Siege of Heaven

camp.

‘What has happened here?’

The Varangian glanced anxiously at Sigurd’s litter. ‘The new ambassador came a week ago. What happened to you? Where are the others?’

‘The monk betrayed us. The others did not survive it — and Sigurd may yet follow. Where’s Anna?’

The Varangian’s mouth dropped open, as if the sun had fallen out of the sky. ‘Sigurd? Sigurd cannot die.’

‘I hope not. But where is Anna?’

‘Anna?’ Uncharacteristically, the Varangian seemed to be searching for delicate words. ‘She-’

A sharp voice behind me interrupted us. ‘Are you Demetrios Askiates?’

I turned. Another Patzinak, this one with a loaf-shaped cap and gilt edging on the plates of his armour, was watching me.

‘Nikephoros wants you.’

‘Find Anna and get Sigurd into her care,’ I told the Varangian. ‘Tell her I’ll find them afterwards.’

The confines of a former life seemed to rise up and envelop me as I stepped into the gilded pavilion. Ever since my superior, the general Tatikios, had departed Antioch in May, I had lived beyond the reach of the empire — a desperate, untamed life where we had slept rough, killed easily, and obeyed nothing but the dictates of survival and our duty to each other. Now the whole edifice of Byzantine civilisation, vast as the pillars of Ayia Sophia, seemed to have descended on the hilltop. Rich carpets traced designs of lions and eagles on the floor, echoing the mosaics of the great palace, while the silk walls of the tent glowed red, as if we stood inside the orb of a setting sun. Gossamer-thin curtains partitioned the different rooms, so that the slaves and clerks who scurried behind them became pale spectres of themselves. Mahogany trees held golden lamps in their branches, and icons of the saints looked out from their gilded windows. Rich incense filled the air. And, in the centre of the room, two men sat on carved chairs, their feet elevated on cushions, watching me carefully.

I had not changed my tunic or trimmed my beard in almost a fortnight of marching and fighting in the August sun. I had not washed, nor mended the tears and burns our ordeals had left in my clothing. In any company I would have felt filthy and disgusting: here, I felt like a dung-beetle rolling its ball on a banquet table. Too late, I remembered I should probably have bowed, though my back and my pride were both too stiff to allow it.

‘If you have been the emperor’s only representative these last four months, it is no wonder our situation is so desperate.’

The words were spoken with immaculate condescension, but their effect was like a kick in the groin. Fortunately, I was too weary to retaliate in anger. Instead, I looked blankly at the man who had addressed me. Both he and his companion were dressed in long white robes, trimmed with heavy embroidery and studded with coloured stones. There the similarity ended: the man on the left, who had spoken, was tall and strongly built; he kept his hair in studied disorder, and his face would have been handsome but for its arrogance. Only his beard seemed out of place, recently grown and not yet thickened to its fullness, like an adolescent who has not yet summoned the courage to shave, or a guilty man trying to hide his appearance. His companion, by contrast, was slight and clean-shaven, with thinning hair and a permanently worried expression tightening his soft features. I guessed he must be a eunuch. In their company you could believe that the courtyards and fountains of the palace were just beyond the door, not a thousand miles away across mountains and desert.

‘Has the emperor sent you?’ I asked.

The larger man drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. ‘I am Nikephoros.’ He nodded to the eunuch beside him. ‘This is Phokas. We arrived from Constantinople a week ago. Where have you been?’

Evidently I did not merit pleasantries. ‘At the monastery of Ravendan, in the mountains north of here.’

Someone must surely have told him as much already, but he affected indignant surprise. ‘What folly took you there?’

‘A terrible folly.’ I guessed he did not want to hear the whole ordeal, that its filthy details would bore his refined sensibilities. I told him anyway.

‘It was a trap,’ I concluded. ‘Set by Duke Godfrey in concert with the Armenian brigands. Tancred was there too.’

My voice died away. The two envoys stared at me, their faces as flat and all-powerful as the saints in the icons around them.

‘You are sure it was Duke Godfrey?’ the eunuch, Phokas, asked at last. His voice was high, though not shrill, pitched in that indeterminate range between a man’s and a woman’s.

‘I stood as far from him as I am from you now.’

That did not impress Nikephoros. ‘It was a fool’s errand anyway. What did you mean by going to Ravendan?’

‘I was trying to defend the church’s interests — and the emperor’s. I did not know that his so-called allies would use the opportunity to try and kill us.’

‘It hardly matters.’ Acid disdain etched his voice. ‘Though it is a pity you lost the emperor’s seal that was entrusted to you. He will not be pleased.’

Had I been half my age, I would have broken his nose for his snide dismissal of our sacrifices. As it was, the cowardice of wisdom stilled my hand — but I could not keep all the heat from my voice. ‘Six days ago I watched Duke Godfrey and Tancred mutilate the survivors of the battle and leave them to die on a mountaintop. They would have done worse to us, if Pakrad’s greed had not spoiled their plan.’

‘Perhaps you have spent too long with the barbarians — what else did you expect from them? This does not change anything.’

‘Four of the emperor’s men are dead. Does that change nothing?’

‘You cannot cleanse your mistakes by washing them in your friends’ blood,’ Nikephoros retorted coolly. ‘Do you really think the empire’s interests have changed because — you say — a Frankish lord took against you? The emperor does not put down his hunting dogs just because they snap at his slaves.’

An agonising rage gripped me. I clenched my fists and dug my long nails into the palms of my hands trying to force a pain excruciating enough to match the pain in my heart. But the harder I pressed, the less I felt.

The eunuch must have seen my anguish. ‘Do not blame yourself too much. You were swimming in seas too strong for you. You did not have the wit to see what should be done.’

I stared at him, wondering if he had poked my wounds in malice or just in clumsy kindness. His polished face revealed nothing.

‘Have you come to replace me?’ I asked at last. The audience had barely begun, but I already longed for it to be over.

Nikephoros leaned forward in his chair. ‘We have come to supersede you. The emperor has placed you under our command.’

His words struck me like arrows. ‘I thought. .’ I wanted. ‘I understood I was to go home, once you had arrived.’

The eunuch spoke. ‘Go home? You cannot go home. You have not finished.’

‘Finished what?’

‘Your mission was to see that the Franks reached Jerusalem — not settled themselves in Antioch.’

Nikephoros picked up the thread. ‘That is why your expedition to Ravendan was worthless, even before it proved to be a trap. The emperor does not want relics and trinkets to make the Franks love the Greeks.’ Suddenly animated, he thumped his fist on the arm of his chair. ‘He wants Antioch itself. For its strength, its commerce, its harbours and its lands — yes. But most of all because it is his by right, and the Franks swore to return it to him. If we wanted it owned by a rabble of hateful, godless barbarians, we could have left it to the Turks. The Franks will have Jerusalem, that will be their reward. But Antioch must be ours. That is why it would not matter if Duke Godfrey, Count Raymond and all the Frankish captains hung you from a tree and let the birds devour you inch by inch. The emperor would still smile, and pay them flattery and gold, and pray they dislodged Bohemond from Antioch.’

His smooth neck was suddenly lumpen with taut sinews, and his head jerked with emphasis on every word. The diplomatic reserve seemed stripped away, though I could not tell if that was a calculated effect. Nor did I care. I was still numb from the sting of what the eunuch had said. You cannot go home.

‘I must go home,’ I mumbled, pathetic and uncaring. ‘I cannot stay here.’

Nikephoros gave me a scornful look. ‘Go home — and then what? You will not have the comfortable life you