Beloved Pilgrim

by Christopher Hawthorne Moss

  He introduced himself as Johannes Schwarzes-Tier, or “Black Beast.” His two companions were Alain de Bourges and Gerhardt von Regenheim. Alain offered to send his squire for an extra shield he had. “I would not wish your lord to be the loser for lack of your good right arm.”

  While Albrecht and Renard, Alain’s squire, ran off to get the shield, Gerhardt, a smiling man with hair the color of burnished gold, deep-blue eyes, and part of his right ear missing, challenged Elias to a bout with axes. The German knight got the better of Elias quickly, as he had never learned the technique of that particular weapon.

  Gerhardt drawled, in his easygoing way, “Just remember that mighty crack you dealt to your squire’s shield. That’s how you manage a war axe. With well-aimed might. I will teach you.”

  Alain suggested, “Peut-être the young man has more experience with a mace? Ah, I think he does!” he said, seeing Elias’s broad grin.

  Alain’s mace was his practice mace, without the spikes he would want for killing. When one of the men standing about offered to lend Elias his battle mace, he started to protest, but Alain waved his concerns down. “I will give you that advantage, my friend.” Nevertheless, he eased Elias’s qualms by donning a thick-padded gambeson.

  He and Elias squared off with several feet of ground between them. Elias knew how to use the weapon, though primarily for defense. The two moved toward each other, holding their maces with one hand low on the handle and the other cupped under the shaft, nearer the heavy iron head. Each tested the weapon’s balance by slapping its shaft onto that palm. The trick was to watch the opponent’s eyes to see where he was considering a blow. Elias managed to deflect Alain’s strike aimed at his right arm by getting the shaft of his own weapon up quickly enough to intercept the smooth round ball, though the weight of the blow shoved him back. He feinted, no mean trick with such a weighted weapon, and swung about to strike Alain’s thigh. Alain shouted with surprise. The site of the wound was under the padding, but nevertheless a small amount of blood ran down his leggings. He grinned and held his weapon out in front of him like a sword, danced back, and then forward so sharply that the round iron ball took Elias in the face. His nose erupted in blood. It was his first significant wound, but rather than cry out, he whooped with soggy pleasure.

  “Look!” he cried, putting one glove to his streaming nose and reaching up to his mouth with the other, having dropped the mace. With triumph, he pulled out a tooth and held it aloft. “I lotht a toot!” he crowed.

  Albrecht and Renard came running up at that point. Albrecht dropped the shield he was carrying and ran to Elias. “My lord! You are hurt!”

  Still clutching his nose, he replied, “Yeth, but he ith too. And I lotht a toot!” He smiled as wide as he could so his squire could see the missing tooth, though in truth he could not for the blood.

  Black Beast shook his head, but he was smiling too. “I remember my first disfiguring scar. I was as proud of it as our young Elias is.”

  Albrecht showed the group his new shield. “The front was plain black, so I decided to paint a duck on it.” He held it out, then frowned as the knights laughed. Then he looked chagrined. “I painted it upside down!” he moaned, turning the shield. There was a duck, indeed, but its feet pointed skyward and its head toward the ground.

  Black Beast slapped him on the shoulder. “When your master knights you, you will be Sir Albrecht of the Upside-Down Duck, the bane of paynim throughout the Holy Land!”

  Thereafter, the group practiced together daily, and Elias found his command of weapons increasing, his prowess growing greater over time. The only thing the knights could not persuade him to join in on was their carousing. He demurred quietly, and the knights teased him about his religious fervor but also respected it.

  “He is a true man of God, our young pilgrim knight,” Gerhardt boasted to anyone in hearing.

  Another result of Elias’s seeming piety was that their small hoard of coins remained more or less intact. They used one coin for the offering when they visited Leopold’s monastery. It was a long structure made entirely of stone on a cliff overlooking the Danube and the Wachau Valley. Standing at the edge of the construction, Albrecht asked a Benedictine monk who was assigned to show them around, “I don’t understand the name of the town. What does Mölk mean?”

  The young monk shook his head. “It’s not German. Someone told me that it is from a Slav word that means ‘border.’ When this land was given to the margrave’s family, it was meant to be a sort of bulwark between Bavaria and the Magyars. Why it has a Slav name, then, instead of Ugric, I do not know.”

  Gazing out over the dramatic landscape below, with its deep gorge and glassy blue river surface, Elias continued, “And the margrave has given this land to the Benedictine order. Where is your abbey now?”

  “Lambach. And he actually gave this most generous gift to our order a decade ago. He moved to the lesser part of his castle so we could take most of it. It is a rare blessing. We hope to make it a great abbey, with a school and scriptorium, for the greater glory of God. And that is his grace’s aim as well. He is a most devout man.”

  Albrecht called from where he had wandered over closer to the edge of the rock. “My lord, see here!”

  Elias strode over, accompanied by the informative cleric. “What is it?”

  He looked where Albrecht indicated. There was a long line of boats and barges coming down the Danube. Each was packed with men, livestock, or stores in barrels and crates.

  “Conrad?” Elias wondered aloud.

  “It must be, my lord.” Albrecht counted the vessels. “A dozen so far, and methinks there are more behind.”

  The monk sighed, though his expression was excited. “I know not where we shall put them all.”

  Elias gestured to Albrecht to come. “That’s what sailcloth is for.” He pointed to one of the barges, which appeared to have rolls and rolls of a tan material. “Tents. Let’s go down to the wharf to meet them, Albrecht.”

  At the wharf, the first of the boats was pulling up and being tethered to the shore. A dockman tossed a plank to make a gangway. The first man to disembark was in full armor, with a flat-topped iron helm and the ubiquitous crusader tabard complete with red cross. Behind him, a knight carried a banner with the emblem of the Holy Roman emperor, three black lions passant on a yellow background.

  Elias, Albrecht, and all the other knights and their attendants sank to their knees in greeting. “Conrad?” Elias whispered, leaning to Albrecht’s ear.

  Albrecht nodded. “It must be.”

  They stayed kneeling as the constable of Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV passed, followed by many knights of considerable degree.

  At the feast given in his honor, Conrad stood to address a hall packed with men dressed in crusader garb. “The emperor will exult at my report of how many of you have come to join our faction. It is indeed a great and glorious quest we depart on. May God give strength to our purpose. How can he not?” The man, older but sturdy, battle scarred and grim, made the sign of the cross and took his place next to the margrave.

  Albrecht leaned forward to say in Elias’s ear, “Look over there, on the opposite wall at the bottom of the room.”

  Elias swiveled his head to peer through the throngs of servants delivering platters of food to the tables. “Well, I’ll be…,” he breathed.

  Almost out the door of the hall sat Ranulf the Peacemaker. As Elias frowned, Ranulf happened to glance over and see Elias looking at him. He grinned and raised his cup in a salute. Elias scowled, and Ranulf laughed and shrugged.

  When the many knights were called to be introduced to the constable, Elias was pleased that he was invited up, but not Ranulf.

  As he approached Conrad and went down on one knee, Leopold leaned to speak in the constable’s ear. The German nodded and turned back to Elias. “I fought with your brave father Sigismund, my son. As you may know, I was also not able to leave with the first crusaders. I did not have your father’s sad reason. And now
I hear there is a loss in your family again, both your father and your, is it your sister? I also had thought it was you yourself.”

  “No, my lord. My father did leave, though late, for the Holy Land. But my sister is a great loss. I miss her greatly,” Elias said mournfully. “But it is my aim to go share in my father’s and my… uh… my father’s vow and fulfill his pledge to His Holiness and God.” He had almost said “and my brother’s.”

  Conrad put his hand on his shoulder. “Good man. We need brave and committed men in our armies. You are most welcome in your father’s name.”

  Elias felt as though his feet trod two inches above the stone flags as he came back through the hot, noisy hall to his place. Albrecht looked questioningly at him. “He knew my father!” he said.

  “But not your brother?” Albrecht asked nervously.

  He hadn’t thought of that possibility. “Oh dear God, but no. I don’t think so. But he knew I was dead.”

  Albrecht put a finger to his lips. “Careful.” He satisfied himself no one had overheard. “Well, good. We are almost on our way, my lord.”

  The next day, the nearly completed abbey church was the site of the mass oath taking led by the constable, the margrave, the abbot who had led the prayer for Elias’s “sister’s” soul, and more besides. As one voice, they made the pledge, led by one of Conrad’s bishops. Elias’s command of Latin was unusual for a knight’s daughter, and he was able to follow what the bishop intoned.

  “I pledge my sword, my life, and my soul to Almighty God that I shall make my way to his Holy City of Jerusalem, to kneel and worship at the altar of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where his blessed Son was entombed and later rose and ascended to his heavenly Father. I will protect my fellow pilgrims and drive back and punish all those who seek to befoul the Holy Land. I will join the noble ranks of those who have gone before me and gloriously wrested the Holy City from the paynim and brought it in the name of His Holiness, the pope, back into the hands of the faithful. I pledge my honor and the surety of my soul, for God wills it. Amen.”

  The voices of the abbey choir rose in a hymn of praise. Elias von Winterkirche, knight of the crusade, almost teetered, his head was so full of the sheer glory of it all.

  In a few days, he and Albrecht, in full armor and with a new packhorse, set out to the south for the journey to Brindisi at the heel of Italy, and thence by ship to the sublime city of Constantinople.

  Chapter Seven

  A New World

  LOOKING BACK from where he sat mounted on Gauner’s broad back, Elias marveled at all the souls on the road with him. Though Conrad’s contingent was not a national one, the number of people who accompanied him was surprising. The throng he surveyed seemed to consist of men-at-arms, servants, families, traders, and the less reputable camp followers. These last made a strong contrast to the stated pledge of the knights to remain chaste, at least until they knelt in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

  Black Beast grumbled about leaving so late in the season. “We’re likely to find our arses in some mountain pass in a blizzard.”

  From their reactions, it looked like Alain and Gerhardt were in accordance with his sentiments.

  Elias turned to his squire. “Is that likely?”

  Albrecht shrugged. “I pray not.”

  At first, the traveling was fairly easy. The company headed west along the bank of the Danube for quite some time, ever with the Alpine vistas to their left. They seemed impossibly high, insurmountable, but Alain reassured him there were several passes where one could travel between the highest peaks.

  “Have you been through them?”

  Alain shook his head sheepishly. “Well, no, not exactly. I heard it from someone who has, many times.”

  “What time of year did he travel?” Elias pursued.

  Gerhardt laughed. “When sane people do it. Summer.”

  “Well, mayhap with our holy cause, God will delay the worst weather for us.”

  The three knights exchanged glances and then looked at him. “That’s why we travel with you, Elias. You keep us focused on why we are here,” Alain commented.

  “And keep us humble,” added Gerhardt.

  Whether or not God had anything to do with it, Elias’s hope was made fact. As they turned south at Raulbing, the grade rose, but as they approached the pass, they had only occasional snow flurries. What’s more, the ground was frozen enough that the little moisture did not turn into mud. The three knights began to call him “Elias the Lucky.” The name spread and stuck. Even Conrad hailed him once with that appellation.

  The two Winterkirche pilgrims shared sighs of relief as they turned away from Bavaria. For the leagues they had traveled through their home duchy, neither had been able to relax. Trying not to be obvious, they kept an eye on travelers coming the opposite way. They expected to see Reinhardt or his men searching for him. Elias could only hope his disguise and his presence amidst so many likewise dressed in chain mail and the crusader’s tabard would make him invisible to any searchers’ eyes.

  “Do you think he has given up?” he asked Albrecht, not long after the road turned toward the mountains to the south.

  His squire proposed, “Mayhap he is afraid he will find and be stuck with you?”

  Elias gave him a sardonic look. “Very droll.”

  Albrecht cocked an eyebrow. “No news about your father, my lord, from anyone along the way?”

  He shook his head. “I expected none. He was to take the western pass. Mayhap in Italy….”

  In spite of the fortunate weather, the travel was slow. It was definitely a hardship every time they had to stop to make camp for the night. They had sailcloth tents for the ranking members of the pilgrimage. The rest bundled up together as best they could, sharing body heat, blankets, and probably the pox, Elias imagined, noticing when he was on watch how the bodies in some spot or another writhed and bumped. When the chill wind blew, getting fires started was no easy task, and the hot food did not stay hot long. But the conviviality that was part of the start of any adventure was apt medicine for the discomforts and privations.

  There were some mishaps that cheer could not make endurable, however, though word of them rarely made it to the armored class riding at the fore. After being trampled by horses, wagons, and men, the path froze over again and became quite icy. More than one camp follower slipped and fell. One woman with three children tied to her with a length of rope took those children with her as she slipped, slid, and then shot over the edge of a deep ravine. Elias found out about the accident when one of the men-at-arms not far behind where he rode cried out at being given the news. He had lost wife and children in one fell swoop. Those who fell but only broke limbs were at the mercy of their companions’ willingness to carry and care for them. How many were left behind to freeze to death was not calculated.

  Near the summit of the highest pass, Elias was invited to rest in the guesthouse of a priory as a reward for the luck he seemed to bring with him. He and Albrecht appreciated the warm, dry cells and the hot and hearty food. He felt bad that the three knights who had befriended him were out in the cold. Albrecht had revealed his suspicion that they welcomed one night without their shining star. With Elias not there to model piety, they would have a chance to go to the lower camp and risk getting the pox.

  Late in the evening, Elias was invited to sit in the priory’s warming room, a circular space with a large fire in a pit in the middle. The conical roof allowed the smoke to billow out without letting in much of the cold air, except when the wind was especially hard. He was tongue-tied in the exalted company that included Conrad and other highborn knights and clerics. He was content to sit and listen and hope no one asked him a question. He thanked his own lucky stars that no one had occasion to bathe, because he had his woman’s flux and might have worried about the odor in such a tight press.

  One of the bishops asked the constable, “Where are we expecting to meet up with the other contingents, my lord?”

  Con
rad sat with his head back against the wall and his eyes closed. “We should be coming into Italy near the town of Verona. I believe we will find them camped somewhat south and east, between Verona and Bologna. We will continue along the east coast of Italy to Brindisi.”

  An older knight put in his own question. “And whom are they expecting besides Stephen of Blois?”

  Conrad lifted his head and scowled when the name elicited chuckles. “That’s quite enough of that. He’s making his pledge good.” He looked at the knight who had asked him the question. “Also Stephen, count of Burgundy, and Odo, duke of Burgundy.”

  “Burgundy. Don’t they call him Stephen the Rash?” someone asked.

  “Yes, same as his father. His older brother died in the Holy Land, you know.”

  “I hope the moniker is not accurate. Rash and a prince—that’s all we need. My lord, have you met him?”

  Conrad nodded. “I don’t know why they call him that. He’s no youngster. He seemed calm enough to me when I saw him last.”

  “What about this Odo? I am afraid I have not heard the best about him.”

  Conrad crossed his arms over his chest. “Odo the Red? No, not what you’d call a model Christian.”

  Leaning to peer around the fire’s flames and smoke, another man asked, grinning, “Do you know what happened when he tried to rob Anselm of Canterbury?”

  All eyes shot to Conrad. The constable was smiling. “Yes, but why don’t you tell the story?”

  The gazes shot back to the bishop as if they were watching a ball being kicked back and forth.

  “Well, it seems that their noble Duke Odo decided it would be a fine thing to ambush the archbishop and his train as they traveled through Burgundy on their way to Rome. When they had surrounded the party, Odo went about demanding which of the clerics was Anselm. Anselm came out to him, cheery as you please, and said something like, ‘Odo, my brother, how glad I am to embrace you!’ Odo was so startled, he let him. And there and then he pledged himself as Anselm’s servant.”