I told Nikephoros everything as soon we returned. His impatience soon turned to interest, particularly the account of the Nile measure, though he rolled his eyes when I repeated Bilal’s warnings of danger.
‘That is just part of their tactics. Like the men in Constantinople who convince you your house is on fire so they can rob it when you flee.’
‘He seemed serious enough.’
‘Of course he did — there would be little point in the lie if he did not.’ Nikephoros took a piece from the tray of sweetmeats before him. ‘I am surprised the ape had the wit for it.’
He flashed a sly glance as he said it, quick as a razor, but I did not rise to the provocation. Not that I let him see, anyway.
‘But why show us that their harvest is failing?’ I said. ‘Surely that weakens their position?’
Nikephoros gave me a withering look. ‘Is that all you saw? If you had looked out of the boat two months ago you would have seen as much.’
Even after so much experience of it, his vitriol could still sting me. I waited, wondering if he would explain himself or grow bored.
‘Al-Afdal will negotiate.’
‘How do you know?’
Nikephoros took the last two sweetmeats off the tray and crammed them in his mouth. ‘Because he has finally shown us what he wants. And because he sent word while you were away. He will see me tomorrow.’
Whatever Nikephoros had to say to al-Afdal, he did not need me to hear it. He went alone, and when he returned a couple of hours later he said nothing except to call for wine and retreat to his own room. The meeting must have pleased him, though, for when he came out for supper he was in a better humour than I had seen him for weeks. The setting sun filled the room with a bright copper glow, moulded into intricate shadows on the wall by the carved window screens. The caliph’s slaves kept us well supplied with wine, and the feeling in the room was of an army on the last night of its campaign. Even I found myself caught up in the false and easy camaraderie. I looked around at the laughing faces and thought that if this was to be our last night in Egypt, it was at least a happy ending.
Afterwards, like the others, I regretted drinking so much wine, but it was the wine that made me bold enough to question Nikephoros directly.
‘What came of your meeting with the vizier?’
If the wine had made me incautious, it had evidently mellowed Nikephoros’ humour. Or perhaps he did not want to cut into the good feeling. He waved an arm expansively and said, ‘Good things.’
‘Will he take our grain in exchange for Jerusalem?’
Even with the mist of alcohol in his mind, Nikephoros was alert enough to give me a keen look. I could see he was minded not to answer my guess, but eventually he acknowledged it with a shrug. ‘He will take the emperor’s grain to relieve the famine here.’
‘And surrender Jerusalem in return?’ I pressed.
‘Al-Afdal has been called to Alexandria for a few days. When he returns here he will give me his answer.’
Aelfric, sitting in the corner, raised his cup. ‘And then we can go home.’
I drank to that.
I woke craving water. Lifting myself from my mattress, I fumbled my way across the room and felt around until I found the alcove where the palace slaves had left a jug and a pair of cups. I splashed some water into the cup, spilling it in the dark, and drank gratefully. Between the privations we had suffered at Antioch, and the recent hospitality of the Fatimids who seemed to drink alcohol rarely if at all, it had been an age since I drank so much wine. I shook my head to clear it, and immediately wished I had not.
I was about to return to my bed when a noise outside the door drove all thoughts of sleep from my head. I heard a rush of footsteps, and the ominous clattering of spearshafts on stone. The guard in the passage issued a challenge, and was instantly answered by a sharp torrent of unintelligible words.
I did not know what was happening — I barely knew if I was dreaming or not — but I knew that I wanted to be armed. I let the cup drop from my hand and ran to my bedside, rummaging under the mattress where I had hidden Bilal’s dagger. Around me, the others were stirring uncertainly, their dreams interrupted by the shattering cup and the noises in the passageway, but it was not until the double doors flew open in a blaze of shouts and torchlight that they realised what was happening. By then, I had managed to pull on one boot and slip the knife inside it.
A couple of our Patzinak guards managed to leap to their feet, but they were quickly pinned back against the walls by the incoming horde. They wore long hauberks of quilted leather and carried short stabbing spears with leafshaped heads. The caliph’s personal bodyguard — not al-Afdal’s men, but Berbers from the deserts of Africa.
Two of the guards tore open the curtain to Nikephoros’ private quarters. I thought they would find him in bed, but either he had heard the intrusion and acted quickly, or he had expected it. He stood there dressed in a plain tunic, his arms by his side and anger burning across his face. He might be a bully, I realised then, but he was not a coward.
‘What in Christ’s name are you doing?’
The words were lost on the Berber guards. Their hard faces never flinched as they stepped forward and seized him between them. Nikephoros shrank instinctively from their grasp; then he mastered himself, and let them lead him with silent dignity. Two more guards took hold of me, while others rounded up Aefric and the Patzinaks and herded them after us with spears. It was too soon to feel shock: the whole business had taken barely a minute, and I saw men still rubbing the sleep from their eyes as they left the room. In the corridor, the guard who had been assigned to watch us — one of Bilal’s men — stood back and watched in disbelief, his wide eyes like moons in the dark. He had not expected this any more than we had.
‘Fetch Bilal,’ I called to him as we passed.
The eyes blinked, but otherwise there was no acknowledgement.
The Berbers brought us quickly to the hall where the caliph had first received us. Circles of torchlight overlapped to form a bright arena in the open space before the dais, while the myriad columns stretched away like a forest at midnight around us. From above, the caliph looked down from his low throne, flanked by a chamberlain. His face was drowned in darkness.
‘This is an unexpected honour, Your Highness.’ Nikephoros could not disguise the fear in his words. ‘With a little more warning, we might have prepared ourselves more as your dignity demands. As it is-’ He broke off, as he saw the chamberlain had not bothered to translate his words. An ominous silence overtook the dark room. The caliph let it grow until even Nikephoros began to fidget. Then he spoke.
‘The vizier, my loyal servant’ — he sneered as he said it — ‘has told me your proposal.’
Nikephoros licked his lips and glanced nervously around. ‘The illustrious vizier had me understand you looked kindly on our offer, Your Highness.’
‘Al-Afdal does not speak for me,’ barked the caliph, and even before I heard his words transmitted into Greek, I heard the aggrieved petulance in his voice, and remembered how young he had seemed at our first audience.
Nikephoros offered a too-humble bow. ‘Forgive me, Your Highness, I-’
‘You are a snake, Greek — a snake and a liar. You glide into my court and offer sweet promises of friendship and aid, but you are lying, waiting to strike when I am vulnerable. Jerusalem belongs to me; I who am descended from the Prophet himself by the line of the seven true Imams.’
The caliph had leaned so far forward on his throne that his face was almost in the light. ‘You have listened to the rumours spread by my enemies. The harvest is not failing. Not one of my subjects will go hungry this winter. Not one!’
‘We — ’
‘And even if we did suffer famine, I would sooner scrabble for seeds in the ground with my own fingers than beg your emperor for relief. Do you think I have forgotten what happened in my father’s time? All Egypt starved — even for a thousand dinars you could not find a loaf of bread. The Greek emperor offered to send us two million bushels of grain and we gratefully accepted — but the ships never came. He betrayed us to appease the heretic Turks. I would rather slaughter every horse in my stable to feed the poor, pawn my treasury and send my wives to work in the bathhouses than beg your emperor’s help again. Who will he not betray if it is to his advantage? He is like Satan: he says to a man, ‘Do not believe!’, but when the man obeys and forsakes God, he says, “I disown you.”’
The caliph stood, rising into the darkness. His voice had become a fevered shriek, a disorienting counterpoint to the calm monotone of the chamberlain’s translation. ‘You are faithless hypocrites. You say that if we are attacked, you will help us; but when we are attacked you soon turn tail and flee. Truly, it is written: “You who believe, do not take the disbelievers as allies and protectors.”’
Nikephoros stepped forward and looked defiantly up at the caliph. Even stripped of his magnificent robes, with no jewelled lorum wound about him like armour, his pride was enough to clothe him in self-righteous dignity.
‘We came in peace and friendship, as ambassadors of the emperor Alexios. It is unwise to renounce that friendship — but if you do, I ask you to at least honour our safe-conduct as ambassadors. We will leave in the morning, as soon as you permit it.’
They were the words I had longed to hear for two months; now I barely noticed them. The caliph was still standing, though his twitching movements had calmed, and when he spoke there was more reason in his voice.
‘You cannot leave. Winter has closed the seas, and all the harbours are shut.’
The words struck me like a blow to my stomach. Even Nikephoros looked uncertain now. The caliph continued: ‘But you cannot stay in my city. I have issued an edict that all unbelievers must leave. Your presence here disturbs my kingdom.’
Nikephoros stared at him. ‘Then where shall we go?’
‘I have a hunting lodge on the western bank of the river. My guards will take you there immediately — your possessions will be sent after you in the morning. You will wait there until the seas open in the spring.’
Too much wine, too little sleep — and then the grim shock of being dragged before the raging caliph: a dark mist seemed to hang before my eyes as the guards bustled us out of the caliph’s throne room. As we reached a turn in the passage, I managed to draw ahead of my guards long enough to catch up with Nikephoros. He glanced back over his shoulder and tried to force a reassuring smile. That worried me more than anything.
‘Al-Afdal will be back within the week,’ he said. ‘He will bring the caliph to his senses.’
But there are many factions, and al-Afdal cannot always master them all. I remembered Bilal’s words with a shiver as the guardsmen pulled me back.
Once again, a fleet of litters awaited us by the palace gate. I climbed into mine without resistance and settled onto the cushions — like a corpse being laid on his funeral bier, my mind whispered. I thought of Bishop Adhemar draped in his shroud, but that took me to Antioch and that was too much to bear. Until the seas open in the spring, the caliph had said. After my hopes had been raised so high, my soul flinched even to think of it. I looked out from under my canopy at the other litters — squat boxes scattered around the courtyard like tombs in a necropolis. Why were all my thoughts of death? Then a guardsman drew the curtains, and the view was shut away from me.
They carried us from the city at great speed, the litters swaying and shuddering: the streets must have been entirely empty that deep into the night, and we travelled them unseen and unseeing. When we emerged at the dock, though, all was bustle and activity. Torches had been lit, and a great throng of slaves and guardsmen milled about on the wharf. In a knot in their midst, I saw the four Frankish envoys and their attendants. They must have been hauled from their sleep as peremptorily as we had, for they wore the same disarray of under-shirts and mismatched boots, and the same harried confusion on their faces. Achard stood among them, his head darting about like a cornered cat’s.
Our guards hustled us towards the Franks and gestured us to wait. Out on the water I could hear the approach of splashing oars, and nearer to me, a low and ragged chant.
‘Help me, O Lord my God. Save me according to your steadfast love.’
All of the Franks were murmuring the same prayer, intensity fixed on their faces. The sound mingled with the harsher, wilder voices of the Berber guards, different currents in the dizzying babble that washed over me, as inconstant and elusive as the flickering firelight. I was so dazed I did not even think to pray.
A dark and familiar figure strode onto the dock, his yellow cloak billowing around his shoulders and his gold armband shining in the torchlight. He passed by us without a glance, but my heart leaped all the same at the sight of him. An angry shout was enough to bring the Berber captain hurrying out; they met in the middle of the wharf, so close they could have whispered their conversation if they had wanted. Instead, they began a furious discussion, which every man on the dock could hear. I understood almost nothing, but I did hear al-Afdal’s name mentioned often by Bilal, and the caliph’s name invoked each time in reply by the Berber captain. A circle of the guardsmen formed around them, thickest behind their captain, and I saw Bilal begin to edge backwards. Even his commanding presence could not deter so many.
With a final, sharp comment, he turned his back on the guards and marched towards us. His face was grey in the smoke.
‘I cannot counter the caliph’s order,’ he said loudly. ‘Even if he has fallen under the influence of evil counsellors. I have sworn to obey him in all things.’ Then, more quietly: ‘They are taking you to your deaths. If you reach the far bank of the river, it will only be to step into your graves.’
He spoke so softly, almost conversationally, that I had nodded before I even realised what he had said. By then he had turned away and vanished out of the light, while a host of guards gathered about us and began shepherding us towards the river with their short spears.
‘What are they doing?’
The voice, small and frightened, cut through the fog of terror that gripped me. Achard was beside me, shuffling forward and looking up with fearful expectation. His staring eyes had lost their intensity; now they only made him look horribly innocent. He had not heard Bilal’s warning: perhaps that was a mercy.
Before I could answer, we were pulled apart again. We had reached the steps, and had to descend in single file. Three boats awaited us at the bottom, small craft, already half-filled by the slaves who sat by their oars. Their hunched backs gleamed in the dark. Without regard for rank or race, the Berbers herded six of us into the first boat: Nikephoros and Aelfric, Achard, two of the Patzinaks and me. An equal number of guardsmen accompanied us. Even in our utter helplessness, they clearly had orders to risk nothing.
A hand closed around my arm, tight as a noose. ‘What are they doing?’ Achard repeated. ‘What did the black savage say?’
‘That we will be murdered.’ I spoke furtively and in Frankish, praying none of the Berbers understood. As long as they thought we remained ignorant of our fate, I hoped they might postpone it.
Achard closed his eyes. ‘Into your hands, O Lord, we commit ourselves.’
I wished I could share his faith. My hands were trembling, and I almost had to lean over the side of the boat to vomit up the bile that had gathered in my stomach. I started to recite a prayer in my head, but the familiar words were no comfort to me and I could say no more than the first line before thoughts of death crowded out thoughts of God.
The boat cast off — I could see the other Franks, and some of our Patzinaks, climbing into the next one — and we pulled into the river. I felt the force of the current immediately, far stronger than in the fat barges that had carried us before, and the rowers had to lean hard on their oars to keep a straight course.
I glanced at Nikephoros. He was sitting very erect in the stern of the boat, his eyes fixed on the darkness ahead as if he could already see the saints lifting back the veil to the next life. I was not ready to die with such composure. I looked to Aelfric, seated on the bench opposite me, and our eyes met in agreement.
Out in the night, the oars dipped and swept through the water; further off our bow, I could hear fish rising to the surface. We were in the middle of the river now: far enough from the men on shore, I hoped. Feigning only a touch more despair than I actually felt, I bowed my head and rocked forward so that my face rested on my knees and my arms dangled beside my ankles. My fingers dug into my boot and closed around the handle of Bilal’s knife. My heart was beating so fast that I felt sure it must almost tip the boat over, and I heard a suspicious growl from the guard in the stern. This was madness — pure, desperate suicide. But there was no choice.
For a blissful moment, I prayed as clean and perfect a prayer as I have ever prayed. Then I straightened, lifted my blade and stabbed it into the neck of the guard beside me. His mouth sprang open, pouring out blood like a fountain, and in that instant Aelfric had lunged across the boat and snatched the short spear from his hands.
Everything after that was blind instinct and reaction. I saw the guard beside Nikephoros twist around to strike him, but the commotion in the boat unbalanced his arm and the spear thudded harmlessly into the transom. The guard was still trying to pull it free when one of the Patzinaks seized his legs and pitched him into the river. Something surged in the water; I thought it was the guard trying to clamber aboard, and stepped forward to knock him away. Then I glimpsed a vast, scaly body, ancient and terrible, rising from the midst of a cloud of foam in the water. Two jaws opened like shears, so close that I swore afterwards I could smell the rotting flesh between the teeth, and snapped shut in a spray of blood and screams.
Even with all that came after, it was the hardest battle I ever fought. Even in the worst battle, there are some certainties: the ground you stand on, the men beside you, the sword in your hand. Here, all those were gone. The boat bucked and squirmed like a fish on a line, and more than once I thought we would all be tipped into the river to die together. In those heaving confines, the battle lines stretched no further than the end of your arm, and if you waited to see if the man next to you was friend or foe he would most likely have killed you. A horde of monsters circled us in the water, snapping and tearing at any man who fell overboard. Most strangely of all, only half the men there actually fought. All the rowers stayed rooted to their seats, bowing over their oars and covering their heads while the battle raged over them. The briefest whimpers as boots stamped on stray fingers or spear-butts knocked against shoulders was all the contribution they made to the battle.
One of the caliph’s guards drove towards me with his spear, holding it two handed. Without sword or shield I had only one resort: I dropped to my knees and tried to roll away — straight into the side of the boat. That was my saving. The guard’s feet tripped over me and he sprawled onto the deck. Praying there was not another behind him, I rolled back, crouched astride him and reached round to slit his throat. I was too slow: with a great heave of his shoulders he shrugged me off, pinning my knife hand as he did. I lay beside him, clinging to his back like a lover, while he wrestled to free his weapon from beneath the tangle of limbs. Then a shadow fell over us, a spear stabbed down, and I found I could pull free from the suddenly limp body. I looked up to thank my saviour; instead of Aelfric or one of the Patzinaks, I saw a Berber guardsman holding the dripping spear. His young face was dazed with guilt as he realised his mistake — but there is no place for guilt in battle, or wars would never be fought. I did not trust my knife; I lowered my shoulder and slammed it into his stomach. He staggered backwards. The backs of his legs caught on the side of the boat and he tottered for a moment, before a last kick from my boot plunged him into the water.
‘Demetrios!’
How many more enemies could there be? I swung around, stepping left and trying to keep my balance on the rocking deck. It felt like trying to stand upright on a charging horse, and barely wider. Thankfully, there was no enemy behind me — the shout had been for help. Achard was standing at the stern of the boat; he had managed to get hold of a short sword, and was frantically parrying a furious onslaught of jabs and spear-thrusts from the man opposite. After six months locked up in the caliph’s palace, I was surprised he even remembered how to hold the sword; he did not look as though he would last much longer.
His opponent stepped back a moment, and he risked the briefest sideways glance. ‘Help me!’
I began to move towards him. On any normal battlefield I would have been at his side in an instant, but here I had to contend with the rolling deck, the slippery planking slick with blood, and the tangle of oars, corpses and cowering slaves. Achard was only a few paces away, yet it could have been miles.
‘Demetrios.’
The sound seemed to have come from out on the water. A bedraggled figure in a white robe lay half-submerged in the river, his hands clinging to an oar and his feet kicking frantically in the water. Nikephoros.
‘For God’s sake, get me out,’ he bellowed. He reached to try and haul himself up the oar, but it was slippery with river water and he could not get a purchase.
I glanced around. At the stern of the boat, Achard was still fending off his assailant, though with a weary lack of strength in his arms. At the opposite end, in the bow, Aelfric and another man I could not see were wrestling with a guardsman. In between, apart from the slaves, I was the only man standing.
‘What are you — ’ Nikephoros’ plea choked off as he swallowed a mouthful of water. For a moment I thought he had been seized by one of the river monsters, and that alone was enough to break my indecision. I knelt by the side, pressing my knees against the planking, and stretched out for Nikephoros like a pilgrim reaching for a relic. I was horribly vulnerable; I prayed that the others would keep their opponents away from me, and that there were none lurking in the darkness at the bottom of the boat. I could hear shouts and screams above my head but I did not dare look. Nikephoros lunged for my outstretched hand, but desperation made him wild: he missed, knocking my hand away and bruising it against the pole of the oar. I groaned, and reached again.
This time Nikephoros mastered his panic. His hand closed around my wrist and hauled, with such strength that I was almost pulled into the river after him. With a final effort, I braced my feet against the planking and threw myself backwards. Nikephoros sprang forward as if he had somehow found purchase on the water itself, while I sprawled on the deck. The blow had knocked the air from my body, and I lay there a second with my eyes shut, before the realisation that I could no longer feel Nikephoros’ grip on my wrists forced me to look. I almost wept with relief. Nikephoros’ chin was resting on the lip of the boat, and his arms dangled over the side. He hauled himself inboard and collapsed in a heap beside me, spewing curses and river water.
I looked around, aware of a sudden silence ringing in my ears. Aelfric and one of the Patzinaks crouched in the bow, wiping blood from their blades with quiet satisfaction. Nikephoros and I were all who remained amidships, apart from the petrified rowers. And at the back of the boat -
‘Where is Achard?’
There was no sign of him, nor of the guard I had seen him fighting. Aelfric shrugged, pointing to the river with grim resignation. Out in the night, I could hear roaring and splashes as the river monsters feasted.
Later, I might feel a prick of remorse that I could have saved Achard. But there was no time. We must have drifted well downstream, far from the following boats, but once they reached the opposite bank and realised we had not arrived they would come after us. No one asked if we should go back to rescue the others. Aelfric and the Patzinak began tipping the corpses overboard, while I searched out the lightest skinned slave and seized him by the shoulder. Glancing down, I saw why they had avoided the battle raging between them: they were all shackled to their benches.
‘Do you speak Greek?’
He looked up at me, quivering with terror, and shook his head. Mutely, he pointed to a man two rows in front of him.
‘You?’
The slave flinched. ‘A — a little. Not in. . much years.’
‘Tell the rowers to pick up their oars and head downstream.’
‘Tell them to pull as if their lives depend on it, or we will throw them to the river monsters and row this boat ourselves,’ growled Nikephoros. He spoke quickly, and his voice was hoarse from screaming through mouthfuls of water, but the slave must have understood the brutal sense of his words. As one, the rowers leaned over their oars and began pulling us down the river.
When the bodies were cleared, we gathered in the stern of the boat for a council. As well as Achard, we had lost one of the Patzinaks; that left the other Patzinak, whose name was Jorol; Aelfric; Nikephoros and myself. We huddled together, smeared with the stains of combat, while a thin mist began to rise off the river around us. The night was not cold, but I suddenly found myself shivering.
‘How long until dawn?’ Aelfric asked.
No one answered. There was no way of knowing how much of the night had passed: you cannot measure a nightmare.
‘Not enough time to reach the sea, at any rate,’ I said.
Perhaps, because I had just saved his life, Nikephoros held some of his scorn in check. If so, I did not notice. ‘Reach the sea? Even if the night hid us for ever, we would never find our way through the tangled mouths of this river. And if, by God’s grace, we did reach Tinnis, what would we find there? A chain across the harbour, and every ship hauled out of the water for winter. Did you hear what the caliph said? The seas are closed.’
Aelfric stirred. ‘What about the ship we came on?’
‘The emperor’s fleet is no use to him penned up in an enemy port. The ship’s master had orders to sail home if we had not returned when winter came.’
‘It was the caliph who turned on us,’ I said tentatively. ‘Al-Afdal was willing to bargain. If we hide until he returns he may protect us.’
Nikephoros shook his head. ‘Al-Afdal would have bargained with us, but now the caliph has declared war on us and we have killed Fatimid soldiers. He cannot protect us now.’
‘Much good his protection did us anyway,’ Aelfric muttered.
‘If al-Afdal finds us, he will have to kill us.’
A glum silence descended between us. Oars squeaked, the rowers sighed the unheard sighs of slaves, and mist drifted across our bow. The moon had set, and though I could not see the stars I guessed that morning could not be far off.
‘So what shall we do?’
Nikephoros, who had been idly stroking his fingers through the tendrils of fog, looked up. ‘We cannot go north, we cannot stay where we are, and we certainly cannot go south. West only takes us further from home. We will go east.’
‘I have heard that there is only desert to the east,’ said the Patzinak warily.
‘So there is. But it has been crossed before. And you know what lies beyond?’ Sodden, battered and doomed though he was, Nikephoros gave a wolfish grin.
‘The promised land.’