Pilgrim's War

by Michael Jecks

  The men exchanged glances. It was clear that they did not like the odds of fighting against double their number.

  ‘Take your companion and go,’ Sir Roger said. ‘If you try to assail this man, you will answer to me, Sir Roger de Toni. Now, go!’

  He watched them as two men helped their fallen comrade back into his saddle, shaking his head groggily, blood dripping from his nose and a gash on his brow, and then slowly rode off northwards. When they were disappearing over the brow of the next hill, Sir Roger finally turned to the man they had saved.

  Lothar stood and watched the men warily, wondering whether he had escaped his companions only to be overwhelmed by a fresh group of brigands. ‘I thank you for saving me. I could not have fought them all off.’

  ‘You were willing to try, my friend,’ Sir Roger said. Lothar was no better bred than the six he had driven off, but the fact that he had been prepared to risk his life fighting them spoke of his courage.

  ‘Where do you go?’ Sir Roger asked.

  Lothar shrugged. ‘My companions were to join the march to Jerusalem. I think they will follow the route to the east. They were to join the Hermit’s pilgrimage to Constantinople.’

  ‘So do we, but we head south,’ Sir Roger said. He glanced at Gilles.

  Gilles grunted, ‘We make our way to Merano, over the mountains, then to Rome, where we will meet with the other members of our pilgrimage, and on to Constantinople.’

  ‘You would be welcome to join us,’ Sir Roger said. ‘Another sword is always welcome in a land full of brigands.’

  ‘What was the cause of the dispute?’ Gilles asked suspiciously. He sat on his horse, bent over, his arms crossed over the pommel.

  ‘Children. My companions killed them. They were young. They were innocent, and had no one else to protect them.’

  ‘You knew them?’

  ‘I had met them, but I didn’t know them. I had not even heard their names,’ Lothar said, and he was surprised as he spoke it aloud. It seemed so curious that he had burned his bridges with his company for a pair of children and a woman tavern-keeper whose names he did not even know.

  ‘Yet you were prepared to suffer hardship for them?’ Roger said. ‘You showed chivalry, friend.’

  ‘Perhaps. It was the right thing to do, so it seemed.’

  ‘You didn’t kill him?’ Sir Roger said.

  ‘Perhaps I should have,’ Lothar said. ‘It was a fair fight; a matter of honour, I would say. But when I won, it was clear others saw it in a different light.’

  ‘So, now you can join with us,’ Sir Roger said.

  Lothar saw Gilles shoot a look at Sir Roger: Gilles knew that a fellow found at the wayside could be an unreliable companion. There might be more to his story than he had told them.

  Gilles winced, but Lothar nodded gratefully. ‘My lord, I would be glad to join you. If you would give me food and water for the journey, I will gladly be your bondsman,’ Lothar said. He made a bow, and thus were their fates joined.

  BOOK FOUR

  Welcome and Rejection

  CHAPTER 11

  River Danube, near Zemun, Tuesday 3rd June, 1096

  Odo woke as the sun rose and opened his eyes slowly. He put his arms behind his head.

  ‘There was a time when I used to wake happily and look forward to breaking my fast with a fresh loaf, warm from the oven, dabbing it into beef dripping, and feeling only the satisfaction of a day’s work to come.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Fulk said. His eyes were still closed as he continued, ‘I hated getting up, knowing the old smith was going to strike me with a strap for every infraction of his rules. If there was a chisel out of place, he’d slap me; if the fire didn’t get hot quickly enough, if the wind blew the smoke back into the smithy, if the iron didn’t weld, if the steel didn’t quench well, no matter what, I got a slap. I used to dream of staying in bed until late.’

  ‘You always wanted to stay in bed late. Especially with one of the sluts from the town.’

  ‘That’s not fair!’ Fulk protested.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Some were good women.’

  ‘Which?’

  Fulk screwed his eyes more tightly shut. ‘Never you mind.’

  ‘And now you’ve found another wench on this journey.’

  ‘I won’t do it again,’ Fulk muttered, although Guillemette’s face intruded into his thoughts. He wished she were here now; he wished Odo would shut up.

  Looking over at Fulk, Odo felt a burning resentment. Fulk looked so relaxed, whereas Odo was aware only of the responsibility. The weight of the ambition of this pilgrimage was a heavy burden and he felt as though he bore it alone. Fulk seemed to consider this a mere stroll in the sun. Even now he wore a small smile. He was infuriating! A pound to a penny he was thinking of a woman again.

  Odo sat up. Other people in the encampment were already up. He and Fulk had joined with these people weeks ago, still in May, and the two brothers had been buoyed by the thousands on all sides. But they had been marching hard. Now, he studied his brother dispassionately.

  Fulk was more wiry than he had been. Odo assumed they all were, for constant travel and little food had hardened them. At every town or city they bargained for food, but often the prices were higher than they would have been at home, and several of the pilgrims were finding it hard to acquire the food they needed. Odo felt most sorry for the children. There were many of them here, both girls and boys. Some were with their parents, but many had come on their own.

  Odo shook his head at the thought of all the long, dusty, weary miles already covered. He stood, stretching, glancing about him.

  In the distance he saw Guillemette. The sight made him glower. He had guessed her trade the first time he saw her with Fulk. She was so assured; too much the bawd. The other woman with her was far more appealing: a slim, fair woman in her early twenties. He admired her long, heart-shaped face and pale blue eyes. She had a stray ringlet of blonde hair at the side of her coif, and he saw it dance in the faint breeze. She looked less confident. He could imagine being married to a woman like her. A sweet-natured woman who would cook for him, sew his clothes, and keep his bed warm of an evening. That she was here surely showed that she was pious, too.

  Fulk farted.

  Odo looked down, tempted to kick him. ‘Are you getting up?’

  ‘Why? So we can stomp onwards? I could rest a little longer, without it having a huge impact on the rest of the campaign. What’s the hurry?’

  Odo pulled at a blade of grass. He held it out and touched Fulk’s nose gently. His brother waved a hand at the air near his face. Odo tickled again, and Fulk irritably slapped at it. The third time, he glowered at Odo. ’What did you do that for?’

  ‘It saved me booting you.’

  With a bad grace, Fulk rose to a sitting position. When he did, he saw Guillemette and waved.

  ‘Leave her alone. No more whoring!’

  Fulk grumpily snapped, ‘It’s only Guillemette and her friend Jeanne!’

  ‘They are a distraction,’ Odo said, but his eyes went to the younger and fairer of the two even as he spoke.

  A half-mile behind them, Benet was already preparing the pony when Sybille wearily opened her eyes.

  She had not slept well. Richalda had been sick overnight, and Sybille had been forced to sit up for much of the evening, soothing her as best she might, until the shivering and dry-retching had ended. Now the child looked entirely peaceful, and Sybille knew that she herself must look drained and unkempt. She so missed the comforts of home. Now, after a month and more of sleeping out in the open, of tree roots in her back, of midge and mosquito bites, of endlessly exhausted legs and feet, of constant weariness, her reserves of good humour were all but used.

  ‘Come, my darling,’ her husband called when he saw her rising and patting the grass and mud from her tunic and skirts. ‘Help get this beast ready.’

  She stilled the retort that leapt to her lips. In all these days she had not resorted to the
cruel tongue that tried to fight for dominance. Instead, she obediently rose and went to him. On the way she touched Richalda’s face. The child frowned slightly in her sleep, but as Sybille took her hand away, she was aware that her daughter had become warm. Her face felt hot to the touch. It made her bite her bottom lip.

  ‘Pass me that sack,’ Benet called.

  ‘Husband, where is Josse?’

  ‘He is fetching water for the journey. Come, wife, please!’ She left Richalda and went to join him, lifting the bag he indicated and holding it to him.

  He smiled. ’You look tired out, Sybille. Soon we shall be at the great city of Constantinople, and then you’ll see! It is supposed to be the greatest city in the whole world, perhaps even than Jerusalem.’

  ‘Then what are we doing this journey for?’ Sybille snapped.

  ‘Darling—’

  ‘Don’t “Darling” me, husband! I’ve endured, God knows, the weary leagues from Sens without complaining, but if you tell me that we are here to see wondrous sights of a great city, I will . . . I will beat you with the cookpot! We’ve come all this way at such a hideous cost!’

  ‘It has not cost us much, my love, and we will soon make it all up when we help take Jerusalem. Just you wait! I have a dream, my love. No more scrimping and saving, no more hardship. When we get there, we will be the first to set up a stall selling the best of goods from Sens and Paris, and the people will flock to us to buy our wares. I shall be the first to create a merchant’s dynasty in Jerusalem itself!’ His eyes took on a distant stare, and a smile creased his lips. ‘We will be able to afford a great house, with a large garden. We will have servants, and you can rest, rather than working your fingers to the bone. Richalda will have a brother or two to play with, who’ll grow to be men who can take over the business when I am old, so that you and I can enjoy our last years in contentment and comfort, and—’

  ‘And all that is far in the future, and meanwhile we have yet to reach even Constantinople. Will we all reach the place, though? I doubt it! Look at Richalda! She was sick all last night, husband, and still she shows every sign of weakness. Look at her! You have done this to her!’

  ‘She is young! She will soon mend.’

  Sybille stared at him. ‘I hope so, husband, for if she does not I will never be able to forgive you for bringing us here to watch her die,’ she hissed. She picked up another sack and flung it at him, before flouncing back to her daughter.

  Richalda opened her eyes and smiled weakly. Sybille returned it, but she was worried. In recent years famine had struck all Christendom, and she had seen other women’s children sicken and die. Richalda was displaying the same feverish symptoms that those children had exhibited.

  The Sava River

  It was lunchtime when Fulk and Odo stopped at last. The army had been walking down the western shore of the River Danube for some days now, following its western bank down to the city of Zemun. Here there was another river, the Sava, that separated Zemun from Belgrade.

  Fulk lurched to the bank and stood on the shoreline, his bare feet in the slow-moving waters. ‘Urgh, this feels horribly good!’ he called back to his brother. His sword was hanging from his shoulder by a thong, and now he drew it free and set it on the ground beside him, rubbing his shoulder where the cord had chafed his skin. He opened the flap of his scrip and peered inside. There was little enough there. He had a small portion of bread left over from two days ago, and a slice or two of dried meat that had gone greasy and smelled more rancid than smoked. Still, when he bit and chewed, it tasted good enough.

  There were many people here. He could see Zemun, a large town, that lay on this side of the river a mile or so downstream, while on the opposite bank a still larger town, or perhaps a city, lay. The river was enormously wide, and a number of boats of various sizes ploughed their way across the waters.

  ‘You should try the water too!’ he called as a shadow fell across him. ‘You smell like a hog, after all, Odo!’

  ‘Perhaps I shall,’ a voice answered, but it was a deeper voice than Odo’s, and Fulk leaned back to look up, almost falling over. In his upside-down vision, he saw a knight with the cross sewn onto his left breast like so many who had taken oaths with the first of the pilgrims.

  Fulk almost fell over in his urgent scramble to his knees. ‘I am sorry, my lord, I meant no harm, I thought you were my brother,’ he babbled, ducking his head.

  ‘You gave me no insult. There’s no need for fear in my presence,’ the man said. ‘I am Sir Walter de Boissy-Sans-Avoir.’ He lifted his gaze and studied the river and the city at the opposite bank.

  ‘Sir Walter!’ Fulk said, bowing his head still lower until his brow was almost on the ground.

  All the men knew of Sir Walter. He was Peter the Hermit’s military adviser. Sir Walter had gathered together a large force of the stronger and more capable male pilgrims about him.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Fulk – a smith, Sir Walter. I am with the pilgrimage, and my brother too. We hope to be at your side and Peter the Hermit’s as you enter the gates of Jerusalem.’

  Sir Walter nodded, still staring at the two towns. ‘That is good. We have a long way to travel first, though, and Peter is not here. He delayed and is bringing up the next group of pilgrims a few weeks behind us.’ He looked down at Fulk. ‘You look strong enough. But hungry.’

  ‘It is hard to buy food at a reasonable price,’ Fulk admitted.

  ‘But you do have a sword.’

  ‘Yes,’ Fulk said, and allowed a little sharpness into his tone. ‘But I am no thief.’

  ‘I didn’t say you were. I was considering that you could be of use to me. You and your brother both have weapons?’

  ‘We bought them before we left France.’

  ‘A good idea. Others will regret not demonstrating the same foresight before long,’ the knight said. ‘When did you last have a full meal?’

  ‘Not for a few days,’ Fulk said. He felt the stirrings of hope.

  ‘Your brother is in the same position?’

  ‘He is hungry, my lord, yes.’

  He considered Fulk, and then seemed to come to a decision. ‘Find your brother and have him join you. You can both enter my company and share in the food I have. I would have more men like you in my party. We will need men with strong arms before long.’

  Approaching Zemun

  It was that same day that the catastrophe happened.

  Sybille and her husband continued their journey without speaking. She was in a filthy mood with him, and although she tried to divert herself from the bitterness that was in her heart, she could not. He was a good man, a loving, caring father and husband, yet just now she wanted to hit him. Even his words, intended to calm her, failed. When she rode the pony, she cradled Richalda, who seemed to doze much of the time. There were a few moments when Sybille found herself nodding too, and more than once she jerked awake as she was beginning to slide from the saddle.

  They were following the riverbank, keeping to the road made by the passage of all the other pilgrims earlier, when she first saw the great camp made by Sir Walter. There were many men and women creating makeshift tents with blankets and cloaks hanging from trees. The people had already sent for help from the nearer of the towns, and some traders had set up their stalls, shouting incomprehensibly while standing on the boards of carts, holding loaves or pieces of meat aloft. A butcher had brought cattle with him, and was energetically poleaxing them one by one, while others flayed the carcasses before a group of men-at-arms. Sybille thought that they were sure to be as tough as old leather, but her mouth watered at the sight of the bloody hunks of meat nonetheless.

  Finding a small space, Benet set up their camp a short way from the water, and Sybille started to prepare dough to make bread. She had some maslin, a coarse mix of flour and ground peas and beans, and she added enough water to allow it to work, and set it in the cookpot to settle before making a fire. Benet watched her for a while, and then walked away. She did
n’t speak. There seemed nothing to say.

  The day was warm. Sybille had Josse set up a blanket to create shade, and placed Richalda beneath it, but the child was still feeble and fractious. It was enough to increase Sybille’s nervousness. But then she realised that the shadows were growing, and suddenly her fears focused instead on her husband.

  She stood and gazed about her, peering in all directions, and took three paces in the direction in which he had left her, but even as she did, Richalda gave a moan. Torn, Sybille stared ahead as though she might see her husband returning at any moment.

  ‘Benet?’ she whispered, but there was no sign of him. Sybille turned back to her daughter. Richalda needed her. Surely Benet was off drinking wine and talking great stories about how he would become a rich trader when he reached Jerusalem. She crouched and took Richalda’s hand in her own, using a scrap of her skirts dampened in river water to wipe at her little girl’s brow. She needed herbs for Richalda, she needed food, she needed a warming drink, but most of all, right now, she needed her husband.

  Josse stood irresolute, staring down at her, then across at the plain so smothered with people it was like an ant heap. ‘I will find him, mistress,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t take long!’ she said, and tried not to sound as fearful as she felt. ‘Bring him back quickly, please!’

  Fulk and Odo joined Sir Walter’s party, Odo glaring about him suspiciously as they moved about among the men, as if he was expecting to see vice on all sides.

  For his part, Fulk was struck by the size of the army. Walking here from Sens he had been aware of the swelling numbers, but as they marched he was not aware of the sprawling mass of people. Men, women and children of all nations and positions were there at the river’s banks. Fulk had never seen so many people; it looked to him as though the whole of Christendom had been emptied, and it was shocking to see them milling about. For the first time he began to appreciate the enormity of the undertaking in which he was involved.