god has spoken to your peasants, to your priests, and now He gives a sign to every man in this city that He is with you. The time of dreams and miracles is upon you.’
I stared at him. In those last words his mild voice had strengthened, deepened, as if resonating to some deeper truth. He sounded almost like a prophet, or an oracle.
‘Little less than a miracle will save us,’ said Sigurd.
Anna looked at him, her gaze impenetrable. ‘You had better pray, then, that God does not disappoint when they excavate the church tomorrow.’
Later, while the others slept, I descended the tower and crossed the road behind the wall. We had commandeered one of the houses here: a low, square building set around a courtyard. Under the Varangians’ hammers, the doorway had been enlarged to admit a horse and the courtyard turned into a makeshift stable. Only three of the animals survived, gaunt and weak, but their warm scent on the night air comforted me. As I passed, I heard one of them huffing in his byre.
Beyond the horses, in a long room whose furniture had long since become firewood, Anna had set up her infirmary. I spoke a few quiet words with the Varangian who guarded it and let myself in through the open door. I walked hesitantly, afraid lest I should step on the wounded who lay on the floor, but my eyes were well used to the dark and I disturbed no one.
At the far end, a little removed from the others, I found Quino. He lay wrapped in a white blanket, an indistinct bundle like a butterfly in its cocoon. His head was raised on a balled-up tunic, and he breathed in short, ragged bursts. I feared that Anna was right, that it would not be long before even that was too much effort.
‘What do you know?’ I asked softly. ‘Who led you into your impiety? Was it Drogo?’
Quino did not answer, and without another miracle I feared he might never speak again. Anna had said he had a fever; the bandages around his belly were soaked with the blood and bile which oozed from his wound, and there was no food to feed his strength.
The guard had come over, and joined me looking down on Quino.
‘Has he said anything?’ I asked. ‘In his dreams, perhaps?’
‘No.’ The guard poked Quino with the toe of his boot. ‘Nor will he. He’ll die tomorrow, I think.’
I remembered Mushid’s words.
‘Perhaps his life will return.’
But even in the realm of miracles that had only happened once.
? ?
Certainly no miracles happened overnight. Next morning Quino was still in the grip of his wound, silent as ever. After a few minutes watching him I left Anna and her patients and made my way towards the church of Saint Peter.
Long before I reached the church, I felt the change that had come over Antioch. A day earlier, it had been a city choked in the last throes of a siege, squeezed in Kerbogha’s fist. The strain had told on every face – human, animal – even the walls had seemed about to crumble to powder. Now it had the air of a holiday. Men walked with a surer purpose, neither crawling in despair nor running in terror. Women braided bright cloths into their hair – all the flowers had long since been eaten – and did not pull their children back when they tousled in the street. The sun, which yesterday had scorched us with unyielding fire, now seemed to bless us with its warmth, and the blue sky offered unblemished promise.
At the main avenue, between the colonnades, I found crowds gathered in anticipation. They lined the road as if for a saint’s day, and for a moment I was transported to the
We did not have long to wait. After about quarter of an hour I heard trumpets sound near the palace, and shouts rise down the road to my right. They rippled nearer like gusts of wind, though no breeze disturbed the heat of the morning, and burst out all around as the column came into view.
Four Provencal knights came first, pushing back the crowds to clear a way. They wore clean white tabards emblazoned with crosses, though when the cloth billowed out I saw dried blood on the armour beneath. Next came Bishop Adhemar on a white horse. Doubtless he intended it to be a magnificent steed, its coat as bright and soft as wool, but in truth it was a mangy beast, half-lame. In those days, any horse that walked was miraculous enough. Adhemar sat erect in the saddle, though he grimaced with the effort; he seemed weighed down by the enormous cope, stitched in gold with images of the saints and prophets and the resurrection, that he wore. There was a sword at his side and a cross in his hand, and a horn bow slung from his shoulder.
Behind him, on a pair of emaciated mules, were the blessed visionaries, Stephen the priest and Peter Bartholomew. Each bore an icon of the apostle who had blessed him: Saint Peter and Saint Andrew. Stephen did not look to be enjoying the attention of the crowds: his head was hunched down into his cassock, and his lips seemed to move with the words of some silent prayer. Peter Bartholomew had no such humility. His chin was as high as Stephen’s was low; he faced the sun and mirrored its beam onto the surrounding pilgrims, serene in its countenance. In emulation of his namesake, Little Peter, he had even put on a hermit’s short cloak over his tunic.
In two lines, the dozen men who were to dig the hole came next. They were humbly dressed, though in an artful, deliberate way different to the mass of pilgrims around them. Certainly there was nothing lowly in their station. Count Raymond himself led the near column, and a bishop the other; priests and knights filed behind them. After them came more priests, seven of them, chanting the liturgy with their eyes closed.
The crowd surged after the priests, flowing in the wake of the procession as it marched on to the church. I stepped out from the shadow of the colonnade to join them, and was carried along the road in a tumult of hymns and prayers. From deep within their parched bodies the pilgrims discovered new wells of strength to which they gave voice with an almost desperate frenzy. They had found hope, and the agony of its frailty only made them sing harder.
With every yard we travelled, the pace of the procession slowed, and by the time we reached the square in front of the church it was barely moving. There was no hope of entering the sanctuary itself, for those who had gone before were crammed between its pillars and spilling out down the steps, but that did not deter the crowd. They stood in vigil, waiting for the miracle. When Adhemar began to pray at the altar all fell silent, though none could hear him.
The prayer finished. Somewhere, far beyond my sight, Count Raymond lifted his pick to break open the foundation of the church. At that moment, I doubt there was a single soul in Antioch who did not believe the lance was there, where he struck. There was little alternative.
The blow rang out, faint and feeble at that distance. A pause, and then another. Then others joined in, hammering at the stone. The noise was curiously muted, like a child banging a pot with a spoon, but it held us absolutely in its thrall.
A whisper came back through the crowd. ‘They have cracked open the paving.’
I sighed. Even with twelve men digging, I feared it would be a long wait.
The sun climbed higher. The shadows slipped away, and with them, little by little, the expectant audience. Hope waned in the faces around me; prayers turned to gossip, and then to a despairing silence. The chime of hammers and picks gave way to the muffled sliding of spades in earth. The heat in the square was savage, unbearable, and even in the church it must have sapped the will of the diggers. I wondered if Count Raymond and his priests were regretting their great show of piety.
I lingered for an hour, stifling my rising doubts with protestations of faith. Then I succumbed and returned to the house by the tower. Anna was there, wiping Quino’s forehead with a damp cloth. There seemed little else she could do: his bandages had been changed recently, but already blood had fouled them again.
‘Has he spoken?’ How many times had I asked that in the last three days?
