Did we have seven days to live? It was hard to believe. The following day, Saturday, was almost stifling in its predictability. I rose at dawn and spent the morning carrying wood as we continued the slow business of preparing the siege engine. The sun climbed over us, then began to sink back. The sounds of war echoed off the ancient hills — blacksmiths beating out blades on their anvils, farriers exercising horses, the clatter of rocks as labourers gathered stones for the catapaults — but I barely heard them. Even the noise of my own hammer was dull to my ears, a metronomic beat tapping out the hours in the still air.
When dusk began to chase the sun from the sky, I put down my tools and made my way to the church of Saint Abraham: a small church with a cracked dome, barely a stone’s throw from the city walls. I did not tell Sigurd or Thomas I was going. I half expected — and half hoped — that the pilgrim would have forgotten me, or thought better of his offer, but as I approached the church he stepped out of the shadow of the doorway and beckoned me to follow.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘Not far.’ He looked at my tunic, then threw me a white blanket. ‘Wrap this around you.’
The blanket was grubby and smelled of straw, but I did as he told me and followed him. My misgivings grew the further we moved away from the camp, up towards the brow of the ridge that dominated Jerusalem to the north. We were not the only ones on this road: pale figures flitted through the night all around, though I could not make them out. When I looked back, I could see the city laid out beneath me, a chain of watch-fires surrounding the lamplit streets and churches. To my left, on the eastern side, a smaller cordon of light marked out the dimensions of the Temple Mount. From there, I traced the line of the stone bridge, which spanned the valley to the western city. On the far side of the bridge the street runs west, to a corner where two tamarisk trees grow. If you go right, there is a house with an iron amulet in the shape of a hand nailed to its door. I stared at the flickering lights. Did one of those lamps burn in the window of the room that held my family? Was Anna looking out of it even now, staring up at the night and thinking of me? My heart beat faster, and I felt the familiar pain tighten in my chest.
‘Hurry,’ hissed the pilgrim. ‘There is not much time.’
I turned back up the slope, leaving the lights behind. But the darkness ahead was not complete: the more I looked, the more I could see an orange glow tempering the air, until suddenly we came over the crest of the ridge and looked down into the hollow beyond.
On the far side of the ridge, the land formed a natural bowl, a steeply sloping amphitheatre of dry earth and grass. It occurred to me that these were the same hills where a thousand years earlier the blessed shepherds must have waited with their flocks and heard the angels’ tidings. A second later, I realised why I had thought of it, for it seemed as though all the intervening ages had collapsed and a parliament of angels had gathered once again. Dim white figures filled the valley, seated on its sloping banks in rows or wandering around its rim. There seemed to be hundreds of them, perhaps thousands. They were singing, a soft and beautiful hymn that barely disturbed the night but seemed to flow like water into the amphitheatre. To Him who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb: blessing and honour and glory and power. Two fires burned in its centre forming the boundaries of an implicit stage, and though they were far enough apart that a man could stand between them and barely break sweat, it reminded me uncomfortably of the twin fires of Peter Bartholomew’s ordeal.
My pilgrim guide found us a space to sit on the hillside. No sooner had we settled, though, than the hymn died away and the entire congregation rose to its feet. In the bowl of the valley, a procession wound its way past the fires and stopped behind them, a shadowy line just out of reach of the light. There were seven of them, all dressed in white and all holding dark objects clutched to their chests.
One stepped forward into the pool of firelight. The flames rippled on his cheeks, misshaping them, though his eyes and mouth remained in shadow. He must have been a priest, for he wore a stole around his neck with a heavy cross hanging over his chest. He took the bundle he held and raised it so all could see — a parchment scroll, fastened with a round wax seal the size of a medallion. Holding it aloft, he snapped the wax like bread at the Eucharist. Crumbs of wax fell to the ground. In a deep, rolling voice he declaimed: ‘Come.’
A sigh went through the crowd like a wind — a wind that seemed to bring with it the chime and jangle of metal. It grew louder; then, from the right of the hollow, I saw the source. A white horse trotted out of the darkness. It seemed to glide through the night: its hooves disappeared in the shadow over the ground, and if they made any noise the dust silenced it instantly. Mounted in its saddle sat a knight, or perhaps a king, for he wore a silver crown. He rode stiff and erect, ignoring the gaze of a thousand silent eyes on him, and on his shoulder he carried a long bow. As he passed behind each fire he seemed to melt into its light and disappear, then reappear as a dim radiance in the darkness beyond.
As he vanished into the more complete darkness on the margins of the valley, a second priest stepped forward to stand beside the first. He too held a scroll; he broke the seal and again said, ‘Come.’
A second horse came out of the night, following in the tracks of the first. This one seemed darker, though when he came close to the fire I could see he was a chestnut colt, his glossy coat so deep it was almost red. Its rider did not wear a crown, but held up a great sword so large I wondered if any man could wield it.
‘He came to take all peace from the earth, so that men would fall on each other in slaughter,’ whispered the pilgrim in my ear. I nodded; I knew. All around me, the standing crowd watched in awe. Did they believe that the horses and their riders were spirits from realms beyond imagining? It hardly mattered. Like icons, the vision it offered transcended any thought for its substance.
One by one, the priests stepped forward to snap the seals on their scrolls and call forth the riders. A huge stallion came, so black it was barely visible but fluttered like a veil against the night. Its rider carried a pair of scales. After him, a pale grey mare whose rider carried a long scythe over his shoulder. It should have been green — but that thought was driven out by the sudden baying of dogs, as a pack of hounds came bounding after the horse across the valley, hunting an invisible quarry. Firelight gleamed on their open jaws.
Those were the last of the animals, for the fifth seal brought not a horse but a company of men and women. Unlike the solemn procession of their predecessors, they staggered like drunkards; their clothes were ripped open to expose their naked bodies beneath, their hair torn, their white faces streaked with blood. They wailed with loud voices, and their plea was at once pitiable and terrible. ‘Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge the earth and avenge our blood on its people?’ They too vanished into the night.
The fires had sunk low, and the darkness squeezed closer around the seven priests. It should have made the stars shine brighter, but when I looked up the sky had disappeared. A rising wind blew over the valley, worming its way among the stones and setting up a low, mournful moan that swept around us. The priests were now barely shadows against the red orb of the firelight. I thought I saw one shuffle forward; I did not hear the snapping of the seal, but I knew he must have opened it when a host of tiny fires rose above our heads, arcing up from the rim of the valley like a constellation of artificial stars. They seemed to hang in the sky for a moment, then tumbled towards the earth like a fig tree dropping its fruit. They burned very white, tracing lines of light in the dark air as they fell. The crowd gasped — but before the ground could quench the stars a new light rose in the valley. The two fires had been rekindled: they blazed up like beacons, and in the light I saw that the seventh and last of the priests had stepped forward. The fires banished all shadows and illuminated him like daylight, so I could see his face plainly: Arnulf, the red-headed Norman priest who had denounced Peter Bartholomew. Exultant triumph glowed in his eyes as he surveyed the watching crowd; when he raised his arms the entire congregation sank to its knees. On that steep hillside the effect was giddying, tipping us forward so that we seemed on the brink of falling into darkness.
In one hand Arnulf held a swinging censer, spilling out incense like brimstone; in the other, he clasped a sealed scroll. For the moment, he did not break it. Instead, an acolyte came forward, knelt in front of him and opened a book. It was too dark and distant for me to see its pages, but I could imagine the images that decorated its pages. Monsters with the heads of Saracens and the bodies of lions; locusts with tails like scorpions; a red dragon with seven heads and ten horns. And at the bottom of the page, a radiant king on a white horse. The book that Peter Bartholomew had found or stolen, which Arnulf had reclaimed from his quarters after the ordeal. The book in which the prophecy was written.
‘Hear the prophecy of our Lord God,’ said Arnulf solemnly. His voice was far off, too small to fill the cavernous bowl, but it was carried back to me in an instant by the whispered repetition of the crowd. Their voices rippled and rustled like the flutter of wings. ‘Given in secret, in ancient times, and revealed now to His elect at the dawn of His coming. Listen.’
The kneeling pilgrims rocked back on their haunches and bowed their heads.
‘When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison. The sun will grow dark and the moon’s light will fade; the stars will fall from their orbits and the powers of heaven will be shaken. False prophets will arise; they will come in Christ’s name, saying, “I am the Messiah,” and they will lead many astray. The land of promise will be filled with men from the four winds under heaven.’
Arnulf paused. Looking around, I could see the congregation drinking in his words with the delight of familiarity: they had heard it before. Perhaps I had too, but not like this. It was as if all the things I had known formerly had been cut into pieces, then sewn together to give new form, new meanings.
‘Two great prophets, Enoch and Elijah, will be sent into the world. They will defend God’s faithful against the attack of the Antichrist and prepare the elect for the coming storm.’
The whispering in the crowd grew more agitated, like the shivering of leaves.
‘Then the Gates of the North will be opened and the demons will fly forth: Anog and Ageg, Gog and Magog, Achenaz, Dephar and Amarzarthae. They will eat the flesh of men and drink the blood of beasts like water. The Antichrist will gather up the nations for battle, as numerous as the sands of the sea, and they will march from Babylon to the camp of the saints at the beloved city.
‘Then a king of the Franks will again possess the Roman Empire. He will unite the crowns of west and east; he will be the greatest and the last of all kings. When the Son of Perdition has risen, the King will ascend Golgotha. He will take his crown from his head and place it on the cross, and stretching out his hands to heaven he will hand over the kingdom of the Christians to God the Father. This will be the end and the consummation of the Roman and Christian Empires, when every power and principality shall be destroyed.’
All I could hear now were the whispers of the crowd, and the flex of chain as the smoking censer in Arnulf ’s hand swung back and forth, a pendulum beating out the rhythm of his words.
‘An angel will appear in the sun, calling to all the birds that fly beneath heaven: “Come and gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of the mighty, of horses and their riders.” The King will capture the Beast, together with the prophet who deceived with false miracles, and cast them into the lake of fire. All the rest will die by the sword, and the birds will be gorged with their flesh. Not one will survive.
‘Then death shall be no more — nor sorrow nor pain — for all the former things shall have passed away. The holy city, the new Jerusalem, will come down out of heaven, and the Lord will dwell with his people. The kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of our Messiah, and he will reign for ever.’
Arnulf looked up, letting the censer come to rest. Around me, the whispered repetitions rolled away into silence. The acolyte who held the book closed it and shuffled back out of the light.
‘As for the one who reveals these things,’ Arnulf declared, ‘he says: “I am coming soon.”’
The crowd took up his words, repeating them over and again so that the call seemed to whirl in the air like a flock of crows. I am coming. Arnulf let it build, standing in the crux of the valley with his arms spread apart. The six priests behind him seemed to have melted away so that he stood there alone and exultant. Still the chant grew. I am coming.
With a deft movement Arnulf suddenly took a step back, upended the censer and dashed it to the ground. A cascade of glowing coals spilled out. They should have lain there dying; instead, like sparks on tinder, they seemed to ignite the earth. A huge fire erupted from the ground where they had fallen, so vast I thought it must have consumed Arnulf. Even on the heights where I knelt, men cowered back from the blaze. After the darkness before, I felt as if a hole had been burned through my eyes. But still the chant went on. I am coming.
Squinting through the pain and tears, I saw Arnulf on the far side of the blaze. Wreathed in fire, he held aloft his scroll, snapped the seal and threw the parchment on the flames. It disappeared, one more cinder in the inferno. Smoke drifted up to envelop me, choke me; the crackle of flames filled my ears, and with it the blast of trumpets, the ripple of harp strings. The earth trembled beneath me and my flesh seemed turned to water. Woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth. The slope fell away, plunging into a bottomless pit; I tottered on my knees, swayed and fell forward.
Thankfully, I had just enough wit or instinct left to throw out my hands. They fell on the stony ground, jarring me to my senses. Crouched on all fours like an animal, I looked down into the pit of the valley. The fire still burned high, and I could still see a figure through the flames. But it was not Arnulf. He wore a dark riding cloak with the hood pulled up, shading his face, but I could see that he stood both taller and broader than the priest. Even in shadow, he radiated power.
Above the trumpets, the harps, the roaring flames, I heard three words echo around the deep bowl of the valley, spoken with the sound of a thousand voices.
‘Here I am.’
I could bear it no more. Stumbling to my feet, I fled.