Knights of the Cross

of the pagans. “I have heard that the Persians falsely worship a hero who – they say – sacrificed the Bull of Heaven, by whose blood they believe the world and life were created. They name this hero Mithra; they celebrate his rites in secret caves, so that veiled in darkness they may shun the true and glorious light of Christ. They say—”’

He broke off, snatching the candle away so that the page fell into shadow. ‘There are some lies which a Christian should not hear repeated, lest entering by his ear the Devil poison his heart.’

Being deemed unworthy of secret knowledge was ever a spark to my temper, but I managed to restrain it. The words which the bishop had already confided were portion enough for my mind: what could Drogo and his companions have purposed in a Persian temple?

‘Of course we need not range so far from Truth,’ Adhemar said. He seemed distracted, still leafing through the book in search of something. ‘It is written that when the Israelites were at Sinai, the Lord said to Moses: “You shall slaughter a bull before the Lord; some of its blood you shall smear on the horns of the altar with your finger, and all the rest you shall pour out at the base of the altar.”’

‘It is also written: “I delight not in the blood of bulls or lambs or goats.”’

Adhemar’s face lifted swiftly from his reading and he glared at me. ‘You have no cause to remind me what is written in scripture. But among the credulous and wicked, much that is written can be twisted to the purposes of evil. As is warned of here, indeed.’ His finger came to rest on a fresh page of text. ‘From the writings of Tertullian: “The Devil, by his wiles, perverts the truth. The mystic rites of his idols vie even with the sacraments of God. He . . .”’ Adhemar’s aged brow creased as he concentrated on his text, muttering under his breath in unintelligible Latin. When he looked up, the sharp edge of his eyes seemed dulled by confusion.

‘This is remarkable,’ he said, his voice deliberately controlled.

‘What?’

‘In this same passage, Tertullian writes: “The Devil too baptises his own believers; he promises the indulgence of their sins by a rite of his own.”’ The bishop’s fists clenched white around the book, so tight that I feared he might rip the pages from it. “‘There in the kingdom of Satan, Mithra sets his mark on the foreheads of his soldiers.”’

All resentment and irritation flooded from me. ‘When we found Drogo, there was a mark on his forehead in blood. A mark in the shape of a Latin sigma.’

‘So I have heard.’ Adhemar closed the book and snapped the iron clasp shut.

‘I thought it might be the initial of his killer – or of a lover whose affections they rivalled. Could it instead stand for Satan?’

‘Do Greeks believe that the Devil writes in Latin?’ Despite his evident shock, the bishop managed a thin smile. ‘The mark may be the shape of an S, but there is another form it resembles. A form much associated with Satan and his works.’

Adhemar’s eyes searched my own. ‘Do you not see it? It is the form of a serpent.’

? ?

That night, after supper, I left our camp and climbed a little way up the mountain, to a small hollow in the lee of the tower of Malregard. We had long since driven the Turks from these slopes, and Tancred’s cannibalism had deterred any spies, but there were still enough footpaths and posterns unguarded that I could not be easy in my mind. Yet I needed to escape the confines of the camp, the clamour of men and beasts and arms, to find an expanse in which my mind could wander. Perhaps I had chosen unwisely, for the fear of marauding Turks pressed my thoughts far harder than any distraction in the camp, but I squeezed myself in the shadow between two rocks and let curiosity gradually tease away my fears.

The questions which exercised me offered scarce comfort: it was a lonely place to contend with the ways of the Devil. Several times I tried to reason a path of thought, and each time I found my way barred by some insuperable image: the cave, the bloody mark on Drogo’s face, the flies crawling on Rainauld’s rotted corpse. Rainauld and Drogo had entered the temple of some Persian demon; Quino and Odard too. Had their deaths then been some form of divine punishment for their impiety – or the hand of the Devil reclaiming his own? Suddenly I was assailed by the vision of a diabolical claw, wreathed in smoke, scratching out its evil sign on Drogo’s body. I trembled, and fastened my hand around my silver cross. Such fancy would serve me nothing.

A noise from the slope below broke my thoughts in panic. I leaned forward, bowing my head as I tried to discern the least whisper around me, but it needed little effort. The beat of footsteps crunching into the stony soil was unmissable, coming ever closer, and I cowered back with my cloak thrown over me. ‘Deliver me from evil, Lord,’ I prayed silently, closing my eyes lest they betray me. ‘Have mercy upon me, sinner that I am.’

The footsteps halted, terrifyingly close, though there seemed to be only a single man. I had my knife with me, but stuck in the cleft I could hardly hope to spring on him in surprise. And what if he were a Frankish sentry, one of the tower guards come to relieve himself? I might easily provoke a massacre if I knifed him in the dark.

‘Are you trying to become a hermit, Demetrios, to emulate Saint Antony?’

My eyes sprang open. In the hollow before me stood Anna, her silk belt luminous under the folds of her palla. She was turned towards me, and though I could not see her face I could tell there was a smile on it. Abashed, I scrambled out.

‘You should take more care,’ I scolded her. ‘Wandering the mountain at night, you may find yourself emulating any number of saints more gruesome than Saint Antony.

‘Saint Demetrios, for example, stabbed with a pagan spear. Why have you come here?’ The levity in Anna’s voice vanished with the last question, unable to overcome her worry. For weeks now she had fretted at my ill mood, sometimes remonstrating with me, more often just watching me with concern. Far from soothing me, her anxiety only added shame to my misery.

‘I came to find the peace to think. Why have you come?’

‘I followed you. I feared you might find too much peace on this mountain in the dark.’

‘No peace at all with you about.’ I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around her to show that I meant no anger. She pressed forward, her cheek cool in the spring air, and for a moment we embraced in silence.

‘What thoughts did you come to think?’ she asked, drawing me over to a rocky shelf where we could sit in shadow.

‘Evil thoughts.’ At supper I had avoided recounting my conversation with the bishop, but now I found I could summon the words with ease. At first I spoke to the night, not meeting Anna’s gaze, but as my story continued I leaned ever closer towards her. My eyes began to sift her face from the surrounding darkness, and I slipped my hand into hers so that our fingers wove together.

‘You cannot think Satan himself killed Drogo?’ she said when I had finished.

‘No.’ It was true – I did not think so, though I could not entirely disbelieve it either.

‘Even if the murder was the Devil’s work, he need not have troubled to stir himself. There are many acolytes too ready to hear his bidding.’ Anna paused. ‘What did Bohemond say?’

‘I have not told him. I have not spoken with him since I saw the cave.’

‘He has lost his enthusiasm for finding Drogo’s killer?’

‘Yes.’ I remembered the Count of Saint-Gilles’s cynicism. ‘When it seemed a Provencal might have been the murderer, Bohemond was eager to prove the man’s guilt. Now that Rainauld is beyond suspicion, his interest wanes.’

‘It will wane still further if he discovers that his men worshipped at the shrine of a Persian demon. That will not enhance his standing in the Army of God.’

‘His standing matters nothing while the army wastes itself against this city.’ Again, my anger welled within me. ‘For what he and his nephew have done, I would happily see their heads impaled on Turkish spears. If his men have communion with the Devil, if Satan has come to claim them for his own or if God has wreaked his vengeance, so be it. I no longer care what befalls them, nor even whether Antioch falls or stands. I would like to see Jerusalem, but not in the train of this army of thieves and murderers. That is no pilgrimage.’ I lowered my voice, aware that my words might carry too far in the quiet of the night. ‘Let them all kill each other, the sooner that I can return to my