by Hana Cole
‘How blessed?’ asks Etienne.
‘This morning we came across a pious merchant who told us he had been at the Fairs,’ says Geoffrey.
‘He remembered our plight,’ Daniel continues. ‘He was so moved he gave us some money and told us to journey on to Marseille via a place called Vichy.’
‘Huh,’ says Etienne. ‘Imagine.’
‘He is going to leave us some more vittels there. We thought we might get some meat and rest for a day or so.’
‘That sounds nice.’ The last time Etienne ate meat was the rabbit a butcher gave them for St John the Baptist’s day. He can almost smell it cooking in the pot.
‘We set off as pilgrims together so it’s only right that we help the weaker ones,’ says Daniel. ‘The merchant told us the rewards would be all the more if we spread the word and gather more of us.’
The other shepherds nod. ‘That’s the whole reason we are here. To show God that we are not all like those greedy lords who fill their larders and never return their blessings on those who tend the land.’
‘We are all here together,’ another says. ‘And there are many others making their way south.’
Etienne’s eyes widen keenly. He thrusts his hand into his tunic pocket, fingers searching until they find it. Turning his back on the older boys, he hunches over and in the pretense of blowing his nose, plants a kiss on the little gold disk. The sky always comes clear, he thinks.
*
The moon is full when they resume their journey; woodlands, vineyards, long, glassy rivers, and plains with views that look like they go on to the edge of the world. It is easier travelling with the older boys. The days pass faster and for the times when they have nothing to buy food with, the older boys know how to trap a grouse or steal without getting caught - a chicken from a courtyard, a loaf of bread left to cool by a window. Etienne knows that at other times stealing would be wrong, but this is different. If God allows them to take with such ease and not get caught, then it means that He favours their endeavour. He has lain it right there in their path so they might survive. All is forgiven anyway, once you kneel at the holy places.
When eventually they arrive in Marseille, Etienne is glad he isn’t just with his friends from Montoire. He has never seen so many people, or even imagined that there could be so many, side by side in the same place and he is glad to have the protection of the older boys.
‘It’s just like Paris,’ Marc says with a confident nod as yet another cart splashes them with roadside filth.
Etienne knows Marc has never been to Paris but he doesn’t say anything as he can tell Marc is just as overwhelmed as he. At least Daniel and some of his friends from the Île know what cities are like. Etienne hopes as they trudge through the chaos that they know how to find them a place to stay. Somwhere that isn’t like one of these hovels; crumbling, windowless lean-tos crammed either side of streets that stink worse than any animal barns he has ever smelled.
‘I hope this air doesn’t make us sick,’ Etienne says.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Marc replies. ‘How do you think all these people live here?’
‘They don’t look very well to me.’ Etienne pulls his shirt up over his nose just in case.
‘Look. Etienne.’ Marc pulls at his shirt. The group stops in their tracks. The man is carrying two heavy pails, bare-chested with a scarf wound round his head, sweat running down his face and torso. He staggers past them, eyes lifting briefly to take them in. The urge to reach out and touch his smooth, mahogany skin is almost irresistible. The man turns into a courtyard, putting down one of his pails to pat the head of the small child who runs out to greet him. For a few moments, the boys stand dumbfounded.
‘That’s a Mohammedan,’ whispers Etienne.
‘Probably a slave carrying water for his master.’ Marc replies.
‘But he is like us.’ Etienne is still staring at the entrance to the courtyard.
‘No he is not. He is half naked with a cloth wrapped round his head and dirty dark skin!’
‘That’s not what I mean,’ Etienne begins but decides it is too complicated to explain any further.
‘What Etienne means is that he was a man,’ says Jean. ‘Flesh and blood.’
At the end of the street they find themselves on a promontory overlooking the harbour - boats of all sizes are lashed to the quay, labourers heaving over-laden barrows back and forth as seagulls dive onto piles of rubbish. The rotten smell of fish, human waste and salt that tinged the air in the back streets hits their nostrils full. Etienne kicks a discarded bottle into the sea and peers over to watch it fill with water and sink. The water is filthy. Unidentifiable objects caught in bits of rope slap up against the side of the harbour, bobbing in the foam that clings to the wall. It would definitely make you sick enough to die if you fell in, Etienne thinks before wondering how many people fall in each year.
Moored just beyond the harbour chain, two barrel-hulled merchant transports dip up and down in the water.
‘Are they taking us to the Holy Land?’ A small boy called Renauld asks.
‘Maybe,’ replies Daniel. ‘They are merchant ships. The men who want to help us told us to meet here. One of the boats is called The Peregrine Falcon they said.’
‘Just think in a few days we could be out at sea,’ says Daniel.
‘A few days?’ asks Jocelyn.
‘Yes,’ Daniel says. His eyes glow like polished copper. ‘Isn’t it exciting?’
Etienne nods vigorously, even as it hits him for the first time that he hasn’t been on a boat before. In fact, until a few weeks ago, he hadn’t even seen one.
‘Why do we have to wait though?’ Jocelyn persists. ‘The ship looks ready.’
‘We have to wait for all others will join us so we can pay something towards our passage.’
‘Oh.’ Renauld sounds disappointed. ‘The shepherd boy said we wouldn’t need money.’
‘He also said the sea would part and we would be able to walk to the Holy Land.’ Marc clips the boy’s ear. ‘He was a fake.’
Renauld cries out and a brief scuffle ensues as the others come to the boy’s defence.
‘Look over here.’ Etienne shouts at the fray.
Guarding the harbour mouth is a large fortification. Far larger than any castle they have seen on their journey, huge, featureless slabs of stone lean up towards the clear blue sky. There are no doors on the harbour side, only archery slits way up high. Behind the ramparts a watchtower flies a black standard with a white cross.
‘The banner of the Knights of the Hospital,’ Etienne whispers. ‘There must be an entrance somewhere.’
The stone blocks are the thickest he has ever seen, easily as thick as his arm span, and he wonders how long it took to build. He runs his palm over the wall and wipes the chalky residue on his trousers. At least the reign of the last king, probably. Around the back of the building a double-towered gateway is blocked only by a chain. From within the cloisters comes a low murmur. The knights are at prayer. Etienne feels his heart quicken as he realises he is going to jump the chain.
Suddenly his friends scatter and before he has a chance to flee he finds himself staring up at one of the knights; a giant of a man with a full beard and a scar that runs from his eyebrow to his ear. His arms are folded across his chest, sword swinging in its scabbard.
‘Please, sir,’ he starts.
The top of his head comes up to the middle of the knight’s chest.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I just…’ He can hear his voice pitching higher, like a girl. ‘I just…there was no one here. I just wanted to look. I’m not a spy or anything.’
The knight reaches down and ruffles Etienne’s hair. ‘I can tell.’
Etienne’s body judders with relief. He wants to say thank you but the words won’t come out.
‘There should be a guard on the gate,’ the knight says, ‘to preserve us from attack by twelve-year olds!’
‘There�
��s not enough of us to attack anything yet.’ Etienne decides not to tell him that he is only eleven.
‘What do you mean?’
Etienne tells the knight his story. He can tell the knight is impressed that they have come so far. The big warrior’s eyes shine as though he is looking at some amazing sight in the distance, and even though he must be very busy, which Etienne can tell from the way he keeps looking away, he stays quite still and listens until the end.
The knight kneels down so he is shorter than Etienne and says, ‘Your endeavour is worthy of praise and I am sure the Lord will reward you for your efforts but what you propose is dangerous and by rights I should counsel you to return home.’
The knight’s face is stern and Etienne’s shoulders sag.
‘But I too ran away when I was a boy, younger in fact than you. God, in his mercy, sent me into the arms of the good monks of St Benedict.’ He pauses and crosses himself. Etienne thinks, if I didn’t know any better I would say he is choked for words. ‘From there, by and by, I found my way into the Hospital of St John and became a knight.’
‘You are not rich?’ Etienne’s eyes widen.
The knight laughs. ‘No, no. I was an errand boy at first. I learned to fight overseas. Then, as God willed it, another knight bequeathed me his horse when he passed away. Here.’ The knight unsheathes the knife. ‘The handle is oak from a tree of the Holy City.’
‘It’s for eating.’ Etienne hopes he doesn’t sound disappointed.
‘And yet it has killed a man.’ The knight pricks his skin with the tip and they both watch as a bright red bead blooms on his thumb. ‘It belonged to the very same man who attacked me on my way to prayer at the Sepulchre. I have kept it as a talisman, but perhaps it is time to pass it on to someone who may have more need of it than I.’
Etienne watches mesmerised as the knight unties the sheath from his belt and attaches it to his own. ‘My name is Etienne,’ the knight says.
Etienne gasps, eyes popping. ‘So is mine!’
‘Well, Etienne, that is a fortuitous sign is it not.’
Etienne turns the knife over, the hilt smooth in his hand. ‘I think it must be.’ And in that moment, he knows, with absolutely iron rod certainty, that he will visit the tomb of their name saint in Jerusalem. If not then God strike him down.
Chapter Thirteen
‘What do you mean not enough?’ Inquisitor de Nogent said through clench teeth.
The trader rubbed at the mottled patch of purple skin that stained his neck.
‘It’s always the same with you French when it comes to delivery. I was a tax collector at the Venetian treasury when your armies came seeking passage overseas a few years ago. Ships for thirty thousand we built! But when it came time to pay up, nowhere near that number arrived.’ The chubby jowls trembled as the merchant laughed. ‘Cò l'acqua riva aea gòea,’ he said, placing his hand at his throat. ‘When the water arrives here, we Venetians know what to do.’
‘So they say, Signor Zonta.’ The inquisitor sighed. ‘So they say.’
‘Dunque. You said there would be one thousand of these pastorali at the port?’
‘I haven’t counted the bodies myself but my scouts tell me that is the approximate number.’
‘Well, my men tell me there’s less than half that number.’
De Nogent arched his brow defiantly. The truth was he had no way of counting exactly how many of the peasant children had gathered there. With such a violent and unpredictable business partner as Maintenon, he didn’t wanted to jeopardise things with inconvenient detail.
‘Trafficking in Christians from Marseille is risky. I need a better numbers than that.’ Without pausing for breath, Zonta rattled on. ‘I can only take ten to fifteen percent of white faces in the hold of a regular shipment. I trade dark skins for the Church, pagan Slavs, but no whites from Marseille. I’ll have to use pirate vessels to move your gang of minature crusaders. I need numbers. And a larger downpayment that I would usually take to make it worth my while.’
‘First of all they are not crusaders. They are the bastard sons of heretics and thieves. Quiz one if you will and all you’ll hear is pagan filth.’ De Nogent’s beady eyes flared. ‘Secondly, who do you think I am? I can’t summon money out of thin air. If you can’t be of more help, I am sure the Bishop of Beziers would be pleased to reconsider his middle men.’
‘And he knows about your little enterprise, does he?’
Bernard de Nogent glared back. ‘Don’t threaten me, Signor Zonta. I’ll inspect the cargo on the dock myself if you require a certification from the Church.’
The trader shrugged. ‘I say give me two hundred livres now and we’ll make generous terms.’
*
Lifting his gaze up to the stained glass window, the inquisitor followed a vein of gold picked out by the afternoon sun. A triplicity of arches, each one containing a scene from the Scriptures; the holy couple on their donkey seeking sanctuary, the three kings, the Baptist preaching, lamb of God at this feet. Beyond the window loomed a shadow cast by crumbling stucco of a building that had once been a warehouse. Now it was a foundling orphanage established for the offspring of executed heretics. Bernard de Nogent prayed for a sign. He had been sent here to this cesspit on earth for Divine purpose, he knew it. Sooner or later the Creator would reward him with clear confirmation of his mission.
He had chosen to break the unhappy matter of the numbers to Maintenon via letter rather than risk a face-to-face confrontation. To his surprise, the nobleman had obliging packed up four score of brats from he didn’t want to know where, and sent them south to the greedy Venetian via some beggar of a bargeman. However, with Zonta insisting on an additional money for the risk, he was still at least two hundred bodies short of the required cargo.
Aware of shuffling feet, de Nogent turned, irritated, to see the Mother Superior of the foundling’s home. He had seen her before, squawking at the wretches on the fondaco. His lip curled with disdain as he watched the old harridan bowing at the Crossing, face lined and shoulders stooped by the burden of bitterness. Just then, the sun re-illumined the window and it struck him. What a fool! What clearer sign than the golden pathway already made right before him? The bastard children of heretics and thieves.
Suddenly, his heart was thumping in his chest. An idea as terrible as it was exciting began to take form. The dried up hag was weeping at the feet of the Virgin as Bernard de Nogent rose from his prayer cushion and shook the creases from his velvets. Not an act of wickedness, he told himself, but an act with which he would smite the carnal greed of secular men; of men like Amaury of Maintenon.
‘I didn’t think you would turn up your nose at a guaranteed supply chain,’ he murmured in imaginary discourse with the vulgar Venetian trader. In return, he would gain a source of income of his own from the ever-swelling collection of children left behind by Cathar heretics. Whether they labour here or on some other shore for the rest of their days, what difference does it make? It is the inevitable wages of the sins of their fathers, and he would put it to good use by spreading the Hallowed word and stamping out falsehood where the weak minds of the ignorant have allowed the Evil One a foothold.
Satin slippers whispering on the marble, he skated over to the nun, and squeezing a few drops of water from his tear ducts, knelt beside her on the cold, hard stone.
‘Ave maria gracia plena dominus tecum benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui jhesu.’
*
It was early in the morning when the voices came floating across the mist. French voices. The sun was beginning to clear the fog, and the train of boys appeared like an army of ghosts materialising from some unearthly realm. More than three score, they snaked along the riverbank with sticks and bags slung over their backs.
Gui slid down from his saddle. Eyes fixed on the convoy he raced towards them as though fearful they might vanish, a mere trick of the mist. Dressed in tunic and hose, mens’ boots laced up to her calves, Agnes stumbled along
behind him in desperate haste like a battlefield messenger heading for his master’s banner.
From a distance the boys looked gaunt but not sick; young men who had walked for too long with too little food. It was only once they reached them that that the toll of their journey was revealed; hollow eyes robbed of innocence and light, greying skin, bones jutting from beneath ragged shirts. Agnes tore off the large cloth cap that was spilling over her brow and ran among them, searching their faces, oblivious to the doubtful looks that fell upon this strange woman garbed as a man.
‘You are from France.’ Gui grabbed one of the older boys by the arm. ‘Are you travelling with the shepherd boys from the Chartraine?’
‘We were but we were separated on the road.’ Glassy eyed, he considered Gui for a moment, then said, ‘We are bound for the holy places overseas.’
‘Overseas?’ The word bore down upon him, tight as a vice. It felt as though his skull might crack. When the boy’s eyes widened Gui released his grip. Fingers laced together, supplicant, he said, ‘I am looking for my son, Etienne. He joined a band just as yours. We are from Montoire. You must have heard something of the boys from our village?’
There was a hesitant exchange of shrugs. ‘It’s a common name among us but I don’t think so. Most of us here are from Rouen.’
The weight of Gui’s heart bowed his head. He could sense Agnes at his side, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to look at her. She placed a hand on his shoulder, touched his desperation with the whirling current of her own. Emotion stung the back of his throat. Lifting his head, he spoke to the boys in the soft, low tones of a priest.
‘You should gather your strength and return home. Crusade is the job of knights and their lords.’
‘They have failed,’ the boy said with steady-eyed conviction. ‘The Lord will not release Jerusalem to the swords of the corrupt.’
‘The Lord is not concerned with our toil for the earthly Jerusalem,’ Gui said. ‘Do not give your lives to endeavour that can bring you only hardship and loss.’