Tom Harper - Siege of Heaven

I smiled at her, trying to prompt the smile I remembered so well. ‘Soon,’ I promised. ‘Soon this will be over.’

The sun waned, breathing its dying light into the dust that surrounded us so we seemed to walk in a golden cloud. I stared forward obsessively; with every turn in the road I expected to see Jerusalem before us, shining on its hilltop, but it did not appear. Then scouts who had ridden forward came back, and announced it was still ten miles to Jerusalem. Many wanted to press on through the night, but the princes would not allow it. Haste was peril, they said: the road was too dangerous, our enemies’ intentions unknown. We made our camp near a village, though few pitched their tents. One word hung on everybody’s lips — spoken with excitement, with awe, with reverence and with fear. Tomorrow .

‘Anyone would think we’re to find Jerusalem as empty as Aramathea,’ Sigurd grumbled. We had built our fire in a rocky circle near the road and sat on the surrounding boulders. Thomas had caught two pigeons, which we roasted on spits over the coals. ‘The journey doesn’t end just because we arrive.’

‘Ours does.’

I looked around. Nikephoros was standing behind us, dim against the twilight. Perhaps because I was in mind of endings, I remembered the first time I had seen him: the magnificence, the power and the arrogance of his presence. The new beard he had worn had grown full; the cushions and gilded furniture that had decorated his quarters then had long since been lost or abandoned on the road. That evening he had not even pitched his tent, but laid out his blankets on the ground like the rest of us. In the soft haze, dressed only in a plain linen tunic, he almost looked humble.

‘Our journey ends here,’ he said again, perhaps thinking we had not heard him. He looked at Sigurd. ‘Have your men formed up to march at dawn. We will make for the coast and find a ship there. Perhaps we will find the grain fleet; otherwise there are English ships in the emperor’s service still patrolling these waters. One of them will take us home.’

For a moment his only answer was the sound of boiling fat sizzling on the coals.

‘But. . Jerusalem.’ I pointed foolishly, as if it stood not fifty yards up the road. ‘What about Jerusalem?’

‘Jerusalem was not my destination. My orders were to see that the Franks reached it and now, praise God, I have. Even they should be able to find it from here.’

‘And what will they do then?’ asked Sigurd. ‘They have not won any victory yet.’

Nikephoros shrugged. ‘Thirty Varangians more or less will not decide the battle. To fight it would be a waste — it does not even matter who wins now. Be ready to march at dawn.’

I hardly knew what to feel. For two years and more I had longed to see Jerusalem and go home, until the two desires, once contradictory, wound themselves so tight around me that they became inseparable. It had become my purpose: to be denied it now felt almost as though Nikephoros had ripped out part of my soul. Looking at the others, I saw the same disbelief reflected on all their faces — Thomas’s most of all.

Yet in my shock, one part of me still saw clearly. It does not even matter who wins now . Even Nikephoros’ diplomatic guile could not hide the true emotion beneath the words: not indifference, nor resignation, but savage glee.

I ran after Nikephoros, away from the campfire, and halted him.

‘Achard told the truth,’ I said slowly. ‘You did go to Egypt to make an alliance with the Fatimids. What was the bargain? That we would bring the Franks to the altar at Jerusalem if the Fatimids would wield the sacrificial knife?’

Darkness shrouded Nikephoros’ face, but his voice was clear and unrepentant. ‘The emperor was a fool ever to consider taking the Franks as allies. Wise counsellors warned him against it, but he was too weak.’

‘So you took it upon yourself to break the emperor’s alliance, to finish what your wise counsellors failed to do at Constantinople.’

Nikephoros laughed, and the contempt in his laughter told me I was wrong again. ‘I took nothing upon myself. I am the emperor’s obedient servant. There is nothing I have done that he did not order me to do.’

I felt as if I had been dropped into a void without bounds or depth. ‘The emperor?’

‘When the barbarians refused to surrender Antioch, he saw his mistake at last. You can hunt with wild dogs, but you cannot be surprised if they take your quarry for themselves. And when they do, there is only one solution.’

I shook my head, trying to clear the confusion within. Nikephoros thought I was contradicting him.

‘Jerusalem is nothing — a bauble to dangle before barbarians. Alexios thought it would bring them to his aid, but it has served just as well to lead them to their destruction. Now the Fatimids will finish it, and those grain ships you saw by the coast will sail to Alexandria as their reward.’

‘But the Fatimids rejected our bargain — they drove us into the desert. Or was that part of the deception too?’

‘The caliph did not want to make an alliance with Christians. While his vizier was away he tried to sabotage it.’

‘But the vizier had revealed your bargain to Achard.’

‘He thought his interests were best served by discord among the Christians. He would rather have kept us quarrelling far away from his borders. But now the barbarians are here, he will do what he must. He has no choice. That is the simple perfection of the emperor’s scheme.’

He moved closer to me, a pale blur in the gathering darkness.

‘Did you really ever style yourself the unveiler of mysteries?’

A rumble sounded like thunder, and the earth trembled beneath my feet. I stepped back, just as the noise resolved itself into the pounding of many hooves. A column of horsemen swept around the turn in the road. A fiery aura surrounded them from the torches they carried, though I could see little inside it save a host of spears and helmets, flying manes and churning hooves.

‘What is happening?’ I shouted up. ‘Are we under attack?’

One of the knights reined in his horse and drew aside to let the others pass. ‘We are going to Bethlehem.’ He shook his head in wonder at what he had just said. ‘The Christians there have sent messengers: the Fatimids have abandoned it. Come with us and see.’

I glanced at Nikephoros, revealed now in the flaring torches. He shrugged.

‘Go with them, if you like. Stay here and fight for Jerusalem, if that is what you believe in. I give you my permission. Or you can come home with me.’

‘Be quick,’ warned the knight. Most of the column had already passed by, and the light they had brought was fading. ‘I cannot wait.’

I stared at the ground. My cheeks burned with shame; my eyes ached to cry, but no tears would come.

‘I. .’ I could hardly speak. My only solace was darkness. ‘I will go home.’

No one slept that night. Like ice after winter, the army had already begun to break up. Some followed Tancred’s men to Bethlehem; others, unable to endure one more hour of waiting, rose from their beds in the middle of the night and hurried on along the dark road to Jerusalem. I lay on my blanket, unsleeping, and heard them go — first dribbling away in their twos and threes, then growing to a trickle which eventually became a flood. I stayed in my bed.

As with all sleepless nights, the darkness seemed to last for ever — and still be over too soon. After so many hours of wretched waiting, no sooner had my thoughts finally quieted into sleep than a dirty light began to spread from the east, and Sigurd was shaking my shoulder, urging me up. Well before the dawn Nikephoros had appointed for our departure, we were ready to leave.