Siege of Heaven

‘Back!’ Aelfric stood shoulder to shoulder with Raymond, swinging his axe as more attackers poured in. He wielded it awkwardly, not with the usual scything cuts but with short, spasmodic darts. In our desperate defence he could not commit himself, for a single mistimed stroke would leave him mortally vulnerable. I prayed it was a lesson Thomas had learned, but I had no time to look, for I was under desperate siege myself. Two Saracens charged towards me along the stream bank; I punched one in the face with my shield and watched him skid on the slippery ground, exposing his neck to the kiss of Aelfric’s axe. His companion paused, his sword hovering between us; I pounced on his indecision, swinging out my shield to check his sword while stabbing forward with my own. But he was too fast: he twisted away from the attack, at the same time grabbing on to my shield and tugging. I lost my footing on the slimy stream bed and was hurled onto my knees. Cold water rushed into my open mouth, choking off the scream; I tried to push myself up, but the water seemed to suck me down. In a second I would be dead.

Something splashed into the stream beside me, and a salt tang tainted the fresh water. For a moment I let it fill my mouth; then, realising what it was, I gagged in horror. The convulsion jerked my head up, out of the stream, and I looked around as the bloody water cascaded off my head. Thomas was standing over me, a bloodied axe in his hands. Just upstream from me, the Saracen lay unmoving. A great gash, from his collarbone to his navel, cleaved him almost in two.

‘Come on,’ said Thomas. Blood streaked his armour and his face was wild. In that instant, I barely recognised him. Half a dozen Saracens lay dead about his feet, though he could not have killed them all. They clogged the stream and added their blood to the reservoir filling up behind them. No more came to share their fate.

‘Thank you.’ My lungs burned from the water I had swallowed, and the words came out awkwardly.

Thomas scowled. ‘You should be more careful next time.’

We clambered out of the stream and edged our way down the muddy bank. My feet were sodden and numb; I felt like some bedraggled animal as I hauled myself over rocks and around roots. The taste of blood and water fouled my mouth; I tried to spit it out but still it remained. Several times my weary legs gave way and my lumpen fingers could not seize a handhold: then I would slide or tumble a little way down the slope, smearing myself in mud, until at last a stone or hummock stopped me. Each time, getting up proved harder and harder, until at last I slithered my way into a small hollow where Aelfric and Raymond were waiting.

‘Have we escaped them?’

As if in answer, Aelfric dropped to one knee, dragging Raymond down with him, and threw his shield over them. I thought he was joking; then, as I looked up, my heart almost died. The mist was thinning, and on the ridge above I could see a line of men, a company of dark shadows looking down on us.

I pulled my shield over me like a blanket, too weary to do more. A voice rang out from above, calling a challenge in some barbarous tongue.

Aelfric laughed, put down his shield and shouted back an answer. I waited to see what would come of it.

The voice from above sounded again, this time in Greek. It was accented, but wholly familiar.

‘Let’s get out of this bastard fog.’

26

Wounded and humbled, the Provencal army drifted back to the main column. By noon the sun had burned away the ceiling of fog, so that all could see the hillside strewn with bodies, and the proud castle triumphant on its promontory. Anna and Zoe ran to greet me as we returned, while Helena embraced Thomas without thought for the blood that stained her dress.

As soon as he had removed his armour, Raymond summoned his shamefaced army. Standing on a boulder, his arms spread apart in anger, he looked like nothing so much as Christ on Golgotha.

‘I thought I had seen every piece of cowardice and treachery that men could devise.’ He held his voice calm, but there was a throbbing tremor in the words which threatened to shake it apart. ‘I thought there was nothing shameful on the battlefield that I had not seen. But today. .’ His shoulders slumped; his head dropped, before rising slowly to fix its hate-filled gaze on the watching army. ‘Is this how the Army of God fights? If you were not creatures of lust we would be feasting in that castle this very moment, and I would be drinking to your valour. Now, we have nothing to feast on but our wounds.’

He paused and surveyed his host, daring them to disagree. No one spoke.

‘Where are my bodyguard?’

Half a dozen men shuffled forward from the ranks. They had removed their armour and quilted jerkins, and wore only woollen tunics with crosses sewn on the sleeves.

‘Two hours ago I was lying up there with a Saracen’s sword at my throat. All alone.’ The last two words resonated deep with anger, as if he had had to wrench them from his soul. ‘If not for the grace of God, I would be one more corpse on the hillside.’ He pointed up behind him, where flocks of crows wheeled above the ridge, then looked back at the six men standing before him. ‘Where were you then?’

One of them, a stocky man with a ruddy face, looked up. ‘We lost you in the fog and could not find you.’

‘Really?’ With a coiled energy far beneath his years, Raymond leaped down from his boulder and advanced towards the man. ‘All six of you?’

Six faces stared back at him. Several flushed with something like embarrassment, but none showed shame or begged forgiveness.

‘Have you forgotten your oaths to me?’ Raymond’s voice was sharp as ice. ‘I chose every one of you, to sleep by my bed, eat at my table and fight at my side. You-’ He turned to one of them. ‘Your father served me every day of his life; he fought beside me in seventeen battles, and when the eighteenth claimed him I was beside him. And now, in my greatest danger, you leave me blundering among my enemies like a blind man.’

The ruddy-faced man edged forward a little. ‘My lord, we-’

‘Your lord? Who is your lord? A knight who abandons his lord is no knight at all.’ Without warning that he even considered it, he punched the man square in the face. Age may have lined his skin and stooped his back, but it had not corroded the strength in his arm. The knight stumbled backwards, blood trickling from his nose.

‘Stand up,’ Raymond ordered. ‘Stand fast, if you have not forgotten how.’

The knight shook his head to clear it, licking away the blood that stained his lip. Swaying slightly, he stepped forward again and snapped his feet together.

‘Where was your courage on the mountain?’ Raymond jeered. ‘Did you forget it?’ He swung his fist straight into the knight’s chin. His head spun away with a sickening crack, but still he stayed standing.

‘Do you remember the oath you took to me? To fight as my sword and serve as my shield? To suffer my wounds?’ Raymond clasped his hands on either side of the knight’s bloodied face and held it inches from his own. ‘Why did you betray me?’

The knight looked as if he wanted to clear the blood from his mouth, but Raymond held him so close and tight he could not have done so without spitting in his master’s face. He swallowed, and mumbled, ‘We did not mean to lose you.’

Raymond loosed his grip, running his hand over the knight’s cheek almost lovingly. ‘You did not lose me in the fog — you abandoned me. Admit it.’

The knight whispered something I could not hear. Raymond shook his head, cupped one hand around the back of the knight’s head and smacked him hard with the other.

‘Liar,’ he shouted. Beneath the grey stubble his cheeks had flushed crimson. ‘Who told you to betray me?’ He let go the knight and wheeled round. ‘Was it him? An upstart peasant who thinks himself touched by God? Raymond stepped back, but only to give himself more room to drive his next blow into the knight’s stomach. The man gagged and stumbled forward; Raymond could have caught him, but instead stood aside so that the knight fell at his feet.

‘Was he trying to warn me?’ He lashed out with his boot, kicking the knight in the face. A gasp rose from the watching army, but no one moved. The other five guards stood in a row and stared straight ahead, stiff as corpses. ‘Crawl back to him, worm, and tell him I have heard his message.’ Another kick. ‘Does he