and peered at his forehead. Anna had pulled the hair back, splaying it out on the bench like a radiate crown, and the curve of the brow was plain to see. In its centre, a swirl of dried blood in the form of a writhin eel meandered from the parted hair to the bridge of his nose. At first glance it seemed as though the two halves of his skull had been forced apart, but in truth the skin was unbroken under the mark.
‘What of it?’ I asked. ‘With the force of the blow, some blood splashed onto his face and dribbled down. It left that stain.’
Anna looked at me in scorn. ‘You think that while the man lay on the ground, a single drop of blood curled itself prettily into that shape? Look how broad and smooth the line is.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘And look here.’ She pointed to a spot high on the man’s left cheek, just behind his eye. ‘What is that?’
I cracked open my fingers and gazed between them. ‘It looks like – the imprint of a finger. In blood.’
‘Exactly. The same finger, I suspect, as marked his forehead.’
Now Sigurd sounded incredulous. ‘You think it was drawn as he lay dying?’
‘Or after he died.’ Anna was unperturbed by our doubt. ‘Either by him or by his killer. The latter, I would guess. A man choking out his life might not manage so neat a design upon himself.’
‘But why would anyone mark him so?’ I wondered. ‘Was it some secret sign?’
‘Hah!’
Anna and I stared at Sigurd. ‘It’s not a secret sign. It’s a sigma. In Greek, you’d write it thus’ – he swiped his finger through the air in the form of a ? – ‘but in the Latin alphabet we write it so.’ He pointed victoriously at the mark on the dead Norman’s forehead.
‘Why—’ Anna began, but my thoughts were faster.
‘S for Sarah.’ Now it was I who sounded triumphant. ‘Drogo’s mistress was called Sarah. If a rival killed him, he might have marked him with the initial of the woman they quarrelled over.’
‘Or S for Simon,’ Sigurd countered. ‘It would not be the first time a servant killed his master. Maybe the boy marked him in boast.’
‘And then ran to tell us of it?’
‘There is more.’ Anna had kept silent while we argued our theories, but now she gestured back to the corpse. ‘Help me turn him over.’
Our joy at the discovery drained away as Sigurd and I rolled the body onto its stomach. This time we needed no guidance from Anna, for the mark was plain to see, and familiar as our own faces. It had been carved, not painted, and though there must once have been blood it was now long gone, leaving only glossy pink scars. Two cuts had been made, lines of awful precision, one from the nape of his neck to the small of his back, the other straight across his shoulder blades: a giant cross of flesh.
‘That would have hurt,’ said Sigurd quietly. ‘I hope his God appreciates it now.’
I breathed deeply, and wished I had not. I had occasionally seen pilgrims cut such marks into their cheeks or shoulders, once even into an Abbot’s forehead, but never so large, nor so deep.
‘He was lucky the wound did not fester,’ Anna said. ‘More than one man has died from similar pieties.’
Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by an onslaught of sensations: the stench, the blueing skin, the grim signs on the corpse that seemed to proclaim horrible warnings. Anna had said that the dead would speak to us, but never had I expected so many confused, clamouring voices. I choked for air and staggered towards the light at the end of the cave, but the edge of a shield caught my leg and brought me to the floor. There was shouting behind me, and ahead of me also, but it took several moments before I could open my eyes to see who spoke.
A face lined with hatred stared down at me, scrawny hair hanging lank about it. He still stank of his horse, still wore his pointed spurs, and still spoke with contempt.
‘Does your Greek stomach fail at the sight of death?’
‘Why are you here?’ Sigurd asked above me.
‘To bury our brother in the name of Christ, not leave him rotting in a Greek hole.’
Behind him I could see another Norman, indistinct in the gloom, and a small company of men bearing a litter beyond. I stumbled to my feet.
‘Take him, if you want.’
The knight, Quino, reached down and pulled an arrow from one of the quivers by the wall. He snapped it in his fists, and threw the pieces at me. ‘I will leave you to your toys, Greek. You will need them when I come to claim my vengeance.’ He looked past me, to where Anna stood beside Sigurd, and laughed. ‘On you, and on your whore.’
They took the body and left, their taunts and jibes echoing back to us from down the path. If this was the company that Drogo had kept, I for one would find it hard to lament his death.
?
It seemed that I would never escape the Normans that day: in the evening Tatikios summoned me to attend him at a council of the princes. They were never comfortable occasions, for most of the Frankish leaders distrusted the Byzantines, and none of them approved of having scribes present. But Tatikios insisted on it, believing men would measure more carefully words which they knew were recorded. As a tactic, it was never particularly successful.
We met in the house of the Provencal leader Raymond, the Count of Saint-Gilles. His camp was some distance from ours, and by the time we arrived all the other princes had taken seats on the square of benches in the centre of the room. Tatikios had to perch on one end, in a corner, his left leg trembling as he tried to balance himself.
There must have been a score of men in that square, and twice as many watching with me from the surrounding shadows, but only a handful who signified. All save one were unshaven, as was the fashion of necessity, and all wore mail hauberks in protestation of their prowess. Some I had encountered elsewhere – the wan-faced Hugh the Great, whose beard never grew thicker than goosedown; the ruddy-cheeked Duke Godfrey with his eternal expression of disapproval; and of course Bohemond – others I had seen only in council. Chief among them, at least in his own mind, was Count Raymond. By his age, his rank, his wealth and his vast army he ought perhaps to have been general of all the Franks, but none of the other captains would admit to his authority. He sat in the centre of his bench, his grey hair framing the sour, one-eyed face, and if there was no single seat of honour in the equal-sided square then the broad candelabra placed discreetly behind him certainly drew men’s attention first.
‘We meet in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’ The man beside Raymond spoke the blessing in Latin, to a muttered chorus of ‘Amen’. Instead of a cloak he wore a crimson cope over his ringed armour, with scenes from the scriptures embroidered into it in gold. The domed cap on his head had the shape of a helmet, but was cut from the same rich cloth as the cope. Beneath it his expression was stern, though I had sometimes seen it soften to a half-smile when, as was common, one of the princes embarked on a long or fatuous digression. His name was Adhemar, the bishop of Le Puy, and though he commanded no army save his own household, his voice was always the first and also often the last at these councils, for he was the legate of the Patriarch of Rome, the Pope.
‘What progress at the western walls, Count Raymond?’ he asked. He always allowed the Provencal leader to speak second, perhaps in deference to his vanity, perhaps because they were of the same country.
‘The tower at the mosque, by the bridge, will be completed in days. After that, we need fear no more attacks on the supply road. Nor will the Turks then manage to bring provisions into the city, or pasture their flocks.’
‘Towers alone achieve nothing,’ said Bishop Adhemar. ‘Who will take on the task of garrisoning it?’
He had spoken to the room at large, yet the question hung unanswered. All around the square men looked to the floor or fidgeted with their belts – none would meet Adhemar’s eye. With good reason, I thought, for after five months of siege who would willingly incur the extra cost in gold and men of manning a fort on our front line?
At length, Count Raymond lifted his chin defiantly. ‘The tower was my idea, and in its wisdom the council agreed it. If none other has the stomach for it, I claim the honour of captaining its defence.’
