II
January — June 1099
18
We returned to Antioch early in January. We were tired from the journey: the endless days beating against sharp winds, the damp and shivering, the constant watch for pirates and storms. It was the very dead of winter, and a freezing rain fell on us as we disembarked at the port of Saint Simeon. On the higher ground there would be snow. We stood by the empty harbour, three bedraggled figures in borrowed clothes, with borrowed horses bullied from the local innkeeper. Somewhere in the gloom, a church bell tolled.
‘What now?’
Nikephoros looked at the dreary town. ‘We must find out how far the Frankish army has advanced and follow. With God’s grace, they may even be at the gates of Jerusalem.’ He gave a cold laugh, like the drumming of raindrops. ‘But we will ask at Antioch.’
For over a year Antioch had been the pole around which my life turned: by turns unattainable, irresistible and inescapable. Now I reached it for the last time, at a noon that was darker than dusk. The slopes of Mount Silpius rose up into the cloud, its triple-crowned peak invisible, while the city below lay still and sullen in the twilight. Whatever violence had been worked there in the past, it seemed peaceful enough now. That did not lessen my misgivings.
Though the rain had stopped, there was no break in the cloud, and it was not until we had approached within a bowshot of the gate that we noticed anything amiss. A red banner, as tall as a mounted rider, hung above the gate like a portcullis. Rain had wrung the fresh dye from the cloth, filling the ruts and craters below with crimson pools, but the design still stood clear. A white serpent, writhing down the middle of the banner like a tear or a scar.
I shook my head in confusion. ‘This was Count Raymond’s gate. Why is Bohemond’s standard over it?’
Nikephoros trotted forward and thumped his fist on the gate. The age-blackened wood loomed above him, eternal and unmoving, and the sound of his knock quickly died. At the feet of the towers, beside the gate, white gouges pocked the stonework.
‘Who are you?’
A suspicious voice rang in the still air. It must have come from the gatehouse, but even when I craned my neck back I could see no one.
Nikephoros glanced at me and nodded. I licked my lips, then shouted: ‘Ambassadors from the emperor Alexios.’
With a crack and a hiss, something ripped through the air and buried itself in the mud. My horse reared up; I flung my arms around its neck and hugged it tight, clenching my knees against its flanks. Beside me, I saw a small feathered arrow sticking up from the ground.
‘Antioch is closed to you,’ said the disembodied voice.
Nikephoros circled his horse back a little, trying to see between the battlements. ‘Antioch belongs to the emperor. Who has closed it?’
There was no answer except the ominous creak of a bowstring being drawn back and snapped into position. A chill gust of wind blew over us, and the serpent banner flapped against the stone as the breeze lifted it.
None of us spoke as we rode south. It took all my concentration simply to stay in my saddle: my soul was trembling like a broken sword, while my body shivered in the deepening cold. I could barely keep hold of the reins. We forded the Orontes and rejoined the main road from Antioch, now rising towards the mountains. The rain had eased, but a thick, freezing fog replaced it as we climbed higher, and we had no warning of the men ahead until we saw dark shapes staggering through the fog.
It could so easily have been an ambush, and we would have been powerless to stop it. On the miry road and with flagging mounts, we could not even have run. But there was something shambolic and frantic in the shadows before us that did not speak of menace. We spurred our horses forward, and a dozen men turned in the mist to look at us.
They were not brigands. Nor were they Turks. All were dressed in mail hauberks, and most carried weapons, but they posed little danger. Dirty cloths and bandages hung off their bodies like flags; one man’s head was bandaged thick as a turban where he had apparently lost an eye. Their faces were wretched: had they not been armed, you would have taken them for a slave coffle. Only the ragged crosses sewn on their sleeves told their true allegiance.
I gestured to their wounds. ‘Where have you come from? Was there a battle?’
The foremost of the Franks leaned heavily on his spear, burying it in the mud. ‘They attacked two nights ago. There was nothing we could do.’
‘Where?’ Had the Army of God been routed? Was this its last remnant, a handful of survivors spared to tell of its terrible fate?
‘Antioch,’ he mumbled. ‘They have taken Antioch from us.’
‘Who?’ I could guess the answer, but I asked it anyway.
‘The Norman traitor. Bohemond.’
Nikephoros twitched his reins. ‘What did he say?’
I ignored him. ‘And the Greeks in Antioch — what happened to them? What did Bohemond do to them? What — ’ I broke off as I heard my voice become shrill with panic. It did no good; the soldier dismissed my question with a careless shrug that was worse than any answer.
‘And you — you are Provencals? Count Raymond’s men?’
He nodded. Behind him, I could see his men shivering, and trying to keep their sodden bandages in place. There had never been any love between the Normans and Provencals, least of all between their leaders, but could Bohemond really have launched a war on his fellow Christians?
‘Where is Count Raymond? Was he at Antioch?’
The Provencal shook his head. ‘The count is at Ma’arat.’
‘Where is that?’
‘Further along this road.’ Even in his despair, he seemed surprised that I had not heard of it. ‘Two days’ march from here.’
A cold gust of wind blew rain in my eyes, and my mount pawed at the ground in her eagerness to be moving again.
Snow fell in the mountains that night. Next morning, a brittle crust covered the ground, and our horses picked their way anxiously over the frozen ruts in the road. The skies above were grey, unyielding, but the air was clear. When we came to an outcrop on the mountain road, we could see a high plateau opening out below us. The whole earth sparkled white, made new by the snow.
‘What’s that?’
While I had been staring into the distance, Aelfric’s practical gaze had been examining the road ahead. Immediately before us it plunged into a pine forest, but it emerged again below, heading south-east across the plain. At the bottom of the slope a river flowed around the mountains’ feet, and where river and road met there stood a small town.
‘Do you see there?’ Aelfric was pointing to the meadows just beyond the town. I looked, but saw nothing. Squinting against the sullen winter light, I stared closer until suddenly, like a ship emerging from fog, foreground and background split apart and I saw what Aelfric meant. Tents — scores of them, white as the snow. Deceived by the distance, I had taken them for the furrows of some farmer’s field, and the specks moving among them to be crows. In fact, they were not nearly so far off.
