From the moment we arrived in Antioch, we had made our camp on a stretch of the western walls between two towers. At first it had protected us from the besieging Turks, though latterly it was threats from within the city we had to guard against. The walls made austere lodgings, but we had stayed there long enough now that their hard lines and heavy stones had taken on some of the comfort of familiarity. A faded eagle flew on a banner above the northern turret, and the sweet smell of figs was ripe in the afternoon air.
I climbed the stairs at the base of one of the towers, quickening my pace. I reached the guard chamber at the top and was about to step out onto the walls when a challenge rang out.
‘Stop there.’
I stopped still. The voice was not the deep-throated bellow of a guardsman, but clear and delicate, a woman’s voice. She stepped out from behind the door, watching me carefully. Her face was mostly hidden in shadow, but I did not need to see it to know it. The long black hair bound back with a ribbon, the quick eyes that forever seemed to see an inch further than mine, the lips that could smile or frown with equal force: they were all intimately familiar to me from long hours of contemplation. Anna.
She stood about three yards from me, as though an invisible orb surrounded me.
‘You’re late, Demetrios.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Even after eighteen months’ intimacy, there were still times when she assumed the cool detachment of a physician with me. It always unsettled me. I was a widower and she had never wed: we should have married a year ago, but I had been ordered to follow the Army of God and there had been no time. I had gone with the army and she had accompanied me but even that did not soothe my anxiety. Every day we were away only stretched my fear that her patience would wear out.
She took two steps to her right, skirting an invisible boundary. ‘Did you touch anyone?’
‘I was in a crowd. It was impossible not to.’
‘Take off your clothes.’
It would have been a ridiculous demand from anybody else but I did not argue. I pulled off my boots, then unbuckled my belt and pulled my tunic and my undershirt over my head. Meanwhile, Anna had retreated behind the door and now reappeared carrying a wooden bucket and a sponge. Beyond her, loitering on the wall, I saw a group of fair-skinned men gathering to watch. No doubt they found it hilarious.
Anna stepped up to me and dipped the sponge in the bucket. I smelled the styptic fumes of vinegar, and my skin tightened as she began wiping it over my body. The soft brush of the sponge might have been erotic, but for the raw bite of the liquid and the stifled giggling in the background. When she knelt to dab at my groin, the spectators exploded with ribald mirth.
‘If I get the plague, will you wash me like that?’ one of the men called.
‘Only once I’ve amputated the infected organ,’ retorted Anna, who had spent a year living with soldiers and knew how to speak to them. She stood. ‘Open your mouth.’
I obeyed, though I doubt she saw anything but a mouthful of dust. She peered closely at my face, then walked around behind me as if examining a horse at auction. At last she was satisfied.
‘Did you eat at the funeral feast?’
‘I said I was fasting.’
‘Good.’ She took a cloth she had draped over her shoulder and tossed it to me. ‘A new tunic. I’ll wash the other in vinegar.’
‘As if I didn’t stink enough already.’
Barefoot, I followed her onto the wall, into the next tower and up to its summit. A troop of long-haired, pale-skinned barbarians lounged by the battlements. Some still wore their armour, though there had been no fighting in weeks, and most had long-hafted axes lying near them, the precious blades wrapped in fur coverings. They were the Varangians, the emperor’s elite barbarian guardsmen, my companions.
One of the men was standing with a cup of wine in his hand. In a pack of wolves you would have known he was the leader by his size; in this pack of barbarians you could tell it by the easy arrogance of his face, the commanding set of his mighty shoulders and the thick gold band around his left forearm. He had taken it from a Turkish corpse at the battle of Antioch, though I was surprised he had found one that fitted the girth of his arms. He was called Sigurd — named, he had once told me, for a legendary dragonslayer of his ancestors. Looking at him now, his beard the colour of fire, it was easy to imagine.
‘Demetrios. Late, naked and stinking of old wine.’
‘I’d rather be naked than dead.’ I pulled on the new tunic and sat back against the wall. One of the barbarians passed me a flask of wine and I drank it eagerly.
‘How was the funeral?’ asked Anna, sitting beside me and squeezing herself into the crook of my arm. ‘Did many go?’
‘Thousands.’ I wondered how many would die regretting it.
‘And the princes?’
‘They were all there. The one thing they feared more than the plague was failing to parade their piety before the masses. I doubt a single one is left in the city now.’
‘We should follow them quickly,’ said Anna. ‘The plague clouds are already gathering over this city. With no one to govern them, the mob will run riot.’
‘The clergy will stay to minister to them.’
‘Much good they will do. Those pilgrims and peasants have been too far from home too long. They are losing all restraint and reason. You can see it in their faces.’
I stretched out my tired legs. ‘We’ve all been too far from home too long. Did any ships arrive today?’
‘Three from Venice docked in Saint Simeon, I heard. They brought no one but pilgrims.’
I swore softly. Every day it was the same, waiting for the ship from Constantinople that would bring the emperor’s new emissary and free me to go home with Anna. Every day that it did not come, my spirits grew more brittle.
‘The patriarch spoke to me at the funeral feast. He has an errand for me.’ Briefly, I repeated what he had told me. When I mentioned the relic, Sigurd snorted.
‘The hand he used to wipe his shit. If the patriarch thinks that’ll win the Franks’ affection, he’ll be disappointed.’
I had known Sigurd long enough that I should not have been shocked by his irreverence, but it still made me uneasy. ‘It’s a sacred object.’
‘It’s another week before we can go home.’
‘But only a week.’ Besides, in my heart, I knew that Sigurd and I had not distinguished ourselves as guardians of the emperor’s interests at Antioch. The Turks were gone, but to have Bohemond controlling the city in their place was hardly an improvement in the emperor’s eyes. At least if we found the saint’s hand for the patriarch we might salvage something from the campaign.
I looked to Anna, hoping for support. Her face offered nothing.
‘If you die in some folly in the mountains, when you should both be sailing home to your families. .’ She stood. ‘Anyway, while you go digging out old bones, I have living flesh and blood to attend to.’
I held her sleeve. ‘In Antioch? What about the plague?’
She shook free of me. ‘Even I know better than to imagine I can cure the plague. But there is a woman whose child is two weeks past due, and I promised I would see her.’
‘Be careful.’
‘You too. There are more than dead saints and ruined monasteries in the mountains.’
‘We’ll be back soon.’
‘And gone sooner.’ Sigurd rose. ‘If we leave now, we’ll have the cool of the evening to speed us on. Aelfric!’ He beckoned to a sergeant playing dice on a board he had scratched into the stone rampart. ‘Find a dozen men and have them ready to march in half an hour.’
He turned back to us. ‘The sooner we go, the sooner we come back. And the sooner we leave this cursed city for ever.’