Beloved Pilgrim (33 page)

"I suppose not. I do miss Maliha terribly."
Elisabeth sighed and rested her chin on her palm.

The look in Albrecht's eyes was wistful. "I
wonder," he said slowly, "if, assuming we get back at all. Will
they be waiting for us?"

"You doubt . . . um . . . that person?" she
asked, surprised.

"I do not know. For all I know we will get
back to . . . um, there, and I will discover I am no longer in the
picture."

"I am as certain as I can be that I will find
Maliha waiting for me." Her face was not the face of a confident
person, however. "I hope."

They sat on in silence.

The pilgrims made their way east in peace if
not in comfort. They saw no Turks, neither trailing them nor
watching them from the heights. If anything, their physical
discomforts were magnified by nothing to distract them. The heat
continued unabated, and with the wind that coursed through this
west-to-east valley, grit stuck wherever there was sweat. Their
eyes were red-rimmed with the irritation, their nostrils crusty
with dust, and their lips cracked and bleeding. When the breeze
died down swarms of flies covered human and animal alike. It was a
testament to the docility of mules and oxen that they bore the
plaguing insects at all. The soldiers and knights hesitated to
remove helms even with no enemy in sight. And at least the helms
kept the bugs at bay for the most part.

The way east brought gradual confidence.
Articles of armor and clothing came off. The promise of clean water
ahead, heralded by a line of trees that clearly lined the banks of
a sizable stream or even a river, made the mood lighter,
particularly among the camp followers. Some divested themselves of
most of their clothing, sang, danced and got into fistfights. The
soldiers looked after the cavorting civilians with longing, so much
did they want to join them, stretch other muscles than those
required for the relentless march, to rest, to seek out willing
women, to forget where they were and what they had gone through for
just a few hours.

The River Halys was wide but not too swift to
cross. The horses did not need to be coaxed to step into the water.
Rather they had to be urged on once they stretched their muzzles to
drink.

Elisabeth was one of the knights who gladly
dismounted and waded through the water. She smiled and laughed when
Gerhardt, also afoot, splashed her, wetting her from crown to toe.
Though not clear, the water was sweet. If she had not been in full
mail, she thought she might have lain down in the river and let it
wash over her. She did not even mind that her cracked lips stung
and bled as she drank.

Across the river, its course now paralleling
their trek on the south, the pilgrims found themselves still alone
with no Turks either to their side or trailing them. Perhaps
Montebello had been right, Elisabeth wondered. Perhaps Malik Ghazi
would leave them be to cross through his territory. Foraging groups
went out once more. There was ample water taken from the Halys.
Hope rose in many hearts.

The valley ran southwest to northeast. There
was evidence of habitations nearer the river, deserted villages,
little sign of cultivation. During the long days of the march they
were able to forage from the wild. Getting enough food at last the
people and the remaining animals began to look less desiccated, to
build a little muscle. The pilgrim's lined faces smoothed. Slowly
eyes stopped scanning the hilltops as constantly. Were they home
free? Might they actually make it?

A scout galloped up a few days into the march
with news that a small village lay not far ahead. As the procession
moved forward, the village at last came into view. Low walls, flat
roofed buildings, one spire.

"What do you see?" one of the women who
followed her man from Austria demanded of Elisabeth where she sat
high above on Gauner's tall back.

She glanced down at the woman, seeing a
comely peasant carrying a listless child. "Just a village, with low
walls. There is some sort of grove, olive trees perhaps?" she
replied. "There might be people!"

Soon the procession's forward progress
changed to a rush toward the small village. Hundreds of pilgrims,
she realized, were making straight for the dilapidated gate in the
wall that was meant to shelter the villagers. She watched for some
minutes, growing anxious at the mob ahead. Finally, she urged her
mount forward. She glanced toward some of the other knights and
found them pulling out of formation and hurrying forward as well.
The Lombard riffraff broke out into full run, unwilling to miss out
on whatever the ones before were after.

When Elisabeth and Albrecht reached the
village, they saw to their horror that soldiers and noncombatants
alike were ransacking it. Men and women and even some older
children tore through the village with its two dozen huts and
snatched up almost anything they found. One woman held a chicken in
her arms and took great bites out of a big flatbread, her children
dancing and jumping at her side to get their share. A man-at-arms
took his pike and speared an old man who tried to prevent him from
carrying off a jug of wine, which broke when it hit the ground as
the man-at-arms put both hands on the staff of the pike to thrust
it forward. A group of men, some men-at-arms and some peasants, had
a woman on the ground and were taking turns violating her. Two of
the huts were ablaze. The grove of olive trees was full of pilgrims
jumping to pull down under-ripe fruit, others standing in and
sometimes breaking the branches as they grabbed and threw down
olives.

Elisabeth realized as her anger grew that it
was not so much that the villagers were so beset but that the
management of provisions had fallen to the chaos. By the time this
orgy was over, the pilgrims would be lucky to find anything they
could take away with them for the road.

She did not have time to chastise herself for
her unworthy thoughts. Albrecht touched her shoulder and pointed.
She gasped when she saw a church with the odd cross used in this
part of the world, like the ones in Constantinople. A
black-cassocked Eastern priest stood in the door wringing his hands
and pleading. "My God," she exclaimed. "It is a Christian
village!"

She and Albrecht set to trying to prevent any
further pillaging and destruction, other knights and some
men-at-arms trying to herd the miscreants out of the gate and back
to where the rest of the procession stood gawping. She noticed when
she glanced their way that Father Cyril and some other priests were
guiding the distraught priest of the small church back into its
sanctuary. Cyril stood in front of the door with a stout cudgel
daring anyone to enter and despoil the holy place. "Come,"
Elisabeth called to her squire, and led him to the church. Cyril
shot her a disgusted look until she dismounted and went to stand,
sword drawn, at his side. It felt good to have a specific thing to
defend. Two Italian knights and a crossbowman joined them. Any
looters intent on the altar treasures took one look at the armed
men and the priest with his angry glare and went to find easier
prizes.

Gathering after the ransacking of the
village, pilgrims began to fight each other for the food and other
spoils taken from the now-destroyed village. Those villagers left
alive took refuge in the church, where the Eastern priest and some
of the women of the town, more than a few weeping from being
violently used, tended the wounded and wept over the dead.

Elisabeth and Albrecht tried to help, but
they were confronted with angry stares and were sworn at and spit
on. They made their way back to their own party. They found
Gerhardt, who was telling a story bitterly of the unwillingness of
the leaders to make any effort first to prevent the disaster or to
do anything afterward to punish transgressors. "They just put up
their tent and took their ease. At least Conrad was not among them.
He was herding people out of the olive grove."

A man-at-arms responded to the German
knight's lament that the town was a Christian one, "We left the
church alone!"

Gerhardt spat at the man, turned and came
over to Elisabeth and her squire. "You expect this with a Paynim
village, but a Christian one?"

She eyed him. "Where were Black Beast and
Alain during all this?"

He spat on the ground again. "Watching." He
strode away, leaving her to look for her other companions.

Elisabeth found Ranulf sitting with his back
to one of the olive trees, taking advantage of the little shade
left after the tree was stripped of many of its limbs. She slid
down to sit by him. The base of the tree was thick with olives
trampled by the despoilers and defenders alike. He offered her a
wineskin. When her hand reached for it then hesitated, he assured
her, "It's not the fruit of pillage. I paid a village woman for
it."

Elisabeth took the skin, tipped its spout to
her lips, and sighed with pleasure at the wetness and the taste.
Handing it back to Ranulf she nodded her thanks.

"I would really like to get drunk right now,"
she admitted.

Ranulf toasted her with the wineskin. "As
would I," he said. They sat for a while in silence. He finally
spoke. "I am sorry I ever came on this pilgrimage."

She sat with her head back and her eyes
closed. "Why did you and the others come? You don't seem like the
usual pilgrims."

He snorted without amusement. "I take that as
a compliment." He saw she had opened her eyes and was waiting for
an answer. "I suppose you have heard we are seeking absolution for
something, eh, Elias?"

She nodded, but said no more.

"It's true, though probably not what anyone
thinks. We did not rape nuns. We did not desecrate a church. We did
nothing of the sort. In fact, it was doing nothing that we desire
forgiveness for." He took a long swig of the wine. "It was Mainz, a
few years ago, when the first call went out to liberate the Holy
Land from the Paynim. You know of course that the first wave of
pilgrims, the ones heeding Peter the Hermit's call, went berserk
virtually at once. They turned on Jews in their own cities, and
they did the same in every Christian town they passed through on
their way to Byzantium. In the Rhineland Count Emicho of Leinengen
was joined by other gangs. Yes, gangs, for they looked like no
pilgrims I had ever seen."

He took another long draught. "The Emperor
called for the Jews to be protected, and so did the bishops. That's
where my men and I became involved. The burghrave who was the
military officer, who worked for the burghers of Mainz and Bishop
Ruthard, after hearing of the massacres in Speyer and how in Worms
the mob broke into the bishop's palace and murdered the Jews he was
protecting, called in all the soldiers they could, mostly
mercenaries. After all, we will protect anyone if the price is
right, eh?"

Elisabeth waited while he took a moment to
collect his thoughts.

"They said that Peter the Hermit had a letter
from the Jews in his own town telling other Jews to provide all the
supplies the crusaders wanted or they might find themselves under
attack. The Jews of Mainz gave Emicho a king's ransom in gold and
the Bishop begged him to pass the town by. Emicho fulfilled his
promise by turning a blind eye to what happened next. The gangs
went into the city and many of the people there joined in the
slaughter. They even invaded the Ruthard's palace, as they had in
Worms, and killed every one of the Jews sheltered inside. They made
a show of forcing the Jews to convert to Christianity, but nothing
was going to prevent the slaughter. My mercenaries were hired by
Bishop Ruthard to help the burghers of Mainz to keep order as best
we could. It was astonishing to hear him and other Christian
leaders protecting the Jews. I suppose it was because it was more
than the usual riot. Usually it's gangs of young men who are drunk
and trawl the streets of the Jewry to look for people to beat up.
This time the victims were the whole tribe. And we both know Jews
can be quite important if a nobleman or bishop needs money for some
reason. Sometimes when it comes to paying back the loans, they may
preach themselves blue in the face that Jews are in league with the
Devil and all that."

He glanced at her and seeing her continued
attention, went on. "There was a young woman with four little
children, a Christian who had converted when she married a Jew. Her
husband had been dragged into an alley and beaten senseless. He
died of his wounds. This woman, Rachel she was called, had been so
kind to us, my men and me. When the Hermit's party was on its way
to Mainz, I promised her I would protect her, keep her and her
children from harm. Then when the pilgrims arrived and started to
burn the Jewry and kill every Jew they could find, we had enough to
do to get them back under control. The others, Ruggiero and Ragnar,
told me I was daft to worry about Rachel, that it was more
important we protect the churches and the burghers' homes and
shops. I finally could not stand it anymore. I made my way through
the rioting mob to Rachel's house." Ranulf stopped talking and
stared out to some unknown memory. His voice broke. "She was there.
She had killed her four children and then herself. Cut their
throats, like sacrificial goats. Rather than letting them be torn
apart and herself ravished, she chose to take them with her as she
died. I went into her house to warn them the roof was close to
catching from a fire next door, and there they lay scattered on the
floor. The littlest one looked for all the world as if he had
curled up on the floor and gone to sleep, save for the bloody
puddle he lay in. The other children had the most horrible looks on
their faces. Two were crumpled on the floor. I found myself
wondering how she got her children to wait patiently while the
others were killed. The fourth child was in her arms as if she had
clutched him there so he could not escape. She herself lay with the
tracks of tears in her eyes, her own throat cut, the knife on the
floor where it fell."