The Army of God was dying. Day by day, life by life, we withered on the famished vine of Antioch. If the miracle had come, it had not been enough. So, thirteen days after the finding of the lance, two days before the high feast of Saints Peter and Paul, Adhemar summoned every man in the army to the square in front of the church. The casket which held the holy relic of the lance was placed on a table before him, open to view. The princes, Bohemond and Tancred, Hugh, Godfrey, and the two Roberts lined up behind him. Only Raymond was absent. Whatever miraculous powers the lance held, they had not helped him. Nor, if he had hoped to use it to prick Bohemond’s swelling ambition, had it served his purpose. All his might and riches could not ward off the wasting disease that ravaged the hungry in their weakness. He had kept to his bed for a week, and there had been no others with the power or the inclination to check Bohemond. He was undisputed master of the army; Raymond, it was rumoured, was close to death.
Adhemar fared little better. His health had been failing for months, and though he could still walk and ride, the pain of the effort was clear each time I saw him. Only the need to keep his flock together, the knowledge that his presence alone could unite the princes and reassure the pilgrims, gave him strength to continue. Looking up at him now, I could see little remnant of the kindness and patience which had once animated him. He had given his soul to nourish the army, and there was nothing left of him.
‘Brothers in Christ,’ he began. ‘Pilgrims on the holy road to Jerusalem. Truly it is written, “The Lord scourges with whips every child whom he loves.”’
A thousand skeletal faces stared lifelessly back at him.
‘But it is also written, “There is a time for peace, and a time for war.” Look around you. If the time for war is not now, it will never be. Our strength fades, our hopes die. In another month, Kerbogha will march into Antioch and find only the dust of our bones. Have we come so far, for that? Has the Lord brought us into this wilderness to kill us with hunger?’
Adhemar lifted his gaze above the crowd, stretched out his staff and spoke to the heavens. ‘Lord, why should your wrath burn so hot against your chosen people? By your mighty hand were we led from the lands of our birth: will Kerbogha the Terrible now boast that you brought us here only to kill us in the shadow of the mountain, to tear us from the face of the Earth? Avert your wrath. Do not wreak disaster on us in the sight of our enemies.’
A strange energy seemed to course through Adhemar; his whole body shook with reverence. He turned his gaze back to the masses in front of him. ‘What fools are we who question God’s divine purpose? How far beyond our mortal sight are His plans? If He has brought us here to die, then it is to die in His name, to His glory, the beautiful deaths of the martyrs. How can we fear so holy and wondrous a fate? If we strike forth from this city, this holy city where the saints Peter and Paul first preached the true gospel, and die in battle, how great will be our reward in Heaven? Merely to think on it would make one long for death. Fight the Turks in the name of Christ, and however the battle falls, our sins will be washed clean in blood.’
He dropped his voice. ‘But if we win – if we drive Kerbogha from the field and trample the ruins of his godless army under our feet – our glory will echo down the ages with the greatest heroes of old. Think of it. The Lord has blessed us with this holy relic, the very lance with which Christ’s blood was shed. If we turn it against our enemies, feeble and hungry though we are, how will they stand against it?
‘God’s promise is plain. If we stay, if we hide behind these walls of despair until famine takes us, we shall die the deaths of sinners. But if we take up our crosses, if we march onto the plain and fight, then whether we live or die the victory shall be ours. We cannot rest but we will lose. We cannot fight but we will win.’
Like a storm gathering its winds, Adhemar’s voice had risen to a thunderous roar far beyond the frailty of his body. Now, suddenly, his strength departed and he slumped forward on his staff. A chaplain rushed to his side and took his arm, trying to steer him back into the shelter of the church. But the bishop had not finished.
‘We are the Army of God, and the people of God. We have journeyed together, we have suffered together, and if God wills it so we shall die together. No prince or bishop will force you into this battle: we must decide together. What do you say?’
For long moments, an utter silence gripped the square. Then, starting from the back and sweeping forward, like a squall over water, a single phrase.
I did not like their chant: as far as I could see, nothing had come of it save ambition and murder. I turned to leave. I did not think that there was any part for me in the coming battle.
A hand touched my elbow and I looked back. A priest, a short man with a balding head and a harelip, was staring at me. He seemed familiar – one of Adhemar’s chaplains, perhaps.
‘Demetrios Askiates?’ The name was unfamiliar to him, and his cracked voice struggled to pronounce its foreign sounds.
‘Yes.’
‘My lord the bishop Adhemar asks that you join him tomorrow. The fighting will be fierce, and your company of axemen will be much sought after.’
‘Tell him . . .’ I paused, not knowing what to say. To the depths of my soul, I had seen enough of slaughter and the Franks’ battles. Whatever Adhemar might say, I was not of their race, and I would not choose to share their fate. But nor could I deny the simple truth of his proposition: if we did not fight, we would die in the city.
‘I know what Sigurd would choose,’ I muttered, to the confusion of the priest.
‘Shall I tell him that you will come?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ His deformed lip stretched into a mulish smile. ‘God wills it so.’
‘We will find out tomorrow.’
? ?
We mustered at first light, a wraithlike army gliding through the grey streets of Antioch to the appointed places. Count Hugh, who had surprised all by volunteering to lead the vanguard, assembled his troops at the bridge gate; Duke Godfrey, with the greater force, came behind him, while Adhemar waited in the square by the palace. He must have been awake for hours, perhaps all night, but he gave no sign of it. Mounted on his white charger, he rode along the ranks, reassuring the waverers and blessing the penitent; he received messengers from the other princes and answered them; he conferred with his knights and agreed their strategies. I remembered the last surge of Quino’s strength before he died, and wondered if it was the same spark of a fading light that now animated Adhemar.
‘To think this rabble once threatened an empire.’ Sigurd rubbed his axe for the dozenth time that morning, and stared unhappily at the men around us. ‘Now half a legion of Patzinaks could sweep them away in an hour.’
‘Let us hope that sixty thousand Turks cannot.’ It was hard to deny Sigurd’s judgement. Among the hundreds gathered in the square, there could not have been two who bore the same arms. More than half wore Turkish armour, or carried the round Turkish shields that we had captured with the city. Some – the unhorsed knights – had swords, and many carried spears, but there were still too many more with nothing but billhooks and sickles. They might have been going to harvest rather than a battle.
Almost alone in this multitude, the Varangians kept their discipline and their pride. We had spent the night hammering dents out of our helmets, repainting the golden eagle of Byzantium on our shields, and polishing every speck of rust from our armour. When the trumpets summoned us, we had marched down in a double column, thirty of us, with a measured tread which would not have sounded amiss in the halls of the Emperor’s palace. I had walked beside Sigurd at the head of the column, though I did not deserve the place. Above us we carried not the standard of the cross but that of the eagle. Sigurd had insisted on it.
‘The body of Christ.’
I looked down. Priests were moving along the line, offering us consecrated bread from small silver caskets. I had taken it in my mouth and swallowed it before I even realised it was unleavened, after the Latin usage. At that
