The Seeker - Finna's Quest

by E L Russell

  No sooner had Finna brushed her horse down and put food and water within his reach, than she heard her father’s approaching footsteps.

  His voice filled the destrier’s small enclosure. “We must speak. Finish with Trueblood and come to me.”

  “Yes, Father.” She swatted the dust of the road off her clothes and splashed water on her face and arms. Her hands trembled as she attended to Trueblood and finger-combed her hair. The time had come and she inhaled deeply in an effort to calm down. When she could delay no longer, she fished the small gold medal from under her shirt and clutched it a moment for courage for what was to come. Returning it beneath her shirt, she headed toward her father.

  None of the lamps in the house were lit and she turned slowly in a circle looking for her father outside.

  “Over here, Finna. I’m by the feed pen on the outside wall facing the valley.”

  One of her first memories was of helping her father build the short stone wall that connected the house and animal pens. They had dragged fieldstones that seemed to grow in their crop fields on a sled pulled by one of their workhorses. Later, the wall became a place to rest their backs when they sat in the evening relaxing after a hard day of farming or hunting. It was their place and she hoped it welcomed her now.

  “Coming, Father.” She could barely make him out in the dim light of the gloaming and she quickened her steps to the opening where they had often talked of putting in a gate.

  “Sit next to me.” He patted the ground.

  She felt like a little girl, one she would never be again, and sat by her father. When he put a strong arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, she savored the sense of safety. The sense of security, however, slipped away when the memory of the strange dream permeated her thoughts and a sinister chill filled her.

  They didn’t speak at first, just enjoyed the peace and comfort.

  “This is a beautiful night,” her father finally said, pointing up to the clear sky where stars began to wink in growing profusion.

  She remembered the first time he’d shown her the heavens. She was young and her whole world revolved around her father. Her mother had died at her birth and it had always been just the two of them. He had protected her in all ways. He had cleaned her scrapes and kissed away her tears. He had taught her the ways of a Knights Templar and how to fight like a warrior.

  He pointed now to a dense cluster of stars that flowed diagonally like a ribbon of sparkling colors, across a deep black sky. Smaller groups of stars were sprinkled in handfuls of pinks and blues, but none were as bright as the strip he indicated. The sky drew her in. She fell upward into a deep abyss holding points of light.

  “What do you see tonight, Finna?” It was his recurring question.

  “Stars. Beautiful stars. What do you see, Father?” Again, the standard reply, but one night, he had made an unusual and surprising response. “I see more stars than the smartest people on this world can count. I see more people living near those stars than anyone can imagine.”

  “People? Where would they live?”

  He took her hand and patted the back of it. “The sun is our star.” Then he pointed to a low, bright point of white light. “See that one? That is not a star. It’s a world like our own, only it is far, far away. It shines from the reflected light of our star. Our sun.”

  His words changed how she viewed the night sky. After that evening, he often spoke of possibilities beyond her imaginings. She hoped this last night together would be no different.

  “Your mother would be proud of what you accomplished today, Finna.”

  He knew. She turned to face him in the near dark. “And you, Father? Are you proud?”

  “Yes.”

  Finna’s breath whooshed from her lungs in relief. After all that worrying, he was proud of her. She leaned into her father’s muscular body, wrapping an arm around his neck.

  After a moment, he pulled back. “Show me the medal the queen awarded you.”

  Pulling it from under her shirt she presented it to him in her palm.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I wanted you to watch me.”

  “I did. You were magnificent. We should’ve done more mounted training, though. Your lance—”

  She laughed and hugged him so hard her arms would have done damage to a lesser man.

  5

  The Journey Begins

  June 1147, Metz, France

  Finna began her long walk to the Holy Lands in the company of a small group of other woman fighters and several wagons laden with supplies from Vézelay. She liked her fellow crusaders and they established an easy camaraderie. Although the leaders, Cecelia and Helena, seemed gruff on the surface, they were both fair in their demands and their treatment of the women with an obvious sense of responsibility for everyone’s safety and welfare.

  Her new best friend, Tima, was a big woman with a gentle manner who burned with the same passion Finna felt for fighting in the crusades. They quickly become close, sharing secrets of their personal lives and hopes for the future. Finna, who had never been far from where she was born, delighted in the sights of the unfamiliar scenery and villages. Although she missed her father, her excitement filled the void.

  Rumor had it the march to Metz would take twelve to sixteen days and once there, they would join the main French contingent of crusaders. When they arrived on day fourteen, Finna was awed speechless at the sheer size of the French caravan. It seemed everyone in the city, and everyone for miles and miles around the city, was going to Jerusalem. Anticipation, talk of serving God, and finding riches filled the air. No one doubted the success of the religious army and no one envisioned death.

  Although Finna was swept along in the same excitement, the night before they broke camp for the continuation of their journey to Worms, where crusaders from Normandy and England would join them, black clouds loomed in the horizon like giant birds of prey. The temperature dropped and strong gusts of wind pulled down tents, toppled stacks of supplies and raised blinding dust. The threatening horizon closed in on them with astonishing speed and fearing their tent was too flimsy for the wind, Finna and Tima raced for cover under one of the large wagons.

 

  “What the hell? You again. I told you to get out of my head.” God’s Bones, she’d turned into a lunatic talking to voices as if they were really there. When she didn’t reverse her run, the voice came again.

  < Do it now,> the voice roared, startling her into action.

  The wind tore her hair from its braid as she turned in her pursuit for safety.

 

  Instead, Finna stopped and shouted to Tima. “Come with me. We’re not safe here.”

  Her friend stared at her with wide eyes and shook her head.

  “Please, Tima,” she begged, but to no avail. She knew what she asked defied logic, yet she obeyed the voice in her head as if some invisible force propelled her, and ran for her tent. Soaked to her core and more scared than she had ever been, she pulled a blanket over her head and huddled on the wet ground of her small shelter. The thunder and lightning cascaded and crashed around her, growing closer and louder. In abject terror, she peeked through the slit in the tent opening and screamed as a massive bolt of lightning split the sky and struck the large tree next to the wagon where Tima had taken refuge.

  Time moved in slow motion. The tree split and crashed onto the wagon with such a blow she felt the ground beneath her shake.

  “No-o-o. Tima-a-a.”

 

  “Go to hell.” She rushed from her meager shelter and raced toward her friend. “Tima-a-a.”

  The cold rain pierced her body, but didn’t slow her. Explosions of lightning made her stumble and weave before she slid in the mud, fighting to get under the huge branches covering the crushed wagon. Only Cecilia’s firm hand on her leg stopped her.

  “It’s no use
, Finna. I watched from the other side of the wagon. That tree left no one alive. There’s nothing you can do. The only need of these good women under the wagon is a priest to pray for their souls.”

  Tears drops and raindrops crashed in their rush down her cheeks. “Let me go. I can help them. I was to be with them.”

  “Then you, too, would be dead. Back away and come to my tent until the storm ends.” Several other women ran to help, but Cecilia barred their way as well. “Come, we’ll tend to them at sunrise.”

  Cecilia was tall and strong like an Amazon and was always firm in her decisions. Mostly, Finna liked her, but not tonight. Tonight, what she said made her new friend’s death, final. There was no hope and Finna hated the woman for it.

  * * *

  The initial excitement of breaking camp for the final leg of their overland march to Asia Minor quickly dissipated into a blur of heat and dust only to suddenly disintegrate further into sea of mud from unrelenting, cold rain. The twelve women of the queen’s special guard rode horses and stuck close to her special wagon. The rest of the three hundred women walked behind in a double column, unable to avoid either mud or manure.

  Finna promised herself that someday soon she’d be a member of that special unit and she would never walk through shit again. She missed her companion more than she could have imagined and her initial fervor gave way to aching muscles and sore feet. She no longer had the heart for the marching nor saw beauty in the passing countryside.

  The woman in front of her complained incessantly and as she mindlessly placed one foot in front of the other, not even Christian guilt prevented endless thoughts of ways to bump, shove, or kick the whining woman into the ditch at the side of the road, leaving her there until Kingdom come. Camping, once a favorite activity with her father, became an exhausting chore. The daily burden of setting up and breaking down camp became part of the blur of the discomfort and fatigue.

  The women’s contribution to the crusade consisted of fifteen cadres of twenty each with two appointed leaders at the helm of each squad. Additional women served directly under the queen. Finna admired her immediate leaders. Cecilia, the taller of her two, inspired loyalty and built teamwork by pitching in with all the work. She organized the packing and unpacking of the wagon that carried their gear into a smooth routine. Helena, although marginally shorter, was more muscular. Her quick suppression of would-be bullies and assignment of even distribution of chores, created a feeling of safety and solidarity.

  The issue of safety was as important as their sustenance and in fact her first words to them at their initial gathering in Metz had been ones of warning. “Keep vigilant and never go about the camp on your own.” Although her warnings remained much the same at each stop, she added new safety tips at the arrival of each destination.

  “Our road to Asia Minor will follow a German march made only a few weeks before us. While they are theoretically Christians marching for the greater good, they have a reputation of angering the locals and the repercussions will fall on us if we’re caught off guard.”

  Finna had smiled when the rough tough woman let her soft center show. “When foraging away from the column or camp site, travel in packs of no less than four and never take anything that puts a family’s chance of survival at risk.”

  Yeah. She liked them both. And trusted them.

  “One more thing,” Cecelia added. “We call the Germans dogs because they are known to prey on those they can. Many of these dogs would just as soon take all we have if given half a chance. They fall back into the woods and blend with the next march. Report to me immediately if you see anyone suspicious. We have such dogs in our own crusade, those who take what they can. Be distrustful of anyone new.”

  While the queen did not want men in charge of the women, there were many men in the crusading force and therefore, the intrusion of men was inevitable. One, a farrier named Arno, made loud and loutish remarks to the women whenever he was called on to treat the horses’ hooves or make repairs to their wagons.

  His overtures toward Cecilia were immediately rebuffed. Since the two held equal command positions, they should have been peers, but Arno let it be known that as a man, he was the superior. His word was law.

  A woman of loose morals, who was more often seen in the company of a man than with one of her own group, told them, “A knight with shit on his shoes can’t be trusted.”

  Everyone laughed except Cecilia who waited patiently for silence. “That’s camp talk and is probably based on the fact that German knights don’t have horses. They actually prefer to fight on foot. Our good knights are skilled horsemen who fight on warhorses. So when you are shaking the shit from your shoes, you can also take comfort from the fact it came from our fine knights.”

  Finna groaned along with everyone else. The manure was the least of their problems and they took it in stride. The days had long since blurred together as they made camp and broke camp, as they trudged through heat and trudged through rain, as they bound their blisters and made meals from slop. A diminutive woman who rarely spoke, startled the group by shouting out the question they all had on their minds. “How many more sarding days ‘til we reach Constantinople?”

  “It depends on the weather and your will to honor your vows,” Helena said.

  Her audience waited for a real answer and she shrugged. “Between seventy-five and a hundred days . . . give or take.”

  * * *

  Finna sat leaning against a scrub tree and thanked St. George for the rest and shade. She shook yet another a small pebble from her boot, grateful they’d stopped before the damn thing crippled her. Her sore feet were constantly bruised from the stones on the road and the ones in her footwear. Her upper arms were chaffed and sore from permanently wet clothes and the recurring muscle cramp in her right butt cheek was an on-going nuisance. The only good thing about the march was that her constantly complaining chum had turned hostile and left the cause. She wasn’t sure what happened to deserters, but if Arno was involved, it couldn’t be good. While she’d done her best to ignore the discomforts, three long months of interminable marching had about sucked her enthusiasm dry.

 

  “What the hell. Where are you?”

 

  “Yes, we did. Get out of my head.” She felt like a fool talking to herself and looked around to see who listened. Helena and Cecilia were arguing over something in the supply wagon and they had drawn a small crowd of woman to listen. No one looked her way.

 

  “I don’t.”

 

  6

  A Scavenger

  Two Months from Constantinople

  Cecilia told the woman crusaders who surrounded her. “The locals around here are desperately in need of food and clothing, Attacks on us will be a thing of certainty. As I said before, we will be assaulted.” Her gaze had taken in all the women and landed last on Finna. “Keep your weapons ready and your attention on high alert. We need to keep close to the crusaders in front of us so we can count on their help when we need it. Although the column is moving fast, we’re still over two months from the Bosporus Strait.”

  “What will we eat until then?” Although it had been a shouted question from a woman in the back, it was on everyone’s mind.

  “We’ll be all right if we ration our goods and protect them from marauders,” Cecilia said. “Now,” she added effectively stopping the questions, “I need to speak with those of you who volunteer to go on a scavenger hunt.”

  Her eyes landed on Finna, who quickly deduced ‘volunteer’ had nothing to do with the mission. The women around her groaned, but she welcomed the thought of getting away from the mass of humanity and doing some hunting. She stepped forward. Five other women joined her and it was then that she’d learned the real state of their supplies.

  Cecilia didn’t wrap the facts in soft padding. “The Germans stripped
the forests of game and plants from the fields. Every animal, domestic or wild, has been killed or taken. We won’t be able to fully replenish our wagons until we cross the strait into Constantinople. Meanwhile, we can’t wait like baby birds in the nest, depending on others for grubs. The king’s order to not fight or break ranks unless we are attacked can go to hell. Today, that changes. We are out of food and many will starve. Since the king has no plan to feed us, we must take care of ourselves. Here’s the plan.”

  “Finna, you borrow two horses from our fellow Frenchmen up the line.”

  The small group chuckled at borrow. They were also to borrow two empty handcarts, an easy request with everyone low on supplies and preparing for a sunup departure.

  * * *

  By mid-morning, Finna and her group of raiders were far from the marching column of crusaders. They had almost crested the top of a steep and rocky ridge that Helena had protected several villages along a small river. When Finna smiled, Helena grinned back.

  “Exactly, there is no way a main body of crusaders could climb this ridge, even with the strength of two oxen pulling the larger supply wagons. Maybe, just maybe, the locals had been spared and there is something left to trade or contribute to the cause.”

  Because their hordes of crusaders had tramp down and ravaged everything in its path, the view of bucolic beauty from the top of the ridge caught their breath. Wide fertile fields bordered a narrow river and a spattering of farmhouses dotted the land. Farther along the ribbon of water, a small village surrounded the local church.