Bohemond’s army was camped up on the mountain besieging the citadel, but at length I found a wounded knight standing guard by one of the western gates. He watched me with suspicion and though he seemed to recognise Odard’s name it provoked only a mocking leer.
‘Odard is no longer in our company,’ he told me. Perhaps he hoped the news would distress me. ‘He lost his horse, his sword, his armour, and finally his wits.’
‘And his life? Did he lose that too?’
‘Why should I care if he had? He was no use to our army.’
‘Where can I find him?’ I pressed.
The Norman shrugged. ‘Perhaps among the peasants and pilgrims. Try the hermit, Little Peter: the lunatic and the feeble are his congregation.’
I did not like to have dealings with the mule-faced mystic who had orphaned Thomas, but my desire to speak with Odard was stronger. I found Little Peter at the cathedral, standing on the steps with a great crowd of Franks in front of him. They looked to be pilgrims rather than knights, though the lines between the two were dissolving: their clothes were torn and their bodies gaunt, and in their hands they carried a brutish armoury of slings and farm tools. Their faces were little friendlier. One of their number, a tall man with a cloth tied over his head to ward off the sun, seemed to be shouting at the hermit.
‘If Christ is with us, why do we cower in this city? Is it the princes? If they are too timid, if their greed blinds them to their duty, then let them surrender their power to the faithful, the humble beloved of God. Our place is on the road to Jerusalem, not in this place of the heathen.’
Little Peter clambered onto the base of a column, raising himself above the throng, and looked down. His voice was shrill and anxious, far removed from the mystic certainty with which he had chided the princes.
‘You are ignorant,’ he snapped. ‘Or blind. Have you not seen the ten thousand Turks who bar the way to Jerusalem?’
‘Has the devil stolen your balls, Little Peter? Is that why you have grown no taller?’ Cruel laughter rang in the square. ‘When I first heard you preach, you promised we would be borne to the Holy Land on the wings of angels.’
‘I told you that the path of the pilgrim is a thorny road that only the pure may tread.’
‘Then why do
‘I will tell you.’ Another voice spoke up, that of a woman I could not see. ‘Because our leaders are corrupted by sin – by pride and greed. Their sin draws down God’s wrath from the heavens.’
‘I have told them this,’ said Peter. His feet were slipping from the pedestal, and he had to fling his short arms around the pillar to stay upright. ‘I prophesy, but they do not hear.’
‘There is only one true king, and the princes of the Earth are nothing before Him. Prophesy them that.’
‘It is better to die a martyr than a slave,’ someone else shouted. ‘If the princes are too fearful to trust in the hand of God, let them open the gates and we will be His army.’
‘No!’
Surprise murmured through the crowd as the stooped figure of the bishop appeared at the top of the steps. With the great door behind him he seemed little taller than Peter, and his crimson robes were pale in the glare. Only his staff kept him upright.
‘A martyr’s death is a gift of God, not to be snatched cravenly from Him. The true Christian does not fear death, but nor does he embrace it.’
‘Do you say we should not trust in Christ?’ one of the pilgrims challenged him.
‘I say you should trust in Him to work His purpose. You should not presume to anticipate that purpose. You could fling open the gates of Antioch and rush out, so that the Orontes flowed red with your blood, but then you would die as suicides, not martyrs or Christians. Look at yourselves. Each one of you wears the cross. You have undertaken this journey, at great cost and peril, for the salvation of your souls. But the path of the cross, the road to Calvary, is neither short nor easy.’
A fit of coughing convulsed him, and he broke off. His words were faint, barely audible even halfway across the square, but no one took advantage of his silence. ‘The greatness of our object does not lift stones from our path. It is the torments in our way that make the object great. All the terrors that assail us, all the sufferings we endure – it is these things you will think on when you reach Jerusalem and bend your knee at the holiest shrine, these things that will sanctify your journey. Do not think that by seeking certain death in battle you will cheat suffering, or win the martyr’s crown. The way of oblivion is the way of the Devil. The way of Christ is patience, humility, and obedience. Now go.’
With these final words, he lifted his staff as if to part the sea of faces before him. But he was too weak: before he had raised it a foot in the air his strength was gone, and he let it swing back onto the ground. The crowd muttered, but none approached. Instead, in twos and threes, they began to drift away.
I pushed against them, hastening to the bishop. By the time I reached him, one of his priests had taken his arm and guided him to a stone bench. Sweat beaded his forehead below the rim of his mitre, and his hands trembled.
‘You are losing control of your pilgrims, Little Peter.’ Close to, his voice still bore some of its former strength.
The hermit had clambered down from the plinth, and now stood bolt upright in front of the pillar. ‘What can a shepherd do when his flock deserts him, even in the midst of ravening wolves?’
‘Get a dog,’ I suggested.
Adhemar smiled, his dry lips cracking with the effort. ‘Ever a practical answer, Demetrios Askiates.’
‘It seemed to me that your sheep were a greater threat than the wolves just now,’ I said to the hermit.
‘And rightly so. When they are led into disaster by the lords of folly, when the precepts of the Lord are everywhere forgotten, it is right and lawful that they should rebel against wickedness.’ He stabbed a filthy finger towards Adhemar. ‘Be warned, Bishop: you and your princes cannot afford to neglect the care of those who follow you.’
‘Be warned yourself!’ Adhemar still had the power to summon anger when it was needed. His staff inclined towards Little Peter so that the silver tip hung over him, and his face was black with fury. ‘Why do you think that you, a peasant, are invited to our councils? You come because you command the allegiance of the pilgrims, the poor and the weak who follow this army. If you cannot keep them obedient, your power is broken. The good shepherd does not abandon his flock, but when his flock abandon him he is no longer a shepherd.’
‘I am commissioned by God for this task,’ the hermit squealed.
‘I am ordained by the church. I do not threaten you: I speak plainly. Outside these walls are countless hosts of Turks. We are beset by enemies, and the only path of salvation is unity. If you cannot deliver it, I will find others who can.’
He rose, pain creasing his body. The priest who had lingered nearby ran to aid him, but the bishop shrugged off his hand and hobbled away. He disappeared into the church.
‘The Lord sends plagues on those who displease Him,’ said Little Peter to the air. He turned to go.
‘Little Peter,’ I said. ‘A question.’
‘What?’ His round blue eyes, at once clear and utterly fathomless, peered into mine. Involuntarily, I felt myself edging back.
‘There is a knight named Odard. Odard of Bari. He served Bohemond, but now he has left that army. He lost his horse and his arms; he must have joined the ranks of the pilgrims. Do you know him?’
Little Peter’s long nose twitched. ‘There are many pilgrims. Though each may love me as a father, I cannot know them all as sons. His name was Odo?’
‘Odard.’
‘He lost everything?’
‘I believe so.’
‘And he was a Norman?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then perhaps he has joined the Tafurs.’ Little Peter gave a leering smile as he saw the horror spreading across my face. ‘You have heard of them?’
‘Who has not?’
