‘Stephen of Valence received a vision that promised deliverance to come,’ Peter corrected him sternly. ‘He did not see the lance. That was confided to me alone.’
‘But it corroborated your story.’
Peter sniffed. The radiance had departed again, and he seemed diminished. ‘For most men, my word was enough.’
‘But none doubted Stephen. He was so sure of his truth that he willingly offered to undergo the ordeal of the air or the ordeal by fire to prove it.’
‘I would have done the same if anyone had demanded it. Who says I would not?’
‘Nobody,’ said the priest. He spoke reasonably, earnestly. ‘I only said that Stephen
All the men in the crowd stood silent, watching Peter Bartholomew. A new fire pulsed in his face, different and angrier than the celestial glow when he prophesied. He moved towards us, his arms twitching.
‘Is that what you want? To see me thrown down from a high tower or set on a pyre? Do you think you will see my body destroyed, broken on rocks and burned in flame? You seek to test me, as the scribes and Pharisees tested Christ once before. But I will have the victory. I will fly through the air and walk through fire — let any man who doubts me come and witness it. But let him be warned that when the trial is over, it will be visited on him tenfold for his disbelief.’
Raymond looked appalled. ‘That is not necessary. No man doubts you. We have your word.’
‘And soon you will have the word of God. You know what is written in the psalms:
‘It is also written, in the same place:
‘And you should heed those words. Any man who doubts me doubts the Lord himself. Anyone who tests me, tests God.’
Godfrey looked ready to hit him for his audacity. ‘That is blasphemy.’
‘Light the fires and we will see.’
‘No!’ said Raymond. Godfrey rounded on him.
‘Do you have so little faith in your tame peasant that you fear to put him to the ordeal? Do you fear that your authority might die with him, when all men see that the lance was a hoax concocted by charlatans, connived at by princes who should have known better. If you truly wished to preserve your authority you would not be trying to protect this peasant from roasting himself on his own pride — you would lead your army from Arqa this very afternoon, and not halt until you were at the walls of Jerusalem.’
The corner of Raymond’s dead eye-socket twitched, but before he could answer Peter had shouted, ‘Count Raymond protect me? Why should I need it, when I am robed in the armour of God? Build your pyres, stoke them up as high as you can. Two days from now I will pass through the flames and not one hair on my head will be singed. The flames will burn away your lies. The heavens will part with thunder, every element will be dissolved with fire, and all things will be revealed.’
They built the fire in the valley, at the narrowest point where its slopes offered plenty of vantage for the curious. Olivewood boughs were stacked four feet high and doused with oil, laid in two parallel rows just far enough apart that a man could walk between them. It was full thirteen feet from one end to the other — more than enough time for God to prove his favour, as Sigurd observed.
Good Friday dawned clear and warm, though it was one of those days when the senses and the soul misalign themselves, and even sunshine feels overcast. A grim expectation gripped the camp — long before the appointed hour, the audience had gathered thick as crows, many thousands of them rising far up the slope like the crowds in the hippodrome. Like the hippodrome, the nobles had the choice places nearest the arena, while the mass of peasants thronged the heights above. A cordon of barefoot priests stood around the pyre and held back the onlookers, singing the psalms appointed for that holy day.
Many of the pilgrims joined in that verse with relish, while the lords touched their swords and looked anxiously around them.
There was no place of honour for me. I sat with my family about halfway up the hill, looking down into the cauldron of the valley. Up there the atmosphere was like a village festival or a fair. Peddlers picked their way through the crowd with trays and baskets of nuts, olives and water. Others offered less wholesome wares: one man carried nothing but an enormous tray of bones. I beckoned him over.
‘What are those?’ I asked.
The peddler, a ruddy-faced man whose rough features seemed set in simple, honest contentment, gave a gaptoothed smile. ‘Relics.’
‘Relics of whom?’
He nodded down to the waiting pyre. ‘Of him. These bones’ — he picked one out and offered it to me for inspection — ‘come from the lepers and cripples who Peter Bartholomew, bless his name, healed with his touch.’
‘Not very well if this is all that remains of them.’
Anna reached into the tray and took another bone, a tiny thing barely larger than a comb’s tooth. ‘Has Peter Bartholomew healed many squirrels?’
Rather than take offence, the peddler gave a broad, innocent grin. ‘
Anna rummaged some more in the tray. ‘And these?’ She pointed to an assortment of half a dozen mismatched pebbles.
‘Stones that Peter Bartholomew, bless his name, has himself touched. And here. .’ The peddler leaned forward confidentially and extracted a thin clay vial from inside his tunic. He uncorked it and held it to Anna’s nose. ‘A few drops of his most precious blood. I was walking behind him in the forest when he pricked himself on a briar; I gathered it fresh from the thorn myself.’
‘I thought it was usual to wait for a saint’s death before distributing his relics,’ I said.
‘Only because you have never been in the presence of a living saint. Although. .’ He knelt down, rearranging the bones and stones in his tray. ‘I have an agreement with one of the chaplains. If Peter Bartholomew, Christ preserve him, does not survive his ordeal, I am to get a bone from his forearm — and possibly his left hand. A Narbonnese priest offered me ten ducats for the arm, but if you were interested. .’
I shook my head, smiling to hide my disgust. ‘I’m sure Peter Bartholomew will triumph in his ordeal.’
The relic-seller beamed. ‘I pray he does.’
The sun climbed higher and hotter, so hot that I feared it might set the fire alight before the appointed hour. The still air was drenched with the stink of oil and sweat; flies swarmed all around us. The mood of the crowd grew impatient: some wondered when their saviour would appear, while others taunted them that he had run away rather than be revealed as an impostor. In the sweltering heat the arguments became angry, and several men had to be pulled apart from their quarrels. Others let their purses speak for them, and laid wagers as to whether Peter Bartholomew would survive, how long it would take him to traverse the corridor of flame, and whether the angels who carried him up out of the blaze would be seen by the audience.
A little after noon we heard a shout go up from the camp. In an instant, every man was on his feet, watching the solemn procession climb the valley. A cohort of Provencal soldiers led the way, forcing a path through the throng. Behind them came Count Raymond and a bishop, then a knot of priests huddled around a figure I could not see. They proceeded slowly, in a cloud of foliage where the peasants showered them with olive leaves and wildflowers. The air sang with adoration and the valley echoed with hosannas like the highest sphere of
