. And so his reputation only suffered more.

One evening, three weeks after Peter Bartholomew had been laid in the earth, Raymond summoned Nikephoros and me to his quarters. There was still light in the sky, but in Raymond’s tents all the lamps were lit. His melancholy seemed to have subsided: his eye was bright, and he moved with more energy than I had seen in months. He held a thick piece of paper, with cut strings and broken seals dangling off it like cobwebs.

‘A rider has just delivered this.’ He held it out; Nikephoros reached for it, but instead Raymond passed it to his chaplain who cleared his throat and began reading.

‘ From his most serene holy majesty, the basileus and autokrator, the emperor of the Romans Alexios Komnenos; to his brothers in Christ, the princes and captains of the Army of God: blessings and greetings.’

‘Greetings,’ Raymond muttered, waving him on.

‘ Though we have been absent from your campaign, not a day has passed when the great deeds you have worked to the glory of God have not been present in our heart. All our empire rejoices at your victories. And now that we have heard your army is poised on the borders of the holy land, ready to strike towards Jerusalem itself, piety and duty command us to leave the comforts of our city and join you in the holy task appointed. Wherefore we ask you to remain in your camp, to gather your strength, and await our arrival on the feast of Saint John the Baptist, the twenty-fourth day of June. Then Greeks and Romans shall be united in one host, the kingdom of Babylon will tremble, and the arch-enemy’s forces will be scattered and destroyed. ’