Beloved Pilgrim

by Nan Hawthorne

  Beloved Pilgrim Nan Hawthorne

  Beloved Pilgrim

  Nan Hawthorne

  © 2011 Nan Hawthorne. All rights reserved.

  Smashwords edition.

  Dedication

  To my friend, Jack, who knows his battle arts forward and backward.

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank a few billion people for their help in putting together this novel. First, my number one fan, Jim Tedford, who supports me in all I do as an author. Then, of course, Jack Graham, my medieval warfare consultant. Also, Alex Hogan and the other authors at JAMELN for their critiquing and confidence., Skip Knox at Boise State University for the background information on the Crusade of 1101, and Alice Beckett for her painstaking editing and proofing.

  Any lack in this work is my own omission and should not reflect on the talented people mentioned above. Nor should that list be considered complete: I owe a great deal to many people.

  This is a work of fiction. Every person living or dead is either a product of my imagination or is my interpretation of a historical figure and should not be considered a faithful likeness.

  Cover design by David Graham.

  Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or stored in a database or retrieval system, and/or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author.

  Chapter One ~ God Wills It

  With a loud crack the sword came down onto a helm already knocked askew by an earlier blow. The helm flew off and the wearer staggered and nearly lost his feet.

  "Ho, valiantly done!" the fifteen-year-old Elisabeth von Winterkirche called from her perch on the wooden fence.

  Her twin brother Elias made a mock bow. "I thank you, my lady."

  "You always take his side," the other boy, Albrecht, who, like Elias, was squire to Sigismund von Winterkirche, the twins' father.

  "He's a better fighter than you are," she stated emphatically.

  "And better looking, too," Elias quipped. He preened, stroking the barest shadow of beard growing on his chin.

  "I will concede that point," the shorter, darker boy said. Elias looked up at him with that funny knowing smile that irritated his sister so. It just did not seem to fit.

  Albrecht leaned to pick up his helm and put it back on his head. "If this damned thing had straps, it wouldn't come off so easily."

  Elias let out a bark of derisive laughter. "Oh, is that why I keep knocking it off. It's not my mighty and well-delivered blows. It's the lack of straps." He lifted his chin and waved his fingers at his own throat. "Look, no straps here either. But my helm is sitting securely on my head."

  Albrecht muttered something that made Elisabeth burst out laughing.

  "What did he say?" her brother demanded.

  "He said your swelled head fills it so much it is stuck," she explained.

  Elias took a stance with his wooden sword tilted up from his right side. "Have at me, varlet. I shall not brook such ignoble insults!"

  The two hefted their small shields and began to move in a counterclockwise circle, each looking for openings in the other boy's defenses. Elisabeth, unlike most girls, did not watch the practice fighting for her own entertainment. She watched each move while imagining herself in combat, detecting as best she could what each opponent was trying to do, what might work better, and what she would try given the chance. Those chances did come, for the twins had been each other's only companion through their father's absences and mother's frequent illness. Only when Albrecht came to serve at Winterkirche did Elias have anyone else to practice fighting with him. She itched to get in on this fight, but contented herself for now just critiquing the boys' own moves.

  Each had his practice sword up and held parallel to the upper edge of his shield. She had long known that a fighter had to keep his sword up above the level of his opponent's shield if he had any hope of striking a blow on anything but the shield. That was not without its utility, if one could deliver a hard enough blow to knock the shield askew. Elias and Albrecht knew each other's skills well enough not to waste effort on this move. They circled each other looking for a headshot.

  Elias, the taller, repeatedly brought the sword swinging around to strike Albrecht's shoulder or head, but Albrecht managed over and over to raise his shield enough to block the blow or to meet sword with sword, resulting in the sharp thwack of the blows. Elias constantly pressed forward, making Albrecht retreat. Elisabeth pressed her lips tightly together with impatience. Elias's greatest flaw was that he was all forward motion, aggression, and not enough defense. If only Albrecht would use that against him. Elias got in some bruising blows on the shorter boy's right arm. Elisabeth mentally registered the point but the fighters did not pause.

  "Oh, for God's sake," she finally cried, jumping down from the fence. "This is getting tedious. Let me fight him."

  The boys stopped and stared at her. "Fight whom?" her brother asked.

  "You, Elias. Albrecht just lets you chase him around the yard. Give me your weapon."

  Albrecht looked at Elias. "Go ahead. She won't break anything," Elias said, rolling his eyes.

  Elisabeth let Albrecht slip the shield onto her right arm, his helm on her head and finally hand her the wooden sword.

  The siblings took their fighting stances. Elisabeth let Elias come forward, backing up as he fully expected she would. When he seemed to put all his force into the motion, she stopped retreating and came at him raining blows every place she could. He was startled at first, but regained his stability. He hauled off and gave her a bruising whack on the hip. She dropped to her knees but did not concede.

  Elias grinned at her. He widened his stance and took a step forward. She lifted her sword as if to swing around and catch him right of his sword where one elbow had appeared. He laughed and moved so his shield was up and between them. She let her sword go back around and come up from below. His unprotected groin received all the might she could muster.

  He staggered back his mouth wide open but no sound issuing forth. He collapsed to his knees, dropping his sword and shield. He put his leather gauntleted hands to his groin and toppled over sideways.

  Elisabeth lifted her arms and crowed with triumph. She danced around in place, chanting, "Yes, yes, yes!" When she looked around again she saw Albrecht kneeling by her brother, his arms out at his sides at a loss how to help him.

  "He'll live to suffer worse blows than that," came a deep male voice from behind her. She turned to look at Elias's and Albrecht's sword master, Dagobert. "Just let him lie there a bit, and give him small sips of this." He reached out a water skin to Albrecht. He turned to the girl. "Madam, you take advantage of how much he underestimates you. If you were not his sister, he would decimate you."

  She scowled at him.

  "And you put me in a difficult position. Your mother has begged me to discourage your interest in fighting." He looked at where Albrecht was helping Elias to sit up. "Speaking of your mother, she wants you both. She has had a messenger."

  The twins found Adalberta in her solar. She sat in a window embrasure with her embroidery in her lap, her eyes closed and her head back against the frame of the window. She looked as drained as ever. For all her protests that she was feeling stronger, neither of her children could ever see evidence of it. She heard them come in and opened her eyes. She straightened and tried to make it look like she had been busily stitching. As little interest as Elisabeth had in such things, she could see there had been no progress on the altar cloth in at least two days.

  "My darlings, I have the happiest of news! I have had word from your father. The Lombards have let the Imperia
l party cross their land. The four year exile is over!"

  The joyful look on their mother's face was not feigned. The two young people hurried forward to kneel at her feet. "Oh, Mother, at long last!" Elisabeth gushed.

  "I know it has been very hard on you, my dears, to be without your father. And Elias, I know you have taken it hard not to have the chance to leave home to squire in another household. I will never stop being grateful that you agreed to stay here with me, especially at first when I was so ill."

  The twins managed to hide the shared knowledge that their mother had never in their memory been anything but ill. "Is father coming home soon?" the boy asked.

  "He must go with the Emperor's army to Cologne, then he and his household knights and men will come south to us. In a few days, maybe more. But after all this time I think we can wait patiently."

  Elisabeth pressed one of her mother's hands against her cheek. "Oh, no we can't," she laughed.

  Elisabeth cursed like one of the grooms as she tugged the hem of her skirt from the bramble where it was caught. "Damn, if I could just wear britches like Elias and Albrecht I shouldn't have to deal with skirts!"

  It was her constant refrain of late. "I wish I was a boy." Boys could learn to use weapons, boys could climb trees, boys could go off for hours and wander in the countryside, and boys did not have to sit still in Mother's solar and learn excruciatingly dull needlework.

  She knew her twin brother, Elias, was not far. He and his fellow squire, Albrecht, had given her the slip earlier that afternoon and gone off with their bows to their favorite patch of woods. Elisabeth was becoming weary of this phase in Elias's life. For months she had found her brother spending more and more time with his friend and leaving her behind. Her mother told her it was natural, and that soon she would be more interested in ladies' concerns as her brother was in men's. "Balls," she muttered under her breath, delighted at her own audacity.

  Now she thought, "Serve him right if he misses Father's homecoming. He knew Father's party was expected today. Where is he?" she wondered as she pushed her way through the scrub.

  As she rounded the edge of a small coppice of trees, she thought she saw movement. "There they are!" She slowed her progress, wanting to surprise her brother and his friend.

  A yelp meant that whoever was chasing whom had caught him. Probably it was Elias, the taller and older, by a year, of Father's two squires. She stepped forward to make herself known. She froze.

  It was indeed Elias who had caught his friend. He had the boy with his tangle of brown curls pressed up against the trunk of a tree, his own hands on either side of his shoulders trapping him. It was what Elias was doing now that rooted Elisabeth to the spot. He leaned slowly forward, bringing his face down to the smiling Albrecht's, and he kissed him. Kissed him! He kissed him on the mouth, and Albrecht responded. The captive reached up his own arms and put them around the taller boy's body and they melted together in an embrace that communicated it somehow right to Elisabeth's belly.

  Taking one step backward at a time, the girl put the coppice between herself and the boys. Conflicting impulses assailed her. She wanted to turn and run all the way back to the manor. She wanted to burst in on them and demand an explanation. She followed another impulse instead, walking quietly to the spot by the brook where she sat on her favorite boulder. Drawing up her knees, she wrapped her arms around her legs and dropped her chin to rest on them.

  What were Elias and Albrecht doing? She knew perfectly well what. She just had not realized boys would do that with each other.

  The twins, Elias and Elisabeth, had been inseparable until three years ago when Albrecht von Langenzenn had come to Winterkirche from his own family's manor to become a knight-in-training as Sigismund of Winterkirche's squire. It was then, Elisabeth now realized, that the bond between the twins had loosened. Though the three children were friends, she became aware of a special new bond between the boys. She complained to her mother about it. Adalberta stroked her soft brown hair and assured her that Elias was of an age where he needed companions of his own sex. A pouting Elisabeth nevertheless said nothing to her brother that she felt abandoned.

  Sitting on the rock the girl stared unseeing at the brook as it flowed tumbling over fallen branches and the stones of its streambed. Should she tell Mother about what she saw? Her innate loyalty to her twin above all others caused her to say "No!" aloud to the brook, the trees, and the birds around her. But wasn't it a sin? Were you not supposed to get married before you kissed anyone like that, and if so, how could two boys get married? She had never heard of such a thing. Should she say something to Elias himself? He would explain it to her. He was so kind and so wise. He would make it all right.

  A shrill blast of a horn made Elisabeth look up and turned her head toward the manor. Father! It was Father, back from his journey to see Emperor Henry. She leaped to her feet and ran nearly to where she had spied on the two squires. Taking careful steps so as not to surprise the boys, whom she could not see but could hear giggling, she shouted, "Elias! Father is home!"

  Not waiting for her brother and his friend to join her, she turned and dashed back toward the walled compound that was the Knight Sigismund's. Normally she would have made for an open wicket in the gate, but the two halves of the stout wooden barrier stood wide open now that the horses and men were trailing in. She slipped by the last stragglers into the courtyard. It was indeed her father, just now walking his horse to where grooms stood ready to take his reins. Mother stood in the doorway to the hall with her tired smile offered for her beloved husband.

  "Papa! Papa!" Elisabeth cried, dashing up to join Sigismund as, dismounting, he went to his lady and returned her smile. He turned his head to see Elisabeth's bright face at his elbow. "Liebchen, darling, look at you. Every time I see you, you are taller! And prettier!"

  He threw one arm around her shoulders and the other around his wife's. "Where is Elias?" he asked, drawing both of them up the stone steps to the hall.

  "He's coming," his daughter replied, the excitement of her father's return banishing any other thoughts from her mind.

  Sigismund did not hear her reply, as he was speaking excitedly to his wife as they entered the high-raftered room.

  "His name is Peter the Hermit, a priest from Amiens, my dear, and I cannot wait to tell you what he said."

  "Child!" It was the serving-woman, Marta, who appeared and beckoned to Elisabeth. "For shame, to greet your lord father with your gown all in a mess! Come here!"

  Elisabeth stopped and shook her head. "But . . . ," she protested.

  "You have plenty of time to hear your father's news, whatever it may be. Do you not want to look your best for him? I mean, look at your mother, so lovely, so groomed. You look like a cotter's brat."

  Letting the woman draw her away, Elisabeth looked back at her parents. Indeed, Adalberta was lovely. Wan and sickly as she was, she nevertheless was dressed immaculately and glowed with pleasure as she went to the table by the fire, her arm tucked in her husband's.

  A movement nearer the door caught the girl's attention. "Marta, look at Elias. He is all over leaves and sticks and mud. Why do you not chastise him?"

  "He's a boy. He is supposed to roughhouse. Now come."

  Elisabeth sulked. There it was again. How she wished she were a boy.

  Scrubbed, dressed in a more grown-up gown, her braids brushed and plaited again and coiled on either side of her head, Elisabeth was finally permitted to join her parents in the hall. Her sulk disappeared when, seeing her, Sigismund called out "Darling girl!" He stood and bent, his arms out to enfold her in his embrace. When she stopped before him, he had to straighten up. "I said it before. You are getting so tall! Tall as your brother, I'll warrant. Here, Elias, come stand here by your sister. Yes, look at this, my wife. They are almost of a height."

  The twins stood before their father. Elias was a respectable height for a boy of fifteen, but Elisabeth, hardly any shorter, was over-tall for a girl. They could, of course, not
be identical twins, but to look at them you would say they may as well be. Elias's hair, the exact color as his sister's, a light brown, was cropped while hers was coiled in braids. Their dark brown eyes and rich eyelashes were the same. Their noses were small, too small for a boy, just right for a girl, and both had high, sculpted cheekbones and large square jaws. Elisabeth saw that Elias was starting to show some fuzz on his chin, and she was green with envy.

  "Now you two, come sit with your mother and me. You as well, Albrecht. This concerns you too." Sigismund returned to his own chair next to Adalberta. The three young people took seats usually reserved for guests. Elias and Albrecht normally served at table, being squires, and Elisabeth stood behind her mother during meals to see to her needs.

  "His Holiness has had a plea from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios," Father was saying. "There have been attacks on pilgrims to the Holy Land, hundreds killed, hundreds carried off to the slave markets. The Paynim no longer protect the pilgrimage routes, but let brigands have a free hand. There are rumors that some of the Turk leaders are sending their own guards to attack larger bands of pilgrims."

  Adalberta put her hand to her lips, "No, how horrible. Why?"

  The three young people turned their eyes back to Sigismund in unison.

  "Well, there have always been brigands, but they have attacked randomly. Pilgrim bands that hired armed men to protect them could turn brigands away. No one really knows why that has changed, but Peter the Hermit said . . . "

  Elias interrupted his father. "Peter the Hermit?" Elisabeth noted not for the first time how deep his voice had become.

  "A French priest. He is in Cologne to gather pilgrims for a journey to the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem," Sigismund said.