thrust; bring it down on a spear striking low. Stab where the enemy laid himself open; retreat before his counter- blow could shiver your steel. The souls of the living departed, and we became mere creatures of war.
If we had wavered, if we had ever taken more than a single step back, then I believe we would have broken and been slaughtered. But we did not. Desperation, hunger, faith – whatever drove us, it set foundations of stone under our feet and kept a lethal wall of iron and steel before us. And all the while a distant part of my being insisted that despite our efforts, despite the fact that I could barely duck my head behind my shield any longer, let alone lift it, this was not the true test. I have been in battles which hung on a knife-edge and were lost, and in those which were won, but in each there came moments of panic where it seemed all order was shattered, when we truly believed ourselves beaten. In the battle of Antioch, that moment never came. The men who stood beside me never faltered, and the killing blow was not struck.
And then the face of the battle began to change. There were fewer enemies ahead of us, and more allies behind. They surged on and we were driven forward, yet every pace we advanced seemed to place our enemies further away, not closer. The line that had held like rock now cracked; gaps appeared, but no one called for them to be closed. And still we drove on.
‘What is this?’ I shouted in Sigurd’s ear. ‘Kerbogha’s cavalry will cut us down like wheat.’
He shook his head. Soon he began to outstrip me, and though at first I tried to keep pace, after a few strides I could see that I would not catch him. I slowed; then, hardly thinking, I stopped dead. The hordes of our army, the Normans who had sallied forth to reinforce us, swept around me, and I was little more than a twig in their stream. They charged past and vanished into the haze, and I was left alone.
Was this a victory? It did not feel like one – but nor did it seem like a defeat. The smoke was all around me, blocking out the sun; Kerbogha himself could have ridden by with all his train and I would not have seen him. I stumbled around the abandoned field, trying to find a path back towards the city, and let the number of the fallen be my guide. At the high-water mark, where our line had stood, they were almost like a carpet on the earth. Just beyond, I found the Emperor’s banner, the golden eagle, still in the ground where Sigurd had planted it. I leaned on its staff, exhausted, and rubbed the tears from my stinging eyes.
Though the army had moved on, dim figures still moved through the fog – the wounded, the compassionate, the corpse-robbers – so I did not see his approach until he was almost upon me. The snap of an arrow-shaft underfoot lifted my head, and something familiar in his gait held my gaze just long enough to take in his smooth face, his close-trimmed beard, and his black eyes. I could not guess what part he had played in the battle, for he carried a round shield and a straight sword. With no turban wound around his helmet, he could have passed for any Frank who had looted his arms from the dead. Only his armour looked foreign: flat, serpentine scales sewn over each other, rattling and shaking as he moved. I did not suppose it was a coincidence that he had found me there.
‘What do you want?’ There was no hiding the desolate weariness in my voice. The very thought of fighting now turned my limbs to lead. ‘The battle is over. You have lost.’
Even among so much death, Mushid could laugh. ‘I have lost nothing. And you, Demetrios, you will not touch the victory.’
I stepped away from the standard and lifted my sword. Even that took all the remnant of my strength. Mushid was fresh, and a more practised swordsman than any I knew. It would be a short fight.
‘Killing me will not bury your secret. Others know it.’
He pulled off his helmet and threw it aside. ‘Who? Your barbarian giant? Your physician whore? I will find them in time. Then I will find other Franj to aid me. Now that they hold Antioch, it is more important than before that I have eyes among them.’
‘You could have saved yourself much effort if you had not killed Drogo.’ I could not parry his sword; my only thought was to engage him with words, and hope that Sigurd might return.
Irritation flashed in the eyes beneath his tousled hair. ‘I told you: I did not kill Drogo. He was an obedient adept.’
I stepped back two paces, circling to my left. The killing blood was in Mushid’s veins, and words would not deter him long. ‘Adept at what? The mysteries of some forgotten pagan? Sacrificing bulls in lost caves?’
‘You have a keen mind, Demetrios, but you should listen more. My god is Allah, the one true deity. The matter in the cave, it was . . . a device. One step on the journey.’ Pride entered his voice. ‘What do I know of the worship of pagan idols? I invented the ritual, to feed those hungry for belief. There are many stairs on the path to knowledge, and sometimes it is necessary to come through error into truth. In the cave, Drogo and his friends abandoned the false god of the Christians. They crossed a chasm which could not be bridged, dividing them from their past. This was the first step.’
His words had bewitched me, as he knew they would, and I had allowed him too close. His sword hissed through the air, so sharp that it glided through my skin unchecked. A gash opened on my right forearm, and more blood spilled onto the ground.
Mushid was moving faster now, almost like a dancer. The tip of his sword darted like a dragonfly, probing my guard, though it was more an exercise than a necessity. ‘On the second rung, it is annihilation. The soul must be wiped clean, ignorant even of its ignorance. All error and false belief must be purged. And so this is what I told Drogo: that there is no God.’
The blade flashed. I stumbled to avoid its arc and as I flung out an arm for balance I felt a hot iron bite the palm of my hand. Mushid was not trying to kill me, or not yet – rather, he seemed to be working to the rules of some cruel, self-imposed game.
Hardly less agonising were the words he had spoken. I ached to answer them, to rebut the terrible lie he had told, but all I could manage through my pain was a mangled cry. ‘Lies. Lies.’
‘Of course.’ Mushid stepped carefully over a body and continued circling me. ‘But again, a necessary lie. Drogo needed to renounce all gods before he could acclaim the true God. How could he accept truth, if he had not known falsehood? And he believed me. He proved it.’
This time I had learned to shut my ears to his words. When the blow came, I just managed to lift my sword to meet it. The toll of clashing steel rang between us.
‘Do you know how he proved it, Demetrios the unveiler of mysteries? How in one act he obliterated the power of God and cast himself free of his people? He summoned Rainauld to a lonely dell, and he plunged a dagger into his friend’s heart. For if there is no God, as he believed, if no one will punish evil, who can do wrong?’
I was so dazed that I barely knew myself any longer. A part of me tried to wield my sword against my enemy, a part dismissed his tale as a feint, and a part wept that the answers I had sought so long were now becoming manifest, but too late. As for which part mastered the others, I had not the strength to decide.
‘But it was a lie,’ I whispered. ‘Drogo’s evil
Mushid scowled. ‘I took Rainauld’s body and hid it in the culvert. When I returned to the dell, Drogo was dead.’ He raised his sword over his shoulder, hefting it for the killing blow. ‘A waste. He would have been a true disciple. Through him I could have reached deep within your army and guided it to my purpose, to destroy the godless Sunni who blaspheme the name of the prophet, and make my own faith master.’
He swung his sword like an axe at my neck; I parried with an upright blade and felt the impact shiver through my wounded arm. My sword dropped from my hand and I fell back. Mushid stood over me, wreathed in smoke.
‘Farewell, Demetrios. You will—’
Lying on my back, I felt the ground beneath me shudder. Was it an earthquake? They had happened here before, dreadful portents from the depths of the Earth. But this did not feel like a tremor to shake down houses and trees. There was a rhythm in it, a pounding like a drum, yet faster than any man’s hands could beat.
A line of horsemen thundered out of the smoke, lances couched beneath their arms. Their shields were painted with the red bear, and I saw Tancred’s stallion galloping at their head. I doubt whether they knew Mushid, whether they even knew his race. They were in battle, and he was in front of them. He did not have time to move, or even to face his doom. The spear tore apart the plates of his armour, plunged through his chest, and emerged on the other side. For the merest second, I saw his eyes widen and his face begin to contort into a scream. Then he was gone, lifted off the ground and swept on by the relentless drive of the knights. He must have been dragged fifty yards before the Norman pulled free his lance.
I sank back. Blood had turned the earth to a crimson mud; I was mired in it, and did not have the strength to escape. I leaned my head on the corpse behind me, and shut my eyes.
Afterwards, many men tried to explain how our feeble, tiny army had defeated a force ten times its strength.
