Beloved Pilgrim

by Nan Hawthorne

  Albrecht dismounted from Carlchen and led him among the Lombard pilgrims doing what he could to reassure and comfort. One mother clutched a trembling child to her breast. Albrecht leaned in to offer them his water skin. The child, a dirty-faced little girl, lifted her head from her mother's shoulder just enough to peek out, saw the squire and shrieked as if a demon had her in its clutches. "She is terrified," her mother explained as the child shoved her tear-streaked face hard into her mother's body.

  "With good reason," Albrecht replied in the camp pidgin that had already developed among the several languages represented by the thousands of pilgrims. He hesitated, and then removing his heavy leather gauntlet, reached a tentative hand to stroke her hair. "What is her name?"

  "Maria," her mother said.

  The squire leaned to the little girl's ear and as crooned, "Little Maria, the bad men are gone. You are safe. I am here to protect you."

  A convulsive shudder shook the little body. She would not look up.

  He acted on inspiration. "Have you ever seen a duck standing on his head?" he said into her ear. Though the child did not respond, he gestured to the woman to follow him. At Carlchen's side he reached for his shield where it hung at the saddle. "Here it is, quack quack quack! Oh no," he piped in a falsetto. "I can't fly upside down!"

  The little face emerged like the first sliver of a new moon. One dark eye peered at Albrecht's shield with its upside-down duck painted on the leather facing.

  "Maria, help!" the squire continued in his piping voice. "Help me figure out how to get upright again!" The camp pidgin was inadequate for what he had to say, but the child's dark moving iris showed she was interested. One thin arm came away from where its fist clutched her mother's head-covering. It slowly came out and described a circle with a tiny finger.

  Albrecht made the shield dip slightly back and forth. In the high pitched voice he had used, he said, "Oh no! I don't understand. What should I do? Quack quack!"

  A tiny voice said, "Turn around."

  "Like this?" Albrecht turned the shield so that the picture of the duck faced away from the three of them.

  Shaking her head, the child said more loudly, "No, like this!" She now traced a definite circle in the air.

  Albrecht left the shield facing the wrong way but turned it a half turn. "Like this? Quack quack."

  He was rewarded with a giggle. "No, this way!" The child's head no longer was buried in her mother's shoulder and the dark eyes though still red with weeping almost sparkled.

  "Like this? Quack quack!" When the squire turned the shield around this time the duck, though not the shield, was right way up.

  "Yes!" the childish voice crowed.

  "Thank you, Maria, quack quack!"

  "Thank you, my lord," the woman said, smiling wanly. "You are most kind."

  Albrecht tousled the girl's dusty dark hair and smiled. "The attack is over. Now we will find our way to Kastamonu, and there we can rest."

  He found Elisabeth looking about for him from her perch atop Gauner. "Thank God," she rejoiced. "There don't seem to be any serious injuries, but until I saw you I was terrified."

  He nodded to her. "What hurts are there, my lord?"

  She shook her head. "None of our party," she sighed.

  The column was at a standstill even after the Turks rode away. Their companions saw to those who had taken injury. The commanders grouped among the Constable's forces halfway down the line, to discuss what had happened and the likelihood the attacks would recommence. Elisabeth moved as close as she dared to listen.

  "Surely they will not follow us as we get further from the fortress?" Stephen of Blois averred.

  Raymond responded, his voice betraying his ever-increasing frustration with his commanders. "Probably, but I cannot imagine we will be left alone even after this."

  Conrad broke in, cementing Raymond's building gratitude for the man's good sense. "My Lord of Toulouse is right. There may be others about. We must stay on guard for more attacks. We must be able to get into the turtle formation swiftly."

  Odo of Burgundy protested. "It is a long way to Kastamonu, is it not? Where are these attacks going to come from? I say we make our way straight through to Kastamonu. The faster the better."

  Hugh of Montebello echoed his comments, adding, "Walking along in a turtle will slow us down. I don't think we have provisions enough if it takes twice as long to get to a new source."

  Raymond lifted both his clenched fists in front of his chest. "We don't stay in turtle the whole time, you great ass!" He turned to face away from the group of commanders, his face red and his one sound eye fiery.

  Hugh looked at the general's back, affronted. "My lord, is it necessary to . . . ?"

  Conrad explained. "We can walk at our usual pace, my lords. Just stay near our turtle positions so there is no delay in getting into defensive lines."

  "I still say it is unnecessary," whined Stephen of Blois.

  Raymond spun back to face him. "You would, you little weasel. But those of us who stood and fought at Antioch instead of buggering off know better."

  Stephen's hand flew to his sword's hilt. "Why, you arrogant son of a bitch!"

  Raymond put his hand to his own sword in its scabbard. "Go ahead, if you are man enough to fight me."

  Before he could pull his sword more than an inch, Stephen of Burgundy stepped between the two men. "Stay. We do not need to fight each other. We are here to fight the heathens."

  Conrad sighed as Raymond rolled his eyes. "Let us err on the side of caution."

  Count Stephen nodded. "That is wise. How shall we proceed?"

  Raymond subsided. He looked at the Constable. "We can camp here for a short time, but we need to move on before we settle for the night. Conrad will work out what we need to do. Can you be ready to go on in two hours?" he asked, looking up squinting at the position of the sun. "It is going to get hotter in no time."

  It was indeed hotter even than it had been in the morning when just after midday the procession moved north. Elisabeth helped Conrad convey instructions to the German and Austrian parties' captains on the order of march. It was no more complicated than walking loosely in the position each man would hold in the turtle should one be invoked.

  "I would like to ride up with the Lombard pilgrims, if it please my lord," Albrecht told her.

  "Very well," she replied.

  As they continued north, free of any further attacks, Elisabeth sweltered in her armor. She wondered not for the first time why the commanders had chosen to ride into the longer, hotter days of July. They must know something, she assumed. The passes must be blocked in the winter. This made her think of the Alpine passes and how she had fretted at the cold. Oh, to be cold again.

  "Could we not travel at night?" she asked Ranulf when he brought his own mount alongside hers.

  "Harder to be vigilant," he answered succinctly.

  "Do you think we are free of any further attacks?"

  The mercenary captain gave her a sardonic look. "No, I do not," he said emphatically.

  She looked after him dismayed as he spurred ahead.

  One thing about riding in this searing heat, she soon discovered, was that her need to relieve herself privately, much more difficult in this press of human and animal bodies, was less of a problem. She sweated off what she might otherwise have had to find a discreet place to relieve herself of privately.

  From time to time the procession passed tiny villages. Before the middle contingents reached them the word had come back that the village was stripped of all provisions and livestock. They were able to get some water from the small dwindling wells. One of the Byzantine horsemen who rode up from the rear came over when Elisabeth beckoned to him.

  "If they cleared out when they knew we were coming, why did they leave the wells for our use?" she asked him.

  "They are long gone into the hills, my lord. They clear out during this time of the year, and they take their livestock and foodstuffs with them into the hills. T
hey will need the wells when they return in the fall. They are all but dried up now anyway." At her thanks, he saluted and continued his progress forward.

  The pilgrims trudging along desultorily in front of Elisabeth and her companions grumbled when the edict came down from the commanders that now that the river had angled sharply east from where they rode the water was to be reserved for the animals and only when they were refreshed could any remaining supply be distributed to the people. Elisabeth tried to explain that the animals were working, that the pilgrims needed what they carried to survive, and therefore the animals must be watered first.

  One man with a running sore on his cheek shouted over the protests, "I don't see your animal carrying anything we need, my lord!" The last was said with a sneer and rewarded with laughter from those about him.

  As soon as she opened her mouth to respond she was drowned out with jeers. She looked up to see Albrecht on Carlchen some way ahead. He had a disgusted look on his face when he looked back at her and shook his head wearily. She noticed he had a child on his saddle in front of him.

  As evening approached and the heat barely eased, Conrad rode up alongside Elisabeth. "Elias, I need your young eyes. Look out over there." He raised his arm and pointed to one side of the procession, many yards distant. "What do you see?"

  She pushed her mail coif back from her sweat-sodden quilted hood and stood in her stirrups. Putting her hand over her eyes to shade them, she peered off into the distance at the rolling hills. "I don't see . . . No, wait."

  Conrad waited for her to go on.

  "I see them," she said. "Riders. Just along the crest of the hills and some closer." She looked at the Constable. "Are they just following to see that we go where they want, to the sea, or are they . . . ?" she trailed off.

  He shrugged his heavily padded shoulders. "I do not know." He nodded to her. "Thank you, young lord."

  At long last the procession made camp for the night. It formed as a huge oblong with men-at-arms standing sentry in a ring around it. When the word came down that the journey would begin again before dawn, Elisabeth stifled the groan she heard coming from all sides. After she saw to Gauner, she found herself a spot where she could rest her back against a dry tree trunk. She dared not take off her mail, so she could not take advantage of the slight breeze that would have dried her sweat-soaked clothing and cooled her. She took sips of the water in her water skin, conserving what she knew was a precious commodity.

  She looked up when Albrecht joined her by the tree, carrying a wooden bowl of some sort of meat and grain for each of them.

  "What is it? The meat, I mean."

  He grinned at her. "I have no idea, my lord. I didn't really want to know, so I did not ask."

  In the low light she peered into the bowl. "Well, whatever it is, it's not the only meat in here." She reached in with her ungloved fingers and brought out a cooked grub. She grinned and popped it into her mouth. Pretending to chew with gusto, she said, "Delicious!"

  He laughed, and they finished their stew in silence, save for the slight crunching of the undercooked grain.

  "We are being followed. I saw Turks on the hills," Elisabeth said as she used her forefinger to wipe what was left of the liquid in her bowl to get every last drop.

  "I know. I saw them too." He looked pensive. "I wonder what the morrow will bring."

  Elisabeth made the sign of the cross over her dusty, stained cloak with its red cross. "God knows."

  The teeming mass of pilgrims was up and moving north before the sun appeared in the eastern sky. Elisabeth marveled, not for the first time, how a mass as huge as the thousands of pilgrims could be mobilized at all, no less as swiftly as they were this morning. She guessed that it must be the prospect they were promised of marching in the relative cool of the day, and being allowed to camp during the hottest periods.

  She took her place as usual with the German and Austrian contingent led by Constable Conrad. The smell from the unwashed bodies of the Lombard peasants was worse than yesterday, but she realized she was not any sweeter smelling after all the days of the march since Nicomedia. Worse than the smell was the noise. Two or more thousand men, women, and children created a cacophony that quickly caused Elisabeth's head to ache and her ears to ring.

  The sun was hardly up when the Turkish riders appeared again on the hilltops on both the east and west. Stephen of Burgundy in the van saw them first. He peered out from under his helmet at them, wondering if they meant to keep at a distance, unnerving but not molesting the pilgrims. He had his answer in little time, as he swung his head to the west to see the source of a sudden, terrifying commotion. With alarm he screamed, "Battle formation!"

  He made fast the strap under the chin of his helm, drew his sword and turned to await the arrival of what he had seen coming toward the van. His knights quickly formed a defensive line with the men-at-arms.

  What he saw were hundreds of mounted Turks streaking toward the pilgrim column. He heard their shouts, the same eerie ululation as the day before, and stared to see what sort of attack they meant to make.

  Incredulously he saw that every one of the perhaps hundreds of Turks, like the men who had chased them after Gangra, carried a bow, not spears, not swords, save for the swords they wore at their belts. The column he led had formed its all but impermeable wall all the way back as far as he could see when the first wave of Turks let fly their arrows no more than thirty feet away. As one hundred arrows thudded into shields, those one hundred mounted archers swerved away and another hundred replaced them. Another flight of one hundred arrows hit the air and then the column. Two more waves of horsemen swooped in in turn.

  When no further wave followed the last immediately, a roar of outrage erupted from the assembled knights in the van. The Stephen watched with both dismay and understanding as many knights broke through the shield wall and tore after the jeering horsemen. Stephen wanted to go out there and return blow for blow, but he knew in his heart it would be useless. With their smaller horses, the Turks could easily outrun the knights on their huge destriers. He shook his head. All he could do was watch and chide the knights if and when they came back to the safety of the shield wall.

  His aide de camp rode up on his right side. "Your Grace, I count at least five hundred Turkish horsemen total!"

  Stephen gaped at the man. "That means . . . five hundred arrows in a matter of minutes!" He looked back at his charging knights. The five hundred Turkish horsemen not only did not stand to meet them, they fled in all directions in parties of at least one hundred each. "Don't chase them!" he muttered through his teeth. "Get back here!"

  The huge mounts of the knights were not bred to run, and within a quarter mile they were winded, forced to slow. Nevertheless their riders did not return, but walked them more slowly forward. Stephen glanced in all the directions the fleeing Turks had taken. "Dear God," he whispered, then rode his own destrier to the edge of the column. "Retreat! Retreat!" he screamed.

  He had seen another five hundred Turkish bowmen streaming toward the knights. They came at an oblique angle, and with their obscuring helms, the knights did not see them at first. When a few who did catch sight of the attackers wheeled their horses as quickly as they could, the rest realized what was happening. They too turned their horses and started back to the column. The animals were spent and could not race back as they had raced forward. The first flight of arrows took to the sky and fell among them. Stephen's bowels clenched at the first cries of wounded battle horses.

  He did not see Conrad as he rode up beside him accompanied by a score of his knights. As they had ridden forward, they had watched with horror the drama unfolding near the van. The Constable waved his arms and screamed, "Retreat!" He shook his head. If the men-at-arms had followed the knights, then at least the ground they covered chasing the Turks might have been held. He knew that an entire new way of fighting was upon them.

  Many of the knights who came threading back through the shield wall had arrows sticking out from th
eir shields and even their armor. Some were bloody, and these men slumped against their horses' necks. One man, unhorsed when numerous arrows felled his mount, tore forward only to be flung full length toward the outermost wall with an arrow in his back.

  Finally noticing Conrad beside him, Stephen looked over, his face pale behind the cheek pieces of his helm. He looked back to where a few horses and men lay on the ground between them and the Turkish riders. One horse stood as a Turk rode forward, grabbed its reins and drew it away with him.

  "I could not stop them," Burgundy said defensively to the German commander. "They just reacted."

  Conrad eyed him steadily. "Why did you not send the foot soldiers after them for support?"

  The Burgundian opened his mouth as if to reply, but could not think of an answer. His shocked face shifted to resentful hostility. He wheeled his mount and went to confer with his commanders.

  Conrad stared after him. "Elias, Gerhardt, go out and collect all the arrows you can. Take some of the foot soldiers. When you cannot carry any more, stamp on the rest to break them."

  "Where should we take them, my lord?" Elisabeth asked.

  Conrad sighed. "I don't know. Just take them to the ox carts." He muttered to himself, "Do I have to think of everything?"

  There were fourteen dead knights and thirty-seven wounded among the Burgundians. Five horses were lost or taken. The fact that no Turks had sustained any wounds at all made the otherwise low numbers seem to swell in importance.

  The arrows gathered or broken and the formation starting to move forward again, the unthinkable happened. The hundreds of Turks rode up again, this time from the east, and, in their sweeps at the column, loosed arrows just as they had before, first one hundred, then another, and then another, followed by two hundred more.

  Stephen of Burgundy's knights remained in position this time. Conrad had turned back to his own contingent, and when Stephen looked over his scowl was aimed at Conrad's two knights.