encampment, then to us again.
‘Peter Bartholomew will not see you,’ he reiterated. ‘But I will take you to him.’
He called another guard to take his place, and led us up the hill into the heart of the camp. Raymond’s beating had broken more than his face: he walked with a heavy limp, dragging his foot and learning on his spear like an old man’s staff.
‘I have a friend who would make sure that mended properly,’ I told him. But he only muttered something about the healing of Christ, and shuffled on through the camp. Though it must have been a camp of thousands, sprawled all down the slope, there was neither sound nor light save the flap of our footsteps, and a golden glow from the very top of the hill.
‘Are all the pilgrims in their beds?’ I wondered.
The guard touched a finger to his cracked lips. ‘Peter Bartholomew has ordered it.’
The camp thinned as we neared the top of the hill. By some twist of the landscape the summit was hidden until we were almost upon it: then, suddenly, I could see three solitary tents set to form an open-sided square, with the vast cross I had seen from the mountain at its centre. The tents on either side flickered dimly with the light of lamps within, but the third shone like a beacon. A regal light burned through its delicately spun walls so that it appeared as a pyramid of light, celestial in its radiance. I could hear a soft song rising within, like a psalm or a lullaby — many overlapping voices, though no shadows darkened the golden walls save for the black silhouette of the cross.
‘Is that Peter Bartholomew’s tent?’ Thomas’s voice rang with suspicion and wonder.
The guard did not answer, but took me by the arm and pulled me towards the dim tent on the left. Even he seemed awestruck to be there: his grip was slack, and the light beamed on his shattered face to make it seem almost whole again. He lifted the flap of the tent, called something inside, then beckoned us in.
After the still beauty outside, the tent we entered was a mean and shabby place. Its lamps hissed and spat, filling the space with an oily smoke; the cloths that divided the apartments were stained yellow, and hung crooked from the ceiling. Tangled heaps of carpets and furs lay discarded on the floor, and at least half the furniture seemed to have been knocked over as if in a brawl. An unpleasant odour hung in the air, despite the oversweet perfumes that tried to mask it.
‘Wait here,’ said the guard. His ease had vanished, and he scuttled out of the tent before we could answer. Through the cloth partition I could hear rustles and a low grunting, like a pig rooting in the ground — and occasionally a high-pitched whimper. I did not dare look at Thomas.
The grunting stopped. I looked to the canvas flap, expectant and dreading, but there was no sign of anyone emerging. And then, suddenly, a voice from the tent door behind us.
‘What do you want?’
Thomas and I spun around. He had arrived with startling silence, but he did not look like a quiet man. His pockmarked face was bloated and heavy, his belly likewise, though the rest of him was meagre enough. His eyes were too small for his face and his mouth too large. Something sticky seemed to be smeared on his chin. He wore a long camelskin robe tied with a leather belt: he hooked his thumbs in it, and puffed out his chest.
‘I have a message for Peter Bartholomew,’ I said. ‘It will help the army reach Jerusalem.’
The man’s eyes fixed on me. ‘Peter Bartholomew, bless his holy name’ — he tapped a perfunctory sign of the cross across his chest — ‘is at prayer. He will not be disturbed.’
‘He will want to hear my message.’
‘Then you can tell it to me.’ His voice was coarse, even by the standards of the Provencals. There was no poise in his manner, only blunt strength.
‘It is for Peter Bartholomew alone,’ I insisted.
‘No one comes to Peter Bartholomew, bless his name, except through me.’ He gave an ugly smile. ‘I am his steward and his prophet.’
‘I have seen him many times.’ I spoke mildly. Despite his obvious dissolution, there was a menace in the man’s face I did not want to provoke.
‘That was in the past. Now that the time of trial is coming, he must gather his strength and devote himself to God. If he saw every disciple who sought his blessing he would never sleep.’
‘I am not his disciple.’
The steward gave what was meant to be an indulgent look; it emerged more like a leer. ‘We are all his disciples — though some do not know it yet.’
‘Then will you tell him Demetrios Askiates has brought a message for him.’
He shook his fat head. ‘Tell it to me.’
‘It is for him only.’
My obstinacy was beginning to irritate this selfproclaimed prophet: his small eyes narrowed, his hands began to ball into fists by his side. Thomas saw it too and edged closer, but I flicked my head to keep him back.
‘Raymond cannot advance to Jerusalem unless Bohemond and Godfrey come to reinforce him. But they will not come until Raymond asks — and his pride will not bend to that.’
The prophet folded his arms across his chest. ‘So?’
‘Peter Bartholomew-’
‘Bless his name.’
‘. . has influence Raymond cannot ignore. If he commands Raymond to send for Bohemond and Godfrey, to ask for their help, Raymond will do it.’
The prophet stared at me. ‘Is that all?’
‘It is enough.’ I hoped that was true. I had little faith that the fat prophet would relay what I had said, and less still that Peter Bartholomew would act on it.
But the next day, Aelfric reported he had seen a knight leave Count Raymond’s camp and ride north to Antioch.
28
The boy stood between his mother’s bare legs, his arms wrapped around them. His young face was screwed into a mask of concentration as he surveyed the ground in front of him. Worry furrowed his face like an old man’s — though these furrows were plump and fertile, ripe for planting, not the arid, barren lines of age. With a hiccup of resolve, he suddenly unlatched himself from his mother and lurched forward, flailing his limbs like a newborn foal. One step, two, three — and the beginnings of a fourth before the momentum undid him. He sprawled face-first into the carpet of pine-needles, a plaintive bawl lamenting his failure. Helena ran forward and picked him up, dusting the pine needles off his blue tunic.
‘Soon he’ll walk better than his grandfather,’ said Sigurd.
I picked up a pinecone and threw it at him, but he swatted it away with the palm of his hand. The boy — my grandson — stopped wailing as he watched it fly into a patch of tall grass.
‘With an arm like that, you should be throwing rocks at Arqa,’ Sigurd teased me. ‘You’d do no worse than the catapaults.’
I waved the insult away. We were sitting in a glade in the forest that covered the lower slopes of the mountain — Thomas and Helena with the baby Everard; Zoe, picking the scales off pinecones to get at the nuts within; Sigurd, and Anna sitting on a fallen log beside me. We had brought baskets of bread and fruit, for it was a rare escape from the grim confines of the camp.
‘There was a full moon two nights ago,’ said Sigurd. ‘A whole month we’ve been here now.’ He pointed to Everard, who had balanced himself against his mother and was teetering forward, summoning courage for his next advance. The anticipation and delight in his young face seemed to have forgotten all memory of ever having fallen, though his knees were black with earth.
‘If that boy set out for Jerusalem now, he’d still be there before this army.’
Everard obliged Sigurd’s pessimism by choosing that moment to launch himself into another doomed run. This time he only managed two steps before the inevitable collapse. Helena stepped forward and wrapped him in her skirt, hushing the cries.
