Tom Harper - Siege of Heaven

For, like the Israelites of old, we had come at last into the promised land, a country that had already been ancient when Romulus laid the first stone of the first Rome. Every town we passed resounded with history: Tyre, whose cedarwood Solomon used to build the temple in Jerusalem, and Byblos, whose parchment gave its name to the scripture written on it; Accaron, where the Philistines took the Ark of the Covenant, and Caesarea, city of King Herod. Phoenicians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans and Saracens — all had possessed this land, or parts of it. Their monuments remained, a palimpsest of the past, though the men themselves had long since rotted to dust.

We celebrated Pentecost and rested a few days. Then, we left the coast and headed inland, towards the spine of mountains that had loomed on our eastern flank every day for the past fortnight.

‘And somewhere in those mountains is Jerusalem,’ said Thomas. It was early June; we sat around the dying embers of our campfire and lay back, looking up at the stars. Anna’s head rested on my chest, while Helena and Thomas cradled the child — no longer a baby — between them.

‘I wonder if it will appear as it does in the Bible,’ mused Helena. ‘Jewelled walls and golden gates and. . everything else.’

‘It will probably look like any other town we’ve passed,’ I told her, trying to douse the hopes that flared in my own heart. ‘Stone walls, dusty streets, square houses.’

‘It won’t,’ Zoe protested. ‘We can’t have come so far just for that.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘If we make it to Jerusalem.’ Even there, sitting under the same sky that Christ must have seen a thousand years earlier, Sigurd’s pessimism remained unshaken. ‘Why haven’t the Fatimids attacked us yet?’

‘Only you could grumble about that,’ Anna teased him.

‘Either they have some ambush planned or they are drawing us on to Jerusalem deliberately.’

‘Or they’re too weak to oppose us.’ Thomas propped himself up on one arm, using the other to tousle his son’s hair. ‘We’ve descended too swiftly, before they can gather their forces.’

I shook my head. ‘They don’t have to gather their forces — they’re already there, behind Jerusalem’s walls. Why should they confront us in open battle? They know that we will come to them.’

‘And no doubt they’ll be ready for us.’

Later, after the others had gone to bed, Anna found me still lying by the fire. She lay down beside me and burrowed into the crook of my arm, pressing herself against me in a way she had not done in an age. Perhaps I should have shied away from such sinful touch so close to the holy city, but the warmth of her body awoke a craving I had almost forgotten how to feel. I turned her towards me and kissed her eagerly, running my hands over her dress with the awe of fresh discovery.

‘Not here,’ she whispered. She stood, took my hand and led me to a small gully. The night was hot but we did not remove our clothes, nor dare lie on the ground for fear of scorpions and adders. Anna leaned against a boulder, arching backwards as I pressed my kisses against her lips, her throat, her cheeks and her hair. She moaned when I entered her, as hungry for me as I was for her.

Lust made us impatient, and our hasty coupling was over too soon. After we had finished I held her in my arms, still joined with her, breathing in the smoky texture of her hair. Though when I pulled back to look her in the face, her cheeks were wet.

‘Are you crying?’ In the moonlight I could not tell if it was sweat or tears.

‘No,’ she said quietly. Then, after a moment, ‘Yes.’

I touched her dress, dark with sweat where I had pressed against her. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘No.’

‘Is it guilt?’

‘ No .’ She turned away and wiped her cheek with her sleeve.

I wrapped my arms closer around her and pulled her into me, cradling her head against my chest. ‘Soon,’ I promised her. ‘In four days, five at the most, we will reach Jerusalem.’ I marvelled that I could say that, and that it could be true.

‘Yes.’ She sniffed. ‘I don’t know. . perhaps that’s why I feel so tired, suddenly. It’s so close, the hope is almost too much to bear.’

‘Hope of seeing the holy city?’

‘Hope of going home.’ Fresh tears sprang from her eyes, but she ignored them, stroking a finger through my beard. ‘I’m ready.’

‘So am I.’

‘And Helena should hurry home too. Has she told you?’

I started. ‘Told me what?’

Anna pressed a hand over my groin. The smile had returned to her face, and her eyes gleamed with mischief. ‘You and I are not the only ones who have been sneaking away from the camp. Helena is expecting another child.’

I drew back in amazement. ‘When?’

‘Six months from now.’

I counted in my head. ‘How long has she known without telling me?’

‘Two months — and she did not tell me either. But I recognised the signs.’

‘I saw that she looked healthier, that she had grown again,’ I defended myself. ‘I thought it was the abundance of food.’

Anna laughed. ‘She did not tell you because she was afraid it would worry you on the march.’

‘It would have.’ I had to pull away from Anna and lean against the wall of the gully, so bewildered was I by the emotions Anna’s news had unleashed in me.

‘It’s lucky we’re almost ready to go home.’

The next day we came to Aramathea, a prosperous town in the foothills of the mountain range. We approached with caution, for if the Fatimids wished to mount a defence before we reached Jerusalem this was their final opportunity. But when we reached the gates we found the town abandoned, not just by its garrison but by every single inhabitant. They had left behind a great store of grain and provisions, and full cisterns from which we gratefully filled our waterskins. We knew there would be scant water in the mountains ahead.

Of all those days marching, I remember the last one the best. The whole army was awake before dawn, like children at Easter, and before the cool morning could grow stale we were well on our way. We were now deep in the mountains, the first places God made, and the weight of ages was everywhere in the wizened landscape around us. Deep clefts furrowed the faces of barren hills, and desiccated veins of white rock were all that remained of the rivers that had once brought life to the soil. It did not seem like the promised land flowing with milk and honey, but we did not care. Our songs resounded off the crumbling valleys: pious hymns of thanksgiving; proud songs of war; and sometimes more poignant songs of the countries we had left so far behind. Happiness, wonder and laughter bubbled up from the army like fresh springs, and the faces around me seemed to glow with joy.

By midday, the still air had grown thick and heavy. On another day we might have rested through the worst of the heat, but that afternoon there was no thought of delay. I walked between my daughters, Helena on my left and Zoe on my right, glancing at Helena’s belly so often that she scolded me for my unseemly impatience.

‘You won’t see him growing as you watch.’

‘Him? She may be a girl.’ Though I would not tell Helena so, I wanted a girl. Her mother would have wanted a granddaughter, I thought.

A shadow of worry drifted over me, and I looked at the steep valleys around us for any hint of an enemy. It would have been an easy place for the Ishmaelites to ambush us, but once again they chose not to.

I squeezed Helena’s hand — and then, so she would not feel left out, Zoe’s. Of all of us, I think the journey had been hardest for her. Anna had come for me, and Helena for Thomas, but Zoe had come because she had to. Looking at her now, I could see how it had changed her. At home in Constantinople she had been much the livelier of my daughters, teasing Helena and me to distraction, but ever able to defuse our anger with a grin and a hug. Now the mischief and vitality had gone; she spoke rarely and laughed less. Often in our camps she seemed to disappear into the background, not absent in person but not present in spirit. Though her body had grown in the past two years — even the past few months — her face seemed thinner, as if age and experience had somehow pinched it shut.