The people encircled the area where Elias remembered one of the noble leaders of the pilgrimage had his tent. The people standing between him and the tent were shaking their fists in the air, arguing with each other in clumps, shouting abuse and obscenities. When Blois and Burgundy came up, Elias, who had joined Ranulf, took advantage of the crowd parting to follow them.
In the space before the tent, which belonged to the supreme leader of the pilgrimage, Count Raymond of Toulouse and Stephen entered the circle of angry faces to find their worst suspicions confirmed. Raymond and all of his Provençal knights were gone. The tent was still there. When Blois walked to it and pulled aside the entry flap, Elias could see that the furnishings remained, the camp bed, the carpets, a couple chests, but there was no sign of the great hero of Antioch.
“Abandoned!” a high-ranking cleric screamed, shaking his fist in Burgundy’s face. He proceeded to drown the man with invective laced with ecclesiastical threats and condemnation. Stephen winced and turned away without attempting to respond.
Blois came back to him from the flap of the tent. He went to the duke’s side, both their backs to the cleric. They spoke agitatedly for a while, too far from Elias for him to hear their words. Elias glanced over at Burgundy, who had immediately started arguing with the cleric, whose face was still pale but rigid as a stone carving. As Elias watched, Burgundy’s face began to soften, his lips, cheeks and eyes drooping. Finally, he slumped visibly and nodded at Burgundy. Elias realized what they were discussing and shivered.
As he left the mass of people, he saw Conrad making his way in.
By midmorning, the camp was in an uproar. Knights from all factions packed up their gear and prepared to leave. Ranulf joined Elias and Albrecht.
As soon as Elias saw him, he dashed to him. “We are retreating!” he called, his voice a mix of disbelief and guilty relief. “Will the Turks let us go?”
Ranulf did not reply. Instead, he walked to where Albrecht was sitting up and gazed long and dourly at him.
“Well?” Elias demanded.
He remained silent. His eyes swept the camp. The noncombatants were as busy packing up as the knights and the infantry. His look was speculative.
Elias grew quiet, watching and then following his eyes. “Oh God, you aren’t thinking….” His voice trailed off in horror.
Ranulf nodded. “I am afraid so.”
Elias’s voice sounded like a young boy’s, almost like a woman’s. “What do we do?”
“What is there to do?” he asked softly, after a short silence.
Elias looked about, then down at Albrecht. Finally, he looked at the people in the camp, the women, children, old men, and old women, and the wounded. Again, he voiced the question Albrecht had asked him. “Will the Turks let us go?” This time it was not a demand. This time it was spoken without a spark of hope.
Ranulf put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “They will just be glad to see the back of us. They will let us go,” he said with a certainty his voice did not reflect. He bowed his head. “Has Conrad said anything about his plans?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been here all morning, and no one has come in here to tell us what is going on.” Elias looked at Albrecht, deep lines of worry etching his features.
Ranulf leaned in and slapped Albrecht on his arm. “I had better go get my horse ready. Shall we try to meet here before we set out? I have no place with any of the armies anymore. And I know you two will want to leave together.”
“Here is a good place. I will get the horses ready and come back. I want to help these families prepare to leave.”
Ranulf nodded sadly. “I will as well.”
A SHORT distance away, the Turks and Danishmend were preparing for whatever the day would bring. At first the preparations for departure looked no different from preparations for battle, but as it became apparent the pilgrims were getting ready to retreat, the sound of paynim cheers broke out all up and down the camp. The sound was the final humiliation.
Leading Gauner carefully through the emptying soldiers’ camp, Elias, who could not find Albrecht’s horse, Carlchen, saw the beginning of the exodus. He frowned as he saw Blois set out north with his household knights and noble clerics ensconced in their midst. Not even a benediction, he thought.
Only a little while later, as he helped an old woman strap her meager belongings to a sumpter mule, he saw Burgundy and his party ride off after them. The infantry was still preparing to leave. Men came among their families to help them. He had not seen Conrad yet.
“Elias!” a voice called from behind him. He whirled to see Black Beast hurrying through the milling crowd of camp followers. “Conrad says to get back to our camp. We’re heading for the Black Sea.”
Elias stood rigid with the news that Conrad had joined the retreat. He did not blame him. It would be suicide to stay, but some part of him expected him, wanted him, to take a more heroic stand than had the Franks, Normans, and Italians. He looked into Black Beast’s face. “I’m staying with these people, the wounded. They need our help.”
The Beast scowled at him. “These would not be the first wounded to be left behind. How does it serve to damn ourselves along with them?”
A spark in Elias’s eye accompanied his words. “It seems to me that not helping them is what will damn us.”
Black Beast flinched. In a quieter voice, he told him, “Gerhardt is dead. Alain already left with the Burgundians.”
Elias looked away, his face contorted. “How did Gerhardt die?”
“I found out that he took a wound as we rode back from that pitiful little village. He never even got to fight. He died after we got here. I am surprised you did not know. I suppose you were with those mercenaries.”
Elias lifted his chin. “You mean my friends. Yes, but now all of them but their captain are dead as well.”
The Beast stared at him from under his bushy black eyebrows. He reached out his hand. “And soon you will be as well, young Elias. It has been an honor to be your comrade, if not one of your friends.”
Elias felt an impulse to soothe him, to reassure him he was his friend, but he steeled himself. He reached out and they stood, clasping each other’s hands, looking directly into each other’s eyes. Each stepped back and made a sharp salute. Black Beast gave him one last look of regret and spun and walked away.
“What are you doing, Elias?” Albrecht, who stood unevenly at his side, asked.
Elias shot him a glare. “That’s ‘my lord,’ if you please.”
Albrecht took an involuntary step backward. He was about to say something else when they both heard the ululating battle cries of the Seljuk.
The crowd of noncombatants started to scream. Some began to look desperately for somewhere to run. The fighting men who had come back to their families seemed unable to decide whether to get back to their positions or stay and try to protect them. Children, separated from their parents in the sudden panic, stood and wailed.
“Dear God in Heaven,” Elias breathed. “They are attacking. Quick, get up on Gauner. I will mount behind you.”
“No! Take my horse!” Ranulf came up to them as quickly as he could make his way through the panicking crowds.
“You need your horse!” Elias screamed back.
“No, I am staying to guard the rear. There are plenty of horses without riders. I can get one.” He spun and picked up a woman holding a small child and hoisted them both to his saddle. “If you take my horse now, you and Albrecht can help a few of these people to escape.”
The woman, terrified, twisted out of his arms as he landed atop the horse, slid off the other side, and ran screaming away from them. Ranulf growled but urged Elias to mount Gauner, then helped Albrecht onto his own horse. Going back to Elias, he reached into the front of his brigandine and drew out a small sack. He handed it to him once he was in the saddle. “This is Sebastiano’s ring. I don’t have anything from Leif or Thomas. But there’s gold in the purse too. Give it to some church for masses for R
achel’s soul. But don’t tell them she was a Jew.”
“Get up behind me, Ranulf. Gauner can carry us both.”
“No, you need to be free to use your weapons. If you can save someone, good, but I need to stay and protect these people.” He slapped Gauner’s rump, then turned and ran away.
Gauner danced around in a circle, reacting to the slap. As Elias looked at Ranulf’s retreating back, he lifted his eyes. “Oh my God!”
The Turks were hurtling toward the camp. The men-at-arms had gone, though as he looked over, he could see the rear of their lines heading north. He realized the people in the camp had no hope. They would be cut down to a person.
“Albrecht, let’s go!” he screamed as he hunted for someone to rescue. A wounded soldier limped to him. “Albrecht, take this man on your horse!” he shouted as he kicked Gauner to the woman who had fled Ranulf. The woman now understood and let herself be pulled up behind Elias. He led the way in the direction of the infantry, allowing himself one glance over his shoulder. He saw Ranulf standing firm, facing the onslaught of Turks, his sword raised to meet them. Elias could not watch what he was sure would happen next.
The paynim forces rode into the camp, taking time to butcher all the men and old women as they tore through it. Elias and his companions did not see it, but they could hear the screams and cries, the triumphant shouts of the enemy. A number of mounted men corralled and restrained all the remaining women and children. Old women and men were useless, more trouble than they were worth, but the younger women and children would fetch good prices in the slave markets. Some of the women would wind up as concubines or even wives of Seljuk and Danishmend commanders.
As Elias and Albrecht tore around the infantry with their burdens to try to regain the mounted Germans, those enemy horsemen not preoccupied with the spoils of the camp pursued the Christian foot soldiers. These men, with no better means to escape than their own weary legs, started to drop everything they were carrying. From helms to armor to weapons and finally to their valuables and prizes, they abandoned anything they thought would slow them down. All of it was left behind to enrich the Turks. What they did not drop did as well anyway, as the enemy caught up and cut down everyone they could catch. The screams of fury and pain matched the volume of the shouts of triumph and bloodthirsty glee.
Of the thousands who had arrived in Byzantium, mostly knights escaped. The infantry, the camp followers, and the common clerics were slaughtered or carried off to become slaves. The total survivors could not have numbered much more than six score, mostly nobles and their households. Among them, the only peasants were the few whom knights like Elias and Albrecht took pity on.
While Raymond and his party found a ship at the Byzantine port of Bafra that would take them fairly quickly to Constantinople, the rest of the leaders, with the few who survived in their parties, fought their way across the Halys and then headed north to the town of Sinope. There they turned west along the coastal road toward the Sublime Port.
Once beyond the immediate threat of the pursuit, Elias and Albrecht rode silently. The wounded man Albrecht had taken onto his horse located friends and went to travel with them. The woman with the small child reached around Albrecht to try to help him, as his thigh wound was bleeding and extremely painful.
Elias rode alone. He thought of Ranulf, of Thomas, Leif, and Sebastiano, and the knight, Gerhardt. He wondered if Black Beast and Alain had made it out alive. He thought of the golden city ahead and of his sweet Maliha. He wondered how the emperor would receive them, their pilgrimage collapsed in total disaster, and what was more, dishonor. He let the tears fall as they might. In his mind’s eye was a plain littered with hundreds, even thousands of the dead: soldiers, knights, clerics, peasants, and a few noble mercenaries.
Chapter Seventeen
In a Lover’s Arms
IN LATE September of 1101, what was left of the pilgrims crossed the Bosporus and limped into the city of Constantinople. As Elias learned from Andronikos later, the leaders found at Raymond’s villa that his door was not open to them. Further, the basileus was far too busy to grant any of them an audience.
As they approached the imposing walls of Constantinople, Elias turned his attention to Albrecht’s words, “I am glad after all this that your brother Elias never came here.”
Elias started to ask him why, but then the enormity of the tragedy—or was it farce?—rushed in on him. “I know what you mean. It’s bad enough that you and I had to see it. I think my brother’s sense of honor was more, oh, I don’t know—refined?”
“And you think he would have stayed to die at Merzifon?” Albrecht inquired.
Elias smiled sardonically. “I honestly don’t know what he would have done. But as odd as it sounds, I am glad he died with his ideals intact.”
They rode on for a few minutes before Albrecht spoke again. “Can you believe it’s only been a year since we left Winterkirche?”
Elias looked startled. “Oh my God, you are right. Was that even us? It feels like it happened to two other people.”
“After a fashion,” Albrecht observed, “it did.”
Looking at his squire thoughtfully, Elias admitted, “I know I am different. I was always a man in my heart and soul, but now I am a man in the eyes of the world. But you?”
Albrecht cast an ironic smile at him. “When we left I was Elias’s love. Now I am the lover of a Byzantine prince.”
“You don’t feel bad about that, do you? You know my brother would want you to be happy.”
“You said that before, and I know you are right,” Albrecht said. “I just mean that a year ago I could not even imagine such a thing.”
Elias nodded. “I know what you mean. It’s daunting to think of it all. How different we are. How much has happened.”
“You know, my lord, I find it all so overwhelming I just don’t want to think that much about it.”
From the saddle of his mount, Elias leaned to his squire and touched his arm.
Albrecht eyed him. “What are you going to do now?”
Grimacing, Elias said, “I don’t know. I know what I want to do. I want to bury myself in Maliha’s arms and never stir from her. But my vow….”
He was surprised by a derisive snort from Albrecht. “After what the knights did back there, I am awestruck that you still feel bound by that oath. They took it too, you know.”
Elias had no answer and simply rode on.
Once within the walls of the city, Albrecht and Elias split from the main body of knights and followed familiar streets to the villa of Andronikos Komnenos. They found the entire household waiting within the courtyard. When Andronikos saw Albrecht slumped in his saddle, feverish, he cried out in alarm and directed servants to help the squire down and carry him to his own massive chambers.
Elias barely saw this, for next to Andronikos stood a young woman with honey-colored eyes, holding a small boy. Tacetin wriggled out of his mother’s arms and pushed his way through the servants to dash to Elias. “Elli!” he cried.
Elias, who had quickly dismounted, knelt in the courtyard with his arms wide, folding the child in them when he threw himself against his chest. He felt moisture on the boy’s dark curls and realized it came from his own tears. He took Tacetin’s head between his hands and kissed his face repeatedly.
“Elias,” a velvety voice said quietly. He looked up into Maliha’s precious eyes. Stiffly, he dragged himself to a standing position and reached to take his lover in his arms. Maliha leaned into him, laid her cheek on Elias’s shoulder, and Elias held her tight, savoring her feel and scent. When they looked again into each other’s faces, each was wet with tears. They tilted their faces to each other, and their lips met and held in a long kiss.
Like any soldier who returned from the horror of war, Elias had no interest in delaying time alone with his beloved. He followed Maliha to their shared chamber. He saw immediately that Maliha had been living in it. He waited as Maliha asked her nurse to take Tacetin.
Wh
en they were alone, he took Maliha’s face in his hands gently and asked, “He has a nurse now?”
Honey eyes sparkled into Elias’s. “Master has been most generous. There is so much to tell. So much to ask….” Elias’s lips cut off her words, hard and hungry on hers. Maliha had to notice how dry and cracked they were, but she made no complaint. Elias felt her relax in his embrace and started to move them both to the bed. When the side of the bed hit the back of her knees, she went limp, letting Elias take her weight and lower her gently onto the bed.
Elias groaned and got to his knees next to Maliha. “I have not bathed in months,” he sighed, pulling his gorget off, then his mail shirt up to wriggle out of it.
Maliha shared the task by unlacing the mail britches and pushing them down. “I want you however you are, my love.”
Elias knelt over her, eyes again brimming with tears. “It was horrible, so horrible I want to forget it.”
“Let me help you try,” Maliha begged.
Elias sank down on top of her, pressed his lips to her throat, and lost himself in the healing warmth of making love to Maliha.
Later, while servants carried in the tub and hot water, the steward came to the door and bowed. “My master asks if the noble lord be so kind as to join him for a light meal this evening in his chambers.”
“Lord Elias and I would very much like that,” Maliha said to the servant, who bowed and backed out of the chamber.
Maliha helped him slip the robe off his shoulders, tut-tutted at bruises and abrasions on his arms and back, and assisted him into the tub.
“Get in with me,” Elias asked.
Maliha stripped her own robe off and stepped with him into the tub. She settled between Elias’s legs, her back against his breasts. Elias put his arms around her and began to stroke Maliha’s full breasts, now soapy and oily, and to tweak her nipples. Maliha wriggled with pleasure. She reached up to pull Elias’s head down for a soul-searching kiss.
Beloved Pilgrim Page 29
