Free Siege of Heaven by Tom Harper Page B

inky lines. Too often, my eyes drifted north and west to the ornately painted cross at the junction of Europe and Asia. Constantinople.
    ‘But beyond Palestine, the Turks and Saracens face an older enemy. The Fatimids of Egypt.’ The pin inscribed a circle in the south-eastern corner of the Mediterranean, centred on the cobweb of lines that marked the course of the Nile. ‘You know the Fatimids?’
    I had heard of them, but ignorance was easiest. I shook my head.
    ‘The Saracens consider them heretics – if there can be a heresy against a heresy – and hate them above all others. Once, they drove the Fatimids out of their kingdoms all the way to Libya, but the Fatimids regrouped, invaded Egypt and conquered it. They will not be content until they have imposed their faith all the way to Baghdad and Mecca. The Saracens, likewise, will not rest until they have destroyed the Fatimids.’
    I had been drawn into the invisible, eternal quarrel between the different Ishmaelite creeds once before, and the wounds had only recently healed. Even without Constantinople tempting me home, I did not like the sound of this.
    ‘If we can make an alliance with the Fatimids, then the Saracens will be trapped between enemies to their northand south. We can squeeze them out of Palestine and the way will be open for the Franks to seize Jerusalem. When they hurry south to claim it, Antioch will be ours again. The stain of your incompetence will be wiped clean.’
    Whatever bitterness I felt at the jibe, I swallowed it. ‘And how will we achieve that?’
    In answer, Nikephoros jammed the golden pin into the map, at the place where the different strands of the Nile delta braided themselves into a single thread heading south into Africa. The pin stuck in the wooden table and stayed upright, its trembling shadow crossing over Egypt and almost touching Jerusalem.
    ‘That is the Fatimid capital, al-Qahira. That is where we must go.’

η

    I came out of the tent in a daze, like a defeated soldier leaving a battle. My soul was falling through an endless chasm, and though it was sickening it did not hurt yet. That would come when I hit the bottom. For now, I wandered across the hill until I found the Varangians’ tents. Aelfric was there.
    ‘How is Sigurd?’ I asked, forcing the words through my constricted lungs.
    ‘Unchanged. The fever seems a little less.’
    ‘Has Anna seen him?’
    Aelfric fixed me with his uncompromising blue eyes. ‘She isn’t here.’
    My tumbling soul knocked against a looming cliff, careered off it and continued its descent. ‘Where is she?’
    Aelfric turned his eyes away, looking over my shoulder and into the darkening east.
    ‘In the cloisters behind the cathedral.’
    I stared at him.
    ‘In Antioch.’
    I ran.
    Whatever excesses I had expected from the plague city – baying mobs hunting through the streets, doomed men and women tupping like dogs in doorways, corpses burning on open fires or lying unburied at the roadside – the reality was different. Moonlight washed over empty streets, and most of the houses were dark – though the city was not empty. Unseen creatures scuffled in shadowy corners. Shutters creaked, doors slammed, clay vessels shattered and steel rang on steel. And, more than anything else, there was a constant tapestry of mourning that hung in the background: soft moans of despair, shrieks of anguish, plaintive sobbing and quiet prayer. A profound and angry melancholy gripped the city – it was like walking through the sinews of a broken heart.
    At several points along my way, carts and boxes and rubble had been tipped across the street to form makeshift barricades. Some were abandoned, others guarded, but Antioch was not a city made for containment and I always found my way around them, until at last I reached the cathedral and a small door in the wall behind it. A frightened voice behind the door answered my knock.
    ‘I want to see the doctor – Anna. Is she here?’
    ‘She’s