For so long the pilgrims had been an encumbrance, a mute and obedient shadow behind the main army. Now, in Peter Bartholomew, they had begun to find their voice, and it was an unsettling sound.
I was almost at the far edge of the pilgrim camp when suddenly I came around a row of tents and found my way barred by a knot of peasants. They had gathered around a preacher: I did not think he was a priest, for he wore only a simple white tunic, but he held his audience rapt.
‘Think of the mustard seed. When you sow it in the earth it is the least of seeds, yet it grows to greatness. In the same way, the kingdom of God will grow from the least of his people. The last shall be first, and the first last.’
I was about to slip away and find another route, when suddenly I noticed two familiar figures standing at the edge of the gathering. Thomas and Helena, watching intently. Helena held Everard in her arms.
‘The time will come when the Lord will send two great prophets, Enoch and Elijah, back into the world. They will prepare God’s elect for the coming storm with three and a half years of teaching and preaching. Three and a half years,’ he repeated ominously. ‘When did we set out from our homes?’
‘Three years ago,’ someone called from the crowd.
‘Three years ago.’ He leaned forward, lowering his voice. ‘The prophets are already abroad. First Enoch — and now Elijah. There is not much time.’
I had almost reached Helena, when a voice in the crowd beside me asked: ‘But where will we find the prophet?’
The preacher answered with a gap-toothed smile, as if he had expected the question. ‘Come with me, and I will show you. He has much to teach you, and little time.’
He beckoned them on. Several stepped forward immediately, hope bright on their faces; others hung back. The preacher gave them a pitying smile.
‘Have you forgotten the prophecy of Isaiah?
He turned around, and began shepherding his converts deeper into the camp. Some of the waverers hurried after him, while others — shamefaced and sullen — drifted away. Thomas and Helena looked as though they were about to follow, when my hands gripped their shoulders and spun them around.
‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded. ‘You were supposed to be fetching firewood.’ I pointed to their empty hands. ‘Did you have nothing better to do than listen to charlatans preaching nonsense?’
Thomas’s face hardened but he said nothing. Helena was less restrained. ‘What are you doing spying on us? I am not your girlish daughter any more. I will go where I choose, hear what I choose and believe what I choose.’
I looked at Thomas. ‘You, most of all, should know the dangers of following self-ordained prophets on the path to heaven. Your parents certainly found it out.’
Thomas looked at me as if he could have cut my throat. His hateful stare transfixed me, until at last Helena took his hand and pulled him away into the twilight.
Later that night, I crawled across to Helena’s corner of the tent and lay next to her.
‘I’m sorry. I should not have said what I did.’ I spoke softly, trying not to wake the baby. For a long moment I thought I had been too quiet, for the only reply was slow breathing, but I did not dare repeat myself.
At last, still lying with her back to me, she whispered, ‘You cannot teach Thomas the lessons of his own past.’
‘Neither do I. But he is my husband, and I am the mother of his son. You cannot expect me to live locked away from the world like a nun.’
I thought of the monks in the Egyptian desert, invisible to the outside world. ‘There are places on this earth between the convent and the front line of battle.’
She rolled over. ‘Not where Thomas is. And not where you are.’
We lay there in silence, facing each other a few inches apart. Once there had been no distance there, when she and her mother and a newborn Zoe and I all shared the same bed.
‘I cannot make Thomas learn the mistakes of his parents, any more than I can make you learn from mine.’
Helena gave a small laugh, which reminded me of younger, happier times, then broke off as she remembered the baby. ‘A lifetime would not be long enough to learn from your mistakes,’ she teased.
‘Probably not.’ I fumbled in the dark for her hand and squeezed it. ‘I know Thomas has suffered pains and horrors I can barely imagine. He has my pity.’
In the darkness of the tent, I sensed Helena stiffen. ‘He does not need pity. He needs love.’
‘Love, too. But he must not let his hurt drive him to oblivion. He has too much to lose.’
On Helena’s far side, the baby started to cough. She turned over, and I heard a tapping as she patted its back, like soft footsteps approaching.
Four days after leaving Shaizar, we reached a crossroads. To the south, a broad road followed the river valley; to the west, another road led towards the snow-capped mountains we could see in the distance and thence, our guides assured us, to the sea. Raymond summoned Tancred, Robert of Normandy and Nikephoros to debate our choice. As ever, I accompanied Nikephoros to translate. Though a month in the Franks’ company must have taught him something of the common dialect, I think he would rather have cut his tongue out than allowed the barbarian sounds to touch it.
‘The southerly road looks easier.’ Duke Robert craned his head and stared, as if he might see all the way to Jerusalem if he looked hard enough.
‘But that road goes by Damascus,’ said Nikephoros. ‘There you would find yourselves trapped before another Antioch. You could besiege it for a year and never take it.’
‘Perhaps the lord of Damascus would give us safe passage, like the lord of Shaizar,’ Robert suggested.
Raymond twitched his head to dismiss the idea. ‘He might — if Bohemond had not slaughtered half his army at Antioch a year ago.’
‘Then what lies the other way, past the mountains?’
‘The coast,’ answered Nikephoros. ‘Go that way, and the emperor’s grain ships can supply you from the sea.’
‘If we can capture a harbour. The coastal road is guarded by a chain of fortified ports. Arqa, Tripoli, Sidon and Tyre, Acre, Caesarea, Jaffa.’ Raymond’s face darkened as he recited them. ‘If we besiege every one of them, we’ll have exhausted the emperor’s granaries long before we reach Jerusalem.’
‘We will not need to capture each of them,’ said Tancred confidently. ‘The reputation of Antioch and Ma’arat will carry before us and open their gates. Otherwise, we’ll sack the first city we see, raze it to the ground and teach the rest what awaits them if they resist us.’
Raymond nodded absent-mindedly, distracted by a movement behind us. A rider had ridden out from the army to join us, with half a dozen acolytes scampering on foot behind him. It was Peter Bartholomew, who seemed to have exchanged his donkey for a full-grown horse, a snow-white mare. He perched awkwardly in the saddle, unaccustomed to the motion or the height, and struggled to rein in his mount as he reached us.
‘Why have we stopped?’ he demanded.
‘We heard that the crown of thorns was hidden in a thicket near by, and thought you might be able to find it,’ said Tancred.
Peter Bartholomew flushed, and made a fumbling sign across his chest to ward off evil. Saying nothing to Tancred, he turned and looked at the fork in the road. ‘Which way leads to Jerusalem?’
‘Both of them.’
Peter considered this for a while, staring at the different paths. It was the same gaze that he could fix on a man — frank, penetrating and overwhelming — as if you could not imagine the thoughts and judgements that passed behind his eyes. No one interrupted him, not even Nikephoros.
At last he blinked, and pointed towards Damascus. ‘We should go that way.’
‘Who asked you?’ growled Tancred. He turned to Count Raymond. ‘When I offered you my service I thought I would be led by the Count of Toulouse, not an ignorant peasant. Who is in command of this army?’
