Knights of the Cross

could see his shoulders trembling beneath his tunic. The woman took a jug and poured water over his hands, then over the acolyte’s, and then her own. The acolyte knelt and rose three times in front of her. Turning aside, he repeated the obeisance at a stone altar covered in a white cloth. There was a book sitting on the altar; the man lifted it, and with more bows passed it to the woman. She raised it above her, then held it flat over the youth’s head, declaiming her strange rite. The words were still foreign to me, but as I listened more closely patterns of repetition began to emerge. Despite the unknown sounds, there was something familiar in the voice as well. It sounded like the woman in my dreams – and somewhere else. I could not think where.

She passed the book back to the man, and laid her hands on the youth’s forehead. More phrases were repeated. Then she took him by the arm and lifted him to his feet, turning him to face her congregation.

‘Resolve in your heart that you will keep this holy baptism throughout your life, according to the usage of the Church of Purity, in chastity, in truth, and in all other virtues which the Lord ordains.’

I sank back on my harsh bed. For a few moments, my thoughts had run almost clear: now they were agitated beyond reason. A baptism? How could it be a baptism? There had been no chrism – nor any priest that I had seen. And the language had been neither Greek nor Latin, for I had heard the latter tongue often enough in the past months to know its sound.

Whatever unnatural service it had been, it was now finished. The worshippers who had knelt on the floor rose. The woman stepped away from the candles and steered the youth, the initiate, into the midst of the congregation. The older man who had assisted her turned to follow, and as he did so the candlelight illuminated his face. It was hard to see through the throng and by the unsteady light, but I had seen him recently enough, and the crooked nose and blistered face were quite distinctive. It was Peter Bartholomew.

I surrendered to confusion and lay back.

Later, after the cave had emptied, I heard the voice from my dream again. This time I was not at the lake in the mountains; I was in darkness. It had the same earthy smell as the cave, and I wondered if for once I was not asleep. There was little way of knowing.

‘How is your pain, Demetrios?’

‘Endurable.’ The ache at the back of my head was the least of my discomforts. For the rest of me, my arm throbbed where it had been cut by Odard’s knife and my back was stiff from lying still so long, but I could survive that. My stomach, I noticed, was pulled tight as a drumhead. How long had it been since I ate?

‘How long have I been here?’

‘A night and a day.’

No wonder I felt hungry. ‘Where am I?’

‘In the church of the pure.’

‘In Antioch?’

She hesitated. ‘Beneath it.’

‘How did I come here?’

‘We found you at the roadside. You had been robbed and beaten and left for dead. We saved you.’

‘Thank you.’

I thought back to the two men looming over me in the alley, and flinched.

‘I must go,’ I said. ‘My companions will fear for my life, if I have not returned in almost two days.’

Warm breath played over my cheek – she must have been mere inches away.

‘You have witnessed our service, Demetrios. You have seen our secrets. We cannot release you now to betray us.’

I jerked up, ignoring the agony racking my skull. I tried to leap off the bed, but though my arms and legs were free there was some cord around my waist binding me down. I fumbled at it, but I felt no knot, and in the darkness I could see nothing.

‘Do not struggle. You will suffer no harm here. In truth, you are probably safer. Kerbogha arrived yesterday. His army is on the mountain, trying to force the walls. They say the fighting is very terrible.’

‘All the more reason that I must find my companions.’ If Anna were left defenceless when the Turks broke in . . . ‘Let me go.’

‘It is for your own good. Once, you asked me to help you. I told you then that I could do nothing until you were willing to discard the deceptions worked on you by the priests. I can help you now, but again, only if you will receive it.’

At last I knew the voice. Sarah, the priestess who had ministered to Drogo and his friends. Had they been baptised in the same rite that I had just seen?

‘What deceptions? I am a Christian.’

She laughed. ‘Have you ever spoken of God to an Ishmaelite? They say that we worship the same god, but that they alone know the true way to venerate Him.’

I slumped back. ‘Are you an Ishmaelite?’ How could she be, when her followers carved their backs with crosses?

‘No.’ Her voice was sharp, insulted. ‘But they are right that one may name God truthfully and worship him in error. That is what you have done.’

‘How?’

‘Are you thirsty?’

I rolled my tongue around my mouth. ‘A little,’ I admitted.

‘Drink.’

Again the wooden cup tipped against my lips, spreading the bitter liquid within me. I gulped it eagerly, then suddenly stopped my throat in panic. ‘What is this – some foul communion of your heresy?’

‘It is water, and a little artemisia to ease your pain. You need have no fear.’

She paused. From somewhere on my left I heard the grate of a cup being placed on a table. I strained my ears, but there were no sounds beyond, no evidence of the congregation who had been there earlier. Were we alone?

‘You said I worshipped God falsely. How do you say it is right to worship Him?’

‘That is hidden knowledge.’

Frustration rose within me, rolling back the pain and confusion: the childish anger at being barred from secrets. Again I tried to rise from my bed, and again the bonds restrained me. ‘Why hidden? So you can lord it over your followers, tempt them in with curiosity?’

‘Hidden, because it is dangerous. It is not pride or selfish delight which hides these mysteries. They are open to all, but only if those who desire to know them have a pure and seeking heart. I can tell you these things, but you must wish to know them. Not for advantage, nor malice nor greed, but from the sincere yearning for salvation.’

‘Who does not desire salvation?’

‘Many. And even of those who do, the greater part lack the pure soul and true heart to persevere. They desire truth, but from ignorance. They do not understand what they seek. When they find it, it is beyond them. Their faith suffers; sometimes it is ruined altogether. Sometimes they themselves do not survive.’

Her words filled me with dread. A part of me – the part which had sought unpleasant truths from every pimp, thief, mercenary and noble in Constantinople – bridled at her overblown warnings. But in another, more profound part, I shivered at the awesome promise and threat entwined in her words.

‘The knowledge I have to give is not some scroll or book, to be filed away on a shelf once you have read it. My knowledge is the knowledge of life, of light. Once learned, it cannot be forgotten. It will consume you like a furnace, and if your soul is flawed you will be broken. It is not enough to know it – you must also believe it.’

I raised myself on my elbows, feeling the cord press against my waist. ‘I will hear it.’

All that followed, I heard as if in a dream. Afterwards, indeed, I wondered if I had dreamed it. Scenes and images passed through my head as she spoke – glowing angels with fiery wings, lush gardens of fruit, rearing serpents – but more as if I were walking through a church, peering at the icons each in turn. My soul seemed to swell in my head, pressing against my skull as it grappled with her story. One voice screamed that it was falsehood, a deception wrought of evil to damn all who heard it. But another voice counselled caution, testing her words and wondering in terror if they were true.

‘Much of what I have to tell will seem familiar. That is because the liars and demons who possess the church have twisted it, by the merest fraction, into error. The prince of darkness knows that the best lies sit closest to truth. Only when I have finished will you see how far from truth the church has turned.’