The Devil's Crossing

by Hana Cole

  ‘I thought I might never see you again,’ she whispered.

  ‘I would be dead before I would leave you to that demon.’

  ‘I know.’ She rubbed his hand. ‘That is what I was afraid of.’

  Gui peered into the gloaming. ‘We should be gone from here,’ he said. ‘Let’s head back to Montoire while the night is on our side.’

  ‘Montoire?’ The idea curdled her blood.

  ‘Of course. I will go back for Etienne. You can wait outside the village.’

  ‘Etienne?’ Agnes’s fingers tightened on Gui’s cassock. ‘Is he back?’

  ‘Back?’ Gui searched her face, confusion lining his brow.

  Agnes felt her chest tighten. ‘I thought you went back to Montoire, to look for Etienne.’

  ‘Look for Etienne?’ Gui eyes were wild now. ‘I went to Lavardin to forge a release for you.’

  ‘Oh Gui, I thought you knew.’ Agnes pawed at his arm. ‘Etienne has gone. He’s gone, Gui.’

  Her stomach shrank at the panic on Gui’s face.

  ‘Gone where?’

  She opened her mouth but the pressure in her chest would not allow the words to come. She pushed her palm into her breastbone. ‘He went with the other shepherd boys. He went on crusade.’

  ‘Crusade?’ Gui choked out the word as though it were a terrible affliction.

  Around them the tendrils of the forest seemed to come alive, knotted fingers encroaching in the dark.

  Agnes’s hand ringed her neck. ‘We should go to my godmother’s cottage outside Chartres. You took me there when we first met.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘They won’t find us there. Then we can look for Etienne from a place of safety.’

  Gui leant into his pommel. ‘Tell me what happened first.’

  ‘I don’t know. He only left a short note. After one of those holy processions. It said something about a vision of the Virgin. Someone had a vision and a group of shepherd boys were going on crusade. I don’t know anything more. That’s why I wrote to you to come.’

  ‘You wrote to me?’ Gui closed his eyes in terrible comprehension.

  ‘At Chartres abbey. To call you home. I didn’t know what else to do.’ The cold stone of self-reproach sank in her heart. ‘You didn’t receive it.’

  ‘It isn’t your fault,’ Gui said quickly. ‘It’s probably just a rumour. They’ll get a few miles along St James’s way and turn back. We’ll find him, I promise.’ His tone was keen, as though he were rallying his congregtion to a paradise he couldn’t quite believe in.

  Agnes looked back down the luminous path that snaked into the trees. ‘How?’

  ‘We’ll head for Tours.’

  ‘Tours?’

  ‘My old friend Philippe will be there by tomorrow. If anyone has heard of this crusade of children, it will be him.’

  Chapter Eight

  The birds wake Etienne at dawn. He rolls off his straw mat and stretches out the stiffness in his back. The air is already thick with the smoke from cooking pots. Yesterday’s ash floats about like flakes of dead skin. He feels bereft, and for minute he can’t remember why. Then the memory of disaster churns in his stomach. He tries to stifle it by turning his thoughts to the day ahead, but as he gets up to kindle the fire he sees the plains around and dismally he recalls.

  The day before King Philippe had finally agreed to meet Stephen, the miracle shepherd boy. How his heart had soared to hear it. When he saw Jean, lolloping towards them with more news, his whole body felt weak with excitement. After all the weeks of waiting at the Fairs he was so tired of the stink of the camp and the hard, cracked fields where they made their beds, tired of surviving on the meagre charity of the pious or odd jobs traded for food, the promise of great adventures always just beyond their reach. This is it, he thought. But it wasn’t. Instead, Jean, his face contorted with exertion, looked at them, shook his head, and said, ‘The king has dismissed Stephen. There will be no crusade.’

  Etienne sinks back down onto his heels, still dumbfounded. His mind feels like a spinning top without enough momentum, wobbling wildly as all his certainty drains away. He was so sure the king would say yes. He rubs furiously at his hairline. How could God abandon them?

  He levers a poker into the heart of the fire and griddles it until the embers spark. Their little cooking pot lies upended next to him but there is nothing to put in it. He kicks it, just so he can watch it roll away. It would be more use as a helmet, he thinks. He remembers hearing stories of how ages ago, before the great lords of France had even claimed Jerusalem, thousands of peasants gathered together and journeyed off to the holy land armed with scythes, pitchforks, whatever protection they could find. They didn’t turn back. They went all the way east before the great armies of the kings even left home.

  He watches the departing boys gather up their belongings from their makeshift home. Packs on their shoulders, they traipse away through the fields. He digs his hand into his tunic and fingers his felt cross. To his relief, he stills gets the same tingling in his bones as before. A flutter of excitement stirs in his stomach, and it tells him that turning back is the wrong thing to do. Maybe there is a reason why the king sent Stephen away, he thinks. And maybe if I keep looking I’ll find it.

  Etienne picks his way through piles of rubbish and things abandoned. It stinks even more now that there aren’t so many people and the distractions of their hubbub. Some of the things left behind seem good quality. A copper pot, a child’s wooden toy and other such things you wouldn’t really want to leave behind. He bends down and picks up the toy - a knight on a horse. The paint has chipped a bit and the knight has lost a hand but still, why would you leave behind such a reminder of home? Home. It is a few moments before he even realises that he is thinking about it, and by then it is too late to pretend otherwise.

  Etienne sits down amid the refuse of their hopes. For the first time since he arrived at the camp he delves into the bottom of his pouch. He checks that no one is watching before he brings out the St Christopher pendant he stole from his mother. The saint carries a staff in one hand and a baby on his shoulder, crowned by a halo. She told him that her father gave it to her and it’s pure gold. There’s no way he wants anyone else to find out he has it. He cups it in his hand and plants a kiss on it.

  A stab of guilt hollows his chest as he thinks of Agnes and how worried she will be. The note he left told her not to worry but he knows she will, and suddenly he finds himself swallowing hard, the sting of salt at the back of his throat. When he prays at night, he always remembers to ask God to make sure Father Gui is looking after her, and to make her happy so she doesn’t miss him too much. It troubles Etienne that although he misses her too, it isn’t enough to turn him around. Not even now, when everyone else wants to give up.

  ‘I wish there was someway I could explain,’ he says to the shiny disk in his hand. ‘I know you won’t understand yet. But you will.’ He traces his fingers over the engraving and whispers into his cupped hands. ‘You have travelled these roads, and so must I.’

  By the time Etienne returns to his friends, over half of them have decided to turn back. It has been a great adventure but they are hungry and sore. They have had enough of loitering under a burning sun and wading around in so much filth. The shepherd boy was a fake. If not then the king would have seen it. Kings know that sort of thing.

  ‘I heard Stephen is heading north. To Flanders,’ says Jocelyn, one of Jean’s friends. ‘The Virgin appeared to him and told him to preach where the folk are more humble. He said the high born are not pleasing to God.’

  ‘The only virgin that’s appeared to him is in his dreams,’ scoffs Marc.

  ‘We are being tested,’ Jean asserts. ‘A fortune teller told me about this.’

  ‘What? Crusade?’

  Jean nods.

  ‘Really? What did she say?’

  ‘That one day I would be called by God. That I would go on a great adventure in His name.’

  ‘Then wh
at?’

  Jean’s brow knots. ‘She said there would be much confusion. And to guard against deceit. And that I would teach the word of God in wild places.’

  Marc explodes with laughter. Jocelyn gives him a shove. Marc pushes him back as Marc’s brother Piere ploughs in to help him, and soon there are four or five of them rolling around on the ground trading kicks and insults.

  ‘That’s enough!’ Etienne wades in and pulls apart the warring boys. Marc gives him a feeble shove, then swipes the air and backs away as though he can’t be bothered with it anymore. Silence descends like thick, low-lying cloud.

  ‘I heard some older boys talking about going to Marseille. Going overseas,’ says Etienne quietly.

  ‘What?’ blurts Jean.

  ‘That sounds like a great idea,’ Marc guffaws. ‘With all the money and arms we have…’

  ‘If you’re not serious about going overseas then you don’t have to come.’

  ‘We would have better chance of success if we stick with Stephen. He can gather a new army of pilgrims,’ reasons Jean.

  ‘Maybe. But I don’t want to go to Flanders. I want to go overseas.’ Etienne’s shoulders drop as he sheds the need to convince anyone else. ‘What are we all here for if we aren’t willing to take a chance? There are cities of French overseas, castles, knights. Maybe Stephen has been chosen by God to do this work and go with him if you want to. But there are still lots of boys here and maybe there is another way. If others are ready to find a ship, to stop all this talking and waiting, then I say we go and find them. And maybe God will help us then.’

  The others stare at him. Even Marc is silent. Time feels like it is moving very slowly. Etienne doesn’t know where those words came from, he can’t even sure if he actually said them out loud. Jean squints at him from under the peak of his hand as though he is looking at the sun.

  ‘You think I am mad?’

  ‘No. I think you are right,’ Jean replies. ‘We followed this preacher boy because we thought he could lead us somewhere. But what if his purpose was just to bring us together?’

  ‘If God wills it then there will be a way,’ says Jocelyn. ‘One of my mother’s cousins, a saddler, moved to Acre and still lives there now.’

  One by one the boys give the affirmation. ‘God wills it.’

  To Etienne’s surprise, Marc’s is among the voices.

  Everyone agrees that approaching the older boys is a good idea, but no-one volunteers to go with Etienne, so he finds himself standing alone, fidgeting, as the older boys pack up their belongings. Even the youngest of them looks at least sixteen. Etienne knows he can’t return to the others without at least trying to talk to them, but they seem so certain, polishing up their walking sticks, sharpening knives, forcing blankets and parcels of food into their packs.

  Work has been easier for them to find. He has seen them skinning meat at the butchers’ stalls, heaving consignments of timber, barrowing great containers of coins for money changers. Their confidence makes him shrink. What could his friends possibly have to offer? One of the boys looks over and instantly Etienne throws his glance away, prickles of discomfort at his collar. From the corner of his eye though, he can tell the boy is still looking at him. What’s the worst that can happen, he asks himself? They will laugh at me. Come on, he scolds, how are you going to fight off the Saracen if you can’t even approach a group of fellow pilgrims?

  Fingers folded over the sleeves of his tunic, brow furrowed as though deep in thought, Etienne steps forward. At the very same moment, the boy who is looking at him comes over. Etienne guesses he is as old as eighteen. Not a boy at all. He has a thatch of black hair and a slightly paler beard that is patchy about his cheeks.

  ‘You are watching us. Do you need something?’

  Etienne feels his face flame. ‘My friends are I were just wondering,’ he says. ‘We heard that you weren’t following Stephen the shepherd boy anymore.’

  He shakes his head. ‘It was wrong to place our hope in the lords of France. We understand that now.’

  ‘Cursed is the one who trusts in man,’ adds another one of the others, joining them.

  Etienne nods back with a keenness that makes him feels like a puppy waiting for a bone. ‘And you are going to find your own way overseas?’

  The dark-haired boy nods. ‘Not just us. Come.’

  The boy tells Etienne his name is Daniel and he is from Île de France. His eyes crinkle kindly as he talks, but there is something distant about them, or sad. Etienne can’t quite place what it is but he feels as if he knows Daniel from somewhere.

  ‘We are more than three score and we think there are many more groups of pilgrims like us.’

  ‘Really?’ Etienne beams. ‘Some of my friends still want to follow Stephen. They say he will find a real crusader army further north.’

  ‘Maybe he will but we do not think so,’ one of Daniel’s group chimes in. ‘He was wrong to think the lords of France would rally.’ The boy’s face clouds.

  ‘They are weak,’ says another jabbing his finger furiously towards the distant pennants that stream over the royal tents. ‘They have become corrupt. They wouldn’t rally to the Virgin herself,’

  ‘And the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not,’ says Daniel and his friends nod knowingly. Etienne feels as though they have knowledge of some great mystery that he too is supposed to know.

  ‘Christendom is a sick man,’ Daniel continues. ‘If we show the Lord that we have not forsaken him then he will bless us with a new kingdom.’

  ‘We were never meant to toil like slaves for the comfort of rich men,’another adds.

  ‘I know,’ Etienne says. ‘Do you really think this crusade can change it all?’

  ‘Of course,’ the boys chorus, and Etienne can tell every single one of them means it. The air around them feels like it does just before a storm, all hot and sparky and full of untapped power. To be in the midst of such a swell makes his heart sing, and its song is vibrating through his whole body. This is not chance that brought me here, he thinks.

  ‘God is giving us the opportunity to show that we can do better,’ Daniel says as though reading his mind.

  ‘There are great changes in the earth itself. The seasons are not what they were in the time of our grandfathers. The world grows cold. Rome would not have us hear it but we are coming into a new age,’ adds Daniel’s friend.

  ‘Scholars in Paris are being burned for saying as much.’

  Etienne swallows. ‘Really?’ He can hear a buzzing in his ears just like when he first met Jean. ‘My friend Jean. He brought me here. He has to hear this.’

  ‘Go and fetch him then,’ says Daniel. ‘Go and fetch all who you think have the heart to follow us.’ He pushes his hair from his eyes with an impatient flick of his hand, and in that moment it comes to Etienne. Daniel reminds him of Father Gui. It isn’t so much the dark, messy hair, but more the way that he looks at Etienne as though he is about to say something important. Now he has made the comparison, it is hard not to look at Daniel as though he knows him, even though he probably isn’t like Father Gui at all. Still, there is reassurance in the fierce, dark eyes and the conviction of the older boy. This is it, he thinks as he races off to tell the others, this is why we came.

  *

  A few days later they leave the camp, their number the size of a small village. God must be able to see them, Etienne, thinks, covering the fields like they are part of the great Exodus. Others like them are bound to find the courage to join them. Then the heathen will see the error of their ways. God will see that the poor of France do not mean to stand by while rich Italian merchants take the spoils and leave the holy places to rot. There will be a boat at Marseille and there will be French landowners overseas ready to welcome them. The great lords have had their chance and they have spurned it. Now it is their turn, and he, Etienne, is going to put his fortune to good use when his time comes.

  The sun is hot, the fields brittle as their column tr
amps through the long grasses, all but burned from the summer. Most of them have food for a few days - some hard bread, fruit. There will be ways, farmers in need of a day’s labour, folk moved to charity for the pity of the Lord. One hand fingering the pouch with his mother’s St Christopher pendant in it, Etienne swings his other arm over Jean’s shoulder.

  ‘Now we really are going to see those wild places,’ he says.

  Chapter Nine

  The merchant was riffling through piles of fabric when his maid announced the visitors. He began an effusive greeting, but as they appeared in the doorway, pallid and dishevelled, the face of the jovial retailer fell away.

  ‘Great heavens, Gui. Come in, come in.’

  ‘Forgive me, my friend.’ Gui patted the broad shoulders. The familiarity of his friend’s bear-like embrace and his overpowering pomander felt like reassurance that not everything in his world had capsized.

  Gui waited until the maid left the room and the heavy oak door had swung shut. ‘We had to leave in some haste. It seems my fears were not without foundation.’

  ‘That is most unhappy news.’ Philippe tutted sadly, as though consoling a child who had lost a favourite toy. ‘You know that friends are always welcome. More so if they are in need,’ he said, extending his arm towards Agnes.

  ‘At last. Madame.’ One hand still clamped around Gui’s arm, Philippe bowed as low as his belly permitted.

  Agnes dug for the best smile she could. ‘I have heard much of you, sir. And may I say that you do not disappoint in the flesh.’

  ‘You mean I am fat!’ Philippe guffawed. ‘Oh what I would do for the honesty of an intelligent woman. I am rotten with envy.’

  ‘You know that is not what I meant!’

  ‘Ah! A real smile. See, a few moments in the company of Philippe and already your pallor lifts. Let me get you some refreshments.’ Philippe gestured to a plush faldstool. ‘I bought it from the Bishop of Aix.’

  ‘Of course you did,’ said Gui, deadpan.

  Philippe summoned a carafe of wine and some Genovese panforte. Propping himself up on a daybed like some feasting Roman senator, Philippe’s eyes followed the plate as the maid offered it to his guests. Taking a piece for himself, he licked the sugary spices from his fingers and said, ‘Tell me.’