Free Siege of Heaven by Tom Harper Page A

away, though I could not tell if that was a calculated effect. Nor did I care. I was still numb from the sting of what the eunuch had said. You cannot go home .
    ‘I must go home,’ I mumbled, pathetic and uncaring. ‘I cannot stay here.’
    Nikephoros gave me a scornful look. ‘Go home – and then what? You will not have the comfortable life you imagine in Constantinople if you return now. The emperor is furious that the Franks hold Antioch. He is famously quick to forgive his enemies, but he does not lightly forgive those who fail him.’
    ‘How have I failed him? Was I supposed to hold Antioch against the Franks with a few dozen Varangians and the force of an oath the Franks never meant to uphold?’
    Nikephoros rolled his eyes. ‘Do you know Pythagoras?With a stave and sufficient distance, a single man can move a boulder that would resist the strength of armies.’
    ‘Then why does he want me to stay?’ Like a prisoner broken on the rack, I suddenly felt a disgraceful willingness to say anything, to admit any charge and suffer any insult just to go free. I hated myself for it – but I hated the thought of staying more.
    The eunuch leaned forward. ‘Because he is merciful.’
    Craven desperation kept me from laughing in his face, though my disbelief must have shone through.
    ‘Your superior, the general Tatikios, made a full report to the emperor after he left Antioch,’ the eunuch continued. ‘He left little doubt where the blame for the Franks’ success should lie.’
    I had suffered so many blows to my hopes and pride that I should have been immune, but I still felt the bruise in my gut. ‘He blamed me?’
    ‘Suffice it to say the emperor felt it would be kinder to you to give you a chance to redeem yourself, rather than allowing your return.’
    ‘But surely he must know—’
    The eunuch raised a sanctimonious hand, as if pushing me back from an unseen precipice. ‘The emperor can only know what his subordinates tell him. Tatikios is a great nobleman: he has many allies at court to support him.’
    And I did not. I had seen the emperor many times and inhabited his palace, had saved his life and once or twice even spoken with him almost as an equal. I did not think him a bad man, for what such judgements were worth.But he had not survived eighteen years on his tenuous throne by bowing to sentiment. If Tatikios commanded a faction – and legions to boot – then the emperor could not antagonise him on my account. Perhaps he truly did believe it was kindness to keep me away from Constantinople.
    ‘If the Franks leave Antioch, there will be no problem and no blame to be attached,’ the eunuch concluded. ‘The only lever we have to prise them out is Jerusalem. We must see that they get there.’
    I bowed my head, as if putting it through a noose. ‘How?’
    Nikephoros barked orders to his slaves, who scurried from behind the gauzy curtains and brought a map, a table and a low wooden stool for me to sit on. After so long marching, its hard seat was like a feather mattress to me. Lamps were set beside the unscrolled map, flickering over the ragged oblong of the Mediterranean Sea and the three continents that bordered it to the north, south and east. Nikephoros pulled a golden pin from his robes and leaned forward, tapping the pin against the map to illustrate his narration.
    ‘Antioch is here.’ Tap. ‘Jerusalem here.’ Tap. ‘The lands in between – Syria, Lebanon, Palestine – are controlled by the Turks and Saracens.’ The point of the pin scratched back and forth over the Mediterranean’s eastern coast. ‘They are weakened by the Franks’ victory at Antioch, but they still have castles and fortified cities all along the coast.’ A succession of pinpricks perforated the paper betweenAntioch and Jerusalem. ‘And, of course, they have Jerusalem.’
    That much I knew. Far stranger was the sensation of seeing the canvas of my life laid out before me, my past and future journeys drawn in