Crusade Read online

  Georgette had heard of other priests placing small pebbles inside their shoes, causing them to hobble and bleed. Some wore rough, scratchy animal-hair shirts that chafed against the skin under their habits. Thus could one’s soul be cleansed and forgiveness earned, they proclaimed. But what her priest said made sense to her and she did not mortify her flesh again.

  However, she longed to do something difficult to prove her deep love for God. She sometimes cried as she dusted the sacred statues, including the painted wooden carving of perfect Mother Mary in her sky-blue gown. Father David said that Mother Mary was especially Georgette’s mother because she had no mother of her own. His mother too, he told her, had died in childbirth, and the mother he had chosen to devote himself to was the Mother Church.

  Georgette loved her birth father, of course, but not with passionate reverence. Her father on this earth was an impassive man who seemed much older than his young years, his face rarely showing emotion, his devotion to his children and to God unexpressed. Instead, his coin of currency was hard work. That was his declaration of love, that was his religion, although he would have thought such an avowal to be heresy.

  He rose before sunrise, urinated out of the door, lit the fire, and set the porridge to cook on the hearth in the middle of their single-room hut. Then he milked the two goats and fed the horse before returning to the house to stir warm frothy goats’ milk into the boiling porridge and sop it up with the hunk of bread Georgette had wrapped in a cloth and set out for him the previous night. On a cold day he might swing a sheepskin cape over the woollen smock and breeches he wore day and night without a change. He shouldered his scythe, spade and pitchfork, harnessed the horse, clicked his tongue, and strode off alongside the animal to cut the wheat field below the lower edge of the village or to sow rye in another field half a mile across the valley floor, or to break up clods in a barley field even more distant. None of the three fields belonged to him. Like the rest of the land that spread as far as the eye could see, the fields were owned by King Philippe Auguste and managed by his bailiffs. As payment for his heavy labour, he was allowed to take the crops from the smallest field for eating or selling.

  Soon after their father left for the fields, Gregor rolled off his straw pallet, his mood almost always black in the mornings. He shovelled a double helping of porridge into his mouth in surly silence, washing it down with the lees of the wine from the previous night. He wrapped some dry bread, cured meat or cheese, and a flagon of cider in a piece of cloth, and tied the bundle to his shepherd’s crook. Then he was off to the rich pastures up in the mountains with their two goats, as well as a dozen goats and sheep belonging to neighbours who paid him in kind to shepherd their flocks. He was an accurate shot with a bow and arrow, and most days he brought home a squirrel or hare or maybe even a pheasant for their dinner.

  When it was the season to harvest the grain, Gregor joined in with the entire village as they shared these communal tasks, but he was prickly and oversensitive with the other boys, and hardly a day went by without a fight. Some times their father lost patience at the disruptions and dismissed Gregor back to his goatherding with an exasperated kick. No one was sad to see him go, yet it hurt Georgette to see how young he looked as he slouched off alone.

  Every morning Georgette threw the slops from their breakfast to the sow, Bess. Bess’s piglets squealed so hysterically whenever Georgette lifted them to estimate their weight that she expected Bess to protest, but Bess took no notice and continued to root in the pottage spilled on the floor. Perhaps, Georgette reflected, she remembered from previous litters that her piglets would disappear as soon as they were large enough to sell in the village market, so she had decided not to love them too much. Georgette didn’t know much about the feelings of mothers, although she pictured her own mother in Heaven almost every night before she feel asleep. She imagined her mother had looked just like the statue of Jesus’s mother in the village church, even down to the blue dress.

  There wasn’t any time to imagine in the mornings. Georgette had to draw water from the well in the village square and scrub their single iron pot, then return home to weed around the beans, leeks and onions in their little kitchen garden, bake enough bread for the following few days, and cook a stew for the evening meal. She cleaned the hut, sweeping the trodden-earth floor with a worn straw besom and putting the straw mattresses outside to freshen on sunny days.

  Then she hurried down the hill to the priest’s house, where she repeated most of these tasks. Except that Father David had little appetite as he grew older, and the food she made for him lasted more days than it should have. Georgette urged him to eat more, but he said old men had small stomachs, digestion was not easy for him, and he wanted no more than the good bread she baked and a mug of boiled buttermilk. When the villagers brought him food, he thanked the giver kindly but more and more often he sent Georgette to take the provisions to a village family that had been disappointed in the harvest or to a woman still weak from a difficult birth.

  As his eyes grew dim with age, weakened by years of close study, Georgette began to read aloud to him whatever he chose to hear. On the occasions when he needed to write a letter, she would sit alongside him at the trestle table, her goose quill frequently dipping into the inkhorn, repeating his words back as she wrote them in small, neat script.

  Late afternoon was the time Georgette loved best. Together they would sip warmed, spiced wine and Father David would slip off his wooden shoes, lean back against the rough wall behind his bench and close his eyes. Then he told her stories, exciting stories about Hildegard of Bingen and Heloise, and Georgette glowed with pride and interest in these great women who served the Church as well as any man. Heloise was Georgette’s romantic favourite, because Heloise continued to love Abelard, her husband and teacher, even after each of them had taken vows of celibacy. But Father David disapproved of the nun’s love letters to the monk. Abelard and Heloise had pledged to be married only to the Church, he pointed out. Vows to the Church – even very difficult vows, he repeated – had to be kept at all costs.

  Before dusk, Georgette set out Father David’s dinner and hurried back up the hill to stir the embers of the fire and reheat the simple food in her own home in time for the return of her father and brother. Sometimes she would ask about the wheat harvest or the availability of sweet grass for the sheep and goats, but the menfolk answered in short sentences and there was usually silence as they sat on a bench at the trestle table, wreathed in smoke from the hearth, eating hungrily and downing mugs of cheap raisin wine. After their meal, Gregor and his father wiped their greasy mouths with their sleeves, but Georgette had learned from the priest to use a small piece of flax cloth and she wished her men would do the same. She knew better than to take the knives and spoons they had used and wash them thoroughly, as the priest had taught her. Her father and brother would have looked at her in amazement: hadn’t they already licked and wiped their utensils clean?

  Bedtime came early, after Georgette had done some sewing by the light of the tallow candle, while her father and brother relaxed by the hearth, occasionally extracting lice from their hair and clothing and tossing them into the fire. Father and son slept on their straw pallets before the glowing red embers, but Georgette had her own bed in an alcove on the far side of the room. She did not mind that the rectangular frame nailed on to two wooden legs was a little too short, nor that the leather stretched across it was badly tanned and a little smelly. Her father had made the bed for her so it was precious.

  Lately, Georgette had hung a length of rough linen across the alcove to provide some privacy. She was aware of a new need to be alone with her body, as it changed in ways that both delighted and alarmed her. Only recently a young lout in the village had made a remark as she passed and, although she did not hear what he said, she was startled into understanding by Gregor’s roar of anger as he hurled himself at the much bigger boy head first, beating him only because of the surprise of the attack.

  The
subsequent round was more predictable. After that second bout, Georgette hovered near Gregor with a cloth soaked in healing plants she had gathered and boiled herself. But Gregor wouldn’t let her touch his black eye. He grabbed the poultice from her hand roughly, pressed it to his eye himself and strode out of the house towards the dark woods. Georgette looked after him wistfully. She wished they could be friends.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘Pilgrims! Crusaders! Gathering in the valley below the village.’

  The excited voice was Gregor’s. Herding his goats not far away, he had watched with an open mouth as hundreds of small figures, far more people than he had ever seen in his life, marching from whence he knew not, began to swarm down from a distant hill towards a meadow outside the village. A large cross, catching the light of the sun, brought comprehension. Shouting loudly, he had raced the protesting animals back to the village at four times their usual pace, in order to alert everyone.

  The men were in the fields and were not aware of the excitement, but all the children in the village and many of the women hurried to see the strangers, Georgette and Patrice fleetfooted at the front. Georgette expected to hear great sounds, singing and preaching and shouting the praises of our Lord as they approached the Crusaders, but there was only quiet, a quiet that infected the newcomers so that they hushed their exclamations. A host of dusty small children and dusty big children stood silently in the valley, many hundreds or maybe up to a thousand, facing an outcrop of rocks with a flat top that formed a natural raised stage. Why are they all so young, she wondered, and why so still and unchildlike?

  ‘Lift me,’ she whispered to Gregor. ‘Please give me a piggyback.’ And with rare agreeableness, he did, crouching low while she jumped on to his back and clutched his shoulders.

  Now that she was higher, she could see what was on the raised area: it was a man, kneeling as he faced away from the crowd, kneeling with his hands held high so that everyone could see the large gold cross he grasped. But the cross itself was not nearly as gold as the hair of this man. Georgette had never seen hair like it. Like the flames of a fire, like the petals of a marigold, like spun copper and bronze all in waves anointing his head, his miraculous mane of gold was tilted up to God. He was still and silent. And the children were silent.

  The man stood gracefully and turned around slowly and Georgette started. It was not a man, but a mere boy, tall but not older than twelve or thirteen, she guessed. He stood as straight as a prince, his elegant cloak hanging in graceful folds. From side to side he gazed, and the crowd pressed forward, staring at him, waiting for the bewitching boy to speak his first words.

  ‘Oh, Lord Jesus,’ he began, in a clear, ringing voice that went to Georgette’s soul like the sun to a seedling. She straightened herself as tall as she could while hanging on to Gregor’s back. Straight up and tall as possible, to be like that boy, to be like him and with him.

  ‘I ask for Thy blessing on the children of the village of Illiers.’

  Georgette ducked her head at his blessing. Never before had she been so proud to be a child from the village of Illiers.

  ‘I ask that you bless them, sweet Lord Jesus, with the wisdom to know Thy Word when it reaches them, that they cast away their games and leave their chores, and bid farewell to their parents, and follow me, Thy faithful servant, to redeem Thy Holy Land from the infidels.’

  A breath, a murmur, moved through the crowd. The current brushed them forward, closer, uniting them like a school of fish all heading in the same direction. There was no effort in it, but rather a giving up of effort and a giving in to the words. Suddenly frightened, Georgette glanced at Gregor. His face had altered and was almost handsome in its intentness and focus.

  The boy’s voice drew Georgette back into its power. It was a musical voice, speaking poetry, not speech, weaving around her emotions like a golden net, steadily drawing her closer to this new apostle, this Fisher of Men.

  When the last words had looped to an end, the crowd remained still, suspended in a moment of glory. The boy bowed his head and sank to his knees with perfect grace, and the listeners fell to their knees too.

  Georgette slid lightly off Gregor’s back and knelt in rapture.

  Of course, she thought with a rush of certainty, it makes sense. Many a time I have heard Father David say that Jesus loves us children the most. So we are the ones He chose to drive out the Muslims and Jews from his Holy Land.

  When the boy rose and the crowd with him, Georgette felt like reaching out to touch him with her fingertips, felt like prostrating herself before him. But, she admonished herself, he was not a god to be worshipped; nay, he was a leader to be followed.

  And like a clear underground spring gushing up into the air for the very first time, she felt a tremendous purpose filling her body and her head. She was going to follow him. Leave the whole world that she knew. Leave her family and her comforts and follow God’s messenger to save God’s land. No matter how far, how hard, how dangerous. Putting pebbles in one’s shoes was nothing compared with embarking on such a long and winding journey.

  She turned to tell her brother – and met determination blazing in his eyes. He too had made the decision to join the Crusade.

  As they returned to their hut, absorbed in their separate thoughts, they met their father in the muddy lane, stooped under the weight of the firewood he had cut in the forest. He grunted in greeting and kept walking, passing ahead of them on the path.

  ‘Father, I am leaving home,’ Gregor announced without preamble. His father stopped and straightened his back a little. ‘A prophet has arrived in our village this eve. He is leading a crusade to smash the cursed infidels in Jerusalem. And I am going with him.’

  Georgette interrupted in dismay at Gregor’s bluntness. ‘Father, I can explain. A young boy touched by God has gathered an army of children who march behind him in a new crusade. He said that the souls of children free from adult sin shall convert the Muslims and Jews and return Golden Jerusalem to the true believers. I understood from his words that I am called to a holy task. Gregor feels it too. But we will return to you, Father. And with God’s blessing.’

  Their father turned round and observed them, while Georgette’s fingers twisted her apron into a criss-cross of wrinkles. Then he faced home and continued walking as if he had not heard. With deliberate movements, he unloaded his wood at the side of the hut. Choosing three branches, he carried them into the hut and bent down to stuff them into the stove.

  Silenced by their father’s silence, Georgette and Gregor said nothing until they had all eaten the simple evening meal. Only when he had shovelled the last hunk of bread into his mouth and wiped the gravy off his mouth on to his sleeve did their father speak, as if it had taken all this time to marshal his reaction.

  ‘I cannot tie you to the hut if you wish to go,’ he remarked as if talking to himself.

  ‘I’m going,’ Gregor stated baldly.

  Georgette’s father looked at her. She said nothing but something in her face must have convinced him that she too was not to be deterred.

  ‘You are just children. How will you eat? Where will you shelter at night?’ he said, ever more practical than emotional.

  Tears welled up in Georgette’s eyes. She reached out and touched her father’s rough sleeve.

  ‘Father, all those in our village who heard Prophet Stephen speak hurried to bring out food for the children he led. Our neighbours asked in return only that when the Crusaders reach the Holy Land – where our Father listens most closely to man’s requests – they should pray that this one get well, that one give birth to a live child, and the other one escape his bad fortune. It will be that way all along the road. Our Lord will provide.’

  ‘And the danger?’ her father replied. ‘There are bandits along the road.’

  ‘I’ll kill them, just as I’ll kill the Muslims and Jews trespassing in the Holy Land,’ Gregor retorted. ‘This is my chance to see the world, Father. I will not miss it.’

&n
bsp; His father made no protest, but turned away and blew his nose into the corner. When he faced the fire again, his bewildered expression pierced Georgette. Our Lord will take care of him while we are away, she reassured herself. In fact, our Lord will be so glad of our family’s service that He may even reward our father with a good harvest this year.

  They stayed up later than usual. Their father was silent, cracking his knuckles repeatedly. Gregor sat on the floor, whittling a cross he intended to dip into the chalky lime at the edge of the pond and carry high as he marched. He had wanted a sword but his father had told him he had no money for such costly items and that he must make do with a sturdy cudgel.

  Gregor was furious at being thwarted, and even angrier when his father gave several small silver coins into Georgette’s safe keeping.

  ‘Sew this into the seam of your cape, Georgette. ’Tis all I have, so use it for emergencies only,’ he instructed.

  ‘We have no need of money,’ Georgette protested, but her father was stubborn. Finally, she took the small cloth into which he had knotted the coins and drew closer to the fire to stitch it into her clothing.

  ‘Look after your sister, Gregor,’ their father charged. But his words sounded more like begging than ordering.

  ‘I will be occupied with the boys in fighting,’ Gregor retorted. ‘I cannot be held back by a crying girl scared of the sight of blood. Why doesn’t she stay home and take care of you?’

  Georgette was indignant. She was not scared of the sight of blood: indeed, only the previous week she and Patrice had served as Father David’s assistants in stitching and dressing the gory wounds of a stray dog. But she was suddenly troubled by Gregor’s question – why wasn’t she staying with her father? He did need her; it was true. But the journey to save the Promised Land loomed as a mountain over the small hill of her father’s desire for a hot meal ready when he returned from his labour. He would manage alone; she knew he could manage. And as for taking care of Father David, why, she was sure he would be honoured to lend her to a crusade for beloved Jesus Christ. And women from the village could help him with his meals while she was away.