Siege of Heaven (5 page)

‘Where is this relic hidden?’ I called. The wind was stronger here on the summit, and colder, whistling through the glassless windows. My tentative words were snatched away almost before they passed my lips.

‘Here.’ Brother Pakrad’s face appeared in a doorway, beneath a broken arch whose two stumps reached towards each other like claws. ‘In here.’

I looked around. The rest of our company had scattered to search the ruins, not trusting our solitude, and I was alone. The rain was drumming harder now. Brother Pakrad beckoned me forward. ‘Come. The relic is in here.’ I ducked under the broken arch, though I did not need to, into a rounded apse where the monastery church had once stood. A part of its domed roof still arced overhead, fractured like an eggshell, but otherwise it was open. Weeds had driven cracks through the tiled floor and the icons on the walls had crumbled, so that they represented not whole men but a dismembered host, the army of the saints as they might have appeared in the aftermath of a terrible battle.

‘Over here.’

At least the remaining portion of the roof sheltered me from the rain. I followed where Pakrad led me, to a pedestal at the back of the church near where an altar must once have stood. It seemed far removed from God now.

‘Pull that stone,’ he ordered.

I knelt. It was easy to see the stone the monk meant. It had been cut to fit its niche, but not so perfectly as to hide the gaps where mortar should have held it in place. It rose slightly higher than the adjoining blocks as well, giving a purchase for my fingertips to press against. A small cross, weathered almost to invisibility, was carved in its centre.

It slid away easily when I pulled, revealing a small hollow behind. I reached in my hand and felt around in
the darkness. The chamber was not large, no deeper than my elbow, and it took little time for me to establish its contents.

There was nothing there. The hole was empty.

Before I could wonder at it, a ticklish sensation under my chin caused me to raise my head. I suddenly went very still. Brother Pakrad had approached and was standing over me. He held a curved sword, pressing its blade so hard against my throat that I scarcely dared breathe.

My eyes locked on his. He carried the sword far more naturally than the cross: the blade barely trembled in his grip. In the distance, I heard sudden shouts of alarm, followed quickly by the ring of clashing steel, and the bellow of Sigurd shouting my name.

Pakrad moved the blade against my throat. It cut close as a razor – though thankfully no closer. ‘Answer him.’

I had no time to obey – or defy him. Before I could speak, a barrage of heavy footsteps ran up the passage outside the church, paused, and rushed in. Kneeling with my back to the door I could not see anything, but I heard the commotion that accompanied them, then an abrupt halt and Sigurd’s bewildered voice calling, ‘Demetrios?’

‘Put down your weapons,’ Pakrad shouted. ‘Put them down, or your friend will be the first to die.’

I could not hear if they obeyed, for suddenly the room became a pit of noise. Twisting back my head as far as I dared, I saw a small knot of Varangians surrounded on all sides by a press of armed men. More enemies were perched on top of the walls with bows in their hands, black as
crows. Rain poured into the roofless church, plastering men’s hair to their heads and making their weapons slick in their hands. Those bows would be almost useless, but that would not turn the odds in our favour. Above me, the rain drummed on the fractured roof so hard I thought it might crack and bury me.

Sigurd, standing at the head of the Varangians, caught my eye. He gave a resigned shrug, though I saw he had not put down his axe. A nudge on my throat from Pakrad’s sword forced my head back around.

‘Put down your weapons,’ Pakrad repeated. The men who surrounded the Varangians were becoming agitated. ‘
Put them down now
.’

Over the pelting rain, I heard the defeated clatter of a heavy axe falling on stone. And then, very suddenly, a rushing of air and a sound like damp wood being chopped. The sword that had been against my neck fell to the ground as Pakrad reeled back. Blood cascaded down his cowl, pouring from the gash where a small throwing axe had almost severed his arm from his shoulder.

Instincts learned in the imperial armies and honed fine in the last year took over. I lunged for the fallen sword, snatched it up and swung it at Pakrad. But he had stumbled back, clutching his wound, and the blade swept wide. I had no time to chase him. Every man in that room had been poised a hair’s breadth from violence; now, the battle erupted. I charged back to the centre of the church, ducking away from the blades that stabbed at me, and threw myself into the besieged knot of Varangians.

‘We have to get out,’ I shouted in Sigurd’s ear. I shrugged the shield off my back and slung my arm through its straps. From the corner of my eye I saw a spear-point driving towards me and I rolled my wrists so that my blade knocked it wide. One of the Varangians behind me caught hold of the shaft and pulled it forward, unbalancing the man who held it: as he stumbled forward his head went down and exposed his neck. My sword flashed in the rain and he was gone.

A cold and bloody rage overtook me: rage that I had ignored my misgivings and walked into this trap; rage that I might never see Anna again; rage that Pakrad had betrayed us. I could see him across the room now, whitefaced and bleeding but still shouting orders at his men. They must have outnumbered us at least threefold, but they did not have the discipline of the imperial armies. A wall of shields held them at bay, and the Varangians took savage delight in battering aside the spear-thrusts and chopping off the arms that held them.

‘We have to get out of here,’ Sigurd shouted from somewhere beside me.

‘How?’

‘Back to the gate. We’ll—’

Sigurd broke off as our enemies pressed home another attack. I could hear their spears smashing and splintering on the shield rim that cased us.

Suddenly, a bright chink appeared in the dark world of our defensive circle. One of the Varangians must have dropped his guard, for a spear had transfixed his throat
and blood was pouring out of it like a spigot. He dropped to his knees but could not fall, for the spear held him upright like a man at prayer. The men beside him were desperately trying to close ranks but, even in death, he blocked them. It was all the opening our enemies needed: a wedge of men and spears drove in, prising us apart, and suddenly we were in a crazed mêlée of open combat. On my left, two of the Varangians dived towards the door but were stabbed back. I knocked aside a spear-thrust with my shield but did not have the strength to counter-attack; instead, inexorably, I gave ground, my eyes flitting over the battlefield in search of allies. Where was Sigurd?

The winnowing of combat had begun to separate our sides once more. Pakrad’s men had managed to form a loose cordon that blocked off three sides of the room, forcing us back near the altar and cutting us off from the door.
Where was Sigurd?
The spear-thrusts were less fierce now, as if our enemies knew we were beaten and were content to prod us back into our pen. They were no less dangerous for that, and I was constantly on my guard, swatting and chopping at the stabbing points. Still they forced us back.

I saw Sigurd at last, and in my shock was almost spitted by an oncoming spear. He was not among the few Varangians beside me frantically fending off the closing noose: he was lying on the floor behind the line of our enemies, rolling and screaming in a lake of blood.

An unbidden silence suddenly gripped the bloody chamber. The line of Saracen guards stepped back, keeping
their spears angled towards us, while the Varangians and I clustered together and lowered our weapons. There was blood on my hands and my armour – even, when I licked my lips, on my face – but little of it was mine. The coughing of exhausted warriors and the drumming of the rain dinned my ears after the clamour of battle.

Pakrad stepped forward. He had torn a strip from his cowl and tied it over his shoulder to stem the bleeding, though he had to lean on a spear to stay upright. ‘Surrender now.’

I spat a bloody wad of phlegm onto the floor. ‘What terms will you offer?’

That provoked a laugh. ‘Terms? When you are wriggling on the points of my spears, then I will talk of terms. Otherwise, all I offer is that if you surrender, I will spare you – for now.’

I could see by their faces that the Varangians beside me did not like that. ‘These men would rather die now than have their throats cut in your prison. You must offer them more than that.’

‘Would you believe me if I did?’

Behind Pakrad, Sigurd struggled to raise himself on his elbow. He mumbled something that was too faint to hear, though every man among us knew what he meant. More than anyone, Sigurd wanted to die well: he would not surrender. All the time I had known him he had seemed invulnerable, an animal spirit from one of his boreal legends. Seeing him now left me wanting nothing more than to empty my stomach onto the ground and weep.

Pakrad had raised his sword. ‘If you do not surrender now, I will kill the wounded first. Then I will finish you one by one. You, Demetrios, will be the last.’

‘That is barbaric,’ I muttered.

‘It is war.’

Beside Pakrad, one of his men dangled his sword like a pendulum over Sigurd’s throat. ‘Well?’

I dropped my sword, pulled my left arm out of my shield straps and let it fall to the ground. Sigurd groaned; the other Varangians looked at me with despising, hatefilled eyes. One of them – a young man named Oswald – could not stand the wound to his pride: he ran towards the line of Pakrad’s men, bellowing a war-cry and lifting his axe to strike. A long spear ran him through before he was within four feet of his enemies. He was lifted clear off the ground by the force of the blow before falling, gurgling, on his back. A second spear finished him with a thrust between his eyes.

None of the other Varangians had moved to follow him, and none did so now. Whether cowed by his fate or sickened by the waste, they threw down their axes.

With supreme derision in his moment of triumph, Pakrad turned his back on us.

‘Lock them away.’

They stripped us of our armour and herded us out of the church, into a small adjoining room. Once it had probably been a chapel; now, with iron rings driven into the walls and lengths of rope and chain lying in the corners, it had become a prison. The only mercy was that it had a roof. The thatch was black with mould, and allowed a steady dribble of water to drip through, but it kept the worst of the rain off us.

Our captors tied our wrists, then made us fast to the wall on short ropes just long enough that we could sit. They treated the wounded no more gently – even Sigurd, whom they had carried there and who slumped unconscious against the wall. All told, nine of us seemed to have survived. With brusque tugs to make sure our bonds were secure, they left us alone.

I sat in the darkness, tipping my head back against the cool wall to lessen the strain on my shoulders. Despair squeezed me so tight that my body longed to empty itself: the food from my guts, the tears from my eyes, the blood from my veins. Only the presence of the Varangians kept me from collapse. The sour smell of blood overwhelmed the room, and the wounded groaned out their pain. I closed my eyes, though it made no difference.

After about an hour, Pakrad came to visit. The monk’s habit had gone, replaced by a grimy grey tunic and a leather hauberk. Three knives hung from his belt, another jutted from the top of his boot. Of his monastic disguise, only the tonsure remained – an incongruous crown to his vicious appearance.

‘We need a doctor,’ I said. ‘And water.’

Pakrad looked down on me with a sneer. ‘You will get what I give you. After you have given me what I want. He pointed to my hands, tied in front of me like a supplicant at prayer. ‘Give me your ring.’

I looked down at my left hand, to the finger where I wore the imperial signet ring.
Was that what this battle was about?

‘Give me the ring,’ Pakrad repeated. He reached out his left hand, while with his right he pulled one of the knives from his belt. The blade was dull in the dim light as he slapped it impatiently against the flat of his hand.

‘Give me it.’

Instinctively, I tried to make a fist, but Pakrad was faster and had pressed his blade into my palm so that I could
not close my fingers without cutting myself. He lifted the knife, so that I had no choice but to raise my hand. With a grunt of satisfaction, he twisted the ring off my finger and jammed it on his own.

‘Is that all you wanted?’ I asked in astonishment. A little ring – a ring I would gladly have thrown into the dust at the roadside to be free of my obligation to the emperor. Why had it brought me here?

Pakrad sheathed his knife and stared at the ring on his hand, admiring his trophy. I saw that he winced whenever he moved his shoulder, and I took a small measure of satisfaction from that.

‘We need a doctor,’ I said again.

He looked up. ‘Do you know what dogs do when one of their pack goes lame? They tear him apart and eat him. There is no doctor here.’ He paused, savouring my misery. ‘But I will do what I can for your friend. He will be worth less injured, and nothing at all if he dies.’