‘Hope of going home.’ Fresh tears sprang from her eyes, but she ignored them, stroking a finger through my beard. ‘I’m ready.’
‘So am I.’
‘And Helena should hurry home too. Has she told you?’
I started. ‘Told me what?’
Anna pressed a hand over my groin. The smile had returned to her face, and her eyes gleamed with mischief. ‘You and I are not the only ones who have been sneaking away from the camp. Helena is expecting another child.’
I drew back in amazement. ‘When?’
‘Six months from now.’
I counted in my head. ‘How long has she known without telling me?’
‘Two months — and she did not tell me either. But I recognised the signs.’
‘I saw that she looked healthier, that she had grown again,’ I defended myself. ‘I thought it was the abundance of food.’
Anna laughed. ‘She did not tell you because she was afraid it would worry you on the march.’
‘It would have.’ I had to pull away from Anna and lean against the wall of the gully, so bewildered was I by the emotions Anna’s news had unleashed in me.
‘It’s lucky we’re almost ready to go home.’
The next day we came to Aramathea, a prosperous town in the foothills of the mountain range. We approached with caution, for if the Fatimids wished to mount a defence before we reached Jerusalem this was their final opportunity. But when we reached the gates we found the town abandoned, not just by its garrison but by every single inhabitant. They had left behind a great store of grain and provisions, and full cisterns from which we gratefully filled our waterskins. We knew there would be scant water in the mountains ahead.
Of all those days marching, I remember the last one the best. The whole army was awake before dawn, like children at Easter, and before the cool morning could grow stale we were well on our way. We were now deep in the mountains, the first places God made, and the weight of ages was everywhere in the wizened landscape around us. Deep clefts furrowed the faces of barren hills, and desiccated veins of white rock were all that remained of the rivers that had once brought life to the soil. It did not seem like the promised land flowing with milk and honey, but we did not care. Our songs resounded off the crumbling valleys: pious hymns of thanksgiving; proud songs of war; and sometimes more poignant songs of the countries we had left so far behind. Happiness, wonder and laughter bubbled up from the army like fresh springs, and the faces around me seemed to glow with joy.
By midday, the still air had grown thick and heavy. On another day we might have rested through the worst of the heat, but that afternoon there was no thought of delay. I walked between my daughters, Helena on my left and Zoe on my right, glancing at Helena’s belly so often that she scolded me for my unseemly impatience.
‘You won’t see him growing as you watch.’
‘Him? She may be a girl.’ Though I would not tell Helena so, I wanted a girl. Her mother would have wanted a granddaughter, I thought.
A shadow of worry drifted over me, and I looked at the steep valleys around us for any hint of an enemy. It would have been an easy place for the Ishmaelites to ambush us, but once again they chose not to.
I squeezed Helena’s hand — and then, so she would not feel left out, Zoe’s. Of all of us, I think the journey had been hardest for her. Anna had come for me, and Helena for Thomas, but Zoe had come because she had to. Looking at her now, I could see how it had changed her. At home in Constantinople she had been much the livelier of my daughters, teasing Helena and me to distraction, but ever able to defuse our anger with a grin and a hug. Now the mischief and vitality had gone; she spoke rarely and laughed less. Often in our camps she seemed to disappear into the background, not absent in person but not present in spirit. Though her body had grown in the past two years — even the past few months — her face seemed thinner, as if age and experience had somehow pinched it shut.
I smiled at her, trying to prompt the smile I remembered so well. ‘Soon,’ I promised. ‘Soon this will be over.’
The sun waned, breathing its dying light into the dust that surrounded us so we seemed to walk in a golden cloud. I stared forward obsessively; with every turn in the road I expected to see Jerusalem before us, shining on its hilltop, but it did not appear. Then scouts who had ridden forward came back, and announced it was still ten miles to Jerusalem. Many wanted to press on through the night, but the princes would not allow it. Haste was peril, they said: the road was too dangerous, our enemies’ intentions unknown. We made our camp near a village, though few pitched their tents. One word hung on everybody’s lips — spoken with excitement, with awe, with reverence and with fear.
‘Anyone would think we’re to find Jerusalem as empty as Aramathea,’ Sigurd grumbled. We had built our fire in a rocky circle near the road and sat on the surrounding boulders. Thomas had caught two pigeons, which we roasted on spits over the coals. ‘The journey doesn’t end just because we arrive.’
‘Ours does.’
I looked around. Nikephoros was standing behind us, dim against the twilight. Perhaps because I was in mind of endings, I remembered the first time I had seen him: the magnificence, the power and the arrogance of his presence. The new beard he had worn had grown full; the cushions and gilded furniture that had decorated his quarters then had long since been lost or abandoned on the road. That evening he had not even pitched his tent, but laid out his blankets on the ground like the rest of us. In the soft haze, dressed only in a plain linen tunic, he almost looked humble.
‘Our journey ends here,’ he said again, perhaps thinking we had not heard him. He looked at Sigurd. ‘Have your men formed up to march at dawn. We will make for the coast and find a ship there. Perhaps we will find the grain fleet; otherwise there are English ships in the emperor’s service still patrolling these waters. One of them will take us home.’
For a moment his only answer was the sound of boiling fat sizzling on the coals.
‘But. . Jerusalem.’ I pointed foolishly, as if it stood not fifty yards up the road. ‘What about Jerusalem?’
‘Jerusalem was not my destination. My orders were to see that the Franks reached it and now, praise God, I have. Even they should be able to find it from here.’
‘And what will they do then?’ asked Sigurd. ‘They have not won any victory yet.’
Nikephoros shrugged. ‘Thirty Varangians more or less will not decide the battle. To fight it would be a waste — it does not even matter who wins now. Be ready to march at dawn.’
I hardly knew what to feel. For two years and more I had longed to see Jerusalem and go home, until the two desires, once contradictory, wound themselves so tight around me that they became inseparable. It had become my purpose: to be denied it now felt almost as though Nikephoros had ripped out part of my soul. Looking at the others, I saw the same disbelief reflected on all their faces — Thomas’s most of all.
Yet in my shock, one part of me still saw clearly.
I ran after Nikephoros, away from the campfire, and halted him.
‘Achard told the truth,’ I said slowly. ‘You did go to Egypt to make an alliance with the Fatimids. What was the bargain? That we would bring the Franks to the altar at Jerusalem if the Fatimids would wield the sacrificial knife?’
Darkness shrouded Nikephoros’ face, but his voice was clear and unrepentant. ‘The emperor was a fool ever to consider taking the Franks as allies. Wise counsellors warned him against it, but he was too weak.’
‘So you took it upon yourself to break the emperor’s alliance, to finish what your wise counsellors failed to do at Constantinople.’
Nikephoros laughed, and the contempt in his laughter told me I was wrong again. ‘I took nothing upon myself. I am the emperor’s obedient servant. There is nothing I have done that he did not order me to do.’
I felt as if I had been dropped into a void without bounds or depth. ‘The emperor?’
‘When the barbarians refused to surrender Antioch, he saw his mistake at last. You can hunt with wild dogs, but you cannot be surprised if they take your quarry for themselves. And when they do, there is only one solution.’
I shook my head, trying to clear the confusion within. Nikephoros thought I was contradicting him.
