chamber at the end. It must have been built on the very edge of the terracing, for the arched windows gazed out on a precipitous drop, with the mountainside below and the southern hills beyond. Sunlight slanted through the openings and picked out the sweet threads of incense that hung in the air. Below the windows stood a bed, pushed into the corner and covered with thick blankets despite the heat. Its occupant was propped up on cushions, his eyes closed to the sun, and in the gilded light the lines and harrows of his face were cleansed away. A priest knelt beside him, whispering prayers.
I bowed awkwardly. ‘Your Grace?’
The hooded eyes eased open, wincing at the light. ‘Demetrios?’
‘I am here.’
A hand lifted from among the blankets and waved the priest away. ‘Leave us.’
The priest frowned to have his supplications interrupted, but made no complaint. He backed away, bowed, and left the room.
‘Is the door closed?’ Adhemar asked.
I looked. Whether from curiosity or carelessness, the priest had left it slightly ajar. I fastened it shut, then took a stool from the corner and set it beside Adhemar’s bed. There was a smell about him that no amount of incense and unguents could quench, the dank smell of a room long unopened. I had found it before among the old and the sick, though seldom for long.
‘Come closer, Demetrios.’
I leaned nearer.
‘The day is beautiful?’
‘Hot, my Lord.’
‘Better the heat of the sun than winter’s frozen grip. It is good that I have lived to see Antioch in this light.’
‘It is your prize. Your victory. You have brought us through the siege.’
‘Christ has brought us through the siege,’ he reproved me. The stern set of his face relaxed; he chuckled, though it swiftly became a rattling cough. ‘Christ, and Bohemond’s ambition.’
‘His ambition would have sundered the army apart if you had not tempered it.’
‘But it was not enough.
The effort of his speech had been great; he sank back in his cushions and closed his eyes again.
‘When we set out, Pope Urban told me that faith was a bloom which flowered in the desert. It is not. Hate and doubt are all that flourish here. What we tried to uproot we have instead only nourished and watered. The princes will kill. They will kill and plunder as they did before, only now they will do it in the name of Christ. They will kill in His name, because I have preached it, and He will weep in Heaven.’
‘You did what was necessary,’ I said, remembering Anna’s words. ‘You cannot blame yourself for what became of it.’
‘No!’ There was rare strength in Adhemar’s voice. He fumbled within his nightshirt and pulled forth a jewelled cross. ‘This was once the symbol of passion, of humility, of mercy.’ He twisted it on its chain so that he held it upside down. ‘I have made it a sword.’
I did not speak. There were no words of comfort that I could say. I looked down on Adhemar, at the muscles twitching in his face where life and death vied for mastery. The breath seemed to be faltering in his throat; his heart was faint.
The struggle in his body eased, and for a moment I thought that life had left him. Then, in a dull voice as if speaking through a veil, he whispered, ‘Did you ever discover the killer of Drogo?’
It was the last question I had expected of him. Perhaps it was the cords of his mind unwinding which had recalled that distant memory.
‘There was a Saracen. For a time, Drogo had lapsed into heresy. This Ishmaelite preyed on Drogo’s doubts and seduced him into worse error. First idolatry, then apostasy. He wished to make Drogo his creature, his spy. He had Drogo lure Rainauld to the dell and kill him, to test his loyalty.’ It was a bitter truth that the man I had sought to avenge had himself been a murderer.
Deep in his pillows, Adhemar nodded. He shuffled deeper under his blankets, turning this way and that in search of comfort. Even when he lay still he looked in pain, though it would not be for long. The breaths that hissed through his dry lips grew ever more faint.
‘I was walking in the fields,’ he whispered. His thoughts were dissolving; I could not tell if it was a month earlier or a lifetime he remembered. ‘Walking, and praying. I found them in the dell, alone.’
Seated low on my stool, I stiffened. What memory was this?
‘They embraced as brothers. As he stepped away, he kissed Rainauld on the cheek. Then he stabbed the knife in his heart. He fell without a word.’
Now there was no sound in the room. Even the murmur of the guards outside had ceased, though they could not have heard Adhemar’s frail words. The sound barely reached my own ears.
‘I saw the Saracen.’ Adhemar’s eyes were open again, but staring away into time. ‘He hid behind a boulder. When it was done, he took Rainauld away and left Drogo.’
‘You saw Drogo murder Rainauld?’ I breathed.
Adhemar’s gaze came back to focus on me. ‘Demetrios. Bring me my cope. In the chest.’
Fighting back the questions which demanded to be asked, I opened the iron-bound chest he indicated and dragged out the great crimson cope. Images of Christ and the apostles and prophets were stitched into it in gold, and its weight was immense, heavier than armour. As best I could, I wrapped it around Adhemar’s shoulders.
‘Now lift me in my bed.’
I crooked my arm about him and raised him so that his head came above the ledge of the window. His eyes were in shadow, but he slowly turned his face until it gazed onto the hills beyond.
‘That way lies the promised land, the land of Israel. I will not cross over there, but the Lord has granted me to see it.’
Unsure what he wanted, I continued to hold him up.
‘I went to him,’ Adhemar whispered. ‘Perhaps I should have stayed hidden, but I could not. I could not . . .’ The faint voice tailed away, and I almost shook him in desperation. ‘I could not comprehend why he should kill without mercy. Without passion.’
He leaned back in my arms, and I lowered him to the cushions. His neck had become so thin that I feared I might snap it in my impatience. I heard a gurgling in his throat and feared the end had come; I prayed God to spare him, not from mercy but from a compulsion to hear his secret, to know.
‘Do you know what he told me?’ Adhemar’s face had slackened. The wrinkles unwound themselves, and he looked almost like a child.
‘That there is no God?’ I guessed reluctantly.
Adhemar’s eyes widened with surprise. ‘Yes. That there was no God. That priests were liars, and the faithful fools. That it was no evil to kill, because none would punish it. He laughed in my face and called me a charlatan.’
‘And you slew him.’ There were tears on my cheek, though I did not notice them.
‘I slew him. I slew him, because it was too terrible to hear his words. Because he was a murderer. Because after all the agonies and battles we had suffered in Christ’s name, Drogo forsook Him. He stood there, smiling and bloodied and unrepentant, and I knew evil.’
More coughing racked Adhemar’s body. ‘He denied God, and declared himself almighty. He killed, because there was none to judge him. But I was there. I judged him. In the flower of my anger, I became the angel of vengeance and struck him down. I put the mark of Cain on his brow, so that men might know him as a murderer, and left his body to be devoured by carrion-eaters. Then I fled from that awful place.’
‘Where I found him.’
Adhemar nodded, and seemed to drift into sleep for a while. I put my hand on his throat, but the life still beat
