possessed him was beginning to relax its hold, but only a little. ‘We kill them until we have made a stair of their corpses, or until they set the whole tower alight as our pyre.’
There was a blast of trumpets. A great shout interrupted Sigurd’s doom-saying. I looked out over the parapet to the south, and my heart almost died with hope. Battles, like fires, must move to endure; they abhor stasis. It had been clear that the Turks and Normans could not remain locked in combat, that eventually one or other must force themselves forward. I had expected it to be Bohemond’s forces who broke first, but instead they seemed to have prevailed. The Turks were streaming back to the citadel in disarray, their courage gone, while exultant Normans chased close on their heels.
‘Bohemond is making a mistake,’ said Sigurd, resigned. ‘It is a feint. The Turks will draw his men from their positions, then turn and slaughter them.’
But for once his gloom was misplaced – or Bohemond’s luck too strong. The Turkish army was routed; I could see them vying with each other to press through the citadel’s gate to safety.
‘Listen.’
The pounding on our makeshift barrier had stopped. I crossed to the northern battlements and saw Turks running back along the wall. When none followed, Sigurd and I pulled the bodies and the shields aside, while the Varangians kept crossbows ready against any enemies who remained.
The room below was empty, at least of the living.
‘We had better be swift,’ I said. My voice rang hollow in my ears, as if my soul were watching my body from a great distance. I remembered what the priestess had said of the angelic spark captive within our clay, and shook my head. This was not the time for such thoughts.
As gently as we could, though not nearly so gently as to stop them weeping with pain, we manhandled the wounded down the ladder, then repositioned it against the outer window. Those who were not hurt lowered the injured onto the walls, while Sigurd and I examined the fallen in the guardroom, seeking the living.
There was only one: Quino. We found him slumped in a corner, his tabard soaked in blood where a Turkish sword had pierced his belly. At first I thought he was dead, but some movement of my shadow must have stirred his senses for I heard a gurgling moan. It seemed incredible that there had been anything in him to bleed, so skeletal had he appeared at the top of the tower. Then, he had looked almost eager for death, yet now that it had come for him some stubborn remnant of his soul clung to life. We bound his wound with the clothes of the dead, passed him down through the window, and began our long trudge back across the valley.
? ?
Sigurd carried Quino in his arms – he was so frail that he could have weighed little more than a child – while the rest of us bore the other wounded between us. It was a hard journey over the broken landscape, and we jolted them terribly as we picked our way over hummocks of the dead. Once a Varangian’s bandage caught on a briar and was torn from his side, spilling yet more blood into the red earth. Mercifully, no one attacked us. Only scavengers and devourers of carrion shared the field with us: crows and flies and lean-faced women stripping the fallen of their possessions.
Even the Norman lines were deserted. With Kerbogha’s army forced back into its citadel, the Normans had retreated onto the mountain top. We passed in silence through their defences, makeshift barricades of heaped stone and masonry. They would not have served to pen a flock of sheep, but they had been enough to break the Turks, whose corpses in some places were piled higher than the walls themselves.
Pausing for a moment, I looked ahead. The Normans seemed to have gathered in a great crowd on the crest of the mountain, hundreds of them ranged in a circle around a figure I could not see. Were they celebrating the victory? They were remarkably muted – almost solemn.
We laid the wounded in the shade of a boulder, where the women could bring water, and hurried up the slope. The crowd was thick; the blood and sweat that stained their armour almost steamed off them in the heat. Nonetheless, Sigurd and I managed to push through until we found a small rise from where we could see the centre of the circle.
All the princes I had seen earlier were there: Raymond and Bohemond, Hugh, Robert and Tancred – and Adhemar, seated on a rock between them. Beside him stood a priest in white robes, a slight man with a mop of dark hair. Like all of us in those days, his cheeks were sunken and his eyes dull, but there was a twitch in his shoulders that bespoke nervousness, the anticipation of some spectacle to perform. I knew him: he was the priest Stephen, one of Adhemar’s chaplains. I had seen him often in the bishop’s tent.
Adhemar was speaking. ‘Christ has granted you this victory. But like all the works of man, it will soon become dust. Kerbogha’s forces are so legion that he may fling them at us as often as he likes, heedless of loss. We cannot match him man for man. For the eternal victory, we must implore God’s aid.’
A fit of coughing overwhelmed the bishop. At his side, I could see Bohemond with an ill-tempered scowl on his face, despite the battle he had won. Raymond, by contrast, wore a strange smirk.
‘Truly, we have tried God’s indulgence. Some have hidden themselves away, deserting the just battle from craven fear. They tremble to become martyrs to Christ. Some – many – have worked evil pleasures with the pagan women of Antioch, and the stink of it has reached even into Heaven. A few have forsaken God in their hearts. He has made our camp a barren wilderness; He has filled it with scorpions and serpents, and left us to be preyed on by wolves.’
Some of the men around me looked sullen – they could not have expected such a harangue in victory – but many more seemed abashed and afraid. Doubt had fallen over them, and there was a desperation in their gaze which hungered for solace.
‘Yet do not fear.’ Adhemar’s voice rose, carried on a new strength. ‘Our Lord is a merciful god, and He listens to the saints who intercede for us. He has sent a token that He keeps faith with His pilgrims.’
A murmur of wonder rippled through the crowd, and they pressed in closer.
‘Last night, this priest was granted a vision.’
The priest, Stephen, stepped forward. His arms were rigid by his sides, though his left hand flapped involuntarily against his thigh; he looked like a mouse before a flock of hawks. He looked at the ground, and spoke so softly that Adhemar had to urge him several times to raise his voice.
‘It came to me last night. In the fire and the panic, I took refuge in the church of Saint Mary. Many terrors assailed me and I prayed to Christ, imploring His mercy. When I raised my eyes, three figures were before me.’
‘Describe them,’ Adhemar ordered.
‘Two men and a woman.’
‘Did you know them?’
‘Your Grace, I did. But they were not of this Earth.’ He hesitated, as though even he faltered before the wonder of his vision. ‘They were wreathed in a cloud of gold, which shimmered behind them so that they stood out from the darkness. They had the form of humans – but no substance. To the right stood a man, very old. His beard was white. In one hand he carried a staff mounted with a cross, while in the other he bore a ring of keys that jangled as he moved. He was Saint Peter, the prince of the apostles and guardian of Antioch.’
At a little distance from the priest, Bohemond stood fidgeting with the hem of his tunic. One of his red eyebrows seemed inclined upwards.
‘To the left was a woman. Her robe was blue, trimmed with gold, and her face looked as serene as the stars. In her arm she cradled a child, whose countenance radiated the light of heaven—’
‘The mother of God,’ Adhemar interrupted. ‘And the third?’
‘He stood in front of his companions and his face was solemn, though beautiful beyond all men. He clutched a Bible to his heart, and when he spoke it was with the sound of many waters. He asked if I knew him, and I answered no, for I feared to lift my thoughts to such presumption. But even as I denied it, a radiant cross appeared above his head. Again he asked if I knew him.’
There was something pedestrian, almost rote in the way Stephen recited the words, but his speech had drawn in every man among the Normans. They were held rapt by his performance; Count Raymond, standing before
