Beloved Pilgrim

by Nan Hawthorne

  "I know, Father. I know," she replied.

  They did not know what to expect in the way of tidings from their father. Whenever a traveler passed through their lands they invited him in to learn whatever they could about what transpired in the world. There was little news of either the crusade in Palestine or their father and his party.

  Elias found himself sternly summoned to Emperor Henry's court. He told Elisabeth when he returned that the Emperor had angrily inquired why Sigismund had gone without seeking his leave beforehand. Elias was at a loss to explain, other than to say that his father assumed the earlier blessing was in force. He was asked to and gladly agreed to swear his own fealty to Henry, though the man seemed less than confident in a knight so young. In fact, he seemed reluctant to believe the boy had in fact been knighted.

  Albrecht learned from other squires that the Emperor was angry that so many of his best knights and barons had chosen to go on crusade, leaving him in an uneasy situation. Nevertheless, he could not refuse them leave, and avoid the wrath of the Church. His stance with Pope Urban was shaky as it was from his years of opposing the Holy See.

  In the meantime, Elias spent his time with the manor steward learning what he needed to know to maintain the estates. He continued to work with the sword master, Dagobert, now graduated to real weapons. In what time was available he surrendered to his sister's demands and showed her what he learned. She and Albrecht spent time practicing.

  Feeling suspended, Elisabeth found herself returning to Sister Magdalena's cottage time and again. She found the older woman's simple, quiet acceptance of the girl's moods healing. Magdalena never tried to change how Elisabeth felt, what she felt, but listened to her frustrations, her fears, and her grief. She knew that Elisabeth after so much abandonment needed the one sure thing, her friendship.

  Not that Elisabeth did not seek advice and reassurance. Some days she fired a barrage of questions and challenges at the woman.

  "What if Elias leaves? What do I do if Reinhardt comes back? What do I do if my father never returns? Why must I remain when they all leave?"

  Magdalena's sole response to all these questions was, "You will do what you will do when the time comes."

  Some news began to trickle in, but it was months old by the time it reached Bavaria. There was nothing whatever about Sigismund and his party, but they learned that in the Fall of 1097 the European forces under Eustace and Godfrey of Boulogne had arrived at the great city of Antioch. Other nobles, including the Norman giant Bohemond and Raymond of Saint Gilles, Count of Toulouse, had joined them in Constantinople. The last anyone knew was that they were besieging Antioch, with no hope in sight of breeching the massive walls.

  Elisabeth gaped when she heard that Bohemond, the scion of the Norman Guiscard dynasty in southern Italy, was in effect the real leader of the crusader armies. He was notorious for being the sword arm of his late father in trying to wrest control of Byzantium. "And the Byzantine Emperor agreed?" she asked, astonished.

  The traveling priest who brought this news shrugged. "It seems so. He is a masterful leader of men."

  It was summer of the year 1100 when Elias asked his sister to come with him to the church where their mother's body, if not her heart, was entombed.

  Her brother turned to Elisabeth, taking her hands in his. He glanced at Albrecht, nodded, and then turned back. "Elli, Albrecht and I are going to go to the Holy Land to look for Father and to pray for him and Mother at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher."

  Elisabeth stepped back involuntarily, pulling her hands out of his. With her fingertips to her lips, she exclaimed, "No! You can't!"

  Elias's beautiful countenance showed his regret as he glanced over at Albrecht.

  "Well if you must go, take me with you!" she said sharply, putting her arms tight around her own breasts.

  Her brother arched his eyebrows. "Believe me, I thought about just that. But, no, it is not a safe place for a woman of your station."

  She glanced from Elias to his squire and then back. "I can fight. You know I can," she retorted.

  The indulgent look that drove her mad was on his face. "You can also be captured, raped and held for ransom."

  It was not the response she had expected. She was not prepared to counter the assertion with any intelligence. Instead she said lamely, "Great ladies go to the Holy Land all the time."

  "Name one," Elias said, simply and firmly.

  She opened her mouth to reply, but no names came to her. She supposed there must be women of rank who made the pilgrimage but even had she thought of one, she knew all that had ended when the crusaders brought open war to the Holy Land.

  Her brother watched her face as she struggled with finding a reason he should take her with him. "I will make sure you are well protected here. You won't be alone. And I need you to look after Winterkirche while we are gone."

  The word "we" caused her to shoot a furious glare at Albrecht. She wanted to snap something about their just wanting to be alone together, but she knew better and turned back to Elias. "Don't patronize me, Elias. You know better than that." She turned and hurried back to the hall.

  The two young men stayed out of her way for the rest of the day. In the evening, as long affection told Elias she would, Elisabeth thawed and came to where he and his squire sat by the fire in the hall.

  "When will you leave?" she asked the two in a quiet voice.

  Albrecht's eyes sparkled as he met his lover's knowing smile.

  Elias said, "We will want to get over the Alps by the time real winter sets in. So sometime before Michaelmas."

  Only two months, she groaned inwardly. "But the fighting may be over by the time you get to Jerusalem."

  He shrugged. "I guess we will see. There has been little word has made it here. If they are still fighting, we shall join in. If they have taken Jerusalem by now, we will be there to help keep it safe."

  Looking with trepidation between the two men's faces, Elisabeth said, "You mean to stay there, then?" She caught the look they gave each other. "You do! Damn you, Elias, you don't mean to come back!"

  He and his squire looked down at their hands. He mumbled, "We don't really know. We have not planned that far."

  Elisabeth, still standing, glared at her brother. Slowly her face softened. "There is no longer anything here for you . . . except wealth and estates..." she added acidly.

  Elias frowned at her. She shook her head, resigned, and took a seat on a stool. "I know, I know." Her thoughts turned to her betrothed. Perhaps he was already dead. In that case she would stay on here and grow happily old alone, the mad widow of Winterkirche. The thought almost brought a smile to her lips.

  Elias raised one arm and drew it across his forehead. "Lord Jesus, it's stifling in here."

  Elisabeth listlessly moped about the manor. She tried to smile and encourage the young men as they prepared to leave for the Brenner Pass and Italy, but try as she might, she could not maintain against her growing dread.

  "Elias, rest a bit, you have servants who can do all this," she said to him one morning as she found him with Albrecht in his own chamber. She tried not to notice the rumpled bed, the lack of a squire's pallet on the floor. She wondered what the servants made of it, if they noticed.

  "She is right, my lord," Albrecht inserted. "You are tiring yourself out. Look at you, it's just an hour since sun-up and you are already starting to drag."

  Elias started to argue, but subsided, putting down the gauntlet he was testing for loose screws. He yawned. "I don't know what has come over me. I'll lie down for a while now." He looked over at Albrecht. "Will you come back and sit with me?"

  Elisabeth stood quickly and, making a rushed comment to her brother, followed the squire out into the corridor. "Albrecht, wait a minute!" she called.

  She reached him in the corridor and put her hand on his arm. "You are worried about something, something to do with Elias. What is it?" she asked. "When you said he should rest, there was a look in your eye. Like you were wo
rried.."

  Albrecht said, "He has seemed pinched, tired. That's all. I just hope is not becoming ill."

  "Ill?" she repeated. "Dear God, I do hope not."

  Only days later she happened to pass through the corridor as Elias came out of an alcove that was used as a privy at night. He stood outside it, shaking. His face was suffused with sweat.

  "Oh my God, Elias!" she cried as she rushed to him. She took his arm and led him to his chamber.

  "Where is Albrecht? Send for him," he rasped as she helped him lie back on his bed. "Hurry."

  She went to his door and hailed a passing servant. She returned to Elias's bedside, reached for the ewer of water on the table next to it and the cloth that lay beside it. She poured water into a large bowl and soaked the cloth, squeezed it out and leaned to her brother.

  He weakly took her extended wrist and asked, "Did you send for Albrecht?"

  "I did. They will bring wine and more cloths, and he will come." Frowning, he released her wrist, letting her wipe the sweat from his face.

  "You are ill. We were afraid of that."

  He looked at her. "We? You and the servants?"

  "Albrecht and I," she responded.

  At that moment the squire came into the chamber in a rush. He went to the side of the bed opposite Elisabeth and sat. "My lord, are you well? What is wrong?"

  Elias reached for his hand. "I am sick. I am feverish and I just puked up more food than I even ate this morning." He grimaced. "And it is coming out the other end too."

  Albrecht watched Elias's hand cover his own, sighed, and let him hold it. "Oh Elias." He did not bother to say the formal "my lord."

  Elisabeth looked at them both. "How sad it must be," she thought to herself, "to have someone who loves and cares for you, but you can't let anyone see it." She stood. Aloud she said, "I will go for a tisane that will help you sweat out the fever."

  Elias stopped her. "Albrecht, can you go get it? I want to talk to my sister."

  The squire glanced from one twin to the other, then nodded and went out.

  "Elisabeth, I know you know . . . about Albrecht and me," the sick man said in a hesitant voice.

  She nodded. "You know I do."

  He glanced away and asked, "Do you hate me?"

  "Of course not! How can you ask that?"

  He looked back with a grim smile. "I haven't always been sure. You said so once, but sometimes you looked at us with such anger."

  She put her hands to her face. "Oh my God, I am so sorry. There were just some times when I was confused or jealous. But Magdalena told me that you love each other, just as Father and Mother. I am just glad you have had someone to love like that. That you do have someone to love." She looked quizzically at him. "You don't think you are going to die, do you?"

  He made his voice joking. "No, I don't. It's just so much fun to get a rise out of you."

  He laughed at her exasperated look.

  She had taken her leave of her brother when the squire returned with a covered tray. "I will let you talk." She startled Albrecht by going up to him and leaning to plant a kiss on his cheek.

  The next time she saw him he looked at her oddly, with a mixture of wariness, disbelief, and wonder. "Elias said . . . " he whispered to her.

  Interrupting she said, "Just love him."

  Open-mouthed, he nodded. "I do, how I do."

  She smiled. "It's all right, then."

  It was not all right. Elias lay in his bed day and night, weak, shivering, and barely able to eat or drink. He began to waste away. Michaelmas came and went.

  Elisabeth was in her brother's chamber one evening while he lay asleep on the bed. She did not care for needlework but it was all she had to keep her hands busy. She frowned at a misplaced stitch and muttered, "Damn!"

  "Such language," came her brother's weak voice from the pillow.

  She looked up, saw his pale face smiling at her. "Elias!" She went to sit next to him on the bed. "Are you feeling better?" It sounded so thoughtless, this vain question.

  Her heart wrenched as he shook his head. "No, I am not. I know I am dying. Please do not argue with me on that. I don't want to go through what we all went through with Mother refusing to talk about it."

  Elisabeth's eyes brimmed over with tears. "Oh, Elias," she sobbed. "I cannot bear it."

  "You must. For Albrecht's sake." Seeing her eyes widen, he added, "Please, just hear me out."

  She drew the back of her hand under her nose, sniffed and nodded. "Yes," she said.

  He struggled for the breath he needed to go on speaking. "It grieves me to leave you, Elli, but I am sore afraid for Albrecht. You are the only one who knows about us, you and Magdalena. He is going to need you. He will need to mourn just like a widow, but he won't be able to do it publicly. You must be his bulwark." Elias's words petered out, his strength spent.

  She looked deep into his eyes. Her first impulse, a selfish anger that he loved his friend more than his sister, was drowned by what she saw in his eyes. It was his love for and trust in her that made him beg her to take care of the younger man.

  She put her palm on his cheek and tried to smile. "I understand, my darling. I will be there for him. I promise." His brow smoothed at her words. There was a new appeal in his eyes. "I will send for him, so you can say your goodbyes." She put her fingers to her lips and transferred a kiss from them to his lips.

  He mouthed "I love you," and she felt as if her heart had squeezed to a hard knot in her breast.

  When Albrecht came he took her hands and searched her face. "He wants to say goodbye," she explained.

  A sob erupted from deep in his chest, and tears ran suddenly down his cheeks. He rushed to the bedside. She quietly shut the door behind her.

  She summoned Father Boniface to give the young lord last rites, then firmly shut the door after the old priest departed.

  It was near midnight when the door opened slowly and Albrecht stepped out. Elisabeth was sitting in a window embrasure, in the low light of torches, and stood when she saw him. They walked to each other and without a word put their arms about each other. Albrecht began to weep inconsolably. Elisabeth let her own tears join with his.

  She drew him with her to the embrasure and lowered herself to sit. She took him in her arms and held him, rocking him and crooning soothingly as he gave way to utter despair.

  Chapter Four ~ Lady of the Manor

  Elisabeth went through the motions of daily life even after her brother had been laid to rest in the little church next to their mother. Albrecht was nowhere to be seen, having withdrawn from the preparations for Elias's funeral. Unsure if he had gone entirely, Elisabeth waited, trying to hang onto some sort of consciousness. She was Winterkirche now, at least until her father returned. Would he, wherever he was, learn of his son's death? Unlikely, as no firm news of him had come since he departed.

  Even now as tidings of the Crusade began to trickle in there was nothing about Sigismund. Elisabeth heard that indeed, not long before Pope Urban II passed away, the forces of the Cross had taken Jerusalem. The Holy Father, the architect of the Crusade, never knew of its success.

  Elisabeth was sitting in what was now her solar talking with her steward about mundane matters involving tenants when a servant came in and bowed to her. "Mistress, the squire Albrecht would like to speak with you."

  "Well, bring him in! He need not stand on such ceremony!" She sat up straight, smoothed her bodice, and nodded to the steward. "We will finish later, Martin."

  She stood to greet her friend as he came through the doorway. Her face darkened at the sight of him, thin, haggard. She came around the table and went to him and took his hands. His eyes were cast down to the rushes on the floor.

  "My lady, I . . . I . . . ," he began.

  "Albrecht, my dear, come to the embrasure and sit with me. I was afraid you had left us."

  Sitting hesitantly by her he tried again. "My lady, I came to bid you farewell-"

  She did not let him finish, but inter
rupted, "Farewell? Why?"

  He looked up at her for the first time, his eyes full of perplexity. "My lady, I have no place here. The lord is in the Holy Land and my . . . the young lord . . . I was their squire. I have no employment here now."

  She stared at him, her lips parted. "Oh dear, I had not thought of that. You have been part of our lives; I was thinking you would somehow just stay here. That was selfish of me. You want to be a knight. You can't do that here. Of course you want to leave."

  He hesitated, looked about as if for guidance, then admitted, "I do not want to leave. This has been my home, the place where I have been the happiest in my life . . . I cannot be sure how I can . . . I don't know if I care about being a knight, not without Elias, the young lord, I mean . . . " His voice trailed off.

  "Then why leave? I don't want you to leave. There must be something you can do here. I promised my brother I would look after you. Oh please don't go!" She took his hands in hers and held tight.

  "But, my lady . . . ," he appealed.

  "Damn it, Albrecht, stop calling me that. I am your sister. Stop being so damned servile."

  Looking into her flashing eyes, he nodded silently and glumly. "Thank you, my l . . . Elisabeth."

  Woodenly the household returned to normal. Elisabeth had acted in her mother's stead so long it came to her as rote. One of her duties, now performed alone, was to greet visitors. Preferring the comfort of solitude, Elisabeth performed her duties, bearing with the few who came, mostly travelers, two or three returning pilgrims, but none as disruptive as the one who arrived one damp and miserable morning.

  Taking her accustomed place on the steps to the hall after the horn blast augured the approach of a mounted party, Elisabeth composed herself with dignity. The gate opened and the first of what sounded like a considerable troop of horses rode in. Elisabeth did not believe her eyes at first. The banners, the livery, the face-it was Reinhardt! She thought she might swoon, though she never had done so in her life. He was alive and back from the Holy Land. The solace of her solitude was fractured.