Beloved Pilgrim

by Christopher Hawthorne Moss

  In the command tent, Hugh of Montebello sounded querulous. “I say we stick to the plan and head east. It is obvious we were not meant to run away but to continue to Nixtar to free Bohemond!” He turned to Conrad. “What was the scouting east in the valley?”

  Elias knew well what Hugh wanted to hear. He wanted reassurance that the way east was safe, but only to settle the dispute. Conrad reluctantly responded, “No obstacles visible. The way was clear. There is a river almost the full length as far as we could see. We would at least have clean water.”

  His glance in answer to Raymond’s glare was resigned.

  “I know I shouldn’t like to have to face that misery again,” said Burgundy from where he sat on a campstool, having a wound looked to by a chirurgeon. “From what I saw ahead of us, there could easily have been more ambushes on the slopes ahead. Frankly, whether we want to or not, I do not see how we can get through there to Kastamonu. I am no fonder of rescuing the Norman than you are. Is there not some other choice? Ouch, careful there!” he snapped when the man treating his wound tugged too hard on the bandage he was tying.

  Raymond looked at Conrad. “Any way out of the valley farther to the east?”

  Conrad thought a minute and then shrugged. “Possibly. I think there may be another river about halfway down the valley that cuts across and into the northern mountains. Maybe there is a good pass there.” He turned to look for the guides, who knew the territory better than the pilgrims did.

  “That is true, my lords,” said one of the guides. “It is the Halys, though I cannot be certain how it flows to the sea.”

  Blois stopped swirling a goblet of wine long enough to say, “There may be a pass, there is water, and we know to head north from here is death. The choice seems obvious.”

  Burgundy concurred. “At least head east to find a new way out.”

  Their lead commander scowled. “I see no reason not to expect the Turks to lie in ambush anywhere we try to get to the sea, but the devil you don’t know.”

  IT WAS spread about the camp that the pilgrims would head east with Nixtar as their goal. From the Lombardy campfires came a chant of “Bohemond! Bohemond!” along with the sounds of musical instruments, laughter, and shrieks of general merrymaking. In the Burgundian camp, the followers so recently bereaved by their losses were already moving onto new liaisons.

  At their campsite, Alain stood and took leave of his German companions. “Given the choice of that merry lot and your gloomy faces, I think I will see if I can scare up some wine and a wench.”

  Black Beast stretched and yawned. “I am beat from the scouting foray. I’m going to curl up in my cloak and get some sleep.” He gestured to his squire. “Go ahead with Alain and Renard, Bertolf. You could use a little fun.”

  Gerhardt seemed to hesitate. “The Beast is right. I am all in, but you go have some merrymaking, Wiprecht.” The two squires jumped up from the campfire and trotted to join Alain. Gerhardt and the big knight took their leave, huddling closer to one of the commanders’ tents to take advantage of the windbreak.

  Elias and Albrecht sat looking across the fire at each other. “Do you want to go?” Elias asked him, waving a hand in the direction of the festivities.

  Albrecht grinned. “To get a wench?”

  “I suppose not. I do miss Maliha terribly.” Elias sighed and rested his chin on his palm.

  The look in Albrecht’s eyes was wistful. “I wonder,” he said slowly, “if, assuming we get back at all…. Will they be waiting for us?”

  “You doubt… um… that person?” he asked, surprised.

  “I do not know. For all I know we will get back to… um, there, and I will discover I am no longer in the picture.”

  “I am as certain as I can be that I will find Maliha waiting for me.” Elias’s voice was not that of a confident person, however. “I hope.”

  They sat on in silence.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Rampage

  THE PILGRIMS made their way east in peace, if not in comfort. They saw no Turks, neither trailing them nor watching them from the heights. If anything, their physical discomforts were magnified with nothing to distract them. The heat continued unabated, and with the wind that coursed through the west-to-east valley, grit stuck wherever there was sweat. Their eyes were red-rimmed with the irritation, their nostrils crusty with dust, and their lips cracked and bleeding. When the breeze died down, swarms of flies covered human and animal alike. It was a testament to the docility of mules and oxen that they bore the plaguing insects at all. The soldiers and knights hesitated to remove helms, even with no enemy in sight. At least the helms kept the bugs at bay, for the most part.

  The way east brought gradual confidence. Articles of armor and clothing came off. The promise of clean water ahead, heralded by a stand of trees that clearly lined the banks of a sizable stream or even a river, made the mood lighter, particularly among the camp followers. Some divested themselves of most of their clothing, sang, danced, and got into fistfights. The soldiers looked after the cavorting civilians with longing, so much did they want to join them, stretch muscles other than those required for the relentless march, to rest, to seek out willing women, to forget, just for a few hours, where they were and what they had gone through.

  The River Halys was wide but not too swift to cross. The horses did not need to be coaxed to step into the water. Rather, they had to be urged on once they stretched their muzzles to drink.

  Elias was one of the knights who gladly dismounted and waded through the water. He smiled and laughed when Gerhardt, also afoot, splashed him, wetting him from crown to toe. Though not clear, the water was sweet. If he had not been in full mail, he thought he might have lain down in the river and let it wash over him. He did not even mind that his cracked lips stung and bled as he drank.

  Across the river, its course now paralleling their trek on the south, the pilgrims found themselves still alone, with no Turks either to their side or trailing them. Perhaps Montebello had been right, Elias pondered. Perhaps Malik Ghazi would leave them be to cross through his territory. Foraging groups went out once more. There was ample water taken from the Halys. Hope rose in many hearts.

  The valley ran southwest to northeast. There was evidence of habitations nearer the river, deserted villages, little sign of cultivation. During the long days of the march, they were able to forage from the wild. Getting enough food at last, the people and the remaining animals began to look less desiccated, to build a little muscle. The pilgrims’ lined faces smoothed. Slowly, eyes stopped scanning the hilltops as constantly. Were they beyond the worst of it? Might they actually make it?

  A scout galloped up a few days into the march with news that a small village lay not far ahead. As the procession moved forward, the village at last came into view: low walls, flat roofed buildings, one spire.

  “What do you see?” one of the women who had followed her man from Austria demanded of Elias, where he sat high above on Gauner’s tall back.

  He glanced down at the woman, seeing a comely peasant carrying a listless child. “Just a village with low walls. There is some sort of grove, olive trees perhaps?” he replied. “There might be people!”

  Soon the procession’s forward progress changed to a rush toward the small village. Hundreds of pilgrims, Elias realized, were making straight for the dilapidated gate in the wall that was meant to shelter the villagers. He watched for some minutes, growing anxious at the mob ahead. Finally, he urged his mount forward. He glanced toward some of the other knights and found them pulling out of formation and hurrying forward as well. The Lombard riffraff broke out into full run, unwilling to miss out on whatever the ones before were after.

  When Elias and Albrecht reached the village, they saw, to their horror, that soldiers and noncombatants alike were ransacking it. Men and women and even some older children tore through the village with its two dozen huts and snatched up almost anything they found. One woman held a chicken in her arms and took great bites out o
f a big flatbread, her children dancing and jumping at her side to get their share. A man-at-arms used his pike to spear an old man who tried to prevent him from carrying off a jug of wine, which broke when it hit the ground as the man-at-arms put both hands on the pikestaff to thrust it forward. A group of men, some men-at-arms and some peasants, had a woman on the ground and were taking turns violating her. Two of the huts were ablaze. The grove of olive trees was full of pilgrims jumping to pull down underripe fruit, others standing in and sometimes breaking the branches as they grabbed and threw down olives.

  Elias realized, as his anger grew, that it was not so much that the villagers were so beset but that the management of provisions had fallen to the chaos. By the time this orgy was over, the pilgrims would be lucky to find anything they could take away with them for the road.

  He did not have time to chastise himself for his unworthy thoughts. Albrecht touched his shoulder and pointed. He gasped when he saw a church with the odd cross used in this part of the world, like the ones in Constantinople. A black-cassocked Eastern priest stood in the door, wringing his hands and pleading. “My God,” Elias exclaimed. “It is a Christian village!”

  He and Albrecht set about trying to prevent any further pillaging and destruction, other knights and some men-at-arms trying to herd the miscreants out of the gate and back to where the rest of the procession stood gawping. Elias noticed when he glanced their way that Father Cyril and some other priests were guiding the distraught priest of the small church back into its sanctuary. Cyril stood in front of the door with a stout cudgel, daring anyone to enter and despoil the holy place.

  “Come,” Elias called to Albrecht and led him to the church. Cyril shot him a disgusted look until he dismounted and went to stand, sword drawn, at his side. It felt good to have a specific thing to defend. Two Italian knights and a crossbowman joined them. Any looters intent on the altar treasures took one look at the armed men and the priest’s angry glare and went to find easier prizes.

  Gathering after the ransacking, pilgrims began to fight each other for the food and other spoils taken from the now-destroyed village. Those villagers left alive took refuge in the church, where the Eastern priest and some of the women of the town, more than a few weeping from being violently used, tended the wounded and wept over the dead.

  Elias and Albrecht tried to help, but they were confronted by angry stares and were sworn at and spit on. When they made their way back to their own party, they found Gerhardt, who was bitterly telling a story of the unwillingness of the leaders to make any effort first to prevent the disaster or to do anything afterward to punish transgressors. “They just put up their tents and took their ease. At least Conrad was not among them. He was herding people out of the olive grove.”

  A man-at-arms responded to the German knight’s lament that the town was a Christian one. “We left the church alone!”

  Gerhardt spat at the man, turned, and came over to Elias and Albrecht. “You expect this with a paynim village, but a Christian one?”

  Elias eyed him. “Where were Black Beast and Alain during all this?”

  He spat on the ground again. “Watching.” He strode away, leaving Elias to look for his other companions.

  Elias found Ranulf sitting with his back to one of the olive trees, taking advantage of the little shade left after the tree was stripped of many of its limbs. He slid down to sit by him. The base of the tree was thick with olives trampled by the despoilers and defenders alike. Ranulf offered him a wineskin. When Elias reached his hand out for it, then hesitated, Ranulf assured him, “It’s not the fruit of pillage. I paid a village woman for it.”

  Elias took the skin, tipped its spout to his lips, and sighed with pleasure at the wetness and the taste. Handing it back to Ranulf, he nodded thanks.

  “I would really like to get drunk right now,” he admitted.

  Ranulf toasted him with the wineskin. “As would I,” he said. They sat for a while in silence. He finally spoke. “I am sorry I ever came on this pilgrimage.”

  Elias sat with his head back and his eyes closed. “Why did you and the others come? You don’t seem like the usual pilgrims.”

  Ranulf snorted without amusement. “I take that as a compliment.” Elias opened his eyes and was waiting for an answer. “I suppose you have heard we are seeking absolution for something, eh, Elias?”

  He nodded but said no more.

  “It’s true, though probably not what anyone thinks. We did not rape nuns. We did not desecrate a church. We did nothing of the sort. In fact, it was doing nothing that we desire forgiveness for.” Ranulf took a long swig of the wine. “It was Mainz, a few years ago, when the first call went out to liberate the Holy Land from the paynim. You know, of course, that the first wave of pilgrims, the ones heeding Peter the Hermit’s call, went berserk virtually at once. They turned on Jews in their own cities, and they did the same in every Christian town they passed through on their way to Byzantium. In the Rhineland, Count Emicho of Leinengen was joined by other gangs. Yes, gangs, for they looked like no pilgrims I had ever seen.”

  He took another long draught. “The emperor called for the Jews to be protected, and so did the bishops. That’s where my men and I became involved. The burgrave, who was the military officer who worked for the burghers of Mainz, and Bishop Ruthard, after hearing of the massacres in Speyer and how in Worms the mob broke into the bishop’s palace and murdered the Jews he was protecting, called in all the soldiers they could, mostly mercenaries. After all, we will protect anyone if the price is right, eh?”

  Elias waited while Ranulf took a moment to collect his thoughts.

  “They said that Peter the Hermit had a letter from the Jews in his own town telling other Jews to provide all the supplies the crusaders wanted or they might find themselves under attack. The Jews of Mainz gave Emicho a king’s ransom in gold, and the bishop begged him to pass the town by. Emicho fulfilled his promise by turning a blind eye to what happened next. The gangs went into the city, and many of the people there joined in the slaughter. They even invaded the bishop’s palace, as they had in Worms, and killed every one of the Jews sheltered inside. They made a show of forcing the Jews to convert to Christianity, but nothing was going to prevent the slaughter. My mercenaries were hired by Bishop Ruthard to help the burghers of Mainz keep order as best we could. It was astonishing to hear him and other Christian leaders protecting the Jews. I suppose it was because it was more than the usual riot. Usually it’s gangs of young men who are drunk and trawl the streets of the Jewry to look for people to assault. This time the victims were the whole tribe. And we both know Jews can be quite important if a nobleman or bishop needs money for some reason. Sometimes when it comes to paying back the loans, they may preach themselves blue in the face that Jews are in league with the devil and all that.”

  Ranulf went on, “There was a young woman with four little children, a Christian who had converted when she married a Jew. Her husband had been dragged into an alley and beaten senseless. He died of his wounds. This woman, Rachel she was called, had been so kind to us, my men and me. When the Hermit’s party was on its way to Mainz, I promised her I would protect her, keep her and her children from harm. Then when the pilgrims arrived and started to burn the Jewry and kill every Jew they could find, we had enough to do to get them back under control. The others, Sebastiano and Leif, told me I was mad to worry about Rachel, that it was more important we protect the churches and the burghers’ homes and shops. I finally could not stand it anymore. I made my way through the rioting mob to Rachel’s house.”

  Ranulf stopped talking and stared out to some unknown memory. His voice broke.

  “She was there. She had killed her four children and then herself. Cut their throats like sacrificial goats. Rather than letting them be torn apart and her ravished, she chose to take them with her as she died. I went into her house to warn them the roof was close to catching from a fire next door, and there they lay, scattered on the floor. The littlest one l
ooked for all the world as if he had curled up on the floor and gone to sleep, save for the bloody puddle he lay in. The other children had the most horrible looks on their faces. Two were crumpled on the floor.

  “I found myself wondering how she got her children to wait patiently while the others were killed. The fourth child was in her arms, as if she had clutched him there so he could not escape. She herself lay with the tracks of tears on her cheeks, her own throat cut, the knife on the floor where it fell.”

  Ranulf buried his face in his hands. “I had let her down. I had broken my promise.” His words were muffled in his palms. “After that, it took Sebastiano, Leif, and Thomas some time to find me. They finally did, in a brothel, drunk out of my mind. I stayed drunk for months. It was only when I heard that the Holy Father had called for another pilgrimage to support Baldwin and the others in Jerusalem that I saw a way to make it right with God again.”

  Elias laid a hand on his arm. “And the others? Why did they come?”

  Ranulf looked at him. He had tears in his eyes. “Out of love and loyalty for me, I suppose. And for my sin, one of them is dead. And he never even got to Palestine, no less Jerusalem.”

  They sat quietly together in that place for some time.

  Finally, Elias spoke. “What now? Continue east?”

  Ranulf shrugged. “What else? Go make more mothers kill their children rather than face what we bring with us.”

  AS LONG as they followed the Halys, which ran just to the south of them, the hunger and thirst that had claimed so many of their numbers eased. Though deserted, the small settlements and clumps of farm buildings were set like jewels in rich and verdant country, with all the pilgrims could have wanted, save for livestock. Wherever the people had gone, like earlier, they had taken their animals with them. What the pilgrims had left of the meat taken from mules and horses that had died in the long, hot, thirsty trek north was meted out in stews and potage. The one benefit of the terrible, dry heat was that the recovered meat, cut into strips and spread out on the cargo of the carts, dried thoroughly and quickly and therefore lasted longer than it might have. With the meat thus tenderized and chopped small, the pilgrims’ stomachs could tolerate what had been so harsh on them before.