Pilgrim's War

by Michael Jecks

  His wish was soon to be granted. Soon they would be transported over the sea to the coast of the Sultanate of Rum. There they would be able to continue their long march to Jerusalem.

  Moson, Friday 15th August

  It had been a long march, but for many it was to end at Moson.

  Heinnie watched as the massive catapults were pushed forward, the men forcing the wheels over the rough ground until they were within reach of the city’s walls. Wagons with rocks hewn from the quarry lumbered along behind the ox teams. Here the ground was more or less stable, while behind the city there was a maze of swamps and mires that could swallow a man in less time than it took to drink a quart of ale. The army was avoiding that.

  After Lothar’s departure, it had taken Heinnie two weeks to recover. He had a scar now that ran from his destroyed right eye all the way to his chin, and he longed to meet Lothar and thank him personally for it.

  There had been little enough time to worry about Lothar in the last weeks. Count Emicho had taken every opportunity to hunt down Jews, and now he had a bulging war chest, and over ten thousand men. With warriors like Drogo of Nesle and William of Melun to lead them, Heinnie had no doubt that they would soon defeat all the Saracens who had dared to try to take Jerusalem.

  But before that, Emicho and his army must defeat King Coloman of Hungary.

  It was as they marched that Heinnie and the men had come across the little parties of pilgrims limping along. Some had terrible injuries, but for the most part their wounds were mental, and their story touched all Count Emicho’s men.

  They soon heard the cause. The Hungarians had tried to close their border to the Frankish armies, and in the days before Emicho’s arrival, not only had Peter the Hermit brought his men through here, but another pilgrim army under a priest called Gottschalk had tried to pass as well. King Coloman had decided to stop them when pilgrims had a dispute with a merchant over a debt for food, and killed the man.

  Coloman had drawn up his army southeast of Moson, but persuaded the pilgrims that he would escort them to his border and let them continue on their way. However, he asked that they surrender their weapons first so they would not murder any more of his people. When Gottschalk agreed, the royal army fell on them and slaughtered them almost to a man, leaving only a few men to escape and speak of the bad faith of this false king.

  Emicho was nothing loath to punish Coloman and his people, especially when his army reached Moson itself and came across fields filled with the stinking corpses of Gottschalk’s army. It was a sight to fill any devout Christian full of righteous anger.

  Heinnie had been involved in many of the attempts to climb the walls and break into the city of Moson, but had not succeeded. They had constructed bridges to try to attack from the farther side of the city, but the marshes there prevented this, so the Count had ordered them to build catapults, and now these two were slamming their missiles into the walls.

  It was a sight to bring joy to any soldier’s heart, Heinnie felt. He giggled at the sight of the catapult’s arm rising, suddenly halting and flinging its massive missile into the air. The stone rose, slow as a duck from the water, until it reached the top of its arc, and then fell, suddenly. Heinnie could see the explosion of dust where the rock struck the walls of the city. The first few rocks had made a cloud of dust at the immediate point of impact, but now he saw it was rising from further along the wall, each strike causing more and more dust from yards away as the mortar and stonework were shivered to pieces under the thunderous attack.

  The end, when it came, was almost an anticlimax.

  A last rock had been thrown, and when it hit the wall, there was a trembling, as though God was striking it with His own hammers, then a sudden flash of smoke rose and, faintly over the air, Heinnie could hear the rumble of falling masonry. Already the catapult was being wound back, the men on the windlass groaning and complaining as they sweated, pushing the wooden bars around, but even as the arm was slowly hauled down, there was a bellow of satisfaction from the soldiers nearer the city, and Heinnie saw that there was a huge breach where the walls had collapsed. And not only one: the second catapult had also brought down a section.

  Heinnie giggled at the thought of the women and the plunder in the city. He pulled his sword from its scabbard, and with a grin contorting his scarred features, he lifted the blade high and shouted to his men. Soon they were rushing forward over the rough ground.

  There was a clatter and rattle of arrows striking the ground, but he was a hard target. Most of the arrows were aimed at the mass of men behind him. He pelted along until he came to the splinters of rock and rubble at the wall itself. He clambered up, slipping and sliding in the looser spoil, before reaching larger rocks where he was more stable. Men were coming out from the city, a few high on the remaining sections of wall hurling rocks and loosing arrows, but Heinnie knew he was blessed. There was a tug at his tunic as an arrow narrowly missed his body, and then he was not alone again. His men had caught up with him, and he and they were slithering down the far side, into the city itself.

  A shrieked order, and a mass of Hungarian pikemen ran at them. Heinnie’s men lifted their shields and knocked aside the long weapons. Three were too late, or were unprepared for the suddenness of the attack, and were speared, but then Heinnie’s men were in close with the Hungarians, and more of the Count’s army was pouring into the breach, their appearance forcing Heinnie and the others further into the city, pressing the Hungarians back along the streets.

  Rocks slammed into the roadway. It was a vicious mêlée, with men shrieking war cries or shrill screams of agony, and Heinnie concentrated on the men before him, ignoring those with him who fell, ignoring the possibility of danger, just stabbing and slashing for all his worth, counting on God to protect him from the many dangers.

  They pushed onward, onward, and came to a wide square where people were milling about in terror, and the men began to attack the townspeople. Heinnie thrust and sank his sword into a young man’s body and smiled as the fellow’s mouth moved helplessly. And then he saw her: a young girl, her head covered by a great hood.

  She was over to his left, and he ran from his men with a thrilling in his blood at the thought of her slim body. His men were already gorging themselves on death, and Heinnie chuckled to himself as he chased her. She moved like a deer, fleet and surefooted, darting around to a narrow alley, and Heinnie ran after her, his grin broadening.

  ‘Hoi! This is good, I like to work up an appetite for my women!’ he shouted, and laughed again.

  As he did so, he saw that she had stopped. He laughed louder at the thought that she was willing to have him come and take her, and quickly took hold of her shoulder.

  A quickening chill touched his spine, as if a sudden wind had blown along the alley, making the sweat chill on his body. Her shoulder was too thin, like that of a child who had been starved for a month. She began to turn, and he felt the hairs on his neck and head rising as he found himself peering into the blackness under the hood.

  He dared not look at her face. He backed away, averting his eyes. ‘No!’

  In his mind, he saw again the girl, the one he had slain at Rudesheim with her brother. She had died badly; when they broke into the house, they had found the fat woman who owned the place trying to tell them there was no one there, but they had shoved her from their path. They were soldiers of God. Heinnie and the others knew they were doing His work. They found a locked door and smashed it with hammers, and in there they had found the cowering girl with her brother. They were only Jews, though, and Heinnie had let his men have their fun. The boy they slew on the spot, but then there was the girl and the woman who had tried to hide her.

  Afterwards they had torched the building with the bodies inside. They had all died. It was impossible that the girl could have escaped that pyre.

  It could not be her. He told himself that, but he still refused to meet her gaze.

  ‘No!’ he said again. But more weakly and, as he said
it, he saw the shape of a boy entering the alley behind her, and Heinnie felt his legs become weak. It was as if the energy had been sucked from him. He almost fell, and as he did, the girl lifted her hands to her hood.

  ‘No!’ he screamed, and fled.

  Civitot, Thursday 21st August

  There was a cooling breeze, and Odo revelled in it, feeling the wind ruffle at his hair. Behind him, flags and banners fluttered loudly. Each proclaimed the ancestry of the knights and men-at-arms who were camped here. Sir Walter de Boissy-Sans-Avoir’s was the most magnificent. It flew high over his pavilion, the bright colours fading in the bright sunshine.

  In recent days Odo had been called to help Sir Walter’s clerk because Odo’s ability to read had endeared him to the overworked cleric. Now Odo was comfortably assured that he was essential to the smooth running of Sir Walter’s household. It was a great honour.

  They had been here for three days already. At Constantinople, they had kicked their heels for five days while the Emperor decided what to do with them, and the laziness of the citizens of the city did not inspire confidence. The Greeks seemed to have no energy, no desire to get on with things. This was God’s greatest adventure, and the people of Constantinople seemed to care more about forms of address and the correct display of manners than actually going to Jerusalem and fighting. It was incomprehensible. And then, when they had been transported, it was said that Sir Walter was told that he should wait here for more armies to arrive. They were large, he was told; they were professional – as if that mattered.

  Odo felt his anger grow at the thought. God would prefer a legion of his own faithful followers than a collection of mercenaries and displaced men-at-arms whose only claim to faith came from their need for salvation after a life of rape and murder. Odo would not wait, he determined. He would go and make his way to Jerusalem alone, if need be.

  Others were of a similar mind, he knew. Peter the Hermit’s army had joined with Sir Walter’s at last, and now there were Lotharingians, Rhinelanders, Bavarians, Flemings and people of all the nations under the cross, who were equally inspired to make haste to reach Jerusalem. Many had endured hard battles to reach here, Odo knew. He had met one with an appalling scar down his face, who had been with a later force attacked by the Hungarians, and so cruelly beaten that many had turned back for home.

  He was walking about the beach in a foul temper, wondering how much longer they would be sitting here at the sea’s shore, and investigating a large, part-ruined tower, when he almost tripped over her: Jeanne.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  He instantly forgot his bad mood when she grinned at him. Suddenly the people who had been irritating him, the slowness of progress, the dismay at sitting here at the coast while the Emperor and others decided what the pilgrims should do, all faded away and in their place Odo knew only a melting happiness because she had noticed him.

  The wind whipped at the skirts of her tunic, and the thin material did little to conceal the lines of her body. Sparkles of gold showed where her hair was pulled free from her coif, and Odo felt a tugging at his heart to see her. She was in every way perfect. Intelligent, astute, and so beautiful: he was convinced that she would make him a perfect wife. Not that he had broached that subject yet, of course.

  In the last days they had met, always here at the seashore, far from prying eyes and wagging tongues. She had said to him, quite correctly, that she did not intend that other people should see them together; she did not want to earn herself a reputation as a flirtatious woman, after all.

  ‘You know how men and women gossip. There is little else for them to talk about while we remain here,’ she had said, looking up at him with those delectable eyes.

  Who was he to argue with her? He quite understood her concern. After all, it was the way that he looked at Fulk’s woman too. A woman should be chaste and careful in her dealings with men. It was a part of her attraction to him that she was so careful of her good name.

  She was calm, resilient and beautiful, he thought, and then gave a wry grin. Besotted was entirely too mild a word for his feelings towards her. He adored her.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she called.

  ‘I . . . er . . .’ he said, and felt his face colour.

  ‘Walk with me,’ she said shyly. ‘I don’t want to be alone. This land scares me.’

  She was shorter than him, and as she asked, she stepped closer to him, her face appealingly tilted up towards his. He could not help but smile with happiness. She was most attractive, he told himself. When he looked down at her, he reflected that this was more the kind of woman whom Fulk should be seeking, rather than the whores and slatterns he had been consorting with.

  ‘I love the sea,’ she smiled. ‘I would like to live by the sea. Once, I thought I would marry at the seaside and live with the sound of the waves for all the rest of my life. It was a happy dream,’ she added sadly, staring out over the water.

  Yes, he swore. I will marry you here, by the seashore, and we will live with this glorious sound all our days. I swear it.

  That morning he spent with her, and afterwards, he was still more convinced that this was a woman whom he could admire and respect. That she liked him he never doubted. There was a sparkle in her eyes whenever she looked at him, and a smile was never far from her lips.

  He resolved that he would marry her, and they would live together in Jerusalem and raise a large family that would become a dynasty. Their lives would be happy and contented for all their days.

  Mountains over Trieste, Saturday 23rd August

  Heinnie leaned on his staff and stared down the valley. There, just on the horizon, he could see the silvery shimmer. He recognised that sight: the sea, at last. There, with luck, they would be able to find a shipman to take them further on their journey, away from this accursed land.

  A priest came and stood at his side quietly. ‘So there it is,’ Father Albrecht said. ‘We are a little closer.’

  Nodding, Heinnie kept his eyes fixed on the distant gleam. He had not lost the terror he had experienced at Moson. Even now, in the broad sunlight on this hill many leagues from the Hungarian city, he knew the same dread. When he slept, he saw her in his mind’s eye, and again chased her down the alley until she stopped and started to lift her hood as the shade of her brother appeared behind her, accusing; always accusing.

  Each night he had that dream, and each time it ended there, with her about to reveal her face, like a demon about to drag him down to Hell. Always he woke, sweating and shivering and petrified with horror.

  Now they were staring down towards the sea at last. He was here with some few hundreds of men. After he had run from the alley, panicked and irrational, out to the walls and beyond, the other men had seen his terror, and it had been communicated to them. Those in the square heard his screams, and the entire force began to waver, thinking that there was a great army chasing towards them. As it was, he did enough damage. The Hungarians had rallied and, while the army of Emicho hesitated, they scented imminent victory. Soon their men were pushing forward, and as more and more of the Count’s men faltered, the townspeople eagerly sprang to the pursuit, cutting down the soldiers as they fled.

  It was a catastrophe.

  Many thousands had died that day. Count Emicho took one look at his retreating force and rode away, leaving them to their fate. All his proud ambitions to be the next – and last – Emperor of Jerusalem were ground into the dust as his men ran, and he rode back homewards with as many men as he could rally. Only some few priests stood their ground, trying to persuade the terrified army to stand its ground, but soon they too had to submit to the all-pervading panic, or be trampled in the rout. Father Albrecht had been one of the few to join in a fighting retreat, dealing death with a ferocity Heinnie had never before seen in a priest. Heinnie had seen him and hurried to his side, and the two fought a strong rearguard action as they made their way into a stand of trees where the Hungarians were less keen to follow them.

  A
fter that, many decided to follow Emicho, to their shame and the contempt of their comrades. Others were less willing to give up the pilgrimage. Heinnie found William of Melun and several others who were all for seeking another pilgrim army and joining that.

  William of Melun said that a force under Sir Hugh de Vermandois, the brother of King Philippe of France, was marching to Bari to take ship for Jerusalem. That seemed preferable to making further attempts to cross Hungary to reach Constantinople.

  Now, when Heinnie glanced at Albrecht, the priest was staring at him. ‘We have to get down there,’ Heinnie said.

  ‘Yes. And then we can sail for Jerusalem,’ the priest said.

  Heinnie nodded.

  ‘There we will be granted absolution for all our sins,’ the priest said softly. ‘You will be renewed.’

  ‘Pray for me, Father,’ Heinnie said.

  He was convinced of one thing: he needed God’s forgiveness. Even now, at the edge of his hearing, he thought he could hear her screams, the sound of her pattering feet. If he was ever to lose this foul horror, he must make his way to Jerusalem, because else the spirit of the girl and her brother whom he had killed in Rudesheim would remain and haunt him every day for the rest of his life.

  Civitot

  Lothar and Sir Roger were deposited at the harbour of Civitot, while their horses, complaining wildly, were led from the hold and helped from the ship, and the shipmen unloaded the food and goods which merchants had brought for the pilgrims to buy.

  Watching the horses, Lothar winced with every whinny. It was not a task in which Lothar would have wanted to take part. The destrier of Sir Roger was not as much of a man-killer as some he had known, but handling a brute as big as him, and trying to avoid the slashing hoofs and his bites, was more than Lothar would have wanted.

  When all their belongings were piled on the wooden boards of the harbour, Lothar and the other men began to saddle their mounts and load their goods onto the packhorses and mules, while Sir Roger petted his beast and looked about the place with interest.