Read Online The Iron Lance by Stephen R. Lawhead - Free Book Online

them.”
    â€œExtraordinary,” sighed the emperor, shaking his head again. The dust from the feet of this rag-tag invasion rose into the clear summer sky. The day would be hot; no doubt the pilgrims would welcome water before they reached the city walls. Alexius, already calculating how best to fend off the swarm, began arranging the distribution of water.
    â€œThere is more, basileus,” said the drungarius, breaking into the emperor’s thoughts.
    â€œTell us, Dalassenus, what else?”
    â€œThey are led by a priest named Peter, who believes they have been commanded by the Patriarch of Rome to liberate Jerusalem from the rule of the infidel. It is their intention to do so.”
    This pronouncement brought a laugh from Nicetas and some of the others on the wall. “Liberate Jerusalem!” scoffed one of the advisors. “Are they insane, these peasants?”
    â€œThey say Bishop Urban has called for every Christian to take the cross and go on pilgrimage to fight the Saracens.”
    â€œThe Saracens?” wondered Nicetas. “We have not been troubled by the Saracens for more than thirty years.”
    â€œFifty years,” suggested another of his advisors.
    Alexius had heard enough. “Nicetas, find this Peter and bring him to us. We would speak to him and learn his true intentions.” The commander of the excubitori made a salute and departed on the run. The emperor, taking one last look at the slow-approaching horde, shook his head in disbelief, then hurried off to await the arrival of his unwelcome guest.
    He did not have long to wait, for he had just finished donning his robes of state when word of Nicetas’ return reached him. Moving from the inner chamber to the audience room, he mounted the dais and took his place on the throne, the Holy Scriptures beside him on a purple cushion; Grand Drungarius Dalassenus, together with the emperor’s usual assortment of court officials and advisors, stood behind the dais, solemn and mirthless, exuding a somber gravity befitting the seriousness of the extremity facing the empire.
    Taking his place quickly, Alexius, nodding to the magister officiorum, said, “Bring him.”
    A moment later the magister struck the white marble floor with his rod of office, and the great gilded doors of the Salamos Hall swung open. In marched Nicetas, followed by four of the imperial guard—one at each corner—leading a large, thick-set shambling man, tonsured and barefoot, and dressed in the dun-colored hooded cloak and ankle-length mantle of a rural Roman cleric.
    Excubitor Nicetas, sweating from his ride in the heat of the day, advanced quickly to the foot of the throne, prostrated himself, and rose at his sovereign’s command to say, “Lord Basileus, I give you Peter of Amiens.”
    The rustic priest, suitably awed by the wealth of his surroundings, gazed with wonder at the exalted being on the throne before him. Upon hearing his name, he pitched forward onto his face and seized the emperor by the foot, which he kissed respectfully, saying, “Hail, Sovereign Lord, your willing servant salutes you.”
    â€œRise, and stand on your feet,” said Alexius sternly. The man rose, shaking his clothes back in the same motion; with his tattered cloak and filthy mantle he looked like a vagrant bird which, having bathed in the dust, now settled its bedraggled feathers.
    â€œThey tell us you are the leader of these pilgrim peasants,” the emperor said. “Is this true?”
    â€œBy no means, Lord Emperor,” replied Peter. “I am but a poor hermit granted by God and His Holiness Pope Urban the divine favor of going on pilgrimage to the Holy Land.”
    â€œYou know, of course, that martyrdom awaits you,” Alexius informed him, “should you be so fortunate as to reach Jerusalem.”
    At this the hermit priest drew himself up to full height. “Lord and Emperor, it is our very great