you may ask your questions.’
His ringing laughter chased me from the courtyard. None of the Tafurs tried to stop me.
My arm still bled a little, but there were deeper cuts to my soul which I could not bind. Nonetheless, I tried. As if my pain was not a part of me, as if I could escape my very self, I ran. Through Antioch’s alleys and passageways, past houses, mansions, churches and empty markets, I ran until my lungs faltered and my legs burned. Even then I could not free myself from my torment, though at least the ache in my body dulled it.
I might have run for miles, or merely in circles; at last I stopped to see where I had gone. I was on the eastern outskirts of the city, against the foot of the mountain. At the end of the road I could see orchards and olive groves rising in stepped terraces over the lower slopes, the sheer cliffs looming above them. A golden light washed over the landscape and the air was still, yet the beauty only sharpened my feeling of desolation. I had killed men before, of course – for war, for money, for pride and for hate – but never had I slain a witless innocent in such vicious entertainment.
I could not dwell on it now. I was far from our camp on the walls, and soon the light would dissolve into shadow. I did not know whether I had left the realm of the Tafurs or not, but it had been terrible enough in daylight. By night, it must have been beyond imagining. I would go back to Anna, though I dared not think what I would say.
It should have been an easy journey, for the sinking sun pointed straight to the walls, but in the maze of streets I soon lost sight of it. I tried to remember the bearing and tread a straight path, but that was impossible: this quarter of the city was so tangled that I could barely walk fifty paces before I was spun around a corner, or found the road blocked. Within ten minutes my sense of direction was uncertain; after twenty, I had lost it completely. The hazy shadows deepened, the houses melted together, and my pace grew ever more hesitant. A rising panic drove the guilt and pain from my heart, which now beat only with the urgency of escape. Though I had seen no Tafurs, I feared there might be other Franks keen to take advantage of a solitary Greek.
At a crossroads I found a man squatting by a wall. He was wrapped in rags; his teeth were gone and the skin on his bare head was mottled purple with disease. Had it been any darker, I might have thought him a pile of discarded refuse.
‘Which way to the church of Saint Peter?’ I asked.
He said nothing, but after a few moments a single arm extended to his right.
‘Thank you.’
I hurried on the way he had indicated. Either I was more badly lost than I had feared or this was a little- travelled short cut, for the way quickly narrowed until barely two men could have walked abreast. High walls towered on either side, unbroken by windows or doors, and though I could see a ribbon of blue sky stretched above none of its light reached into those depths.
The road ended abruptly in a brick wall. I cursed. I had been played false by the derelict at the crossroads, and doubtless he would think it a fine joke when I returned. I turned to go back.
Two men were standing in my path, pressed shoulder to shoulder against the confining walls, their faces hidden in the gloom. I had not heard them arrive.
I opened my palms to show that I was harmless. Perhaps that was a mistake.
‘It’s a dead end,’ I said. ‘I have come the wrong way.’
They did not answer. The man on the right stepped forward, cocked his head, and drove a fist into my stomach. As I doubled over, I sensed his companion moving closer.
A hard blow struck me on the back of my skull, and I fell into darkness.
? ?
‘Drink.’
I had slept without dreams. When the voice came, I did not know if I heard it or imagined it. I could not even tell if I had opened my eyes, for whatever I did the darkness remained complete.
‘Drink.’
The rough grain of a carved cup pressed against my lip. An unseen force tipped back my head, and I felt cool water pouring in. My mouth was dry as stone, and I held the water on my tongue to let it seep into the flesh.
‘Where am I?’
‘Alive.’
The voice was soft, feminine. Was it Anna’s? I leaned forward, knocking my teeth on the cup, but still the night rebuffed me.
‘Who are you?’
The cup eased away without answer.
When I next awoke, it was to the feel of fresh air on my cheek. I was sitting beside a lake surrounded by high mountains, grey and blue in the distance. Low clouds scudded over the peaks, and birdsong blew in on the breeze that furrowed the water. I could smell charred smoke, as if a candle had recently been extinguished nearby.
A woman in a white shift walked towards me along the shore. A hood covered her hair, and her face was strangely indistinct. Even when she drew near it seemed as though I looked at her through smeared glass, though I could see nothing between us.
‘Where am I?’
‘You are lost in the wilderness. You must find the path that will take you away, to Jerusalem.’
I looked around. There was no break in the mountains. ‘I see nowhere to go.’
She laughed – a soft, half-mocking laugh whose meaning I could not fathom. ‘You do not see because you walk in darkness. You must kindle a flame, a light to see by.’
‘How?’
She did not answer; instead, she vanished, and in her place I saw Rainauld and Odard standing a little way off. Their heads lifted in recognition and they began to approach. Panic flared down my spine; I began running across the shingle beach, my feet sliding and jarring on the rounded stones. Behind, I could hear them striding effortlessly after me.
I was dreaming.
I opened my eyes, and was back in darkness.
The cup was at my lips again, but this time when I drank the water was bitter. I spat it out, but immediately a soft hand was pressing against my forehead, tipping it back so that my mouth hung open. The liquid splashed down my throat, and I held my breath so that I would not taste it.
‘You must drink this. It will release you from your pain.’
‘I have no pain.’
‘Then it is working.’
I was laid out on a bed or a table, I realised. I could feel hard boards under my back, softened a little by a thin cloth. I tried to lift myself, but my arms were powerless.
‘Let me go.’
‘You are free to go, if you wish. It is only the bonds of sin which hold you.’
Something in the darkness rippled like woven silk, though it might have been my mind imagining it. My thoughts seemed to be ebbing away from me, and when I tried to grasp them they merely flowed through my hands like water.
Three candles had been lit in an alcove at the far end of a low room. They cast a feeble light, but after the hours of darkness I had endured they were bright as the sun to my aching eyes. Their orange glow shone on coarse walls, humped and gouged where chisels had carved the stone, and on ranks of bowed heads facing away from me, row upon row stretching back into the shadows. Before them, her face towards me, stood a woman in a white woollen robe. Her eyes were closed, her head tipped back in a rapture that was at once sublime and wholly sensual. She was chanting something, a liturgy perhaps, though it was in no language that I could comprehend.
Two men came forward from the congregation and knelt. One was older, and looked to be some sort of acolyte, for he wore the same kind of white robe as the priestess. The other was a youth, dressed as a peasant. I
