Night Pilgrims

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  Sandjer’min translated this, and relayed Gudjei’s response. “The rope is with the animals except for those lengths holding up the tent.”

  “We will need a length sufficient to hold this man’s hands and to allow his animal to be led. I think he should ride an ass.” Micheu fixed Sandjer’min with a hard stare. “You’re still bleeding, are you? Then you should ride.”

  “What of you?” asked Sandjer’min when he had finished translating for Gudjei’s benefit. “Wouldn’t you prefer to ride, as well?”

  Gudjei shook his head, not declining, but meaning he had no opinion. “It would be best to bring all the animals. Otherwise they will be bait for hungry creatures.”

  “I’m not one to waste good riding animals,” Micheu told Gudjei through Sandjer’min.

  “You’d best see what other things we have that you want.”

  “Don’t be insolent with me,” Micheu warned Gudjei, and added to Sandjer’min, “And don’t you soften or lessen what I’ve told you.”

  “I have not done so,” Sandjer’min assured him. He was growing weaker; the cuts would have to be sewn closed, and sooner rather than later. “Let’s take what we need and leave.”

  “But what about Besim?” Gudjei exclaimed, realizing what was happening.

  “That’s his name? Hm. Leave him here. There’s no time to bury him properly.” Micheu was peering around the tent, turning a chest over to find the lock to open it. He stopped and wiped his bloody hands on his damp pilgrim’s habit. “Wrap him up in a blanket to slow down the rot, but that’s all we can do.”

  Gudjei turned stricken eyes on Micheu, but mumbled some kind of thanks, then knelt awkwardly, his shoulder still bleeding, to work the body, still mostly in his bed-roll, into his own bed-roll for additional protection.

  After a short time, Sandjer’min went to help him. “You’re hurting yourself,” he said in Coptic, and helped to hold the open end of the bed-roll as wide as possible; Besim’s blood was beginning to dry, and the coverlet was stiffening with it.

  “Hurry it up. We must return to our camp,” Micheu ordered. “Tell me about your animals.”

  “Two asses and three horses,” said Gudjei without any trace of emotion. “We had more when my uncle was with us, but—”

  “As to what this was about and why he was with you, Sieur Horembaud will determine,” Micheu said, cutting Gudjei off as Sandjer’min began his translation.

  They put Gudjei on one of the asses, and Micheu and Sandjer’min clambered aboard two of the horses bareback. Bridles and halters were taken as well as a large sack of grain, and they headed off into the night at a walk, the rain washing away much of the blood on all of them, and the lanthorn dimming as the flame guttered inside it. They picked their way through the low scrub, each man terribly alert as well as exhausted.

  Sieur Horembaud was awake and pacing the path between the tents when the three men came into the pilgrims’ camp. “God on the Cross! What took you so long. What happened to you?” The second question came more quietly as he saw that neither Sandjer’min nor Gudjei was very well-seated on their mounts.

  “There was a fight,” said Micheu. “One of the two men following us was killed. Couldn’t be helped. That one got in a lucky hack at Sandjer’min.” He slid off his horse and held out the reins and two lead-ropes for one of the servants to take. “Better get his servant. He’s going to need help.”

  “But…” Sieur Horembaud saw Sandjer’min sway on his horse. “Ruthier!” he yelled. “Come!”

  There was a surge of confusion as most of the pilgrims ran out of their tents to see what was going on. Shouts and other outbursts mixed with jostling and shoving; Sieur Horembaud castigated those nearest him, ordering them to return to their tents, and Vitalis was able to take the leads from Micheu’s hand. Methodus Temi stepped forward to help take the prisoner off his ass, and a few moments later, Ruthier was able to reach Sandjer’min.

  “My master,” he said with alarm.

  “My legs are cut,” he said weakly, then slid off the horse; Ruthier caught him under the shoulders and half-dragged him away to their tent.

  * * *

  Transcript of the questioning of Gudjei at the pilgrims’ camp, conducted by Sieur Horembaud, recorded by Jiochim Menines in Church Latin from the translations provided by Rakoczy Sandjer’min, written on vellum, also provided by Rakoczy Sandjer’min, witnessed by Frater Anteus and Noreberht lo Avocat on the night and morning of the 11th or 12th of August, 1225.

  I swear by Almighty God and His Angels that this is a full and complete transcription of the questioning of the guide Gudjei, the questioning being done by Sieur Horembaud du Langnor, at his camp in the desert between the Fifth Cataract of the River Nile and its junction with the Atbara River on the night of the 11th or 12th of August in the 1225th Year of Our Lord. May God blast my wits and make me blind if I report inaccurately. Amen.

  Each question and answer is translated by Sandjer’min from Coptic to Anglo-French, or from Anglo-French to Coptic, and those questions and answers are translated by Frater Anteus and Noreberht lo Avocat. This record will be presented to the first Roman church where we arrive on our return journey.

  Sieur Horembaud: Gudjei, you have been our guide, but left that post before we left the banks of the Nile. Why did you do so, if you wanted to know where we are bound?

  Gudjei: My uncle, who is the head of my family, ordered me to do so.

  Sieur Horembaud: To what purpose did he do this? What did he expect to gain from this?

  Gudjei: I did not ask him. It is not my place to know.

  Sieur Horembaud: What did your uncle ask you to learn for him?

  Gudjei: Where you were going and how long you took to get there.

  Sieur Horembaud: But we discussed this when you first agreed to guide us.

  Gudjei: I knew where you intended to go, but I could not swear that you would actually go there.

  Sieur Horembaud: You advised us, you found us a man you described as a suitable guide in Firouz, who deserted us, taking young Heneri with him. Did you think that would happen? Did you encourage him to do it?

  Gudjei: I would not have recommended Firouz if I thought he would do so despicable a thing, upon my soul’s salvation. I am telling you the truth, before God.

  Sieur Horembaud: So you have sworn to do. Any lie condemns you to Hell.

  Gudjei: That is my oath.

  Sieur Horembaud: You tell me that though you stopped leading the company, you did follow us, on your uncle’s orders.

  Gudjei: I haven’t denied it.

  Sieur Horembaud: And you don’t know why he ordered you to do this?

  Gudjei: No.

  (Frater Anteus and Sieur Horembaud conferred with Noreberht lo Avocat on what avenue to explore next, for the answers that Gudjei supplied to this point were not useful)

  Sieur Horembaud: Has your uncle ever given you such orders in the past?

  Gudjei: Yes.

  Sieur Horembaud: And what happened to the pilgrims you followed at that time?

  Gudjei: Various things.

  Sieur Horembaud: Describe the most recent: what happened to the band of pilgrims before mine you were told to follow.

  Gudjei: They were traveling at a better time of the year, and came as far as Baruta on the river, with another company of pilgrims. At Baruta, they took horses and asses and began the long, slow climb into the mountains of Ethiopia. Twice they met other travelers, and once they fought as best they could with marauders, where some of their men were taken captive by slavers who bore them off to the east. I do not know what became of them. If a ransom was demanded, I heard nothing of it. The rest of the company abandoned their pilgrimage and went back to Baruta. There four of their remaining number became ill, and two of them died of Bleeding Fever. The other two had to wait until another company of pilgrims arrived; the two begged a place with the other company. They left going down-river. What happened to them I do not know.

  Sieur Horembaud: Did you infor
m the slavers about the company of pilgrims?

  Gudjei: I warned the leader of the company that slavers had many spies, but I did not inform the slavers in any way. I did not have to.

  Sieur Horembaud: Did you tell any slaver, or any slaver’s spy, about this company?

  Gudjei: No.

  Sieur Horembaud: On your soul’s salvation?

  Gudjei: On my soul’s salvation.

  Sieur Horembaud: Would you say the same thing if your feet were to the fire?

  Gudjei: Yes.

  Sieur Horembaud: Shall we put that to the test?

  Frater Anteus: He is a Christian, Sieur Horembaud. You would have to defend such methods and it might require more penance of you.

  Sieur Horembaud: God have mercy on us! If you insist I believe him …

  Sandjer’min: I doubt he’s lying,

  Sieur Horembaud: You can say that, when he’s the one who cut your calves? How can you think he has any truth in him at all? Almeric, bring a stool for Sandjer’min, his cuts are bleeding again.

  (Almeric comes into the tent and sets down a stool)

  Sieur Horembaud: Your manservant must have done a poor job of stitching you up.

  Sandjer’min: He did well enough.

  Gudjei: He did my shoulder properly.

  Sieur Horembaud: Little as you deserved it. You should have to go through the remainder of your life with a damaged arm.

  Gudjei: God knows I have done nothing wrong.

  (Gudjei slumps)

  Sandjer’min: He can’t stay awake much longer, Sieur Horembaud. For that matter, neither can I. My injuries are sapping my attention.

  Sieur Horembaud: I want him to Confess his sins.

  Frater Anteus: Prick his feet with the points of arrows, and he’ll be awake.

  Sandjer’min: What does that matter, if he cannot understand what he is saying? How much more do you intend to ask him tonight, Sieur Horembaud? Both he and I need to rest, and dawn is coming quickly.

  Sieur Horembaud: All of us are tired. All right. If the rain has stopped by mid-day, we will move on come nightfall. I will need to know as much as I can learn from this turd before we break camp. And it must be the truth.

  Frater Anteus: He is a Christian, Sieur Horembaud. Lying now will send him to Hell.

  Sieur Horembaud: He has a strange way of showing his faith.

  Sandjer’min: He’s worn out. So am I.

  Sieur Horembaud: Micheu will take you in hand, Gudjei, and he will guard you through the day. I will question you again at mid-afternoon, and you will answer every question I put to you or you will suffer for it. Do you understand me?

  Gudjei: I understand.

  (Gudjei is taken in charge by Micheu and Vidame Bonnefiles. Sieur Horembaud orders everyone to go to sleep if they are not assigned to guard-duty. The examination will resume at mid-afternoon)

  This is the whole of the questions and answers asked by Sieur Horembaud of the guide Gudjei, to which I have set my hand in testimony before the following witnesses. May God lead us to see aright.

  Jiochim Menines, recorder

  Frater Anteus, witness

  Noreberht lo Avocat

  4

  Five nights after the rain stopped, as they continued along the plateau, Sieur Horembaud’s company came upon another company of pilgrims; they were traveling southwest on the trade route from the distant and ancient city of Axum, and were bound for the Church and Monastery of the Redeemer, as Sieur Horembaud’s company was, in preparation for the next leg of their journey up the Blue Nile. The two parties met at a small oasis—the other group had made camp by the time Sieur Horembaud’s company arrived—where the trade route and the pilgrims’ trail came together in the shade of the palm trees around a rocky spring that provided water all year around; just at present, it was feeding a brook that would dry up to a trickle by the end of the year. This oasis was on a shoulder of the foothills, the Nile now three hundred hands beneath them, tumbling and roiling, and sounding like the water was waging war with the land.

  When informed that Sieur Horembaud’s company would be traveling up the Atbara, the leader of the other company scoffed at the notion, but two of his guides expressed cautious approval of the idea. “The Atbara floods, as the Nile does; it will fade away to a dry canyon in your winter,” said Pendibe, and was seconded by the guides of the other company.

  It was not yet midnight, but Sieur Horembaud called a halt for their night-time meal, and ordered Sandjer’min to keep at his side. “This is a good place to spend the rest of the night, according to Pendibe.”

  “For both companies,” Sandjer’min said when Sieur Horembaud looked about doubtfully. “Our animals need rest, and we may be able to learn useful things from Pater Venformir’s pilgrims.”

  “That old priest is a cagey one: Poles and Bohemians are like that—eager to suborn others for their purposes. I’m not convinced that he is as devout as he claims to be, or that his pilgrims are here for piety,” Sieur Horembaud said. “If I were a more suspicious man, I might believe he and his pilgrims had been waiting for us.”

  “How would he know to wait for you? Who would have told him? And why?” Sandjer’min saw the annoyance in Sieur Horembaud’s eyes, and went on, “For all you know, he is wondering the same about you and your pilgrims.”

  Sieur Horembaud took a little time to form his answer. “He’s a priest: God or His Angel might have told Pater Venformir in a dream or a vision of our coming—which is why I want you to observe these pilgrims and tell me what you think of them. You can speak their language, can’t you? We must know what they have been doing, and what they plan to do. I am unwilling to embrace their assurances that their motives are truly Christian.” He stood a little apart from his company of pilgrims, watching the servants and slaves from both companies working to set up a cooking-fire, and struggling to work together, with limited success.

  “They are as much strangers here as we are. Wouldn’t you rather I ask Pendibe to watch their guides and their three escorts, to talk to them? Wouldn’t they know more about the pilgrims’ travels than the pilgrims themselves? The pilgrims know very little of this land.” Sandjer’min stood with Sieur Horembaud, holding Melech’s reins and leaning on the gelding’s flank to keep his calves from aching too much. The threads holding his wounds shut were pulling, making any flexing of his calves painful.

  “It is our fellow Roman Christians who concern me, not the Copts—I make allowances for your unknown faith; there is just you and your manservant to uphold it, and neither of you has shown disdain for Christians,” said Sieur Horembaud. “We must know how we stand in the other pilgrims’ eyes, and what their plans may be. Those from distant reaches of the German States and the lands of the Bohemians and Slavs and the Poles have greater bearing on our journey than any other Christians; it is their testimony that will honor or condemn us for what we have done here in this wild place. Their report will be the linchpin of our chronicle. We will be gone back to our homelands and when we are, the accounts carried by them will determine how our pilgrimage is understood.”

  “Well enough,” Sandjer’min said, having recognized the language of the County of Austria, and a few other dialects from Bohemia and Moravia. “I can speak with some of them for you, but not all. That would rouse misgiving within that company. There are Lithuanians among them, and I don’t know very much of their tongue; I will do the best I can and will tell you if I cannot comprehend what they say.”

  “Good enough.” He patted the copper-dun’s neck. “You’ve done well by me so far. This mare is much improved.”

  Sandjer’min shook his head. “It would be better if you would hold off riding her for another few days. She is improved, but not wholly mended.”

  “These little horses are tough; she’ll manage, so long as you keep the leg bandaged,” said Sieur Horembaud. “Tell me what you think of Magister Clothwig: he is unlike the rest,” he said in another tone, pointing to the man in question among the pilgrims.

&nb
sp; “A scholar, as he said he is,” Sandjer’min summed up after giving the man a thorough perusal. “Seeking knowledge in the ends of the earth. He is preparing a book on the Christians here, or so he told Menines.”

  “A scholar? Not a heretic? They are often one in the same.”

  “Not a heretic, at least not so far as I understand it, although neither he nor I said anything about religion when I spoke to him; I asked him about Axum. He told me there are new churches being built, as well as a good number of Jews there, and some still in Meroe, which are much diminished from what they were; he was provided introductions to the scholars remaining there,” said Sandjer’min. “Since I am not one of your faith, I may not know enough about heresy to be certain if he has that taint, but I feel no cause for alarm.” He disliked making this admission, but he realized that Sieur Horembaud would expect a full and careful answer.

  “You are being indirect, Sandjer’min, and that makes me uneasy.”

  “I haven’t enough information to be more direct,” Sandjer’min told him, then fell silent as Pendibe came up to them.

  “They have been traveling for thirty-seven days without more than two days’ rest during that time,” he said. “The horses and asses are worn to the bone.”

  “I thought they looked thin,” said Sieur Horembaud. “Do you know why they went to Axum?”

  Sandjer’min relayed the question, and added, “Did they mention any other place they saw?”

  “They had planned to go to the coast and turn southeast along it. There is said to be a great port to the southeast. I’ve heard mention of it myself from traders.”

  “What port?” Sieur Horembaud demanded as he heard Sandjer’min’s translation.

  “Ask their guides; they have seen it, or so they claim,” said Pendibe. “They say it smells of sulphur these days, coming on the wind from the east.”

  “Why sulphur?” Sieur Horembaud asked anxiously. “Is there a gate into Hell in that place?”