Crusade of Tears: A Novel of the Children's Crusade

by C. D. Baker

  Wil’s scolding eyes would have said enough but the lad felt compelled to press his complaint. “You’ve been spending time with a tankard of poor hops,” he said sharply. “I can smell your breath from here and I can see you need this fellow to steady you.”

  Solomon jumped playfully on the priest and the old man rubbed his scruffy ears. No judgment from this one, grumbled Pieter to himself. “Ah yes, indeed, lad … you ne’er fail to go straight to the mark. My prayer is that you shall learn from my counsel and not my example.”

  Wil surrendered. “By heaven, Pieter, you do frustrate me. I’d be a liar to say ’tis not a relief to find you … though, be sure, we’d be certain to press on without you. Now, I trust you’ve found us some food and a lodging for tonight?”

  “Ah,” fumbled Pieter. He directed his eyes to Karl. “Ah, boy, ’tis good to welcome you to Basel and I trust—” Pieter stopped and stared. “Dear lads, what has happened to your poor heads?”

  The girls began to giggle but the remark bore sudden indignity among the boys who abruptly stuffed their crosses back into their belts and growled at Karl. “Ah, so I see,” continued Pieter. “Methinks you to now have the look of fine, disciplined soldiers, quite unlike this scoundrel here,” he said with a wink, pointing to Wil.

  Having stood in the way of others passing by, the company followed Pieter and his odd companion through the city gate and to a quiet corner of the fish market. “You’ve not yet answered my question,” pressed Wil.

  “Yes, yes. And a very fair question I might add. Ah, but first I should like to introduce all to a friend of mine.” Pieter gestured toward the embarrassed stranger. “He has chosen to free himself of a name and so we have the privilege of calling him what we wish. I believe we should call him Friend, for that is what he has been to me this day.”

  Seemingly troubled, the blushing man smiled faintly and nodded shyly to the wary children. Maria pointed to him, shyly. “Where is your arm?”

  Friend was surprised but strangely warmed, nevertheless, by the engaging child. He knelt in front of her and looked at her gently. Her skin was weathered some, he thought, but bore a pleasant pink from the summer’s sun. Her golden hair was tied in uneven braids which framed a face he considered angelic. His eye fell to see her withered arm and he understood. “Well, my dear little Mädel,” he said softly, “I am one who really needs but one arm.”

  “And why so?” she asked.

  “I do quite nicely with one arm; I’ve but one nose to pick … er, to wipe, one mouth to feed, one head to scratch. You understand?”

  Before Maria could respond, Lukas interrupted. “Are you a soldier?”

  “I once was a soldier, aye.”

  Wil studied him carefully and said, “And where do you come from?”

  “I come from the north.”

  “Where?”

  “It matters not where, lad. I come from the north and the north is where I return to.”

  “Aye, and we, too, come from the north,” Karl added.

  “Yes, ’tis good to be sure, lad.”

  Friend was perspiring when Wil pressed him. “And why do you not tell us of what prince y’serve?”

  The stranger looked for help from Pieter, but the old man simply shrugged. Before Friend answered, Friederich called out, “And what about the eye and yer arm? Were you a crusader in Palestine?”

  The stranger, slightly irritated with more questions, answered curtly, “No, I was a soldier but not in Palestine. I lost my eye to the mace of a different foe and lost—”

  “And who was your foe?” asked Karl.

  Friend stared at Karl for a long moment. “I should like to think no one, ever again.”

  Friederich pursued. “Was the man who took yer eye a brave man? And did y’kill him?”

  The uncomfortable stranger turned once more to Pieter. The old man shrugged again. “These would be soldiers as well, Friend, comrades of sorts and eager to learn of you.”

  Friend turned back to Friederich. “I’ll say this and no more: The man who took m’eye was, indeed, a brave soldier, and he fought with heart. But at the moment his mace struck me I thrust my glaive beneath his jerkin. By faith, I know not if the fellow lived or perished.”

  Karl and Wil had carefully studied the strange man all the while he was talking, and they had caught his eye on them as well. But before either could ask another question, a deputy and a dozen men-at-arms suddenly charged through the fishmarket and confronted them. The deputy grabbed Friederich by the collar. “Ha. More brats for the rats!” His soldiers laughed. “’Tis my sworn duty to inform you that you are hereby under arrest by the authority of the magistrate of Basel on cause of theft.”

  Pieter protested, “Thou hast no just grounds. None at—”

  “Silence, old fool,” snarled the deputy as he tossed Friederich to the ground.

  Perhaps he was encouraged by the ale, perhaps some other demon whispered in his ear, or perhaps the instincts of a guardian lion seized command of his tongue, but, for whatever cause, Pieter promptly set his long nose squarely into the face of the black-eyed officer and lashed him with a string of expletives that would have reddened the face of the foulest fiend!

  The surprised deputy recovered quickly and unloaded his own cache of ill-tempered oaths as he pulled the furious Pieter even closer to his own whiskered face. The loud exchange occupied the attention of the soldiers, and Friend wisely spotted an opportunity.

  “Lad, have the children drop whatever they can into my sack. Now! Otherwise the guards shall steal all.”

  Wil looked warily at the stranger but then whispered his command to the others. Pieter’s crescendo of profanity scalded the tender ears of some temperate souls now retreating from the marketplace, but it served to incense the officer and his troop all the more. The crusaders used the diversion efficiently and they slipped deftly around Friend’s sack one by one, dropping in their onions, a few turnips, strips of salted pork, bits of crust, and sundry other treasured provisions. Wil reluctantly surrendered his dagger and Karl his necklace into the dark bag and watched anxiously as the stranger hastily secured it. Then, in a moment both the sack and the stranger faded into the shadows with Solomon tethered to his elbow.

  At last the furious deputy ordered his guards to shackle the howling priest and to bind the children one after the other with a heavy rope. The column of prisoners was then herded like sheep to the slaughter, prodded and poked by the sharp points of the guards’ long lances. The terrified flock tramped obediently through the narrow streets and bravely bore the taunts of the folk pressing in all about them. All spirit fled them, however, when they turned a corner and faced the foreboding dungeon gate yawning wide and terrible before them.

  Friend maintained a prudent distance from the crusaders but followed them faithfully. He peeked his eye from a nearby alleyway and groaned. A beggar jostled past him and turned. “Ha. Y’see those imps, d’y’not? Aye, they’ve worn out their welcome, they have. I’ve seen them come here by scores and, by God, I thought to ‘ave seen the last of ‘em. I say let them rot in the dungeon.”

  “Ja,” cackled a wretched old hag passing by. “Now we’ve some justice, methinks. These misfits be from parts north and’ve scrumped and murdered their way to our good city. I say hang ’em all.”

  Another voice in the growing crowd added, “Aye. Indeed so it is. I have heard that they poach manor and town alike and be doing the same in France. And I’ve heard them to be carrying plague.”

  Friend did not comment, but shoved his way through the jeering crowd and moved closer to the iron-barred entrance of the dungeon. He strained to see the children, and when his eye fell upon them, his jaw clenched and his fist whitened with rage. But he could do nothing other than stand mute and helpless as the priest and his Innocents suffered the slaps and punches of the unmerciful troop. Though he desperately struggled to concoct a rescue, all such hope faded as he beheld the defenseless crusaders and their guardian disappear into the cavernous mo
uth of the prison.

  A badly bruised Pieter was pushed roughly into the dark dungeon’s chambers, and if any could have seen him they would have seen his lips murmuring a desperate prayer. The children followed close after, most quaking in abject terror. Wil’s fear fueled his cynical inclinations, and everything within him now raged against what good he secretly hoped existed in the worlds around and above him. He turned toward his frightened brother. “Your goodness fails you.”

  Karl could not answer. His round face was yellowed and drawn in the torchlight, and beads of perspiration trickled from his temples to his jaw. He trailed close behind Maria, who clutched Wil’s tunic and hid her face in the small of his back. All obediently followed the stone-faced guards through dank passages lit only by smoky pine-torches scattered randomly along the slick, rock walls. The crusaders shuffled and stumbled their way through the musty halls, past rows of iron-hinged doors, until they finally were commanded to halt before the one destined as their own.

  A guard snapped orders for those inside to stand back as he fumbled through a tangled ring of keys. The children stood in numbed silence as he finally rattled a long key into its rusty hole. The stubborn lock yielded with a groan and a snap, and the door creaked open. Two guards advanced through the entry with their halberds lowered and corralled the other prisoners to the center of the large chamber.

  The children gaped fearfully into the reeking cell now awaiting its new quarry. A choking torch cast a dull light from its high mount on a far wall, scattering a ghoulish glow over the horde of inmates below. Its fire did not chase the darkness but rather seemed to mystically fuse with it as a hellish collusion of flame and shadow. Beneath it, a murky mass of bodies crowded tightly together like a ball of writhing worms, coiled and tangled, contorting and twisting, reaching and stretching at the little lambs who were now herded toward its lurid grasp.

  With a frightful thud, the cell door suddenly slammed shut behind them. Pieter and his flock stood motionless, gagging on the stench of human filth and diseased flesh heavy in the air. A few of the children plucked enough courage to cast a look at the shadowy center but failed to discern more than a few glimpses of the ghostlike faces glaring at them from under drawn hoods. To Pieter, it felt as if he and his charges had been abandoned to the horrid pit of hell itself.

  The menacing prisoners began to creep toward the children, some laughing, some shrieking, others sputtering indiscernible threats and profanities. “Come ‘ere, m’pretty, pretty.”

  “Over here, little one, over here to be with me.”

  “I’ll hold you, little Mädel… come to me. ’Tis Papa.”

  The prisoners pressed closer and closer, pawing and clutching and threatening, but it was their devilish laughter that unnerved Wil the most. He set his trembling jaw bravely and held his sister close to his side. Poor Karl quivered nearby.

  Pieter, ever acute and quick-minded, inspired a sudden calm as he spread his arms over his flock and pronounced a blessing upon them. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti….” His priestly words suspended the prisoners’ advance for a fleeting moment. Such words had not echoed in that chamber for decades and their long-forgotten sound gave pause to evil desire. In the brief interlude Pieter hastily whispered to Wil to move the girls and the littlest boys to the middle and the stronger boys to the outside. Then he softly instructed the children to walk close together toward a corner where two walls would buffer them.

  The children obeyed instantly and began to pick their way carefully past the stalled inmates. But no sooner had the crusaders begun their move when the prisoners began inching forward once again. Pieter squeezed his eyes closed in desperate prayer but his pleadings had barely left his lips when, as much to his own surprise as to others’, he began singing. There was no known reason for such a thing, no known purpose whatever, but his raspy voice had become suddenly clear and miraculously resonant, and he crooned the children’s favorite hymn with the vigor of a man half his age. Then, as if summoned by an unspoken command, the little voices of the tender lambs suddenly joined their shepherd and together they sang to the glory of their Savior:

  Fairest Lord Jesus,

  Ruler of all nature,

  Son of God and Son of Man

  Thee will I cherish….

  In their terror they sang and they sang, louder and louder. And oh, if only their eyes would have been opened at that moment! For in that horrid place they would have seen a chorus of angels singing with them; a legion of light from the heavenly realm defending them from the dread and gloom of Hades. For the first time in unnumbered years, the brilliance of heaven was pouring into that black dungeon and nothing could dull it. Their Savior had placed a shield about them—and it would not be moved!

  The surprised inmates retreated in confusion from the choir and gathered themselves at the center of the chamber once again. The crusaders kept singing until they reached the distant corner where they assembled in a tight cluster. Here they began another stanza which they sang with equally determined passion.

  When the song ended, Pieter placed himself at the point nearest to the other inmates and raised his arms. The priest closed his eyes and dismissed all sense of the offense he and his beloved were suffering and, instead, imagined himself to be standing in a sturdy, hand-carved pulpit high above a group of well-scrubbed parishioners in a fine, sun-swept cathedral in the south of France. He stretched his arms wide and began to preach a homily of love.

  At first the astonished prisoners reacted with rumbling oaths, but the undeniable familiarity of the chant and rhythm of Pieter’s voice and the power of his words soon stilled them. Before long their empty, haunted eyes began to close and they gave their yearning souls leave to be carried to a hundred different altars in a hundred different towns and manors spread throughout all Christendom. Each was mysteriously drawn to the calm and order of a previous life and it felt so very good. For most, this unexpected encounter with the love of Almighty God in such an insufferable place was overwhelming. The picture of the Savior and His angels filling their dungeon with a heavenly presence was more than could be conceived. And those who were so touched fell to their knees in tearful worship.

  Outside the prison, Friend paced through the dark streets, pausing only to offer Solomon a distracted scratch on the head. The man was keenly aware of what ravages would surely be unleashed against the crusaders and he swore an oath to rescue them. He would never again abandon children to peril, he thought. Never.

  Solomon suddenly darted to the other side of the street and retrieved Pieter’s staff which had fallen on the cobblestone walkway. He presented it to Friend, who held it to his breast hopefully. “I’ve need of a plan, Solomon, a sound and worthy scheme. Ach, m’head must needs stretch itself.” Friend thrashed about the moonlight until, at last, a confident smile wrinkled his weathered face. He charged toward the dungeon’s gate.

  “You there, guard,” he yelled. “You there. Answer me at once!”

  “Who speaks?” grumbled the guard as he pulled his torch from the wall. “Who speaks?”

  “I speak.”

  Unimpressed, the guard groused, “Ja, ja. And what’s this about?”

  “’Tis said you’ve dragged a band of children through these very streets and they’d be bound inside.”

  “Aye. And what business is it of yours? Had I a say, they’d all be drowned in the river.”

  “What’s m’business? Ha! Y’d be a dolt if ever one lived. I tell you what m’business is!” said Friend. “My business is your business … you’ve brought plague through these streets and you’ve set it just behind you. We’ve both business here and, aye, the mortuary shall soon have business as well!”

  The soldier stiffened. “Y’ve no proof of such a thing.”

  “Nay? I’ve seen the yellow sweat on ‘em up close and I’ve seen the marks on their faces. Y’think me to have nought else to do but bother with a pack of little brats as they? By God, man, use that dung-filled head of yours.”<
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  “None else has spoke of it and—”

  “Listen, fool! I can swear to what I’ve seen. Call your magistrate … wake him from his bed and have him stand close to look with his own eyes. Aye, and you’ll be needing a new magistrate in a fortnight!”

  The guard hesitated, then shook his head. “If your words be true, then the worst of it is for that bunch inside … no loss to me.”

  “Walls can’t contain plague, y’dolt!” boomed Friend. “Plague is plague—have y’forgotten Bern during the Whit-sun Feast just two years prior? Any brushed by a single breath of the sick were cold and stiff in a winter’s hour.”

  The uneasy guard was familiar with the stories of Bern, and imagining Basel filled with smoking biers was enough for him to beckon his sergeant and whisper a few hushed words. The sergeant abruptly ordered him to summon the captain of the jail who emerged from his quarters in an impatient rage.

  “What say you?” the captain barked at Friend.

  Friend narrowed his eye and growled, “Your dimwitted deputy paraded plague through these streets but a few hours past. Have y’ne’er seen plague? I have. And I’m here to warn y’that y’ve brought death and misery upon us all. Y’ve time to expel them yet… while the streets are empty … and I swear by the Virgin Mother and the Holy Church, if you simpletons don’t, I’ll stand in the square on the morrow and tell all of your murderous deed this night!”

  The captain began to perspire. Friend leaned closer. “Have you ever seen plague?”

  The captain shook his head.

  “Well, I have and I’ve seen what it does. It seizes a stout and sturdy man like your very self and rots you from the innards out. From your toes to your scalp, your skin shall blacken and bleed and you’ll soon cry out in pain as you suck for breath. You’ll be set in a row by others who share your plight until your miserable soul is snatched to the Pit and your putrefied body piled in a wagon and hauled to the fires. And, were that not enough, your pathetic name shall be stricken from the memories of all but Lucifer, who shall bind you in his furnace forever!” Friend was surprised at his own eloquence, but yielded no hint of charade. He bored his eyes into the captain’s.