Crusade (22 page)

The guests, honoured for their learning, money or position in the Church, were on a slightly raised dais. Even a harlequin in a street theatre could hardly have sewn such a gaudy clash of colours. Courtiers paraded in hats with dyed feathers so long and sweeping they were a danger to neighbours on all sides. The wealthy president of the Guild of Jewellers tossed his cape so that the emerald silk lining was prominently revealed and glared at the president of the Guild of Silversmiths, who had the presumption to challenge the jeweller by setting oversized rubies in his massive brooch of ornately worked silver. One diminutive churchman almost disappeared inside his ermine habit, looking unfortunately like a white rabbit without ears. Other ecclesiastical leaders corseted their portly waists in broad sashes of purple or crimson silk.

Robert stood behind the podium, pale with nervousness and looking ridiculously young. No one but he knew that Georgette had sneaked into the musicians’ balcony above the great hall. From that position, she would not be revealed to the audience as the only woman in the hall, but she could give Robert encouragement, perhaps even a few guiding signals. She knew the lecture by heart, quite as well as he did.

‘My colleagues, teachers, masters and lords!’ Robert boomed.

Up in the balcony, Georgette winced. They had slipped into this room the previous week to practise late one night. The size of the venue had been daunting and Robert had practised throwing his voice as far as the back of the audience. But now, with adrenalin flowing, Robert’s salutation sounded too loud, as if he were shouting. Georgette lifted her arm high and made two or three quick pulses of her palm towards the ground.

Robert moderated his voice at once and she nodded her head in approval.

‘I shall be talking today on a different way of drawing to Christ those souls who are not yet among His children. I must assume,’ he gave a little smile, ‘that it is the subject rather than my own skills that has attracted this impressive crowd.’

The students shifted and a few laughed. Georgette relaxed her shoulders a trifle. If Robert was feeling confident enough to depart from the speech and make a little joke, he would be all right.

‘Of course, you are all welcome. Let us begin.’

He took a deep breath and lifted his hands, forming a large shape in the air.

‘Imagine, if you will, our beloved Mother Church as a massive white statue, reaching high and glorious into the blue sky. Shining, true, magnificent. It emerges from a rocky base which is part of the earth, lined with ridges of age, marked with the dust of the ground, but solid and momentous enough to bear the weight of the shining edifice.

‘Consider, gentlemen, the impossibility of separating the statue from its stone-veined roots. Imagine the danger of pounding away at the rough plinth to make the statue more pure. The battering and diminishing of the ancient rock would surely lead to cracks in the glistening white.

‘Now picture the flawed and dusty base as the Jewish religion. It is accurate, for our Church rises from a Jewish base, the religion in which Jesus Christ was born and educated. And picture any cracks in the glistening white as the result of a Christian failure to behave as Christ taught us.

‘For many, many years it has been the practice of the Church to obtain converts by force. The killing of heretics, the persecution of Jews, the crusades against the Muslims. Convert them or kill them. But it is clearly stated in the Gospels: we are bidden to emulate Christ by showing compassion to all people.’

Georgette scanned the audience and particularly the notable visitors on the dais. Yes, Robert’s estranged benefactor, the abbot, was there, his face inscrutable. The abbot was very close to the standing council of judges. He was not liked, but it was conceded that he worked longer and harder than many of his fellow jurists. He had also taken to mortification of the flesh and it was rumoured that blood had been seen trickling from his sandals. Although he was not an old man, deep vertical lines carved his severe face.

Georgette shook her head and returned her attention to the lecture. Robert’s voice was strong: articulate, reasonable, but passionate.

‘
. . . 
the Muslims. The Muslim leader who held Jerusalem against the Third Crusade was a man called Saladin, a man of scrupulous honour and justice. He, like all other Muslims, is descended from Abraham, forefather of the Jews, forefather of Jesus, and thus forefather of us all. One father on earth and, as we know for a certainty, one Father in Heaven. We are all family members. The holy book of the Muslims says
 . . .
’

Again, Georgette’s mind drifted from the familiar words, much practised in the recent evenings. There was a pressing vision in her mind – dream, memory or prophecy, she did not know – in which she was walking alongside Robert on a country road, feeling free and at peace.

Many minutes must have passed in this vivid idyll, because her attention was only drawn back to the lecture hall by a portentous quiet. Robert had reached the conclusion of his speech. He had paused and was leaning forward with great earnestness, his eyes moving intently from the face of one student to another. In the absolute quiet, his voice penetrated every corner of the hall:

‘We wish to share our salvation, to bring glory to the Lord, to fulfil our religious duty, by converting the heathen. As Jesus won us with love and kindness, let us win over the Jews and the Muslims, and yes the Christians too, the Cathars and the Waldensians and others who – we say – have diverged from the Church, by showing them an example of generosity and patience, not harshness and punishment.

‘May our Lord favour us all with His approval. Amen.’

The class erupted in an uproar of exclamations, but Georgette heard nothing. At the close of the lecture, Robert had raised feverishly bright eyes to her before bending his head and folding his hands in silent prayer. She followed his example.

When she opened her eyes, Georgette saw students and visitors streaming out of the hall, talking and gesturing excitedly. Her heart sank. It was customary for fellow students to rush up to the speaker and offer congratulations, but no one approached Robert. He had given an astounding show of either courage or effrontery, and it was too risky to congratulate him and perhaps be viewed as endorsing his arguments.

Georgette searched the crowd for those of Robert’s fellow students who had praised him in her presence. They too were leaving, their heads lowered, without looking at the speaker. Alone on the podium, Robert looked frighteningly vulnerable. Georgette’s lips trembled, but she smiled down at him, her eyes shining with love and reassurance. He gave her a strained smile in return. They would be together in a few minutes; the hall was almost empty.

There was whispering as the last few members of the audience finally departed. Georgette watched Abbot Benedict turn slowly towards the doors, hesitate with his back to Robert, and depart alone. Robert’s face paled and his fingers trembled as he tidied his notes mechanically.

Georgette flew down the stone stairs and rushed into the main hall, throwing her arms around her husband.

‘Robert, I am so proud,’ she whispered, and a smile briefly lit his dear face.

‘’Tis done, Georgette. ’Tis done,’ he replied. Each understood what was done.

They embraced for a long time and gradually Robert’s trembling stilled and his colour returned. From the dark and intimidating hall, they walked out into the sunny afternoon.

Later, they would review every word of the lecture and worry about any possible consequences. But for now they were just two young people released from tension and suddenly ravenous with hunger.

‘I have heard of an inn where they serve excellent duck à l’orange,’ Robert announced. ‘Not just ordinary duck but some brought specially from the country for refined palates.’

They smiled together at the memory of the fancy ducks on the cart that had brought them to Paris.

‘Expensive, yes, but appropriate for this occasion, methinks. Shall we dine, esteemed wife?’

Chapter Twenty-Six

Shortly before sunrise, a knock at their door woke Georgette, who had not drunk as much sweet red wine as Robert had the previous evening. Tiptoeing to the door, she called, ‘Who goes there?’

‘It is I, Abbot Benedict,’ came the whispered reply. ‘I must speak with Robert urgently.’

Georgette was stunned. She knew Robert had been stricken by his mentor’s abandonment after the lecture: the quantity of wine he had downed at the inn was an indication of more than simple relief at having the lecture behind him.

Hurrying to the bed, Georgette shook Robert hard to rouse him and then pulled a cape over her thin shift. A tall black figure slipped inside the minute Robert released the lock, and immediately closed the door behind himself.

‘You are to be charged as a heretic,’ the abbot began without preamble. ‘They will come to arrest you at sunrise. You must flee immediately.’

Robert had anticipated reprimand or, at unlikely worst, perhaps expulsion from the university. But he had not dreamed of arrest or trial; why, his very life was in danger. And what of the abbot? By coming to warn Robert, he had risked his entire career. Possibly his career was already damaged by his earlier connection with the student-turned-heretic.

‘Thank you
 . . .
Father,’ Robert said, grasping the older man’s hand in both of his own and kissing the familiar ring.

The abbot stared at him for only a moment. His anger and disappointment and fear were clear. But there was something else, a look never seen in his eyes before. It was love, a sad and lonely love. Robert’s eyes glistened as he understood it all. Then Abbot Benedict slipped back out into the darkness.

It took but ten minutes to pack their few belongings into bundles not much bigger than those they had carried on the Crusade. But at that time they had not had the responsibility of Father David’s precious manuscripts.

Robert hesitated, perplexed.

‘You choose one that you can carry,’ Georgette decided. ‘And I will take another. The other five we will lock up in Father David’s chest and ask the landlord to keep it safely for us.’

The landlord, stupid with sleep, was consoled for the sudden loss of his well-behaved tenants by a most generous payment for simply storing an old battered trunk. After they left, he tried the old lock, but it was solid and well made, and he could hear no clink of gold or anything precious when he shook the trunk, so he stored it in a niche under some old quilts and lost interest in his charge.

The sun was a golden half-ball on the horizon as Robert and Georgette passed through the gates of Paris, leaving behind the narrow alleyways of the city. The rains had come and the earth smelled washed and fresh. The birdsong they could barely hear inside the walls now crowded the air to bursting, and the grass was silvered with dew.

They faced towards Lyon, the same southwards direction the Children’s Crusade had taken.

‘Are we ready?’ Robert asked.

‘We are ready,’ Georgette replied.

About The Book

This novel is based on historical accounts of two Children’s Crusades in the summer of 1212. One was inspired and led by a twelve-year-old German boy from the town of Cologne; the other led by a twelve-year-old French shepherd called Stephen. This book is about the French Children’s Crusade. With the permission of the King of France, Stephen marched thousands of youngsters, mostly between the ages of eleven and fifteen, along with a few monks and priests, all the way south to Marseilles, proclaiming that the sea would open for them and they would walk through the Mediterranean to claim the Holy Land.

The sea did not part for the pilgrims in Marseilles. Some remained in the south of France, while others attempted to return home. A large number accepted an offer of free passage to the Holy Land, sailing on seven ships operated by two men called William the Pig and Hugh the Iron. Many years later, a priest who had seen some of those children in Egypt arrived in Marseilles with the report that the ships were captured by pirates and the children, perhaps by prior arrangement, were sent as slaves to Alexandria, Damascus and Baghdad.

Some historians put the number of participants in the Children’s Crusades as high as 100,000, others as low as 5,000. No more is known than the few details above, so my story is necessarily fiction. A few historians believe that the Children’s Crusades never actually happened and that the story of an army of pure young souls was Church propaganda.