Siege of Heaven

misses his limb.’

‘When you left, did you know you would never see it again?’

‘I …’ Sigurd paused. ‘I don’t remember. There was too much confusion, and I was too young. But I must have thought I would see it again, or I would never have left.’ He grimaced. ‘Even so, I clung to a tree that grew beside the water when it was time to leave. My uncle thought he would need to chop it down I held on so tight.’

‘I would have done the same to Constantine’s column in the forum if I had known it would be so long before I saw it again. I thought I wanted to see my family — but now they are here, I think it was the city I wanted really.’

Sigurd balled his fingers into a fist and stared at it.

‘Don’t worry yourself too much with your family. They don’t know where they are and they’re frightened. Even if we were all in Constantinople, it would not be perfect. Helena would still be struggling to understand where her allegiance to her husband ends and to her father begins.’

‘I would have been happy for her to abandon me for her husband completely, if only he’d kept her safe in Constantinople.’

‘You should watch Thomas. He is too eager for battle.’

‘Whereas you, of course, have harnessed your axe to an ox and made it a plough.’

Sigurd looked serious. ‘I have been in enough battles that I know what to do — and even, though you may not believe it, when to step back. If Thomas charges into his next battle thinking he can avenge his wounds with every sweep of his axe, he will make an easy kill for some Ishmaelite.’

‘He saved my life,’ I said, ducking away from Sigurd’s warning.

‘And you saved his. But it will mean precious little if you and he don’t live long enough to make the debt worthwhile.’

I made a final attempt to reinvigorate the fire, then stood and wiped the ash from my face. Down the slope, I saw Zoe returning from the river where she had been sent to fetch water.

‘Your daughter will be strong enough to join the Varangians soon,’ said Sigurd. ‘Look at the way she carries that water jar — almost as if it was empty.’

It was true: she held the jar one-handed, and it bounced freely as she ran towards us though no water spilled out. Forgetting the fire, I ran to meet her, instinctively checking for any sign of injury.

‘Are you all right?’ I called. ‘Are you in danger?’

She shook her head, her loose hair flying across her face. ‘The camp across the river — Duke Godfrey’s camp.’ She gulped a deep breath. ‘It’s gone.’

Duke Godfrey’s camp, which for the last two months had stood on the southern side of the mountain spur, was a ruin. A film of smoke hung over the ground like a dawn mist: through it I could see scraps of charred cloth hanging from the ribs of tents, beds of ash still smouldering, bare patches in the earth where tents had once stood. I rubbed my eyes.

‘Did the Saracens creep down from the city and burn the camp in the night?’ I wondered. ‘Why didn’t we see any flames?’

Sigurd gestured to the bulk of the spur behind us. ‘That would have hidden it.’

‘But we would still have heard the battle.’

‘If there was a battle.’ Sigurd stepped forward and walked a little way forward. ‘Do you see anything strange about this battlefield?’

I looked closer. Though the embers still smouldered and the ash was fresh, the carcass of the battle had already been picked impossibly clean. There were no bodies.

‘What’s that?’

I looked up. A man in a white cassock was walking towards us between the rows of ruined tents, striding the battlefield like the angel of death — though I did not think the hem of an angel’s robe would have been soiled grey by the ash he kicked up as he walked. Nor, in my image, would he have been old and balding, with a pronounced wart on his left cheek.

He reached us and made the sign of the cross. ‘Good morning, brothers.’

‘What happened here?’ I asked.

He looked around, as if seeing the wreckage for the first time. ‘Praise God, the Holy Spirit moved in the hearts of the faithful last night and roused them like a great wind. As one, they rose from their camp and set out on the road to Jerusalem.’

‘And this?’ I gestured to the ruin.

‘Whatever they could not take they burned. They will not be coming back.’

‘So Duke Godfrey has gone …’

‘And the Duke of Normandy, and the Count of Flanders, and Tancred-’

‘Tancred was in Count Raymond’s service,’ I interrupted.

‘He left it — they all left. I was the only one who stayed behind, to tell you what has happened. And now that I have done so …’ He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. A grey horse, which had been grazing on the sweet grass by the river, trotted over. The priest lifted himself into the saddle, with surprising ease for a holyman, and took the reins. As his cassock rode up over his boots, I saw the glint of spurs on his heels.

He offered a crooked smile. ‘Tell Count Raymond this: the time for vanity and hesitation has passed. If any man from his army, knight or peasant, wishes to see Jerusalem, let him hasten after us: the other princes will welcome his service. But there will be no more delays now. They must come quickly, before the whole world falls away to ash.’

He turned his horse and kicked its flanks. Dust and cinders billowed up behind him as he left, so that the pale horse and its pale rider vanished in the cloud. By the time it had settled again he was gone, though the drum of his hoofbeats seemed to echo for a long time afterwards in the valley. Not only echo, but grow louder, swelling out until they sounded all around me.

I looked around, and saw the reason. It was not the departing priest I had heard, but Count Raymond, galloping down towards us with a score of his knights and nobles behind. They thundered over the bridge, then reined themselves in.

‘What has happened here?’ Raymond demanded. His face was white, glistening with sweat. He gestured up to the promontory behind us. ‘Have the Saracens done this?’

I told him what I had heard, though he barely seemed to listen. He paced his horse around me, this way and that, glancing distractedly at the remains of Duke Godfrey’s camp. His knights kept their distance and watched.

Only when I had finished did Raymond go still, though he would not look at me.

‘Tancred went?’ he said bleakly.

I nodded.

‘He took an oath to me!’ A terrible groan, like the cry of a wounded boar, tore the air. Raymond doubled over in his saddle, clutching his arms to his stomach, then suddenly jerked upright and threw out his hands as if grasping at the air for balance. The men around him drew back.

‘They have abandoned me,’ he whispered.

One of his knights edged tentatively forward. ‘They have only been gone a few hours. If we march quickly we could overtake them by sunset and join our armies for the final charge.’

‘And what about Arqa?’ Raymond looked up at the walled town on its promontory above us, as inviolable as ever; then at the road winding away towards the coast and Jerusalem. A solitary tear seemed to trickle from his eye — though perhaps it was just sweat, for the sun was already hot.

‘Give orders to strike the camp.’

36

We caught up with the other princes the following day. The Flemings, Normans and Lotharingians embraced the Provencals gladly, rejoicing to see the army reunited, but Count Raymond rode in the midst of his bodyguard and remained unseen. That evening the princes concluded a peace with the emir of Tripoli, and the next day we