Siege of Heaven

‘The Lord God,’ said Peter primly.

‘I am in command.’ Raymond’s eye raked over the watching faces; no one, not even Peter Bartholomew, contradicted him.

‘Then which way do you say we go?’ A blade of insolence hovered under Tancred’s question.

Raymond jerked his head around, first to the wending road to Damascus, then the steep path that descended past the mountains towards the sea.

‘We will camp here tonight. I will announce my decision in the morning.’

24

But there was no decision the next day, nor even the day after. Word went out that this was to allow us to replenish our supplies, for the inhabitants of this country had fled before our advance and abandoned their granaries for us to plunder. That was fortunate for Count Raymond, for even the most ardent pilgrim would not complain of the pause if given the chance to fill his belly.

‘But he cannot delay much longer,’ Nikephoros told me on the second day. ‘Once the pilgrims have eaten, they will be doubly eager to march on to Jerusalem.’

‘What do you think Raymond will decide?’

Nikephoros leaned forward. Even on campaign he wore a dalmatic sewn with a crust of gems, which stretched and sank above his shoulders as they moved. ‘The road to Damascus is a dead end: the only way we will ever reach Jerusalem is by the coast. Raymond knows that. He only delays because he is too frightened to contradict Peter Bartholomew.’

When did peasants learn to direct the affairs of armies? I wondered. Perhaps the preacher had been right: perhaps the meek had inherited the earth and the mighty fallen from their seats. Perhaps.

‘Have you tried to convince him?’

‘Every day.’ Nikephoros snapped a stick of sealing wax in two. ‘If force of argument could move a man, I would have propelled him all the way to the gates of Jerusalem by now. He will not listen to me.’

There was a pause. Nikephoros squeezed the broken wax in his hand, crumbling it over the desk.

‘I could try,’ I said at last.

He looked up. ‘You? What could you say to Count Raymond that I have not?’

‘Not Count Raymond: Peter Bartholomew.’

Nikephoros said nothing but gestured me to go on. The wax had stained his hand red.

‘Peter Bartholomew has not always been the pillar of righteousness he is now. His past has been. . erratic.’ I shrugged. ‘Perhaps if I remind him of it he will prove more amenable.’

I did not trust my powers of persuasion so much that I would go alone. I tried to find Sigurd, but he had gone foraging; instead, I took Thomas. We walked without speaking. The silence weighed on me desperately, but I could not think of anything to say that was not trite or patronising.

Soon we crossed the open ground that divided the two camps and entered the pilgrims’ domain. A hostile atmosphere seemed to menace us all about. Even when we could see no one I felt the prickling sense of being watched; elsewhere, wide-eyed peasants sat under their makeshift shelters — sheets tied to branches, or awnings hung in the spaces between larger tents — and stared openly. But no one touched us or tried to stop us.

We found Peter Bartholomew in the very heart of the camp — but he was not alone. In a circle of open ground among the tents, a large crowd had gathered around a makeshift stage. A tall cross towered over it, high enough to crucify a man, and there, in its shadow, stood Peter Bartholomew. He was speaking, his voice reaching every corner of the crowd.

‘This morning, before the sun was up, the holy Saint Peter appeared again before me.’

A murmur of expectation ran through the crowd.

‘I had prayed, in all our names, that the Lord God would show His servant the way to Jerusalem.’

With Thomas behind me, I pushed my way into the crowd. It swayed and heaved as if possessed by a vital spirit all its own.

‘And suddenly Saint Peter was there in a haze of golden light. Two keys swung from his belt, and he held the staff of judgement in his hands. I dropped to my knees.’

Enraptured by the memory, Peter sank to his knees. Every man and woman in the crowd did likewise.

‘“Command me, Lord,” I said, and in an instant I was lifted up high into the air.’ Peter stood and stretched out his arms; the crowd remained kneeling. ‘The wizened earth lay beneath me, her mountains like pebbles and her oceans like pools of rainwater. In the south, a thin river snaked away towards a great city, from where I heard cries and lamentations.

‘“What city is that?” I asked, and the saint answered, “Jerusalem.”

‘“And why does she cry out?”

‘“Because the king of Babylon has come to her. He has set his throne in Solomon’s temple, and has slain every true Christian who resisted him,” said the saint. “You must hasten and relieve her distress.”

‘We fell from the sky like thunder and were back in the tent. “This sacred journey is only for the pure of heart,” the saint warned me. “If you wander and are lost, it is because there are sinners among you. You must root them out like weeds among the corn.”

‘“My followers are pure and devout,” I protested, but he silenced me with a flash of his eyes. “There are some among your flock who even now blaspheme and sin against the Lord,” he told me. “This very night, the knight Amanieu of Vienne has lain in adultery with the wife of Reynauld the blacksmith.”’

Anger hissed through the crowd and they stood, as two people shuffled onto the platform. Both their heads were shaved bare: it was only when they turned to face the audience that I saw to my shock that one was a woman. She stood there in a flimsy grey shift, her eyes swollen and her skull scraped red. A young man, little older than Thomas, stood beside her in a similar state — only the rise of the woman’s breasts under the shift marked them apart. Peter Bartholomew stood between them, holding out his arms so that it looked as if he embraced them.

‘The penalty for adultery, laid down in the law of Moses, is death.’

The crowd stirred, nodding their agreement.

‘But Christ taught us to love the sinner. That through true repentance, we could overcome the sinful clay of our flesh and perfect the spark of divine spirit within.’

He looked slowly at each of his prisoners in turn. Both stood there in silence.

‘All sins must be laid bare.’

Rough hands reached forward, tearing away the grey shifts the adulterers wore. A gasp of sanctimonious delight shot through the crowd. The two lovers stood naked before them, trembling in the chill air but otherwise unmoving. The man wore a cloth tied around his hips, but the woman was entirely naked. Her breasts pricked up in the cold, while the white lines of childbearing spidered her belly like scars. I wondered if her children were in the audience now to see their mother’s shame.

All around me I felt a charge in the air, the smouldering iron taste on my tongue I had sometimes felt before a storm or a battle. I turned to Thomas.

‘Go and find Count Raymond,’ I whispered. ‘Tell him to come with his knights. Go.’

Thomas’s eyes darted over my shoulder to the stage, mesmerised by the spectacle. I cuffed him on his cheek. ‘Go.’

He tore his gaze away and pushed out of the crowd. Back on the stage, the adulterers were now on their knees. Two men stood over them with switches in their hands, the green wood quivering.

Peter Bartholomew stepped back and lifted a hand as if in blessing.

‘Thy will be done, O Lord.’

The hand dropped. An involuntary moan of excitement rose from the crowd and they pushed forward. The switches came down, rose, and dropped again, rising and falling in ever faster rhythm. The crowd had fallen silent, holding themselves still, as though they did not trust themselves even to breathe. Their lips and cheeks were