Beloved Pilgrim (29 page)

"We know that. So?" Odo of Burgundy
interrupted, earning a flash of anger from both Raymond and
Conrad.

"Our arrival and taking of Ancyra changed all
that. The Danishmend leader is alarmed now and is coming to meet us
under Arslan's banner."

Count Albert, Anselm's military commander,
turned to the Archdeacon. "Danishmend?" he inquired, one eyebrow
lifted.

"Malik Ghazi," Raymond supplied. "Go on," he
urged the scout.

"Yes, Malik Ghazi. And he sent to Ridwan of
Aleppo to furnish reinforcements up from the south." The man
drooped, his bad tidings exhausted.

Odo asked Conrad, "How many troops could they
be bringing?"

The Constable sighed. "God knows."

All were silent save for a muted "Shit!" that
issued from the lips of Raymond de Saint Gilles.

The word came down. They were to bypass
Gangra. Conrad had all he could do to silence the protesting
voices.

"But what about supplies?" came one angry
demand.

Conrad held up his hands for silence. "Would
you rather starve while you sit here in siege or at least have a
chance of finding supplies on the road north?"

A knight accused, "Have you and the other
leaders left your balls back in Constantinople? We can take that
city!"

The Constable's face reddened. "We are going
on. That is all there is to it."

The disappointment of the leaders' decision
turned to anger. It could go either way, toward rebellion against
those leaders or retribution against the environs of the city. The
leaders, with the help of their heavily armed elite knights,
skillfully turned the focus of that fury on the farms and dwellings
outside the walls.

The scene was one of utter devastation. The
knights were carefully instructed to make for whatever supplies
were above ground or in storage. The Lombards and many of the
men-at-arms of all nations were left to smash and grab, rape and
kill. The fact that there was little to smash and few to rape and
kill made their ravishment the more brutal. No structures, no trees
or shrubs were left and not a soul survived their rapacity.

The Turks on the battlements shouted in
outrage, but no one emerged to fight them. It seemed they had as
little regard for their people as the Christian pilgrims did. All
the while the small army of priests stood in the shadow of the
fortress, out of range of arrows, and intoned their incessant
prayers.

The tiny amount of supplies gathered and
packed onto sumpter horses, the pilgrim procession streamed
desultorily north, followed by shrill shouted insults and derisive
laughter from the battlements of the fortress of Gangra. The
pilgrims themselves were largely silent, save for muttered
recriminations and irritable complaints from every contingent.

"Where are we going now?" someone whined.

A deeper voice replied, "Kastamonu. It's in
the mountains to the north, just this side of the Black Sea."

The van with Stephen of Burgundy in the lead
was no longer in sight of the fortress of Gangra when Saint
Gilles's trailing force was just barely in sight of it. Downhearted
at having to bypass what might have been a treasure trove of
supplies, not to mention booty and women, the knights and
men-at-arms trudged after their leader, leaving the fortress
behind. When a great shout came from the direction of the gates,
the last of the soldiers looked over their shoulders to see them
open, and dozens of mounted men streaming forth.

While the ordinary soldiers panicked, the
Pecheneg with Raymond's forces in their disciplined ranks turned to
face the attackers. They quickly formed the line into a tight
column with men with shields facing outward. Men behind them held
up their shields at a slight angle from the vertical of the outer
row, creating the start of a turtle formation, named for the
protective shell of that beast.

Meanwhile the knights under Raymond, who
screamed his orders to his own commanders, forced their men to
gather in the middle, holding shields aloft. It seemed this
seasoned hero of the capture of Antioch and the Pecheneg leader
Tzitas knew what to expect. From the vantage of their horses' backs
the knights watched this play out. The Turks who streamed from the
fortress split as they neared the column, breaking into two
offensive lines of mounted archers, who rode along and fired arrow
after arrow at the crusader forces. The sound of the arrows
thudding into shields was a staccato accompanying the eerie
ululations of the Turks. The drumming was punctuated with an
occasional clang as an arrow struck a helm. Few hit flesh.

A messenger tore north along the column to
warn the other commanders, keeping just ahead of the pursuing
Turks. While the rear drew to a near halt with the slowly-moving
and aptly-named turtle, the forces ahead also slowed and turned
their heads to see what was happening. Conrad's company, riding
before the rear forces and just behind the mass of Lombard rabble,
followed their commander's quick directions and formed the forward
extension of the shield wall that enclosed the noncombatants as
well. At the center lumbered the carts and sumpter animals, adding
the bellows of oxen and nasal call of mules to the pandemonium.

Elisabeth found herself painstakingly
threading the center of the narrowing procession that connected the
rear forces with the last of the peasants. Albrecht, at her
command, rode forward with the mercenary captain Ranulf to protect
the men, women and children who shrieked and wept at the assault
they could hear but not see all around them. Elisabeth glimpsed the
other three mercenaries take position together, Ruggiero on the
outermost wall with his shield held defensively in front of him,
Ragnar with his Norseman's helm just behind, and Thomas with them,
crossbow raised to take shots from time to time over their
shoulders at the swiftly passing Turks.

It was all Albrecht and Ranulf could do to
keep the mass of Lombard peasants from trampling each other. The
two men used their horses' bodies and weapons to keep them in a
line, slowing them to a crawl. They could not hear their own
captains' orders for the screaming of the people, old and young, as
the unseen terror seemed to last for hours.

In the van Stephen of Burgundy and the
Lombard knights and soldiers heard what passed and scrambled to
form their own defensive formation. The entire half-mile-long
procession compacted into a snake that slithered almost to a
stop.

Then the assault stopped as suddenly as it
had begun. The mounted Turks, without a single casualty, turned and
rode back in the direction of the fortress. The men in the shield
wall watched warily as the last of the attackers disappeared to the
south.

"Keep in position!" commanders bellowed as
some of the rear guard began to relax. "They may come back!"

They did not. The fading sounds of ululation
and hoof beats left the column to the lamentations of the camp
followers. Clerics chanted prayers were no less frantic. None was
injured by anything but the crush around them. As the threat of the
Turks' return appeared to be over, commanders among the men-at-arms
assessed the damage.

Albrecht dismounted from Carlchen and led him
among the Lombard pilgrims doing what he could to reassure and
comfort. One mother clutched a trembling child to her breast.
Albrecht leaned in to offer them his water skin. The child, a
dirty-faced little girl, lifted her head from her mother's shoulder
just enough to peek out, saw the squire and shrieked as if a demon
had her in its clutches. "She is terrified," her mother explained
as the child shoved her tear-streaked face hard into her mother's
body.

"With good reason," Albrecht replied in the
camp pidgin that had already developed among the several languages
represented by the thousands of pilgrims. He hesitated, and then
removing his heavy leather gauntlet, reached a tentative hand to
stroke her hair. "What is her name?"

"Maria," her mother said.

The squire leaned to the little girl's ear
and as crooned, "Little Maria, the bad men are gone. You are safe.
I am here to protect you."

A convulsive shudder shook the little body.
She would not look up.

He acted on inspiration. "Have you ever seen
a duck standing on his head?" he said into her ear. Though the
child did not respond, he gestured to the woman to follow him. At
Carlchen's side he reached for his shield where it hung at the
saddle. "Here it is, quack quack quack! Oh no," he piped in a
falsetto. "I can't fly upside down!"

The little face emerged like the first sliver
of a new moon. One dark eye peered at Albrecht's shield with its
upside-down duck painted on the leather facing.

"Maria, help!" the squire continued in his
piping voice. "Help me figure out how to get upright again!" The
camp pidgin was inadequate for what he had to say, but the child's
dark moving iris showed she was interested. One thin arm came away
from where its fist clutched her mother's head-covering. It slowly
came out and described a circle with a tiny finger.

Albrecht made the shield dip slightly back
and forth. In the high pitched voice he had used, he said, "Oh no!
I don't understand. What should I do? Quack quack!"

A tiny voice said, "Turn around."

"Like this?" Albrecht turned the shield so
that the picture of the duck faced away from the three of them.

Shaking her head, the child said more loudly,
"No, like this!" She now traced a definite circle in the air.

Albrecht left the shield facing the wrong way
but turned it a half turn. "Like this? Quack quack."

He was rewarded with a giggle. "No, this
way!" The child's head no longer was buried in her mother's
shoulder and the dark eyes though still red with weeping almost
sparkled.

"Like this? Quack quack!" When the squire
turned the shield around this time the duck, though not the shield,
was right way up.

"Yes!" the childish voice crowed.

"Thank you, Maria, quack quack!"

"Thank you, my lord," the woman said, smiling
wanly. "You are most kind."

Albrecht tousled the girl's dusty dark hair
and smiled. "The attack is over. Now we will find our way to
Kastamonu, and there we can rest."

He found Elisabeth looking about for him from
her perch atop Gauner. "Thank God," she rejoiced. "There don't seem
to be any serious injuries, but until I saw you I was
terrified."

He nodded to her. "What hurts are there, my
lord?"

She shook her head. "None of our party," she
sighed.

The column was at a standstill even after the
Turks rode away. Their companions saw to those who had taken
injury. The commanders grouped among the Constable's forces halfway
down the line, to discuss what had happened and the likelihood the
attacks would recommence. Elisabeth moved as close as she dared to
listen.

"Surely they will not follow us as we get
further from the fortress?" Stephen of Blois averred.

Raymond responded, his voice betraying his
ever-increasing frustration with his commanders. "Probably, but I
cannot imagine we will be left alone even after this."

Conrad broke in, cementing Raymond's building
gratitude for the man's good sense. "My Lord of Toulouse is right.
There may be others about. We must stay on guard for more attacks.
We must be able to get into the turtle formation swiftly."

Odo of Burgundy protested. "It is a long way
to Kastamonu, is it not? Where are these attacks going to come
from? I say we make our way straight through to Kastamonu. The
faster the better."

Hugh of Montebello echoed his comments,
adding, "Walking along in a turtle will slow us down. I don't think
we have provisions enough if it takes twice as long to get to a new
source."

Raymond lifted both his clenched fists in
front of his chest. "We don't stay in turtle the whole time, you
great ass!" He turned to face away from the group of commanders,
his face red and his one sound eye fiery.

Hugh looked at the general's back, affronted.
"My lord, is it necessary to . . . ?"

Conrad explained. "We can walk at our usual
pace, my lords. Just stay near our turtle positions so there is no
delay in getting into defensive lines."

"I still say it is unnecessary," whined
Stephen of Blois.

Raymond spun back to face him. "You would,
you little weasel. But those of us who stood and fought at Antioch
instead of buggering off know better."

Stephen's hand flew to his sword's hilt.
"Why, you arrogant son of a bitch!"

Raymond put his hand to his own sword in its
scabbard. "Go ahead, if you are man enough to fight me."

Before he could pull his sword more than an
inch, Stephen of Burgundy stepped between the two men. "Stay. We do
not need to fight each other. We are here to fight the
heathens."

Conrad sighed as Raymond rolled his eyes.
"Let us err on the side of caution."

Count Stephen nodded. "That is wise. How
shall we proceed?"

Raymond subsided. He looked at the Constable.
"We can camp here for a short time, but we need to move on before
we settle for the night. Conrad will work out what we need to do.
Can you be ready to go on in two hours?" he asked, looking up
squinting at the position of the sun. "It is going to get hotter in
no time."

It was indeed hotter even than it had been in
the morning when just after midday the procession moved north.
Elisabeth helped Conrad convey instructions to the German and
Austrian parties' captains on the order of march. It was no more
complicated than walking loosely in the position each man would
hold in the turtle should one be invoked.

"I would like to ride up with the Lombard
pilgrims, if it please my lord," Albrecht told her.

"Very well," she replied.

As they continued north, free of any further
attacks, Elisabeth sweltered in her armor. She wondered not for the
first time why the commanders had chosen to ride into the longer,
hotter days of July. They must know something, she assumed. The
passes must be blocked in the winter. This made her think of the
Alpine passes and how she had fretted at the cold. Oh, to be cold
again.