‘We have to go,’ Eleanor declared. ‘Imogene, we have to go now. You must follow me; you must trust me. Take what you can. We are not going far.’
Imogene went to protest but Eleanor pressed her finger hard against the woman’s lips. ‘If you do not go, you will not be allowed to stay in the camp. You must trust me and follow me. Have I ever betrayed you?’
Imogene, face startled, eyes full of fear, shook her head.
‘Then come!’
Imogene, of course, grasped her carved wooden box and a few meagre possessions. Eleanor did the same. Simeon packed his writing tray and leather pannier, then they rejoined Theodore. As they walked through the camp, Eleanor kept her eyes to the ground to hide her own nervousness. They reached the picket lines and slipped through. Apparently the guards had been withdrawn and they made their way across the muddy, slippery ground down towards Bridge Gate. The night was dark, the wind chilling and cutting. From the shadowy battlements pricks of light glowed. Theodore stopped abruptly, putting down his small roll of baggage and bringing up the arbalest he carried. He opened the pouch on his belt and, taking out a bolt, slipped it into the groove, winching back the cord. At first Eleanor couldn’t understand until she heard it, a sound behind them. Someone was following them! Imogene moaned. Simeon immediately put a hand across her mouth. Theodore moved back, retracing their steps, then stopped.
‘Who is it?’ he called softy into the darkness. ‘Come forward.’ Three shapes emerged, cowled and cloaked. Eleanor caught the glint of eyes then straggling beards and moustaches. ‘Come closer,’ Theodore urged. ‘Push back your cowls, lower your visors.’ The three arrivals obeyed, pulling down the strip of cloth over their mouths. Eleanor closed her eyes. Jehan the Wolf and his two companions, Gargoyle and Babewyn! They had followed them from the camp.
‘Well, friends,’ Theodore said softly, ‘how goes it? What are you doing here?’
‘We could ask the same,’ Jehan retorted impudently as he swaggered forward. ‘You are deserting, aren’t you? I saw the woman leave her tent and go to Count Bohemond’s. I followed you there and then you came back. What mischief are you plotting, friend? Whatever you are doing, we will join you. We’ve had enough of rotting vegetables and hard biscuits. They say we’ll be starving before the end of the month. We will come with you. You will vouch for us.’
‘Of course I will.’ Theodore lifted the crossbow and released the catch, and the bolt took Jehan full in the chest, sending him spinning back. The other two were so surprised they stayed stock still. Again Theodore moved, sword and dagger drawn in a hiss of steel. He attacked one, a swift thrust to the belly, and then the other, who was already trying to flee. Theodore’s dagger caught him in the back and he stumbled deeper into the darkness. Theodore followed. Eleanor heard a faint moan, a slight scream abruptly cut off. Theodore came back and wiped his sword on Jehan’s cloak. The Wolf was dead, but Gargoyle beside him was still juddering on the ground, trying to rise. Theodore moved swiftly over, pulled back the man’s head and cut his throat. Eleanor could only watch. Imogene swayed slightly on her feet. Simeon quietly vomited. Theodore resheathed his dagger, took his sword and neatly decapitated Jehan and then Gargoyle, before going back and doing the same to Babewyn in the darkness: an awful cutting sound followed by the drip of blood. Then he plucked up one of the cloaks, wrapped the three heads in it, tied the bundle with a belt taken from one of his victims and sauntered back as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Simeon and Imogene had crouched down, holding each other, trying to control their tremors at the suddenness of the attack and Theodore’s silent, bloody work in the dark.
‘Why?’ asked Eleanor, pointing at the heads wrapped in the cloak, the blood already dripping through.
‘Why not?’ Despite the dark, Eleanor sensed Theodore was laughing. ‘What do you think would have happened? We would have entered Antioch and those three miscreants would have had us at their mercy. God knows what story they would have spun! They were treacherous. They were planning to desert, really desert. If Bohemond or Count Raymond had caught them, they would have been hanged.’
‘And now?’
‘Well, we can enter the gates of Antioch and show these heads as a guarantee. After all, Jehan did lead a company here. I’ll say they tried to stop us so we killed them. It will make our story all the more convincing.’ Theodore gestured towards the shadowy walls of the city. ‘They wait for us. Let’s not tarry any further.’ He brushed past Imogene and Simeon, who clambered to their feet. Eleanor followed, and they made their way down to the bridge. Behind them the noise of the camp receded, though she heard one shout of ‘Deus vult!’ She closed her eyes. If God wished it she would come through this safely and rejoin her brother, but in the meantime she stared at those forbidding soaring walls, the lights along the battlements. Within a few hours, she would know her fate. Either they would be accepted or, sometime tonight or early tomorrow morning, they would be past all care. Theodore stopped and came back, clutching her by the wrist.
‘Eleanor,’ he tightened his grip, ‘before we begin this, remember! Trust me because I love you.’ And not waiting for an answer, he walked back into the darkness.
An arrow struck the earth, followed by a warning call; flames flashed as fire cressets fluttered. Yes, that was how it began, Eleanor reflected in her chronicle, their dangerous venture into Antioch. The arrow embedded deep in the ground before them was followed by a torch thrown to spread a pool of light. It happened so swiftly she had little time to reply, let alone reflect on what Theodore had just said. He now whispered at them to stop. He put down his baggage and grisly burden and walked slowly forward with Simeon. They both extended their hands in the sign of peace and shouted hoarsely in the lingua franca. A voice rang out, and Theodore answered.
‘Deo Gracias,’ he whispered and picked up his bundles. ‘At least they will accept us.’
They walked over the makeshift bridge of boats, stumbling on the wet surface, and slowly approached the main gate. They heard a creak and another torch was flung out. Again a voice shouted. Theodore ordered them to stop. In the flickering light Eleanor could make out the massive reinforced gates, the iron studs gleaming through the steel portcullis lowered in front of it. To the right and left of these rose fortified towers, lamps glowing at their arrow-slit windows. The night breeze was tinged with the smell of burning oil from the cauldrons ready on the battlements. At the base of each tower was a doorway, narrow and thin, its steps hacked away. The door to the right opened, and a voice shouted an order.
‘One by one,’ Theodore whispered.
They approached the door. Each had to hand over their baggage before being roughly grasped and hauled up inside. Eleanor, confused, staggered in the darkness, and a hand steadied her. A pitch torch flared, the shadows danced, a brazier crackled. Eleanor stared round the grim chamber with its rough walls and dirty floor. She glimpsed a dark bearded face, the glint of a spiked helmet, the flash of white head cloths. The sinister clatter of steel echoed. A hand stroked her breast. A rough voice barked with laughter, followed by a chatter of tongues. They were bundled into another room. Eleanor was concerned about Imogene, who looked confused and terrified. Little wonder: dragged from her tent, that grisly, violent meeting with Jehan and his two lieutenants, and now this.
The chamber they entered was ill-lit and cold. An officer, his head framed by a chain-mail coif, his damascened helmet on the table before him, shoulders draped by a dark blue cloak over an armoured breastplate, was warming his hands above a chafing dish. Around the room lounged men, crouching or lying down, playing knucklebones, whispering amongst themselves or half asleep. They rose as Theodore’s party entered. One of them muttered a joke; a few laughed. Two of the soldiers drew their curved swords and daggers. The officer beckoned Theodore closer and spoke quickly in the lingua franca. Theodore replied. Now and again the officer’s cold black eyes shifted to Eleanor, who caught her own name being mentioned. Theodore kept pointing to her, and with a flick of his finger dismissed Imogene and Simeon as mere nobodies. The conversation continued. All four were abruptly searched, and Theodore’s weapons taken, as was the grisly bundle. When the three severed heads, eyes blindly staring, lips bloody and parted, rolled out across the floor, the officer gave a brief smile. He rose and kicked all three heads to one of his soldiers, who picked them up and put them in a reed basket. The officer returned, leaning against the table, arms crossed. He stared hard at Theodore and the questioning began again. Abruptly, the tension eased. The officer was laughing, poking Theodore in the chest, nodding; he even turned and smiled at Eleanor, then he gestured to the far corner. They went and squatted down, making themselves comfortable.