Pilgrims

by Matthew Kneale

  When Paul got bad all over again that afternoon and his face started turning bluish I lost all temperance and, though I knew it was wrong, I couldn’t stop myself and I raged at God himself. ‘Why didn’t you do this to me and not him?’ I said, for the thousandth time. ‘Why can’t you show some kindness to a poor young lad who’s never done anything wrong in his life?’ Then I felt shamed so I begged forgiveness for being short with him and I prayed, ‘Please God, show your mercy. Take pity on my boy.’ And it seemed like he heard me this time, as Paul wasn’t afflicted again after that.

  I hoped more snow might fall so we’d be fixed in the hospital for another day or two and Paul would have time to recover, but there wasn’t a flake and in the morning the others, though they were all full of sorrow for him, wanted to go on. ‘Couldn’t we stay just another day?’ I said but my Paul said, ‘Don’t worry about me, Ma. I’ll be all right,’ and Joan was with him, saying that if we stayed and more snow came we might be caught there for weeks. Dame Lucy’s steward Alwyn and some of the monks made up a sled with cloth stretched over a wooden frame that could be dragged behind one of the horses and Paul, being too weak to walk or even sit in the saddle, used that. I can hardly stand to think of that time. How Paul bore it I don’t know and I swear there was no knight in battle braver. I hated to see how the sled jolted him whenever it went over a bump or a stone, scraping his back or his legs that were all torn from where he’d scratched them in his misery. When the road was bad he had to climb out and walk, though he could hardly stumble and was white as a sheet. Then he’d be back in the sled and I’d be beside him holding his hand. It seemed like the fiend had shaped those mountains purposefully just to vex us, as we went steep down then steep up and then steep down and up again, till it felt like they’d never end.

  Finally after two days I was joyed to see plains below us and the sea in the far distance. By the time we got onto the flat Paul was stronger and more himself. Father Tim led us all in praying thanks and the two Jews joined in louder than anyone, though Joan said they were only feigning. Dame Lucy’s Peter, who’d cried and cried when his playmate had been sick, was so happy to see him well once again that I had to warn him with a lovesome smile, ‘I know you’re pleased, Peter, but don’t tire him out too much, not yet,’ and he understood and was very good, just walking with Paul and making his gaming talk. All the while I couldn’t stop praying, ‘Thank you, God, from all my heart. I’m sorry I was short at you back at the hospital, really I am, but it was only because I was so worried for my boy and because I love him so dearly,’ and I hoped he’d understand.

  Soon after then we reached a town called Lucca where we stopped for a couple of days so he could recover himself fully. We went to the Saint Martin’s Cathedral and prayed to the famous talking crucifix. I stayed there all morning and then went back in the afternoon, to pray my thanks for Paul’s getting better and to beg to keep him well till we reached Rome and he could be saved. By then I was growing short of silver so I took some from a merchant with my money script from Winchester Fair, and I made sure it was a good amount, too, as who knew what I might need? I’d have spent every penny on a cart and horse if it helped my boy but I had no need, as Dame Lucy bought one, and though it was a poor sort of thing compared to the cart she’d had before, it was sturdy enough to take her chests and sacks and she said if Paul was sick again he could lie on top, which would be seven times better than that cursed sled.

  Then something hateful came to pass. The hospital in Lucca where we were keeping ourselves had a little garden and Joan said I should take a walk there, as it wasn’t right that I spent my every moment by Paul’s side watching him in case he grew sick again. ‘Don’t you worry, I’ll keep an eye on him,’ she said, and though it was hard to pull myself away, I did as she said. The garden was seemly enough if plain from the season, as by then it was almost December. I took a turn round and was thinking of going back and seeing how my boy was when I heard a little moan from behind one of the shrubs.

  Fearing there might be a child there who’d hurt himself, I stepped over to look, and whom should I find but Jocelyn the advocate. He was sitting on a tree stump and kneeling before him was a woman with long black hair like a lot of them had in those parts. For a moment I thought she was mournful about something and he was giving her comfort, as he had his hands round her head, but then I saw through her hair that she had her fingers round his tail, which was up, and her tongue was licking the end. When I let out a cry she jumped up and ran off. As for Jocelyn, he wasn’t sorry like he should’ve been but looked quite aggrieved. He put himself away in his hose and then told me it wasn’t right that I’d walked in on them and shrieked, as he’d done nothing amiss. He’d just been honouring local ways, he said, as there was an old custom that Lucca women welcomed visiting strangers with a special lovesome kiss.

  I didn’t know. Perhaps there was, I thought. But then Father Tim, who’d been in the hall and had heard my cry, hurried out, and when I said what had happened he called Jocelyn a dirty, lecherous cur. But what really troubled me was what Joan said just afterwards. ‘Going with a bordel woman,’ she said. ‘He’ll bring God’s wrath on all of us, including your poor boy.’ That made me wild. As if we weren’t cursed enough already, now this fellow had put my boy in more peril with his foul lusts. Dame Lucy was as strong about it as I, good woman that she was, and she told Jocelyn he must confess to Father Tim and show himself penitent before our whole party or he’d be outlawed, which was quite right I thought. But Jocelyn, who had no shame about him, said it was nothing to do with us or Father Tim but was between him and God’s laws alone. And though Father Tim told him to think again for the good of his own soul, Jocelyn took himself away, slipping out of the hospital early the next morning before we woke. I was glad of it. Good riddance, I thought. You see, God, I prayed, he’s nothing to do with me.

  After that all I wanted was for us to reach Rome as fast as we could, before the devil could snare us with something else. He did everything he could to thwart us. Most of all he made the rest of them so slow. Joan blamed the two Jews and it was true they often trailed behind the rest, though Paul said that was only because they were anguished after what had happened in the mountains and wanted to keep apart. I was surprised they’d stayed with us at all, but then I suppose they were scared to walk alone. They’d often ask after Paul, saying, ‘How’s your boy doing today?’ When we stopped for the night Helena would help Tom with his letters, which I suppose was her thanks for his going out in the snow to save her and Mary that night, and she never minded that Dame Lucy gave her looks, what with having banned him for pricking his nun. Not that he got very far with his learning, as I heard him trying to read from her wax tablet and growing anguished when he kept getting it wrong. I said to Joan, ‘She seems kindly enough. And they often ask about my boy,’ but she thought I was a fool right through. ‘You’re as bad as your husband was,’ she told me. ‘Can’t you see they’re just gulling you? They scorn and curse us in secret every hour.’

  It did seem like somebody was cursing us. Soon after my boy was better, Satan put his touch on one of the axles of Dame Lucy’s useless new cart and gave it a crack so it had to be changed, which wasted a whole day. Next, at a town called Saint Geminiano, which was full of tall towers, Sir John got into a discord with a tavern owner who he said had watered his wine, and Sir John punched him in the face so the watch were called and we had to stay there a whole day, till the Saint Geminians agreed to let Sir John go free if he paid tuppence in their money to the tavern owner, which he did, if sulkily. Then that same evening, when I thought we were finally set to go on once more, Lionel came down sick, or so he said. I felt his brow myself and I told Dame Lucy, ‘He doesn’t feel hot to me.’ It was nothing after what my boy had suffered, that was certain, but Dame Lucy moaned and fussed and in the end we stayed there wasting our time for another four full days. The rest of them weren’t much troubled. Margaret polished her badges, Oswald sewed a new pair of soles on
his boots and Ragged Tom spent every hour begging till he’d got enough coins to take him almost to Rome, so he said. All the while I was stamping round the place, hating those towers and thinking, will we never be gone from here?

  ‘Come along now, put your best foot forward,’ I told the others when we finally got back onto the road. ‘If we hurry we’ll be in Rome for Christmas.’ Because by Oswald’s reckoning we still could be. How God would love that, to see his pilgrims in his holy city for his dear son’s birthday. The days being short we needed to use every hour we had and if we reached a place in the afternoon where the rest wanted to stop I’d tell them, ‘Let’s keep going a little longer, lordlings, and stay at the next spot along.’ And when they grew scared we might find ourselves walking in the dark and be set upon by brigands, I told them, ‘Don’t you worry as there’s hardly a robber round here any more, that was years back,’ which was true, Oswald said, as the pope had got rid of them all. Each evening my feet ached so badly that I could hardly take another step but I felt only joy that we’d gone so far as we had. We passed through a fair city named Siena and then went by a mountain that stood alone by himself and was called Amiata, till we reached a town called Bolsena, which was perched above a wide lake with little islands, and which I came to hate as much as I had those towers. Because that was where Lucy’s steward Alwyn said her horses needed pasturing as they were tired out, and Beatrix said her donkey needed resting too. So we wasted three more days and every hour I was glancing at Paul to be sure he was still well.

  After that, though, we kept up a good pace. I asked folk coming the other way how long they’d taken and, wonder of wonders, they said that, for all our tardiness, if nothing else slowed us we’d still reach Rome for Christmas and perhaps even a day or two sooner. Finally we got to a little place called Sutri where we stayed in the strangest kind of hospital, which was in a cave in a cliff, and the monks said that though folk usually took two days to reach Rome from there, some did it in just one. ‘Let’s do it in one,’ I said to the others. ‘Just think of it, we’ll be in Rome tomorrow.’ Some of them grouched and Hugh moaned there was no need. ‘It’s three days till Christmas,’ he said. ‘Where’s the hurry?’ ‘But why wait?’ I said. ‘Just think, tomorrow night you’ll rest your tired heads in the holy city of Rome.’

  I hardly slept that night. I got up well before first light and lit a candle from the fire burning at the mouth of the cave and then I woke them all. Jack the cook grumbled that I was the devil’s friend for spoiling his sleep, and Joan complained that she’d hit her toe because it was too dark to see, but I got them all on the road in the end. As we walked I kept telling them in a gaming voice, ‘Hurry now, lordlings. All these months and now we’re almost there.’ We went by a lake, which was like the one where we’d had to wait while the horses were rested only smaller. After that I could see we were getting near as the road grew ever more crowded with walkers and riders and with carts loaded with sacks, or coming towards us empty. All the while we had to take care as the way was sprinkled with little turdlings. Those’ll be from sheep driven to Rome to sell for Christmas feasts, I guessed. Then I caught a glimpse in the distance of high walls and fortress towers by the score rising up behind them, so many that they looked like the spines of a great hedgehog. ‘There it is,’ I shouted out, ‘there’s Rome,’ and they all gave a cheer.

  Not long after as the day began to wane I saw a river up ahead of us, the Tiber as it had to be. We crossed a bridge that Father Tim said was called Ponty Milvio, and was where Emperor Constantine had won a great battle over the Pagans that brought Jesus and God to all the Romans. There was the city wall, stretching away to right and left, and ahead of us was a mighty gateway that grew a little taller and broader with each step I took. Now Oswald slung his bagpipes over his shoulder and let out a great blast, and when someone threw a piece of dirt at him he didn’t care but laughed out loud. And then, with joy in my heart, I was coming up to the gateway, I was passing through it and here I was, arrived, standing in a wide square that was in the city of Rome. I was weeping and I felt like singing. I hugged my boy even though he didn’t like to be hugged, and I said to him, ‘We’ve done it, Paul, we’ve done it,’ and then I hugged Joan. ‘Thank you, dear God,’ I cried out. ‘Thank you with all my heart.’

  Already a little crowd of Romans had gathered round us, and one of them pulled at Brigit’s arm till Alwyn and Jack the cook chased him away. ‘They all want us to stay in their inns,’ said Father Tim, and though he told them we were staying at the English Hospital it made no difference. Oswald was the one who managed to rid us of them, which he did by taking one as our guide. ‘That’s the only way,’ he told us. ‘Pick one monster to fight off the rest.’ It was as well we had a guide, though, as we’d never have found our way without. He led us across the city, through lanes so narrow that Dame Lucy and her party had to come off their horses and walk, while it was all we could do to coax her cart between the buildings. ‘Getting here is only the start, remember,’ I told Paul and Joan as we went. ‘Now we have to earn good Saint Peter’s help to get us God’s forgiveness for me, so Paul can be saved. We have to visit churches, pray to saints and say mass everywhere we can.’ For all my aching feet I’d have gladly begun there and then, except that it was already coming on to dark.

  I asked Father Tim, ‘How many churches do we need to visit here to do things right?’ because there was nothing I feared more than to get back home and find we’d not done enough. Not that he gave me an answer I was happy with. He said we should take communion in all the famous churches, where the pope said mass, and that he thought there were about a dozen altogether. ‘Going to them will lessen your years in purgatory,’ he said. ‘You should go to all of those,’ said Joan, looking sadly at me, ‘what with all your sins.’ Which was true I dare say, but what mattered was my boy. When I asked Father Tim, will that be enough, and are you truly sure, he said it was hard to know. Then when I asked how many churches there were in Rome he thought there were about three hundred but he wasn’t sure. Should we go to all of them? I asked. But he didn’t know that either, the useless fop. By now the rain was coming down, as it had half a dozen times that day, and I was soaked once again. Never mind, I told myself. I’ll learn what we must see from somebody, somehow. I’ll find a way.

  It turned out the English Hospital was full, though the clerk said there’d be places the next morning as a big party was leaving Rome. In the meantime he pointed us all to an inn down the road. I’d meant to sit down with Joan and Paul and make a plan for us but in the end all I could do was buy straw and then I was too tired to talk, too tired even to eat, though I was famished, and all I could do was lie down and close my eyes. My last thought as sleep came upon me was, tomorrow we won’t rest. Tomorrow we’ll use every moment we have to make my boy safe.

  But I swear the devil would give us no peace. If he’d been against us on the road down from the mountains, he was worse now we were arrived. First it was the others in our fellowship. Because we’d all agreed that on our first morning we’d go to Saint Peter’s together, seeing as it was the most renowned church in all of Rome, but when I tried to wake them they were like a crowd of slugs, groaning and whining and saying they were tired and their feet were sore. I soon lost patience and just worked on Joan and Paul, though they were hardly better. When I finally had them both out of their beds I told the others, ‘We’ll go on ahead and we’ll see the rest of you there.’

  Next the devil put his touch on Joan, who started fussing about where we should get bread and milk to break our fast, because at one place the bread looked old and at another the milk didn’t look clean. ‘As if it matters,’ I told her sharply, which hurried her up. But then Paul started, because he’d seen a big stretch of wall down a side alley, so tall that it made midgets of the houses all around. ‘Let’s go and see,’ he said. ‘Not now,’ I told him, and if I was sour it was only because I loved him so dearly. ‘Can’t you see that it’s saints we need now, not old w
alls?’

  But the devil was only just started. The next thing he put in our path was Rome itself, as I swear it made even London seem easy to pass through. We had to pick our way past porters and donkeys carrying loads and sellers who blocked half the road as they pushed badges of Peter and Paul into our faces, or hats or bales of straw, or offered to fix our boots or pull our teeth. Most of the streets weren’t proper streets at all but narrow, winding lanes, sometimes arched over above us, which made them so dark that we could hardly see our way, and it was all I could do to save my boots from puddles or mud or worse. With every yard we walked I got a whiff of some new stink, while it was as noisy as it was too foul-smelling, with metalworkers hammering away at pots and bowls. Another thing was that these Romans didn’t seem troubled where they went about their business. One would be cooking lunch on her little brazier, another was washing clothes in a bucket, another skinning a sheep or pulling offal from a goat’s carcass, and another stretching out skins to dry. I even saw one Roman squat down to purge himself right beside us. I gave Joan a nudge then. ‘You wouldn’t see that back in Thetford,’ I said, and she nodded. ‘Not often, that’s certain.’

  Then, as the way widened a little and I guessed we must be getting close as we were among a crowd of pilgrims, all walking in the same direction, the devil slowed us over again and this time it was, of all things, with Matilda Froome. A shepherd was driving his flock of sheep down the road and the idiot beasts were pushing and shoving so the three of us had to squeeze ourselves back against the wall and I shouted out, ‘Watch out for my boy, can’t you?’ as I tried to shield him with my arms, and that was when I heard a voice call out, ‘Is that you, Constance?’ and there she was, sitting crouched by the roadside, a begging bowl in her hand, and her white dress that was half blanket looking dirtier than ever. Next to her was the Welshman who’d spurned us. Now we’ll have trouble, I thought, as she’ll still be angry over what was done in her boots, but no, she was tranquil enough, just a little melancholy. They both were. ‘We’ve been here ten days,’ Matilda complained, which wasn’t a surprise to me, seeing as they wouldn’t have been held back waiting for the cart to be mended, or for Beatrix’s donkey to pasture or for Lionel’s sniffles to be cured. Ten days. What I would have given to have already been in Rome for ten days.