Sylvia

by Bryce Courtenay

  It was customary when he preached for me to sing at the commencement and the end. I sang the first Gloria well enough but somewhat lacking in spirit. The absent Father Hermann would then say a prayer to bless the message to come. Now, in his absence, Nicholas waited, fidgeting and impatient for the Gloria to end, and then launched immediately into his sermon as if the words were rioting within him and demanding to come out. When he preached, he was as a being completely possessed and none could resist his voice in which he had that same power to throw to the multitude that I had first heard on the occasion of the Miracle at St Martin’s square.

  His message was the story of the escape of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt. He began to paint a picture of the pursuing Egyptians, the devil’s infidels, that was so awesome that the children shook in fright. ‘The faces of the enemies of God,’ Nicholas cried, ‘were smeared with the blood of Israelite children taken for sacrifice, then too, each deadly spear they carried they’d dipped in infant blood so it would know the taste and hunger for more of this flesh of children!’ Then he went on to describe how when Moses reached the Red Sea, the children of Israel turned to see the dust clouds of the pursuing Egyptians on the horizon and cried out in mortal fear, ‘Today this water runs with our blood!’ How Moses held his mighty stave aloft and called out to God to save the children of Israel. The gathered children in the square cried out in ecstasy when Nicholas told how God’s hand pushed through the rolling clouds and with His forefinger dipped into the incarnadine sea and drew it across the breadth of the great waters. They gasped as he told how the waves reared up behind God’s rippling finger, hanging motionless as they towered a full league up into the heavens.

  His voice gathering in speed and urgency, Nicholas continued. ‘And ever closer came the infidel hordes while the children of Israel began to cross the dry seabed. Then a mighty roaring and thunder of hooves was heard as the chariots drew nearer and nearer, ten thousand entering that same God-drawn road across the gaping waters before the fleeing Israelites had a chance to entirely reach the other side. With cries of triumph and blood-curdling yells, the Egyptians, whipping their horses so that they foamed at the mouth, began closing in. The hapless children of God ran and stumbled, shouting in terrible anguish as the thundering war chariots were now near close enough to throw the deadly spears that hungered for more of the flesh of little children. The snorting of the wild-eyed horses was clearly to be heard when the last Israelite, a lame shepherd boy, limped exhausted to the far shore.’ Nicholas stopped and his eyes travelled across the heads of the awed and silent children in the square. Then in a voice slowed and deepened he all but growled, ‘Then came the roar of doomsday as God’s finger again appeared and touched the towering edge of the dreadful hovering waves. The earth shook so that the sound of it was heard across the great desert, carried by the howling wind to faraway Jerusalem. Whereupon the waters thundered to earth to fill that divinely created path of escape with the terrible judgement of God’s awful wrath.’

  The gathered children now roared their approval. These were not the children of Israel that Nicholas preached about, but they imagined themselves as holy pilgrims voyaging to the Promised Land. This was confirmed in their minds when Nicholas reached out and took up the tau cross Master Nicodemus had given me and held it above his head. ‘Hear ye, all!’ he shouted. ‘Just as Almighty God parted the waters for Moses, so also will He make a dry path on the stilled and adamantine waves for Nicholas of Cologne and those pious Christian children who go with me to Jerusalem. With one heart and one voice we shall pass through the seas on dry land to recover the Holy Land and Jerusalem, where we will kneel within the Holy Sepulchre and pray in the presence of the true cross!’

  If, from my telling of this sermon, you think me a bystander looking on, then I have misled you. I was as much awed and taken with his words as the smallest child listening and I had not the slightest doubt that the Holy Spirit was present, for we all felt as one being, cleansed and renewed in the spirit and glory of the Lord. No priest alive or dead – by this I mean also my beloved Brother Dominic – could have persuaded me otherwise. I glanced at Reinhardt and I could see that his once-suspicious eyes now burned with a newfound faith and that he too had fallen under the spell of the preaching of Nicholas of Cologne.

  And so began the last of the preparations for our departure. Father Hermann returned from the Cistercian convent at Hoven surprisingly cheerful and perhaps less grateful to be rescued than I had supposed. ‘I am well-liked by the nuns and they wish me to return as a part of my ministry,’ he declared.

  ‘Does that mean you will not be coming on the Children’s Crusade?’ I asked.

  He nodded his head and was slow to reply, this to indicate that he had given the matter a great deal of thought. ‘I have prayed to the Virgin for guidance and she has forbidden it. She says my health will not survive the journey, and besides, she needs her earthly husband by her side as the Christ child is going through a difficult stage. Also, the nuns at the convent now need my ministrations as their priest has recently passed away.’

  ‘Then will you administer the oath of allegiance to the true cross so that the children may be permitted to wear the cross emblazoned upon their chests?’

  He looked doubtful. ‘Sylvia, they are for the most part penniless and have not yet reached their majority and so are not old enough to be accepted to the true cross.’ He cleared his throat a little guiltily, then said, ‘I must have the permission of the bishop.’

  I was right – Father Hermann, for all his goodness and faith, was not a character independent of mind and would always be subservient to any authority placed above him. He had been an eager participant before he had been sent to the Cistercian convent and had now returned doubting our cause. This served to confirm my previous suspicion that he was not of a suitable nature for the large and forbidding needs of a crusade. The Virgin Mary is always shown as a strong woman and I thought to myself, though somewhat amusingly, perhaps she had chosen him as her earthly husband for his ready and unquestioning compliance to her every demand, that in his mind this sojourn with the Cistercian nuns had been a respite both from a nagging wife and her precocious Child. I thought this not as blasphemy, but because in Father Hermann’s frequent conversations he spoke of Mary as his earthly wife as any husband might and of the Christ Child as if still in His infancy. He saw no contradiction in the fact that Christ had grown to manhood, been crucified, risen from the dead and ascended to heaven. Instead, in Father Hermann’s mind he was still a mewling infant at Mary’s breast who had teethed but one day before receiving all His teeth. Perhaps this miracle of sudden teeth had caused an equally sudden and painful consternation at His mother’s breast.

  ‘I have gained the bishop’s permission for you and Father Paulus to administer the blessing and the oath,’ I replied. Then, perhaps a little cruelly, added, ‘I promise you won’t get into trouble this time, Father.’

  My sarcasm was lost on Father Hermann, who immediately brightened.‘If you have His Lordship’spermission then you have mine. I shall be glad to accept the children’s oaths.’

  Father Paulus had also returned from the monastery at Disibodenberg, which I must say came as a surprise. I had expected Father Hermann to return to his beloved St Mary’s and his Holy Virgin wife with tearful gratitude, whereas I was sure that Father Paulus would wish to remain at the monastery where he would continue in the footsteps of the great Brother Dominic. After all, at the monastery he had a warm and comfortable cell, good food, solitude and silence; at St Martin’s he lived in a cramped cell within the belltower where the constant clanging was making him deaf.

  In the next three days, in batches of fifty at a time, the two priests officiated at the oath of allegiance to the cross and the children were given a cross to wear on their tunics. Initially this presented a problem as we had no red cloth available and no money to buy any. So I had made both priests declare that the cross each child wore was forbidden to be bigger
than the hand of the wearer, this as a symbol that they, by their own hand, placed their faith in God and agreed to become a part of the Children’s Crusade. The cross was to be placed over their hearts so that they might renew their faith by placing their hands to cover the cross and know that they, the children of the Crusade, were of one heart and one cross.

  As no red cloth was available, in fact no cloth of any colour of the large quantity required, we were reluctantly forced to use the green canvas Master Israel had given me to cover the wagon ready for when Nicholas sank into his moods of despair. Each child received a square of green canvas no bigger than his hand and from this the cross was cut. Of course I never mentioned that the cloth had been a gift from a Jew. This is the first time I have ever spoken of it to anyone. If it was to prove an evil portent, which I think not, then no harm came to my beloved Master Israel for his generosity. I recall his lamentation when I went to fetch the cloth that he had sent to Bonn to get.

  ‘My dearest Sylvia, I am a Jew and so cursed to remember that in the name of your Jesus my people have been killed in great numbers in your past crusades. In the Third Crusade King Philip cancelled all debts that were owed to Jews and many Jews were killed and others driven out of Spain. Already your Church in Rome talks of a badge of shame we are soon to carry, a yellow patch, that folk may use to identify us wherever we go. No matter how honourable and chaste our lives, now we may be chastised and persecuted by any Christian, be he of the lowest rank, a thief, vagabond or worthless scoundrel, he will feel himself more important than a dirty Jew.’ There were tears in his eyes as he looked up at me. ‘Sylvia, Frau Sarah and I have learned to love you – to us you are neither Jew nor Gentile but a person of rare worth and to us always a devoted daughter. If I could persuade you, though I know I cannot, to abandon this Children’s Crusade I would do it with joy in my heart, for I would know I had saved your life. I cannot refuse you this gift of cloth, though my greatest hope is that it is not used as your shroud. I shall weep and pray each day for you until we meet again.’

  All I could think to say in reply was, ‘Master Israel, I solemnly promise, no Jew will suffer or die in the Children’s Crusade as long as I remain alive.’

  When Nicholas had been presented with his green cross he had cried out, ‘But the crusader’s cross is always red!’

  I had anticipated his objection and had my reply prepared. ‘Stay a moment your opinion, Nicholas, and hear me out. No colour of blood spilled in Christ’s name must tarnish the Children’s Crusade. There is a good reason for this green cross. Think you now, all the other crusades are drenched in blood. This wilful killing that included women and children was always justified by the scarlet of the cross they wore on their tunics. But we are not as they were and go in peace and love and not to despoil the lands of the Saracen. The earth will remain green and bountiful after we have passed by and not be razed to the torch and desolated as our forebears were wont to do. We shall spill no blood upon this journey to Jerusalem! Our cross is green, the colour of verdancy and new growth and the sign of God’s peace and goodwill.’

  Nicholas clapped his hands, delighted with this new notion. ‘I shall make the cross of green, the green cross, a part of my sermon today. I shall explain how I have chosen green so we may rejoice in our intention and be ever mindful that we go in peace and joy; this cross shall be the symbol of the true nature of our divine intention.’

  As in all other things, the idea of the green cross was appropriated by Nicholas to become his own inspiration. In his sermon, his reasons given were more eloquent and better explained than mine, so that the children rejoiced in this new green cross and knew themselves to be elevated in God’s eyes by its symbolism. How, I wondered to myself, would Nicholas have felt had he known whence came the cloth that made the crosses? I still pray that Master Israel, now long dead, never knew how the canvas came to be used. At the time I comforted myself with the thought that, along with all the Jews of Cologne, on our day of departure he would have remained behind locked doors, so was unlikely to know about the crosses.

  So taken was Nicholas by this colour green that when a rich burgher’s wife, who was entranced by his preaching and the Children’s Crusade, begged what she might do for him, he had asked for a monk’s robe and cowl to be made in green wool. He now wore this garment when he preached at night and the effect was most prepossessing. With the cowl extended to the front his face was almost completely hidden in the dark interior. When he preached with his face in deep shadow he appeared much the mysterious messenger of an awesome God and the children waiting to hear him shivered in ecstatic anticipation.

  We would eventually make the cover to the wagon with the hessian from the bags that had contained the bishop’s corn and it served our purpose, though proved a miserable shelter in the wet. As for the banners, children are ever inventive in their scavenging and soon enough banners appeared everywhere with crude crow shapes stitched upon them. I later heard say that the women of Cologne, many of them the wives of rich burghers, had stitched them and given them as a contribution to the Children’s Crusade. Many of them had seen their own children join, and our departure would prove both joyous and sad as parents bade them farewell not knowing if they would ever see them again.

  To pay these parents homage I had arranged for those children from Cologne to lead us through the city gates with the Pied Piper of Hamelin piping them out, the ratcatcher having composed a special tune to pipe us from the city. The remainder of the children held back so the Cologne children might be the first to march away. How proud these children seemed as they passed the people who thronged the streets, many women weeping to see them go, though nothing would have prevented them from doing so as each one burned with the true faith. In the years to come and perhaps forever more, folk will tell of the Pied Piper of Hamelin’s piping of the children.

  We had taken the first steps to the Holy Land, and as we passed through the city gates folk called out as the naked women had first done that early spring morning in the square of St Martin’s: ‘Our children in Jerusalem!’ And now we understood the meaning of their nakedness, for we had departed for the Holy Land without money or weapons or armour, scarce any food or any means of protecting ourselves or of surviving. We had entered this crusade as naked babes, trusting only in God to deliver us to the gates of Jerusalem.

  The ecstatic children blew on brass trumpets and carried their banners aloft and every child who didn’t have a trumpet or a banner carried a wooden cross. All sang in praise of the heavenly Father as we departed during Pentecost on the eleventh hour of the thirteenth day of May in the year of our Lord 1212. In all, four thousand passed through the city gates and it was well into the afternoon before the last of the marching children left Cologne.

  On that day we had risen long before first light and Nicholas, wearing his new green monk’s robe and cowl, had delivered a final sermon lit with a flaming torch on the steps of St Martin’s. We had partaken of our last meal, a feast of bread, gruel and ale, though we soon ran out of ale. Then Father Hermann conducted a final mass and often but a single crumb of bread was placed upon the tongue of a child who was old enough to partake of Holy Communion. The younger children, many of them no more than the age of six, received a blessing, and so it was close to the eleventh hour before we were ready to leave.

  Of great concern to me was that with Father Hermann’s decision to stay at St Mary’s we had no priest to attend to us on our journey. Apart from conducting mass, there was much a priest would be required to do, not the least of which was performing the last rites. I was not so naive as to think that none would perish on the way. Already there were a number of sick who had joined us, among them adults and women with small children, even some with babes at the breast. Whenever I came across the sick or those with children not old enough to take care of themselves I would exhort them to remain behind, explaining that even with God’s blessing the journey would be long and hard to endure. But they were blinded by their faith, exp
ecting that they would be miraculously cured when they reached the Holy Land. As for their children, had not Nicholas of Cologne preached that on the journey to Jerusalem their children would feast on manna from heaven cast to their feet by God with the morning dew? Moreover, even though we would soon find the Church turned against us, it was unseemly that a crusade should depart for Jerusalem without a priest in attendance.

  Then, as the wagon passed through the city gates with much shouting out and singing and trumpets blaring, I saw that Father Paulus walked beside it. Hurrying towards him I shouted to make myself heard, ‘Do you journey a small way with us, Father?’

  He cupped his ear. ‘Eh?’ Then he shrugged and shook his head, indicating that there was too much noise for him to hear. I walked beside him and it was not until we were well clear of the city that we could converse. ‘How far do you journey with us, Father?’ I asked a second time, my mouth held close to his ear.

  ‘How far?’ he asked, bemused. ‘Why, to Jerusalem, of course! I shall enter the Holy Sepulchre with you, Sylvia,’ he said, his pale blue eyes shining with conviction. He reached down and took up the small wooden cross that hung suspended on twine from his neck and kissed it. ‘Then, for Father Hermann I have promised I shall say a prayer at the crypt of the church near Gethsemane.’ I could see that he was as excited as any child, in fact, himself in this matter a small child, convinced that everything will happen exactly as he imagined.

  Hallelujah! We now have our priest! I thought joyously, though perhaps not the one I had supposed we would need. Despite his timorous demeanour in the face of senior Church authority, Father Hermann would have been ideal. He was a hearty type who could be somewhat the gentle bully while capable of cajoling and also disciplining the wayward. He was an imposing size and a respected man of God with a reputation for holiness and visions and would not have been afraid to face the town councillors and priests in the towns and villages we would enter. Alternatively, Father Paulus seemed the least likely to succeed at these tasks imagined for our crusade priest to perform. He was near deaf, did not preach, was reluctant to officiate at mass, and seemed confused by children and unable to converse with them or, for that matter, most adults. But for the study of Latin and his ability as a scribe he was completely lacking in persuasion, and his personality, if described, might be said to be washed out and ineffectual. I loved him dearly but expected little of practical help from him.