Amid the laughter, one man asked, “Is the archbishop that crafty?”
The man who had told the story raised his eyebrows. “Or is Odo that stupid?”
Elias inserted, “Maybe he was just embarrassed.”
The response was more laughter, but also some considering nods.
He added, “We call him Odo the Red? Maybe he blushes a lot.”
The laughter increased. Two men sitting near him slapped him on the back. “Rich!” one complimented.
Conrad, smiling, looked at him. “Laugh now, but don’t forget to stop when we get to Verona.”
Bowing his head in humility, Elias nevertheless asked him a question. “What of Stephen of Blois? I knew he ran away from the siege of Antioch. But he can’t be the only one who did.”
The laughter subsided quickly. No one looked at him or, for that matter, met each other’s eyes.
“Lord, you said he is fulfilling his pledge…,” Elias went on.
Conrad sat up and cast his eyes about the room. “Young Elias is right.” He relented and looked at him. “We ridicule him because of why he is fulfilling his pledge, though I do not think you should believe all you hear.” He paused. “They say his wife threw him out of the castle, so ashamed she was of him.”
“Rightly so,” a voice muttered.
“But you can understand that a man like Blois doesn’t want people to think he is ruled by his wife. Even if he is the conqueror’s kin.”
Conrad shot another scowl in the direction of a man who interjected, “I think the expression is ‘henpecked.’”
One part of going abroad as a man Elias did not treasure was the nearly perpetual nastiness he heard about wives. He occasionally made a half-hearted attempt to present a more positive interpretation of wifely behavior, but all that earned him was teasing and taunts. “Mama’s boy” was one of the polite expressions. This time, he essayed more forcefully, “Is it not the role of a wife to inspire and urge her husband to fulfill his holy vows?”
A few men rolled their eyes, while a few cast them down, but not a few looked chastened. Conrad’s bishop rebuked, “Our young knight reminds us of their duty to serve God the Father. It is not the shame of a man that his wife corrects him, but that he needs must be corrected. If a man wants a silent wife, mayhap he should consider how his conduct will earn her silence.”
Well, it wasn’t quite what Elias had intended, but it was something. As the group filed out of the warming room, he heard a man mutter, “Prig.” Maybe it’s time to loosen up, he thought.
AT LAST the slope was more downward than upward, the snow disappeared, and the views south stretched out bare but dry. Olive groves surrounded little villages. The town of Verona was walled. With the host that camped outside those walls, it looked as if it were under siege.
A man in rich armor strode up to welcome Conrad as the party from Germany and Austria rode up. “They’ve closed the gates,” he complained in a high, vexatious voice.
“I am glad to see you as well, Stephen. Why have they closed them?”
The man Elias guessed might be Stephen of Blois frowned. “They say our men cannot be trusted.” He waited while the constable’s men helped him lower his weary bones to the ground from where he rode high up on his destrier’s saddle.
“With what?” the German asked.
Another man cut in, “Much of anything. Wives and daughters, mostly.” He walked forward. “Hello, Conrad. So you made it over the Alps.”
Conrad took the proffered hand. “Good to see you, Stephen.”
Some distance away, Alain leaned to Elias. “The first man is Stephen of Blois. The second is Stephen of Burgundy.”
“They are right, but so what? Who are they to interfere?”
Conrad retorted, “With holy pilgrims?”
Stephen of Blois made a sweeping gesture. “Come on, we don’t need to stand out here in the sun quarreling in front of the men.” He led the three men over to where his own sizable pavilion stood, and all three ducked inside.
The combined armies remained near Verona long enough to rest the German parties’ horses and to finish stripping the farms outside Verona bare of all provisions. Elias met many of the Burgundian and Frankish knights when he went with Alain and his other two knightly friends to make the rounds of the established camps.
“Mes amis, ma foi, what joy to see you again. Michel, have you stopped buggering the little boys on your estate? And you, Olivier, how’s that growth on your cock?” The men appeared to take the insults in the lighthearted spirit in which Alain intended them. “Come, meet our new friends. You already know that ugly sod Black Beast. This is Gerhardt. Be sure you stay upwind of him. And this, mes amis, is Elias von Winterkirche. He’s still wet behind the ears and too holy for his own good, but he has proved lucky for us.”
CIRCULATING THROUGH the many factions encamped there, Elias sought tidings of his father. None seemed to know of him, save by reputation. “Mayhap if he went by way of Milan, he took ship there,” one cleric suggested. “Or he went with the later group, the one led by his grace, the archbishop. He could already be in the Holy Land, but he came not through the eastern cities of Italia.”
Finally, restitution to the town was negotiated, at Conrad’s and belatedly Blois’s insistence; disputes about who got to ride where in the assemblage were settled to simmering; and the armies, with the addition of several women from Verona, set out for Bologna.
The streets of Bologna were crowded and festive with the market-day press. Elias and Albrecht found getting from one side of the street to another required all their brute strength and still took far too long. Elias turned to his squire to suggest they return to the inn they had found, but he could see no sign of him. He stood on the tips of his toes and scanned what he could see of the tops of heads, but nothing looked either like Albrecht’s hat or, if it had been knocked off or stolen, his chestnut curls. He was about to step up on a crate when a hand grasped his arm and pulled his away.
“Elias, my good friend! I owe you for that tavern bill. Come with me and I will make amends.”
It was the leader of the mercenary band, Ranulf. Elias had occasionally seen him and his ragtag crew on the journey south but had no reason to speak to him or any of his soldiers. “But… my squire?”
Ranulf pulled him along, brooking no objection. “Your squire? You don’t need him and his purse. This is on me this time.” He grinned sideways at him. “Is he your squire or your nursemaid? Or”—and now he leered—“your leman?” He laughed when Elias looked affronted. “Never mind. Where I am taking you, you need no lemans anyway.”
Elias was unsure whether to worry more about Albrecht and what he would think of his disappearance, or just where this blackguard was taking him. It seemed to be a place the man knew well, for he sailed through the crowd unerringly, down the street, into an alley that was little less crowded than the street, and then down an even narrower alley. Elias felt his shoe sink into something squishy, but it was so dark he could not see his own feet when he looked down. The constant rubbing of bodies against his own made him worry about two things: the loss of his purse, and that someone, maybe even Ranulf, would detect the lack of a most manly body part under his clothing.
He was relieved when Ranulf propelled him into a covered walkway that was all but empty. His first action was to check his purse. It was still there. Then he made sure his clothing covered everything that must be.
“You look wonderful.” Ranulf gave him another amused look. “Besides, they don’t care how you look.”
“Who doesn’t care?” Elias demanded.
Ranulf did not reply, as at that point he pushed open a rough door that seemed to go into an undercroft of a very old sagging wooden structure. After passing through a low door with a sign showing seven coins, Elias found himself suddenly in a dark, low-ceilinged space that was overly warm and extremely smelly. It was almost more loud than warm or smelly. It was not as packed as the street, but he could hear many voices,
some men’s, some women’s, some raised in song.
“What is this place?” he protested, but he could not hear his own voice, and no less could Ranulf have heard him. Ranulf pulled Elias through the throng to a table in the back. As his eyes adjusted, he recognized the mercenary band. “You!” he exclaimed.
“Yes, us! Aren’t you happy to see us? Welcome to the Settaducati!” Ranulf shouted in his ear. He gestured for Thomas to move over on the bench and then shoved Elias next to the silent man. Ranulf slid in next to him, reviving his fears of close body contact. He wished he had worn his gambeson.
Sebastiano was across from Elias again, his dark face sporting a smile. It somehow looked more sinister than his former scowl. “So you brought the lad, Ranulf. I suppose you thought it was time the little saint lost his virginity.” The Italian raised his cup of wine in salute.
“What makes you think I am a virgin?” His head held high, he protested, “I am no virgin!” He caught his breath. Did they know he was a woman?
“All right, all right, so you are no virgin.” Ranulf winked at Sebastiano. “So tonight will be your second time. Or fortieth. What does it matter? I am paying for it.”
Elias stared at him, disbelieving. “You are paying for me to sleep with a whore?”
“Sleep, fuck, play dice with, whatever you want.”
Elias paled. “But I can’t!”
Sebastiano commented, “You just said you had, so you must be able to.”
Elias went scarlet this time. “I mean I pledged my chastity! For the pilgrimage. I must keep myself pure.”
The two men erupted into guffaws, and even Thomas smiled.
Ranulf shrugged. “Have it your way. That was a damned silly pledge, if you ask me. You are going to the Holy Land to be killed and have your guts fed to the carrion birds and worse. What harm is there in a little fucking beforehand?” He looked up and called, “Giuliana! A cup and wine here!”
Elias scowled at him.
“Little prig,” Sebastiano muttered.
He jerked aside when a woman squeezed in beside him and Leif, whose own attention was on a slip of a girl he had on his lap and was tickling, making her scream with laughter. Elias found himself staring at the serving woman, who leaned forward to pour wine from a pitcher. There before his eyes, and barely obscured by the woman’s tight bodice, were two magnificent breasts, the likes of which Elias had never seen before on anyone other than some old peasant woman, and these were taut, full, and not hanging to her waist. His jaw dropped.
Ranulf laughed. “This is Giuliana, and her face is several inches above where you are looking.”
Leif finally noticed the newcomer and, leaning in front of Giuliana, said to Ranulf, “It looks like your suspicion of our fey young companion was groundless, my friend.”
“Indeed,” the leader chortled. “In that case, we needs must settle your own guess, my pale-eyed friend.”
Elias could not turn his face away from the delicious prospect, though he had to look up now as the breasts were raised when the woman stood. “What guess?”
A rich contralto with a musical lilt replied from somewhere above the breasts. “That you have never been with a woman, signore.” The voice held a smile, its German heavily accented.
Elias’s eyes went up, traveling from those Alps and their deep valley to a white throat, and thence to a pair of lips so red and rich they could only be matched by the dark, lustrous eyes with which she sized up Elias.
Sebastiano spoke to the woman in Italian. She shook her head and replied in a peevish voice.
Ranulf reached to his belt and fumbled in a drawstring pouch. He produced a gorgeous gold ring with a small but brilliant red stone. “Not even for this?”
Giuliana’s eyes were as riveted on the gem as Elias’s had been on her breasts, where they again rested. “But I do not like to be their first. They come all over you and then they weep. They fall in love and fight the men you take to your bed.” Nevertheless, she asked, “Is it real?”
“See for yourself.” Ranulf grinned and handed the ring to her.
The woman examined it, leaning to a candle, and then bit the stone. “Jesu Christe!” she swore.
“I told you,” Ranulf retorted. “Now how about it?”
Giuliana eyed Elias. “You promise not to get your spunk all over me?”
Elias nodded dumbly. What little consciousness that remained told him he had no spunk to spill, so it was no lie.
“And do you promise not to fall in love and think you own me?” the woman persisted.
In Elias’s ears, it was an angel chorus, but something seemed to be expected, so he nodded again.
“I promise,” he breathed.
“What did he say?” Giuliana demanded. “I couldn’t hear him.”
Ranulf grinned. “He said he wants to fuck you.”
“I should think that is obvious,” Sebastiano remarked. “And suck and bugger and lick your feet and whatever else you will allow.”
“All right,” the woman said dubiously. “But later. I have a customer who gets in first.”
Ranulf reached out and deftly plucked the ring from her hand. “The whole night. Or nothing.”
She frowned. Looking over the heads at the nearby tables, she studied a man who seemed to be starting to fall asleep. “Well, all right, then. My customer appears to be about to pass out, anyway. Come along, lover boy. Let’s get this over with.”
“The whole night!” Ranulf repeated, pulling back his hand with the ring clutched in it as she reached for it again.
She rolled her eyes and shrugged. “All right. The whole night. But he won’t last that long.”
Ranulf winked. “Then you will have the night off. And get paid.” He handed her the ring.
Elias’s eyes followed the woman’s retreating form.
“Where did you get that ring?” Sebastiano asked.
“I stole it off a bishop,” Ranulf answered, eliciting nothing but a nod from the Italian. “Well, what are you waiting for? She’s over there waiting for you.” This was addressed to Elias.
Feeling the man’s rough poke in his ribs, Elias, his mouth still open, stood and looked, first at Ranulf, and then at the woman who stood at the back door of the place. Giuliana shook her head, then laughed and ran one palm provocatively over her breasts. A burst of obscene noises and comments greeted the gesture. Elias felt as if he were tethered to the woman by an invisible thread. He advanced, bumping into the table as if he thought he could pass through it.
“Oh, for Thor’s sake,” Leif swore and stood. He came around and took Elias’s shoulder, guiding him through the spaces between tables until he stood in front of Giuliana. “Here, before he comes in his britches. Take him.”
Elias let the woman take his arm and propel him out the door into a courtyard. It was damp and full of refuse, but if Elias had to recount his evening’s experiences, he would describe it as a garden of fragrant flowers. Giuliana guided him to a stairway, up to a gallery, then across the creaking and irregular floorboards to a door.
“In here,” she directed.
Elias stared into her face and shook his head. The woman sighed and shoved him in. She shut the door behind his.
“Do you want a light?” The woman’s voice sounded in the darkness.
Blind, Elias asked, “A light? What for?”
A deep, musical chuckle told him where the whore was. “So you can see me, you dimwit.”
“Oh.” Elias protested, “But I can’t….”
A flint sparked, and the scraps of linen in a tinderbox caught and flamed. Giuliana tipped a lantern so the wick caught. She blew out the flame in the tinderbox and replaced the horn cover on the lamp so a dull golden glow lit the space between her and Elias. She set the lamp on a table and looked at him. With her his hands on her hips, she said, “Can’t what? Can’t get it up? That’s my job.” She came to Elias and pressed her magnificent breasts against the front of his tunic. Elias closed his eyes and moaned. The woman re
ached down to put a hand on Elias’s groin. Elias felt his mound cupped and moaned again.
“Oh!” Giuliana exclaimed. She felt more searchingly. “You are a woman! Do they know? I will get them good if this is a jest to make a fool of me.”
Elias stepped back. “No, no, they don’t know. And please, I beg you, don’t tell anyone. It’s a secret.”
Giuliana smiled gently. “Clearly.” She looked Elias up and down. “But why do you pretend to be a man?”
Elias swallowed. “I—I am a man.” He had had no reason to concoct an explanation for what others might see as a masquerade.
Giuliana eyed him skeptically. “Not if you have a cunt, you aren’t.”
Now Elias subsided, his shoulders slumping. “This”—he indicated his body—“is a woman’s body. But in my heart and soul, I know I am a man.”
Surprisingly, the whore accepted the explanation. “Oh, I knew that some men feel they are really women. One of my girls at the bordello is like that. Clementina. There are plenty of customers who want to fuck her. But I did not know there were women who believe they are men.” She had an intrigued smile on her full lips. “Well, what do you want to do?”
Elias looked about the dim room. He could just make out a bed with the covers cast about. There was little else. The single window was shuttered and only a thin sliver of light showed where it was sagging on its hinges. “Can we just stay here? All night? So they think I… you know…?”
Giuliana gave him a wicked grin. “We can do better than that. You can’t fuck me, but we can still have some fun. In fact, for once it will be fun for me.”
She came forward and pressed her breasts against Elias’s again. She reached up with her arms and, putting them around Elias’s neck, pulled his stunned face down to hers. She put her lips on Elias’s and took in a deep, sighing breath. “Mmmm,” she murmured, and slid her tongue into Elias’s mouth.
“But… but… it’s a sin!” Elias protested.
Giuliana stepped back and put her hands on her hips. “Who says?”
Beloved Pilgrim Page 13
