Pilgrim's War

by Michael Jecks

  ‘You are a midwife? You are an excellent nurse,’ Odo said warmly. He would not confess to the renewed pain that she had stirred in his arm, and he didn’t care. Her lap felt soft, and he felt a flush at his cheeks at her innocence in letting him put his hand there, in the warmth of her upper thighs. He wanted to leave it there, to stay sitting like that. It felt like Heaven, even though his heart was thumping as though trying to escape his chest.

  ‘I have been many things,’ she said, standing again. ‘I must go back.’

  ‘Do not go back with the whore,’ Odo said. ‘I have seen her with other men, even my brother. She would sell her body for a cup of wine. Do not go with her, in case you become tainted yourself.’

  ‘I have no fear of that.’

  ‘I do.’

  His words stilled her. She studied his face as though seeking an ulterior motive. ‘Why?’

  ‘Maid, you are so young and the world can be cruel to beauty. I would not see you hurt or at threat.’

  She nodded, with a small smile that put his heart at ease.

  Fulk made his way back to the chapel.

  It was after dark when the flames died, and with the heat it would be the following morning before they could look through the ruins.

  Fulk had much to think about.

  His participation in the battle had left him torn. His confusion had dissipated, but it was replaced by a sense of profound loss. Odo was a different creature from the careless baker’s apprentice with whom Fulk had set off from Sens, and Fulk suspected that the old brother would never return. The battle had changed both of them; neither could be unaffected.

  It was not only the sight of Odo cutting the throats of injured men. It was an act of mercy to slay them gently. Yet still the picture of the men lying all about the field, and his brother drawing his blade across their necks as though he enjoyed watching the light of life dim in their eyes, intruded. It made him feel unclean. Worse, it made him uncomfortable in the presence of Odo. He would grow used to it, he told himself, he would get over it. They were brothers.

  As night came, he rested with his back against a tree trunk, although he slept little. The little ticks and clicks from the cooling walls were enough to keep him from sleep, and the noise as one of the walls fell in startled him from a doze in the middle of the night. He could not rest too close, for the heat was brutal.

  He fell asleep at some time around dawn, but something woke him, and he glanced around anxiously in case the men of Belgrade had returned. Instead, he found himself looking up at Guillemette.

  ‘I brought you bread,’ she said.

  He took it gratefully, realising how hungry he was.

  ‘Your brother is a pig,’ she said.

  ‘What has he done?’

  ‘He looked down his nose at me and made me know how unwelcome I was,’ she said.

  ‘He has a very long nose,’ Fulk admitted.

  ‘He almost accused me of fornication with the whole army.’

  ‘He thinks you have stamina,’ he said, and was relieved to see her expression lighten.

  ‘He knows nothing of lovemaking, I suppose. Not many women would want to sleep with a supercilious fellow like him.’

  ‘It is a cross he has to bear,’ Fulk said. ‘I got the good looks and personality in our family.’

  ‘You got something, certainly,’ she said, and bent to kiss his brow.

  ‘Is that all?’

  She looked at the chapel. ‘It doesn’t feel right. Not with all the men who died in there.’

  ‘I know.’ He shivered.

  ‘Besides, he did say something that makes sense,’ she said. ‘How can we hope for God’s support if we behave as badly as any others? Perhaps fornicating will only lead us to failure.’

  ‘What, you and me?’

  ‘I’ve been giving you sex in exchange for food. I think I can’t continue,’ she agreed.

  ‘So this is the end?’

  ‘I don’t know. I have a lot to think about,’ she said. She put her hand on his shoulder and leaned to him, kissing him on the mouth. ‘That’s not farewell,’ she said. ‘Only goodbye for now.’

  Belgrade, Friday 6th June

  The bodies were mostly unrecognisable. Many were blackened balls, foetal figures that looked scarcely human, their faces scorched and swollen, all hair and most of their clothing gone. After the roof collapsed, many had been crushed together. It meant that the fires had burned less fiercely, but the effects of their appalling deaths choked by smoke, crushed by the timbers of the roof and burned as well, meant that each was a mass of bones in scorched sacking. There was little that a relative would be able to spot as representing a husband or brother.

  Fulk enlisted the help of some men from Walter’s household, and they began picking their way through the rubble. It took much of the morning. One man pulled at a fallen stone, not realising it was still appallingly hot, and burned his hands so badly he had to be taken away, weeping, to a physician. Another man burst out laughing, and held up his boot, smouldering, but with the use of iron bars and baulks of timber they began to clear away the stones and expose the bodies.

  It was not pleasant. Fulk found the first when he moved some rubble aside. He had carefully covered his hands with thick strips of cloth wetted with water, after seeing the other burn his hands so badly. He found scorched timbers, and pulled them away, and then there was a large rock, which he levered away with the help of a fellow from the south of Tuscany, who had an accent as thick as the mud that pooled beside the river. Underneath was a panel of wood, and he lifted it away, only to give a short gasp of horror. Underneath, white with stone dust and ash, was a face from Hell, screaming into eternity.

  Fulk helped pull away more wreckage and the bodies were dragged and carried away.

  He helped the others to dig a broad pit, and they carefully placed the bodies inside. Fulk had men help him fetch Benet and the other who lay nearby, and set them with their companions. The bodies were covered with soil and stones from the chapel’s walls and Sir Walter’s priest held a short service over the grave. Fulk hoped they would find peace. In his heart, he wondered whether they could. After seeing the gaping, screaming mouths of the dead, it was hard to imagine that they could find peace even in Heaven. At least, the priest reminded them, all these fellows were innocent of any sin for, by taking up the symbol of the cross on this pilgrimage, they were freed from the burden of the sins they had earned through their lives. They had achieved remission. That was good.

  But as Fulk passed the last of the rocks to the man standing on top of the mound they had erected over the bodies, he was struck by the thought that the men who had killed these were also Christians. Would they be forgiven for killing others of His faith?

  Fulk hoped not.

  Sybille had slept fitfully. The recollection of the burning chapel was always in her mind, whether she was wide awake or dozing. The only difference was that the flames seemed more real, more appallingly scorching, when she was not quite fully awake. When she awoke, it seemed for an instant that the battle, Benet’s disappearance, his death, were all mere imaginings, that they were the hideous proof of a mare’s visit during the night. Everyone knew that the horrible little fairies would sit on a nodding person’s breast and introduce the most hideous dreams to the sleeping mind. That was how this seemed: a fiction designed to cause her horror.

  But as consciousness returned to her, with it came grief. She rocked back and forth, tears welling, and it was only the appreciation of the desperate exhaustion of all those around her that made her put her hands over her mouth and stop her agony from wailing forth.

  Benet had been so good a man, attentive and kind, but it was not only that which made her eyes widen. It was the realisation that she and her daughter were now lost in a sea of men, many miles from their home. Richalda and she were all alone, with no one to defend them.

  As the light arrived, she set her hand out to her daughter, and felt the chill of her face, and a sob choked
her as she stared down, thinking only that she could not cope with another death. It was an unbearable relief to see her daughter’s breast rising and falling, and to realise that her coldness was proof that her fever had left her, not a sign that she had joined her father.

  Richalda was alive. So Sybille had a duty to live. She could not give herself up to her grief. She must live and survive for her daughter.

  ‘How are you now?’ Odo asked.

  Fulk hadn’t noticed him. He was still musing over the dead whom he had buried, and was startled by his brother’s sudden appearance.

  Odo had the look that he had so often worn when they were children, when Odo had stolen a cake or apples and denied his crime. All too often, their father would assume that his eldest son would not lie, and beat Fulk instead. Afterwards, Odo would plead forgiveness with this same look in his eye, a sort of nervous trepidation, like a dog desperate to appease his master’s righteous ire. It always worked.

  ‘I’m well enough, Odo,’ he said.

  Odo inclined his head in a shamefaced fashion. ‘I am sorry about yesterday.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Fulk knew Odo had changed in the last days, but so had he. Neither was entirely comfortable in the other’s company. Perhaps partly it was Guillemette’s comment. Fulk had set out thinking that this would be almost a holiday, like the brief pilgrimages to local towns or Paris back home. This would take longer, but he had thought it would be a similar journey. And because they were going to the Holy Land, God would protect them when they attacked the unbelievers who had taken Jerusalem. Dieu le veut, as they had all said on leaving. But now he was confronted with the fact that, on the way, they themselves would be the targets of every governor who felt he had cause to fear their massed strength. They would be fighting all the way themselves.

  Now he knew that this was a stern undertaking, as unlike a walk to Nôtre Dame or St Denis as it could be. Here there was every chance of death before they had even reached the Holy City. Even if they did survive the weary leagues to Jerusalem, there was very little chance indeed that either he or Odo would ever make it home again.

  ‘What’s got into you?’ Odo cried, as Fulk turned and threw his arms around Odo’s neck.

  ‘Nothing, brother. It’s only that . . . nothing. You’re all I’ve got.’

  CHAPTER 19

  Bulgarian Plains, Tuesday 17th June, 1096

  Alwyn had a clear sight of the pilgrim army on the march, and it was a scene that filled him with surprise, but little dread.

  An army on the march is a terrible sight, but it was obvious to his eye that this was no disciplined force that could threaten a city like Constantinople with destruction. There were few ranks of marching soldiers such as the Byzantine Empire could field, but for all that there was a cohesiveness and power in the quantity of people there. He could not count the total from vanguard to the sprawl of wagons, but it was plain to him that there were many tens of thousands. They stretched across the plains like locusts, destroying and consuming all in their path.

  Alwyn turned to his companion, a dour man with skin burned dark by the sun. He was chewing on a strip of dried meat, his arms crossed, his elbows resting on the pommel of his saddle as he peered at the horde. ‘What do you think?’ Alwyn said.

  ‘The sooner they’re away from our plains, the better. They’re devastating the crops, as you can see. What will they do next?’

  ‘I have to report to the Imperial court,’ Alwyn said. ‘Do you think that they pose a significant threat?’

  ‘These are not so bad. They got into fights at Zemun and Belgrade, but they have been more controlled since then. But there are stronger forces gathering on the border already, and they are said to be more military in outlook. If they are similar in size, but better armed and arrayed, we will have trouble. These appear to be peasants and their women. I’ve heard that many are whores who are seeking salvation.’

  ‘Salvation?’

  Alwyn had not heard of the Pope’s dispensation to all those who took part in this grand iter, and he listened to the other’s explanation with interest. ‘If that is the case, it is hardly surprising that so many are marching.’

  ‘More will come.’

  ‘Even if these are kicked back with their tails between their legs?’ Alwyn said.

  ‘Especially then. If they believe that by fighting for the Holy Land they can win a place in Heaven, all the felons in Christendom will want to try their fortune. If they succeed, more and more will come as pilgrims; if they fail, others will take up weapons to show their dedication to God.’

  Alwyn stared out over the plains again. He was thinking how awesome this great army was; truly, it was a terrible sight. If it troubled him so deeply, it must surely appal even the Saracen hordes in Rum and beyond. Perhaps, at last, this was proof that Christians could unite and win back Jerusalem.

  It was an idea that both thrilled and alarmed him, proof that the existing world order was about to change. No matter whether a man wished for the reconquest of Jerusalem or not, this army would ensure change.

  Alwyn sighed once more, and set off to return to Constantinople. He would bear this message himself.

  Philippopolis, Sunday 22nd June

  For the next two weeks Odo was content.

  Fulk and he marched together with Peter of Auxerre in Sir Walter’s company and, as they tramped onwards, Odo was never given cause to be concerned about Fulk’s behaviour with women. His brother was behaving impeccably.

  When there was a break in the constant marching, they tended to train with Peter, learning how better to block and parry, how to use strength and guile, how to kill with little effort. Although both were exhausted after their long marching, they were not so foolish as to reject his instruction. They would train with their own swords, repeating manoeuvres without pause until Peter felt they had learned the basics of defence and attack, and declared them safe enough to join him in the line when there was a fresh battle. Peter appeared to have taken to them, as a father might adopt a pair of children.

  The pilgrim host had many adventures. Local warlords took umbrage at seeing their crops destroyed or stolen, and attacks were common, although the heavily armoured knights and men-at-arms were able to beat off all. When they reached the city called Nish, the army was buoyed to hear after a day or two that the governor had promised them not only both food and weapons, but also letters of safe passage.

  ‘Aye, well, they want to be rid of us,’ Peter said.

  ‘Why would they want that?’ Odo asked uncomprehendingly.

  ‘Look at us! We are a city compared with the majority of the little towns about here. If we were to grow angry, we could take this place in two days. If we wanted to march to Constantinople and lay waste the lands between here and there, we could. With this army, we could burn a swathe four miles wide for a thousand miles, and nothing would grow there for a year. The governor here isn’t stupid enough to want to have to deal with us. He’ll have heard what happened to Belgrade’s men, and those of Zemun, so he’s going to send us on our way with as much speed and little fuss as possible. If it costs him some money, so be it; if it costs him some food, he has enough and to spare. But if we stay, his women are at risk, as well as his food stores. No governor would want an army like this outside their walls.’

  The mood of joy and relief was not to last long. The army welcomed the wagons of food and equipment (Peter stole two mail shirts, helmets and shields for Odo and Fulk before anyone else got to see them) from the governor of Nish before they set off again. When they had passed halfway to Constantinople, news came of a disaster in the army’s ranks. The uncle of Sir Walter de Boissy-Sans-Avoir, Sir Walter de Poissy, fell ill as they approached the town of Philippopolis. Many of the pilgrims had been succumbing to diseases, often caused by simple exhaustion or malnourishment, and a few to fevers, but Sir Walter’s ailment was more speedy than most. He lingered for two days, and then was gone.

  Fulk had scarcely known the man, e
ven to recognise him, but Peter was sad. ‘He’ll be missed, boy. You mark my words. He had a good head on his shoulders, God love him.’

  Odo nodded, and crossed himself. ‘Yes, but he will make a swift entry to Heaven for having died on this march,’ he said.

  ‘Aye,’ Peter said, but there was an edge to his voice that Fulk had begun to notice.

  Later, while Fulk was whetting his sword’s edge, Peter came and watched approvingly. He sat beside Fulk and was for a while quiet, apart from correcting Fulk, taking the whetstone from about his neck and demonstrating the long, firm sweeps that would keep the edge keen.

  ‘Your brother Odo, he is very religious, isn’t he?’ he said at last.

  ‘Yes, and I’ve seen that it alarms you,’ Fulk said.

  ‘It’s not his religion that worries me, it’s his conviction. It’s almost as if he thinks he can do no wrong. He’s keen to judge others, but he doesn’t consider himself bound by the same rules.’

  ‘But we’re all religious here,’ Fulk said.

  ‘Some are, some less so. There are a few here who have committed crimes you can barely imagine, and who hope to be forgiven when they knock on the gates of Heaven and beg to be allowed in, as well as those who believe that they have a simple right to enter, no matter what. Some think no matter how badly they behave the saints will welcome them, just because they’ve joined in slaughtering the Saracens.’

  ‘You don’t agree with that?’

  ‘I don’t think the idea of taking Jerusalem is bad, just as I don’t think that the angels would be upset if we do. But I just have this idea, of me appearing at the gates, smothered all in blood, and Jesus Christ Himself waiting. What would He say about the blood, do you think?’