The Priest of Blood

by Douglas Clegg

  My waist narrowed even as my chest expanded, and the running and marching that we had to do during the campaigns and sieges built up my endurance. When the days were on fire, I ate little and fasted and prayed on the marches through the desert; but when we took an enemy encampment or came to a castle that already held Hospitallers, I ate better than I ever had. The Hospitallers, our patrons, knights and soldier-monks who were our masters in every way, promised that among us, even a serf could rise to become a sergeant-brethren if we proved ourselves in battle, and that to die while on this holy pilgrimage would mean immediate remission of sins and entrance into Heaven. Ewen and I both determined that we should use this Holiest of Crusades to make our fortune and take our place in the world.

  I had, at last, become a man, and felt the blood of life within me as I never had before. The love of my brethren—the infantry as well as our decorated commanders, the Brethren and the Knights Hospitallers, and the banner of my own Duke of Brittany, who had offered his services to the crown of France and to Rome for this Crusade against the unholy of Byzantium and of the Holy Land, all brought my love of mankind back to me. We were one—a fighting force, and we lived and died together. I buried myself in our brief victories, finding the wenches of the foreign hordes to be as soft and delicate as the Breton women of home, although none made me forget my beloved, my sacred pain of love for Alienora de Whithors.

  Ewen was not as good at battle as was I, so I always made sure to stand before him, and when we marched, I kept him to my side and a little back, so that if a blow were struck from nowhere, if the whistle of the arrows flew toward us, I might protect him. I was quick with the shield I had acquired, and even faster when it came to striking and turning and watching him even while I fought. Many of the youths were so young that they should not have been fighting, but the world was the way it was, and I watched many of our own die in Christian honor alongside the infidels that we slaughtered. Do not ask me too much of our military campaigns, for I was low in rank and took orders without understanding their nature. One of the monk-knights told us of our Christian Love, and how, in killing the enemy, we were bringing the love of our Savior to their souls, for in killing for the Holy, we brought the infidel into God’s embrace.

  We heard from the brethren and knights of the Hospital that we must keep to the fires at night if we were at camp, for the tales of demons were rampant. They came in the dark and ran like wolves, grabbing the dying up in their jaws, taking them from where they lay before any could rescue them. We were told to stay near the banners and the great crosses that the monks kept, as well as with our fellow soldiers when the sun set. “These demons are sent by our unholy enemies,” a monk warned a group of us. “We must take in the sick and bury our dead before nightfall or risk such terrors.”

  “Do they only take the dying?” I asked.

  He looked at me with interest, as if he had not expected a question from anyone. “A strong youth could cut one down. They avoid the quick. I have been told that fire and the ax subdue them. I once watched one burn.”

  His mention of burning made me ache for a reason of which I was not certain.

  “I saw a demon once,” I told him. “In my home. I was a boy, and with several huntsmen, we drew it from a deep well. It had wings like a dragon.”

  The monk smiled. “That I have never seen. These are weak demons, and the locals call them Ghul. Our prisoners fear the thought of them coming in the night. Devils are everywhere in this land, I’m afraid. We are bringing the light of God with us to chase them into the shadows forever.”

  3

  Within a few weeks, I had already seen battles and bloodshed. The Hospitallers had a reputation for caring for the sick, and so, after a battle, one of my many tasks was to find our men who had survived but were heavily wounded and carry them to the tents that were set up for the purposes of care. I often sat by with a rag to wipe at the blood from a countryman’s breast that had been savagely cut open, or to hold the oil lamp so that one of the brethren-at-arms might see better as he stanched the flow of vital fluids from a soldier. Despite my weariness and exhaustion, I felt an excitement about life I had never before known. I was lean and muscular, and nearly nineteen years on Earth. I had begun to prove that I was worthy of a higher station, and I had managed to rescue Ewen from close scrapes with death at the hands of the ungodly. When one particular battle was over, after a full day and night of attack against a walled city, during which the Knights Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights brought their infantries together against an infidel stronghold, I looked through the terrible yellow-brown dust smoke, smoke from a fire we’d set to burn infidels in their place of worship.

  There, I saw a face that looked nearly like my own. I became certain what I saw was not a man, but a ghost.

  Chapter 8

  ________________

  THE GHOST

  1

  Why a ghost? I have not yet mentioned the thousand tales of legendary terror in this land of dust and sun. It was our Holy Land, but also the place of the Devil, who lurked in the abandoned citadels of legend, like the famous leprous city of Hedammu, called also the Devil’s Horns, which overlooked the southern sea. Other foot soldiers that knew of it called it the Mouth of Hell, for there were tales of demons and treasure there. Our commanders talked of sending an expedition to it simply to see if it lived up to its reputation as a place of hidden treasure. It had been held once by Knights of the Temple, and by the Teutonic Knights, but now had been abandoned as an unclean city. It was said that our enemies had powers to summon spirits from the battle, and I was as susceptible to this superstition as any of my companions. The stories of the terrible creature called the ghul had passed among us. Some claimed to see these monsters feeding on corpses before sunrise.

  So when I saw what I was sure was a ghost, it made my heart beat fast and with great fear. We were at the rim of Heaven or Hell in this land, and at any moment demons might appear to take our souls.

  This strange visage terrified me at first, for I thought it might be a sign of my own madness or of some infidel demon trick. We had been warned of the godless sorcery of the enemy, and of their crimes against Nature and Heaven. I had heard of strange burial mounds where creatures called Ifrit and Ghul and Djinn, the demons of this world, supposedly attacked wayward travelers. We were truly frightened of such things, although our monks—many of who took up the sword as well—told us that the Savior and Our Lady would protect us and send us to Heaven to keep us from these demons.

  So when I saw this face, I first thought that I was seeing a ghost, then a Ghul, some trickery of the enemy. And yet the man I saw could not stop watching me, either. Soon, as the smoke continued to cloud the air, I moved through it, toward him, stepping over bodies and those who had fallen but not yet died. I had no fear, yet my heart raced. A great smile lit up his face, and, in an instant, each of us recognized the other.

  He gave out a shout. “Bird Boy!”

  And I laughed and ran to him, recognizing him mostly in his voice and then knowing the face and the man immediately. It was my brother Frey. In the years since I had last seen him, he had grown tall and stout, but his eyes and his smile were the same as that little scrawny boy I remembered on his last night in our home before he left for the great wide world. He wore a kerchief of sorts just to the left of his face, wrapped around his head, covering the scars where our mother had burned him in anger with oil. We embraced long, and I felt tears in my eyes, for here was more than my lost brother. Here was a sign from God Himself that good could come from bad, that happiness could exist in the darkness of life. I was surrounded by friends and brothers and comrades-at-arms. This was truly the place where I most belonged.

  My brother Frey smelled of onions and dust, but it was the most fragrant perfume I could imagine. There is something about your kinsmen that is indelibly pressed into you, into your blood, into your memory, and the smell and feel of them is like no other. It was like coming home, to feel his arms about m
e, and when we let go of each other to laugh and talk, I felt as if life had blessed me with this fate rather than cursed me, for where my brother was, there was my fortune.

  After we’d put up our weapons and gear, I brought Ewen my brother into our circle, and we sat and talked of our adventures. I told him, sorrowfully, of our mother’s fate. Ewen added that she had met her death well, and that she had not dishonored our family despite the charges brought against her.

  Frey kept a hard eye upon me, and when I was done with the injustice of the abbey and village, he told me, “Our mother had her faults. She drove me from the house, yet I was ready to go. If she had not, I would not have become a man, for I traveled much. A monk took me in. He taught me of the past and of all that has been lost in the world. I have loved many women and have two bastards in the Languedoc, and now am a warrior where I once was a country fool. I have this in remembrance of our dear mother.” He reached up and drew off the kerchief that hid the left side of his forehead and cheek and ear. In the fire’s light, I saw the scarring that had occurred from the boiling liquid my mother had thrown at him in a rage.

  “At first I felt she had cursed me with this as I began my journey into life. But soon enough, this was my protection from men who wished to kill me, for on the road, I was viewed as one watched over by Our Lady. Strangers who felt it was their Christian duty gave me bread and wine. As I said, I lived with monks for a time, and then among vagabonds. Then, in a great city, I learned of knights who sought soldiers for battles. I became apprenticed and learned how to wield a sword and an ax and to run for days with messages. I lied about my heritage, and my family, so that my mean origins might not be discovered and held against me. I have seen countries that you might only imagine, and have been with beautiful women on islands only spoken of in dreams. And I learned of my talent for war, and, thus, I became prized as a soldier, and now carry the banner for Sir Ranulf le Bret. But all these years, brother, I have felt empty, no matter what wine I drank, no matter what bread and meat I devoured. And it was for home. And now, you, my home, are here. Let us praise our dead mother, and our many fathers, and hope that in the hereafter she has found her peace.”

  We raised our wineskins and drank heartily to this. As if this question were always on my mind, I asked him, “What of my father? Did you know him?”

  Frey did not look at me when he answered. “I remember a man who was bad to our mother.”

  “Corentin said he took her with force.”

  He looked at me carefully before answering. “You believe him? He could not remember your father. That scoundrel was little more than a baby when he was taken from our mother.”

  “Tell me about my father.”

  “I barely remember any of the fathers,” he said. Then, his face brightening, he added, “But you, my little one, and our sisters, I remember well. How are they? I remember a baby we called the Marsh-child.”

  I could not speak of the fate of our brothers and sisters, and thinking of it vexed my soul, but there was nothing that I could then do for them. I told him of my life since his departure, and of my love for Alienora, daughter of the baron.

  He nodded, laughing at me as I spoke of this lady. “You must somehow break your thought from hers,” he said. “For you are young and will bed many women, but the likes of us shall never wed a lady, a daughter of a nobleman.”

  “She will wed no one but Christ,” I said.

  Remembering the curious sect of nuns of the caves, he said, “Is she a Magdalen?”

  I nodded. “That is what I’ve been told.”

  “They are a most fanatical order, with peculiar conduct,” he said. “Our mother took me to them, once, to beg for bread from the pilgrims’ offerings. I saw their lair. They live like anchoresses in the dark and rarely come out into the daylight except to meet with pilgrims who come to drink from the springs. They have a statue of Holy Mary Magdalen the Sinner, which is carved from the blackest stone and covered with garlands of dried wildflowers. It scared me more to see them as a boy than to see Mere Morwenna and her hags. There are those I have met since who believe this sect of Magdalens is not of the True Church. I worry for her, being among them.”

  “We drank together of the grotto’s waters so that we might always be together,” I said, boldly romantic in a place—a foreign land full of dust and blood and the cries of the wounded—that was about anything but the love between man and woman.

  Again, he laughed. “You must put the past aside, Aler, in order to enjoy the pleasures of what is left you. The past is death itself. God and the Devil and the angels and demons that fight for your soul determine the future. The present is the only life.”

  But I brought up another ghost from the past. Our half-brother, Corentin, whom I had never known. Frey had known him and remembered him well. “He was the worst of our lot even as a squalling brat in rags,” Frey said, a tinge of bitterness to his voice as he stared into the embers. “Our mother loved him dearly. His father visited often when I was but three and six months, for I remember Kenan Sensterre well. He was kind to our mother, and to all of us children. But once he took the baby, I did not see him again.”

  “I hate the man,” I said. “It is he who saw me thrown out of the castle. It is he who believed Corentin Falmouth and not my word.”

  “Falmouth? That is what he calls himself?” Frey began laughing. He had become such a large, overly muscled young man that his laugh was like the bellow of a bull. “That is such a fine name for such a dirt sack. Quintin Atthefeld has become Corentin Falmouth. Soon enough, we will discover that he has been knighted for his bravery. By God’s wounds, his father has protected that bastard much.”

  “May all bastards such as us find protection,” I said, laughing along with my brother.

  Ewen, sitting beside me, laughed also, then began weeping, for our talk had made him miss home. Even the most courageous soldier might weep if for home and hearth, and we said a prayer to Our Lady to guide the hands of our knights and our brethren in Holy War, that we might one day return to the land of our fathers.

  2

  And now, I must tell you of another met during this campaign. He was a lad named Thibaud Dustifot. Although barely eleven years old, he was an ancient soul, and brought skins of water for us on the road or at camp. He didn’t know his real name, but we called him Dustifot for the dirt on his oft-bare feet. He was terrified of battle, and begged me to watch over him. “I-I will bring you water and share any bread I gather,” he said, a slight tremor in his voice. As I got to know him, and saw how he helped others on the battlefield, I grew to understand his fear of those older than he was—for many of the soldiers treated him like a dog despite the many kindnesses the boy provided. I could not resist his smile or his promise of help, and was reminded of children I had known as a boy.

  The Hospitallers considered the boys who served in the ranks as Holy Innocents who brought good fortune to battle, and yet the children in the camp were routinely beaten over theft of a bit of bread or dried meat. Thibaud was also of the Old Ones of my native land, more pure in his blood than I, and, like the Old Ones, of smaller stature and swarthy of complexion. He had the full Celtic blood in him, and although he called himself a Breton, from our homeland, he had come from a family in Cornwall. I mention him now, because, like my friend Ewen, I became protective of this little boy with the enormous heart and spirit.

  He spoke to me in the Old Tongue, some of which I understood. My people revered his kind, for he was the link to our ancient world, when Bretons flourished, before even the Romans. Although he was Christian, he knew of the Forest women and of the legends of the Briary Maidens. He even knew of the sacred stag of Cernunnos, the white deer that lured hunters into the Old Ways, and of something that was rarely spoken of, the ancient bog surrounded by thorns. It was the legendary swamp where all that was evil festered, and to gaze into it was to lose your very soul. How entertained Thibaud kept us with his knowledge of tales. Had he remained home, he no doubt would
have become a village storyteller, earning his keep by the variety of stories he remembered from an older storyteller.

  In battle in a foreign country, the best he had was us, for the knights and commanders had no interest in Breton boys who spoke too freely.

  I had to rescue him from being severely beaten by his master, who fancied himself a knight but was, in fact, not much better than any of the rest of us. I saw this man beating with his fists upon the little boy’s back and scalp while Thibaud crouched down as much as he could to ward off the blows. I lifted the man from his violent attack and threw him to the earth. I drew my sword, but needn’t have. Men who attack the less able seem to be more terrified than any others, and so, Thibaud’s former master ran like the dog he was, off to his drunken compatriots and the few brother-soldiers who would protect him.

  “You must have angered him greatly to deserve such a beating,” I said as I took him to the washerwomen, who would tend his wounds better than would the Hospitaller monks themselves.

  “I stole from him,” Thibaud said. I demanded he show me his goods, and the boy drew out the tiniest scrap of meat, of a pitiful size that would not slake the hunger of a newborn.