Order of Darkness

by Philippa Gregory

  ‘And your followers?’ Luca asked him.

  ‘God will provide for them,’ the youth said confidently.

  Luca glanced towards Brother Peter. ‘Actually, the priest is bringing food for them, the abbey is baking bread,’ Brother Peter told him, rather stiffly. ‘I see you are not fasting with them.’

  ‘Because I knew that God would provide,’ Johann confirmed. ‘And now you tell me He has done so. You invite me to breakfast and so God provides for me. Why should I not trust Him and praise His holy name?’

  ‘Why not indeed?’ Brother Peter said glacially, and led the way to the dining room of the inn.

  Ishraq and Isolde did not join the men for breakfast. They peeped through the open door to see the boy Johann, and then carried their plates upstairs to their bedroom and ate, sitting at the window, watching the scene on the quayside as children continued to pour into the town, the smallest and the frailest coming last as if they could hardly keep up. Their ragged clothes showed that they were from many different areas. There were children from fishing villages further north up the coast who wore the rough smocks of the region, and there were children who had come from farms and wore the capes and leggings of shepherds and goatherds. There were many girls, some of them dressed as if they had been in service, in worsted gowns with goatskin aprons. Isolde nudged

  Ishraq as three girls in the robes of novices of a convent came through the gate of the town, their rosaries in their hands, their veiled heads bowed, and passed under the overhanging window.

  ‘They must have run away from a nunnery,’ she said.

  ‘Like us,’ Ishraq agreed. ‘But where do they think they’re going?’

  In the dining room the youth prayed in silence over the food, blessed the bread, and then ate a substantial breakfast that Freize brought up from the kitchen. After the boy had finished, he gave thanks in a lengthy prayer to God and a short word of appreciation to Luca. Brother Peter took out his papers from his travelling writing-box and dipped his pen in ink.

  ‘I have to report to my lord who, in turn, reports to the Holy Father,’ he explained as the boy looked at his preparations. ‘If your journey is blessed by God then the Holy Father will want to know the proofs. If he thinks you have a calling he will support you. If not, he will want to know about you.’

  ‘It is blessed,’ the boy said. ‘D’you think we could have come all this way if God had not guided us?’

  ‘Why, how far have you come?’ Luca asked cautiously.

  ‘I was a goat herder in the canton of Zurich when I heard God’s voice,’ the boy said simply. ‘He told me that a terrible thing had happened in the east. A worse thing than the great flood itself. A greater wrong than the flood that drowned everyone but Noah. He said that the Ottomans had come against Christendom in a mighty wave of men, and had taken Constantinople, our holy city, the heart of the Church in the east, and destroyed it. Did I hear right or no?’

  ‘You did,’ Luca said. ‘But any passing pedlar could have told you so.’

  ‘But it was not a passing pedlar who told me so, for I was up in the hills with my goats. Every dawn I left the village and took the goats up the paths to the higher fields where the grass grows fresh and sweet. Every day I sat in the fields with them, and watched over them. Sometimes I played my pipe, sometimes I lay on my back and watched the clouds. When the sun sat in the top branches of the silver birch tree I ate the bread and cheeses that my mother had tied into a cloth for me. Every evening as the sun started to go down, I brought my flock safe home again and saw them into my neighbours’ fields and stables. I saw no-one, I talked to no-one. I had no companion but an angel. Then one day, God spoke to me and He told me that the infidels had taken the holy church of Constantinople. He said that the sea had risen so high that they had rowed their galleys right over the land, over the harbour wall, over the city walls, and into the harbour. He said that the greatest church in the whole world was once called Hagia Sophia and that now it is in the hands of the infidels and they will make it into a mosque, take down the altar and defile its sacred aisles, and that this is a true sign of the end of days. Did I hear right or no?’

  ‘They took the cathedral,’ Luca confirmed uneasily. ‘They took the city.’

  ‘Did the priests pray at the altar as the infidels came in the door and cut them down?’ Johann asked.

  Luca glanced to Brother Peter. ‘They served the Mass until the last moment,’ Brother Peter confirmed.

  ‘Did they row their galleys over the land?’

  ‘It can’t be true,’ Luca interrupted.

  ‘It wasn’t exactly true,’ Brother Peter explained. ‘It was a trick of war. They mounted the galleys on great rollers and pushed them across the land into the inner harbour. The Devil himself guided them to put the rowers to the oars and the drummers to the beat so they looked as if they were rowing through the air. Everyone said it looked like a fleet of galleys sailing along the road.’

  ‘Why would they do such a thing?’ Luca demanded.

  ‘To spread terror,’ Brother Peter replied. ‘See? A goatherd in Switzerland dreams of it seven years later.’

  The boy nodded, as if he had seen the terrifying sight and then the sacrilege himself. ‘God told me that the infidels would come and bring terror to every village in the world, and that just as they have come through Greece they will come on and on, and nothing can stop them. He said they would come into my own canton, they will come to every village in Switzerland. He said that they are led by a young man only a little older than me. Is that right?’

  Luca looked at Brother Peter. ‘Sultan Mehmet was nineteen years old when he took Constantinople.’

  ‘God told me that this is a war for young people and for children. The infidels are led by a young man; I heard my calling. I knew that I must leave my home.’

  The two men waited.

  ‘I took my crook and my knapsack and I said farewell to my father and mother. The whole village came out to see me leave. They knew that I was inspired by God Himself.’

  ‘Did anyone leave with you?’

  He shook his head and stared at the window as if he could see on the dim pieces of the horn panes the poverty of the dirty village street, the dreary lives of the people who scratched a living from the thin mountain soil, who were hungry and cold every winter and knew, even in the warmth of summer, that the cold and hunger of winter would come again. People who confidently expected that nothing would ever change, that life would go on in the same cycle of hard winters and bright summers in a remorseless unchanging round – until the day that they heard that the Turks were coming and understood that everything had suddenly got worse and would get worse still.

  ‘Children joined me as I walked,’ Johann said. ‘They heard my voice, they understood. We all know that the end of days is coming. We all want to be in Jerusalem for judgement day.’

  ‘You think you’re going to Jerusalem?’ Freize demanded incredulously from the doorway. ‘You’re leading these children to Jerusalem?’

  The boy smiled at him. ‘God is leading them to Jerusalem,’ he said patiently. ‘I am only walking with them. I am walking beside them.’

  ‘Then God has chosen an odd route,’ Freize said rudely. ‘Why would He send you to the east of Italy? Why not go to Rome and get help? Why not take a ship from there? Why walk these children such a long way?’

  The boy looked a little shaken at Freize’s loud scepticism. ‘I don’t lead them, I don’t choose the route, I go where God tells me,’ he said quietly. He looked at Brother Peter. ‘The way is revealed to me, as I walk. Who is this man questioning me?’

  ‘This is Brother Luca’s servant,’ Brother Peter said irritably. ‘You need not answer his questions. He has no part in our inquiry.’

  ‘Oh, beg pardon for interrupting, I’m sure,’ Freize said, not sounding at all sorry. ‘But am I to give your leavings out at the door? Your followers seem to be hungry. And there are broken meats from your breakfast, and the untouched
bread. You dined quite well.’

  The boy passed his plate and the bread in the basket without giving it another glance. ‘God provides for us,’ he said. ‘Give it all to them with my blessing.’

  ‘And see that the food is shared fairly when it comes from the monastery,’ Brother Peter ordered Freize, who nodded and went out. They could hear him stamping to the kitchen and the back door. Brother Peter turned his attention back to the boy. ‘And your name is?’

  ‘Johann Johannson.’

  ‘And your age?’

  ‘I think I am almost sixteen years old. I don’t know for sure.’

  ‘Had you seen any miracles or heard anything before this year?’

  He smiled. ‘I used to hear a singing in the church bells of my village,’ he confided. ‘When they rang for Mass I used to hear them calling my name, as if God himself wanted me to come to His table. Then sometimes, when I was with the goats in the high pasture in summer, I would hear voices, beautiful voices, calling my name. It was an angel who used to meet me in the highest meadows. I knew that there would be a task for me. But I did not know it would be this.’

  ‘And how do you plan to get to Jerusalem, from here?’ Luca asked.

  ‘God has told me that the sea will dry up before us,’ the boy said simply. ‘As it did before the children of Israel. We will walk to the southernmost point of Italy and then I know that the waves will part and we will walk to the Holy Land.’

  Luca and Brother Peter exchanged a wondering look at his confidence. ‘It’s a long, long way,’ Luca suggested gently. ‘Do you know the way? Do you know how far?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter to me what the road is called, nor how far it is,’ the boy said confidently. ‘God guides me, not signposts or worldly maps. I walk in faith, I am not the toy of men who draw maps and try to measure the world. I don’t follow their vision but that of God.’

  ‘And what will you do, when you get there?’ Brother Peter asked.

  ‘This is not a crusade of weapons,’ the boy replied. ‘It is a children’s crusade. When we get there the children of Israel will come to us. The Turk children will come to us. Ottoman children will come. Arab children will come to us and we will all serve the one God. If there are any Christian children left alive in those lands, then they will come to us too. They will all explain to their fathers and their mothers and there will be peace. The children of all the enemies will bring peace to the world. It is a children’s crusade and every child will answer the call. Then Jesus will come to Jerusalem and the world will end.’

  ‘You have seen all this in a vision?’ Brother Peter confirmed. ‘You are certain?’

  His face shining with conviction, the boy nodded. ‘It is a certainty,’ he said. ‘How else would all these children have joined me already? They come from the villages and from the little farms. They come from dirty workshops and the backstreets of evil cities. They come with their brothers and sisters. They come with their friends. They come from different countries, they come even if they cannot understand my language, for God speaks to them. The Arab children, the Jewish children will come too.’ He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, like the simple peasant boy he was. ‘I see you are amazed, my masters, but this is how it is. It is a children’s crusade and it is going to change the world.

  ‘And now I must pray with my brothers and sisters,’ he said. ‘You may join us if you want.’ He rose up, picked up his crook, and went to the doorway.

  ‘How will the waters part?’ Luca asked him curiously.

  Johann made a gesture with his hands, pushing the air away before him. ‘As it did before,’ he said. ‘For Moses. However that was. The waves will part on one side and the other. We will see the sea bed beneath our feet. We will see the wrecks of ships that lie on the bed of the sea and we can pick up their treasure as we walk. We can gather pearls as if they were flowers. We will go dry-shod all the way to Palestine.’ He paused. ‘Angels will sing,’ he said, pleased. He went from the room, leaving Luca and Brother Peter alone.

  ‘What an extraordinary boy!’ Luca exclaimed, pushing back his chair from the table. ‘He has a gift, it can’t be denied.’ He brushed his forearm and ran his hand up the nape of his neck. ‘My hairs are standing on end. I believe him. I am truly persuaded. I wish I could follow him. If I had heard him when I was a child I would have left a plough in the field and gone after him.’

  ‘A natural leader,’ Brother Peter decided. ‘But whether he is a dreamer or whether he is a prophet, or even a false prophet, I can’t tell. We must hear him preach and perhaps question him some more. I’ll have to get news of this to Milord at once. This is urgent.’

  ‘He will want to know of such a boy?’

  ‘Of such a boy, and of such a crusade. This could be another sign of the end of days. He will want to know everything. Why, if they get to Palestine and do half of what they promise, then the Ottoman Empire will sink beneath them. It will be their worst nightmare knocking at their front door, a faith to confront their heresy. With such a large band of children they’ll either have to arrest them, or let them enter into the holiest places. Either way these children could upset everything. This may turn out to be the greatest weapon we could have devised against our enemies. We would never have thought of such a device but they could be far more powerful than any Christian army of grown men. If Johann can appeal to Ottoman children and Turk children and they join him in a Christian crusade, then the world would be turned upside down.’

  ‘Do you really think they can get all that way to Jerusalem?’

  ‘Who would have thought they could have got here? And yet they have, in their thousands.’

  ‘Certainly hundreds,’ Luca said cautiously.

  ‘There are hundreds of children following that boy already. How many more can he recruit as he marches south?’

  ‘You can’t think that the sea will part before them?’ Luca asked. ‘How could such a thing happen?’

  ‘Do you believe that the Red Sea parted for the children of Israel?’ the older man put to him.

  ‘I have to believe it. The Bible is clear that it did. To question it would be heresy.’

  ‘Then why should such a miracle not happen again?’

  Luca shook his head. ‘I suppose it could. I just—’ He broke off. ‘I just can’t understand how such a thing could be. How it could happen. Don’t question my faith, I believe the Bible as I am bound to do. I am not denying one word of it. But this sea rushing back from the sea bed? And these children walking dry-shod to Palestine? Can such a thing be possible?’

  ‘We have to see if it can be done. But if the sea does not part for them it may be that Milord will get them ships.’

  ‘Why would he take the trouble?’ Luca hesitated, noticing the excitement in the older man’s face. ‘Is our work about the end of days, or is the Order more interested in defeating the Ottomans? Are we seeking the truth or forging a weapon?’

  ‘Both, of course, both,’ Brother Peter replied roundly. ‘Both, always. It is one and the same thing. The world will end when the Ottomans enter the gates of Rome, and at that moment the dead will rise from their graves for judgement. You and I have to travel throughout Christendom to watch for the signs of the dead rising, of Satan emerging, and the Ottoman armies coming ever closer. The infidels in Jerusalem and Jesus descending from heaven is one and the same thing, both signs of the end. What we have to know is when it takes place. These children may be a sign, I really believe that they are a sign. We must write to Milord, and we have to know more.’

  Luca tapped on the door of Isolde’s room and she opened it wide when she saw him. ‘I can’t stay,’ he said. ‘But I wanted to warn Ishraq.’

  The dark girl appeared behind Isolde. ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. You’ve seen the children, coming into town. They’re a crusade, hundreds of children, perhaps more. They’re heading south, on their way to Jerusalem to defeat the Ottomans.’

  ‘We’ve seen them from the window. They look exhausted.�
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  ‘Yes, but they are very sure that they are on their way to Palestine, a mighty crusade and a sign of the end of days. They know of the sack of Constantinople by the Ottomans. If you go down into the streets at all, you must not wear your Arab dress. They might turn on you. I don’t know what they would think.’

  ‘I should not wear Arab dress? I am not to wear my own clothes? I am to deny my heritage?’

  ‘Not while so many children are here. Wear what Lady Isolde wears for now.’

  Ishraq gave him a steady look from her dark eyes. ‘And what shall I do about my skin? Is it too Arab also?’

  Luca flushed. ‘You are a beautiful colour, God knows there are few women to match your looks, the colour of heather honey and eyes as dark as midnight,’ he said fervently. ‘But you cannot wear your pantaloons and your robe and veil until the crusade leaves the town, or until we get the ship out of here. You must dress like Isolde, like a Christian woman, for your own safety.’

  ‘She will,’ Isolde ruled, cutting short the argument. ‘Will we still sail at noon?’

  ‘No. We have to speak more with these children and we have to send a report to Rome. Brother Peter believes they are inspired by God, but certainly if they can get to Jerusalem with or without His guidance, they will pose a huge challenge to the Ottomans.’

  ‘Are they walking onwards?’

  ‘I expect they’ll go on this afternoon. People are giving them food and money to send them on their way. The church here is feeding them. And they are determined to go on. It’s a remarkable pilgrimage; I am glad to have seen it. When you talk with the boy, Johann, it’s inspiring. You know, I would go too if I were free.’

  ‘D’you think they can possibly get to Jerusalem?’ Ishraq wondered.