Pilgrim's War

by Michael Jecks

  ‘If it’s all the blood of unbelievers and heretics, surely He would be content,’ Fulk said.

  ‘You think so? I wonder. But your brother there, he’s one of those who would think that the more blood he’s covered in, the more keenly he’ll be welcomed to Heaven. You see, I don’t know that they would think like that. I reckon they’d like to see someone who hasn’t tried to wade through the blood of his enemies, because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that old blood soon starts to smell, and there’s not much you can do to get rid of that odour. It stays in your nostrils once you have wallowed in it.’

  Fulk pulled a face at the thought. ‘In Heaven all is made anew, I think. Your clothes are as clean as new material.’

  ‘You think so? I think the reek of blood would stay on a man even in Heaven. And I don’t know if the angels would want that smell near them.’

  Peter wandered away to see if he could find a pot or two of wine, leaving Fulk unsettled.

  Odo was definitely enthusiastic for glory. He had declared as much often enough. He wanted to get to the Holy Land and begin the slaughter of the heretics there. Yet Fulk did not believe him to be overkeen on glory for glory’s sake. It was more that he was determined to bring about the end of the cruel regime that had conquered Jerusalem, and destroy those who sought to enslave Christians under a brutal, uncivilised government that would leave them as little better than cattle to be farmed. Stories of Saracen cruelty were rife, from the determination to force men and women to recant their religion and become Muslim, to the tales of Christian babies being spitted on swords, mothers raped, men slaughtered. The stories of the evil behaviour of these godless men were legion. Odo was not the only man who sought an apocalyptic end to his enemies. The priests had been foretelling the end of the world for some years now, ever since the schism in the Papacy and the calculations that the Bible meant this to be the time of Armageddon.

  Not that Fulk desired that. If the world was to end, then he would endure the last days with as much fortitude and equanimity as he could manage, but he would prefer to think that the world was to survive a few years. Still, that was in the hands of God.

  Peter was clearly concerned with the way that Odo was behaving, but that was ridiculous. Odo was a religious man, but in that he was like so many others who were here on pilgrimage. It did not make him odd. Since receiving the wound on his arm he had been much more his old self, although there were times when he appeared to be a little secretive. As he was now. He had disappeared before Peter came, and Fulk was not sure where he had gone. He must speak to his brother and find out.

  Philippopolis, Monday 23rd June

  The cries of delight were heard early next morning. Fulk woke to a clashing of cymbals and the blaring of trumpets. Groggily he rose from his sleep, rubbing his hip where the skin had become sore overnight, and took up his belt. He peered towards the source of the noise, and realised it came from near Sir Walter’s tent.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked Peter.

  The older man was standing with a knife in his hand, cutting slices from a piece of dried meat. He held out a piece to Fulk. ‘By all that’s holy! Haven’t you heard?’

  ‘I heard the row.’

  As he spoke, the city’s bells began to ring. Fulk glanced up at the spire of the cathedral, whose own bell was tolling sonorously. ‘Is it war?’

  Peter stopped chewing, stared at him, and then began to laugh, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand as the tears fell. ‘You poor fool! Have you never heard all the bells ringing like this? It’s a miracle, boy! A miracle! A cross has appeared on Sir Walter de Poissy’s body. They’re all declaring a great miracle, and it looks like we’ll get all the help we need, now that the sanctity of our pilgrimage is confirmed.’

  ‘Miracle?’ Fulk repeated, dazed. ‘What do you mean, a cross on his body?’

  ‘A great, painted cross.’

  Fulk felt his mouth fall open. ‘So an angel came down and painted him last night?’

  Odo was walking towards them. He had been to the tent in which the body was being displayed. ‘Have you seen it?’

  His excitement was infectious. Fulk peered round him towards the tent. ‘Is he still there?’

  ‘Yes, the bishop from the city is on his way to view the body, but there is a firm belief that it is genuine. He has the mark of the cross, Fulk. It’s all over his torso, a great pilgrimage cross. It’s astonishing.’

  Peter coughed and held his hand over his mouth as he bent. Fulk patted his back while he choked. Odo had already departed.

  ‘Are you well?’

  ‘Oh, aye. I’m well. Godspeed to your brother, though.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Boy, have you learned nothing? Look, the bells are ringing, yes? The bishop is coming, yes? But shouldn’t the bishop view the miracle, hear the evidence such as it may be, and then declare that the bells should ring?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, take it as the truth. Yet today we have the bells rung and then the bishop comes to view the miracle.’

  ‘Who declared it, then?’

  ‘Who can tell? But a painted cross on a dead man’s body could have been performed as much by a man with a pot of paint as an angel.’

  ‘You mean it is a fraud?’

  Peter glanced around to make sure that no one was listening. ‘All I’ll say is, Sir Walter de Boissy-Sans-Avoir is a shrewd man. We’ve had soldiers trailing after us for days, we’ve endured attacks from outlaws, we’ve been refused access to markets and the chance to buy food on the way here. A miracle sealing the importance of our journey would not go amiss, would it? Aye, Sir Walter is a shrewd old man,’ he added, chuckling softly as he carved a fresh slice of meat and began to chew.

  Sybille and Richalda had survived. It was over two weeks since Benet’s death, and yet still Sybille could not believe that he was gone. She plodded, with her eyes on the man in front of her or on the wagon. Although a few people had noticed her, and looked at her askance, many thinking that she was nothing more than a waste of food now that she had no husband, some men had taken her defence in hand. Roul, the man who had looked after Richalda on the day she went to find Benet, had recovered well from the wound in his arm, and was now often by her side to protect her from unwelcome advances.

  He was a good, kindly man, she felt sure, with blue-grey eyes under his grizzled hair, and he smiled often. His tasselled cap was faded and dirty, but it added a jaunty air to his square face.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked him once.

  ‘I was born to a life of comfort, and I just felt that once, before I died, I would like to do something that was not purely for my own pleasure,’ he said. ‘I am three-and-fifty years old now, and my wife is long dead, and I considered it right that I should ride and join this great venture, like a knight errant of old. Of course, they were younger.’

  ‘You are young enough. An old man would not manage to make this journey,’ she said.

  ‘That’s better, mistress,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You almost smiled!’

  She had allowed his teasing to bring a smile to her lips then, but it was only for outward display. In her heart, she was constantly aware of the hole left by Benet, and her guilt that he had felt the need to go and prove his courage. Her cruelty had sent him to his death.

  ‘Almost,’ she said.

  Richalda was still weak and rode on the wagons to rest during the day, but she did not appear to strengthen. It was making Sybille anxious, for she felt she must go mad, were she to lose her daughter as well as her husband.

  At Philippopolis they could rest for a few days, and at last Sybille saw Richalda was healing. Soon they would be moving again, but for now she was glad to see her daughter grin after eating a bowl of pottage and a crust or two of bread. It felt as though the sun shone in her heart to see that little smile on her daughter’s face.

  On the Monday, when the bells began to ring, there was a
different atmosphere in the camp. Although the market had been made open to the people under Sir Walter, the citizens themselves had made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with the individuals of the pilgrim host. Now all was to change. The people wanted to retain the body of Sir Walter de Poissy and bury him in their cathedral, for a man who had received a notable miracle was pleasing to God, and would thus bring good fortune to the city. They arranged a great celebration and feasting to celebrate the miracle of Sir Walter’s cross, and the pilgrims were not only permitted entry, they were given to know that they would be welcome.

  More than that, they would be protected all the way from the city to the great imperial capital, Constantinople. At last they might be in sight of the end of all their journeying. And Sybille would have to decide where her future lay; on the road to Jerusalem, or on the weary way home to Sens.

  Except she had nothing there, she reminded herself. All their money was lost, their house was sold, they had no goods, and she had no family to fall back on.

  She was all alone in the world with her daughter.

  Bulgarian Plains, Tuesday 24th June

  When they were next marching, Fulk saw his brother’s gaze hunting along the lines of men and women on the march.

  There had been a shower overnight; for once they were not choking in thick dust and could see for hundreds of yards in all directions. A column of wagons and camp followers was marching parallel to the army. At first Fulk had assumed that Odo was searching for any signs of enemy forces opposing them, but there were none to be seen.

  Fulk tramped on, all thought of enemies far from his mind. He found his own mind was dwelling on the pretty widow Sybille. Even the memory of her face brought a smile to his. He would like to . . . but she was only recently widowed. He could not conceive of spending time with her. It was impossible. In any case, there was no need to worry about enemies here, surely. They were inside the Byzantine Empire, and any governor who tried to delay them must surely be held to account by the Emperor – and they had been promised protection all the way to Constantinople.

  His brother’s gaze swept along the camp followers again, but Fulk paid him no attention. He was falling into the trance-like state that all soldiers marching day after day will reach: when every conversation has been drained of all merit, when the jokes have been heard too often, and even the rivalries and disputes have lost their savour, each man would retreat into the bastion of his mind and memories. Fulk was settling into a semi-stupor, as if he had taken a strong soporific. His eyes saw the horizon over the shoulders of the men before him, his feet registered the thud, thud, thud of his steps, his shoulder registered soreness where his spear rested – he had acquired it after the battles on the plain at Belgrade, but it was heavy – while his back spoke of the weight of the shield and his pack, but none of them intruded on his dazed mind.

  Peter had said to him once that the secret of being a soldier was coping with the tedium. ‘It’s not all death or glory, boy.’

  ‘But to fight for your lord or for God, that’s exciting!’ he had said.

  Peter had looked at him with a pitying smile. ‘You only spend one hundredth or one thousandth of your time actually fighting. Most of the life of a soldier revolves around marching for mile after weary mile or worrying about when the next meal will arrive.’

  This was the marching boredom, then. Fulk trudged on. His feet plodded onward, seemingly without any need of intervention from Fulk himself. If asked, he could not have brought back to mind any aspect of the last five leagues. His world was bounded by the horizon and the future. Nothing before now had ever been. The lands he had passed through were irrelevant. They might not have existed.

  Into this waking dream-state, Odo’s behaviour intruded. He was walking along with his head locked on the camp followers, but now, rather than looking up and down the line of people, he was staring fixedly, and when Fulk turned to follow his gaze, he saw Guillemette.

  ‘You like her?’

  Odo coloured instantly. ‘Who? Why, what do you—?’

  ‘That woman, Guillemette. She is pretty enough, I’ll agree.’

  ‘The whore you had? I was not looking at her,’ Odo said contemptuously. ‘I was just observing the followers, that is all.’

  ‘I see,’ Fulk said. His eye followed the line of people, but then Guillemette moved aside slightly and he gasped. ‘It’s Jeanne? The younger woman?’

  ‘It’s none of your business, brother,’ Odo said, but although he turned his head to the front with resolution, yet Fulk could see that he was blushing beneath his sun-bronzed face, and he could not help but glance towards Jeanne every so often.

  Fulk smiled to himself. The woman had ensnared Odo, he was sure. Odo was now thinking more of her than of slitting the throats of wounded Saracens. So be it! If the woman would persuade Odo to lose his bloodthirsty streak, so much the better. Odo would surely be happier for a roll with a wench, and God would forgive him, Fulk felt sure.

  He only hoped the woman wouldn’t charge him too much, because it was as plain as the sword in his scabbard that she was a friend with Guillemette because she came from the same profession.

  Bulgarian Plains, Wednesday 25th June

  It was the second day after they left the city of Philippopolis that it happened.

  Richalda was suffering because of this journey. Not that matters would have been improved if they had stayed behind at Sens, and Benet had left them to go with the pilgrims.

  There was no telling how long it would have been before they learned Benet was dead. Most likely, Sybille would have had to wait and hope, until hope itself had died, and she was forced to beg the priest to declare her widowed. He might have done, but there was no guarantee. Meanwhile she and Richalda would suffer for want of money. Sybille would have been too old to attract a good man, and she and her daughter would be consigned to a life of misery and starvation. She had seen it happen to others.

  There was no benefit in these thoughts. She must go and fetch water from the river and see to Richalda, without all this self-pity.

  She went to the riverbank and filled her leather flask before making her way back to the camp. A number of fires were burning, and she eyed the men sitting about them. Some were drinking wine. One party was dancing, while a man played the tambour and pipe. The reedy tune came to her on the cool air, and she heard a couple of men singing along. It reminded her of happier days, and brought a reflective smile to her lips as she set off to get back to Richalda.

  ‘Ho! Woman, you are a sight to please a king!’ a man called, and Sybille set her chin a little higher and tried to ignore him. He was fair-haired, with a pointed face like a hatchet, and close-set eyes.

  Another man rose from a hearth in front of her and she could see by the flickering flames that he was leering, a grin twisting his square, dark features. His eyes were cold, like a hog’s, and she felt a sudden icy certainty of danger in her belly.

  ‘Join me. Have some wine,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ she answered, but suddenly the blond had gripped her biceps and held her close. She felt his rough stubble on the back of her neck, scratching, when he kissed her neck, and she caught her breath with horror as the second man in front of her approached, licking his lips.

  ‘Go on, mistress! We can have some fun, we three!’ he said.

  ‘Leave me! Let me free!’

  The man behind her whispered, ‘Now, mistress, don’t go making too much noise. You wouldn’t want all the rest to join us, would you?’

  The idea that more men could join these two in ravishing her had not occurred to her. She froze with horror. The man behind her began to fondle her breasts through her thin tunic, and she felt the hands of the other stroking her thighs and reaching round to her buttocks. She shuddered with revulsion as a hand probed between her legs, and would have tried to escape, but the two had her in their grip.

  ‘Let me go!’ she whispered. ‘Please!’

  She had no control. She felt that t
he situation had sucked away all energy, all ability. Her terror was such that even drawing breath to scream made her sob, and only a murmur of despair escaped her lips. She dare not scream and bring others to join these two.

  ‘You think you’d satisfy her? You two?’

  Sybille felt the man before her step away. The hand at her groin was gone, and she saw that Guillemette was a short distance away, hands on hips, head to one side.

  ‘Go on,’ Guillemette said. ‘Show me what you’ve got!’

  The man holding Sybille had both hands on her breasts, and she angrily broke free, lifting both her arms and spinning to slap his cheek. ‘You think me fit for your paws?’ she shouted, heedless of the men all about.

  Guillemette was laughing. ‘You think that would satisfy a woman? Fie! Such a big man, you need to go find a mouse, with a pizzle that small!’

  ‘You bitch!’ the man said, and lurched to grab her, but Guillemette danced lightly to one side, laughing. ‘You’re a big man now, aren’t you? So strong you can hurt a woman like me, eh?’

  ‘I’ll break your pate for you, you—’

  ‘You carry a heavier weapon, then?’ she laughed.

  He was furious now, and ran at her. She moved aside, but as she did, the man with Sybille sprang forward and caught her arm. The second man had slipped, but now he ran at her and, clubbing his fist, swung at her. Sybille saw Guillemette’s face as he clenched, and screamed. It was a piercing shriek. Men all over the camp jerked upright, reaching for weapons and staring wildly all about, thinking that there was an attack. Sybille saw three men nearby who stood with spears or swords, and pointed at Guillemette.

  The whore stood on legs that wobbled. The man had punched her on the side of the face even as Sybille screamed, and now the man holding her let go of her arm hurriedly as other men approached. Sybille wanted to see that Guillemette was not badly hurt, and ran to her side as she began to collapse.

  ‘I did that well, didn’t I?’ Guillemette said, and her eyes rolled as she lost consciousness.